The Hog news 22

Building destruction and destruction tools
It is now possible to filter what you want to destroy when using the destruction tool : terrain ( will clear trees and other natural things ), infrastructures ( will clear things like roads, walls built by player ) and buildings ( will trigger destruction of all buildings in the selected area ) by right-clicking on the tool. You can enable or disable each filter individually.
Also building aren’t destroyed instantly anymore. You can trigger destruction by clicking on “tear down” in the building’s menu or when using the destruction tool. The building enters a ” tearing-down” state that takes time,losing structure points progressively, and only disappears when the process is complete. When complete you recover half of its initial materials. The process can be cancelled before its complete.
Why this ? Mainly for multiplayer to avoid instant sabotage of cities where a player would erase its whole region in a second before its invaded. This doesnt mean i want to forbid players practicing this Russian strategy, but i eventually want it as a separate feature where you can set your whole city on fire. While a building properly teared down actually disapears and gives back some materials, a building violently destroyed becomes a burnt down ruin and remains on the terrain. It will still need to be teared down if you want to clear its space. Or you’ll be able to repair it at a lower cost. With this, repairing damages will be less of a hassle because coordinates and building types are preserved in these ruins, so you dont have to place again everything trying to remember how it looked. Eventually it will also be possible to trigger an auto-repair mode so damages are automatically repaired even if you’re offline.

New building : Flint collector
Stone tools now require a resource to be crafted : flints. And therefore there’s a new stone age building to produce flints (out of any gravely tiles). This building is  free as its one of the most basic buildings of the game.

Re designed fisherpig
I re designed the stone age fishing building to have a more unique visual identity.
Infrastructures
The placement of infrastructures ( roads ect… ) has been refined and repaired. Its now designed to later support a broader range of infrastructures (ex irrigation canals, walls, gardens etc ).

I’m now redesigning the production building’s UI to make it clearer to read, and refining all their functionalities (like annex placement).

8 Replies to “The Hog news 22”

  1. Interesting ^^. I knew about the 1% but didnt knew about that even lower percentile of whales…
    Fucku ru whaluuu!

  2. In Stronghold Kingdom, the auto-scouting/attacking /trading tool for premium members is clearly an advantage over non-premium players. But at least, all premium members are on equal footing. And I don’t mind to pay 5 Euros a month for a game that worth it.

    What really upset me with this game’s economic model is the card system, which targets a very specific type of players, also known as “whales” (the kind of players who spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to speed up their progression and/or to boost their armies).

    A 2014 survey pointed out that 50% of free-to-play games’ in-app purchases came from 0.15 % of players. Only 1.5 % of players spend any money at all.

    This is the real problem. In these games, you cannot reach the top rankings if you are not a whale. It makes me feel that players are considered no more than credulous cows ready to be milked.

    Here is an article dealing with this subject:
    http://recode.net/2014/02/26/a-long-tail-of-whales-half-of-mobile-games-money-comes-from-0-15-percent-of-players/

  3. I have to disagreed to that.

    Things like automatic repair is fine by me.
    EXCEPT, when repairs have to be made on an hourly basis or whatever. Premium should add things like fewer clicks, and doing things automatically.

    Premium should allow you to do the same, in less time than a non-premium player. That is a fine model IMO.

    If premium doesn’t give advantages like this, why would anyone buy it? This is perfectly fine and reminds me much of how tribalwars used to do it during it’s golden age. Now Tribalwars is also a P2W crapgame.

  4. Yeah i agree with Granhyt, i consider this as a form of pay-to-win too, and its generally abused by the gamedesign.
    I remember Stronghold kingdoms where automated premiums were unbeatable. Random resources used to spawn in the wilderness and you had to send a unit to get them. Of course premium players had this feature automated meaning they would instantly have a unit sent to the resource and it was pretty much impossible for a normal player to get it first unless you stayed 24/7 staring at the map. So this whole mechanism was in the end an indirect way to give premium players a shit ton of additional cheated resources.

  5. I agree with all that Oink say except one thing :
    Premium automation is pay-to-win. For example, on the game Virtual Regata, the premiums could change their sails in the middle of the night with a timer. The non-premiums could get up at 4AM if they wanted to change theirs sails and adapt to the situation.
    While some non-premiums will do even or better than the majority of premiums, that’s still an avantage given to thoses who pay.

  6. I like this idea of an auto-repair mode. In my opinion, players should be able to automate the most simple and repetitive tasks, and also have the ability to schedule actions in advance. All these automation tools could be one of the advantages of having a premium account.

    A good player should not be a player that stays all the time logged into the game, but rather someone who made the right choices at the right times (all included in a single but efficient daily connection).

    Also, this new fishing building looks great. Adding signboards to buildings is a good way to make them recognizable at first glance and to give them some personality.

  7. Great ideas on the destroying/repairing part of the game. And a filter on “the destruction tool” will be useful.

    Seeing the worker, I think his helmet is rather modern-looking. While it’s easy to identify workers with, it doesn’t quite fit in the antiquity feel of the game.
    Have you tought to, uuh, egyptian-style thing, with a fabric maintened in place by a tight band ?
    I think I remember some old civilisation game which had theses caps for the antiquity workers.
    Anyway, that’s really not a priority to rethink.

    I like the style of the new fishing workshop. It’s bring some colors.

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