Master of Magic 2 Wishlist For Slitherine

[Blake00]

Hey guys,

Now that it appears we've got an official Master of Magic sequel or Remake on way (courtesy of Slitherine who've bought the rights from Atari's IP dungeon and made the announcement on their site) I've been thinking about how after all these years many of the old MoM communities have vanished and a lot of good fan 'Wish lists' have been long lost.

They've probably barely started the project yet so now is the time to get fan feature requests and wish list items in front of their faces. If the remaining fan base doesn't speak up now then god knows what sort of game we'll end up with. So now is the time to act!

Does anyone know of any Master of Magic 2 Wish lists out there that I could post on the Slitherine forums? If so please link here!!

I did some searches here at Realms and couldn't find anything other than this old can't stand list thread lol. Maybe Seravy's Caster of Magic thread and Insecticide's patch thread changes/features lists might be useful too. Some of the features Implode put in his Master of Magic HD Multiplayer remake are worth mentioning as well.

If there's nothing more then we should probably get started on a new one here ASAP lol!!

[vicwaberub]

We should make a list of DO's and DON'Ts: What is working good and what is working bad. After so much bad successors should be a discussion about the game design of MoM a good and inspiring idea.

DOs:
- a lot of content (magic, units, ... yeah!)
- fast but a lot of tactical battles (perfect to test new unit combinations)
- living worlds in the endgame (with hundreds of armys on the screen)
- best power development (from a novice to a god - from 20mana to 1000mana per turn, from a little ghost to a game changer spell)
- good magic system like MtG with game changers and global spells

[Seravy]

Well, if they read through the 1000s of pages of posts on the CoM subforum, they'll get a pretty good idea about what to/not to do to the smallest detail, otherwise, idk. MoM is a game designer's worst nightmare, obviously you need decent game balance because it's a strategy game, but you also need super powerful spells because nothing hurts a fantasy game more than underwhelming and boring magic and fantasy elements.
Unfortunately I can't provide a wish list, and in fact we better don't. 90% of the things people wish for are not viable to implement due to game balance reasons.

I can provide some generic advice though :
-Whenever you implement a feature or game mechanic, immediately implement the full AI for it. Don't use game mechanics that aren't AI friendly. The AI should be the responsibility of one person, otherwise it'll end up doing self-contradicting stuff. This person should have the right to veto any game mechanic decision if it's not playable for the AI. (Yes, this restricts the options quite a lot, but it's necessary.)
-Don't be lazy testing. Play the game for thousands of hours before releasing it otherwise balance issues won't be noticed. Important : the SAME person has to do the full testing schedule. Otherwise how will you know some faction is stronger than another? It wasn't the same person playing them so they won't notice the difference.
-Graphics are not a priority.
-UI is a priority though. Don't make mobile friendly crap, design it for PC users. Make the UI consistent : left click to act, right click to get help, esc button to cancel for example. Everywhere. No "move by right button,  cancel building by right button as well" madness. That's unplayable. MoM has about the best UI I've ever seen in a game. Keep it the same.
-Don't hide information. This is a strategy game. We need to know about all stats and unit abilities, we need to know all game formulas. All of it needs to be readily available by right clicking on the appropriate part of the UI.
-Magic is a big deal. Spells need to be powerful. That's why this is "Master of Magic"... but this applies to all types of magic, not just one or two.
-There shouldn't be an "always wins" strategy. Players should need to adapt to what their enemy plays to succeed. Different methods should be used against different races and realms. All relevant setups the player can play should have at least one way to deal with all reasonably possible enemy configurations. The most powerful strategies (for example buffing in CoM) should have powerful counters that can say "no, try something else" every once in a while. Not every strategy has to be perfectly equal, that's what difficulty levels are for. But every race or realm of magic has to have at least one top tier strategy.
-Bugs are not okay. Especially AI bugs. They ruin your carefully designed game balance because the AI might fail to use the spells that would counter the most dominant strategies.
-The AI is important. The AI is important. The AI is important. The AI is important. The AI is important. Can't say this enough times.
-Heroes are a huge risk to game balance but also a lot of fun. Be careful with them. Same for the random treasure.
-The AI isn't as smart as a human player in executing plans. It works better if it tries to focus on overwhelming players with quantity or powerful units than if it aims to do a precise strike. Remember you have multiple AI players on the board so it's okay if some lose if it benefits the others.
-Diplomacy is the most powerful element of the game. The game plays entirely different when you're at peace and the AI's are fighting each other compared to when you are at war with 4 AI players at once who are allied. So it should be difficult and unlikely to end up with the "all war" or "no one ever attacks" cases, but the latter is okay if the AI is programmed to peacefully settle territory at least as fast as the human player can at their highest effectiveness. Once the territory is all taken, the difficulty level modifiers on their income will do the rest. (or not if the difficulty is low, but then we want the human to win anyway...) - just be sure the player can't claim all the territory with settlers early then make treaties and force peace to win through that advantage - unless they are playing whichever strategies specializes in that heavily.
-4X games are long. So make the combat animations (and the UI in general) fast and skippable.
-This is a game of the highest complexity. Don't rush it, it'll take years to get it done right.


