Whodunnit? [19 Apr 2014] v10, p10 - Gameplay

[TaCktiX]

Points made, Mr. degaston. However, you misunderstood my use of main hallway to be the crime scene, instead of the police station (an unnoted hallway, but a hallway nonetheless). And I do agree with your viewpoint on the bonuses, so how about this? Since getting more than one is very difficult and less likely, why not a flat bonus per suspect or weapon, instead of a stacking one? That would A: be easier to explain, and B: avoid spiraling-out-of-reach problems entirely. Keep in mind that each room is attackable from more than one direction.

[degaston]

Points made, Mr. degaston. However, you misunderstood my use of main hallway to be the crime scene, instead of the police station (an unnoted hallway, but a hallway nonetheless).

I understood that you were talking about the police station hallways. They also have a -1 decay to discourage loitering. And because every suspect and weapon is attacked from two different locations in the crime scene, blocking the hallway will not, by itself, protect a group of evidence or interrogation rooms. For example, if someone controls the the Chainsaw and Pickaxe rooms, then they may decide that it is worth losing 1 army per round to protect the "back entrance" to both rooms by placing a lot of troops on hallway 'S'. But I don't think that blocking the hallway like this would have a significant effect on the rest of the game.

And I do agree with your viewpoint on the bonuses, so how about this? Since getting more than one is very difficult and less likely, why not a flat bonus per suspect or weapon, instead of a stacking one? That would A: be easier to explain, and B: avoid spiraling-out-of-reach problems entirely. Keep in mind that each room is attackable from more than one direction.

I agree that a flat bonus structure would be easier to explain, and I originally had a bonus of 2 for each Evidence room and 3 for each Interrogation room. Then someone else suggested changing it to an escalating bonus, and I kind of liked having the ability to tweak the values to reward the extra effort needed to control more than one room. If the reward is too small, then there's not much point in trying for more once you have the ones you need for the winning objective. An escalating reward gives more of an incentive to control multiple rooms, and at the same time makes it more necessary for opponents to break someone who does control several rooms. I think this would lead to more "action" during the game and make it more interesting.

Also, keep in mind that the escalating bonus does not drastically change the number of troops you get for controlling all the rooms (18 instead of 14 for the evidence rooms, 21 instead of 18 for the Interrogation rooms). It mostly just weights the "back end" more heavily.

After thinking about it, I also like that the bonus for just one room is kind of small. One room is required for the objective, so there's already an incentive to hold one, but having a small first bonus decreases the chance that the first player to take one room will quickly take over the police station.

So while I think I prefer the escalating structure, I don't have a huge problem with going back to a flat structure if that's what people want. Does anyone else have an opinion, or a better way to describe the escalating structure in the legend?

[TaCktiX]

The way you're describing bonus values in the legend is more or less standard, but the fact that both types of rooms are smushed up in the same table is likely generating some confusion for folks. Or I could be seeing epileptic trees. Really not sure.

By the way, planning on a graphical update soon?

[degaston]

When I re-do the legend I'll try to make it more clear what's going on with those bonuses.

I made a new poll to gauge the popularity of some of the suggestions that have been made so far, but I wasn't planning on doing a graphical update until I'm able to test the gameplay and know that there are no major problems with it. I'd like to be able to test the different options that have been suggested to see which ones I prefer, but right now that's very difficult because a map of this size doesn't work well on paper and takes too long to play. I don't have a solution for this other than to continue working on my testing application. I'm making some progress, but it's going to take a while before I have something useable.

If my testing shows that something needs to be changed from the current gameplay, I may do a rough update to the map as suggested earlier:

... we recommend working out the gameplay before producing a polished map image... You've shown that you have a good eye for the graphical detail, so put that to one side for now, until the gameplay is sorted out. Instead of the fancy graphics, work on a slightly more basic schematic until the rest is sorted.

[koontz1973]

degaston, very glad to see this is still in the works. Not had any visual update for a while but lets hope you get the feed back you wanted. You know my views (all good) but I think it would be easier for me to say which ones I did not vote for.

Give the players a single protected starting position so that it’s more like the board game. (This will cause you no end of grief with gameplay).
Add another territory to each Interrogation room. (No need).
I like the legend theme. I’m smart and can figure things out as long as the information is there. (even though I like it and understand it, not everyone on the site has an IQ over 50).
Things look pretty good the way they are. (If this was true, you would not of started the thread).

