[Miscellanous / Other] Alchemy Tower

[Lord Aiden]

So I was thinking about alternatives sources of income for wc3 as its a fairly common topic here on the forum, and while conversing with @pyf an idea had struck me, and now I present this idea for the whole forum to read, critique, and possibly improve upon and finally implement:

You have a special tower, it doesn't do anything but has 4 or 6 item positions which are filled with "uncharged crystal shards" which cannot be dropped or otherwise removed by the player, once a friendly hero picks up a "rune" (basically absorbs it) one of the "uncharged crystals shards" becomes charged and produces a small steady income for the player, this can be done either 4 or 6 times for a much fuller steady passive income. If the tower is destroyed it can be rebuild and the shard or shards that were charged will still remain charged and continue to provide passive income.

What do guys you think of my idea?

 

[Trill]

So you just need to find several items (which are random drops) to generate money? And after you find them all, its all absolutely passive from there?
That, frankly speaking, is boring.

Consider the following ideas:
1) Runes must be carried to the alchemist tower to activate a crystal. They can only be carried by units, not by heroes, plus whoever carries a rune is visible to enemies and slowed. In addition, the crystals are activated temporarily, so you need to often supply runes, risking enemy intercepting them (and revealing where your alchemy tower is).

2) More difficult idea, but one that justifies "alchemy tower" name. Heroes can find special "reagents" as drop from creeps, destroyed enemy buildings, maybe bought from shops. Placed in alchemy tower's inventory those generate some gold. Various combinations produce different amount of gold, some combinations also grant lumber, others grant weak but map-wide auras or periodically create weak items (like Lesser Clarity Potion). Problem is you only have 1 alchemy tower and so only 6 slots, so once you start replacing older reagents with new ones, you gotta be careful so enemy doesn't steal unused reagents (which may happen to be what he needs to finish his set). This gives you kind of progression and a goal to strive for.

 

[Lord Aiden]

No, you got it wrong, a hero needs to find a special rune, there will be a limited number of runes on each map.

The rune is absorbed and the energy automatically charges up the crystal shards - this is done so that a rune can't be taken from map to map by a hero whose inventory obviously carries over. Imagine you have a hero that carries 6 runes and you basically get a large passive income on a particular mission by basically cheating the system.

 

[Lord_Earthfire]

The idea kinda reminds me on relics from aoe2, exvept they get transferred automatically. It is an ok system to supplememt an eco, but by no means something to base an economy around. Trill's suggestion would make the issues with the system even worse, to which i come now.

Eco-Systems have, at least in most RTS, simple requirements: As low micromanagement as possible, in the games beginning as low surface for interaction as possible, and limited supply or low effectivity.

The reason for the first is easy to see: you should be able to focus on fights withoit constamtly juggling you economy. In the other thread, i saw systems proposed that required constant caretaking by a player. In an Turn based strategy game, this is completely fine, but not in a competative rts. Heck, when i looked at the evolution techtree contest, the lumber gathering buildings where already mucro-heavy since they only cut down wood around them and don't move.
In the end, for that point the implementation is far more important than the concept.

The reason for the second one is more subtle (not so ingame): Rushes. If a system enables disruption far too early, countering or preparing for rushes becomes an impossibility. That is one of the flaws that system gives. Except when it is not meant to replace gold mines and only supplement them. I will come to that soon.

The reason for the third one is turtling. You need to give incentives, even more for newer player, to attack other players. Making them run out of a certain recource, like gold in most games, is a very effective method for that. But since we want player be able to turtle temporary, adding passive income could be possible. But it needs to always supplement the exoanding forcing income instead of replacing it, for example by making them less effective.

 

[cleavinghammer]

Why make the items undroppable? You could have a system where each item gives a special effect (gold/lumber income, auras, production speed...) and the combination of items gives different results.

 

[Lord Aiden]

If I make the item carry-able by a hero or drop-able by the tower the player can carry the item over into the next map, basically gaining extra income where it wasn't supposed to, in other words using something beyond its intended purpose

 

[cleavinghammer]

Can't you trigger it so it automatically disappears from non-tower inventory or something? If you're dealing with six items max it shouldn't be too hard to keep track.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Yes I could, but I think my system is more abuse proof, the items cannot be taken out in any way and cannot be carried over

 

[Rem]

Yes I could, but I think my system is more abuse proof, the items cannot be taken out in any way and cannot be carried over

gotta agree with that one

but it's just an extra gold system, not the main one and could never actually replace gold mines

 

[Lord Aiden]

Yes you're right, but it was never intended to replace mines, only supplement the income of the player, especially in late game. That's why there are 6 slots, imagine each one giving you 50 gold/minute
6 full slots = 300 gold/minute and that's a nice bonus

 

[Rem]

 

[Lord Aiden]

Back when Silventria was still in development Aster did all these calculations, from what I remember:

A gold mine with 5 workers brings in 600 gold a minute, 2 gold mines bring in 1200 a minute

