Saylawl wrote:
Hello everyone,



We think that it could indeed be interested to keep the Eternal Winter as an optional feature, so we'll look into it!



Cheers,

Awesome !

I love the lore. This is a very creative world and I would not have posted here about it if it was made a bit more clear for each faction that's what was happening. I hazard to guess once you finish all the faction quests it's clear?



I am only on my third play now so not sure.

Hmm what about wonder victory building preventing endless winter?

- I am not sure the devs have a clear view and goal for the winter effects. Let's see this contradiction :



- The more the time pass, the more often there is winter. BUT everyplayer tend to have a governor in each city with the skill which immunise to any winter effect in city. So, winter only affect movements of army and their statistics which tend to make the game just slower (need more turns to move unit, in offense or in defense egually).



- It is a contradiction because if the devs would like a hard winter or a progresive winter apocalypse, we would not have this kind of immunity skill (a skill, which is verypowerfull and very unlogical : winter must stay winter, you cannot grow tomatoes into ice soil).



- The important question what we should ask about winter is : what are the game design precises objectives about the winter mechanisms ? :



* Make offensive war more harder to do (damage to units by winter) ?

* Forcing the players to won the game faster, due to the winter apocalypse coming ?







Personnaly, I would like another countdown mechanism : the armageddon counter as in Fall From Heaven 2. Each time you raze a city, kill population, bring an evil religion or doing evil things, the counter increase. From 0 to 100. 25 = Planetary pandemy. 50 = transformation of land into hell land, which spawn demonic creatures and are less productive. etc. up to 100 which would bring an avatar of apocalypse in the world, and a permanant apocalyptic weather.



But I know it is not in the DNA of Endess legend. I just would like to said this idea. ^^

Hello,

I will show this thread to the game designers, they will get better answers (than mine) to your post!

Saylawl wrote:
Hi there,



I'm glad to see your point of view and I understand it (as many players here). The fact is that there are players who are not really interested in the lore and they see the effects of the winter as a negative element of the gameplay. They just do not like. After all, it clearly interrupts the plans and actions that the player planned.

Hey Saylawl



I kinda like eobet's idea. I think his point was that you might have less complaints if the winter was explained better in-game.



Similarly, while I understand the point on the lore, and the dieing planet, I think there are things that can be done that could make it more interesting/appealing. Right now winter gets longer and longer, with new negative effects every time. But the effects are all passive, always negative, and more annoying then actually game impacting. They also stack.

-"Yay, now it will take 4 more turns to build a unit."

-"Yay, now my units move twice as slow."

-"Yay, now my food production is down."



The idea being is it just seems to slow the game down without any point....

But the effects (once you know how to play) are not game crippling. The only one that really affected me was the "-1 strategic resource per deposit".

Beyond that I really just play like normal whether winter is on or not (albeit moving a few population points around to manage food and dust).



Im not sure how it would work, but here is my suggestion on how to make winter more appealing/game changing/interesting.

-Winter has a few (limited number of) base traits. These could be: 1) Slow units down, 2) Reduce Visibility, 3) 10-25% FIDS Penalty, etc..



-New winter penalties do not stack



-Each winter brings a 'single' penalty that is 2-3 times harsher then current. So say you could have 75% reduction of Industry (penalty ends at end of winter and doesn't come back unless it is randomly selected again). The penalty would preferably be only applied to one faction (each faction could have different affects).



-Add active winter penalties, suggestions:

1) Ungarrisoned unit health loss.

2) Increased minor factions

3) A specific city can be hit especially hard causing 50% population loss unless you have winter buildings or winter hero.

etc..





-Each winter has the possibility of giving a positive affect too (or instead of) (these would only last one winter as well). Some examples of positive effects:

1) New Hero Granted: Your people find a half frozen stranger in the snow and bring him back to health, in return he will fight for you.

2) As the planet dies new phenomena occur increasingly leading to a burst of new research, ie: +X% science.

3) EarlyGame: Severe snowstorms hamper travel causing minor factions to stay within their villages.

4) Better ruin searches.

etc...

Hi there,

eobet wrote:
How about a couple of features along the way that explains the endless winter to players, so they don't have to come to the forum and ask?



I mean, I think this is the third or fourth thread I'm replying something similar too, but the lore and events in Endless Legend are really cool and unique and it's pretty bloody sad that players think it's a bug and have to come to the forums to ask about it, when the dying planet should be the central, and most awesome thing about the game!

