Jojo_Fr wrote:
No they did not.

Mark Rosewater once said "if everyone likes your game but nobody loves it; it will fail". Even amongst 4X players different people play for different reasons and like different things. We've noted that some people love the Allayi and that other people don't and this is fine: there are other factions to play that suit other play-styles. The mistake would have been to design a faction that everyone felt was just okay and that nobody thought was really nifty, out of fear of it not pleasing a certain type of player.

Slashman wrote:
Well it is possible that the devs are still collecting feedback and want to make sure they get as wide an opinion range as possible.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
That is the case. It seems clear that EL is not a done project yet. So continuous feedback will be helpful.



I think some minor tweaks are still needed here and there, for both the Allayi and the Forgotten, to make it more or less 'complete.'

I would believe so too. But I am wondering why they are not explicit on the matter. Like :

- "Nope not going to change that. It is core to the faction"

- "We could tweak those numbers so that it emphasize more on...."

- Or even setting what is core and what is not.



I mean I am fine with either solution (them considering feedbacks or not). But in case it's welcomed I would like to be helped making constructive feedbacks.

wilbefast wrote:
Mark Rosewater once said "if everyone likes your game but nobody loves it; it will fail". Even amongst 4X players different people play for different reasons and like different things. We've noted that some people love the Allayi and that other people don't and this is fine: there are other factions to play that suit other play-styles. The mistake would have been to design a faction that everyone felt was just okay and that nobody thought was really nifty, out of fear of it not pleasing a certain type of player.

Thanks for the reply. It is appreciated. But I am not sure as to what you meant... Do you consider the faction to be 100% complete ? Something tells me it is specifically addressed toward Jojo_fr but i am missing the point.



Edit : added stuffs.

well, as some said, we want to take first some time to gather all the feedbacks and feelings about the faction, a bit like we did for the Forgotten.

But in a nutshell, we don't want to change what the Allayi are, for sure: a shifting faction focused on exploration (more than expansion), pearls, and seasons, all of this with their very special dedicated units

So far, what catches the most our attention is their difficulty to deal with freshly captured cities (disapproval), or the pearl cost of the Garths which are maybe still a bit too high currently.

Kaboomer wrote:
So far, what catches the most our attention is their difficulty to deal with freshly captured cities (disapproval), or the pearl cost of the Garths which are maybe still a bit too high currently.

I love them, they fit nicely with my preference for playing tall. With that in mind, a quicker way of destroying captured cities would be great. But the biggest problem I have, is I spend all my pearls on garths and I have none left for prayers. That doesn't seem right as I think the Allayi should have the most influence over coming winter effects as they are the most attuned with Auriga.

MidnightSun wrote:
I love them, they fit nicely with my preference for playing tall. With that in mind, a quicker way of destroying captured cities would be great. But the biggest problem I have, is I spend all my pearls on garths and I have none left for prayers. That doesn't seem right as I think the Allayi should have the most influence over coming winter effects as they are the most attuned with Auriga.

I also think Garth pearl cost is a bit too high. But I recommend you try using an Allayi governor with zealous hands. The 20/40% pearl cost reduction on buildings saves you quite a bit of pearls for praying and other usages.

If it can help :



- Synthetic post on Allayi : https://www.games2gether.com/#/endless-legend/forum/6-game-design/thread/19479-list-of-suggestions-by-category-shifters-update

- A bit more complet suggestions post on Allayi : https://www.games2gether.com/#/endless-legend/forum/5-general/thread/2865-shifters-first-thought



About expansion dissaproval :



- Personnaly, I think the city expansion dissaproval is too high in Endless legend, high with any civ, including Allayi. It leads to a situation where it's really more viable to focus on a tall strategy, in all games. Ask any good player in multiplayer, they will all say that it's really easisier, takes less times, lead to less risk, and is more efficiant, to stay on 3-4 cities all the game, and grab all the usefull empire plan.



A situation where going to some cities strategy is very rare and only use by very skilled persons (I think to me, and in a small proportion of games only) means there is a problem somewhere, because it's better in a game if there is some viables strategies than always one (tall only in earl/mid/late game, or tall early game then wide mid game, or wide early game etc.) What can I say more ?



(early expansionAllayi city expansion dissaproval is a problem only in mid-late game, when you are very probably at war with nations which you need to conquier. mid-late game, than I was before. I know that Allayi are a mix between cultist (one city) and a new type of civ (explorators, winter specialist and perarls collectors).



