FAO: Larian - Mods?

[AuldWolf]

I feel this game could be salvaged if it were moddable.

There's a decent game under all this. Honestly? If it were moddable I'd just take out all the RTS elements and focus upon having just the player dragon against an RTS-enabled AI. I'd rebuild the dragon's abilities based around this idea, and have battles all played by the dragon.

I might have support units which are AI controlled which can be called in with abilities, such as summoning a fixed fleet of this or that, which operate with their own AI. I'd also hope to have access to all the assets shown in the trailer, so that flying fortresses could actually become a part of the battlefield.

I imagine I'd leave the Risk-like map similar, but perhaps have the units moved into an enemy area by the player influence what AI-controlled and player-allied units can be summoned into battle. So basically, I'd be able to summon in fleets of AI-controlled units based upon what I moved into an enemy continent.

Furthermore, I'd also have the Raven on the field as something the player has to protect. The Raven follows the dragon around and provides the dragon's mana pool, if the Raven is taken out of the battle, the dragon can no longer return to the map and no longer has regenerating mana, and must thus finish up the battle quickly.

The Raven may have weaker or more powerful defences based upon balance, and perhaps based upon cards and maybe research.

In regards to more unrealistic ideals: I'd love to be able to extend the roof so that the dragon and flying units can ascend further into the skies. And I'd love for the dragon to actually be able to fly in a loop, rather than being locked into a vertical incline.

That'd be my ideal dream for Dragon Commander, really.

I thought that after the scathing review, I'd just offer my own thoughts. To my mind, the RTS just doesn't work and isn't very fun. As such, it'd be more fun as an action game with allied units and units you must defeat and defend. That's just my opinion, but that would actually make the game a lot more fun -- to me, at least.

And if the player is good at controlling the dragon, that way they would stand a good chance at defeating their opponents, they'd just have to be skilled enough at defending the Raven.

But yes, having the Raven in the field and having the units being deployed from the Raven, and then having those units being AI-controlled would be more fun, it would provide a greater focus on the dragon, which the game feels like it was supposed to have, which was then overriden by bad design choices. I'm not saying this approach is for everyone, but this approach could perhaps be accomplished by modding.

So I'm hoping one day we'll have modding for Dragon Commander. I'd still love to play the Dragon Commander I saw in the trailers, and the Dragon Commander that was talked about in early interviews/videos.

Furthermore, with modding, anyone who wants the game to be more heavily RTS related could remove the dragon and balance the game around a better RTS experience.

So that's my two pence.

Mods and maybe Steam Workshop support, eh Larian? Please? And open us much up to us as you can, eh?

[AuldWolf]

Forgot to mention that I'd probably up the number of units that can be made on the map, too, to account for not being able to make them in the battle maps. Not by much, though, because like I said I'd prefer most of the balance to be centred around the dragon.

That's how I'd do it, anyway.

[Skorge]

it is moddable, but no official support yet -- You're gonna need to have fun messing with the scripts for the meantime. I wouldn't really change the combat system to far from what it currently is -- I don't exactly want Divinity: DotA... (Which is really close to it as it is)

You do realize how ambitious you're making the whole raven thing to be, right? I doubt any of those alpha assets are in the game. You would have to rebuild the entire concept. The only time we can see the outside of the Raven is during a pre-rendered cutscene.

But overall -- I agree, official modding support to make our lives easier would be amazing. I have a few ideas of my own (mostly to deal with those boring battle maps.)

[Draco_2k]

Being a dragon in the midst of AI-controlled battles was actually the original design of the game. I don't have the official word, but it's easy to imagine it was scrapped on account of being boring.

Things that sound fun, and things that actually are fun, are often two very different things.

I think the rotation between RPG-politics-strategy-RTS-Dragon is fairly brilliant design. It keeps things fresh, and they mesh together quite nicely. Throw away any one element, and the game becomes less for it, if not outright broken.

As for mod support, there's no official word yet. However, the fact that the game resides in "Mods/Main" in several editable chunks is highly suggestive of it.

[x.vadim]

Originally posted by Draco_2k:

I think the rotation between RPG-politics-strategy-RTS-Dragon is fairly brilliant design. It keeps things fresh, and they mesh together quite nicely. Throw away any one element, and the game becomes less for it, if not outright broken.

Yea, I also want some strip poker, deer hunter, pinball sim and tic tac toe on top of it. Politics and RPG choices which not connected to strategy or connected very very weakly? Constant unit spamming? Most cheap unit upgraded to capture any enemy building in matter of seconds? That's a micromanagement you never heard of! Because of reason.

[Draco_2k]

Originally posted by x.vadim:

Yea, I also want some strip poker, deer hunter, pinball sim and tic tac toe on top of it. Politics and RPG choices which not connected to strategy or connected very very weakly?