I'm glad to see your point of view and I understand it (as many players here). The fact is that there are players who are not really interested in the lore and they see the effects of the winter as a negative element of the gameplay. They just do not like. After all, it clearly interrupts the plans and actions that the player planned.



Now if we see the technical aspect of this:

Saylawl wrote:
Hello everyone,

First, the Endless Winter doesn't exist anymore. At the moment, the Endless Winter appears during the turn 3001. However, when you reach the late game, Summer is quite short so it looks like Eternal Winter but it's not. We understand that most of the players feel like it's the Eternal Winter and we will explain to you how to tweak it (and so change the duration of Summer/Winter).



Why not just make it a setup menu option?



In fact, if we create an option like this (which disable winter), it will create a lot of bugs and issues. Why? Because there are quests that the players can only achieve in winter. Moreover, the factions will not be balanced. For instance, the factions which are more winter-effects oriented, are stronger during the late game. If we disable winter, those factions will be incredibly nerfed. It will ask too much work for our team in order to balance the factions.



At the moment, I can't confirm if it will be an option. We are still thinking about it.

Source/thread



Cheers,

Saylawl wrote:
Hello everyone,



We think that it could indeed be interested to keep the Eternal Winter as an optional feature, so we'll look into it!



Cheers,

How about a couple of features along the way that explains the endless winter to players, so they don't have to come to the forum and ask?



I mean, I think this is the third or fourth thread I'm replying something similar too, but the lore and events in Endless Legend are really cool and unique and it's pretty bloody sad that players think it's a bug and have to come to the forums to ask about it, when the dying planet should be the central, and most awesome thing about the game!

solomani wrote:
When does endless winter set in? Only if you hit "continue playing" at game end/victory only?

After 300 turns it is pretty close to endless. ~30 turns of winter and 2 turns of summer.

solomani wrote:
When does endless winter set in? Only if you hit "continue playing" at game end/victory only?

I think they have it "off" at the moment. It sets in at turn 3001 or something.

When does endless winter set in? Only if you hit "continue playing" at game end/victory only?

I definitely think Winter should have the ability to be turned on and off in advanced features, just another one of the many ways to tweak our own custom games. It's a core mechanic to the original lore story but after a few games ending with an eternal winter, it would be nice to play with an endless summer .



Thanks for the update Saylawl .

If you decide to keep playing after you've won is winter supposed to be eternal? I've been in winter for 200 turns now -_-



Is this supposed to happen or is it a bug?

Hello everyone,



We think that it could indeed be interesting to keep the Eternal Winter as an optional feature, so we'll look into it!



Cheers,

Propbuddha wrote:
Just like you've prepared your cities, you should also have roads and other bonuses in place to offset some of this. Be prepared!

Roads don't help when you're exploring the rest of the world that you don't control ... which is usually what I'm doing when Endless Winter sets in ...

I generally use the Ranged Heroes that get movement bonuses to counteract winter already .... doesn't mean it isn't annoying that it makes it a pain to use slower moving heros, or that my Ranged scout heroes move permanently slower...



Point is yes there are thing you can do for your territory ... but it STILL doesn't make that movement malus go away.

The-Cat-o-Nine-Tales wrote:
Adding an option to disable Endless winter strikes me as a good idea. However, I'd take it one step further and add options for early or late arrival of said Endless Winter.

The more options, the better, the more people can modify the game to suit their specific tastes(without impinging on anyone else, because they can simply opt not to use those options), the more people are going to be able to enjoy the game.

Ashnal wrote:
At that point its only real effect is the annoying one that slows down movement for your armies, and makes the equipment that gets buffs during summer completely useless.



So in short endless winter makes one weapon material useless, and makes it take longer to move armies around, slowing down exploration and questing.

Just like you've prepared your cities, you should also have roads and other bonuses in place to offset some of this. Be prepared!

Endless winter is annoying.



A couple of points:

By the time Endless Winter sets in, you should have Governors that negate it entirely. So by late game is has little effect on your economy.

At that point its only real effect is the annoying one that slows down movement for your armies, and makes the equipment that gets buffs during summer completely useless.



So in short endless winter makes one weapon material useless, and makes it take longer to move armies around, slowing down exploration and questing.

I think it is good to have endless winter the default for the lore, but count me as another vote to have an option to disable it for when you just want to see what the best city you could build is.

Adding an option to disable Endless winter strikes me as a good idea. However, I'd take it one step further and add options for early or late arrival of said Endless Winter.