Posts Tagged play testing

orc re-vamp & a tool

the ware
First I’d like to introduce a nice new tool I discovered that’s called Dia. It allows us to create nice flow charts easily and a sample of the original rules concept turn/phase sequence can be seen here to the right. Dia is open source of course and available for lovely Linux among other OS:s. I’ve added the link to it in our FAQ and recommend everyone with the need to try it out.

the vamp
As anyone that has actually playtested the orginal rules concept (orc) has surely noticed it’s not working out and has some serious and fatal issues.

1. victory points á la shapes
The main problems it has is that the victory point system – which enables a player to get points for creating an empty shape in his opponents army – does not play together very well with the fact that a player can recruit freely every turn (even if he/she pays for the recruit). Most of the different empty shapes never occur because the opponent will mend the holes in his/her army by recruiting a new unit.

Using shapes for any kind of victory condition has proven to be very tricky to accomplish. I’m probably abandoning that idea for now, but would gladly revisit it should anyone have some good input on it.

The concept of shapes can, in any case, be used as a requirement for some types of ability payments: The more we want to limit the use of an ability without having to make much more expensive in marked cards, the more incentive we get to ask for a payment in a shape, i.e. [c] instead of [2].

2. overpriced
Most cards are overpriced. All creatures should probably have their cost lowered with 1, and many of the abilities are also too expensive. This will be fixed in the next revision of the elfs.

3. AP:s goodbye?
There may be good reasons to ditch the AP:s, allow unlimited number of attacks (but still just 1 per creature due to the fact that attacking marks a card) but limit the number of movements to just 2 per turn.

4. attack system
I’m not impressed at all by how I devised the attack system and will look at alternatives. The thing which bothers me the most and which is related is the admin it takes to keep track of HP of each character. If possible I’d fool around with letting everyone have just 1 HP and use some kind of MTG approach instead to lessen admin work and add elegance to the system, if I can also still keep the effect of Rows and Spatial placement in the game.

Tags: , ,

playtest stats sheet released

dlpdfA sheet that helps you keep track of basic things while playtesting has been added in our downloads section. It can be downloaded as an Open Office Writer file and as a pdf.

Tags: , ,

elves playtest proxy 1.1.2

A new and current proxy sheet of the Elves as they are this far has been released in the downloads section.

A pdf-version has also been added for your convenience.

v.1.1.1

  • Archer price was made higher, from 2 to 3
  • Fighter close combat lowered, 4 -> 3
  • Druid Self-heal cost lowered [ ] [C] -> [ ]
  • Druid Heal cost raised [ ] -> [ ] [ 1 ]
  • Wose cost lowered, 5 -> 4
  • Wose Self-Heal made eaiser, [ ] [ P ] -> [ ] [ 3 ]
  • Mage Fire Elemental cost lowered, [ ] [ 2 ] -> [ ]
  • Marksman is missing? Marksman has Shaman art.
  • Elvish Captain & Hero artwork is mixed up. It needs to be swapped back since they’re already known with their associated artwork. (And the Captain, bearing the flag standard, gives the bonus through it – troops get inspired seeing the flag etc)
  • Elvish Captain (the one with the flag) close combat raised, 4 -> 6
  • Elvish Captain Defense lowered, 6 -> 5
  • Elvish Hero ranged combat lowered, 4 -> 3
  • Elvish Hero defense lowered, 5 ->

1.1.2

    • Druid:

    • Renamed Heal to “Greater Heal” to mark diff from the Shamans Heal ability
    • Lowered Self-heal cost, [ ] [C] –> [C]
    • Reworded [Ensnare] –> “[Ensnare] – Enemies hit by Ensnare get their Attack Points reduced to half this turn, and also can’t move this turn.”
  • Shaman: Changed wording of Entangle. “[Entangle] – Enemies hit by Entangle get their Attack Points reduced to half this & next turn.” –> “[Entangle] – Enemies hit by Entangle get their Attack Points reduced to half during this turn.”
    • Marksman:

    • Changed wording. “Sharp Shooter – May attack enemies in 2nd Row in Ranged Combat even if there is an enemy in front of them in the 1st Row.” –> “Sharp Shooter – May attack an enemy even if it’s in cover.”
    • Replaced it’s Evade ability with –> “Suportive Fire – Target Elvish Archer gets +1 in ranged combat during this turn.”
    • Wose:

    • Lowered Self-Heal –> [ ] [ 2 ]
    • Raised cost for Wose 4 –> 5
    • Captain & Hero: Reverted back.

Tags: , , ,

dwarves playtest proxy released

A new and current proxy sheet of the Dwarves as they are this far has been released in the downloads section. Future revisions of that file (and there will be plenty of those) will be announced on this news page.

Notice: If you download it and want to play test the cards with card art you must update the paths to the card art in Inkscape once you open the svg: They need to be manually set to point to wherever your /portraits is located (download the card art in /portraits as well from the download page if you don’t have the images already). To make the necessary changes in Inkscape just mark and right click the card art container and select properties.

Please tell us how it goes if you try things out…

Tags: , , ,

elves playtest proxy released

A new and current proxy sheet of the Elves as they are this far has been released in the downloads section. Future revisions of that file (and there will be plenty of those) will be announced on this news page.

Notice: If you download it and want to play test the cards with card art you must update the paths to the card art in Inkscape once you open the svg: They need to be manually set to point to wherever your /portraits is located (download the card art in /portraits as well from the download page if you don’t have the images already). To do it just mark and right click the card art container.

Please tell us how it goes if you try things out.

Tags: , , ,

play testing v.3.0

dlgzWill play test the v.3.0 tomorrow by using the cards that are found in the linked proxies to the right. They’re a couple of pdf:s gz/tared, inlcuding all current dwarfs and elfs.

3.0 marks the start of basic play testing of the deterministic model as a concept Will it be playable at all? We’ll soon find out. Please notice: 1 is min and 7 is max for the battle stats (attacks & defense). Magic damage can always find it’s target, just like the Sharp Shooter ability. Life should usually be 2 for a lvl 1 and 3 for a lvl 2. No lvl 3:s are included at this point, nor will they be until all other units are balanced properly.

Tags: ,