Feedback Cultural Settlements - Feudal Japan

[FrejaSP]

The 3rd Settlements reduces the diamond expansions from 4 to 3 so a bit more challenging

I would not have noticed that as I have not brought a diamond expension sinse my first viking settlement here on Beta, I rather use my diamonds to get buildings raised a little faster

 

[DeletedUser8362]

The 3rd Settlements reduces the diamond expansions from 4 to 3 so a bit more challenging

If you're having to buy 4 diamond expansions then you've removed all challenge from Settlements anyway.

 

[Umbrathor]

Improvement suggestion:
>Expand building pool and playthrough, allowing us to grow the settlement to much bigger sizes
>E.G. give us 119 total missions* with much more buildings to unlock and developing a real city
>Keep grand & time rewards at 17 missions milestone,
>unlocking also a break mechanism** or giving up and starting later over from scratch like now

*7x (regulair settlements 17 quests (each regular settlement) = 119 quests
7 (regular settlements) x 2w (first golden time) = +/- app 14w play time

**The break ''freezes'' time for the next time rewards but also prevents futher progress. So the player
continue when he/she likes, without the option to abuse the ''time freeze'' for the time rewards. Mercants
times should also be reset to the time that the player decides to continue this longer quest.
If the player doesn't want to continue but wants to do another settlement. This settlement can be abandoned
without penalty. When you start in this settlement again, it will be like now just from scratch.

----------

Reason: this way you would not have to begin over from scratch so many times. For getting the
best reward you have to do it with this suggestion only twice. While my suggestion is far from perfect.
Many players don't like to see no real progress in the settlements, regardless of how much effort they
put in for completing many settlements. In this way if wanted a player can see major progress, as their
settlements can grow much bigger. [u: edited some of the spelling for easier reading]

Some very interesting ideas here. Making the settlement questline longer reduces the drudge of doing the same thing over and over again, and gives us more of a feeling of achievement.

I also like the idea of a possibility to pause the settlement progression. That makes the feature much more manageable for people who work and cannot harvest / retool their settlement more than once or twice per day, or when going on a trip.

Freezing could also allow one to change to another type of settlement without having to abandon the current one. That would be essential with a longer paythrough, but would also be better with the current duration.

 

[Umbrathor]

A question to the people who say this is a more relaxed play than vikings: are you comparing it to the first playthrough(s) of vikings, or the later ones?

Because the times gets shorter every time, so the laster playthroughs of Vikings are much more challenging than the first playthrough of either, and therefore cannot really compared. Did you factor that in?

 

[Umbrathor]

The 2d idea is connected with stage prizes during making the questline. Maybe you'll find it reasonable to let the players to chose which fragments to take: shrine, wishing well or wishing well kit.

Building on that idea: the most logical would seem to me to replace the Altar fragments with fragments of the dojo.

 

[FrejaSP]

A question to the people who say this is a more relaxed play than vikings: are you comparing it to the first playthrough(s) of vikings, or the later ones?

Because the times gets shorter every time, so the laster playthroughs of Vikings are much more challenging than the first playthrough of either, and therefore cannot really compared. Did you factor that in?

The first ones of cource. Yes the time get shorter but you et more luck with the 4x.
It gives less stress and it is better balanced.

 

[DeletedUser9825]

Hi.
First of all: Good idea with that merchant.
Howerver, ...
I have to pay for a "Soy-expansion" first for 8 goods of course. Then it changed to 19 goods for the next "Soy-expansion".
Through the merchant I did get enough music instruments to by a "Music-instrument-expansion". Which I bought.
Unfortunately (and that is not fair) the price for the following "Gally-expansion" shoot up to 19 (and the "Soy" to 31)
It is not a good solution to lose the "8-Goods-Gally-expansion" without ANY chance to pay for it. (only 19 or even higher if you buy the next "Music-expansion")
If you could let the player know in advance "DO NOT BUY "Armour-" or "Music-instrument-expansions" BEVOR YOU'VE BOUGHT THE (neighbouring) "Gally-expansion" OR YOU LOSE THE (cheep) EXPANSIONS and have to pay the price the system will charge you!
Thank you
Kalle

 

[DeletedUser5097]

Some very interesting ideas here. Making the settlement questline longer reduces the drudge of doing the same thing over and over again, and gives us more of a feeling of achievement.

I also like the idea of a possibility to pause the settlement progression. That makes the feature much more manageable for people who work and cannot harvest / retool their settlement more than once or twice per day, or when going on a trip.

Freezing could also allow one to change to another type of settlement without having to abandon the current one. That would be essential with a longer paythrough, but would also be better with the current duration.

