Really great discussion rolling here frens.
I see there to be several levers we can play with. I’ve been thinking a bit about Coderdan’s bit on the call yesterday and why they chose to have diminishing returns on the harvesters. It makes sense to me. With DR though, we need to have other mechanisms in place which strongly motivate players to upgrade, despite the lesser rate of yield.
This is what I wrote from the end of the call yesterday:
The primary point of focus ought to be discussing how we want the gameplay for the farming to play out.
The models are helpful to see the numbers, but I think it important to have a more philosophical discussion first. The way I see it is there are two major paths we could take when building the models for harvesters.
The best way forward, in my opinion, is the path which creates the most user choice and non-linear paths to victory (as they see it).
All of this, of course, is under the pretence that the numbers can be tweaked in such a way that inflation is relatively the same, regardless of which path is chosen.
Path One: diminishing returns on harvester levels as they are upgraded. This is the current format and in its state is game-breaking. However, a path with DR can also be fun if we play with some of the levers. We must ask ourselves, what limitations and scarcity can we find that force players to upgrade to continue growing?
For example, if the total qty of harvesters to be allowed to be built is limited (and even bound to the lvl of maker), then the player is forced to make a choice: upgrade the maker to get more building space or upgrade the harvesters themselves.
An advantage I see with DR harvesters is that players will be motivated to buy more land. As long as the punishment isn’t too steep with the DR (as in its current state), the choice to upgrade or buy more land becomes an important decision to make (and drives land prices up in the process)
Path Two: the harvesters become more powerful with each upgrade. This is a solution that has been proposed already. The questions to then ask are how can we make this a compelling path where the player also has to really make tough choices on how they wish to progress.
The levers I see so far from the discussion we can play with for exciting gameplay:
- The rate of yield on harvesters (diminishing or strengthening)
- The build time on harvesters
- The max qty build per parcel
– this can further be played with the maker
- Spillovers
- The cost of harvesters to build
While we’re in discussion over these topics, I think it’s important to try and look at the parcel holistically. Now that we know the spillover is massively huge in radius, we have a better idea of how things will play out.
To only adjust spillover %% would do a disservice to the other mechanisms on your land.
While we’re here, we ought to analyse the ratio of harvester/reservoir per each upgrade and make sure the costs are feasible.
The maaker, too, we should look at. In its current state, a lvl 9 maaker is incredibly expensive (~22k GHST of materials) and underwhelming. What would make a maaker juicy enough that someone would invest to build it to lvl 9? And then we bring the cost to match that premium available to those willing to make that investment.
And of course, how can GLTR really step up and shine for those players who want to really push the edge on their farming?
Apologies for the long post, but here we are.
Finally, I think it’s best to first look at the game flow without the numbers. Create the experience and how the player would respond to the environment and then once we have a compelling build, reverse engineer the numbers to fit that game.
