Instant game over dog Greed

[scorp_poison]

Devs:I can not give a positive review of this game till you remove the unbalanced and frankly insulting Crown stealing greed dog, it makes expansion impossible, goes through walls and even just hit me in the end of the day before the portals were active.

That is not a unit that requires strategy to beat, it's a unit that shouldn't exist.
Until that game breaking unit is removed I am done with this game.

[Xajmai]

Originally posted by Elinara:

Wow alpinobanshee, I guess we must just be bad at the game, thanks for letting all of us know. I had a fully built base and I was in the middle of it when I died. I hadn't encountered this before, so I had no idea I was vulnerable to it. Although, now I'm thinking it was the reason for another crown theft when I was in the center. Thought I'd paused the game after being interrupted and came back to no crown seconds later.

Mr. VanDyke, I love your games. I'm not fond of this Greed and his mechanic because I feel like I died out of the blue right before the Greed was going to get challenging, but now that I know we're meant to die, I suppose I'll get used to it. I thought the point was still to try to get through alive and crowned and have a perfect game or something. It feels a little weird and 'cheatery' to respawn on an already developed island since the whole point of the last game was not to lose your crown at all.

I haven't played the co-op long enough yet to reforge a crown, but think I saw that you can do that somehow. Perhaps that's why this Greed exists. He won't make me quit the game, but I dread winter now, not because it's hard, but because it's boring. I see that it's on the list though. I'll probably get more into co-op with my son when that's altered a little.

The fact that you say "fully built" and "in the middle" leads me to believe that either you didn't expand very far or that you didn't have enough defences. For me the leapers never get past my first wall by the time they spawn and should I be standing in the middle of my base I wouldn't see a greed for days. The point is still to get through alive you misunderstand. If you didn't build up properly the leapers will punish you for it. It is fully possible to finish the game with no deaths.. although I admit I also died to the leapers because I was to close to a portal scouting for my attack party when they started spawning. I don't blame the game I blame myself, I shouldn't have run ahead of my knights so far from my castle when the day was drawing to an end

[GordonVanDyke]

Originally posted by Xajmai:

Originally posted by CherryKiss:

Yes, exactly right. The problem isn't that your military is too weak. The problem is the stray crownstealer out in broad daylight way far away from your defenses and walls, while you are out exploring past your defenses. Daylight is supposed to be safe time, and not knowing when daylight is suddenly not safe, is not fair.

The greed spawn so they will have time to reach your wall by nightfall. If the portal is far away they will spawn during daylight and you shouldn't be that close to the portal at the end of the day. A jumping greed is no match even for 2-3 knights with Entourage outside the wall so I can't understand the people who have a problem with them when they're behind. Maybe y'all are just playing the slow game and eventually letting the greed overrun you.. you have to bring the fight to them.

Yes! Listen to this master ruler!

[aleman12]

Well when you are out of your walls at days end the will steal your crown, but you can learn from that and adapt or fail

[!?!]

Originally posted by GordonVanDyke:

Originally posted by Xajmai:

The greed spawn so they will have time to reach your wall by nightfall. If the portal is far away they will spawn during daylight and you shouldn't be that close to the portal at the end of the day. A jumping greed is no match even for 2-3 knights with Entourage outside the wall so I can't understand the people who have a problem with them when they're behind. Maybe y'all are just playing the slow game and eventually letting the greed overrun you.. you have to bring the fight to them.

Yes! Listen to this master ruler!

Is that really all you have to say about this game design abomination?

[Velorien]

I think the thing we need to do is step back and actually ask the one simple game design question.

Does it make the game more fun?

Each type of greed poses a new challenge. Basic greed overrun your units with numbers and leaping attacks, so you have to learn to build and defend walls, and to time exploring so you're back by sundown. Then fliers bypass walls, so you have to learn to lure them into archer crossfire and build towers. Then breeders smash walls, so you have to learn to make fallback positions and make sure your defences are rock solid before blood moons. Then the leaper goes straight for you no matter what, so you have to learn to...?

The leaper's like winter. It's not that you can't survive it, just that surviving it requires cutting down on fun things (in this case, exploring and watching battles), and once you've seen it once, your general reaction is "sigh, here it comes again". Only instead of making you go AFK, it makes you lose the game.

[scorp_poison]

Originally posted by GordonVanDyke:

Losing your crown is not game over and designed to lose it several times. So, my Greed is doing what I designed it to do, and when.

He should take fire damage so we’ll fix that.

Your game should be designed so you CAN lose your crown not so you SHOULD.
This greed prevents you from going with your troops to attack portals because he pops out, de crowns you and then game overs you into the same portal.
I'm sorry to tell you but this greed isn't about strategy, or defenses, or planning, or timing, it's a cheap game over in order to force this game to be replayed instead of simply removing the rogue like elements.
Since the co-op lets you remake crowns why is that not in single player?
Designed to hope you have enough coins after the hit to remake the crown otherwise it's game over then, that would make this greed not be a cheap shot.
If this greed is actually designed to cheap shot you in the middle of day, then clearly your team needs to get back together and deside if this is a Adventure game or a "Hide behind the wall and exspand 1 wall at a time" Game.