Except they are. Every single element is a logical continuation of the other, in the larger theme of waging war while controlling a growing empire.

- What you do on the Raven impacts your arsenal, your generals, your army and your dragon.
- What you do on the tactical map impacts your overall strategy, your units during battle, and your resources.
- How you start and go through RTS battles is impacted by all your decisions, research, played cards and strategy map moves.
- Whether your dragon is effective relies on your played cards, the condition of your army, and your research back on Raven.
- The outcome of the fight affects how many of your earned cards and units are still available to you afterwards.

From what I can see, most criticisms of the game come from people trying to play as if it's just an RTS or just a boardgame or just an RPG, isolated. That won't work. You have to mind every single aspect, because they're thoroughly connected.

Originally posted by x.vadim:

Constant unit spamming? Most cheap unit upgraded to capture any enemy building in matter of seconds? That's a micromanagement you never heard of! Because of reason.

Micro-management refers to taking control of individual units among dozens or more...

Yes, the RTS part of gameplay isn't your typical StarCraft clone. It's different. That's hardly a negative quality.

By the way, constantly spamming units leaves you without a back-up resource pool to counter enemy's builds. Just like in StarCraft, actually.

[x.vadim]

Originally posted by Draco_2k:

Except they are.

Yes there is minor influence of all your decisions on battles. But you miss my point. How would real politics work? You have to look at strategy map then take your political choise due to current situation. Thats how real emperor would act. That would have no sense in this game at all because 5% loyalty change per turn are negligible. You can do this if you want but you really not required to.

Originally posted by Draco_2k:

From what I can see, most criticisms of the game come from people trying to play as if it's just an RTS or just a boardgame or just an RPG, isolated. That won't work. You have to mind every single aspect, because they're thoroughly connected.

Nice generalization. Except that game completely playable without RTS part at all via auto-resolve. And RTS against AI completely winnable without dragon. And dragon without army completely impossible here. So you can play without seeing a dragon once. Here one more generalization for you - lot of people consider RTS part as a complete fail.

Originally posted by Draco_2k:

Yes, the RTS part of gameplay isn't your typical StarCraft clone. It's different. That's hardly a negative quality.

Yes, if balance is not positive then unbalance is not negative. If devs given "spoils of war" to cheapest unit and taught AI to ninjasteal player secondary bases then they just have broken defence turret concept - no point to build turrets at all. Nice one.

Originally posted by Draco_2k:

By the way, constantly spamming units leaves you without a back-up resource pool to counter enemy's builds. Just like in StarCraft, actually.

Keep saying that. AI spams like no tomorrow and if you not spam against good player than you will be overspammed. Builds shmuilds.

[Draco_2k]

Originally posted by x.vadim:

Yes there is minor influence of all your decisions on battles. But you miss my point. How would real politics work? You have to look at strategy map then take your political choise due to current situation. Thats how real emperor would act. That would have no sense in this game at all because 5% loyalty change per turn are negligible. You can do this if you want but you really not required to.

Well, the biggest factor is your popularity with the factions, which affects how many recruits/units are available to you during the battles. Score low with the Undead, and you might as well not bother trying to wage war on their lands. It's usually not a short-term strategy though, yes.

There are also minor impacts to random stats based on your voting, etc., as well as occasionally very major ones. Plus game cards and technology and other things.

Originally posted by x.vadim:

Here one more generalization for you - lot of people consider RTS part as a complete fail.

Which, as I said, seems to come from them trying to play the game like yet another StarCraft clone.

There are actual balance issues out there, like the overly helpful Warlocks, but...

Originally posted by x.vadim:

Except that game completely playable without RTS part at all via auto-resolve. And RTS against AI completely winnable without dragon. And dragon without army completely impossible here. So you can play without seeing a dragon once.

It's actually a theme on this forum to see "Dragon is useless" and "Dragon is OP" threads on the same page. That's on top of usual "AI is useless" and "AI is OP" threads, mind you.

When people complain about balance being skewed in two directly opposing directions, you have to wonder.

Originally posted by x.vadim:

If devs given "spoils of war" to cheapest unit and taught AI to ninjasteal player secondary bases then they just have broken defence turret concept - no point to build turrets at all. Nice one.

Could be a legit criticism. I'm not an expert enough to talk about it.

Originally posted by x.vadim:

AI spams like no tomorrow and if you not spam against good player than you will be overspammed. Builds shmuilds.

Another problem is people being too hasty to judge the game on lower difficulties or earlier levels.

In fact, even if you don't observe how your build your own units, the AI does - it will build direct counters, much like any other competent RTS AI. It even counters your dragon - so if you rely on him too much, expect to see half the map cover by anti-air and your lifespan drastically reduced.

