New Legendary Consumables - detailed suggestion

Bit of a long intro so feel free to skip down if you wish

EDIT 2022.Aug - general tweaks and suggestions from others.

Intro
So there was a bit of a discussion on Fri in discord about legendary quest difficulty for average skilled players, and how some quests have early attacks that can be very hard for more average players to be ready for, or to get good enough to really deal with it even after many attempts. I was going to make a longer post on arguments for moving some early attacks into optional triggers, but I think that point got across, not necessarily agreed with but was understood. One solid point that players were making was that if people have trouble they can just use consumables. Which is correct, but the consumables available aren't really the best suited to the task, so I decided to think about what might be better options and give some suggestions.

Problem with existing consumables in Legendary quests
Existing consumables are either too weak, all the units get smashed by Legendary quest units, or too strong. The main consumable to use if you need to beat a Legendary quest are Labour of the Empire (age 1 - summons 12 villagers), Resource of the Empire (age 3-gain 5000 of each resource), Priest of the Empire (super converting priests) each of those really change a quest from 'I'm struggling and need a bit of help' to 'I've too much help, the consumable is winning the quest for me'. It would be nice to get more appropriate help, to make quests still fun but take sting out of problems that players might be struggling with.

Goal of new consumables:

• Consumables should help player with specific problem (early attack I can't deal with) or a smaller general problem (I'm slow getting my economy up to speed), not be a 'win the game' button.
• Consumable should not be a huge effect in mid-late game, it should blend into the rest of the players progress as the quest continues. Summon units should be similar in stats to units players can make themselves, and should count towards pop cap, so aren't a way to field extra large armies.
• Consumable shouldn't be the first thing players turn to, or make players feel like they should use consumables even if they don't need the help. This basically means it should be a bit expensive/slow, so using it costs a decent portion of the cost of the quest rewards.

Consumable Outlines
So consumables below are based as solution to scenarios, what would a player want to do if they were able/faster. Note for units summoned, they benefit from Armory upgrades, milestones and Advisors (note that for advisors that name specific units those generally don't work as the names don't match exactly). So the stats are without those upgrades added, so the units are not stronger than the players own units.

The summon units correspond to 15pop, as that's a solid number of bodies on the field to put against enemy unit attack, but not enough to change quest, all are hard counters to specific threats and are basically what players would build themselves if they were fast enough etc.


Attacked by Infantry:
- 15 Gladiator Long Swordsman (based on celt long swordsman as inf anti-inf)
- 15 Gladiator Bowman (based on Babylonian Bowman as ranged anti-inf)

Attacked by Ranged
- 15 Gladiator Slinger (based on Egyptian Slinger as ranged anti-ranged)
- 7 Gladiator Sarris (based on Greek Sarris as cav anti-ranged)

Attacked by Cav
- 15 Gladiator Spearman (based on Roman Spearman as inf anti-cav)
- 7 Gladiator Horseman (based on Norse Horseman as cav anti-cav)

Attacked by Ships
- 5 Gladiator Fireship (based on any fireship)

Attacked by Siege
- Covered by Gladiator Horseman

Attacked by Everything
- 15 Gladiator Sparabara as tanky units


Alternative Unit Options
A point made on discord, thanks FieryNot, is that having so many count options is a lot of consumables for users to choose between in fast action of game, and might not work well if enemy sends a mix of units or quickly changing waves. So here is a simpler set of combinations

Gladiator Ranged Mix (21 pop)
- 7 Gladiator Bowman (based on Babylonian Bowman as ranged anti-inf)
- 7 Gladiator Slinger (based on Egyptian Slinger as ranged anti-ranged)
- 7 Gladiator Mounted Archers (based on Persian Mounted Archer as ranged anti-cav)


Gladiator Melee Mix (uses X pop)
-TO DO

Gladiator Attack Mix (uses X pop)
-TO DO

Economy Help Consumables

• Bounty of Rome - Villager gathering rate buff age 1 - Selected targets (in circle area) or maybe just All Villagers (so don't have incentive to do weird thing like get all your villagers into a single spot so you can buff all of them, gain 20-50% increased gathering rate for 60-300 seconds. Thanks to Roman for the idea. NOTE: need to do some maths to figure out reasonable numbers here.
• Labor of the Gladiators - 5 villagers age 1 - effectively similar to the wood gathering elephants but bit more generalised as just villagers
• Resources of the Combatant Gladiators - 300 of each resource age 1 - a more reasonable boost for players than the 5k resources and is age 1 instead of age 3. Original suggestion was 500 resources but feedback on discord was it was too much, so adjusted down.
• Resources of the Elite Gladiators - 750 of each resource age 2 - a more reasonable boost for players than the 5k resources and is age 2 instead of age 3. Original suggestion was 1500 resources but feedback on discord was it was too much, so adjusted down.