That's about everything I can think of right now.

[vicwaberub]

Well, if they read through the 1000s of pages of posts on the CoM subforum, they'll get a pretty good idea about what to/not to do to the smallest detail, otherwise, idk. MoM is a game designer's worst nightmare, obviously you need decent game balance because it's a strategy game, but you also need super powerful spells because nothing hurts a fantasy game more than underwhelming and boring magic and fantasy elements.
Unfortunately I can't provide a wish list, and in fact we better don't. 90% of the things people wish for are not viable to implement due to game balance reasons.

I can provide some generic advice though :
-Whenever you implement a feature or game mechanic, immediately implement the full AI for it. Don't use game mechanics that aren't AI friendly. The AI should be the responsibility of one person, otherwise it'll end up doing self-contradicting stuff. This person should have the right to veto any game mechanic decision if it's not playable for the AI. (Yes, this restricts the options quite a lot, but it's necessary.)
-Don't be lazy testing. Play the game for thousands of hours before releasing it otherwise balance issues won't be noticed. Important : the SAME person has to do the full testing schedule. Otherwise how will you know some faction is stronger than another? It wasn't the same person playing them so they won't notice the difference.
-Graphics are not a priority.
-UI is a priority though. Don't make mobile friendly crap, design it for PC users. Make the UI consistent : left click to act, right click to get help, esc button to cancel for example. Everywhere. No "move by right button,  cancel building by right button as well" madness. That's unplayable. MoM has about the best UI I've ever seen in a game. Keep it the same.
-Don't hide information. This is a strategy game. We need to know about all stats and unit abilities, we need to know all game formulas. All of it needs to be readily available by right clicking on the appropriate part of the UI.
-Magic is a big deal. Spells need to be powerful. That's why this is "Master of Magic"... but this applies to all types of magic, not just one or two.
-There shouldn't be an "always wins" strategy. Players should need to adapt to what their enemy plays to succeed. Different methods should be used against different races and realms. All relevant setups the player can play should have at least one way to deal with all reasonably possible enemy configurations. The most powerful strategies (for example buffing in CoM) should have powerful counters that can say "no, try something else" every once in a while. Not every strategy has to be perfectly equal, that's what difficulty levels are for. But every race or realm of magic has to have at least one top tier strategy.
-Bugs are not okay. Especially AI bugs. They ruin your carefully designed game balance because the AI might fail to use the spells that would counter the most dominant strategies.
-The AI is important. The AI is important. The AI is important. The AI is important. The AI is important. Can't say this enough times.
-Heroes are a huge risk to game balance but also a lot of fun. Be careful with them. Same for the random treasure.
-The AI isn't as smart as a human player in executing plans. It works better if it tries to focus on overwhelming players with quantity or powerful units than if it aims to do a precise strike. Remember you have multiple AI players on the board so it's okay if some lose if it benefits the others.
-Diplomacy is the most powerful element of the game. The game plays entirely different when you're at peace and the AI's are fighting each other compared to when you are at war with 4 AI players at once who are allied. So it should be difficult and unlikely to end up with the "all war" or "no one ever attacks" cases, but the latter is okay if the AI is programmed to peacefully settle territory at least as fast as the human player can at their highest effectiveness. Once the territory is all taken, the difficulty level modifiers on their income will do the rest. (or not if the difficulty is low, but then we want the human to win anyway...) - just be sure the player can't claim all the territory with settlers early then make treaties and force peace to win through that advantage - unless they are playing whichever strategies specializes in that heavily.
-4X games are long. So make the combat animations (and the UI in general) fast and skippable.
-This is a game of the highest complexity. Don't rush it, it'll take years to get it done right.


That's about everything I can think of right now.

I agree. 

Esp the fast movement - in AoW3 was it my wish in the beta test But in AoW3 you can wider go in one turn as your unit can see - hello micromanagement...

This is a game of the highest complexity! Test it via "Early Access"! Give us an AI editor or a possibility for AI modding - so we players can build the best AI for it.

[Arnuz]

Make it multiplayer from the get go. Concurrent turns are a must.

In this day and age, and despite what most of the denizens of this forum think, this will make or break the game.

With that approach, you don't need to invest so much on ai, just build a multiplayer agent that uses Deepmind. Better results guaranteed for solo players as well.

[Seravy]

I wouldn't play a game with concurrent turns. That's not strategy anymore, it's a "who clicks faster" game. Try playing chess with simultaneous turns. Nonsense. I did play a simultaneous turn card game once and hated it.
Multiplayer would be a good idea in theory but the game length is too long for it to work, unless the other players are AI.

[bjg]

Here is my DON'T: just DON'T do it. We don't need another "Not Master of Orion".

[vicwaberub]

I wouldn't play a game with concurrent turns. That's not strategy anymore, it's a "who clicks faster" game. 

You said it! I have played AoW2 and 3 a lot in MP, but it needs house rules: "Don't move as fast as you can to obtain a winning battle", because that is unfair.

