PSCD 0.7.3 - Alpha preview demo!

A VN/CCG hybrid game with all romance combos https://www.winterwolves.com/pscd.htm
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Franka
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Re: PSCD 0.7.3 - Alpha preview demo!

Post by Franka »

Observation: Mission 2 and 3 shouldn’t have HP on the foe (and nothing happens if you reduce them to 0 anyway). Mission 4 probably should, so it can possibly be won on normal/hard. Mission 2 has more cards in your deck than there are turns.

Cards found in tutorials:

Cannon Turret: It’s a fair enough card, walls that hit back are good, and this one is priced fairly.

Grenade: This is the kind of card we should have more of in the tutorials, I think. Damage cards that don’t cost us our units. This allows for more strategizing. I’m not convinced this should cost a credit, but that’s tweaking.

Grenadier Unit: Very good card, and doesn’t cost credits. He’s like two cards rolled into one. He might be too good, but he does cost 3 resources.

Flamethrower Turret: Wayy overpriced, but I guess this one also deals 1 or 2 damage to an organic every turn? It’s still too expensive for a wall with 5 life.

Sharpshooter: This guy doesn’t know what to be. An attack unit with 3 attack, or a sniper unit who does 1 damage every turn? Except he only works on organics. That’s not good enough to keep him invisible with all the matrick we face in the tutorials. This is also one of the reasons why Diana just isn’t as good as Alex, Veteran is more durable and reliable from the get go. In my opinion, Sharpshooter should be able to hit matrick and robots as well (armor piercing ammo). At least I see now that Diana is supposed to have him in her starting cards, so we can upgrade him through side missions.

Alien Scavenger: I think it’s probably an ok unit. Maybe it costs a bit much for a unit that will probably die fast. Are credits a random resource? It looks like they are. I’m not sure they should be.

Robo-Ant: He’s expensive (any unit costing 2 of the same resource is), but he’s also strong. Fair enough.

Assault Infantry: This is how a Charge unit should look. Expensive, frail, high attack. Compare this to Assault Biker, and you’ll see that card was just too strong.

Hold Position: Getting to draw a card to replace it at once is pretty damn good.

Assault: This is even better than Hold Position, and instantly replaced again means it’s silly good.

Missile Turret: I see now. This is a good card. I don’t know about it being a wall. On the one hand, it means it can’t attack, which is good. On the other it means the enemy will target and kill it, which makes it less useful than it could be. I kind of wish this was not a wall, but couldn’t attack.

Alpha Team: These guys are clearly too cheap. Compare these to Matrick Mercenary, they have the same stats, charge and a positive ability, but cost the same number of resources.

Marksman Team: I like the idea. Of course they’re useless in tutorial mission 5 because they’re one of the last cards you draw, where they should be one of the first or maybe in the middle. Like you say though, put a limit on their ATK, or they'll just sit around and OHKO the opponent when they're ready.

Barrage: Uh, no. Compare this to Grenade. This is MUCH too strong, dealing 2 damage to everything. I think reduce the damage to 1 and either increase the cost, or lower the cost of Grenade. I see in your design doc that it's supposed to deal 1 damage, so you made a snafu, it's doing 2 damage.

Snipe: This seems more reasonable, also compared to Grenade.

When I look at your design doc, I think you should exchange some of their cards between them. Putting almost everything that's about durability and AoE on Alex, and almost everything that's about high damage and single target destruction on Diana creates a strong imbalance between the two. I can't tell which is more powerful, Alex staying alive forever, or Diana killing the opponent in 2 turns. :lol: Seriously, I think Alex will clear the board of opponent units easily, while Diana will struggle to keep anything in play (that's already how it is with Veteran vs. Sharpshooter). But I guess we'll see, the change to Take Cover should help.

(Isn't Kamikaze just a little bit too strong? How about destroy friendly unit to destroy an opponent unit?)
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Anima_
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Re: PSCD 0.7.3 - Alpha preview demo!

Post by Anima_ »

I'm only making implementation comments, since I don't really have anything to do with balancing.
Franka wrote: Flamethrower Turret: Wayy overpriced, but I guess this one also deals 1 or 2 damage to an organic every turn? It’s still too expensive for a wall with 5 life.
No it has no ability. It only does double damage to organic units. Oh and fun fact. It's actually the first real card I made during development. The other two test cards Redshirt and Space Rat are not in the game.
Alien Scavenger: I think it’s probably an ok unit. Maybe it costs a bit much for a unit that will probably die fast. Are credits a random resource? It looks like they are. I’m not sure they should be.
No credits aren't random. But the amount of credits is card dependant.
Missile Turret: I see now. This is a good card. I don’t know about it being a wall. On the one hand, it means it can’t attack, which is good. On the other it means the enemy will target and kill it, which makes it less useful than it could be. I kind of wish this was not a wall, but couldn’t attack.
Actually that's possible. The trait that prevents units from attacking is separate from the wall trait. So you'll just have to convince Jack...
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jack1974
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Re: PSCD 0.7.3 - Alpha preview demo!

