Pox Nora 2

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by zenadel, Jul 10, 2018.

  1. 0ryuk0

    0ryuk0 I need me some PIE!

    I'm still glad to hear you guys aren't closing Pox. Man, I love this game.. But I haven't played anymore since the last patch.. I will wait for more news, Sok!
     
  2. Sealer0

    Sealer0 I need me some PIE!

    So the awkward position pox is in is that to actually make it compelling would take a lot of work and the potential for failure would be very high. While side boards sound pretty sweet, they're mostly an improvement for us, veterans, and would do completely nothing to attract fresh blood that would actually stay.

    Poxnora looks like a cash grab. This might be fine for you, and everyone who is willing to pay for the game to live on, and I've spent a few hundreds of dollars on it myself, but it's not gonna attract anyone when it looks like a cash grab. This goes for pox 2 as well. The heyday of free to play model is gone, and unless you can make something as pretty and as accessible as duelyst or hearthstone the very first thing I would change would be monetization. It is not an easy thing to change, but it is absolutely necessary if the game is not to be regarded as a scam at first glance.

    The change of monetisation alone carries so much weight that it would have to dictate the design of the rest of the game. The biggest decision to make would be whether or not the game should remain strictly multiplayer focused, or have quality single player content. I strongly doubt that you can sell an indie multiplayer only game without good single player content for a one-off fee, but keeping it multiplayer only you would have to stumble in this free to play limbo and find a way to make money while not ripping people off - so either steal hearthstone's model or make something new (leap of faith). Note that Hearthstone's model is not sustainable either in a long run. By the 3rd expansion the barrier of entry is unreasonably high.
     
    davre and Sokolov like this.
  3. Sealer0

    Sealer0 I need me some PIE!

    I'd argue that current single player content is worse than not having single player content. I know there are certain individuals who claim to enjoy it, but compared to almost every other tactical turn based strategy I've played, it is complete rubbish, and if I started there today as a new player, I would probably instantly quit. Bad single player is worse than no single player because it creates an illusion, that the game can be enjoyed without playing against other people. This will make players quit fast and leave negative comments on the game, and suddenly we're back to square one. I'm sorry for all of you campaign lovers, but If I was to work on pox 2 this would either be the first thing to go (most likely), or the first thing to redesign... unfortunately if you wanted to redesign that, it would carry a looot of new decisions, and a lot of extra work... which reminds me of why pox 2 sounded like an impossible project ;)
     
    Xiven and Sokolov like this.
  4. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    Well...

    So heres my opinion on attracting more players.

    Pox should of been focused on slowing the bleed and improving the game for those of us that remained.

    By adding features and creating a solid game, you cultivate the community which is how niche titles grow.

    Pox over the last few years has been a number of attempts to bring in new players cultivating in the ps4 client, I wish that degree of effort was put into the game itself.
     
    Xirone likes this.
  5. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Pox actually did focus on the core for most of its lifetime and there were largely just 2 events (Facebook client/revamp) and PS4 client that you could say "yes, that was mostly for new players."

    And the new client was supposed to be better for everyone with Sony paying for its development so it kind of counts as both really - DOG really didn't have the money to do it on their own and the old client had a lot of its own issues that wasn't easily fixed (such as the sound bugs).

    Of course, getting more players is one of the #1 player requests so...

    Anyway, if you actually think about all the features/changes over the years, most of them was for the existing playerbase (for better or for worse).
    • Boxes (better rates etc.)
    • Avatars
    • Tournaments (retention)
    • Drafts (retention)
    • 2v2 (probably a little of both)
    • Drums of War (retention)
    • Various game modes over the years (King of the Hill, Highlander)
    • Premium Accounts (more of a money thing)
    • Single Rune Store (more of a money thing)
    • New Maps
    • Achievements/Quests
    • Adjustments for a more Free to Play model such as Forging
    • Balance changes (pretty much all balance changes only affect the core, new players don't know one way or another)
    • Terrain generation visual improvements
    • EXPANSIONS
    • Map visual effects (DOG)
    • Map updates (DOG)
    I have to assume that if Pox never did anything for new players, you'd be saying, "They should have focused on getting more players to the game. You can't expect a game to survive by bleeding the core forever."
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2018
    Sealer0 likes this.
  6. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    Not really a feature, QOL changes
    - Boxes (better rates etc.)
    - map visual effects

