16 replies to this topic

[murdeoc]

coupla questions about resources ingame

since i saw the commander needed to build expansion bases during the battle it brings the logical conclusion that the amount of resources on the map are limited, what does this mean to gameplay?

first i'm thinking about those battles that get really long and drawn out without either team getting the upper-hand. will a commander become sort of useless if all resources are gathered? i heared he can get resources from the kills that his heroes make, but the minions are made by the commanders themselves, so wont the game slow down at some point? like, the commanders both have no money, so they cant build units, no units means less kills from the heroes so there will be less money coming in, meaning even less kills etc etc...

or will there perhaps be a system kind of like c&c where commanders can build things which help them generate their own gold? the problem with this is that you might not need to build expansions and with c&c this has always been pretty unbalanced.

also how much gold will there be in terms of game-length? will this be a situation you will only face in REALLY long games or can this happen with every game that isnt an instant gg?

[Colinftw]

I think there will be some resources close to the best and resources which are difficult to get for both teams. Maybe getting other's team resources "source" is like on LoL when you are destroying an inhibitor. I mean if you get other's resources you get a temporal advantage. But there will be workers to get the gold from there and getting the gold faster means to build a storage building near there which could be a waste of money probably. This is almost in all RTS Games i don't really know how this will turn up.(Can't wait to see it)

[Thanatological]

We are not sure resources are limited because as we talked about in another thread what if the game become long and drawn out? Clearly their is some renewable ability or something that would counter limited resources. It might be as simple as once a area is harvested it will only give like 1 gold on return instead of 10 gold that it normally would.

[murdeoc]

Thanatological, on 18 March 2012 - 01:09 PM, said:

We are not sure resources are limited because as we talked about in another thread what if the game become long and drawn out? Clearly their is some renewable ability or something that would counter limited resources. It might be as simple as once a area is harvested it will only give like 1 gold on return instead of 10 gold that it normally would.

im going to assume this is an issue which wont happen very often, ive read in the faq that they aim to make games last from 20-40 minutes. i expect there will be enough resources to play for that time-period. but indeed its about those long drawn-out games (which imo are amongst the best because it usually means the teams are well-balanced and of roughly the same skill levels)

but if the gold-mines (or whatever its equivalent) bring in only 1g instead of 10, the game will slow down in that late-phase, which i think should be avoided... it should be speeded up somehow when you get into end-game.

ps i didnt see the thread you mention, can you link it maybe?

[Thanatological]

Thats odd I can't find the post..Maybe I was talking too someone outside of the forum? I am sorry, I could of swore it was discussed somewhere or another. But basically, we discussed issues with longer games limited resources and even the running out of minions due too that issue. But too bring another point too light, later game if all the resource points are exhausted it won't bring too a complete slow down just too a balanced out rate. Clearly it would prevent a mass for a push, and require each team too converse and manage the limited resources. However putting a finite amount in game would cause problems with long drawn out games which tend too be the good and fun ones.

[IanD967]

Thanatological, on 18 March 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

Thats odd I can't find the post..Maybe I was talking too someone outside of the forum? I am sorry, I could of swore it was discussed somewhere or another.

http://www.sinsofada...12/page__st__40 <- I believe this is what you are looking for (if anything on these forums)

Post #40 and from #60 onwards.

[murdeoc]

ty

[Mornhaven]

Also something to ponder: the gold pool of the commander is augmented by the champions income so when the champion kills something (be it jungle creep, opposing heroes, or enemy troops[this one not technically verified, my speculation]) the commander gains gold as well. This may help alleviate some of the super-late game commander starvation issues if things get to the point of a mined out map.(this fact also works with commander to hero but that is off-topic). Also, there will be some random events to reward map control; such as roving barbarians or a gold caravan to ransack thus helping to fund both the champions and commanders war-efforts near the end. Obviously this will likely not completely keep up with gold income from mining but just something to ponder.

sources:
gold income augmentation
http://pc.gamespy.co.../1220401p1.html

random events
http://www.gamesrada...ng=oldest_first

[AngryHobo]

Gold Income should probably be made to trail off as the game progresses just to put more emphasis and importance on individual fights. If gold income is static(say 10 per ore pile all game long) It creates problems for placing any importance on units as you there is no limit to your mining capability. The question is, late game, how important are armies to team fights? For example, with finite resources a late game team fight where say all the heroes die but only one commanders army is wiped creates a steamroll scenario where the team with the army can just run over their opponent because the enemy's commander has no resources to produce anything. Without finite resources, the opposite occurs, where losing an army can have little to no importance.
There are a bunch of ways to go about balancing these scenarios... You can place diminishing returns on resources piles as the game progresses. You can limit unit production facilities so that u can't remax an army quickly. You can even have a system where resource collection rates increase as the game progresses(although i think this makes engagements boring as you could potentially see evenly matched teams fighting the same late game fight over and over again).
Personally, I like the idea of diminishing returns because it punishes the loser of major battles while allowing for the possibility of comebacks. The main point is that battles need to have a sense of increased consequences as the game progresses.

Edited by AngryHobo, 18 March 2012 - 11:50 PM.

[Milkshaker]

Thanatological, on 18 March 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

Thats odd I can't find the post..Maybe I was talking too someone outside of the forum? I am sorry, I could of swore it was discussed somewhere or another. But basically, we discussed issues with longer games limited resources and even the running out of minions due too that issue. But too bring another point too light, later game if all the resource points are exhausted it won't bring too a complete slow down just too a balanced out rate. Clearly it would prevent a mass for a push, and require each team too converse and manage the limited resources. However putting a finite amount in game would cause problems with long drawn out games which tend too be the good and fun ones.

http://www.sinsofada..._1687#entry1687

Here's my post about this, we indeed talked about it a few days back

[Thanatological]

Well I knew it was somewhere, I did also find my logs of when I was talking too someone about it out of the game, when I was looking for something unrelated in my chat logs.

Anyway, I do think gold should "trail" later in game, but if resources become an issue you clearly have a well drawn out game and too end the game purely because there is no gold left is a sad thing too do. So ensuring that no matter what they do not run out is critical.

Edited by Thanatological, 19 March 2012 - 09:58 AM.

[IanD967]

Maybe the gold pools/mines will run out but they slowly regenerate more gold? like say 1 gold every 5 seconds of something so to make the most out of it people would have to leave it alone for awhile otherwise it would be just a was of effort to keep it.

[murdeoc]

like the regrowing ore of the old c&c games? wait till the ore field is big enough to keep itself sustained before mining around its edges? something like that might work, you can choose to mine it all and go for a final push, or wait it out a bit so it'll grow faster and your income more steady and secure, but you will be without money until its ready...

[Thanatological]

Thats a grand idea. It would prove a management of resources for the longrun rather then just grab as much as you can.

[IanD967]

Indeed! C+C was the main idea I was thinking of when I thought of it before my Ore Harvester got destroyed some random way
And thanks

[murdeoc]

lol i was actually writing a much longer post about that when i  looked up and realized "oh wait, thats what he said"

also, i think i heared them talk in one of the video's about different kinds of resources. i believe he mentioned crystals which will be used for your commander abilities, next to the gold which will prob be used for units and structures. is anything more specifik known about that?

[raphd]

if resources become scarcer then the commander seat gets more and more boring as the game progresses, maybe there would be infinite sources that need to be controlled to grant continual income but gold generators would create an issue with stacking gold generators and then going for a late game win, regenerating ores would add bursts of gold unless they were very similar to jungles which would be cool