Again this "alchemy tower" even with 6 charged crystals would generate much less gold than a single gold mine with 5 workers, you see my point, this will supplement the gold supply rather than replace the mines

 

[Rem]

But you could always have say 2 or 3 towers

 

[Lord Aiden]

I would only allow one tower to be built

Basically set a build limit of 1 using triggers

 

[Rem]

i was just teasing you , im sorry. you just take things way too seriously at times

 

[Lord Aiden]

I didn't realize this, I was serious about this thing from the start

 

[Lord Alyx]

But in a serious manner this "Alchemy Towers" of yours is an excellent concept if implemented right, it could make quests more worth doing, augment certains elements of the gameplay, used to adjust the difficulty of a map, the uses of this are as wide as you can conceive within your head and properly implement within the wc3 game engine

 

[Lord Aiden]

Thank you, I really appreciate that comment

 

[Rem]

dontt know if this was mentioned but Ive seen a different idea implemented in a similar fashion - you might wanna forget about the hero picking up the rune-just make any unit with an inventory be able to pick it up, then use a trigger to set it up, otherwise youll need a hero to go to the rune locations each time

 

[noob]

Would alchemy tower lose efficiency with unkeep?
Right now a full tower(300 g per minute) is better than a mine at full unkeep(200 g per minute).

 

[ArchDuke]

@Lord Aiden this is ot but do u happen to have the silventria map where you fight against the "Supreme Commander"?? and if so could u send it over

 

[Lord Aiden]

Sorry I was actually looking for it in november and couldn't find it, the map is sadly lost...

 

[ArchDuke]

Well do you happen to understand the triggers that were used to keep the floating structures within range of the main base?

 

[Lord Aiden]

triggers??

 

[ArchDuke]

ye, because once they leave the main enemy base their movement speed and attack rate is heavily slowed; they are barely able to function unless they are within a certain distance of it, i wanna know the triggers behind this

 

[Lord Aiden]

That has nothing to do with triggers, its a modified endurance aura that only affects flying mechanical units as targets, its generated at the center of the base I believe and has a relatively long range. This aura increases their movement and attack speed by a lot, when they go outside of the range it gets reduced to its normal value, which Im guessing is really low, no triggers are needed.

So the result is when they're in range of the center of the base they're really effective killers, when they're outside of it they're just cannon fodder. Cannon fodder with 5000 hp, but still cannon fodder

 

[ArchDuke]

k thanks. this makes sense now

 

[Lord Aiden]

btw the way its done is the structures attack cooldown is set to something like 18.00 seconds,

the endurance aura instead of increasing the attack by .30 is set to increase it by 5.0(500%)

basically the formula is

E = value that you give to the endurance value field

New cooldown = old cooldown / (1+ E)


so for the structure it's

New cooldown = 18/(1+5)

New cooldown =18/6

New cooldown = 3

I'm not too sure how the movement speed works though

 

[DingoT]

If you put items in the inventory slot of a building like this the items will get dropped if the structure is ever destroyed, you might wanna rethink that portion of the ability

 

[ArchDuke]

you need to re-design this ability with triggers and use upgrades rather than trigger variables, this should make things less complicated

 

[DingoT]

@Lord Aiden

If u are merely trying to toy with an idea that would provide u with an alternate (non mine) source of gold I would suggest making a unit called mana converter, using the same crystal building model as you did, giving it 500mp and changing a mana fountain's targets to include buildings as well, then make an ability that the building can activate every time it gets 500 or so mana that starts a trigger which gives its owner mana, now what you get is a building that gives its owner a good income if it is build close to a mana well, I've seen this done successfully and it's ton easier to do than your crystal idea

 

[Lord Aiden]

@Lord Aiden

If u are merely trying to toy with an idea that would provide u with an alternate (non mine) source of gold I would suggest making a unit called mana converter, using the same crystal building model as you did, giving it 500mp and changing a mana fountain's targets to include buildings as well, then make an ability that the building can activate every time it gets 500 or so mana that starts a trigger which gives its owner mana, now what you get is a building that gives its owner a good income if it is build close to a mana well, I've seen this done successfully and it's ton easier to do than your crystal idea

Not a bad idea, but that's not what I'm looking for

 

[DingoT]

I assumed you were trying to explore non mine sources of income and judging from the way this alchemy crystal idea is; it is either impossible to build it the way you want to or it will be extremely convoluted and not worth the time, all I'm really saying is that there are other ways of attaining a similar effect as well as tons of other ways to allow the player to gain non mine gold

 

[Lord Aiden]

you may be right. . . .

well enlighten me to the many other ways of gaining gold, I know a few but its not enough

 

[DingoT]

Ok.

