Just love everything I've read so far



Except the fact that every hero gets a fighter. It sucks.

It makes sense for an adventurer, but for an admiral? Come on guys! How could a Craver admiral leave his troops, being separated of his warriors and accept that?

I think seing your admiral in a fighter that he drive himself is really not good for immersion.

What! You have the more powerful empire of the Galaxy, and your heroes have to use like, patrol ships? Are there austerity measures?





Plus I have some questions/ideas that I would like to share with you :



- Can a hero die? I mean the same way heroes die in DotE?

I would love it, to assassinate someone else's hero knowing that he would be lost forever. If so, the hero that are needed for the faction quest might be just wounded.

Elsewhere, a hero could get the trait "deadly injured", spent the rest of his life under heavy medical assistance, so he would get less xp or could only be used as a governor...

I wish this could happen, even in only some rare cases.



- What if I don't find the Academy? Or if it is far behind an empire I'm at war with?

I think that maybe the Academy should be revealed after a certain number of turns to every empire. With a bonus to the first empire to discover it.



- Will some heroes come with their own ship?

A good way to put some special ships in the game!



- Will there be different types of ships that could be used by our heroes?

For instance, when we get a hero, we choose which flagship type he will have, depending on which models we have already unlocked through research.



- Will there be a Galaxy Congress, where we will have to assign a hero of our faction, more precisely a Senator?

Depending of what kind of political affinity they have, they could affect the global votes.

I also think that diplomacy manoeuvers could be conducted there, to reinforce the immersion in the game.

And each player should be able to call a vote on a special measure, like the ban of a luxury resource, a blocus against another empire... The call for a vote will cost influence points, of course.



- What about independant heroes that can be mercenaries, paid by an empire to be corsairs (against enemy trade fleets! there will be trade fleets? please tell me there will be ), to assassinate an other hero... like adventurers we could set quests for!

I.e. "we promise 500 to whoever the hell brings us the head of /enemy hero name/". Or "the first to blow up 10 cargo ships of /faction name/ gets 200 " And all the independant heroes will try to fulfill the quest to get the rewards! And it might even be possible to achieve for other empires, if the "quest" is paramaterized the right way (it's important that we could hide a quest to the other empires so a friendly empire doesn't know we are stabbing him ^^)





And finally I've got a crazy idea, inspired by the army management system of Rome Total War 2.

Basically each fleet gain xp with each battle, as well as the units that compose it. This xp earned by the fleet can be used to develop a skill tree that is only efficient for the fleet, the only condition being that this fleet has a hero. In a flagship! Because this flagship will be the core of the fleet. If it dies, all the bonuses accumulated by the fleet vanishes.

All we need are flagships for our heroes lol (it really is something important to me ^^)





Sorry for my english (I tried my best) and for the looooooooooong post. I tried to make things as clear as I could.

I really hope you'll pick up some of my ideas! They're not copyrighted



ST

Hi,



IMO you're on the right path. Again. I liked how heroes worked in EL, having only two complaints: no chivalry heroes and the links between abilities, which makes hard or even impossible to get some combinations. It seems you have fix the second one and even improved it, and for the first one, well, I can't imagine someone riding a horse through the void in a SciFi context.



Very happy with the ideas on this GDD.



Just some questions:



-The ship will be the same for all heroes? Would be cool have different ships and have it representing the fleet on the screen as the hero does with the army in EL. Said that it's not a main feature for me, only something visually good.



- Have you considered a fourth abilities tree related to political ideology? And if you had, did you found it will add an unnecessary complexity to the game?



- The GDD states:

If an empire owns the Academy node in the galaxy, that empire is able to gain information on all heroes in the game and what sort of assignment they have. This is the only advantage to owning the node, aside from it potentially working like an 'anomaly'.

I'm sure some players will be able to take and advantage of this info. This time not asking only to Amplitude, but to everyone: have you thought a way to take and advantage with this info?



- Related to the previous: will it give clues about what other players are doing? Will you be able to see heroes in nodes you hadn't explored or on fleets out of your vision radius?



Thanks and keep going on! You're doing great things with video games!

Frogsquadron wrote:


On the topic of 'hero skills'

There was a wish to have 'active' skills on heroes, compared to the passive nature of skills in ES1 and EL. We understand the wish for this and we may be able to add a couple, but overall due to how the game functions and how active skills would add to the GUI, it is unfortunately not something we will be able to add a lot of.