    Pre original soe buy out
    - Avatars
    - Tournaments (retention)
    - Drafts (retention)
    - 2v2 (probably a little of both)
    - Drums of War (retention)
    - Various game modes over the years (King of the Hill, Highlander)
    - Premium Accounts (more of a money thing)
    - Single Rune Store (more of a money thing)
    - New Maps
    - Balance changes (balance effects all players for better or worse, though i'll admit in different ways, also it's a QOL thing but meh)

    - Terrain generation visual improvements
    - expansions
    - map updates

    Post dog:
    - New Maps*
    - Achievements/Quests
    - Adjustments for a more Free to Play model such as Forging
    - Balance changes (balance effects all players for better or worse, though i'll admit in different ways)
    - Terrain generation visual improvements
    - expansions ΔΊ

    *was any new art for maps made? Don't remember if dog actually created any fresh new maps.

    Lost by/after Dog
    - Tournaments
    - Drafts
    - single rune store
    - various game modes
    - premium accounts
    - drums of war
    - expansions
    - chat


    The new experience and modes of play sure seems heavily weighted to pre dog era to me and i'll give all the credit in the world to the original team they were pumping out features left and right but that was 9 or so years ago
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2018
  7. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Single Rune Store was removed by SOE almost immediately after acquisition.

    Tournaments and Drafts were tied to the SOE fulfillment channel, thus when transferred to DOG they no longer worked. Not exactly DOG's fault.

    Various Game Modes: Like what? There hasn't been any additions or remove of other game modes in many years, as far as I know.

    Premium Accounts: This was removed long before DOG - those were gone when Avatars came in.

    Drums of War: Still exists.

    Expansions: They released multiple expansions.

    Chat: Chat still works, there are issues with it, but it wasn't removed on purpose.

    So your list of "lost by/after DOG" is basically 100% fabrication.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2018
  8. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Several maps had their visuals updated and some new map VFX was added for other maps.
     
  9. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    I think it counts, it's stuff that takes development time that wasn't devoted to new players.

    Also, under DOG (mostly pushed by me), there were a ton of bug fixes. I personally fixed at least 200 bugs. And ultimately that's going to impact existing players far more than new ones.

    Either way, point is, Pox's feature list over the years, and under DOG, has been largely towards retaining existing players and making the experience better for existing players. They may not have succeeded to keep the game alive, but it would have been shut down by SOE anyway. And accusations that DOG only spent time on new player features, along with the idea that if only someone had worked on existing player features the game would grow is a bit misleading.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2018
  10. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    The lists were split up by pre soe era and after soe era.

    Guess "by dog" was misleading and wasn't my intention i meant by the time dog took over AND during dog era.

    Anyway for the two comments about chat and drums well drums.

    Where do i go to see whos winning drums of war right now and who/when was the last winners.

    As for chat go try to talk to anyone in game...see how that goes.

    As for expansions it will be soon 2 years since the last expansion, i don't believe the game has been dead for longer then 9 months so expansions ended during dogs era, and no midterms don't count since the comment was expansions and i meant that literally

    If they had been releasing expansions regularly up till the moment support for pox had ended i would not of put expansions on that list
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2018
  11. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    To bring it back to the original comment you replied to my comment was they should of focused on content(i.e features) for the player base rather than trying to bring in new players.

    So as you said yourself it's been years since a new game mode was added, the main efforts to point to outside of balance changes by dog are all things to simplify and open up accessibility for new players, and the magnum opus of the dog era is a crippled client designed for console players rather then the main pc user base, finnally while building this client the expansions (the main thing being released to the core players that could be considered new content) ends.
     
    Last edited: Jul 22, 2018
  12. Fentum

    Fentum I need me some PIE!

    Try an old game called Combat Mission.
     
  13. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    That also reminds of me of Metal Marines.

    Also, Frozen Synapse.
     
  14. Varthas

    Varthas I need me some PIE!

