yeah, that was lacking :-\
Its a sad day when drama is perceived to be more important than intelligent content.

DRAMA! SHOCK! AWE? Maybe... Tune in again next millenium for the sequel to Duke Nukem:Forever: Duke Nukem: Never!

Edit & p.s.: The relics in aoe2 could be seen as random items. HAH! >:]

no, the ones in AoM were items. the ones in AoK were just a secondary source of gold.

No Nos please. I hate people starting a thread to say no about something.
The mod manager is likely to present options to turn these things off. now stop whining.

It's a good discussion, but I think I will stay with my opinion. I will make a prediction: if they implement an item system, it will be awkward and contribute either too little or too much to the balance of the game. I hope someone is able to come back in a year and tell me I was wrong .

What I don't get: Why items? There is a techtree planned that pretty much serves the same purpose, it increases unit stats and gives new functionalities to units. I think items, as they were presented in the latest video blog, seem redundant.

The only real difference is that item drops add a random element to the game and I don't consider that an improvement.

tech tree is a fixed upgrade path, whereas items provide the user with a choice to choose what part of their army they want to tweak immediately, sort of like General's stars with which you have to choose what units or abilities you want in the current game. This is only my guess, no idea what gpg/ct is planning.

I agree that creeps/items are a poor choice for a competitive RTS. Im not saying its impossible to make it work, but given GPGs limited resources to spend on balance, I'd say that its not worth it.

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Of course, KnC will probably have an extensive RPG style campaign, and maybe some sort of meta-map style skirmish mode. And creeps/items are important to flesh out those modes. So Im fine with those in the actual game.

But, please leave those things out of the main competitive formats (ladders, tournaments, etc.) It can be an optional thing for casual matches. Dont get tempted to throw it into multi just because you've got it in singleplayer.

Its just not worth the time required to balance it. Save yourself the headache, GPG!

(SC2 and DOW2 give us valuable lessons, their singleplayer had a lot of stuff that isnt present in multi)

Although I do agree that items (in the traditional sense) might ruin competitive multi-player games, they may be interesting in single-player and casual games. As such, there should definitely be an option to turn items off for multi-player games.



Also, this seems to be a very unlikely scenario. So 15,000 gold was spent for a really good sword that your king will equip. The other player may not have enough gold to afford that same sword, but he could spend the 14,500 gold on more units, or an uber shield, and counter that sword.

In your scenario, you had one player spend 15,000 gold on something, and the other player spend nothing. Of course the first player is going to win. It's also called being a bad player (in the second player's case)

Again, items/creeps off should be the default and standard. Allow an option to turn them on in custom matches.

This! I'm fine with items in single player or as option in custom games. They should not be standard in any competitive games though.

As true as this is, it's unlikely that either player will know what the other is doing with their gold. If both players believe they can get the awesome item, the game becomes essentially a coin flip. Yet if items aren't powerful enough to turn the tide of the game, then they might as well not be implemented. They might work ok if there are many small items with cumulative effects, but super powerful items will be disastrous.

Honestly, AngryZealot, your "Epic Sword" argument applies to just about any powerful unit or game ender, including what's already in FA/Supcom 2. It's like arguing "the guy who gets their Galactic Colossus in FA 2 minutes earlier than the other guy wins, we need to get rid of the GC!".

Most arguments you can apply to your situation also applies to the one I proposed, so I don't see the point, unless you also don't agree with my situation.

I'm beginning to understand _CYAN's frustration...

No, it's not the same as a GC because a GC doesn't randomly drop after you killed some creeps! If your opponent has a GC he has payed a lot of resources for it and he certainly didn't get it by accident.

Imagine that capturing neutral buildings spawned a random unit for you; would it be fine and dandy if you captured a GC?

No, you're not beginning to understand anything. In the case that we are arguing, you buy both the GC and the Uber Sword.





Yes, I do agree that there is a 'scouting' problem in that you won't know what the other player is doing. That is why I suggested (in some other thread) for the items to be clearly visible on your monarch or whoever is going to be wearing it. This way you will actually be able to figure out what they have by scouting, and it will add more incentive to scout your enemy.

