POLL: What more of would you like to see in an expansion?

[Berek]

We put up a poll in the Petroglyph forums on what you'd like to see in the next expansion. Comment here as well!

To note, we've announced a new date for the release of the expansion. Instead of rushing it out in the next few days, we're going to focus on fixing current issues and beefing up the expansion for a January release date.

This way you get an even more solid and content filled core+map pack package for the holidays, and an even better expansion after that! We're open to your feedback on this new release plan.

[Malama]

Sounds like a good plan to delay it. Polished stuff is the best.

Multiplay is the number one thing that would make this game more attractive and it sounds really fun.
Some kind of deck customization options would be cool, but not sure in what form.
Would like a bit more variation in the scenarios. Now almost all of them are in the form “Do X before the end of turn Y.”

I would love to see a multiplayer feature to this game.

[KaioShin]

Sounds like a very good plan to polish the main release up first and delay the expansion a bit.

As other people said before, the most attractive new features would be multiplayer and some deck customization.

Apart from that, a new campaign and not just new scenarios would be nice. So there are some events to find and play with Maybe a campaign with one of the other guardians.

[Ohnoo]

multiplayer

[JIgsawX]

Multiplayer and a Deck/Map Editor or even a random map maker(would be most sweet)

[vincentspai]

I guess I'd like to see some sort of mechanism of increasing the longevity/replayability of the game. It doesn't really take that long to do all of the steam achievements and get guardian victories on every map (besides having to replay stuff to get around bugs/crashes), and there's not really anything different to try after that.

I'm not sure what the best way of doing this would be though. I guess I could throw a few ideas out there (maybe not all of these are practical from an implementation perspective for the developers):

1. Random battles (maybe with random maps + random decks - or maybe you get a random map, and then a random set of cards with which you have to assemble a deck with, like the "sealed" formats of trading card games) - the problem with this would be having to make an actual AI that would play semi-competently, instead of just the move every non-stationary unit/attack every enemy unit/cast + sacrifice whenever able regardless of the usefulness NPC scripts that exist in the scenarios just to balance out the uneven map positions/victory conditions.
Or I suppose you could play the random maps against the script, but with the random maps all stacked in favor of the NPC script somehow? (how would this be done? mana handicap for the NPC player? more mountains/lakes near the AI start location than the player's start location?)

2. More scenarios - obviously the linear way of extending game life would work if the new scenarios could be produced in sufficient quantity. Presumably new cards would be introduced along with these so you're not just using the same cards in each scenario (which might get boring more quickly)

3. The cheese way - rewarding the player for doing the same thing over and over again. For example, beat this scenario 10 times and you unlock this card (kind of like unlocking characters in Street Fighter or something). This "grind" way of adding replayability might not appeal to everyone though, and it might be boring to repeat stuff too much.

(Really random and way out there idea after this) - Or maybe, each time you beat this scenario, you get an upgrade card, some more rare than others (like BattleForge). An upgrade for a card might be reducing its mana cost, increasing its attack/defense, improving/adding a special ability, or something like that.
You might be able to reuse content this way though - maybe you have to collect upgraded versions of cards to have a fighting chance on a new mode of the campaign/scenarios where the NPC player has upgraded cards. Lv2 cards could make the 2nd difficulty level of the maps doable, and lv3 cards for the 3rd difficulty, etc. It would also make it interesting as the balance might shift from playthrough to playthrough and the player would have to adapt and try new things (maybe on the 2nd playthrough, x card has improved more than y card). Although this would probably be a huge pain to implement, and you'd also have to worry about scaling issues. (things like "lv7 Volos costs 75 mana for an uber unit, inspire troops is too powerful and unbalanced now". And some cards wouldn't really scale up as well logically, like scout...)

I'm probably outvoted in this department though since it sounds like more people want multiplayer than more single player features - admittedly I'm not a big fan of multiplayer in sequential turn based games, heh.