First of all, awesome. I love everything. I feel like you're really pushing the genre forward, and all the new systems are well thought-out and engaging.



Regarding active hero skills in particular, because this is something that I would really like and I've put some thought into it. I think that there's room for "active-ish" abilities that don't complicate the interface, by making use of the existing systems of Infinite Improvements, and Social Policies. They're not quite as "active" as a shiny new button to press, but the main thing that I want out of activated abilities is that the Hero feels more interactive than just a passive stat bonus and I think that want would be satisfied by Infinite Improvements and Social Policies.



For example, here's an easy one: A system can always broadcast propaganda for the political alignment of its Governor, even if that faction isn't in the Senate. This isn't even a new ability, really, it's just giving me access to an existing ability that I wouldn't otherwise have. But it would make me feel like using an ability of the Hero. And it could have a big strategic impact on the game, because now that Hero can get you access to a political ideology that you didn't have yet.



Just some other ideas for Infinite Improvements that could be Hero skills, off the top of my head:

* Fleet Repairs: Converts industry to ship HP (instead of spending Dust)

* Fleet Drills: Converts industry to ship XP

* Arm the Rebels: Converts industry into bad things happening to nearby enemy systems (damage? happiness?)

* Bread and Circuses: Converts industry into Happiness

* Export Goods: Bonuses to Trade Routes in/through the system



As for social policies, I don't have many concrete suggestions because we don't know the nitty-gritty details yet. But, it seems like social policies can be applied on the system level (vs only empire level for EL). Maybe some social policies are Governor skills instead of just Senate unlocks. Or maybe, like the propaganda example above, the Governor gives you access to some social policies from his ideology that are otherwise just out of reach. It seems like some social policies are thresholded on representation level? So a Governor could let you get access to social policies from the next representation level up from what you currently have.

I'm loving the direction Heroes are going in this time for ES2. Heroes having a part in actual politics sounds really promising as well.



Heroes actually being represented in your fleet sounds great as well, although I'm worried that a "fighter" sized ship is a little too small, for actual fleet admirals anyway. It doesn't sound like much of a flagship, medium or large sounds about right although its then a question of balance.

There seems to be a distinct lack of diplomacy/espionage related stuff here, the Hero dedicated GDD. I'm saying that, because adding internal politic systems into the game is a fantastic opportunity to complement that with an espionage/diplomatic influence type of system. Like sending operatives into a neighbouring empire to discredit Their Militaristic faction or helping Their Pacifist Party before Your invasion. Or having a "Preacher" Hero flying around Your systems making the populace more aware of Ecology and warning Them about the dangers of Industrialization. Along many other applications, like messing with Trade Companies, Influence Frontiers and so on and so forth.



You didn't like the way espionage was handled with heroes in Endless Legend and are working on a different system to be revealed later? *insert Dramatic Chipmunk soundbyte*

Very, very cool system. I like that the heroes will have unique personalities and stories that evolve based off of what they do in the game. I also like the idea of the academy being an actual defined political entity in the game, with its own agenda and motives.

I do share the concerns that some people are having regarding hero ship size. While I understand the need for heroes to feel powerful individually, not because of their ship, having the commander of a massive fleet containing things like dreadnought- and cruiser-type capital ships in a a fighter-sized vessel would seem... odd. Of course, heroes also shouldn't have ships of this size in the early game. I am in favor of KnightofPhoenix's suggestion, with larger hero ships being unlocked somehow. Perhaps heroes should receive larger ships as you research larger ship classes.

Gives us cosmetics: hats, gizmos & other collectibles for the heroes.



HATS!



Every achievement should unlock a cosmetic trinket.



To avoid adding too much work for purely visual flair, these cosmetics would mostly draw from the models which are already used in game for the units, ships etc. Some could be drawn from EL assets, such as armor and ancient weapons like bows, arrows, swords, staves etc. Some stuff would be retextures. There would be an occasional doodah which is original and unique though.



A Craver would go 'to be or not to be' on a Sophon skull in their hand.



A Sophon would play with a hologyroscope thingamajig.



A Horatio would adjust its unique armor/garment in a 'oh boy do I look GOOD' smug posture/fashion.



Some trinkets would just lie in the background behind users which don't use them.



