Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

For what's not in 'Top Priority Game Design'. Post your ideas, visions, suggestions for the game, rules, modifications, etc.

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larienna
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Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#1 Post by larienna »

There is one thing that all designers of remakes attempts of Master of Orion and Master of Magic have not understood:

What makes these 2 games unique and addictive is the fact that the technologies/spell and really powerful and unbalancing the game. Each technology must bring something significantly important to change the balance of power. Technologies/Magic must allow you to break rules, do new actions, remove restrictions, etc. Not just give a few bonus here an there or have technologies that only give access to other technologies.

This is why games like "Galactic Civilizations" and "age of wonders" will never replace "Master of Orion/Magic". In Gal Civ, some technologies gives you a +10% to hit with a weapon. Wow!, I am so going to crush my enemy with this +10% bonus. But if I could get a technology like "transporters", which could allow me to capture ships by beaming people directly on them without even docking with the ship, now I get a serious advantage that no other player has and it will totally changes the way the battles will be played. I just stay far away and beam on people.

In "Master of magic", the fact that you can nuke your opponent from the other side of the planet, meteor shower the world and even stop the time gives you a feeling of superiority and power over the game that no other game has. So this is why "Master of Orion/Magic" are still the best games in their categories.

So one thing you should do is to seriously reconsider you technology tree. First the tech tree dependencies are too confusing, it looks like a spider web. So make a more straight forward tech tree. Second give each technology a special unique ability.

As for me, I am trying to make my own version of Master of Orion/Magic as a board game. It's not easy since you need to massively simplify the game to make sure all the information can fit on a board. So I really have to dig to the core concepts of the game and try to abstract a few things.

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Tortanick
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#2 Post by Tortanick »

Our tech tree is totally preliminary, no one has decided what things are really going to do yet. The general shape is probably going to stay though.

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Josh
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#3 Post by Josh »

... And if it's any consolation, all the buildings are in fact, on steroids. No sir, no normal buildings for us, har har...

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mayday
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#4 Post by mayday »

Would making the tech tree fully moddable be a big problem?
I'd really prefer a more MOO1-type research (or even with just 1 tech researched at a time). Things like theoretical prerequisites seem totally out of place in an empire-wide strategy game.

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pd
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#5 Post by pd »

There are currently about 130 techs(most of which, do nothing and need to be assigned certain functions), in 6 categories. There are 3 types of techs(theories, applications and refinements). The game design asked for dependencies across categories. So a web like we have is simply what you get. In addition we allow you to see techs that are not yet available. If this looks too confusing, just turn it off and you will be presented with a short array of techs that can be researched at a specific turn(very much like in MoO2). You can also just turn off certain categories or use the list view.
Would making the tech tree fully moddable be a big problem?
It already is, as most of freeOrion is.

You can create techs without cross category dependencies and limit yourself to just one type if you want.

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OndrejR
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#6 Post by OndrejR »

pd wrote:If this looks too confusing, just turn it off and you will be presented with a short array of techs that can be researched at this specific turn(very much like in MoO2).
Isn't better to turn off completed and unresearchable techs by default to prevent new player confusion?

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pd
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#7 Post by pd »

I agree, that it might be a good idea for the novice player. But for everyone else, who wants to directly queue techs deeper down the tree, it would mean additional work.

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Krikkitone
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#8 Post by Krikkitone »

Possibly leavng them off by default might be a good idea (ie the check boxes showing which are visible staring out researched-O, researchable-X, unresearchable-X) That way it is easy to change.. just once at the beginning of the game, but a new player isn't overwhelmed.

larienna
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#9 Post by larienna »

I'd really prefer a more MOO1-type research (or even with just 1 tech researched at a time). Things like theoretical prerequisites seem totally out of place in an empire-wide strategy game.
The problem is that there is no strategy in tech research if there is no technology path to take. Many times in MOO2 I strongly developed a category and ignored some others. Also, people would always end up with the same technologies almost at the same time. Technology trade would be almost useless.

A suggestion from another friend is to make each race have a unique tech tree. Which is a bit demanding. My suggestions would be that some restrictions/openings allow each race to have access to certain paths. The player can still choose the path he wants but there are still some technologies that his race will never be able access.

Personally, I would block around 20% of the technologies to each race. And then the player can pick up half of the technologies in what's left. So each player could choose 40% of technologies out of the 80% available to him. Anyways, It's just an idea.

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Kryxx
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#10 Post by Kryxx »

I think the defaults should remain as they are, and being a little confusing and challenging could be a good thing, because it forces a new player to read the tutorial wiki and learn to use the UI (which is amazing, btw). The amazingly helpful and customizable UI is the first thing I loved about FO, and I think its possibly the strongest thing FO has at the moment. I say keep it the same, and keep the techs as they are! They might seem empty or pointless now, but in the future they will be fleshed out and balanced in detail, meaning the whole system will make much more sense and feel better to use in application.

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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#11 Post by Black_Dawn »

To respond to the original thread post, I agree that making an interesting research system means creating techs that give more than a numerical bonus.

One of the (many many) problems with MoO3 was that all of the weapons tech "felt" the same. The just had straight-up numerical boosts.

To make Free Orion an interesting and re-playable game, I believe 10%-15% of all tech should not provide a simple numerical boost, but should change game-play in a small but significant way.

A great example tech would be the Gyro-destabilizer from MoO2. It did little damage, but that damage went directly to the hull and it spun ships around, forcing them to turn to fire their forward-facing weapons. It was one of my favorite techs in the game.

A non-weapon example would be the Jump Gates. It allowed you to move instantly from one system to another, and so was essentially a movement speed improvement, but a Jump Gate had to be built on both ends, forcing a build decision.

As long as 10-15% of techs are "game-changing" techs similar to these, I'm sure the tech tree will be fun and interesting.
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Krikkitone
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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#12 Post by Krikkitone »

They don't necessarily need to be more than numerical boosts to be "game changing"

The issue is if there are many techs, each providing a small boost, or fewer techs each with a Large boost.
THe second option makes even numerical boosts "game changing" and interesting.

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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#13 Post by gthx »

Kryxx wrote:I think the defaults should remain as they are, and being a little confusing and challenging could be a good thing, because it forces a new player to read the tutorial wiki and learn to use the UI (which is amazing, btw). ..
At least in my book, that is called poor design.

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Re: Powerful tech/spells makes "Master of Orion/Magic" unique

#14 Post by Bigjoe5 »

One thing about cross-category dependencies is that they shouldn't dominate the tech tree, IMO. It should be possible to reach at least one top level theory tech in each category without researching any of the other categories... but that's just my opinion.
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