    Well 8 dwarves on release as you say, that makes plenty of room for expansions without splits.

    And if making factions themselves was fairly large because it touched every rune in the database, then you kinda had the same all over again with splits and how split bonus had to affect every rune in the database?

    I think 8 factions as Pox had was brilliant because i thought there would not be a need to make a messy bowl with splits, and i was kinda sure if splits where added they where separated to Prot or Wrath only.

    Some said the urge for complexity was important, but back when the game was much simpler it was a blast playing against or watching players like kthx or tinydragon, especialy kthx with his kf deck wich in normal circuimstances where quite weak, yet kthx pulled out these amasing games and victories with what he had, and when he did it it was much easier to recognise the skills needed to pull it off, compared to now with a almost endless mess of runes and abilites.
     
  15. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    I am super confused. You still seem to think Splits was added later.

    But it's the reverse, FACTIONS was added later.

    When the game first launched, there were NO FACTIONS at all. You played anything you wanted in a mixed deck.

    Then they added the concept of factions along with bonuses for playing lots of the same faction runes together - either 10 or 20. The concept of a "split" wasn't really a thing then, you were just rewarded for using more of the same faction.

    In other words, "splits" was added at the same time as factions was - they never existed without the other.

    I feel like we have gone over this multiple times, so I don't understand why you still seem to think splits was something that got added later.

    ~

    In any case, adding factions meant every rune needed a new field and with a "Faction" value - a field that did not originally existed so it touched every rune to add - it also meant adding new Shrines and faction icons/art, etc, as well as updating the rune manager and rune lists to understand and filter for factions, etc.

    Splits is not a rune specific concept, and therefore did not necessitate any extra work on runes to support.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2018
    Sealer0 likes this.
  16. darklord48

    darklord48 Forum Royalty

    @Sokolov do I have the timeline right?
    Alpha
    All runes exist in a single pool. Factions do not exist. All BGs are created from any 20 runes that exist.

    Beta
    6 factions created. All runes updated to assign one of the 6 factions. Bonuses created for playing 10 or 20 runes from the same faction.

    Release
    6 factions. BGs created from any 20 runes. Bonuses for BGs with 10 runes of the same faction. The other 10 can still be any combination of factions, but if the other 10 are all the same faction you get another bonus. Bonus for using 20 runes from one faction is just the 10 rune bonus twice.

    1st Expansion - Savage Tundra created
    7 factions. BGs created from any 20 runes. Bonuses for BGs with 10 runes of the same faction. The other 10 can still be any combination of factions, but if the other 10 are all the same faction you get another bonus. Bonus for using 20 runes from one faction is just the 10 rune bonus twice.

    2nd Expansion - Shattered Peaks created
    8 factions. BGs created from any 20 runes. Bonuses for BGs with 10 runes of the same faction. The other 10 can still be any combination of factions, but if the other 10 are all the same faction you get another bonus. Bonus for using 20 runes from one faction is just the 10 rune bonus twice.

    3rd Expansion - Drums of War
    8 factions. BGs created from 10 runes from one faction and 10 runes from another, or 20 runes from the same faction. Bonus for using 20 runes from one faction is just the 10 rune bonus twice.

    What I'm not sure about is when the bonuses for full faction were increased to be more than twice the 10 rune bonus. I also don't remember which expansion we went from 20 to 30, or which expansion introduced font bonuses.

    Shrines, while having a different appearance, were identical until avatars were released.
     
  17. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Yea, you are more or less correct. There's the matter of the filter, which we are currently presuming to have been added somewhere between Release (or on Release) and Drums of War.

    The faction bonuses were relatively unchanged for most of Pox's life and was generally always 2x, until the SPD change which made KF not be 2x, etc.
     
  18. dbouya

    dbouya I need me some PIE!

    I fondly remember beta/release where banish banish nora drain worked and won every game, and draksar archer was the best combat unit in the game and everyone used it. That's 3factions right there, top meta on release was pure circus 20 runes. Then faction bonuses came out, and really everyone played circus or 20SL runes because 60% or whatever it was? reduced damage was super OP. Then circus was removed from ranked play, then SL FF bonus was nerfed somewhat (around the time defense itself was reworked entirely and rune customization was removed by sony).