Those would unlock and become persistent from game to game. They are trophies really and have no function game-to-game.



The player should be able to unlock trophy rooms/emperor quarters for each species, and they would be gradually be populated with the collected trinkets.



Should let us unlock wallpapers as well!



--



Hero quests:



There should be quests to unlock heroes, but also hero quests to unlock extra bonuses for the current gameplay.



Inspiration from Dungeon Of The Endless:



Imagine Time is a möbius strip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip



Endless Survivors:



Survivors of Dungeon Of The Endledss emerge and on Endless Legend they become the vaulters faction, which go to space, as a playable faction.

They lost the way back to their homeworld Auriga. Every game would have an Auriga planet with unique properties and quests, it would be a special planet amongst others.

Auriga may be a planet in a non-colonizable system, it's THAT unique. Any fleet going to Auriga would have attrition damage due to the planet's automated defenses, and the hero would fall to the surface.

The hero would be wounded and return to the academy starting a 'Dungeon Of The Endless' quest.

The player would send subsequent heroes and each one would bring back a hint to the quest.

This quest should be a modular one, not a hard-coded single script, so it becomes unpredictable on every gameplay. Different hero and items every time, and each faction having different hero/items requirement in the same game. By sending the wrong heroes/items, progress would be slow or even stop before the end, until the player manages to get a decent hero. Minimum hero level should also play a part in the quest.

Sending the wrong hero would bring little to nothing. Sending the right hero, with the right gear, lets it progress more. Only by getting the hero 'just right', correct hero and perfect equipment, the player would unlock some secret/bonus, perhaps some extra lore on Auriga, and/or even colonizing it by winning the quest.

If it is only colonizable via quest it should give great bonuses.

Hero should get a 'Dungeon Survivor' unique trait/bonus as well.



It's kinda-sorta going full-circle in time, and one game piggyback into the other, being both prequel and sequel! Sci-fi at its prime.



If there is any place for it, hired heroes should interact with each other as well, like the elevator cutscenes. Some hero combinations could lead to unique dialogue. No heroes killing heroes though... unless it's the enemy's hero! But no permadeath.

Wow, this is a really interesting update!

The heroes, and the lore attached to them was one of my favorite things about the first game, so I'm really excited to hear that they're being developed even further.



I personally love that the heroes you get depend more on your faction now. I've played entire long games of ES without finding a single hero of my own faction, and that always felt kinda weird.



I'm looking forward to hearing more about the academy. It's gonna be really interesting having that as a separate entity in the universe.



Also, I agree with what others have posted about the hero ships. I totally understand the logic behind it, from a gameplay perspective. Still, it definitely feels strange imagining an admiral flying around in a tiny fighter when he/she/shkle is supposed to lead the battle. Maybe if it's a long range automated missile fighter or something?



I'm also a little cautious about having the academy as a separate node on the map. But as long as it's always generated in a fairly neutral accessible point it should be fine.

Although it does raise the question of why a super-aggressive craver faction wouldn't just bomb the place and eat everyone there...



All in all I love what you're doing with heroes. Every GDD you've released has made me more excited to get the game, so you're definitely doing something right

Garak wrote:
First of all, awesome. I love everything. I feel like you're really pushing the genre forward, and all the new systems are well thought-out and engaging.



Regarding active hero skills in particular, because this is something that I would really like and I've put some thought into it. I think that there's room for "active-ish" abilities that don't complicate the interface, by making use of the existing systems of Infinite Improvements, and Social Policies. They're not quite as "active" as a shiny new button to press, but the main thing that I want out of activated abilities is that the Hero feels more interactive than just a passive stat bonus and I think that want would be satisfied by Infinite Improvements and Social Policies.



For example, here's an easy one: A system can always broadcast propaganda for the political alignment of its Governor, even if that faction isn't in the Senate. This isn't even a new ability, really, it's just giving me access to an existing ability that I wouldn't otherwise have. But it would make me feel like using an ability of the Hero. And it could have a big strategic impact on the game, because now that Hero can get you access to a political ideology that you didn't have yet.



Just some other ideas for Infinite Improvements that could be Hero skills, off the top of my head:

* Fleet Repairs: Converts industry to ship HP (instead of spending Dust)

* Fleet Drills: Converts industry to ship XP

* Arm the Rebels: Converts industry into bad things happening to nearby enemy systems (damage? happiness?)