Here are idea I've seen implemented

1. Giving an neutral hostile enemy or enemies a huge bounty

2. Trade in lumber for gold, simply make a dummy unit that costs x lumber and a trigger that gives gold to the player when he clicks the ability's button

3. Bonus for destroying enemy bases e.g. u destroy an enemy's castle you find 8 gold coins

4. Capture enemy's hero with a soul gem, return it back to base and you get an x gold per min recurring bonus --ive seen this one done very well

5. Simply a recurring gold bonus, ever heard of the black company campaign? Their whole gold system is like this

6. Make an item ...get a trigger working that for each item of this type a hero holds in his inventory he gets x gold/min

7. Giving your units pillage and making enemy structures expensive, btw you could modify the ratio of gold a unit gets from using it on a building's, I would suggest increasing it to .65 or .70 to increase the resources that you get using this method

8. Have hidden caches that units with true sight can uncover, this provides for good sidequests as well as for gold

 

[ArchDuke]

I assumed you were trying to explore non mine sources of income and judging from the way this alchemy crystal idea is; it is either impossible to build it the way you want to or it will be extremely convoluted and not worth the time

I completely disagree with this, its attainable, however a bit tricky, it would require around 5 triggers to do. but is not convoluted or impossible or anything close to that

Nice list of alternative gold sources I'll give you that

 

[DingoT]

Ok, perhaps you're right however I'm far from a master st using triggers in the editor, so from my perspective it is convoluted...I appreciate the list comment

 

[ArchDuke]

New
np, here are some good ways non-gold mine ways of obtaining gold

1) Turbine - you basically place a structure in shallow water and it makes an amount G gold every X seconds

2) Windmill - placing a windmill in an area which has high wind generates the player a G amount of gold every X seconds (you could also make it that when placed in an area with less wind it makes less gold, like G*(2/3) gold per X seconds or G gold every X*(3/2) seconds, lots of options here

3) Starfall leaves meteorites, hero picks them up, and you can sell them for up to 2,000 gold each at your local store, alternatively the hero can get like 100 gold every time he picks on up, similar to how gold coins function, you control how much meteorites are present on the map at any given times as well as the value of the meteorites.

4) Ability that generates gold via a trigger, - the specifics don't really matter

6) trading an item you bought for a shop for another item, than selling the item for more gold

7) oil derick like structures that generate G gold per interval X, these structure can be captured or recaptured, however if they can be destroyed they are usually unable to be rebuilt

8) Some sort of generator which gives the player gold if several units are attending to it, similar to a gold mine, but much lower gold per interval but is basically limitless

 

[cleavinghammer]

An ability that summons creeps that can then be killed for gold.

 

[Lord Alyx]

@Lord Aiden Are you looking for ways the player can make quick gold or steady income streams?

Because if you want this simply to have a long game put 500,000+ gold in each gold mine, no simpler solution than that

 

[Lord Aiden]

what I'm trying to create is steady stream of side-income, non-gold mine based, but creative ways for quick gold are welcome also

 

[Lord Alyx]

I've had had some experience with this, what I did was have my research structure (basically your blacksmith, war mill, or Hunter's Hall for elves) have an ability that gave the player 10 gold every 10 seconds, the ability could be upgraded if the player found special items. so it basically gave side gold to the player, you need to set up a trigger that detects if the research structure is present and alive as well as the level of the ability (upgrade) to make this work

Another method is to have a capturable structure that generates gold.


As far as quick gold goes, have a bunch of side quests that give gold, give the player gold for every major structure of the enemy he destroys, have a flying unit that randomly roams around and has a huge bounty but is hard to destroy.

 

[Lord Aiden]

Interesting....I'll definitely take those into consideration when experimenting with the editor, btw you still working on your campaign?

 

[Lord Alyx]

@Lord Aiden Not currently,

also as far as gold ideas consider 2 things: lumber for gold (and change hp of the trees in the editor from 50 to 100 or more to get twice as much lumber from each tree, or have the player use wisp-like units for unlimited income but limit the amount of these wisp-like units or the player will abuse it, or alternatively limit how often the player can exchange lumber for gold) and transmute (you can change the gold and lumber factor to whatever you want, so if a player receives 10 times the gold and/or lumber for transmuting a unit this will be a great bonus for his income)

 

[Lord Aiden]

Great ideas man, lumber for gold is something I've experimented with, but not all the things you mentioned, as far as transmute well it wont give me any lumber but yea as a quick bonus its pretty awesome. thanks for the creative ideas

 

[DingoT]

Wisps + trees + trade lumber for gold = unlimited gold

 

[Lord Aiden]

Wisps + trees + trade lumber for gold = unlimited gold

yea, pretty much

 

[DingoT]

Ok I'm not taking credit for this cause I'm pretty sure I've encountered it in one of @Frotty 's maps, but what you do is modify the pillage ability so it targets units as well as structures and give it to a special unit. Call that unit gold dog or money dog or something similarish....I think you'll like the effect

 

[Lord Aiden]

That's definitely a unique idea, but more of a mini-game concept than what I'm looking for

 

[DingoT]

Well ye. But this show you how you can modify different abilities to suite your needs