Send in the Commander v2.0

[TheGiftedKes]

This is the new version of the original post (https://us.forum.elvenar.com/index.php?threads/send-in-the-commander.22804/). While everything is up for discussion, the text in blue or under blue sections headers are particularly important to be discussed before finalizing and putting up the idea for vote again.

Short Summary:

A new building that houses ‘Commanders’. These Commanders can be 'sent into' one encounter per day with unique buff/nerf effects. They can be leveled up with Experience.

Details:

A new building, let's call it the Commanders’ HQ and let's make it not too large, houses "Commanders". This building will be available for all to build (like a lvl 1 residence or a builder's hut). These are individuals that do not actually take up a squad or join the fighting 'physically'. In the cater/fight setup interface, there will be a checkbox "Send in the Commander". If you select it, the Commander 'commissioned' (highlighted by you in the commanders' HQ) will have his/her effect active during that one encounter. The check-box will then be disabled for a cool-down period (6 hours after first use, 12 hours after second use, i.e 3 uses max in a day). The cool-down resets with server reset.

Commanders each have a unique ability that reduces cater costs, enhances friendly troops' performance or reduces enemy's performance in a fight (e.g. Luigi reduces catering/diplomacy cost by x%, Xandar reduces all friendly defensive penalty by y%, or Sidhra reduces all enemy initiative by z%, etc.).

What do I mean by an encounter?
An encounter can be 1) a tourney encounter (which, by the way, might soon be condensed so that one encounter completes the province) , 2) or all fight waves/diplomacy rounds of a spire encounter, 3) or a province encounter.

Details about cool-down period and Experience for commanders:
The effectiveness of a Commander could grow with leveling up through accumulating Experience (+1 for a victory). They can then be leveled up at Experience milestones. If you send in a Commander and lose the fight anyway, the next cool-down period is doubled as a penalty. For a commander specialized in diplomacy you can only lose in the spire since there is no losing possibility when catering in tourney/provinces.

The portrait for each Commander will become available for your profile when you get him/her to the max level.

The cool-down period can be reduced with research/AW?

How many commanders?
I think it is fair to have at least 3 default commanders (e.g. Luigi, Xandar, and Sidhra above) upon building the HQ. I also think it is fair to have research related to adding more commanders in late game chapters. Another option is to make the HQ level up with diamonds and get more commanders (similar to builders' hut). I suggest that the cool-down period be shared between all commanders so having more types don't mean more frequent advantage, just wider variety.

Benefits:

1. If you are stuck in an encounter cater or fight, you can help yourself out of it to continue playing (tourney or spire only).
2. It helps the new players to do more tourney/spire/province encounters (and doesn't give much of a tourney advantage to players with already invincible armies, but help all with spire boss encounters). If the tourney changes to random encounter types ad condensed fights, it helps get past unlucky line-ups when used wisely.
3. The leveling up of commanders through the 'experience' they get when used rewards player activity.
4. Since the unit upgrades are all done by the end of the Elvenar chapter (i.e., all units are 3-stars), I thought it would be nice to have a new military-related activity to invest time and effort in for the bored high-chapter players.
5. It provides a rich menu of customized encounter bonuses that helps caterers/hybrids overall, and if used wisely and effectively, can turn the tides in a seemingly hopeless battle for fighters/hybrids.
6. Each player can focus on a Commander they like best based on their playing style (fighter/caterer/hybrid) and the fights they find most challenging (fighter/hybrid only).
7. New profile pictures that need to be earned!
8. The long-term growth of each Commander, the addition of new Commanders, and improving Commander effects and cool-down periods (e.g. potential AW integration) can provide endless fun!

Considerations:

1. It potentially adds additional complexity to the fighting system (not catering though) which may require extra tutoring of the new players by their FS.
2. The idea might seem like too much work for devs, but as it provides a platform for a myriad of other easy implementations down the road, I hope it will be sent to them to be considered. For what it's worth, I tried to make the implementation graphically simple (i.e. checkbox in the fight/cater interface sends in the highlighted commander from the HQ building).

Please do comment! Thanks

 

[Deleted User - 848894468]

Interesting

 

[TheGiftedKes]

Interesting

Anything you specifically like or dislike about any of the details? Anything that needs further clarification?

 

[StarLoad]

Have you considered the upcoming changes as announced in the forums for tournaments?

 

[ajqtrz]

Overall, I like the idea. It seems to me the best way to implement it might be like the MA, as you state. It starts with 3 slots, perhaps one filled, and you grow by gaining experience for the commander of that slot (as you imply). And, just as with the MA, you have the option of purchasing the extra 2 slots with diamonds. Thus, in the end you could have commanders for all your troop types..light melee, light ranged, mages, heavy melee, heavy ranged.

I'm not sure I like the restriction on use to one encounter per day. Perhaps the strength of the commander is lowered each time you use it and reset to 100% after X hours. That way, if you attempt to use it too much it just becomes less effective. In the end then, you could make it have a reasonable effect over 2 or 4 uses but after that, it's effect will be marginal. Same goal of restricting it's use but with a bit, I think, more usefulness overall.

You do note the changes in the tournament would make this commander very useful but in reality 1 province isn't all that important overall. If you restrict it to one province (i.e. 1 encounter per day), it's effect, I would think, would be marginal.

So at the beginning of the game you would get the Magic Academy and the Commander Academy and use them pretty much the same way at first. Perhaps the CA would also allow you to eventually "craft" special bonuses for your fighters, more fighters, the "regiment" or "squad" instants, etc... In other words, perhaps you could use the CA to take the military crafting choices out of the MA and thus make the MA have other items not currently available very often (like pet food?).