I'd like to see new high-detailed textures, more units and terrain types. The possibility to level up the guardian and keep the stats to the next map in the campaign.

[Scorpiuscat]

Originally Posted by Darth Jalapeno

I'd like to see new high-detailed textures, more units and terrain types. The possibility to level up the guardian and keep the stats to the next map in the campaign.

That would be cool.

Kind of an RPG hybrid type deal.

[overread]

I would like to see the card game aspect brought more fully into the game. At the moment its more limited with spell sets defined by the mission we play and then handed out at random. I'd like to see us able to choose the cards that will form the "deck" for the mission itself, rather than have those prechosen by the map designer.

I feel that it would greatly enhance the game not just for singleplayer, but also for multiplayer. It also greatly increases the number of possible stratagies that can be used to beat a map.

Of course we currently have maps with fixed prechosen decks - so I'd say have the game split into 2 modes of play:

1) Prechosen decks by the map designer

2) Custom decks chosen by the player - note this could be offered only new new custom deck maps in addition to prechosen decks or could be totally custom decks only.


One can also greatly enhance this with the campaign feature - allowing players to unlock new cards to use in the game (either for that campaign only whilst having all cards usable in skirmish/mp or unlocking the cards globally for the whole game - excluding MP were its only fair that all players have the same full cardpool to draw from).

Crashes aside (which have been driving me mad btw and resulted that I don't want to play until the new patch) I'd love to see multiplayer and also the ability to remember the levelling up characters (or at least the main one) between missions. Cool game otherwise

Glad to see the new patch is live! As for ideas for a subsequent expansion...

Multiplayer vs. other humans would be nice, but to be honest, if it would occur in lieu of upgrades to the single-player game, I wouldn't be in support of it. 95% of my time with GoG will be single-player, regardless if multiplayer exists and I suspect that would be true for most players. Also, I just don't see an extensive multiplayer lifespan for this game. If it's very costly for the developers, than I'm not sure if the risk/reward payoff is in their favor.

I'd rather see:

1. A random map generator. More than anything else, this would increase the longevity of the game - and I think make it very appealing to new players. I would be absolutely thrilled if this made an appearance (much more so than multiplayer).

2. New spells. I consider this more important than new units, since spells are such an important aspect of this game. Greater spell variety allows for a greater range of strategic possibilities. And the AI seems to know how to use spells very well (given that it usually has a solid mana advantage).

3. New units for all the current races, and possibly a new race or two.

4. New scenarios. Especially small maps with fewer units. The big scenarios are tiresome to play, since it takes the AI so long to make all it's moves - and it can be frustrating to realize half-way through that you're doomed. I much prefer the shorter ones.

5. Ability to make your own maps/scenarios, post them online for others to play. I assume this is beyond your guys budget, but it would be awesome.

6. Ability to speed up animations (esp. AI), just like you can "skip" the mana-counting. It gets tiresome watching the AI make all its moves and attacks on large maps.

[uklamok]

I'm having a tough time with the first few missions I'm not sure id get another expansion. after an hour of play or so to get to the end of turn 7 holding 3 of 6 castles i had to rage quit realizing the way things stood i wasn't going to make it another round let alone to turn ten.

[Maledictus010]

The good points have already been made, though I don't give a rat's ♥♥♥♥ about multiplayer. I'd like to see some UI improvements, small things. Like the option to disable the "mouse on edge of screen causes move" thingie, that drives me nuts. If I think of other things I'll update.

The adding of persistent RPG elements mentioned earlier sounds great, that would make my day.
Also, the scaling of the UI in a 4:3 resolution leaves something to be desired. Some text disappears here and there, though that could just be a problem on my setup.

[Godwin]

Would love the ability to assemble your own decks, that's my absolute nr 1 wish!
New cards, new heroes, new campaigns.
Map editor (with scripted events) would be cool.
Do not really care about multiplayer either.