Suggestion - Crowding

[rasmus_ljunggren]

I have been thinking about how crowding could affect the game play.

Let's say that we have a dungeon with one main road where all creatures run though, and if the creatures would have to wait for other creatures crossing their path - then it could make the travel time a lot longer.

And let's say that we have a room with workers, and that other creatures not working in that room pass it through - This would disturb the workers.

Now, if this was happening then players would design the dungeon differently to make the traffic a lot smoother. It would give the design of the dungeon a higher meaning.

The player could also get tools such as being able to put up "one way direction" signs on the roads and controlling the direction of traffic.

So what do you all think of this idea?

[CocoJacoby]

As far as room security (i.e., creatures passing through a room and disturbing the workers in that room) would it make sense to have the door only allow certain creatures into certain rooms? Maybe some rooms, like the cooking room, would have higher security since the Piggehs don't like to be disturbed while they work?

Oh course keeping characters from running through the bedrooms will allow better sleep and faster healing.

Regarding the congested roads, maybe the roads can be updated to double-wide two-way roads where the creatures simply stay to the right and pass each other like cars do?

One-way roads seem kind of out of place to me. One-way gates or doors or turnstiles would do the same thing I guess with more interesting graphics. Maybe get even more crazy and have slides that creatures can slide down to a lower level faster than taking the road???

[Dragon]

Like an overcrowding debuff that affects production? Not a bad idea and not an uncommon function for management games.

For paths and walkways forming bottlenecks, why not make creatures move slower if 3 or more presses against or clip through each other?

[Sebt]

If you apply rules to roads, they IMO should also apply to all other types of tiles. Otherwise, the game might behave strangely if a battle occurs partially on a road or involves moving from a road to an open space.

To avoid unwanted behaviors and to demonstrate the inefficiency of "passable" rooms (those with more than one entrance) and single-tile corridors as main passages, it would be easier to adjust the speed of trespassing creatures than to add new traffic rules.

I suggest implementing big enough collision boundaries for creatures so that they cannot collide with each other in one place, as they can now when using the Gravity spell, for example. Instead, creatures should maximally "stick" to each other.

Implementing the collision system would:

• Make battles look more realistic and larger because only a limited number of creatures could attack a single creature (no more 34 versus 1), which was implemented in Warcraft 3 and worked brilliantly! They also added formations, so units in a squad can stick together when going to somewhere.
  
• Bigger creatures going from opposite directions would need to push their way through a one-tile-wide corridor, which could slow down both creatures' movement speed in a funny way (like two Cyclotaurs trying to walk through each other in a tight one-tile-wide corridor being so big).
  
• It would prevent creature textures from colliding with walls, structures and creatures.
  
• This would solve issue number 4 here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/276870/discussions/6/544488820845892717/

Faster creatures traveling in the same direction would perform an evasive maneuver. If they couldn't do that because of a creature coming from the opposite direction, they would slow down to the speed of the creature in front of them. They would follow the slower creature until the other side of the road was passable again.

Regarding disturbing workers, you can make that the closer a trespassing creature is to them, the more difficult it is for the workers to do their job. A trespassing creature could interrupt work for a few seconds by bumping into a worker. This could anger the worker, who might shout at the trespasser, causing it to flee. >:>


TL;DR: Add collision boundaries to creatures to affect their movement speed and fix many issues related to not having them in the process too.

[rasmus_ljunggren]

A lot of good ideas here, I feel like a lot of areas in the game can improve at once if this is done right. Having creatures having to wait on each other and not run passed each other in corridors would make a big difference! Also with battles etc.

This should be tested and iterated properly, because if it made badly it would be really annoying for the player.

[Sebt]

Yes, I think the simplest way to do that is to adjust the creatures' movement speed and the pathways they use in relation to other creatures' personal space and movement speed. This would also solve other issues in the process. :)