Thoughts about races

[Skyhunteren]

I'm sure that we all want to more races in the game, but when I read forum posts I also realise that we don't agree how to implement them. I think that many players would have liked to see the kotl and all other races to come as fullblown races. I don't think this is the way to it and I will here try to explain why.

Core race - A race with its own cities and tech tree. Think humans.
Addon race - A race gained from a resource. Think Kotl.

An important thing about the core races is that they should be different and in some way supplement each other. If you play monsters you should be happy for finding an undead city that will greatly improve your mana or a human city which you can use to get silver weapons. The more core races we put in the smaller these differences will seem. There is nothing special about human silver weapons if we also have the giants gold weapon and gnome steam weapons. Another problem is balance. When the game first came out balance betwen the races didn't seem that importent because you could get all races by conquering a few neutral cities. The current discussions about humans shows that balance betwen the core races does matter and the more core races the dev's put in, the harder it will be to balance.

Now I am not saying that we should keep it to three core races. I am just saying that when a core race is introduced it should be a game changer and really different from the current core races. Let me give two examples.

Seafolk - Can only build cities in water.
Would require that the seamonsters got changed, so there where more weaker monsters and that we got some water terrain and special resources.

Insectoids - Faster growth, less food produced by farms.
They should have perk building that make units amphibian and is build on iron(Making that iron more usefull and enables land races to engage Seafolks)
Can build gold improvements but not food improments on donkeys or pigs(Else their weakness would be all but removed by finding a few right resources.
A perk building on pigs that improve movement by one. (Pig cavalery)
Their units are cheap and weak, but give all unit close them a small combat bonus.

Now addon races would just give you acces to a few units and maybe a perk which will enchant you race, but not fundamentally change the game. Kotle archer boost the weak human archer and turtle give them a decend end game unit if they can't find a holy ground. Avaible for a few points and with only a few units these addon races are easier to balance and still add great flavour. A kotle monster, kotle human and vanillia human all feels very different to play. Dwarf and elves could easly be made into addon races and the dev's would be able to throw in a great number of addon races as they don't require as much tweaking as a full blown race.

So what does other people think? Does anybody have ideas for core races or addon races? Is there something I am totally forgetting in this post?

Edit: Maybe make addon races dlc while saving new core races for expansions <.<

 

[player1 fanatic]

Personally, I would like something similar to Koatl perks: Favor of elves, King of dwarves, where it would guarantee specific resource in capital city, and then add maybe one or two additional units to that resource. For example, for elven village add basic melee unit, that can be upgraded to something stronger (for total of 4 units).

This could be extended not only to races. Have for example perk Favor of King, which gives you halbedeer hall resource in capitol.

 

[unmerged(15561)]

Theres a thread somewhere with suggestion on alt. races/units. Potentially any of the addon races could be expanded upon. Dragons, elves, dwarves, orcs, alt. undead, lizardmen, all could be added as full blown races with a mixture of existing and new building types. The trick is what add. perks would you need to add to make them viable and how would this unbalance things.

 

[unmerged(493757)]

I'm happy enough with current races, but i fully support player1 fanatic, i think it's a brilliant idea.

But, i like to play this game with default setting, so i propose a modification to player1 fanatic idea.

Why not make a new quest that is a little more adventurous or RPG-ish than most of the current quest. Example: Add a new object in the map, this object is quest giver, right now we only gained quest randomly, but this structure trigger a quest. Let's say your unit visit An elven forest structure, a quest pop up will appear, offering you a set of task. Upon success you get what player1 fanatic said, more elven unit type is recruitable in your city that built Elven Bungalow. Developer can add random flavour to this quest to make it non linear, maybe upon failing or when you are close to fail the quest or vice versa, there is a chance that a god will offer an alternative, He/She ask you to ignore the request of the elf or instead offer another alternative to aid the elf, and do other set of task for him/her, upon success you get alternative reward, depending on which set of task you got, ignoring the elf or other alternative to help the elf. Maybe this set of tasks can also anger other god or add a unique Spell that can't be acquired by worshiping that god.