[x.vadim]

Originally posted by Draco_2k:

It's actually a theme on this forum to see "Dragon is useless" and "Dragon is OP" threads on the same page. That's on top of usual "AI is useless" and "AI is OP" threads, mind you.

When people complain about balance being skewed in two directly opposing directions, you have to wonder.

I'm not saying dragon is useless. Dragon rules. Dragon is not a balance problem. If dragon can be completely avoided in game that builded around "dragon hero" combat than something is terribly wrong. IMHO. And that "something" is pretty obvious - devs decided to put full scale RTS in this game. Honestly this is the first time that I am sorry that game is PC exclusive - I have no console but crossplatform game would be more action oriented. Now we just have strange RTS part which is self-sufficient, plus dragon. RTS is not complete failure by itself - (apart from crazy "spoils of war" and spamming) it kinda has balanced countering units and unit skills. But on top of that we have a dragon. It's like you playing a chess game with right to punch your opponnent in the face once per turn.

[Draco_2k]

Well, I'm saying that people often contradict each other (or even themselves) with this stuff: some say you can win without using the dragon at all, others say you can win by using nothing but the dragon...

And I'm sure you can do both given enough skill or low enough difficulty. But is that really a problem?

High-level balance in Multiplayer is another thing entirely though. You don't exploit every nook and cranny in the Singleplayer campaign.

[jerethdagryphon]

@draco2k you I like. What there sugesting is well not dragon commander but dragon shmup basically. Pull out politics you remove story pull out stratagy map you remove choice and controll remove rts and you end up with an unholy abomination not woth playing.

All that needs improving is map size and a slight nerf to ai rush tatics. Blobby combat happens in some rpgs I dont think you can do much . Mods good more dragons good changing the game entirly and removing the whole commander aspect no dont be silly make a differnt game for that wont be very good as its to limited in concept. But hey thats what kick starters for.
Vagrent when I said I rarly used the dragon it wasnt be cause I couldnt but because I didnt want to I was enjoying setting up conncurent attacks with mustard gas followed by buster bombs in precision paterns cause im actually decent at multitasking I can switch in and set things up and then go support troops as needed . My dragon always showed up to watch the capitals fall.

If you want to rewrite there game via mods fine do it but dont assume that everyone agrees

Theres equal threads on rts is to micro or to simple dragon op or up and so on its a new game some may be patched in this was probobly done on a budget of 2million or less

[Stabbey]

Mods are good. I wouldn't mind mods.

The AI is good at reacting to a player, and their movements, and a lot of the fun in the RTS comes from dealing with how the AI reacts to you. I'm not sure that the battles would be interesting enough if it was an AI fighting an AI, doing the same moves, the same counters... without the random element of the player, it would probably end up feeling artificial.

I see no reason to change the gameplay of the Risk Map, although the AI could use improvement and use transports more to bypass heabily defended countries, and build more sea and air forces.

Adding the Raven on the battle doesn't really seem like a good idea. If losing it causes a game over, it means that. If losing it doesn't cause a game over... why not? The way you want it implemented also stinks of an escort mission, and every single RTS battle as an escort mission? No thanks.

Also, the Dragon has no mana pool, and no regenerating mana. Were you paying attention? So you'd want to mod that stuff in and then figure out how to balance mana, cooldown, and power for both regenerating and non-regenerating. If you wanted to use the jetpack's charge as the mana, even more balancing and testing headaches.

There are Custom Campaign settings for single-player and multiplayer. If you want to make units hard or impossible to build on the RTS map, you can do that. Set the Recruit cost Multiplier to 3, and the Recruitment Citadel Income to 1. When you only are getting 1 Recruit per RC every 5 seconds and need 9 just to build a single Trooper, your starting units will become a lot more important.

Yes, sometimes you don't need to use the Dragon to win and beat an map through RTS management alone. Yes, sometime you can win using only the Dragon, chipping away at masses of enemies while hiding your few troops in your base.. But it's using both working together that makes the game work the best.

I agree that Turrets should be immune from Spoils of War, and the time it takes to capture could go up a bit.

[jerethdagryphon]

main thing i want is ZOOM OUT stratagy map a little or slow it down

[Draco_2k]

Great post, Stabbey.

Originally posted by jerethdagryphon:

main thing i want is ZOOM OUT stratagy map a little or slow it down

Press - (minus) key on your numpad. You can speed up or slow down any battle.

[jerethdagryphon]

thats cool but i mean on the stratagy map i cant prepare next turns moves if i cant see what happened anyways i have territory to conquer and a lizard lady to woo

[Stabbey]

Yeah, I'd also like to zoom out more on the strategy map, like all the way out.