Sometimes balancing comes from new abilities, like mana shield.
So here is an idea to help against exploders or fast gem spammers. They are currently ruling the field, and really push the random element over slow-control strategy.
Traps: a trap is an effect placed on a gem (with a visual marker). The trap follows the gem if it cascades down. The trap stays on the gem if it changes color.
Traps are laid by various means. From spell or traits, one or many, random or not.
A trap goes off when the gem is consumed (from matching, destroying, or exploding). When a trap goes off, it deals a good chunk of damage to the player that triggered it. (Details to be worked out: single, AoE, random, with or without effect).
So basically, it creates gems that you really donât want to touch!
Forcing calculating moves and cascades, and blowing up in the faces of careless explosions.
Players would claim the A.I cheats the traps in the right gems everytime. (Iâm only half-joking.)
More complexity to the game. (The devs want things to remain simple as much as itâs possible and having some gems with different marks feels like something they wouldnât like.)
I like the idea, but balancing the damage could be tricky. It expands the possibilities of board interactions specially if some traps could have different effects like you mentioned.
The issue with this new mechanic being complex could be avoided if the traps would simply deal damage and nothing else, but then it would really feels like an incomplete designâŠ
A sort of similar sketched idea i had was a "Mana Cursed" debuff, troops with this debuff would take damage when gems of their color are matched. Sort of similar because itâs like all gems are âbooby-trappedâ for the enemies only, and this idea wouldnât require new gemâs graphics. Mana Shield would obviouly prevent this effect.
Indeed, probably more complicated.
But I feel, spell and effect-wise, we are stalled with variations of the same thing, so the next step is probably « field effect » like in many other match 3 games: bombs, frozen gems, poison gems, etc.
But I guess it would require coding.
The effect would probably not be popular.
Imagine a troop that: deal 25 damage to first enemy and place 3 random traps.
Now, if you play with it, you probably wonât use troops that could blow all 3 traps. So no Gorgotha, Infernus, Ragnagor, Fizzbang, Trolls, Or even converters.
Meaning⊠your teams will be slow and bad
But! It would create a new viable way to play, a slow and strategic one, with only controlled effects like « explode a row »
Iâve been thinking about this, and got an idea that wouldnât be too complicated to implement. Intruducing⊠Deathskulls!!
Its function is the same as Doomskulls, except it will deal 5 extra damage to troop that match it instead. With board full of Deathskulls, their chain-explosion might deal 50+ damage to you and kill your own troop!
With this being added, there will also be new counter trait.
An idea is troops with this trait have no fear of death, so they can match any skulls freely, and not tremble in fear when enemies match Doomskulls. Troops with this trait can be on top to prevent backfire from too much Deathskulls. (An alternative name for this trait would be âYou only live onceâ, but that might sound a bit silly. lol)
This is undoubtably an interesting concept (which I really like, by the way), but as already pointed out, it would add a layer of complexity and resulting strategy to the game.
I do not know about developpers, but I can already read a few playersâ (trolls?) minds:
New is bad
Complex is badder
Strategy slows the day and is therefore even badder (said that, as a side note, I would agree that control Teams are fun indeed but do not offer any reward other than some kind of cerebral delight so they do slow the day)
Like @Razzagorâs idea though, why not implementing these as other mini games (for a start)?
Some will probably remember Puzzle Quest 1 & 2 multiple challenges (locks, spells, training, etc.).
For now we really only have one real mini game available: Treasure Hunting (the other modes are just iterations of the same concept with lower or higher degrees of difficulty).
Or what about âmine swipingâ, for example: if you can match the âminesâ, regardless of their respective colours, they âdo somethingâ for you or against you opponent?
Maybe I am aiming high, hereâŠ
I never figured why people think complicated is bad.
Isnât that what drives people to this game?
Brainless match 3 exist (bejewel, candy crush, etcâŠ), with hundreds of clones.
GoW is pretty unique in itâs strategy requirements, no?
All these match 3 clones are largely popular because they are very simple, not everyone seeks a very complex experience. But yes, GoW is more complex and yet itâs really easy to understand and even create/code. Thatâs a decent recipe for success, the reason why the devs can create so much content weekly and still work of bigger features.
Iâm no programmer but while visualy simple your idea could be a little trickier to implement, remember when we had âblobs of gemsâ counting as multiple 4/5 matches? Well, it could be similarly tricky, thatâs my guess, because some gems would simply do something else and not simply generate mana. Also, we would need at least twice as many new gems graphics with marks for the traps.
It could be done surely, but another complication with your idea would be how it affects the gameplay and the playerâs experience. A few traps on some gems are ok, but if both teams could trap gems then the players could suffer from longer battles trying to avoid unecessary damage, specially on Guild Wars where damage matters. Also there are more details to figure out like:
Are the traps damage fixed or would it increase by some factor like level and such?
If there are different traps with more effects aside from damage we need even more graphics for different gems with different traps.
If the different traps are coded regarding the gem color, as in Green trapped gems causes damage and poison for example, itâs a bit more information the player must keep on mind while playing. From time to time we see âfalse positive bug reportsâ of players unable to process some mechanics because they didnât paid attention or didnât know/remember exactly all mechanics.
I could keep listing some possible issues as we discuss more details, but first i want to say that i donât want to demotivate you or anything, itâs just that some simple designs are usually preferred because they also bring less complications to the devsâ table.
Get Infernus, some Exploders, Divines, Storms, spam explosions and spells = Win!