I made a list of problems of 4X games some years ago.
Concurrent Turns is one of them. 

The next MP problem is the "I can't win and bye.."-Player. A good 4X game should not have a mass of counter (like Mana, Gold,...), because the players feel outdistanced and frustrated. It need a chance for small and slow nations to win a game too (f.e. by a quest or a game changing mechanic). 

"Instant kill"-Spells are not the best choice for a MP game (say good bye to Cracks Call and Lightning...) and a living world with hundreds of armys like in MoM can't work well in MP.

The list is much longer, but you feel the problems to design a good successor.

IMO a good game has an exciting showdown for all players. MoM2 has potential for it, but 4X games are designed by the same design principles for years.

[Arnuz]

Guys wake up, we're not in the nineties anymore.

They can just not make it like aow2 and they're good. Example: simultaneous orders, then simultaneous execution, all your issues are solved.

Making it different from another series is also good business sense, and on this note, let's be realistic: there isn't any amount of investment into AI that a modern indie publisher will ever do which could make the ai acceptable. Just avoid the whole fail cascade and use deepmind.

[Seravy]

Example: simultaneous orders, then simultaneous execution, all your issues are solved.

That's what the card game I didn't like did. Making decisions blind is not acceptable for me as a concept in a strategy game.
Except in this genre that's not an option. How am I supposed to attack something if they might receive a move order this turn and the two armies miss each other when the move is executed?
You see, this is EXACTLY what the AI was doing until I fixed it. It issued all orders, then ignored that unit until it reached the destination. It spanned multiple turns but end result is same, the unit ended up not attacking what it should have and basically acted at random. You took a city from AI 1? Too bad, your ally, AI2 was planning to attack that same city so now they attack YOU and you're at war with them. Oops. Obviously, safety mechanisms like confirmation windows can be implemented against unintended battles but that doesn't help with unintended moves. If I move somewhere and my target moved, I wasted my turn. If turns are simultaneous, I can't avoid this mistake.
Besides, you can't even execute "simultaneous". There has to be an order. Different armies can't be on the same tile at the same time. If multiple armies intend to move through that tile, their turn order matters. Maybe they meet on that tile and fight. Maybe one blocks the other from moving through. Maybe a third army stepped on another tile so the first army had to take a detour and use a swamp tile instead of a road tile, so now it runs out of movement on that very tile so the second stack can't move as the path is now entirely blocked.
What if the 2 armies move past each other so I don't see the other one coming? If I move during my turn, I'll see anything I walk past if it's in my scouting range. If it flashes by for a second during the simultaneous movement phase, I'll miss it.
4X is not for multiplayer. Even with simultaneous turns the game is too long for it. Let's assume simul turns shave off 2/3 of the play time so 30 hours becomes 10. Would any live human sit through a 10 hour game session? How about 4 people? This isn't like an MMORPG where a player dropping out means you need to recruit someone else for the party or in worst case, lose the 1-2 hours you've spent in the area and keep the loot. If someone leaves, it's game over. The entire time of everyone involved is wasted. (Sure an AI can take their place but then we need human quality AI which is not a thing yet.)
In my Ragnarok Online experience, finishing Endless Tower (4 hour long instance but can be done in 2 hours, 4 is only the limit), the number of times no one left the party meanwhile was super small. I had to play 2-3 characters to fill in for the missing people regularly. And that was just 2-4 hours.

Yes, I agree, ideally a high quality real artificial intelligence is better than whatever else. Too bad it's not a thing yet. Sure they were able to get specialized AI that can play some simple games as good as a human or better, like chess or go, but the complexity of MoM is on the level of the complexity of everyday life. Technology isn't there yet and when it gets there, this obsolete form of gaming will be the least of our worries. Hello Mr Robot person who designs a better game than our entire company would in 10 years,  and only takes 30 minutes doing so, would you care to be employed at our humble company while everyone else goes on a permanent vacation?

Speaking of business, I don't think making a quality game and one that's viable as a business is possible at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive. Quality games require time, effort, dedication while being a better game doesn't necessarily sell better so it's not worth it financially. So business is not an argument. If that's what they make it for, it'll be a bad but profitable game.

Oh and about multiplayer, this particular game is full of rage quitting inducing stuff that simply wouldn't work if coming from an actual human person. Hey, I'll cast Time Stop now and take 10 turns while you don't do anything. Guys, care to have some Armageddon? Or : Okay so I'm going to lose this game now and I can't stop it but you'll spend 10 turns conquering all my cities so I'll spend these 10 turns spamming corruption on your and my own cities, corrupting every single tile there is, and sell all my buildings. Next time you'll think twice about attacking MY empire you loser. Oh, and let's not forget I'll donate all my gold to the person who is planning to backstab you right after this war. Also, I'll find your heroes and kill every single one of them with web+crack's call. Even if you're smart enough to not use them against my green/red wizard, too bad, I'm not an AI so I can intentionally seek out and attack them with these bunches of spearmen.