Thanks, I suggested the drawback of quitting ''eurly'' in the longer run for starting over from scratch,
for making it eassier to make and also keeping excisting mechanics. While I strongly agreed with you
and also thought about it for paussing an active settlement and run another one. An admin pointed
out that the dev. team didn't like an situation where you could play for example 6 diffrent settlements
at the same time, giving you more pressure to do stuff in the game.
The prob. of having the option to pause an settlement and start another one and even doing this with
just 2 settlements is that it becomes quickly complecated and getting the feelling of still having to
complete an settlement of wich you did grow tired and paussed.
Yet just giving us the option to start an break at any given moment for vacation or something else, can be
intressting. Even while I personaly think that with an longer quest-line, setting this on automatic when
hitting the milestone wich gives you the grandprize is the least stressfull and eassiest to programe. I
realized that an break is vital for the succes for an even longer questline.
-----
Back on feedback. I would like to suggest for an better expirence. Keeping the building times at an cap
of 1h would be great. Since now you must wait 4h for the best house to be built, while the settlement idea
is to do everything as fast as possible. In the main city such long building times are fine, but in an setting
where speed is everything... building times should not go over 1h

 

[kleopatra911]

A question to the people who say this is a more relaxed play than vikings: are you comparing it to the first playthrough(s) of vikings, or the later ones?

Because the times gets shorter every time, so the laster playthroughs of Vikings are much more challenging than the first playthrough of either, and therefore cannot really compared. Did you factor that in?

yes

 

[kleopatra911]

Hi.
First of all: Good idea with that merchant.
Howerver, ...
I have to pay for a "Soy-expansion" first for 8 goods of course. Then it changed to 19 goods for the next "Soy-expansion".
Through the merchant I did get enough music instruments to by a "Music-instrument-expansion". Which I bought.
Unfortunately (and that is not fair) the price for the following "Gally-expansion" shoot up to 19 (and the "Soy" to 31)
It is not a good solution to lose the "8-Goods-Gally-expansion" without ANY chance to pay for it. (only 19 or even higher if you buy the next "Music-expansion")
If you could let the player know in advance "DO NOT BUY "Armour-" or "Music-instrument-expansions" BEVOR YOU'VE BOUGHT THE (neighbouring) "Gally-expansion" OR YOU LOSE THE (cheep) EXPANSIONS and have to pay the price the system will charge you!
Thank you
Kalle

the mechanics of increasing prices for expansions are the same as for the vikings: the price per nth expansion is fixed across goods, doesnt matter which you use. in cotrast to the vikings, its not important to have many expansions early, in fact its not even important to have many expansions. plus the merchant gives the chance to buy with goods you cannot yet produce. Be patient and never pay more than 8 goods for an expansion - there are 6 of them.

 

[Umbrathor]

I'm on the third Japan settlement now, and the negotiations with the merchant now require 6 different goods. It seems as if every new settlement, the negotiations get harder.

Inno, can you confirm whether this is the case?

If it is true, than I fail to see the logic here. First of all, the settlements get increasingly harder by the decrease in the timer. If the negotiations also get harder progressively, it will become very hard, if not impossible, to finish the later settlements without an enormous drain on goods.

Let's, for the sake of argument, say that the difficulty progresses to that of a Very Complex negotiation. That means 10 differrent goods, of which you need to pay 9 each. That means each attempt costs you 10x9 goods for the first 2 turns just to find out which goods are required, plus an additional let's say 8 or 9 times 9 goods to solve the negotiation. If you're lucky. That's around 150+ goods, not counting failed attempts. Times three offers at the merchant, is 450 goods daily, not counting failed negotiations.

I don't think anyone could afford such a huge drain on resources. So Inno probably will not take it quite that far.

But the negotiations do seem to be getting harder, so where will it stop?

And why are they getting harder? What is the purpose of it?

I could imagine negotiations getting harder throughout a single settlement, regardless whether it is the first or the thirteenth playthrough. When the merchant first appears, you get easy ones, and the longer he remains, the harder they get. But piling increased difficulty (timer) on increased difficulty (negotiations) seems awfully discouraging.

I hope I am wrong. ; )

 

[LastWarrior]

always buy them in order then you get them all for 8

 

[DeletedUser10047]

I'm on the third Japan settlement now, and the negotiations with the merchant now require 6 different goods. It seems as if every new settlement, the negotiations get harder.

Inno, can you confirm whether this is the case?

I have had negotiations using 6 resources for both the first and second run-throughs. I don't think it gets harder as you do more run-throughs; it's just random.

 

[FrejaSP]

I'm on the third Japan settlement now, and the negotiations with the merchant now require 6 different goods. It seems as if every new settlement, the negotiations get harder.

Inno, can you confirm whether this is the case?