So, overall I like the idea.

AJ

 

[TheGiftedKes]

Have you considered the upcoming changes as announced in the forums for tournaments?

I briefly mentioned it (under 'what do I mean by an encounter'), but many players are very vocal about the tourney changes so at this point I am not sure how things are going to turn out. What did you have in mind about how those changes might affect this idea?

 

[TheGiftedKes]

Overall, I like the idea. It seems to me the best way to implement it might be like the MA, as you state. It starts with 3 slots, perhaps one filled, and you grow by gaining experience for the commander of that slot (as you imply). And, just as with the MA, you have the option of purchasing the extra 2 slots with diamonds. Thus, in the end you could have commanders for all your troop types..light melee, light ranged, mages, heavy melee, heavy ranged.

I'm not sure I like the restriction on use to one encounter per day. Perhaps the strength of the commander is lowered each time you use it and reset to 100% after X hours. That way, if you attempt to use it too much it just becomes less effective. In the end then, you could make it have a reasonable effect over 2 or 4 uses but after that, it's effect will be marginal. Same goal of restricting it's use but with a bit, I think, more usefulness overall.

You do note the changes in the tournament would make this commander very useful but in reality 1 province isn't all that important overall. If you restrict it to one province (i.e. 1 encounter per day), it's effect, I would think, would be marginal.

So at the beginning of the game you would get the Magic Academy and the Commander Academy and use them pretty much the same way at first. Perhaps the CA would also allow you to eventually "craft" special bonuses for your fighters, more fighters, the "regiment" or "squad" instants, etc... In other words, perhaps you could use the CA to take the military crafting choices out of the MA and thus make the MA have other items not currently available very often (like pet food?).

So, overall I like the idea.

AJ

Thanks for your comment. So one vote for MA style (i.e diamond upgrade).

Related to multiple times usage but getting weaker each time: I am not particularly against the idea. What do others think? Another way would be that the effect doesn't grow weak, but we change how cool-down works. After each usage a mini-cool-down doubles (let's say starting from baseline of 6 hrs). 1st usage at time 0, 2nd available 6 hours later, then 12 hours after that. At the server reset the mini-cool-downs go back to baseline again.

Your suggestions about future features are pretty interesting. I am a bit on the fence about adding them at this stage though, I think the idea might become 'too much' to vote on with too many components to reach a consensus. Does that make sense to you?

 

[TheGiftedKes]

Hoping to see more comments here!

 

[TheGiftedKes]

Edited the post to include the suggested cool-down system.

If you didn't like the previous version of the idea and voted no on the last poll, please let me know what you think about this version To recap, the issues brought up last time were that 1. the cater commander was not mentioned in the main body of the idea, 2. it was not clear whether only late-game players can build the commanders' HQ or everyone, and 3. it was mentioned the idea is potentially too much work and the devs should not see it. I think the first two issues should be resolved in this version, and I don't think I can do much about the third issue.

 

[Ashrem]

I find it hard to envision, so difficult to comment on. I think it's a complex mechanism* (that requires city space) for an infrequent use with not clearly defined results. Are you deliberately keeping it undefined to give the devs flexibility, or what exactly are you suggesting each of the commanders would do? Maybe level one commander gives troops a 10% hit-point advance or damage bonus for one encounter, or boosts your squad size allowing more troops to enter the encounter? Or something else? What would we be voting for?

Would it be more easily implemented as a new class of instants that provide a similar effect for one hour? A "Rally Troops" instant, Demoralize Enemies," or "Worker Blitz."

* In particular, the notion of a building with someone in it who gains experience from fighting. That sounds like a large investment of developer time because it's completely unlike anything else in the game.

 

[TheGiftedKes]

I find it hard to envision, so difficult to comment on. I think it's a complex mechanism* (that requires city space) for an infrequent use with not clearly defined results. Are you deliberately keeping it undefined to give the devs flexibility, or what exactly are you suggesting each of the commanders would do? Maybe level one commander gives troops a 10% hit-point advance or damage bonus for one encounter, or boosts your squad size allowing more troops to enter the encounter? Or something else? What would we be voting for?

Yes and no. I do want to give devs flexibility, especially with regards to percentages. But, the catering effect aside, I personally would prefer that the effects not be the same as those you can already get through other means (i.e. global attack bonus, global hit-points bonus, enlightened light range, and magnificent mage). Any other type of effect is fine with me. AJ above for example suggests basically the attack bonus effects for heavy melee, heavy range and light melee. The ones I like most are the ones I have already posted as examples

Generally, I think the ideas that have to do with new 'creative content' in the game could be a bit more left to the imagination of the devs than those that pertain to specific corrections/alterations to the existing gameplay. No?

That being said, I will try to add a new paragraph specifically talking about potential commander effects in more detail.

Would it be more easily implemented as a new class of instants that provide a similar effect for one hour? A "Rally Troops" instant, Demoralize Enemies," or "Worker Blitz."

That it is definitely true, but the concept of actively making your chosen boost (commander) better through experience and active gameplay is integral for me and more than half of the fun I prefer something orthogonal to the 'instants' mechanics. Does that make sense to you?

* In particular, the notion of a building with someone in it who gains experience from fighting. That sounds like a large investment of developer time because it's completely unlike anything else in the game.

I know, but it will be fun! If enough other people feel the same then maybe it's not a bad idea for the devs to see and ponder.

 

[TheGiftedKes]

I am not sure if I can check the forum frequently enough to shepherd this idea anymore, but if anybody is interested in doing so feel free!