[MarshalNey]

degaston, very glad to see this is still in the works. Not had any visual update for a while but lets hope you get the feed back you wanted. You know my views (all good) but I think it would be easier for me to say which ones I did not vote for.

Give the players a single protected starting position so that it’s more like the board game. (This will cause you no end of grief with gameplay).
Add another territory to each Interrogation room. (No need).
I like the legend theme. I’m smart and can figure things out as long as the information is there. (even though I like it and understand it, not everyone on the site has an IQ over 50).
Things look pretty good the way they are. (If this was true, you would not of started the thread).

I completely agree, in fact I would go so far to say that even if the poll indicated doing the first two options, I would resist the temptation unless strong reasons were given in their support.

Although I voted for a flat bonus structure, I understand the reasoning for an escalating one. I also concur with the thought that Victory objectives are at least in part their own reward, and should not come with a hefty bonus as well.

I can't help but think that there should be a simpler way than a table to describe what you're after. For instance, just saying "(small bonus x) for the first room, and (larger bonus y) for every room thereafter" would be simpler I think.

I'm very impressed with how well you've conveyed the Murder Mystery theme with your gameplay. It's a bit too complicated to read right now (I voted that as well) but there's nothing here that is unworkable. Personally I'd like to see the neutral values on The Motive lowered as there already is a neutral 8 barrier before it. In fact, with such a high decay (which isn't easy to decipher in the legend wording btw) there hardly seems any need, as holding The Motive will be difficult in any case.

-- Marshal Ney

[degaston]

... Personally I'd like to see the neutral values on The Motive lowered as there already is a neutral 8 barrier before it. In fact, with such a high decay (which isn't easy to decipher in the legend wording btw) there hardly seems any need, as holding The Motive will be difficult in any case.

Thanks for the comments. I'm continuing to work on the testing program right now, and I'll work on fixing the legend and adjusting bonuses and neutrals after that's done.

Just to clarify the way The Motive works, if you have 20 troops on it when you turn starts, you will lose three there to bring it down to 17, but you will get an extra 5 troops to deploy wherever you wish. So your net gain is 2 troops per round that you hold it. If you only have 1 troop on the motive, then you won't lose any so your net gain is 5 troops.

Any troops that you leave on The Motive are stuck there and can not be used to attack anywhere, though they could be allowed to decay down to 1 by deploying your troops elsewhere.

I just had a brain fart as I wrote this... perhaps The Motive should be allowed to bombard all of the suspects. I'll add it to the list of possible scenarios to test out - or does anyone think that's a terrible idea?

In any case, my intention with the neutrals is that they slow down the bonus grabs and make it difficult for someone to take a winning objective combination too soon. I don't know if the numbers are too high or too low at this point, which is one reason why I'm working on a testing application right now instead of map updates.

[TaCktiX]

As someone who's had to deal with big neutrals a LOT in CC games, they're too high.

[degaston]

As someone who's had to deal with big neutrals a LOT in CC games, they're too high.

Do you have a suggestion for what you think they should be?

I can lower them, but I thought that these values were comparable to something like Das Schloss. I expect that a typical progression through the map would be from the Crime Scene to Weapons/Evidence, then Suspects/Interrogation and finally The Motive. At each stage, a player would presumably be getting a larger bonus, so having to defeat more neutrals would make sense.

That said, I don't think that the difference between 6 neutrals on a weapon and 8 on a suspect is so great that it would preclude someone from going after a suspect before a weapon if they wanted to play it that way. My hope is that the combination of higher neutrals and a larger bonus for the Interrogation rooms will balance out the risk/reward equation for the two types of rooms, and avoid there being only one "correct" strategy.

[Gillipig]

As someone who's had to deal with big neutrals a LOT in CC games, they're too high.

Do you have a suggestion for what you think they should be?

I can lower them, but I thought that these values were comparable to something like Das Schloss. I expect that a typical progression through the map would be from the Crime Scene to Weapons/Evidence, then Suspects/Interrogation and finally The Motive. At each stage, a player would presumably be getting a larger bonus, so having to defeat more neutrals would make sense.

