Neptune's Wrath - Thoughts and opinions

[Myth]

First run of a 'Neptune's Wrath' age is slowly nearing it's end. The event was a bit of a 'gamble'. It was interesting to try/develop but I was very unsure about how it would play out. That's something very difficult to test with a small team and can only be found out by actually playing an age. We've gotten some positive feedback on it, but there were also some serious flaws.

The 2 major flaws being lack of borders for training (as more and more lands sink), and 2nd being the awfully long route going from north west to south west.

Because of this i'll put the event on hold for age 355 and rework some of it first. In the meantime I'd welcome some more (constructive) feedback. As usual the negative aspects were loud and clear so hoping on at least some more positives ones too .

[-_-]

Some of the things I'd like to see happen differently in the next Neptune age:

• * Random sea routes
  * More sea routes
  * No snake map
  * Training over sea routes

Some of the positives:

• * Gave the players something to unite against -- the snake map
  * Something to break up the monotony
  * The strategical aspect of the game mode was fun. Defending a bottleneck, waiting to see what happens when * * * Hun cap sinks with a main stuck in it, 3 mains sitting next to each other with non stop PvP for 26 hours (+_+)

Overall, it was a fun experiment but needs some more fine tuning. I actually quite enjoyed the game mode for some time, although the last 24 hours or so have been tedious now that there is only one route to travel at all times. At times we will have 20 people online, but nothing for them to do as wheels are only 2-3 sfs, if you can SF at all. Right now, we are in a Mexican standoff while we wait for Neptune to decide everyone's fate.

[Myth]

A change to road generation is being tested on dev. Need to find a sweet spot now between chaos but also enough wheel chances.

[Pringles]

just c&p from telegram:

I like Neptune concept but maybe his wrath will ease after some country sacrfice and gives back citiies instead of taking em.

And in the endgame when ticking starts, Neptune would finally help random country cuz Saturn asks.

Just providng some options to the Neptune idea, it might be a playable concept and devs mustve made lotta efforts in it.

[Selene]

Will it also be possible to remove searoutes once theyre no longer valid. It looked quite messy at one poinit with all the lines.

[Myth]

Will it also be possible to remove searoutes once theyre no longer valid. It looked quite messy at one poinit with all the lines.

Unfortunatly no. Not in the near future anyway.

[-_-]

One more thing:

I really appreciate the response to feedback throughout the age. Turning the city sink rate back up once we got to a stalemate. Shortening the age end timer. The concept was very fun for a while but until some of hte kinks are worked out, the age end is not fun and not conducive to much strategy other than sit by the other 2 mains and hold a chokepoint, hoping Neptune doesn't take your cities. So, thanks for reacting to player feedback and making changes mid age.

[Elsa]

A change to road generation is being tested on dev. Need to find a sweet spot now between chaos but also enough wheel chances.

thats something cause there were too few routes at the end

[Fiskerman]

Overall i think the event should have a limited age timer so it doesnt drag to long. Wheeling/SFing is one of the biggest parts of tlk and that gets hit hard with this event which makes the last 24-36hours of the age pretty boring.

Maybe the flooding could be tied to the amount of cities on the map and the age end timer is then also linked to the flooding.
So you get an age of max 5 days with like 15-25 cities left.

[I__TeRRoR__I]

Please invest dev skills and time in some serious game mode.

Like navy for example on atleast 1 map, these "themed" ages is not what the game needs or the majority of the player base would like to see imo.

[Elsa]

i like the idea that some cities can be flooded and and an army will be sent home, i think it gives more strategy to the game it just need some major adjustment so there still can be normal wheels

[Quartz]

The concept of "landscape that will change over the course of the age" is great, but as has been mentioned, the fact that it will eventually make "wheeling" as we know it impossible presents a problem of discouraging activity.

My suggestion would be to decide upon a set amount of cities that you want flooded at any given time. Maybe something like 25 or 30% of the total map. So if you decide 30% then on a map with 400 cities you would not have more than 120 be underwater at a given time. This has the potential to create problems and chokepoints that will have to be dealt with, but still leaves a majority of the map available and there will necessarily be some cities that will provide for large wheels.

And so I would propose sinking cities until the set number of underwater cities gets reached, and then every 2 ticks you can have X cities sink and X cities return from underwater. These returning cities can be owned by nobody until they are taken again. And then you aren't limited to sinking/raising only one or two cities at a time because you wont ever reach a doomsday situation where all cities are underwater. So you could have 10 cities sink at a time, and then 10 cities sink and raise once the appropriate ratio of cities is underwater. (This number could be flexible based upon which map it is, Africa for example would require a smaller number).