Post by jack1974 »

Franka wrote:Observation: Mission 2 and 3 shouldn’t have HP on the foe (and nothing happens if you reduce them to 0 anyway). Mission 4 probably should, so it can possibly be won on normal/hard. Mission 2 has more cards in your deck than there are turns.
For the 4th, I'll replay/rebalance it once I have done the card changes :)
Franka wrote:Flamethrower Turret: Wayy overpriced, but I guess this one also deals 1 or 2 damage to an organic every turn? It’s still too expensive for a wall with 5 life.
No doesn't do damage each turn, but I plan to move a bit the towers around, to make it a lower tier card.
Franka wrote:Sharpshooter should be able to hit matrick and robots as well (armor piercing ammo).
All right, since is an early card makes sense. Will do that. Won't damage walls / buildings though :)
Franka wrote:Alien Scavenger: I think it’s probably an ok unit. Maybe it costs a bit much for a unit that will probably die fast. Are credits a random resource? It looks like they are. I’m not sure they should be.
Originally weren't but was a bit problematic to make it work with the engine, so I left it.
Franka wrote:Assault Infantry: This is how a Charge unit should look. Expensive, frail, high attack. Compare this to Assault Biker, and you’ll see that card was just too strong.
I'm thinking to make the biker 2/2 or even 2/1, since can bypass walls should still be powerful, but not as it is now.
Franka wrote:Missile Turret: I see now. This is a good card. I don’t know about it being a wall. On the one hand, it means it can’t attack, which is good. On the other it means the enemy will target and kill it, which makes it less useful than it could be. I kind of wish this was not a wall, but couldn’t attack.
It could be possible but maybe confusing since all other turrets are walls. Maybe I can make some turrets not wall and see if it's not too confusing. Or a solution would be later in the game to just summon more than 1 wall :wink:
Franka wrote:Alpha Team: These guys are clearly too cheap. Compare these to Matrick Mercenary, they have the same stats, charge and a positive ability, but cost the same number of resources.
Will reduce their power a bit, or increase costs slightly :) Probably no charge would make them already less powerful.
Franka wrote:Barrage: Uh, no. Compare this to Grenade. This is MUCH too strong, dealing 2 damage to everything. I think reduce the damage to 1 and either increase the cost, or lower the cost of Grenade. I see in your design doc that it's supposed to deal 1 damage, so you made a snafu, it's doing 2 damage.
Yes I moved that from higher tiers so probably forgot to change the values! 2 dmg is too strong though in the design is missing that they hit VISIBLE units only (though is probably not so common).
Franka wrote:When I look at your design doc, I think you should exchange some of their cards between them. Putting almost everything that's about durability and AoE on Alex, and almost everything that's about high damage and single target destruction on Diana creates a strong imbalance between the two. I can't tell which is more powerful, Alex staying alive forever, or Diana killing the opponent in 2 turns. :lol: Seriously, I think Alex will clear the board of opponent units easily, while Diana will struggle to keep anything in play (that's already how it is with Veteran vs. Sharpshooter). But I guess we'll see, the change to Take Cover should help.
I wanted to make them different on purpose, so people could play as the other sibling not just for the romances, but also because of the different playstyle :) I will swap some cards, but I don't think will make them even as you say. Since in any case there are still the neutral card and the other hero cards to pick, so it's not like Alex/Diana will only play alone. Probably both will have some preferred/better partners based on the cards, that's sure :)
Franka wrote: (Isn't Kamikaze just a little bit too strong? How about destroy friendly unit to destroy an opponent unit?)
I'm thinking to change it so that deals the damage to ALL units :lol: so even allied. It would be a sort of all or nothing/last resort card, but could save players from some bad situations and could be funny.
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Franka
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Re: PSCD 0.7.3 - Alpha preview demo!

Post by Franka »

jack1974 wrote:
Franka wrote:When I look at your design doc, I think you should exchange some of their cards between them. Putting almost everything that's about durability and AoE on Alex, and almost everything that's about high damage and single target destruction on Diana creates a strong imbalance between the two. I can't tell which is more powerful, Alex staying alive forever, or Diana killing the opponent in 2 turns. :lol: Seriously, I think Alex will clear the board of opponent units easily, while Diana will struggle to keep anything in play (that's already how it is with Veteran vs. Sharpshooter). But I guess we'll see, the change to Take Cover should help.
I wanted to make them different on purpose, so people could play as the other sibling not just for the romances, but also because of the different playstyle :) I will swap some cards, but I don't think will make them even as you say. Since in any case there are still the neutral card and the other hero cards to pick, so it's not like Alex/Diana will only play alone. Probably both will have some preferred/better partners based on the cards, that's sure :)
I understand where you're coming from, I wouldn't want them to be perfectly even, and they never will be as long as the cards are different, they're just very lopsided in what they do right now. I'll reserve judgment until we get more cards and game to play with. :) Testing shall commence!
jack1974 wrote:I'm thinking to change it so that deals the damage to ALL units :lol: so even allied. It would be a sort of all or nothing/last resort card, but could save players from some bad situations and could be funny.
That could be fairly useful. You use it to clear the board, then throw down a big guy, Rally and Splat! I'm not sure Alex really needs another AoE damage card though... this would actually be more useful for Diana, whose units are sure to die as well, and she doesn't have Rally, so can't abuse it (as much). Alex will just have a handful of damaged units left since his units have higher life than attack.
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Franka
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Re: PSCD 0.7.3 - Alpha preview demo!

Post by Franka »

Just to talk about something other than gameplay balancing, here are a few typos:

"You do know your presence is here is entirely voluntary, right?"
- Too many is'es. :p ...presence here is

"It seems one of the repair bots cross-wired the ships navigation controls"
- ship's

"As interesting as this line of thought maybe,"
- may be

"Perhaps changing our armanent?"
- armament

"This is one of the rare cases where both Alex and Diana will take part into a fight together!"
- take part in a fight
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Re: PSCD 0.7.3 - Alpha preview demo!

Post by jack1974 »

Thanks, I think maybe will open another thread for typos/writing related stuff. Anyway tomorrow will resume working on the next update with all the various changes planned and several tests to make! I'll also add stars after each main plot mission, so Easy mode will be even easier (and I'll need to make Hard missions tougher).
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