Project Groove: Mana, Mod Events, Single Player and more
As work continues on the mod and we look at the feedback from the last event, there are a few important things to note going forward.
- Mixing mod events into Test Your Mettle ends up taking away from the regular events.
- We want to make some more changes to the core gameplay and some balance changes would have to be based around those.
- Having a single-player campaign to cover these (and other) changes would help a lot.
- Some content we make for single-player might sneak into multiplayer balance.
To take a look at previous updates, you can find the last dev blog here. The download link to this update can be found on Github.
New Mechanic: Mana
As part of making changes to the game to solve issues without heavy-handed approaches to multiple different units, we have decided to try adding mana as a mechanic.
Mana is a resource that is generated each turn to use for spells and building certain units. It is generated by controlling crystal structures such as cherrystones. Each controlled crystal structure is active at the start of a turn but is expended when a spell is cast or a magic unit is built. There was some debate as to whether grooves should cost mana too, but we’re holding off on that for now. There are a number of benefits to this system being in place, which I’ll go over.
Early game limits: Before now, mages had the potential to break planned out early games from map makers. It turns out low cost, 5 movement units that can 1v1 other low-cost infantry makes for an option that can be difficult to workaround. With the requirement of needing mana to build, mages are easier to balance in the early game when it comes to map-making.
Unit variety: With units like witches, mages and dragons costing mana to build, there is an incentive to building other units to cover their roles. Harpies are now more of a viable air option without needing a direct buff. Archers and ballista are needed more to help cover anti-air. A golem and mage combo have a heavy mana investment behind it now, especially if you’re burning heals on the golem. The mana-based options aren’t removed, but mapmakers have more tools to put limits on them where needed.
Spell spam: One issue Wargroove faces is that as income amounts increase, certain strategies become dominant. Spamming large amounts of witch hexes and mage heals on a single turn can convert a gold stockpile into a devastating turn for one player. In some cases, this can result in a cool comeback, but other times out end up with an armada of witches facing off against an enemy armada of witches. Tempo plays are cool and we want to allow spells to be used, but we’re hoping this can put some limits to stop more degenerate plays.
Mana is us trying something very different and we’ll be iterating on it a decent amount over time. Whether or not we even keep mana depends on how it works in practice, but that’s one of the benefits for being a mod and not something like an official balance test.
New Events
Speaking of testing, there are some new events on the way. The first and the one with the most solid planning so far is a mod alternative to Test Your Mettle. This would work in a similar way to Test Your Mettle, with a long-running time for people to complete their matches. Different skill levels for each round-robin and different mods could be featured. This would be open to different mods with modders and map makers able to submit events to take part each month. The first of these will most likely be in November this year.
I’d personally like to start running some smaller bracket events for regular and mod gameplay as well, but that will likely have to wait until after Groove of War 5 completes later this year.
Single Player Campaign
So when I originally got into Wargroove, I wanted to make a single-player campaign. Something large scale that would really blow people away. Once I started playing though, I really got into multiplayer and then went into running events from there.
While thinking about a good way to teach people the mod changes and promote the mod to a wider audience outside just competitive players, the idea struck about making a campaign. It’s a large project, but it’s something I can work on alone more-so than multiplayer content, which is great for being productive on my own time.
Not to say it’s a purely solo project, the mod team have given some great input and I’ll be looking for more help with it in the future. Some of the plans involve things like custom art, voice acting and potentially music. It will likely fully release sometime in the middle of next year, depending on how busy my schedule is and whether I can find others to help with certain parts of the campaign that I can’t do myself.
So why bring the campaign up when it’s so far away from completion? One thing we’ve already started seeing is unit changes to allow for certain things to work in single player. The thief change is the first of these and may not be the last, so it’s worth bringing up the context for why the change took place in the first place.
I’ll likely mention the campaign from time to time, but the main focus of these development blogs will remain the multiplayer aspect of the mod.
Balance Changes
There are only a few balance changes this time around, so we’ll go through them quickly.
Unit cost changes: Mages, Golems, Witches and Dragons all cost 1 mana to build on top of their original cost.
This change is to make certain magic-themed units have a bit more of a limitation when it comes to building them. Depending on the map, there is counterplay to prevent your opponent from having access to certain units. You also can’t throw out a ton of mages on 1 turn when an enemy air unit comes onto the field.
Spell cost changes: Mage heal and witch hex now cost 1 mana to use instead of their original 300g cost.
As described earlier, mass hex and mass heal can be limited by map design. Players now have counterplay to prevent spell use by knocking down an opponent’s mana production at key timings. We’ll play around with this more going forward.
Thief Ability: Thieves can now capture empty enemy transports (wagons, balloons, barges). Using this ability removes the thief from play.
This was originally added as a way to resolve an issue with the campaign. Since thieves are a bit lacking in certain situations and transport blocks are quite strong at times, we’re hoping this creates some interesting dynamics between units that were mostly used as walls outside their primary focus.
Mercia: Mercia now over-heals units up to 105%, previously would over-heal to 110%.
At fast charge speed, the extra 10% hp on units was a little too strong. Mercia could create armies that would just straight up beat enemy armies in direct confrontations. Her 110% units would also have some unique killing power, that opened up a lot of additional lethals. This wouldn’t be too bad if it were limited to one turn, but it was possible to quickly build up an army of 110% units over the course of the game.
We’ve experienced some bugs in regards to this ability and when weighing how to change it, we decided to nerf it to a 5% boost that doesn’t decay in order to test the bug fixes. We’re also considering making the +10% hp version reset at the end of the turn instead, but fixing the bugs is taking priority.
Vesper: Vesper now teleports to any open ground tile on the map and spawns a 3 diameter cross-shaped smoke cloud.
As part of toning down the top tiers, we’re changing Vesper. There have been many, many suggestions from people about how she should be changed. We’re going with this since it:
- Keeps the global range of her groove.
- Keeps the smoke effect of her groove, but at a reduced level.
- Offers unique game-play opportunities.
- Fits her personality. Her story introduction involves her showing up and disappearing suddenly out of nowhere.
- Has counter-play from the opponent and certain commanders can be counter-picks in theory.
- Has a cool looking animation.
We’ll see how it plays out. She’s definitely a commander with room for changes and there was no shortage of ideas for things to try.
Future Stuff
There are some more ideas to try in the future. A few more top tiers could be toned down, but we want to see how this shakes out first. There are some ideas floating around like alternative win conditions, but we’ll likely hold off on those until a later date.
Project Groove Contributors
Before wrapping this up, I’d like to take a moment to give credit and thanks to those that make this mod possible. At the end of the day, I only contribute to design, testing and writing up these dev posts. The people who actually build the mod while also contributing to design and testing deserve a mention here.
CMAvelis: At this point, CMA has done the majority of coding work on the mod and has contributed significantly to design. When we started working on the mod, it was just CMA and myself working on it. There are others working on Project Groove now, but CMA still handles the bulk of coding work. Without CMA, there would be no Project Groove.
Fly Sniper: Fly joined the team as someone wanting to help out with some coding. He’s responsible for things like creating the mana system and the new thief ability.
Unicarn: Unicarn has contributed additional coding knowledge, as well as graphic work to the project. While not as directly involved as CMA, she has been around since the start of the mod and has helped out a ton.
The Community: A large number of changes and design decisions have been influenced by feedback from the community. Whether it’s people talking about the mod, playing in events, creating videos, making maps or posting their own ideas for Wargroove, it has all helped us make Project Groove.