[scorp_poison]

Originally posted by Velorien:

I think the thing we need to do is step back and actually ask the one simple game design question.

Does it make the game more fun?

Each type of greed poses a new challenge. Basic greed overrun your units with numbers and leaping attacks, so you have to learn to build and defend walls, and to time exploring so you're back by sundown. Then fliers bypass walls, so you have to learn to lure them into archer crossfire and build towers. Then breeders smash walls, so you have to learn to make fallback positions and make sure your defences are rock solid before blood moons. Then the leaper goes straight for you no matter what, so you have to learn to...?

The leaper's like winter. It's not that you can't survive it, just that surviving it requires cutting down on fun things (in this case, exploring and watching battles), and once you've seen it once, your general reaction is "sigh, here it comes again". Only instead of making you go AFK, it makes you lose the game.

Exactly!

[scorp_poison]

Originally posted by GordonVanDyke:

Originally posted by Xajmai:

The greed spawn so they will have time to reach your wall by nightfall. If the portal is far away they will spawn during daylight and you shouldn't be that close to the portal at the end of the day. A jumping greed is no match even for 2-3 knights with Entourage outside the wall so I can't understand the people who have a problem with them when they're behind. Maybe y'all are just playing the slow game and eventually letting the greed overrun you.. you have to bring the fight to them.

Yes! Listen to this master ruler!

What even are these words? or why?

[scorp_poison]

Originally posted by Xajmai:

Originally posted by CherryKiss:

Yes, exactly right. The problem isn't that your military is too weak. The problem is the stray crownstealer out in broad daylight way far away from your defenses and walls, while you are out exploring past your defenses. Daylight is supposed to be safe time, and not knowing when daylight is suddenly not safe, is not fair.

The greed spawn so they will have time to reach your wall by nightfall. If the portal is far away they will spawn during daylight and you shouldn't be that close to the portal at the end of the day. A jumping greed is no match even for 2-3 knights with Entourage outside the wall so I can't understand the people who have a problem with them when they're behind. Maybe y'all are just playing the slow game and eventually letting the greed overrun you.. you have to bring the fight to them.

If this game is meant to be played at a certain speed it should be labeled as such, otherwise I would assume that it is playable by anyone, even the turtling types.
This is not about my speed of expansion, it's about 1 greed that is CLEARLY unbalanced, and it needing to be fixed.

[Crusher Von Splattenheim]

Originally posted by Velorien:

I think the thing we need to do is step back and actually ask the one simple game design question.

Does it make the game more fun?

It does because if you play properly you're locked into a run that is impossible to lose otherwise. To be frank, you're still probably locked into a run that is impossible to lose even with the crownstealer greed anyway.

Originally posted by Velorien:

Each type of greed poses a new challenge.

No they don't. Every greed in the game is countered by a wall and archer spam. Maybe a catapult too. That is the game.

Originally posted by Velorien:

Basic greed overrun your units with numbers and leaping attacks, so you have to learn to build and defend walls, and to time exploring so you're back by sundown.

Sure.

Originally posted by Velorien:

Then fliers bypass walls, so you have to learn to lure them into archer crossfire and build towers.

1. The idea is to lure every greed into archer crossfire. I do not understand how you think flyers are meaningfully different in this capacity.

2. You're clearly inexperienced if you're advocating building towers. They are a noob trap.
An archer on the ground is practically just as good as an archer in a tower except that the archer on the ground is able to still go hunt during the day while an archer in a tower is permanently locked up there. The principle reason why someone builds a tower is to upgrade it into a hermit construction, most often a bakery. Unless you have ridiculously amazing rock placement next to a wall out in the forest then there might be a case for a balista since that only freezes a single worker... but that rarely happens and, frankly, is largely unnecessary firepower anyway. Great if you can get it, not essential though.

Originally posted by Velorien:

Then breeders smash walls, so you have to learn to make fallback positions and make sure your defences are rock solid before blood moons.

... I'm torn on this one. Like it is true that there can be some value in fall back walls now with kingdom decay and the fact that greed aggression increases on an island even if you been away for awhile. So a cheeky expansion you make with a few coins to bribe the greed away for the night in the early game might be practically a whole bag of gold (and then some) late game to reestablish said expansion and it might just be too long of a run for your workers if they're all the way at the keep. Prior fall back positions can allow your workers to leapfrog back up... but that's beside the point really.

What teaches you to upgrade your walls beyond the fact that there are looming empty coin slots when you walk past walls that aren't fully upgraded and the fact that players default to wanting more defense rather than less if the option is presented without any reason counter to it -- not breeder greeds. If breeder greeds did not exist, people would still probably aim for max defenses anyway.

But if you're looking for a strong incentive for max defense beyond player MO then look no further than the forge. Can't spawn without max rank walls.

Either way, little to do with breeder greeds themselves.

Originally posted by Velorien:

Then the leaper goes straight for you no matter what, so you have to learn to...?

