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Thread: Wetlands

  
  1. #21

    Default Re: Thug of War | The Death Clock

    It seems you took way too much time, causing you to spend gold on paydays, and perhaps even losing trained creature(=gold) against the late game parties. The level has enough gold to win, without having to use the workshop for gold. But you need to press on a bit, train wisely, and don't lose too many creatures.
    When you face the heroes, you should have a very high level reaper. The troll you have since the beginning and can be trained plenty, the mistress comes with a few levels, and the bile demon you can capture when he is level 9.

    But I've made this map to be able to use a lot of tricks, and knowledge of the game helps out a lot. For example being able to backdoor the samurai, having creatures gain sleep experience, getting the Warlock early but also knowing you could have sacrificed the enemy bile demon without converting it. Unfortunately, you seem to have a bit more trouble with the map than most people here, and this is the easiest of the bunch I did.
    Perhaps this just isn't your style, you could try Desperation, which I personally think is a bit more challenging, but is very straight forward: Kill the 3 rival keepers.

  2. #22

    Default Re: Thug of War | The Death Clock

    Moving quickly seems to be a recurring element of your maps! I suppose I'm a bit out of my depth, being used to slow plays / building up perfect dungeons and armies in the original game. I haven't played a great deal of custom levels/campaigns. What I find troubling is progressing too quickly and making a mistake that costs the game. For instance, you've laid out basic walkthroughs, but without them, figuring out the correct order in which to progress through the map can become a case of trial and error. Knocking down the wrong door, triggering an event you weren't ready for, opening a pathway you should've left unexplored for the time being - all of these mistakes can easily be stumbled into on an initial playthrough.

    Come to think of it, my main problem is with resource management. Give me a map with a scarcity of gold and it's gonna take me a while to work through it.

    Edit: I beat it
    Last edited by Gwame; September 24th, 2016 at 03:48.

  3. #23

    Default Re: Thug of War | The Death Clock

    Your entire post, Gwame, is something to be carefully considered whenever making a map. Most people aren't interested in overly restricted, punishing or puzzle-type maps (such as Post-Ancient Keeper) or maps that feature really radical changes (Quest for the Hero) and most people are accustomed to the slow play style of building up a dungeon, levelling troops and then death-blobbing an enemy keeper or a hero packet. If you change the formula too much, people are just going to get frustrated and not play the maps. It's honestly really hard to strike a balance between creativity and familiarity; capturing what was originally gripping about Dungeon Keeper while also not being some groundhog day "well i've seen this 1000 times before" type of experience.

    That said, it's a shame Mark isn't actively making maps any more just because he is butthurt about people not playing them. Perhaps your enthusiasm in playing his maps will convince him to make some more.

  4. #24

    Default Re: Thug of War | The Death Clock

    Quote Originally Posted by Gwame View Post
    Moving quickly seems to be a recurring element of your maps! I suppose I'm a bit out of my depth, being used to slow plays / building up perfect dungeons and armies in the original game. I haven't played a great deal of custom levels/campaigns. What I find troubling is progressing too quickly and making a mistake that costs the game. For instance, you've laid out basic walkthroughs, but without them, figuring out the correct order in which to progress through the map can become a case of trial and error. Knocking down the wrong door, triggering an event you weren't ready for, opening a pathway you should've left unexplored for the time being - all of these mistakes can easily be stumbled into on an initial playthrough.

    Come to think of it, my main problem is with resource management. Give me a map with a scarcity of gold and it's gonna take me a while to work through it.

    Edit: I beat it
    Congratulations.
    Yes, I'd like to put some pressure on the players, I dislike maps where you can simply keep frameskip enabled until all your creatures are lvl 10 and you can just roll over all opposition or capture all heroes.
    And well, I've tried to avoid trial and error gameplay. On my maps there aren't any hero pockets you can dig into that can just kill you. Of course, when as a player you are too slow or too overconfident you can die, but I'd like to make sure this is always preventable. Strong opposition when not scripted is always indicated, for example locked behind a door, and even then it should never be too much for the player to handle at the time if he played well reaching this point. Wetlands only has a single hidden hero party, and if you dig towards it you'll first hit the reinforced wall warning you. On 'Death Clock' when you find strong heroes they are on a guard post and won't chase after you. And the 'mini walkthrough' I gave you is what I believe is the easiest order, but you can play in whatever method that suits you. On wetlands you could free the warlocks early on with a ghost, and possess it and snipe down the samurai and get the mistress first. And like mentioned, when you decide to take down blue first, I've provided backups to still be able to complete the map. Still, I would consider this a player error, as every objective-message on the map says you need to get a horned reaper, and I want the player to decide for himself that he wants to capture a bile demon for his temple recipe and that that would be silly to do without a prison.

    And indeed, I figured that gold was your biggest problem. So if you're going to try another one, try 'Desperation' as that has no gold shortage at all.

    Quote Originally Posted by Woudo View Post
    Your entire post, Gwame, is something to be carefully considered whenever making a map. Most people aren't interested in overly restricted, punishing or puzzle-type maps (such as Post-Ancient Keeper) or maps that feature really radical changes (Quest for the Hero) and most people are accustomed to the slow play style of building up a dungeon, levelling troops and then death-blobbing an enemy keeper or a hero packet. If you change the formula too much, people are just going to get frustrated and not play the maps. It's honestly really hard to strike a balance between creativity and familiarity; capturing what was originally gripping about Dungeon Keeper while also not being some groundhog day "well i've seen this 1000 times before" type of experience.

    That said, it's a shame Mark isn't actively making maps any more just because he is butthurt about people not playing them. Perhaps your enthusiasm in playing his maps will convince him to make some more.
    While it is true that people are not playing custom maps, even among the few people that still visit this website, I'm not butthurt that people aren't playing mine. I simply don't enjoy making maps. I've made a few that I'd enjoy playing in the hopes that people would make more like them so I could play them, but also to showcase how some of the new functionality Mefistotelis implemented could be used. The maps not being played is a valid argument to not invest time in making them, but even if people would I think the only chance for me doing an additional map would be for a new feature to be implemented or I play a great map that inspires me somehow.

    You are right though that my maps are a bit different from the norm and that might not be everybody's cup of tea, but the 'no-pressure, infinite gold, convert all hero'-type maps are already common enough. Personally I feel that those standard maps really showcase where the game failed in its design, and I believe this is the reason bullfrog themselves hardly released any maps. I like to think though that I've introduced some challenge in the maps in a much better way than the Deeper Dungeon maps did.
    Last edited by YourMaster; September 24th, 2016 at 23:20. Reason: language

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