Hell🤑 dealers!
I am back again with another of my checks about @drugwars STEEM based game. My favorite one, at the moment. And since my last update, #5 - Invisible Wars! , lots of changes are really making the game more interesting and strategically enabled.
Big 🏗️changes, 🎢huge results?
There is a lot less bots, and/or scripted actions taking advantage against humanized actions. On the other side, some users might found the last changes a bit more complex that they are used too. But if you like the game type, I think you will find them soon, necessary.
Another slightly important but not deemed to be the center of the game, is that many that were expecting to play this game just for profit, are probably now (or already did) lost that hope. And to be honest, I think that taking out of the equation the cyclic loop of using the game to stack profits after profits, doesn't quite fit the purpose we are trying to show the community that does not yet know about STEEM (and can potentially become a new user) and just wants to play the game.
Using a token for investors was the right move in my view. There is some controversy about how was this done, but this is not a matter I wish to address in this post.
So... Changes?
In a nutshell:
- New units (Hobo and Spy)
- Updates to existing units
- UNIQUE abilities for units
- Updates to Rank scoring
- Gangs!
- FUTURE Token WITHDRAW
- Fight Simulator
- UI Enhancements
- Speed and functionality improvements
- General logic fixes and front-end workflow
Let's start with the new 🙈 🙉 🙊 Units
I am finally supper happy to see spies! Not sure if this was already on the loop when I have talked about it. But finally they are here. Some room for improvement about unit capabilities, but its coming! I can see it already with the Bazooka guy!
Hobos are now what I call a "discardable" unit, they are gone at first wave of the attack. They cost ALCOHOL, so they might be a good unit to spend balanced resources with another WEAPONS based one.
And it is supper cheap! So it might become interesting to burn some ALCOHOL to just hurt someone.
Also remember that they have do not have any defense, so in battles joint with other units they do not really absorb any damage. Although because they attack, the initial wave might be interesting to explore.
Finally, the most awaited one (in my view), is the Spy.
This the unit intended to check how your enemies look like. If your opponent happens to have any units, they will fight the Spy (except if they have only Spies).
They are quite cheap (I would probably not set them so cheap, especially on DRUGS) and now the fastest unit of the game. And I am happy they don't do any damage... "Do you remember the famous flash and huge clouds of probe attacks on OGame..." - 😄 I do!
The fact that the Spy is a unit that is killable by other troops is quite nice, to be honest. I would only add one more thing. Spies should be the last units to suffer damage. Not sure if everyone likes the idea, but majorly its to protect small players.
Babababazooka Boy! There you go... what I was really hoping to happen too, some splash damage! This is new to this kind of games and I am so intrigued about the combination of game features we can have on these.
Really excited to see where these UNIQUE features go. Maybe later with the upgrades, it can even be more interesting.
Gangs! 🐒 🐒 🐒 🐒 🐒 🐒 🐒
They are finally here, not much to add besides that it represents a group of people that "should" work together. It also represents a "virtual defence" tool against others because you will try to avoid them if you wish to avoid organized attacks.
To create your own gang, you need some beefy resources, so definitively not a beginners ability, which is good. Maybe and to avoid too many meaningless gangs, it would be good to have a maintenance pool. These can also give a bonus to the gang participants in some sort of way.
Fight Simulator ✈️
I know it's still a work in progress, but it's really a good strategic tool. I would even monetize it... in a later stage. But for now, I guess it serves the purpose of the most strategic ones.
There are two versions at the moment...
v0.0.13 which should be in fact the older one I think...
v0.0.16 which is stated to be the next one, but because we already have the new units, it should be this one you should use (correct me if I am wrong @drugwars).
Even if using the v0.0.16 I find my battles are not 100% replica of the real ones, but there they are very close "worst case" estimates that would make me consider the tool useful. Would love to see a "copy" function so the selected values from an attack could be added to the simulator (the enemy ones, later on, could be also a feature in case you have spied the enemy).
Improvements 🔧 in General
There are several fixes, speedups and stuff done differently that really made it all a smoother experience. Some graphics changed, some statistics added, ranks adjustments, FUTURE TOKENs now showing on the main tab. Attacks have now 30 seconds delay wait time before you can trigger another one. And in this last one, I think we could have a random added waiting time, to avoid automatic/scripted Spying... since the unit is so cheap for late players.
There are other adjustments that I might be missing... but these were at least the ones I mostly care about.
I have also to say, that the recently improved front-end reaction to attacks and general clickings like upgrades and such things that depend on transactions, have indeed improved quite a lot, but... still with quite some room for improvement to become a near-professional work thing, I would say. Maybe add more staging effects, where the status of the communication is more transparent to the user, making the user react more properly. I would expect most of this to be done at the client level (not server).
Automatic loading could be also be implemented and alleviated for the servers, by adding a timer. And if the user is not on focus with the webpage, then auto-disable the refresh. Other tuning strategies exist available. I just mention this one because for regular players it might be very valuable. There is some risk for overload maybe (not knowing much about the server end), but with the right coding, it can be made safe.
I still have not understood the new "Find Targets" tab... maybe I need to read somewhere. It looks random which appeals to me but still can't really find it attractive.
To end this section, I see that finally units are not instantaneously produced (only after the timer has elapsed), making more sense for you to pay STEEM if you wish those to be available immediately.
Partnerships 🏢 ™️
I know it might still be too soon, but I don't really see "why not". Usually making friends on the blockchain is usually a win-win situation. The fact that STEEM is so big already, makes me realize that I don't know everything (and by everything, I mean that before it looked like you could almost know about every post, user, hot discussion, etc, NOW? forget it... not even with AI I can resume a good picture).
So, the first one that occurred to me, on the other day was @steem-plus! Why not? SteemPlus is the sort of thing I would envision to add up/try things that @drugwars gave up or are on the lower end of the development priority (and usually shift to other things or become not worth it for the game developer). We (SteemPlus users) could also be rewarded to spend STEEM on @drugwars, increasing the incentive to instantly do upgrades and/or buying units (now important for defence situations).
The FUTURE TOKEN could also help in here, by allowing direct representation of each on either side. Etc...
It's just a shout out to both ends, and an example of what could be, I would say, a good opportunity for cooperation. But don't get me wrong. Development of the game should be much more appreciated if resources wise there's no room, and I would be the first (categorically speaking) to understand that.