Snail supporters, egg enthusiasts, forest fans, alliteration aficionados, welcome.
This week on EWW: your soon-to-be treasured game units.
Who are they? What can they do? How best to upgrade them in order to beat your fellow players to the punch?
Read on.
EGGOA
This time around, we’re moving away from snails and slugs and all familiar critters of the forest.
Eggforce introduces its own cast of creatures, dubbed “Eggoa”.
Not to worry: the proverbial acorn never falls far from the tree. Take a spider, mix it with an egg, and poof! You’ve got an Eggoa.
We’ll have snailgoas, spidergoas, squirrelgoas, a whole roster of unholy fusions between nature and… more nature. Every single one of them ready to harvest Eggforce for your benefit.
What’s the point of Eggoas?
For starters, it will help develop a distinct identity for the game.
Google “snailfarm”, and you’re greeted with links on Heliciculture.
Interesting as the topic may be, it’d be nice if Eggforce brought to mind something unique.
Ergo, Eggoas.
HOW IT ALL WORKS (ROUGHLY)
You get your very first Eggoa of a certain type. Say, spidergoa.
Your spidergoa produces Eggforce. A certain amount of it, at regular intervals.
After a while, you’ve accumulated enough Eggforce to buy a second spidergoa. You produce twice as much Eggforce.
Then, you might be able to buy another type of Eggoa. Let’s use froggoas.
Your froggoas produce Eggforce too; only at their own pace and efficiency, different from your spidergoas.
Essentially: you can have several Eggoas of the same type, sharing the same stats. Eggoas of different types have different stats.
Each Eggoa type has 4 characteristics:
- WELLY: the amount of Eggforce produced in one interval (passive)
- KNACK: the time it takes to produce Eggforce (passive)
- ACUMEN: their efficiency during explorations (active)
- MYSTIQUE: their resilience during explorations (active)
Don’t mind the names. I went with the usual RPG traits of Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma, then set out to pick the most ludicrous synonyms available. Names will likely change before release.
Then again…
But back to these characteristics.
There will be at least 8 types of Eggoas at launch. Their cost in Eggforce will rise from type to type, and their characteristics as well.
All Eggoas have the same abilities, but different Eggoas have slightly different inclinations. Some Eggoa types will be more suited for exploring, others might be all about production, and others aim for the middle point.
Perhaps as important as each of these four characteristics is the cost of each Eggoa.
As already said, it will rise from type to type, as to keep characteristics proportionally similar compared to Eggforce spent.
In short: making each Eggoa feel different while keeping things balanced.
For example, Spidergoas might have 20 WELLY, 20 KNACK, 10 ACUMEN, 10 MYSTIQUE, and cost 200 Eggforce each.
Froggoas could have 40 WELLY, 40 KNACK, 20 ACUMEN, 20 MYSTIQUE, and cost 800 Eggforce each.
2x each stat = 4x each aspect of the game (passive or active) = 4x cost.
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The cost to buy an Eggoa also increases as you own more of this Eggoa type.
(Planned formula: cost = base * number of units owned)
If you were buying your second Spidergoa, it would cost you 200 * 2 = 400 Eggforce. But if you were buying your tenth Spidergoa, it would cost you 200 * 2 = 2000 Eggforce.
“But but, why do I have to spend more for the same unit the more I own?”
Eggoas are timid. They need a great amount of coercion to live together.
Think about it: you might be fine in your 30m² flat with your favorite pet snail. But if the Germany soccer team moved in to live with you, things would become less cozy.
Rising costs for each unit encourages choices. Instead of going all in with one type of Eggoa, you will have incentives to diversify your units and upgrades.
It’s also a balancing mechanism against inflation, ensuring production of Eggforce doesn’t become exponential.
If costs remained the same, you would be able to go from 2 Eggoas to 4 Eggoas in the same time it took you to go from 1 to 2. Then 4 to 8, 8 to 16, 16 to 32… Fun for a primer on your powers of 2, but not sustainable.
So now you see: spending more Eggforce is for your own good. Really.
EXPLORATIONS
Eggoas produce Eggforce passively. There’s no action required from you, save from using that Eggforce whenever you feel like it.
However, you can take a more active role in your egg empire, by sending your Eggoas on explorations.
(What follows is still up in the air. The concept of explorations is central to the game and will remain, but specifics might change significantly.)
Eggoas can scout various territories for Eggforce, as well as other resources.
The difficulty of each territory differs, and so do their rewards.
Essentially, an exploration works like a dice roll using your Eggoa’s stats. If you win, you stand to get much more Eggforce than you would produce passively. But if you lose, a percentage of the Eggoas you sent die.
You can go on as many explorations as you want, making it a perfect choice for active players.
To ensure idle players aren’t overly penalized, the longer you go without exploring, the bigger bonuses you get.
(Exact nature to be determined. Proper balance is a tough act!)
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Players who explore the most will be able to conquer territories.
Whoever owns a territory gains resources from other explorers, until they’re ousted.
The current design for conquest goes like this:
- when you go on an exploration, your efficiency for this exploration is equal to the ACUMEN of your Eggoas, times the number of Eggoas you sent.
- this efficiency is subtracted permanently to the owner’s efficiency, as well as saved in reserve for yourself
- if the owner’s efficiency reaches 0, he loses the territory and you replace him. Your reserve efficiency is now in play
- you earn Eggforce from other players exploring the territory, until they kick you out the same way
With this design, no whale can hold a territory permanently as every explorer lowers their efficiency.
Meanwhile, even small players can bide their time, by slowly increasing their reserve before delivering the final blow.
Finally: explorations will give you the resources you need to craft items for your Eggoas.
But we can’t reveal all our secrets at once, now can we?
See you next week!
Keep up with Eggforce news by following https://twitter.com/EtherSnailFarm (little on the news, high on random posts)
The Eggforce/SnailThrone community is at https://discordapp.com/invite/JU8P4Ru