That said, I don't think that the difference between 6 neutrals on a weapon and 8 on a suspect is so great that it would preclude someone from going after a suspect before a weapon if they wanted to play it that way. My hope is that the combination of higher neutrals and a larger bonus for the Interrogation rooms will balance out the risk/reward equation for the two types of rooms, and avoid there being only one "correct" strategy.

Just make sure that the neutrals won't be so big no one attempts to take them but rather just piles up and try to go for a sweep of their opponent!

[TaCktiX]

I'd prefer 4/6/9 weapons/suspects/motive. Big neutrals have almost always caused people to just ignore the element. Examples being the Sanctuary in AoR 2, the existence of the Hubscraubers in all but escalating in Das Schloss, and the luggers in Treasures of Galapagos.

[degaston]

I'd prefer 4/6/9 weapons/suspects/motive. Big neutrals have almost always caused people to just ignore the element. Examples being the Sanctuary in AoR 2, the existence of the Hubscraubers in all but escalating in Das Schloss, and the luggers in Treasures of Galapagos.

I'll keep this in mind once I'm able to test the gameplay, but it doesn't seem to me that 4/6/9 is going to change the game that much compared to 6/8/12. And these aren't remotely close to the 60 killer neutrals on the Hubscraubers or the 75 on Sanctuary. The 10's on the luggers are closer, but all of the bonuses in that map are just 1's, so I don't think that's really a valid comparison either.

Right now, the game could be played without ever leaving the crime scene, but I think that the bonuses and the winning objective will encourage people to move into the police station. And once one player does, the others will probably need to in order to keep up.

Just make sure that the neutrals won't be so big no one attempts to take them but rather just piles up and try to go for a sweep of their opponent!

I don't think any map setup can prevent this from being a possibility, but if the other players allow this to happen by fighting against each other too much or expanding too quickly, then that's their fault. The bonuses should offset the cost of killing these neutrals after a few rounds, and players need to be aware if someone has been hiding in a corner, building an army without getting into any conflicts.

[degaston]

Looks like there's an organized campaign to select poll option 1 and have this be a conquest style map. 5 votes for it today. I may need to make two maps at some point and see which one people prefer.

Or I may need to change the poll to allow people to vote "for" or "against" each item.

I'll be away from the 17th through the 29th, so nothing new until I get back.

[TaCktiX]

[Moved]

It would appear that development of this map has stalled. If the mapmaker wants to continue with the map, then one of the Foundry Moderators will be able to help put the thread back into the Foundry system, after an update has been made.

[degaston]

I started to work on this again after seeing an announcement about pre-beta testing. Here is the latest map:

Click image to enlarge.

There are a lot of changes here, many of which address comments made previously in this thread.

1. The Motive is gone, and the center of the map is now playable.
The winning objective is now to control at least one Suspect, Location, and Weapon on the Arrest Warrant, along with a "Detective Signature". Each room on the map contains one territory with a conditional link to one location on the warrant. The entire room must be controlled in order to enable that link. When a player has control of a Suspect, Location and Weapon on the warrant, then a link is enabled from a detective (one in each interrogation room) to the "Detective Signature" on the warrant. If one of the winning conditions is removed by his opponents, then at the start of the next turn, the troop count on the "Detective Signature" territory will be reduced to 1. I would prefer this to be a Killer Neutral, but from what I have read, that would not work as part of a winning condition.

2. Eight additional hallway territories have been added, and troops may return from the Police Station to the Crime Scene.
The front door of the Police Station now assaults the Squad Car (20 Killer Neutral), and from there the player may attack the end of any hallway. This is a one-way attack.

3. Interrogation Rooms now have 3 territories, and they (and the Evidence Rooms) now have a flat bonus structure.
The detective in each Interrogation Room is now a territory.

4. The winning objective now requires control of entire rooms.
This should prevent anyone from being able to make a quick dash for the win.

I did not turn it into a conquest-style map because I don't think I could give all starting points a relatively equal chance of winning without compromising the design goals. Also, there is no room for 12 starting points.

I also did not change the 3x3 structure of the map. I don't think that odd-shaped rooms and hallways would improve the playability of the map.

I know the legend is rough right now, and some more thought probably needs to be put into the starting & killer neutrals. And I think I would prefer a conditional bombardment from a Suspect, Weapon or Location to having the warrant territories bombard each other - maybe it will become available before this map is done.

Suggestions are appreciated.