About expansion dissaproval on Allayi:



As some persons said, the problem it's the difficulty for Allayi to sustain new conquered cities in mid and late game. That is mainly why it would be better to nerf expansion dissaproval. But I think a more elegant solution would be better. As solutions I see 3 possibles suggestions :



- Doubling the allayi assimilation speed (simple but bad, non logical, and vanilla idea).



- Progressive city razing feature : The city is returned to auriga natural form : districts are razed and cleaned, population is evacuated or killed etc. is taked 5 turns in quick speed to be done. During this 5 turns, the city produce no output at all, but no expansion dissaproval for their emipre. After these 5 turns, allayi wons one science reserve fo each district destroyed.



- Outpost transformation (The name is not great). The captured city become a commercial and strategic outpost. City expansion dissaproval created by this city has -75 %. The trade with the city is possible, and the construction of city expansion too (towers, and extractors). Buildings are not destroyed. Population get back to one point, and any districts are destroyed. The "transformation" takes 5 turns.







The others things I don't like about Allayi it's their uber speed. It's damn huge especially with ice walker item, in mid/late game. You can grab all the pearls in the surface, in few turns, with 6/8 units. The problem it's no one can prevent you from having the map control, and stoling all the pearls inside the ennemy territory.



This is a core problem, because :



- You take some times to do this which is annoying in micro managing.

- It removes the strategic battle about pearls, because your units are enough fast to take it, so there is strategic battle to grab them.

- You can give you invulnerability if you go into the sea or a lake. So it's really easy to move into an ennemy land, steal pearls, and finish your turn into a safe hexagone.



I always asked for a diminution of unit speed in Endless Legend (up to 8 hexagone maximum, in any situation) but it seems my opinion has not or cannot be applied.



Okay, but I think it would be really more interesting to have another way to grab pearls (suggestions) :



- Occupy a specified hexagone with your unit or your army, for 3 turns. If you did it 3 turns, you won some pearls (20 pearls for exemple). After each winter beginning, these special hexagone to occupy are changed. The principe of this idea, it's the speed has not much importance, but having force superiority has importance, because another civ may come and beat your unit/army, then take the pearls. It would removed the speed advantage and the "Bip Bip" Allayi strategy about pearls. ^^

So essentially you want the Allayi to be more like everyone else, with not as bad expansion disapproval but reduced speed and map control. It's a valid opinion, of course, but it goes against the vision the devs have for them and it is very doubtful these suggestions will be taken into consideration (rightfully so, imo, as I prefer the Allayi to play the way they are intended).



The only thing I agree with is for the Allayi to be able to raze unwanted conquered cities faster, either through an innate ownership bonus (which is indeed boring), or a pearl blessing that unlocks an action on the city that would destroy it in 5 turns (subject to discount from Zealous Hands, perhaps). It could be explained in the lore as the Allayi using pearls as WMDs.



Other minor tweaks would include making Master Alchemists unlockable through the questline (courtesy of BPrado), as the Allayi struggle with early game science, reducing the pearl costs of Garths, and potentially having Zealous Hands affect the pearl costs of everything and not just buildings (so stockpiles, unit equipment, skyfins...etc).



And finally, the Forgotten, despite the buffs they got, are still not the masters of espionage that they should be, considering all factions can benefit from most of the buffs to Forgotten spies. Currently, a Forgotten is forced to spend a lot of time gaining infiltration levels for stealing advanced tech, which reduces their ability to use espionage more aggressively to lower morale or vision, because it takes too long to gain infiltration levels. What the Forgotten need, imo, is an innate seniority bonus as a faction trait (not a hero trait). Their spies start with seniority 3 when infiltrating, making them gain infiltration levels faster.

So essentially you want the Allayi to be more like everyone else, with not as bad expansion disapproval but reduced speed and map control.

- If you look the propositions I made, you can see that I don't want to nerf the superior Allayi expansion dissaproval.



I would like to make conquest sustainable and interesting, and I proposed two possibles features to make it possible ("Progressive city razing feature" and "Outpost transformation"). With one of these feature on, expanding will still be very hard for them, but taking city would not be a suicidal strategy.



I think these features would be really better than pure razing. If Allayi are city destructor, then why not giving them the same ability than cultist ? It's not logical. And I think transforming a big city in just a small output in the natural region, with nearly no FIDSI output, is more funny and still in the lore.



- Map control is too easy with Allayi : super speed, immunity to monsters, immunity to winter etc. it's easy for them to collect 80 % of the pearls of the map, ine few turns after the fall of winter. That's why I try to limit this phenomen, intense in micromanagement and not fun to play.

