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Suggestions for SpiritWars 2013

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Psyclone:
MOST OF THIS IS JUST SOME IDEAS TO THROW OUT THERE.  I FIGURE NOW IS THE BEST TIME TO TALK ABOUT THIS IF SOMEONE IS GOING TO BE REBUILDING THE GAME FROM SCRATCH.

IMPLEMENT AI IF POSSIBLE

If you can implement AI (Computer Opponent), that will really open up the possibilities with this game. 

* TUTORIALS - Players can play against the computer starting out to learn the game, earn basic cards by defeating the computer as they level up (gain experience).  For example, one of the initial opponents in the tutorial could introduce the player to scouts and explain their benefit.  Upon completing the scouting tutorial, they are awarded a couple scout spirits to add to their kingdom. Have them learn what defenders and spells are and award those at the end of their respective tutorials as well.  Next, have them build a small deck (maybe 10 spirits) and give them advice on what to their dungeon.  Once they are able to beat the tutorials, open the game up to PvP, Raids, Campaigns, Tournaments, etc. and let them try to build full decks and populate their kingdom with spirits.
 
* CAMPAIGNS (SCENARIOS) - Have challenging campaigns and campaign packages (which have a cost to enter) in which a player has to defeat certain themed decks, or fight epic mythical battles, special maps, etc., using either their decks or a provided deck.  Have increasing difficulty levels and offer rewards (gold, spirits, etc.) for defeating each campaign.  A campaign may have multiple levels/sub-campaigns.
 
* RAIDS - Multi-player team challenges where players team up to fight tough challenges, raid bosses, etc.  For example, a 2-player raid might be a slightly larger map where 2 players have to work together to take out a computer army, or defeat a dragon with unique abilities (like double strike, or an AoE flame breath).LEVELING/EXPERIENCE SYSTEM

As players complete campaigns and win battles, they earn experience.  As they level up, players receive rewards, such as gold to be used to purchase card packs, or a unique spirit.  For example, for reaching level 4, a player might receive 200g. At level 5, he is awarded an Apulian Lancer or Lowlands Skeleton.  As players level up, different Campaigns, Tournaments, Raids, etc., become unlocked.

CASTLE SPIRITS

A lot of CCG's went away from a generic health pool (such as 20 life in MTG or a castle with 10 defense in SpiritWars) and introduced multiple General/Commander/Structure/Castles cards to replace it with different amounts of health and sometimes special abilities or attributes.  I think this would work great for SpiritWars and would be a good way to introduce quite a few more cards to the game, which is something that will be greatly needed moving forward.  SpiritWars would have various Castles that players had to acquire either through card packs, win in campaigns or tournaments, as a reward for leveling, beating a raid boss, etc.  They should still be very basic (not overpowered), but have slight modifications/enhancements.

For example...
Starter Castle #1 - 8 health
Starter Castle #2 - 9 health
Basic Castle - 10 health (reward for reaching level X, something everyone receives relatively early into the game at an early level)
Castle #1 - 10 health + 5% extra gold for win
Castle #2 - 10 health + 5% extra xp for win
Castle #3 - 8 health + regen 1 health at the beginning of each round if health is less than 4
Castle #4 - 9 health, 3 vision (instead of 2)
Castle #5 - 12 health, 1 vision (instead of 2)
Castle #6 - 10 health, can heal 1 health to adjacent unit at start of turn (3 round cooldown after use)
Castle #7 - 10 health, takes 1 less damage from ranged attacks
Castle #8 - 6 health, armor 1 (takes 1 less damage from each melee attack)
Castle #9 (rare) - 11 health
Castle #10 (ultra rare) - 12 health
Castle #11 - 10 health, +1 health to all friendly defenders
Castle #12 - 10 health, +1 power to all friendly defenders
...
ACHIEVEMENTS
 
I think most players are familiar with achievements as well.  Achievements can reward small bonuses like gold, a special card, unlock a campaign/raid, unlock other perks, etc.  Here's some examples of possible achievements, some of which are easy to achieve and others quite difficult.  Some will have to be accomplished against the computer/campaigns to avoid sandbagging or achievement trading.  Most of the achievements would have a witty name, such as "Animal Lover".  Here's some examples...

Reach level 10/20/30/40/50/etc
Complete 10/25/50/etc campaigns
Win 1/10/25/100/500/1000/etc games
Enter 1/10/25/etc tournament(s)
Win 1/5/10/etc tournament(s)
Acquire every basic (core) spirit
Acquire every (insert expansion here) spirit
Achieve a PvP rating of 1000/1200/1400/1600/1800/2000/etc
Kill 1/5/10/etc raid boss(es)
Defeat campaign X without using a combat spirit with an attack above 1
PACIFIST - Defeat a specific campaign without killing a combat unit
A RARE FIND - Acquire a rare spirit
MEDIUM RARE - Kill a rare spirit
Acquire a diety
Kill a diety
WHERE'S MY BUBBLE GUM? - Buy a card pack
Kill unit X in campaign Y and win the game
Do X in campaign Y and win the game
Defeat campaign X without using a specific spirit/homeland/ability/attribute - for example, beat campaign X without using Black Death
ANIMAL LOVER - collect at least one of each type of animal (Rodent, Feline, Canine, Swine, Reptile, Ursine, etc)
WHEN IN ROME - collect all 19 Roman spirits
TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER - collect 5 Leader Spirits (13 total)
TAKE ME TO YOUR LEADER 2 - collect 10 Leader Spirits (13 total)
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY - Collect "Baldur the Good", "Armasi Assassin" and "Medusa"

OK, a lot of the names are pretty lame, but you get the drift.