* Bread and Circuses: Converts industry into Happiness

* Export Goods: Bonuses to Trade Routes in/through the system



As for social policies, I don't have many concrete suggestions because we don't know the nitty-gritty details yet. But, it seems like social policies can be applied on the system level (vs only empire level for EL). Maybe some social policies are Governor skills instead of just Senate unlocks. Or maybe, like the propaganda example above, the Governor gives you access to some social policies from his ideology that are otherwise just out of reach. It seems like some social policies are thresholded on representation level? So a Governor could let you get access to social policies from the next representation level up from what you currently have.

I really like the idea of fleet repairs and fleets drills(Though those should be limited somehow I feel for balance), they would be great new opportunities and work great for heroes. I also like the idea of arm the rebels, but I feel like that would work better at a cost of dust maybe in combination with some espionage and intrigue system. Bread and Circuses and Export Goods on the other hand from infinite industry would be odd, I feel like you already have both effects from industry through improvements.

Glorious progress! So glad to see the back of randomly assigned heroes.

That sounds so rad! I can't wait to see them visually represented in fleets.

This sounds really good. I like the concept of the Academy being a seperate institutution, though I feel like it being localized could be kinda unbalanced anyway if players get too much intel.

An Admiral being on fighter like ship.That is stupid.Commanders would have the biggest ship.Adventurer maybe.



Apart from that it sounds good.

Said just a few minutes ago, that I look foward to more news. Look at the forums news feed, See that GDD8 was posted just an hour ago! You do not dissappoint



Ok, now I've read throug it and I have some questions.



1.How much are hero skill trees going to be developed? Will it be about the same number as in EL? Less? More?



2.Will heroes of different political factions interact with each other? Say I have a Sophon hero of the pacifist party and a craver hero of the militarist party, is there going to be any rivalry between them?



3.What kind of Equipment can heroes have? Is it both Items for them and their ships, or just their ships?



4. Conitinuing from question 2, will heroes ,who don´t agree with the politics of the empire, leave it or show discontent?



5.Can Heroes die or just get wounded in battle?

Sounds good!

There was also some questions on modifying the texture of these ships based on the heroes faction. This is currently not planned, but we will be keeping an eye on feedback on this.

It will be excellent if different factions will have different textures/patterns for heroes ships.

Experience will of course translate into levels, which allows the hero to progress through a skill tree.

How big these skill trees? Bigger than in EL?

This is a great update!



I absolutely love what you are doing with heroes, having them be involved in party politics, as well as having the Academy be an actual dynamic organization that you can work with and earn heroes from, as opposed to buying them. I also like how the heroes you get will depend on variables such as your empire's population and politics.

In addition, allowing us to mix and match from different skill trees without being forced to invest in one tree is a nice and welcome change. Often times in EL, I was interested in one ability but was not willing to invest in the several skills I needed to unlock it.



Everything sounds great and I approve of it all.



The only thing I would hope is for the Admiral class to eventually unlock a bigger ship that can act as a flagship. Perhaps it can be a class ability that is unlocked on higher levels. I like watching adventurers in Millenium Falcon type ships a la Lando Calrissian at the Battle of Endor. But every self respecting admiral needs a flagship!

I love it.

Frogsquadron wrote:
There is a third "automatic" assignment -> Senator Assignment. The first hero you obtain within each politic will become the "visual" representative for that politics in the government and elections. If that politics is elected in and the hero is assigned -> that hero can have "senate" specific skills that will give empire wide bonuses.

(...)

Questions regarding hero ship

There are some questions regarding the size of hero ships. Their scale is a little smaller than a 'small ship'. The reason for this is to make hero ships feel like 'fighters' - essentially heroes should feel powerful on their own merits, not because they have a large ship.

There was also some questions on modifying the texture of these ships based on the heroes faction. This is currently not planned, but we will be keeping an eye on feedback on this.

So... heroes will be influential senators who can influence entire empire, but aren't influential enough to be admirals of their own crewed battleships. Somehow that sounds completely illogical to me.

I hope the visual texture of the ships are either different between each hero or at least follow faction specific texture. If all heroes have the same ship then that would be boring. As for all heroes having small ships, maybe it would be cool to have some unique heroes you get through quests or anomelies that have bigger ships?

In the wiki, they show 4 Sophon heroes of three different classes, admiral and adventurer inclued.