- I would like to see Replays added to the game
- I would not like to see Replays added to the game
0 voters
I think that an in-game replay system would be widely accepted, well-received, and a beloved new feature to add to the game. Here’s how I imagine it would function; I have tried to be thorough to capture every aspect of how this feature could improve the game:
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At the end of each battle (preferably in all gamemodes if possible), a record of the moves taken during the match would be saved on the game’s servers. The devs have stated a lot of the work for this is already done (If someone can find when they said this that would be great, I remember they said it but can’t find where)
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Between battles, one could navigate to the Replay menu, and access the “Recent Battles” tab. This would display a list of the # most recent battles (maybe 10-15?) the player has done, listing the game mode, whether the player won or lost, along with any other useful information. The player can tap these battles in the list to replay them, or bookmark/save them, which would retain that battle indefinitely. If the battle is not saved before it is pushed off the list, it cannot be saved.
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In the “Saved Battles” tab, the player can view any of the replays they have previously saved, as well as delete saved replays (which will make them unviewable). Here, you can set a name and description for the battle yourself, allowing you to remind yourself what the battle contains. This screen will also contain two checkboxes; “Share with Guild” and “Share Publicly.” Back on the “Saved Battles” list, you can filter the list by replay names or by the game mode the replay took place in.
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By playing a replay, the starting troops, opponents, board, and actions taken by each player are redone exactly as in game. Options such as animation speed, sound options, and graphics quality will remain whatever the player’s client currently is (so you could slow down or speed up the battle during the replay by changing your settings).
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The replay would ideally have a UI, which would allow players to pause the battle, go back to the start of the current turn, skip the current turn, or replay the battle from the beginning. This would allow players to skip around to the relevant portions.
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In the “Guild Replays” screen, you can see a list of replays made public by your guildmates. You can sort by oldest first, newest first, sort by guild member name, by guild member rank, or by likes (I’ll get into that in a bit)
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If you leave your current guild, all replays you have will have the “Share with Guild” option turned off, and your former guildmates will be unable to see those replays; when you join another guild, you can recheck those boxes to share your replays with your new guild.
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In the “Public Replays” screen, you can see a list of replays that players have opted to publicly share. You can view any other players’ replays, and if you think they are cool and worth seeing, you can press a button to “Like” it, increasing its score. You can sort public replays by new, hot (aka recently liked) or top (most likes).
This would provide a variety of benefits to a wide range of the player base:
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Players who are not particularly active on the forums/social media can see other players replays, share their own performance, and learn new strategies.
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Players can share their most exciting play experiences with their friends, their guildmates, and the world, without having to set up recording software for every battle.
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Recording software can be difficult to set up and an expensive hog of resources (both harddrive space and computational power). Many players who play Gems of War have low-power machines that can’t handle this load, and I don’t believe consoles are capable of recording at all. Mobile platforms certainly
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If something amazing just happened, and you want to go back and see it again, you can’t do that unless you somehow anticipated that something interesting would happen and set up recording software in advance, and that’s not even possible on Mobile. With this feature, I could save the replay, then return to my PC later and record the battle to upload to YouTube myself.
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Players who are secretive about their teams (I dislike this a lot, but people can play how they like) don’t have to share their replays at all, or can keep the replays secret to their guildmates.
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Many players’ hope for this feature: If something anomalous happens in battle, you could save the replay and contact the developers to review it, to determine if there is a bug or if the behavior is intended.
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My hope for this feature: Coaching. If you lose in a Guild War battle, you could save the replay, share it to your guildmates, and they could provide you feedback, critiques, or advice.
I think that a Replay system would be incredibly useful, and well received. Players of any skill level would be able to submit, view, and enjoy players replays, which would make the community more cohesive be a valuable social feature, and I think with 4.3, the developers have expressed an explicit desire to enhance the community aspects of the game.
A system of this scale would require a dedicated update (like 4.3’s chat system did) but I think it would be worthwhile.
What do you guys think? What features would you want to see? Do you have any critiques or complaints about the idea of replays?