If it is true, than I fail to see the logic here. First of all, the settlements get increasingly harder by the decrease in the timer. If the negotiations also get harder progressively, it will become very hard, if not impossible, to finish the later settlements without an enormous drain on goods.

That sure sounds expensive but if the chance 4x also increase you may choose to skip some of the goods from the merchant.
I can afford the goods if it not was that I also use a lot for negations in GE

 

[DeletedUser10047]

When the Merchant has a negotiation based on 6 different resources, it would be nice if the output is boosted by 20% (to make up for the increased failure rate).

 

[FrejaSP]

I had 3 negations, woth 10, 12 and 14 kultur goods, one of them was based on 6 different resources. I'm only on my second settlement.

 

[kleopatra911]

Actually, I don't think the trades are expensive: until now (after 2nd settlement) I have never seen any with more than 2 per good, with 5 to 6 slots (some including coins/supplies). So most of the time we need 10 - 15 normal goods (plus the occasional 10 diamonds to buy another round of trading) to get 10 - 15 cultural goods. Sounds like a good exchange rate to me.

 

[FrejaSP]

Actually, I don't think the trades are expensive: until now (after 2nd settlement) I have never seen any with more than 2 per good, with 5 to 6 slots (some including coins/supplies). So most of the time we need 10 - 15 normal goods (plus the occasional 10 diamonds to buy another round of trading) to get 10 - 15 cultural goods. Sounds like a good exchange rate to me.

Yes fine to me too

 

[DeletedUser5097]

Finaly completed my first run. It felt like an much needed and welcome fresh breath of
air in the settlements theme(s). Now I can give real feedback:

+ points
> Introduction of the Merchant
> Improved development (cultural ''TT'') thnx to unlocking sometimes 2 buildings at once
> Overall shorter run compared to Vikings
> Less need for destroy and rebuild
> Strongly improved ballance compared to Vikings

- points
< Late buildings having an long building time, 4h is just too long for this type of side game
< Repeating the same thing every run, just like Vikings this realy should be fixed for settlements
in general
< Timells dojo is weak compared to better runestones untill it reach lvl 5,
making endless gamemode not attractive enough

So what features would you change in order to enjoy the Feudal Japan (or other settlements in the future)?

I would like to give a few points of improvments and also an suggestion in order to deal with
the biggest returning problem of settlements: having to do the same task over and over of
just building up an city from scretch over and over for just unlocking everything.

Points of improvments

> Reduce buildingtimes of last buildings from 4h to 1,5 maybe 2
> Introduce an better random element than annoying, boring impediments, I make an suggestion in
this post
> Give more fragments for speed runs in endless gamemode
> Replace the 50fps grand reward for completing settlement in endless gamemode for 5
fragments of timeless dojo

The above points of improvments are also valid to the Vikings. Adding to the Vikings, I strongly
suggest to remaster the Vikings. Reballance the buildings to the example of the Japanese settlement
and introduce something simelar as the Merchants. Some shop to unlock where you can buy
dailly extra cultural goodies. An tradepost or something like that.

Suggestion
5 unique possible scenarios
> First run is like now, just build up an city from scretch in an ''new'' culture
> Future runs after the first run will be decided by one of 5 unique scenario's
> Each scenario has diffrent objectives and mission series
> The system can't pickup 3x the same scenario in an row
> Every scenerio has its own extra buildings for completing the unique objectives
> The unique buildings will be unlocked with already excisting cultural buildings

> Reasson: this makes every time you play an cultural settlement feell less doing the same
task over and over

While I must admit my suggestion isn't perfect, I think the best sollution is giving each new
run something unique. Many find the settlements boring because you must building up the
same type of city over and over. Pure designed for gaining asap goods for unlocking all
buildings and than grinding asap coins and goodies at the end.
Giving 5 unique diffrent scenario's should prevent us from doing the same taks over and over.
Since we will design and develop an city within 2w for obtaining diffrent objectives, this might
give us the feelling of doing something diffrent each time we start an new settlement. Giving
the fact that in the worst case your objectives will be every 4th time the same objective. In the
best case this is after every 6 times you play through an settlement.

Spoiler

Adding extra rewards completing an scenario, wich gives you an advantage for your next run,
E.G. slightly reduced building times, small discount for development, slightly less restock time
merchant

 

[sirblu]

Please leave any feedback on Cultural Settlements - Feudal Japan in this thread.
You can find the details here.

Hi In.My.ConTrol,
Since all settlements are build, rearrange, tear down, build, rearrange, tear down,
Would it be possible in your next revision to include the "Re-construction Mode", available in our cities, in the settlements?
It sure would make things much easier to rearrange our settlements over and over.