Also, I doubt (or at least hope) that they won't be implementing 'super powerful' items as well. From the little example they mentioned in the last Vblog, the item (Cloak of something...) buffed up your siege unit's stats (and then also maybe only in a radius around the wearer). That doesn't sound like it'd be a game breaker.

All I'm saying is that items can be implemented in a smart way so as to avoid major balance issues.

You mean like I suggested in this thread?
viewtopic.php?f=49&t=48229



I think it would be nice if you could build certain Legendary Units only if you have captured their lair first. But it should not be random and you should still have to pay resources for them.

That is not what Eric said in the Vlog. He said creeps would drop items. Where is the buying part in that scenario?
And don't even start with shops, we don't want another Warcraft III.

That's not what we were talking about though, however if you want to go into what was said in the Vlog only, how do you equate a Cloak that buffs up your siege units' damage to a GC?

I'm tired of arguing about semantics and the obvious problems of an item system. Suggest whatever you like, screw up balance, turn KnC into a game of chance, I have more interesting stuff to do.

There's no reason to get like that. We are just having a discussion. I don't think anyone here wants it to turn into a game of chance either..

buying the sword assumes that there is some kind of shop to buy it from jessep.

creeps should be standard in any game, to give the map a sense of being alive, but whether or not they should drop items should be off by default. i.e. heard of buffalos on a large plain, hippo's on the banks of a river, birds flying around the map, etc.. Basically acting like the neutrals in supcom/fa maps with the option of making them hostile, and another option for allowing them to drop items.

on top of this, another possible direction to balance items is toput them into categories of power and rarity, ala diablo, borderlands, etc. the effects they give may be very small, such as a 2% increase in footsoldier attack, or a 5% increase in cavalry speed, which are borderline useless.

random drops in this scenario is still a bit too random and encourages the side that goes out and exterminates the creeps the earliest/fastest.

Another possible solution is to allow players to select ONE item in the lobby based on the game's options. standard being 1 white item, (up to 5 purple, for example). This entirely removes randomness, gives players information about what the others have (like knowing their faction) and more or less acts as a sub-faction option where you can fine-tune how you want to play.

One way to go is to make items specific and powerful, and make them a key resource in the game. They are placed especially on the map in fixed locations.

Eg. in one particular map you have the Trident of Sea Godness in an underwater cave guarded by deadly Leviathans. In the centre of the map there is a volcano with a dragon in it, which holds the Sword of The Slaying Swordness. In the western snowy mountains is the Bikini Of Regional Impracticality, etc etc.

Each of these items is as important as reclaiming some large placed wreck in FA - it's a key component of map control to defeat the NPC guardian and take the item, and it provides a large benefit in certain ways (which the player or faction may or may not be able to take full advantage of.)

So zero randomness, it's all "storyline" based and part of map design.

I didn't much care for experimentals either (and I don't care for legendary units), but the difference is that you know exactly when they are being built, and you can tell how far along they are. This is different than for items, where you can't tell what a person is saving for and you can't tell how much gold they have. If you scout an experimental halfway done, you can start building some defenses or siege units in time to take it down. You will have no way of knowing that your opponent is on their way to a super item until they already have it.


And this is exactly the problem. By the time they have it, it's too late to prepare. The only solution is to have items not be all that powerful.

It's not a game of chance if creeps just give gold instead of items. They said that they're going to have a shop to purchase stuff, so they should keep that and remove the random creep items. It's not a problem inherent with items; it's with the implementation. It also depends on if any item is comparable to any other item. The worthiness of the mechanic wholly lies in its implementation, so I'm not really comfortable saying it's a bad mechanic.

This item in itself will increase sales tenfold.


I think Epi has it pretty spot on. Have the items be from a store, and have creeps drop gold. makes sense to me.

That would be preferable to item drops.
The question here is: What did Eric mean when he said *enemy creeps*? Are they neutral units like in Warcraft III or was he talking about your opponents units? If they are your opponents units, would this not lead to two unit blobs in a Mexican standoff just like in SupCom2?