Pox Nora 2

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

  1. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    For me, it's less about reducing game speed for the short games, but more about making game lengths more consistently on the shorter end. Pox right now has a tendency to be either over very quickly, or stall out into a long grind. (Interestingly, Fortnite is having the same issue where their tournaments are stalling out into boring "hide fests" but regular game play is very chaotic and over fast for most people.)

    That's what this thread is about :) But fundamentally, one has to decide between DIRECT SEQUEL vs SPINOFF and while I think both directions are valid, if we want a larger player base in general that can maintain itself longer than Pox has I don't think DIRECT SEQUEL will work without significant changes.

    High level goals I think ANY new version of Pox has to solve:
    • Extreme burden of knowledge
    • Necessitating deckbuilding before you can even really play (I tried to solve this recently with the new client, but DOG couldn't get all the features in)
      • I know some people LOVE deckbuilding but I really think this overwhelms a vast majority of new players, so at the very least we need to make it so that it is less necessary/critical, especially when you first start the game
    • Highly variable game length
      • Maybe I am over valuing this issue, but I do think that not knowing if you are in for a 15 minute match or a 60 minute match when you click Play/Battle is an issue
    • Snowballing
      • I think this can be made better, but I also believe it is partly just the nature of tactical focused games
      • compared to, for example, card games like Hearthstone which, because of the nature of the gameplay, allows for answers to scale much better against developed board states
    • Split focus between combo heavy deckbuilding gameplay vs tactical champion focused gameplay
    • Dependence on large content focused expansion cycles (most games of this type now release relatively little fixed content compared to traditional TCGs but "refresh" the experience with seasonal content/ladders, etc.)
    • Leverage existing player knowledge better
      • Pox does a lot of things differently than most games, and while some of it is good because it's unique, other things, like a single resource for movement AND ability activation, is often quite unintuitive. I have watched a lot of new players learn Pox at various conventions over the years and one of the consistent frustrations/issues players have is moving all their champions and not having any AP left to activate abilities because virtually all the games in the tactical genre do not have this behavior. It's a tough one to unlearn.
    • Much better F2P flow
      • competition in the space is much fiercer now and there are certainly much better ways of dishing out content and monetizing players now
    Re: customization

    One thing I would want to try is for "customization" to happen in game, rather than out of match. Even if it was "select upgrades before deploying" I think that alone would make a lot more options viable and also create a "sideboard" type functionality without having to have a sideboard (which increases knowledge burden and complexity relative to just being able to switch upgrades before you deploy). It's actually something I wanted to have for the new client, but, like many things with the new client, time simply ran out.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2018
  2. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    As an aside, until DOG revives itself, official Pox 2 won't have any traction. Player efforts like what @Capitulator is working on may yield some fruit, however :)

    Personally, unaffiliated with DOG, I am working on a squad based rogue-like game. If anyone is interested in that we could make a new thread to discuss it :D
     
    Cinder405 and badgerale like this.
  3. darklord48

    darklord48 Forum Royalty

    I'd like to hear more about it.
     
  4. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    what if nora generation was reversed?

    just as a game of thought what if your generation started off large...like 100 nora per turn, and every turn got reduced by 5 nora.

    big things/hoards would come out early defining your early strategy, but as the game goes on those big units would become next to impossible to deploy, and come the end game(i.e your forced end state) the nora would be so low, new units would be rare.

    fluff wise nora is supposed to be a resource we are fighting over thus capturing the fonts, but in wars resources run low, thus why as the fight goes on you have less and less of it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2018
  5. badgerale

    badgerale Warchief of Wrath

    Definitely
     
  6. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Fundamentally this has problems with game pacing and feel.

    Generally speaking, you want games to ramp up, not down, in intensity and for options to open up, rather than closing.

    And from a balance perspective, this means that early win/advantages become far more dramatic (whereas resource escalation minimizes early advantages).
     
  7. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    Interesting, I always look at pox much like chess but in the game of chess as it goes on your options get more and more limited but what you do with what you have becomes more important, and early planning can pay off dividends in the game, as such you never have more potential options in chess then the very first turn of the game.

    losing a queen early in chess can often mean your defeat, but as such you put more weight on protecting it and using it wisely

    anyway you are likely right just pondering options atm.
     
  8. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Chess is a fascinating discussion and has parallels with many games, including how different pieces change in value over time.

    I'd say tho that in general, options open up as the game goes on, despite there being less material on the board.

    In particular, the "heavy" pieces like the rooks and the queen like open files and a position that's opened up, rather than early game closed positions that limit their theoretical extreme mobility and control, and the "lethality" increases, while early game mistakes/inaccuracies can be overcome more easily because they are less vital. It's also why knights lose value over time but bishops gain value.