Some collection/library achievements could just be a common grouping ("Animal Lover" or witty combination ("The Good, The Bad And The Ugly").  Some of them would be relatively easy to achieve and others extremely difficult.
...
TITLES

Allow players to add titles to their name for certain accomplishments.  For example, any player who defeats an extremely difficult raid boss that is a dragon could get the title "Dragonslayer" after their name, such as Psyclone the Dragonslayer.

Psyclone:
MAPS

I think a big reason that the SpiritWars maps were all exactly the same size and shape was because of the limitations of the graphics/monitors when Randy originally built the game.   Back in 1998 when the game was released, over half of all internet users were using displays with 800x600 graphics or lower.  SpiritWars was originally designed to run optimally at 800x600 resolution, so there was definitely less room (less display area) to fit everything into the GUI than nowadays. 

As monitors (and graphics cards) evolved with the changeover from CRT monitors to LCD, display resolutions have greatly increased.  Of course, the standard aspect ratio has changed as well from 4:3 to 16:9.  As of today, over 90% of people online are running at resolutions greater than 1024x768, with the most popular resolution being 1366x768 (most common laptop resolution).  Online gamers are the most likely to run at higher resolutions as well.

With that being said, now that there's more than twice as much display area, this also opens up the possibility of different map shapes and sizes.  Before, there wasn't much room and not really any other option than the 86-hex SpiritWars maps we are all used to.  Now that there's plenty of space, so I've created some examples of new map shapes and sizes that are now possible.

I've included some examples...

Map #1 is the map we're all used to with 86 hexes.

Map #2 is the same shape map, but with 115 hexes.

Psyclone:
MAPS CONTINUED

Map #3 - More of a square shape with 130 hexes.

I definitely don't think that all maps should be larger, I think 86 hexes was close ideal, but the larger sizes of Maps #2 and #3 opens the possibility of unique maps shapes such as...

Map #4 - Unique map shape with 71 hexes.

Minmaxer:
Switching to a larger the map size would affect balance in several ways, mostly in favour of the second player:

Spellcasters become more powerful
Flanking becomes easier and more effective
Aggressive dungeons become less effective
Map/point control becomes more difficult
Slower dungeons, with more expensive and powerful units become more effective
Movement speed becomes more important

As someone that played first player for %80-90 of my games I'd be very concerned about any map size changes.  More varied(or random) maps of the standard size would definitely be beneficial though.  I knew the layout of most of the maps, including terrain and possible starting castle locations.  This was definitely an advantage, though perhaps not an unfair one consider how many games I played.

Psyclone:
@Minmaxer, good to see another familiar name.  :)

I totally agree with what you said.  I always hovered around 110-120 rating.  I know you were usually one of the few players who was 140-200+ quite a bit along with Xerin.  I probably played about 60-65% of my games moving first, not nearly as much as you of course.  My #1 concern about balance in this game is the huge 2nd turn advantage.  I think it was a turn-off for a lot of people and it led to a lot of sandbagging (players wouldn't play their best dungeons/spirits if there was a good chance they were moving first).

I definitely wasn't trying to saying that I thought the maps should be bigger (more hexes)...


--- Quote from: Psyclone on December 31, 2012, 05:11:54 AM ---I definitely don't think that all maps should be larger, I think 86 hexes was close ideal, but the larger sizes of Maps #2 and #3 opens the possibility of unique maps shapes such as...
--- End quote ---

...what I was meaning to imply was that if the templates were larger, such as maps #2 and #3, then it opens up the variety of map shapes, such as map #4.  Once again, I think 86 hexes is close to perfect, but in the game's original version, there wasn't a lot of variety in maps because of the limitations of screen resolutions and dimensions.  Every map was 14x7 (14 hexes wide by 7 hexes tall). You could generally tell where your opponent's castle was within a couple hexes based on your own starting position and most of the gameplay was east-to-west.  The only odd shaped maps ended up having about 25+ skulls in order to change the shapes, but there wasn't much room for variety still.

What's your opinion of using a map template of Map #2 or #3, but keeping the number of hexes between 65-90, such as Map #4? 

(Don't critique the actual Map #4 though as it was just an extremely quick example of a unique shaped map that I threw together in 5 seconds without putting much thought into it.)

I played close to 6000 games, which was #3 for most games all-time.  I believe Alchemist and you might have been the two players with more games played than me.  I also knew almost every map by heart, even the near identical ones where Randy tried to fool you on which direction the opponent was.  It was a definite advantage.  I actually wouldn't mind seeing computer generated random maps (with some constraints of course, such as a higher frequency of flatlands/woodlands vs drylands/darklands; clusters of homelands/streams/deep water; castles 5-10 hexes apart for the most part; avoid pinning players in a corner; etc).

Another negative aspect of larger maps (as in more total hexes in play) would be that they would lead to longer games, which is the opposite direction the game needs to go.  I actually think @ 75 hexes might be a good number if the maps are more square or uniquely shaped.

I hope all that made sense.

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