About the spell gift, i also have an idea, let's say you complete the elf request by doing the alternative task given by Agrela, you get 2 rewards, from the Elf you can recruit Treewarden, then from Agrela you get a spell that can upgrade your Treewarden via another set of quest. Let's say Agrela gives you other tasks after you complete this, which is about Treewarden, she offer to upgrade your Treewarden to a super version of it. But you must complete some highly perilous tasks, upon the finality of these tasks, you must place 1 Treewarden of your choice to a structure that appear specifically for this tasks, after you get your chosen Treewarden there, use the spell given by Agrela on it, then you are offered to pay some gold and mana, if you can pay it, you get the super version of Treewarden and the quest is complete.


add:
I know this doesn't add core race, just a modification to existing Add on race with more quests, but imo this will increase replayability of the game. This also increase immersion to the game, which i think is a good thing.

Maybe i should make another thread about Quest Design.

 

[The Apprentice]

There are no purchasable perks that improve unit speed or terrain mobility (ie, like the pathfinder level-up). Nor is there an ability that allows a Melee ground unit to attack air aside from levitation, which is spendy. Nor is there a way to add range to a caster or ranged unit. As the lategame already converges toward massively powerful units, they could all be added as later options for unit customization with low dev overhead. The coding is already in, after all.

Similarly, the traits at mage creation to get the Dwarf, Elf, or Minotaur resource at start with an additional unit and building seem solid. Ino-Co did that, and the sales figures for the Power of the Serpent should give them a guess as to what portion of the player base is interested in such content.

It wouldn't do much to expand the existing gameplay though. The Heroes and Artifacts/MP additions Ino-Co is working will add new dimensions to the game. I'm more interested in that.

Another dimension to add could be Spells to terraform the land would also be a new dimension to the game- making landbridges between islands, mountain chokes, or swamps underneath a dangerous attacker all sound interesting. Or a unit that could alter terrain through a special ability.

Or a water-based faction! Hopefully sales will allow Ino-Co to keep expanding the game.

Edit to Add: Just read At's post above- more quests like that could be great! Another reward type could be the creation of a special resource tile at a city of your choice (say you save some elves, they settle in a village somewhere in your empire) or if you recruit X Dwarves they can prospect a vein of Gems, Neveril, or Adamantium. Scalable cost to fund their expedition for the different types, etc... X Koatls to consecrate a new Holy Ground as another example.

 

[unmerged(84406)]

One idea for an new major race would be avians.
Main advantage - all their units fly, and they can build on mountains.
Top tier units would be giant eagles and rocs.
They wouldn't have harbours or shipyards.

 

[unmerged(487513)]

I vote for Elves! Complete idea of elven unit line up : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum...n-the-game&p=13869468&viewfull=1#post13869468

 

[unmerged(493757)]

I vote for Elves! Complete idea of elven unit line up : http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/...1#post13869468

Sadly, i'm sure you won't get that, probably never get that elves.

Thing is, lore-wise, elves in this game is just casual and happy adventurer. It's just a casual addition to the game, or i should say casual race, developer never thought anything serious about elves in Majesty Universe, the setting of Warlock MotA is in Majesty Universe.


add:
If you play majesty, i think there is a mission that involving elven territory. I hope i will see the elves field other unit than sharpshooter (yes Elven sharpshooter in WMotA is from Majesty), but all i saw is just sharpshooter , and what is worse? those elves are just human plaything, either joining the human without any purpose other than seeking fun or getting slaughtered without any fight, after most of their comrade died, they don't even have any hard feelings toward human, they can still join human, if it is fun for those elves.

Proof of the similarity of elves from both game:
1) Casual Difficulty has Elves icon.
2) Most Elven unit quote is very casual. I only remember "Let's have some fun!"
3) They even have exactly 100% model, abilities (Root shot and Self Heal plus Movement speed buff).


Though there is a hint that elves may have Elven Dragon Rider, either Red or Gold Dragon (Lore is from WMotA unit Description).