    It's also why the first 20 moves of most high level games are "theory" because your real options are actually very limited (despite having more technical options, most are actually bad moves), while when the game opens up in the middle game you start seeing a lot more variety because the amount of options that look viable increases dramatically.

    In general, the presence of pawns restrict pieces and limit options - and as they are captured your pieces have more options.

    Note that most possible moves are not considered playable even at the start of the game and almost all games open with e4 or d4 for a reason:

    Capture.PNG
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2018
  9. Woffleet

    Woffleet I need me some PIE!

    Thinking about customization perhaps a combination of a system similar to void rim's and the one @Sokolov outlined above would work well. Where you come into a battle with base champs and a plethora of items to customize them with. Then you apply those items to the champion before you deploy it. That way customizability is neatly added into the game. In case people don't know or remember Void Rim's customization system was based on class and and also applied some sort of formula to modulate the changes you could make to the base champion designs in case concerns are had over the balancing nightmare such a system could create.
     
  10. darklord48

    darklord48 Forum Royalty

    I really like the select options upon deployment as an alternative to a sideboard. Then you can run champs that have a Hunter ability, but only select it if your opponent has a BG that Hunter is useful against.
     
  11. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    heh ya, when I said potential moves it's much to your point of "theory" as in reality and at that point they have nothing more then 18 movement options on the opening play.

    I suspect if we created a similar chart for opening deploys in poxnora, despite having numerous options on any given map, you would see a vast majority of openings be the same 2 or 3 locations modified slightly by the speed and movement options of their initial pull.

    that said chess opens up while the options for pieces to move reduce, that would be an interesting environment to recreate for pox, in the first turn I imagine players would have a few opening strats, single deploy vs double deploy depending on map layout, maybe SP can hit a triple deploy much to the same effect we have now, but those choices would weigh heavily on the rest of the game as the nora gain declines.

    you can't argue that it wouldn't speed up games, with an essential soft limit on turns and a final unavoidable win state based around font control, you won't be able to avoid a fight for long.
     
    Last edited: Jul 16, 2018
  12. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    me too, those hunter type units, and specialized runes, like anti-ghost, and anti-equipment, and anti-stealth gain significant viability this way.
     
  13. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    There was actually an OLD tactics game that started with a lot of units on the grid board like chess. I know a bunch of Pox players played that.
     
  14. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Yea, I really like it because it's a more "tactics" based approach to the sideboard mechanic because you are sideboarding against specific situations, rather than the deck as in traditional sideboarding.
     
  15. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

    could you pick various unit types for the game? I may remember it but if it is we're talking like back in high school for me.

    my memory of it is very vague if it is the same game, but I remember having archers and knights and stuff.
     
  16. Thbigchief

    Thbigchief I need me some PIE!

    - Yeah like mentioned and beat to death. Game has to have a more predictable game length. 15-30 mins would be ideal. And simply "assimilate" some more successful features from other games and keep the white meat of poxnora.

    1) Burden of knowledge is insane as we know, so trim the decks to 10-15 runes *GASP* I hate even typing it. And make dedicated slots. X slots for champs, Y for spells, equips and relics share Z slots. Then W slots for wildcard slots. Then "neutral" runes can be shuffled into each players deck from that rotation to round out decks and add some accessibility to newer players.

    2) I like the idea of removing defense and simplifying combat in general. Slow, normal and fast champs. Slow can ALL move X spaces or Y spaces and attack. Fast can ALL move X+2 spaces or Y+2 and attack etc. Could even consider removing traditional hps in favor of a "warcharge" mechanic of successful hits to kill instead of damage vs hps.

    3) Make upgrades not need to be leveled up to use. In fact make them all "quest" mechanics in game to promote action. Quest : Kill unlocks their upgrade or upgrades. Quest : heal, Quest : runner etc. Or escalate mechanic to simulate experience in battle for non-combatants to get upgrades.

    4) Nora ugh.. resource and font capturing is such a staple of the game that I don't even know what to suggest as an alternative. Perhaps just a tweaking of the resource instead of again tons of Nora boil it down to things cost 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 nora. You start with 1 nora per turn and a font artificially increases it by 1 and over time you generate more per turn in addition to fonts you control. Of course an overhaul of champ costs but in the end a simplification.

    p.s. Dream request... I would love a battle chess animation for killing blows :D zoom in and have Zedin impale a goblin for the kill.
     
  17. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Sync kills (as they are called by devs) would be awesome.
     
    Thbigchief likes this.
  18. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Yea, it was very "grey."

    I think the board may have been about 8x8 and you started with 8 units or so?
     
  19. calisk

    calisk I need me some PIE!

  20. Sokolov

    Sokolov The One True Cactuar Octopi

    Yes, that's the one. I don't really remember enough about it to talk about it, except that it had lots of pieces on the board to start.
     

Share This Page