Last time, we allowed builders to fight each other directly using weapons and spells. It worked! Naturally, we had to rebalance the numbers for each spell, and that was the first priority. The Merchant skill, in particular, needed a major overhaul since it regularly granted free coins. When fully upgraded, it could produce so much money that gathering resources became unnecessary – you could buy any card without them.
The stats for the primary weapon, the sling, also required fine-tuning. The critical parameters included those affecting hit probability, such as the speed of the stone and the throw animation duration (i.e., shot delay). If the projectile flies too quickly and the throw happens almost immediately after a click, hitting an opponent becomes too easy. Since the opponent can’t retaliate during the resource collection phase, this could make their experience less enjoyable. But if the stone speed is too slow and the throw animation is too long, it becomes easy to dodge, rendering the weapon ineffective.
Moving Away from Construction
Now, let’s address more significant gameplay drawbacks. I’ve previously mentioned the “Snowball Effect”, where advantages compound to the point that it’s no longer fun to play on the losing team. My aim is to create gameplay where, no matter how bad things look, the team always has a chance to pull together and turn the tide. This keeps the losing team engaged and prevents the winning team from relaxing too much. Building mines, which (like the Merchant skill) provided regular free resources, was a prime example of accumulating advantage. So, we decided to eliminate mine construction. Previously, we had also removed minion lairs, and now… we have no buildings left. The “builder” no longer builds anything, so it’s time for a new name. From now on, we’re calling him the Forester, since he spends most of his time roaming the forest and gathering resources. We’ve chosen Forester rather than Jungler, as in MOBAs, because the gameplay here is quite different.
Moving Away from Minion Management
Let’s move on. Besides buildings, another major source of the snowball effect was the ability to upgrade minions. This makes sense, given that minions were essential for victory – they destroyed towers and the enemy portal. Upgrading minions was so advantageous that the Soul card, which enabled this, was always prioritized. However, since this card appeared randomly, it could fall into the hands of one player at the right moment, leaving the other player feeling unfairly disadvantaged.
In a difficult decision, we decided to completely remove the ability to build up strength through minion upgrades. Since players could no longer upgrade minions, they also lost the ability to unlock new minion types. After a long journey experimenting with minion management, lairs, soul-based summoning, and a “rock-paper-scissors” dynamic among rival races, we returned to a standard setup – each side now has the same set of minions in every wave, similar to a typical MOBA. It's a bit bittersweet, considering the time and effort invested in these unique mechanics. But is this bad for gameplay? Not at all. While fresh, unusual mechanics are valuable, it’s better to focus on one well-crafted mechanic rather than many underdeveloped ones. This approach also makes it easier for players to understand the game. In our case, the standout mechanic became the unique resource gathering and the competition over it, while minion management took a back seat. Managing waves of minions was less engaging and distracted players from resource gathering, yet it couldn’t be ignored, as minions were still the key to victory.
By removing minion management, we greatly simplified the player’s mental load, but a new problem emerged: how do players now contribute to their team’s victory? Previously, builders could strengthen minions, giving them a chance to overwhelm weaker enemy minions, destroy towers, and eventually reach the portal. But now, all minions are identical. So how can the Forester’s actions translate into a team victory? Should we have Foresters move to the lanes and use their new spells to help their minions and champions defeat the enemy’s and break down towers? No – that would distract players from the core mechanic, and we don’t want that.
The solution we found was this: all damage taken by the Forester is also shared with his team’s minions. The damage is distributed proportionally. Since each wave has five minions, every 20% of the Forester’s health corresponds to one minion’s health. For example, if the Forester takes damage equal to 10% of his maximum health, the first minion in his wave instantly loses half its health. If the Forester loses 20% of his health, that minion dies, and subsequent damage is passed on to the next minion. If the enemy Forester is caught and completely drained of health, his entire minion wave will also fall. Furthermore, if the Forester is killed, the next wave on the enemy side will spawn zombies instead of a set of minions.
This mechanic incentivizes Foresters to engage in combat, as dealing even small amounts of damage to the opponent directly affects their minions on the lane, giving the Forester’s own minions a better chance to reach and damage the enemy’s towers. It also clarifies the path to victory – players simply need to deal more damage to the opponent and, ideally, defeat them as often as possible.
New Cards
Since we’ve removed several cards from the game, it made sense to replace them with something useful. These new cards, however, are designed to offer only temporary advantages or opportunities to damage the opponent.
As a result, we decided to keep the Soul card, which still affects minion levels. However, its effect is now single-use and applies to all of your minions at once – the entire next wave of minions (and only that wave) will be at an elevated level. Meanwhile, the base level of all minions gradually increases over time for both teams equally.
Another major category for new cards involves various temporary spells, such as a Stealing card. These cards are single-use, providing only a brief advantage and giving heroes more ways to fight each other. Additionally, these spells appear randomly, allowing players to combine them with their skill sets, making battles more varied and situational – a definite plus.
At this stage, we’ve introduced only two spell cards, with plans to add more in the future.
- Trap Card: This card lets the player set a trap on the map, invisible to the enemy team. Any enemy unit that runs over the trap will activate it, causing a significant slow effect for a period of time. If the enemy Forester triggers the trap, they not only get slowed down but also lose a random resource from their inventory, which is transferred to the Forester who set the trap.
- Dynamite Card: Usable only during resource gathering, this card allows players to “mine” a specific resource – jade, obsidian, ice, amber, or pearl – meaning all deposits of that resource become rigged. For example, if you choose to mine jade, it applies to the entire jade resource, not just one deposit. When the opponent collects jade on their next gathering phase, the deposit will unexpectedly explode, dealing damage to the enemy Forester. The mining effect lasts for only one turn, so if the opponent doesn’t collect jade that turn, the effect will disappear by the end of their turn.
Other Updates
As always, alongside the major gameplay changes, we made a few adjustments to improve user experience and address some frustrating aspects of the game.
Previously, for instance, players could place a Gnome-Shooter right under an enemy’s feet. The Gnome would attack immediately, leaving the Forester no chance to dodge the damage. Gnomes could also be set up near portals, so when the Forester teleported to such a portal, multiple Gnomes would instantly start shooting, dealing excessive damage. Now, Gnomes remain inactive for the first 3 seconds after being placed, giving the enemy a chance to either back away to a safe distance or destroy the Gnome right away. Additionally, Gnomes can no longer be placed close to teleporters.
It was also challenging to keep track of which phase of the turn you were in – gathering or purchasing. A small icon displayed the phase in the corner of the screen, but players weren’t used to constantly glancing there. This often led to confusion, with players accidentally attacking the opponent at the start of the gathering phase, only to lose all their energy as a result. To make the phase more noticeable, we added color-coded edges to the screen in addition to the icon. Now, the screen edges glow yellow during the purchase phase and blue during the gathering phase.
So, there we have it – another round of significant changes. Let’s see them in action!
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