Adding PvE Map Difficulty Modifiers

[Yuah]

I love playing PvE Campaign maps from time to time but by this point I have, like most other PvE players, beaten every map on expert. I really like the campaign maps cause I think they're beautifully crafted and I'd love too see a way to increase difficulty on them without our overworked devs having to reprogram every map, so I had this idea of optional modifiers you could use to further crank up the challenge on a map. They should be relatively easy to implement and increase the difficulty of a game in different ways but also net you more rewards for completing a map.

Here's an idea of what it could look like:

Motivated Foes: Morale is high amongst your foes. Enemy units deal 20% more damage.

Cursed Wells: An ancient curse was cast upon the wells in this area. They produce energy 25% slower than usual.

Termites: This place is infested with termites. Your structures take 30% more damage. This counts for buildings, walls, power wells and monuments.

Foreign grounds: Far away from your forge, your units have trouble adjusting to being summoned. Every friendly unit enters the game dazed, and the dazed status lasts 20 seconds longer than usual. (can be negated by rallying banner and wrecker)

Unoly Gift: An evil Shaman has blessed your foes with the gift of regeneration. Every Enemy unit gains 2% of their maximum life points every 2 seconds.

 

I just made these up to make my idea clear, they're not neccecarily balanced. What do you guys think abt somthing like this?

Edited June 7, 2019 by Yuah

[Kubik]

first of all I like the core of the idea, but unfortunately that is not how the game works  and I think none of the listed options would be easy to implement  we do not have source code for the game  so our options are very limited  

[Yuah]

ahh to bad

[Chibiterasu]

7 hours ago, Kubik said:

first of all I like the core of the idea, but unfortunately that is not how the game works  and I think none of the listed options would be easy to implement  we do not have source code for the game  so our options are very limited  

I always wondered. What exactly can you do without the source code? You can implement new cards and balance them, right? So does that mean the card information isn't written in the source code? I'm assuming the information for the maps isn't written in the source code either because there's actually a way for other people to create custom maps. If both of that is the case, couldn't you just place a building on the Pve map and "balance" it's effect to the specific effect the modifiers say.

[Kubik]

There is multiple reasons why we should not be clear on what we can and can not do exactly right now.

Without source code we can do anything, but it may (and most things will) take a lot more time.

So imagine it like that new card:
image = path to file
model = path to file
stats = numbers
abilities = list of abilities = list of numbers where each number identify one ability

creating card with new ability would needed the ability to exist first, and have a number.

but if any of cards/building in game actually have requested effect (including range infinity/whole map) then we can speak about that, but I am not aware of any card/building like that  

[Chibiterasu]

Motivated Foes:

Wheel of Gift's first ability is that exact same effect.

Cursed Wells:

I don't know if that's possible but if you use Resource Booster and change the numbers to 5000 meters (global), -25% more Energy and 0% more used energy it should have that effect ^^

Termites:

Lost Disrupter Purple has a similar effect. Just change the duration to 1000000 seconds or something like that There's however an additional effect to that card so it's probably not possible to pick only the one half of that effect...

Foreign Grounds:

Ok that's probably not possible

Unholy Gift:

Again Wheel of gift. This time it's 3rd ability.

 

I probably still didn't understand the problem fullly and my ideas aren't possible but I wouldn't know why.

[Kubik]

I will ask then.

[Chimaka( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)]

These will need a new tooltip modifier, that applies and works outside of the card's tooltip modifier itself. Like this one, for example

Quote

 

Motivated Foes:

Wheel of Gift's first ability is that exact same effect.

 

Easy one: you place regular Wheel of Gifts on the map with special difficulty. Give it to the enemy side, and apply the gift beforehand (which i hardly believe is possible, because i've never seen being able to activate the buildings' ability(ies) via mapEditor, but i think it is possible to connect that particular Wheel of Gifts' buff with a help of script(s), there is certainly an ID of that buff in the game files (ID of the tooltip modifier)...
Ye... If Ladadoos and Johnzyna couldn't access those, then those special modifiers probably wouldn't be possible to implement.

[Zyna]

@Yuah I really like this idea. I also think this is not too hard to implement. Maybe we can collect some ideas here for potential modifiers.

