2 suggestions
First off, I want to thank you Derek for putting together a really fine product. As an old DM and AG vet, I have always taken a liking to strategic gladiatorial fighting and Coliseum is just about the ideal game for me. I do have two suggestions that I feel would be beneficial to your game.
The first has to do with the current save system. While I understand the thought process behind only allowing saves upon exit (and removing save games when loading), it also sets us up for disaster when something happens to the game, or the computer. Computers are not perfect and sometimes they crash. As we've seen with the recent "Subscript out of range" errors, sometimes the game will crash. In both instances, the player has lost their entire game and must start from scratch. While that is not a big deal after playing only a season or two, I could imagine how upset someone would be if this happens after 10 seasons or so. I, myself, have already taken to backing up the save files after every save, to prevent against disaster. There must be a better way. At least give us the option of saving our files occasionally. If people want to cheat, let them cheat. This is a single-player game, so people who want the satisfaction of beating the game as intended will do so.
The second suggestion has to do with the general gameplay. While I have a team of three warriors, they are really more like three individual warriors with no ties to each other. Aside from fatigue, there is no strategic reason to use more than one warrior. Since the playoffs are based on individual wins (and kills), it would be detrimental to use an alternate warrior even if that alternate warrior matches up better. My suggestion is to bring the game to more of a team concept. Have team wins and kills be the determining factor in who makes the playoffs and then allow the manager to choose whom to send. You can still incorporate a seperate tournament that tests individual skills running independent of the season, similar to the FA Cup in English Premier League Soccer. Now I do see the obvious downside to this....you can keep one super warrior in reserve until the playoffs, with no chance of death. Perhaps making team stats determine who is in the playoffs, but then the warrior with the most matches during the season would automatically become the playoff participant. However it's done, I feel that focusing the game more on the team rather than the individual would open up more strategic options.
Chris
[ January 27, 2004, 04:37: Message edited by: cmattos ]
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