The best way to have your say!

I guess I'll start here. Now I haven't seen any of the actual game play in action so I'm sure some of these suggestions may not even be feasible, and others may already be planned, but I'll mention them any way just in case.

1. One of the biggest things that I wish more strategy games could do, especially on mobile platforms, is asynchronous multiplayer. I would love to have one or two simultaneous games going where I could hop in, take my turns with whomever has initiative, and when it gets to my opponent's turn, send them a push notification, and then sign out of the application. This way a game can last all day, may not consume your whole battery for one match, and you don't need to set aside an entire 30-60 minutes to play a game. You can just fit a game in during your normal work day.

2. Another thing to assist players new to Mordheim would be suggested character builds. When a character earns enough XP to gain advancement points having an option to auto level a unit as a ranged or melee build would be a good way to help new players get a grip on how to build a decent army. I get asked the question "How should I build this unit?" or "Is this skill worth it?" all the time by subscribers.

3. Don't forget to make the game accessible to special needs players. While it is nearly impossible to predict all of the needs of players for your game the one that most frequently affects me is color blindness. Simply making sure that the colors you want to use are easily distinguishable for those of us who can't differentiate between certain shades is huge. Entire game modes have been unusable for me because I couldn't distinguish friend from foe. Maybe creating a new forum topic asking what sorts of difficulties other gamers like myself have experienced can give you some idea for alleviating issues like this.

4. Consider making wyrdstone shipments a bonus and not mandatory. This was our number one problem trying to run a competitive Mordheim PVP only league. There was just not enough wyrdstone to go around. Game kNight and I were in the same league, though he didn't have nearly the trouble I did collecting those precious green rocks. All of us wanted to continue with the same war bands, but failing just one shipment could spell the end for an entire war band as that just meant all subsequent shipments were even harder to obtain. To alleviate this, we thought it would be nice to instead provide war bands with an allowance every few days that could increase with war band rank. You could still allow wyrdstone as a way to get extra cash, but this way it doesn't become a mandatory resource that detracts from your enjoying a game against a player.

5. Easy explanation of stats and symbols. A good example of this done right is Dark Souls. Hitting a button will allow you to navigate their GUI, highlighting individual parts of the screen. As each part is highlighted, a little box pops up explaining what it is and what it does. Doing this to explain stats, physical resistance, magic resistance, unit costs, crit chances, etc would help when you see an icon and you wonder, "what is that indicating?" I had this problem early on with Mordheim: City of the Damned.

That is all I've got for now. If I think of others I'll come back. Hope this helps.

-Brascus

+1 for the asynchronous gameplay idea

Good news! At least some injuries are in game. Just got horrifically scarred so the unit is now supposed to cause fear.

This may be another thing that is planned in the works, but I would really like to see a deployment option. Instead of the game automatically deciding where my guys go it would be nice to have some control over that.

In the same vein as this, could some logic be implemented that would prevent opposing units from being placed directly next to one another? Started a match a bit ago, and my captain was within immediate striking distance of three enemies whilst my warrior was at least 3 turns of movement north.

Haha! I loved rolling that injury on the tabletop!

If you're trying to keep the game as close to the tabletop as possible I figure it should already be the case but my number one concern is : don't extend variables !

That's my biggest problem with City of the Damned : You don't have 4-6 wyrdstone but around 20 on a single map. You don't have 1-6 stats but 1-20 stats... and it really decrease the attachment you could have for you units : If you loose one unit with 4 balistic skill... you're really sad. If you loose one uint with 13/20 balistic skill... whatever.

For the same reason, don't make a "by player choice" skill system. Keep the random system from the tabletop. It's waaay more funny to have some randomness in the lvl up system (if you can choose every skill, you care less if you lose someone, you just start the same build).

A skill tree can be fun but have to be really balance, because you can have realy quickly a "best way" that everyone use because it's just the best path.

That's what I love with randomness : you don't really need to balance too much and you keep a better diversity.

The best system for me is a semi random skill system : as in Bloodbowl.

• 2D6 system
• You have a list of skill that you can buy with any result, you can always pick a skill, whatever the 2D6 result is.
• On a double you can buy a skill from another list (for exemple : an agility skill for a dwarf)
• On a 8 result, you can choose between +1 I or +1 Ld
• On a 9, you can choose +1 WS or +1 BS
• on a 10, you can choose +1 T or +1 S
• On a 11, you can choose +1 A
• On a 12, you can choose +1W
  

With this system you still have control on the skill choice, but there is enought randomness to feel really attach to your units and make then unique.

This is an interesting idea, and something I had no idea was implemented in the original game. However, I have to play devil's advocate here and argue the other side. Random luck, at least for me, has no business being involved in any major way with character development. Nothing is more frustrating to me than rolling something that feels useless, and being stuck with it. For example, every time a marksmen leveled, I would be cursing the heavens anytime I rolled a 9 on your table. I want them to continue building a strong ranged offensive. I have no desire to waste time on an Intelligence, or Leadership stat when it could be going into BS, or a skill to improve their effectiveness.

I do like some random elements, like the injuries, chances of finding items, and things of that sort, but this is because they make sense to me. You can't control how you get injured in real life, so it makes sense to randomize it. Likewise, if you find a random chest, it makes sense to randomize it since you have no idea what's in it. Doesn't make sense in a character build though, because if you want to be able to swing a sword you're going to pump iron, not read up on Shakespeare.

In fact you always have a choice, and are not stuck with something you don't want. Let say you roll a 8 and are not interested by more Initiative (the intelligence stat doesn't exist in the tabletop) or leadership... you always have the basic choice of chosing a skill.

There is always 100 of people to want more RNG and as much for more player choice, so my point is not really to say "I'd rather have this system, or this one" but to find the one that will be a good mix between both side. In this version you reach both sides : there is enought RNG for the "lore players" and enought choice for the "rule players"

My second point here, is the fact than a bit of RNG prevent balance issues. Mordheim (the tabletop) never was a game made for balance. And if you change the developpement system for something too previsible, you're in another kind of games : what i Call a "Blizzard system" (because this company always do this), you can always do every build you want. There is pros and cons for that : more flexibility but harder to keep the balance and you add a meta to your game.

For the long run I'll say the semi-RNG system is better : you will play it longer because you always want to have some very unique warband

From a seller perspective, I'll go for the no-RNG system : You will reach more player faster, but they will not play as long (until they find out every "best path" for each warband)

I think there may actually be a best of both worlds option. It might not be particularly easy to implement, but I previously recommended a suggested build for leveling a character. You could provide an auto level feature that would randomly select features as described by Mendeleev.

This would give those that want it the added RNG, and those of us who prefer to plan have the control we want. This could create some balance issues I suppose as careful builds may perform better over the RNG selections, but I guess you'd have to take the good with the bad.

Hotsead Mode with friends on my tablet would be really nice!