[Mynoduesp]

- Infected: Squads spawn 1/2 Nightcrawler with activated frenzy (global or only for enemies, spawned units belong either to enemies or to neutral enemy) 

- Powerless: No/less energy/void evergy at the start

- Onslaught: Generic buffs for enemies (squads and buildings): reduced/increased damage taken, reduced/increased damage dealt, enemies regenerate x% health per second

- Scorched Earth: Buildings take X% more damage (already mentioned) 

- Shared Pain: damage friendly units recive is also dealt to surrounding friendly units

- Befallen: Friendly squads cannot be healed

- Disenchantment: Friendly squads cannot be buffed (both buff and debuff) 

- Spellblock: Squads cannot use their active abilities

- Martyr: Squads cast a neutral-enemy spell on death

[Metagross31]

I'm bad with names for these effects, but some ideas:

- Friendly units explode/spawn nightcrawlers on death
- Friendly units have a X% chance to get CC'ed every Y seconds
- Enemy units reflect X% of the damage they take back to the attacker
- Friendly units do not get healed near buildings
- Every units get spawned with half health and does not heal up to full after a certain duration

Might add some more ideas later...

[RuneSeeker]

Some more ideas if we're brainstorming:

• Twilight Bombs: Every unit in the game will blowup like a twilight slaver upon death (neutral eruption upon death)
• Stone Skin: Every enemy unit takes 1/3 less damage (stoneskin [-15%] + wheel of gifts damage reduction [-20%] buffs = should be around ~32% damage reduction)
• Enraged: Every enemy unit has the "Rage" passive (Fire Dragon passive, because it's longer)

[Ladadoos]

What about the player starts with a random deck? Not completely random of course, but a random deck that satisfies a few conditions to make it playable.  

[MephistoRoss]

42 minutes ago, Ladadoos said:

What about the player starts with a random deck? Not completely random of course, but a random deck that satisfies a few conditions to make it playable.  

That could be a modifier for random pve :p

[Mynoduesp]

Random deck something alike "ultimate bravery" from League would be hype. 

One would need to write a code for a playable deckrandomizer (with game logic, aka. orb requirement logic etc) though. Which might be quite a challenge on its own. ^^

Edited November 17, 2020 by Mynoduesp

[Ladadoos]

Shouldn't be too bad  
The more I think about it the more I want to start working on one (and to be honest, this modifier feature)

[Chibiterasu]

28 minutes ago, MephistoRoss said:

That could be a modifier for random pve :p

I love that idea! Please do that as an optional mode

 

I see three different kind of modifiers that are possible. The first one are things that makes a mission staight up harder/easier. The second are modifiers that are just for fun and the third are modifiers that change the "meta" of the mission.

From a game design perspective the last categorie makes the most sense because you have to adapt your deck to that modifier which leads to a new environment with potentially "bad" cards beeing more effective than usual. It brings the most variety to the mission. Something like "enemie units 20% more dmg" or "less energy at the start" makes the mission harder but it doesn't really change anything. You will still use the same cards more or less. While modifiers like "Friendly units have a X% chance to get CC'ed every Y seconds" or a prevention of healing or buffs will affect the deck you use for the mission.

[Eirias]

On 11/18/2020 at 12:36 AM, Ladadoos said:

Shouldn't be too bad  
The more I think about it the more I want to start working on one (and to be honest, this modifier feature)

I was talking to @Weak1ings a while back: he was making something similar. We had a bunch of rules and then you would run the program and it would tell you which cards you had to play. Ofc it wouldn't interact with the game so we had to build the decks ourselves, and we knew what we had before starting the map.

[Kapo]

On 6/7/2019 at 8:26 AM, Kubik said:

first of all I like the core of the idea, but unfortunately that is not how the game works  and I think none of the listed options would be easy to implement  we do not have source code for the game  so our options are very limited  

Hmm. Is it possible to place a enemy wheel of gifts off-screen? those 3 effects would be possible at least then?

[Zyna]

12 minutes ago, Kapo said:

Hmm. Is it possible to place a enemy wheel of gifts off-screen? those 3 effects would be possible at least then?

You are responding to an old message. We are able to apply any global ability we want (within the game's possibilities ofc).

[wanky]

tbh i rly like this idea (wasnt on my screen till now) is this somefing we can think of adding into tha game? (maby first in testserver to see its working fine)

[Kapo]

9 hours ago, Zyna said:

You are responding to an old message. We are able to apply any global ability we want (within the game's possibilities ofc).

Interesting. Unintentional Thread Necromancy on my part ... no idea how that happend.