Jojo_Fr wrote:
I would like to make conquest sustainable and interesting, and I proposed two possibles features to make it possible ("Progressive city razing feature" and "Outpost transformation"). With one of these feature on, expanding will still be very hard for them, but taking city would not be a suicidal strategy.

Honestly I am in favor of keeping it simple. Offer them two choices once they take a city.



1) Activate an ability which reduces the time to ownership (whether by half or 2/3 would be up to the devs). At the 100% ownership mark, the city is razed.



2) They continue with the standard ownership penalty and countdown if they wish to keep the city.

I think these features would be really better than pure razing. If Allayi are city destructor, then why not giving them the same ability than cultist ? It's not logical. And I think transforming a big city in just a small output in the natural region, with nearly no FIDSI output, is more funny and still in the lore.

Not sure that the devs are looking to change the gameplay of the Allayi very drastically at this point and those are significant changes. It means coding new features entirely and I don't think that is the feel they want for the Allayi.

- Map control is too easy with Allayi : super speed, immunity to monsters, immunity to winter etc. it's easy for them to collect 80 % of the pearls of the map, ine few turns after the fall of winter. That's why I try to limit this phenomen, intense in micromanagement and not fun to play.

I disagree. Their strength is mobility. That's what they do better than anyone. That is why they start with ship travel unlocked and have early access to the Skyfin. Micro is the price paid for being able to get almost anywhere in an incredibly short time to take Pearls.



Also, they can't collect from somewhere that they are not allowed to go. That's what closed borders are for.

Jojo_Fr wrote:


- Progressive city razing feature : The city is returned to auriga natural form : districts are razed and cleaned, population is evacuated or killed etc. is taked 5 turns in quick speed to be done. During this 5 turns, the city produce no output at all, but no expansion dissaproval for their emipre. After these 5 turns, allayi wons one science reserve fo each district destroyed.

While i liked the idea of a city being "returned to auriga" instead of razed. I am a bit afraid of suggesting science reserves as a reward. This is too similar to cultists. Food stockpiles perhaps ? Or a temporary buff ? Or nothing at all ?



One thing I am certain. It has to be easy to implement.



Edit : added stuffs

Now, it is interesting to note how Allayi AI does (not) handle expansion disproval.



In my first game Allayi AI faction was really good. Had decent economy, good military and lots of explorers, with 3-4 regions under their control with lots of expansions.



I was worried about Wild Walkers who expanded agreesively and have taken a lot of territories.



So I decided to bribe Allayi to wage war on Wind Walkers.



The result was that Allayi obliterated WW, taking almost all of their territories, when peace was decared.



After this point, Allay where at permanent 0 apprival till the end of the game. AI was just unable to cope with having so many cities or how to handle such situations.

Jojo_Fr wrote:


I think these features would be really better than pure razing. If Allayi are city destructor, then why not giving them the same ability than cultist ? It's not logical.

Because the Allayi need to have the option of keeping a conquered city if they so wish. So they can't be the same as the Cultists. Correct me if I am wrong, but your first suggestion is effectively razing, which is an idea I support (though I wouldn't give the Allayi stockpiles from it).



The outpost mechanic sounds nice, except I very much doubt they are going to implement a solution that requires that much work. What the Allayi need is a small adjustment letting them get rid of unwanted cities faster, in such a way that it can fit in their faction trait. I'd rather they dedicate time and resources on more important things.

I like their moth units. Really really nice.

KnightofPhoenix wrote:
Because the Allayi need to have the option of keeping a conquered city if they so wish. So they can't be the same as the Cultists. Correct me if I am wrong, but your first suggestion is effectively razing, which is an idea I support (though I wouldn't give the Allayi stockpiles from it).



The outpost mechanic sounds nice, except I very much doubt they are going to implement a solution that requires that much work. What the Allayi need is a small adjustment letting them get rid of unwanted cities faster, in such a way that it can fit in their faction trait. I'd rather they dedicate time and resources on more important things.

I agree, a faster ownership conversion rate would help them just salt the city sooner to help with the expansion disapproval. This could maybe be a new trait in general or added to their faction trait.

o0ber wrote:
I agree, a faster ownership conversion rate would help them just salt the city sooner to help with the expansion disapproval. This could maybe be a new trait in general or added to their faction trait.

But then, what do you do with your settler ?

Ephraim wrote:
But then, what do you do with your settler ?

Would be great if they could "join city", to become population.