I'd also suggest making all the Eco consumables 'Class 3' at the moment just Resources of the Empire is Class 3, but I'd move Labour of the Empire and Wood Elephants to class 3 as well, so it doesn't interfere with unexpected need to spawn some defensive units.


Cost, Cooldowns, Recipe Sources
100 epic material (5-10c per material typically) = 500-1000c
1 special npc store coin sink material (Barrel of Salt) (1000c each) = 1000c
Total Cost: 1500c-2000c per consumable

Cooldown - 10min, this is long as should be something to get over a struggle, not a continuous assistance from repeated use. Though maybe I'm wrong on this, cooldown could be 2-3min and let player decide what they want to do with just the cost influencing their decision?
Age 1 - usage requirement for all the summoned units as in Leg quests the enemy is already established and you can have waves of all types straight away, regardless of what age you are in.

Source - These should be shop recipes, maybe new Gladiators recipe shop in Rome! The reason is that these should be available to all players, particularly players that don't play so much and so well that they have a lot of coin. The recipes should not require 200-500k coin to buy in market, also adding lots of new Leg recipes to the drop list would dilute that drop chance a lot too. Therefore my suggestion is a new recipe shop in Rome with all these recipes for sale for say 25k a recipe, that would also drain 275k coin from each player that gets them all. Casual players can save up for them, slowly collect them, and using their own materials can build the consumables themselves. The market for these consumables is not the very top players and the recipes should not be cornered by those players because they have the most coin.

DETAILS
https://ibb.co/jZ5kpDh

Sheet of existing and these suggested Consumables with unit stats for comparison
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Ao61pzQyDTPILsaH6f_XTx-fXo/edit#gid=391160061

Sheet of existing and these suggested Consumables with costs for comparison
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...Ao61pzQyDTPILsaH6f_XTx-fXo/edit#gid=563732147

 

These new consumables wouldn't really be for people who don't know how to manage their economy and spend resources, its for people who do know those things, but aren't as fast or efficient as the top 10% of players. Players who play several quests a week but not so much that they know/remember what each quest will throw at them and occasionally need help for a few minutes to overcome a problem. This middle range of players could use bit more support I think and this would open up a whole pile of new quests that they could attempt and have fun on.

I'm a pretty solid player but there are definitely quests I sometimes struggle on and having some of the above suggested consumables to take the edge of a early attack or provide just the right help would be really nice. I find the existing labour/resource consumables excessive and don't enjoy using them outside of going for a score in Crete, they take the fun out of the quests.

 

Doesn't seem to be much interest in this, so removing the suggested data from the excel sheets, so people don't get confused if they are just looking at existing consumables. The attached image has the details anyways in case someone wants to look at it in the future.

 

Suggestions are back in the sheet along with another idea. Slightly reduction in the workshop materials required and instead add in some new special npc shop materials that are part of the crafting recipe as a coin sink.

 

The 500/1500 resource ones are considerable, but as the currently option is 5000 resources A3, these being roughly 1/3 of the power down each step seems reasonable. Some Leg quests start in A1,A2 with roughly these additional resources on top of the base A1/A2 resource amounts, so its not out of line with the game, but gives players 'shit I need a jump start' to do a quest, without going into 5000 resource crazy situation and also giving it earlier for the quests where you start A1,A2.

For the villagers, what is nice is that while its a big help, it also blends into your game. The Labour of Empire villagers are exactly like villagers you'd create yourself, they count towards your population cap and they gain upgrades just like any villager you create, so it feels more natural in your gameplay, just need something more in the middle ground from 12 villagers.

On the pricing, I don't think I follow what you're saying. Price would be 2500 coin (roughly) per consumable, with devs to tweak as they feel makes sense. The recipes I suggest being 25k per recipe, so its something medium range players can get, picking their preferred ones first, or can just buy the consumables from the market without bothering with the recipe.

The overall goal is definitely aimed at medium players. Top players don't need these, might use occasionally but its not aimed at them. Lower tier players probably won't get enough help out of them, they still need to get fundamentals right. Medium players just need some help, used at the right moments, not crazy amount of help like currently exists.

Just my opinions/perspective of course.

 

Idea from Roman on discord:
- Gathering Buff Affect - Gives selected targets increased gathering rate. A circle range buff like the other class 1 consumables. Would need some maths to pin down the effect, but I'd guess something like 20-50% gathering buff for 60-300seconds, will come back and put in proper numbers when I've time