[isaiah40]

A couple of things:

1. You need to reduce the size of the map to the standard size of 840x800 for the large.
2. Unfortunately, the testing on the beta site pretty much has the same affect as in beta. So in effect, the map goes into beta on the test site to played by a few players, and then it gets released into beta on the live site. So you still have to game-play stamp, the graphics stamp, and then the XML stamp before you can test it on the beta site. The exact same process, except for the addition step of going into beta only to be released into beta.

[degaston]

A couple of things:

1. You need to reduce the size of the map to the standard size of 840x800 for the large.

I had permission to go supersize from Industrial Helix when I was working on this before. Is that no longer in effect?
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... e#p3234426

As for the rest of the process, I'll give it a try. I think the addition of conditional borders will improve the gameplay.

[koontz1973]

I had permission to go supersize from Industrial Helix when I was working on this before. Is that no longer in effect?
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... e#p3234426

Correct. If isaiah is already calling for a reduction, you will need to do it. Worst comes to the worst, we can always give you some extra room later on.

[isaiah40]

A couple of things:

1. You need to reduce the size of the map to the standard size of 840x800 for the large.

I had permission to go super-size from Industrial Helix when I was working on this before. Is that no longer in effect?
http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... e#p3234426

Industrial Helix did not have the ability to give permission to go super-size at that time. Only the foundry foreman has the ability, or who anyone else he gives the ability to. So right now the map needs to be at the standard size for the large. If it is deemed absolutely necessary to go super-size the Foundry Foreman (thenobodies80) will be able to to do it for you.

[degaston]

Here's a new smaller version (775x800):

Click image to enlarge.

Changes:

• Bedroom reduced back to 4 territories. Map now has 147 total, with 60 starting positions.
  
  I've removed the connection lines from the hallways - they all border their nearest neighbor and any neighboring doors.
  
  All army circles are sized for 2 digits except for the "warrant location connection" territories with the '?'. These are sized for 3 digits so that the '?' indicator won't be hidden by a third digit. All other locations should have nothing important covered by a third digit.
  
  The squad car has been moved to an empty space in the Police Station. It still connects the front door of the police station with the exterior hallway doors.

All starting neutral values are just guesses at this point.

I would prefer that the Detective signature be a killer neutral, but since the XML won't allow that to work as an objective condition, it will just have the largest allowed decay.

I might also prefer to have a conditional bombardment from the special attack territories in the crime scene and police station to the other warrant territories of the same type, instead of from one warrant location to others of the same type. Again, not possible at this point.

Many other bonus combinations are possible - warrant bonuses, holding all detectives, etc., but there's not much room left in the legend to describe them.

[thenobodies80]

[Moved] as requested. Please take a look at the Abandoned Maps Policy since I'm pretty sure it wasn't there when you started this map. ( http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewto ... 3#p3292833 )

[koontz1973]

degaston, welcome back and it really is nice to see this one back in production. You started this the same time I started so it really is a blast from the past for me.

Since you where last in the foundry, we can now restrict maps to any settings. Look here for the announcement and all updates. We also have some new toys like conditional borders, hold a region to unlock a border between another. I mention this as it might be nice to try something out. Have a read of what is new and see if you want to restrict the map. When you have done that and the super size is dealt with, we will get to looking you over.

[degaston]

Thanks koontz,

I've noticed the changes that have been made lately, and that's a big part of why I restarted the map. I've already added the conditional attacks to the map (you must control an entire room before the "special attacks" are enabled) and I think it will be a big improvement over what the map would have been if I had finished it earlier. I'm hoping that conditional bombardments and killer neutrals as part of a win condition are added in time for me to include them.

As it stands, I think that any game conditions would work for this map. I could still consider the possibility of making it a conquest style map where someone must solve the case (get the winning objective) to win, but that would kind of spoil the game for nuclear spoils, and in terminator and assassin modes.

[isaiah40]

As it stands, I think that any game conditions would work for this map. I could still consider the possibility of making it a conquest style map where someone must solve the case (get the winning objective) to win, but that would kind of spoil the game for nuclear spoils, and in terminator and assassin modes.

If I'm right you can restrict those game types as well.

[degaston]

...If I'm right you can restrict those game types as well.

It looks like that's possible, but I would prefer to make the game playable with all the different modes rather than restrict it to just a few. The problem with nuclear spoils could be solved if there was a way to remove some cards from the spoils.