The end result would be a situation where enough of the map is underwater at a given time to change the landscape and require more strategy to navigate, but enough of it will be above water at a given time to not stifle the normal game mechanics. And if the number of cities that raise/lower each hour is high enough you will still have to be ready to adapt to the will of Neptune at any given point.

[Elsa]

The concept of "landscape that will change over the course of the age" is great, but as has been mentioned, the fact that it will eventually make "wheeling" as we know it impossible presents a problem of discouraging activity.

My suggestion would be to decide upon a set amount of cities that you want flooded at any given time. Maybe something like 25 or 30% of the total map. So if you decide 30% then on a map with 400 cities you would not have more than 120 be underwater at a given time. This has the potential to create problems and chokepoints that will have to be dealt with, but still leaves a majority of the map available and there will necessarily be some cities that will provide for large wheels.

And so I would propose sinking cities until the set number of underwater cities gets reached, and then every 2 ticks you can have X cities sink and X cities return from underwater. These returning cities can be owned by nobody until they are taken again. And then you aren't limited to sinking/raising only one or two cities at a time because you wont ever reach a doomsday situation where all cities are underwater. So you could have 10 cities sink at a time, and then 10 cities sink and raise once the appropriate ratio of cities is underwater. (This number could be flexible based upon which map it is, Africa for example would require a smaller number).

The end result would be a situation where enough of the map is underwater at a given time to change the landscape and require more strategy to navigate, but enough of it will be above water at a given time to not stifle the normal game mechanics. And if the number of cities that raise/lower each hour is high enough you will still have to be ready to adapt to the will of Neptune at any given point.

this is a great idea, but it implies that searoutes will be also changed when cities 'arise'. No clue if thats makes it tough to realise

[Quartz]

If only a quarter of the map is under water then much fewer sea routes would be needed at a given time. There are some cities where a single city sinking would require a route, particularly the islands and japan on the Asia map, but the game would have to "check" if an established sea route is necessary every hour when the landscape changes I suppose. I can see where that would make it more difficult, but the game must do a certain amount of checking anyways because it had to discard routes last age as further sunken cities nullified them.

And so game logic of "Sea Route #14 connects City X and City Y. City X is now connected to the mainland. City Y is now connected to the mainland. Sea Route #14 is not longer necessary" seems like it should be possible to work with. I'm not a programmer though so I'm not sure precisely how easy that becomes in practice.

[Sayonara]

Let me build a bit further on the idea of Balloon. While keeping in mind that Neptune can take but cannot hold.

So Neptune can take cities and disband armies. Instead of sinking these cities they become 'Neptune' cities with a negative bonus of let's say -10. These cities can be bordered and taken again. After being taken they gain their own terrainbonus again.

With this implementation there is no need for extra sea routes as all cities remain their own bordering cities. Regaining Neptune cities will be at some cost (injuries / deads) because of the negative bonus. But it's up to the countries themselves whether to take them back or leave them for now.

[Selene]

Let me build a bit further on the idea of Balloon. While keeping in mind that Neptune can take but cannot hold.

So Neptune can take cities and disband armies. Instead of sinking these cities they become 'Neptune' cities with a negative bonus of let's say -10. These cities can be bordered and taken again. After being taken they gain their own terrainbonus again.

With this implementation there is no need for extra sea routes as all cities remain their own bordering cities. Regaining Neptune cities will be at some cost (injuries / deads) because of the negative bonus. But it's up to the countries themselves whether to take them back or leave them for now.

Wont it look a lot like the pandemic event?
Think Myths themes ages are based on certain games, and this is a game where you gotta win before everything sinks (afaik).
I also like the idea of having weird sea routes changing the way you have to plan etc to get to certain cities.
What i didnt like was you literally had no wheel opportunities at one point anymore. So being able to take/get them back is a great idea imo.
Either the same amount that sink come back or you can get them back in some other way.

[Andra]

Putting aside that it's a taboo subject at the moment, the pandemic event was great game wise. We all had great fun. Neptune was an unnecessary breath of "fresh" air. It kinda reminds the old players of navy, but it's actually not. And I don't think something needs to change in the dynamics of the game .. other aspects have to be approached. Best part is that you chose to try it when alot of players are on holiday.

[Elsa]

the neptune is something quite dynamic and at least something different all other without neptune are the same for awhile. Different units / Different maps but not really something that put our startegic skills to the test, Neptune was a really different and i liked the thought of it