Here's what you need to know about crownstealers:
1. They're the only greed that makes a distinct sound when they spawn. You will know they're on the map the second they're there.

2. I'm like 80% confident you will get a sound for each crownstealer. Bare minimum you'll know multiple crownstealers are on the map.

3. They do not have a whole lot of HP. Stand in a group of archers and they will kill them for you. (the caveat being you need enough archers.)

And it's not like you lose all your progress anyway. Two Crowns is ridiculously forgiving.

Originally posted by Velorien:

The leaper's like winter. It's not that you can't survive it, just that surviving it requires cutting down on fun things (in this case, exploring and watching battles), and once you've seen it once, your general reaction is "sigh, here it comes again". Only instead of making you go AFK, it makes you lose the game.

That doesn't make any sense.

Why would a crownstealer prevent you from watching a battle? If a crownstealer can live through your defenses and nab your crown at the battle site, what is stopping the crownstealer from pathing straight to you then if not your defenses? If a crownstealer can't survive a fight, then surely you could still watch, right?

Besides, it's not like the portal spawns crownstealers incessanty preventing exploration. I fail to see how you can't explore at all. You might need to be more timely about it, but that's not an inability to explore no more than regular greed attacks at night prevents exploration.

Then again, you did imply you go AFK during Winter. That would be like 16 days of recruits that a kingdom should've gotten that didn't. Maybe that's why crownstealers are more of a problem.

If you played the other seasons properly, Winter isn't much of a stopgap for standard gameplay activity. Doubly so now with the griffon.

[!?!]

Originally posted by Crusher Von Splattenheim:

If a crownstealer can live through your defenses and nab your crown at the battle site, what is stopping the crownstealer from pathing straight to you then if not your defenses?

Several towers that you built along the way.

[Crusher Von Splattenheim]

Originally posted by scorp_poison:

Originally posted by Xajmai:

The greed spawn so they will have time to reach your wall by nightfall. If the portal is far away they will spawn during daylight and you shouldn't be that close to the portal at the end of the day. A jumping greed is no match even for 2-3 knights with Entourage outside the wall so I can't understand the people who have a problem with them when they're behind. Maybe y'all are just playing the slow game and eventually letting the greed overrun you.. you have to bring the fight to them.

If this game is meant to be played at a certain speed it should be labeled as such, otherwise I would assume that it is playable by anyone, even the turtling types.
This is not about my speed of expansion, it's about 1 greed that is CLEARLY unbalanced, and it needing to be fixed.

It's not that the game is designed to played at X amount of speed. It's that greeds try to hit your wall at about midnight (when the moon is at it's highest point in the middle of the sky). Greeds only move at a certain speed though. If it means they have to move during the day to reach your wall by midnight, they will do so. It also works in the other direction too -- if a greed attack takes too long, by daybreak, they will leave.

The only exceptions to this as far as I can tell are retaliation waves after smashing a portal during the game and I think flyer greeds are undeterred by daylight too. Can't remember if breeder greeds are. Been awhile.

Point is that it's all balanced around greed smacking against your outtermost wall. Build a closer wall to the portal? Far less travel time for the greed. They wont spawn until later.

[Crusher Von Splattenheim]

Originally posted by chris:

Originally posted by Crusher Von Splattenheim:

If a crownstealer can live through your defenses and nab your crown at the battle site, what is stopping the crownstealer from pathing straight to you then if not your defenses?

Several towers that you built along the way.

That is the most ironic contrarian remark I've ever received. Like let's spin it both ways:

"Crusher, you're wrong! I can't sit at battle sites because crownstealers survive my defenses! I have to stand behind my *defensive* archer towers just to survive!"

"Crusher, you're wrong! I can't sit at battle sites because crownstealers survive my defenses! Boy I sure wish I had more archers at the frontlines to deal with this, but instead they're posted in towers not contributing at all to nightly DPS!


I'm just going to go out on a limb and say this: So what a crown gets stolen by a crownstealer? Beyond a single achievement, what does it matter? It's not like kingdom decay is something that only sets in with a new monarch.

[!?!]

Originally posted by Crusher Von Splattenheim:

"Crusher, you're wrong! I can't sit at battle sites because crownstealers survive my defenses! Boy I sure wish I had more archers at the frontlines to deal with this, but instead they're posted in towers not contributing at all to nightly DPS!

It's not a dps issue.
If you played the game at all, you would know this.

[Crusher Von Splattenheim]

Originally posted by chris:

Originally posted by Crusher Von Splattenheim:

"Crusher, you're wrong! I can't sit at battle sites because crownstealers survive my defenses! Boy I sure wish I had more archers at the frontlines to deal with this, but instead they're posted in towers not contributing at all to nightly DPS!

It's not a dps issue.
If you played the game at all, you would know this.

I've already beaten Two Crowns. I beat Classic when it came out. I beat New Land when it came out. Beat Skull Island on my first attempt.

Right now I'm working on the one reign achievement and likely would've already gotten it if the Shogun run I was playing wasn't bugged and decided to restart.