    One thing I liked about the original game was the customizable stats of every rune. Yes, sony removed it because it prevented them from ever designing new runes similar to old runes, but it might be a good way to hide deckbuilding and achieve sokolov's theoretically poxnora 2 design goal of getting players into games faster. Instead of releasing tons of runes, release less, make starter decks playable, give players who want to dive into the details of deckbuilding achieve that via stat customization? Not sure how the business model would work in this case, but I think the key to any TCG business model now is to have a good arena mode. aka a good draft mode. arena/draft is what makes the big money IMO for hearthstone/MTGO/what wotc hopes mtgarena will be good at. A good fast paced draft mode is what makes players want to spend money on things, and keeps veterans coming back.

    Original unit design for poxnora would actually work quite well in arena, in some sort of hearthstone arena style poxnora2 game, you could lock all runes so that they couldn't be customized, making it faster paced, then when those same runes are "owned" for playing "regular" games you could customize them. Yes, this might result in designing 10 times fewer runes to avoid overlap, but, I think that spending 10times less on art (or having art that's ten times better) is a worthwhile trade for making the "design" of each unit 10times more complex. The highly customizable nature of the original design for poxnora may have hamstrung design, but it also let players update their own out of date runes for the meta, if a new expansion comes out and the new meta is "faster" or "slower" you could redesign your own runes from previous expansions (at least somewhat) to keep pace. Then again, maybe having a "standard" aka "recent" ruleset for magic and hearthstone... which forces players to stop using "old" cards and buy new cards might be the key to profit, and that's something poxnora never managed to do, I think largely because the playerbase was never large enough to risk fragmenting it via "formats". I think with smaller maps, and much much smaller runedocks something like this might work. It wouldn't let you include every answer under the moon in your deck, but it might mean you could morph your deck to handle the meta without having to constantly buy new runes, again, this seems like a bad way to make money, but IMO poxnora's problem wasn't profit per player, it was playerbase size.


    edit: oh also, hey @Sokolov what project by @Capitulator are you talking about? got a link? I've never heard of it myself...
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2018
  19. EternalSeito

    EternalSeito The King of Potatoes

    Wow all this is just so hard to take in. I'm sorry I cannot support Pox 2.0 with money. However, if you guys ever need an extra working hand I'll do anything to help! I do not have any experience in game development though, so I'm not really sure how I'd be useful. But I come from an engineering background so I should be able to pick things up if someone is there to guide me.

    And it goes without saying, I'm free lol
     
  20. Cinder405

    Cinder405 I need me some PIE!

    *Sips on Coffee**

    Wow great thread. Very good ideas and discussions. If you all dont mind I have a couplw of ideas of my own that I would like to get feedback/discuss.

    @Sokolov Mentioned that in a spinoff a focus area would be to try make sure games last between 15 to 30 minutes.

    What if we split the role of the current font. The current font renamed to something like Reinforcement Zone. This Zone would only be used for deployment of champions. It could still be contested by the enemy to prevent deployment/bonuses/field advantage.

    The Nora would be generated mostly by your Shrine/Stronghold. So transfiguring would be a big hit to your Nora Gen still.

    Also via Nora
    Wells/Springs/Mines/Ponds/Fountains located in different areas of the map. The Zones have a capture zone of 1 square. Champions would need to capture them in order for extra Nora to be produced, do not serve as deployment zones, do not have spell presence, do not give bonuses and serve as objectives.

    The traditional way to win is to destroy the opponents Shrine. But now those Nora Zones are another way to win because if you control more of them than your opponent at the 30 minute mark of the match you win. (After all it is a Nora War)

    This would help stop p)ayers from camping at midfont with their champions and stalling and forces them to pay attention to their Nora Zones that could be captured by their opponent.

    Now before anyone says anyyhing like " Well if you hold more Nora Zones than your opponent, you should probably be winning anyway." The Nora Generation for the new Nora Zones could be lowered from 12 to like 4 or somethinfg since there will be more of them.


    What do you guys thinks about this?
     

Share This Page