Death Match Competition

[NTJedi]

reverend said:
In any rate, this event need improvement. Maybe even a warning message earlier than just the turn before, giving players time to properly equip a hero for the event.

I completely agree.

Currently the arena death match is mostly ignored by players for SP games and MP games since the prize is not worth risking the life of a good commander.

I like the idea behind the arena death match, but its prize needs to be improved so most players will want to risk the life of a good commander.

The reward should be scaled based on the current game turn, something like 10 random gems on turn_10 and 70 random gems on turn_70.

[JimMorrison]

NTJedi said:
The reward should be scaled based on the current game turn, something like 10 random gems on turn_10 and 70 random gems on turn_70.

But think about that, really. Say on turn 30, the DM is worth 30 gems for the prize. How many gems do you have on a decent thug at this point? If you're only hitting a few choice slots, maybe 20-25 gems? Would you really want to risk that thug for a 3/2 payout with 6-8 other people competing for it?

[Twan]

Instead of a reward, a punition for nations not trying to win the death match can be considered, or both punition and reward.

Winning death match should be an important matter of prestige for pretender gods nations.

Something like -3 morale for all troops if the nation sent nobody to the last DM, -1 if it sent someone but this champion was killed in his first fight, +1 if it sent a champion who had one or more victories, +3 if the nation won the last DM.

Or same kind of bonus/malus for dominion spread.

Of course it would need some code (and nations like LA Ermor would be immune to the bad effect) but it would also be ultra thematic IMO.

[NTJedi]

JimMorrison said:

But think about that, really. Say on turn 30, the DM is worth 30 gems for the prize. How many gems do you have on a decent thug at this point? If you're only hitting a few choice slots, maybe 20-25 gems? Would you really want to risk that thug for a 3/2 payout with 6-8 other people competing for it?

Ideally the prize should be an adjustable user setting... small prize, medium prize and large prize. Since an adjustable setting is less likely the prize should increase with caution, thus 30 gems on turn_30.

The 30 gems of a random type on turn_30 is enough to make every player consider sending a thug. On the same note the player shouldn't be equipping the thug while risking an investment of 20 gems. As the game progresses the prize equally grows and so will the threat level of those participating in the competition.

The game should start with a minor prize which scales with the game turn to prevent anything unbalanced until we receive an optional game setting of small_prize, medium_prize and large_prize

[Endoperez]

On the other hand, consider the arena mechanic. All players may spend resources, and only one will benefit from it. If the price is worth a big risk, winning and not losing your thug will be very nice indeed.

If the arena event is too good, it will become unbalanced, and the mods that improve the arena might be banned from MP (compare to mercs).

Banning AI from sending in pretenders or uniques would be good, with no downsides that I can see.

[MaxWilson]

Why are mercs banned from MP? You'd think the auction system would guarantee that a fair price gets paid.

[Endoperez]

At least from blitz games. Nation(s) with mercs won't lose their own troops if the mercs are melee, or will have archer support, and will be able to expand much better than those without mercs. It's not about paying for an advantage. It's about some players having an advantage over others.

The money bid on mercs isn't used for recruiting, and losing time on the early game can be bad as well.

[NTJedi]

Endoperez said:
If the arena event is too good, it will become unbalanced, and the mods that improve the arena might be banned from MP (compare to mercs).

I agree... that's why I suggest a small increase such as 30 gems for turn_30. Currently the arena death match event provides almost no value for players to participate. This is quite sad since it could be one of the more interesting events during the game.

Endoperez said:
Banning AI from sending in pretenders or uniques would be good, with no downsides that I can see.

I completely agree... any unit which is a pretender has a unique tag so it should be fairly simple to prevent pretenders from being part of the match. Unfortunately this change must be complex for Illwinter otherwise I'm sure an effort would have been made by now.

[Dragar]

What about stick as well as carrot? Make it compulsory to send a unit in to a death match. You can choose to send a weak commander in, and guarantee losing him, or send a strong one in to try and win and kill everyone elses. Agree Pretenders should be banned, would make a SC pretender too powerful a choice.

[NTJedi]

Dragar said:
What about stick as well as carrot? Make it compulsory to send a unit in to a death match. You can choose to send a weak commander in, and guarantee losing him, or send a strong one in to try and win and kill everyone elses. Agree Pretenders should be banned, would make a SC pretender too powerful a choice.

The suggestion of banning all pretenders is a good idea since no wise veteran player would ever consider the idea.