What Works About Castle Story and What Doesn't (Invasion)

I love this game. The mood of Castle Story is amazing and the pacing is well rounded, I have a great time. The detail of planning buildings and being able to see the results is one of the best feelings. After a certain while though I get hit hard by a strange feeling, I ask myself why do I play this game? Surly its because of the things I just brought up but, It feels aimless after a while. There is a strong joy when building a holding for my Bricktrons. I love seeing them fight off waves of enemies (only for so long however). The Invasion game type has no goal but to survive and that's okay, I can dig a game of COD Zombies and it doesn't get boring, you as the player are always moving. Zombies will reward the player for doing something different but punish the player for doing it wrong (For Example: Do I risk turning on the power and releasing harder enemies later on and at that moment get better weapons, or do I open this door to more ammo and get a new path way for me to go?). Sense the player is always moving it allows for more encounters and plays a large role in decisions. Now, what choices do I have in Castle Story's Invasion? Infinite, but do they all matter? No. Why would I build a wood structure over a stone one besides aesthetics? There is no reason, wood is a hard resource to build with (especially vertically), Its weaker as well, and there is less of it on the map compared to stone. Its a waste of time to collect wood besides making pallets and work benches and such. I don't even use the work bench after wave 3! Now imagine having old Bricktron temples that have crafting recipes of the great minds that came before you and depending on where you start it effects what recipe you have access to . Okay Cool. Now I have a reason to use the crafting bench again and cool bit of lore. Now Imagine that wooden structures take less time to build, You already kinda have a system for this (Bricktrons carry more then one plank of wood). Maybe make it so Bricktrons that are assigned to the chopping block have little logging packs to carry more logs. Okay Cool. Now I can send my logging Bricktron to build more efficiently then other Bricktrons and the logger is not forgotten on plank auto pilot forever. This is great now I have choices to make, do I build wooden watch towers for my quickly made archers or do I build a strong but small stone keep for my handful of knights. The old temples could have a design for a small stone dagger for archers to melee with for the crafting bench, or maybe a design for a shield pylon that creates a shield around its self to protect your crystal or Bricktrons. Now do I stay put and work on my fort or send out a small band of soldiers to defeat a weird new enemy type and get some cool loot? I'm 15 so maybe my ideas are not very realistic but I want more choices that change the world around my Bricktrons, so
Sauropod Studio please stay tuned for my next rant on Conquest. -HeadHunter

Comments

  • ShatojonShatojon Administrator Developer Backer Wiki Editor
    Thank you for sharing your thoughts HH.
  • I haven't been playing in quite some time but thought I'd pop-in to the forums and see if anything interesting was lurking. I think HeadHunter has really hit it on the head (har-har) with his comment! I have pretty much the exact same feeling of eventual boredom with Invasion mode due to the monotony once you've survived the first few waves. Having a goal to aim for (rather than just "survive forever") and having to make meaningful choices about various secondary goals/loot/secrets/exploration/etc. would be a huge step forward.

    I remember playing once and thinking it'd be kinda neat if there was one or more "warp gates" (Stargate?) that the emery came from, rather than just the edge of the map. And to destroy these gates you needed to accomplish other things - maybe find items on the map, maybe build special items with super rare resources. Or maybe actually take control of the gate(s), which would allow you to go through them to another floating island (next mission).

    Just my 2 cents,
    Greg
  • ShatojonShatojon Administrator Developer Backer Wiki Editor
    Invasion will end when you reach wave 60, actually. You get an achievement too. :)
  • No offense or anything, but most people aren't skilled enough to know that the waves end at 60, nor do they lurk hard enough in the wiki and the like to know this.It doesn't help that the game's pathfinding and troop control as well as pop cap limits means only those who have advanced APM or can edit the game's LUA to allow for more bricktrons will get to the ending in the first place. If Steam's statistics are anything to go by literally only .6% of the populace makes it to waves 30+ and only .3% actually reach the end of the waves.

    Now this isn't the suggestions forum, but since you're replying to this thread I'll get it out of my chest. Make the difficulties actually different from each other, correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I see it there's no discernible difference between the difficulties aside from the starting units you receive. Which is quite shallow in comparison to other RTS games. That's it really, it's not a wall of text suggestion like my micromanagement/troop movement thread was.
  • ShatojonShatojon Administrator Developer Backer Wiki Editor
    Hi CastleBuilder,

    The difficulty of waves is also different from one difficulty to the other.
  • CastleBuilderCastleBuilder Member
    edited May 2018
    Hey Shatojon could you tell me what makes the difficulties different? Because the few times I played hard mode, it really didn't feel different enough to justify gimping myself some extra Bricktrons. Is it the RNG aspect for each wave spawned in? Or is it the ramp up speed for enemy unit buffs? The game doesn't do too well to explain this, and well the wiki lacks documentation on the LUA Script as well.
  • ShatojonShatojon Administrator Developer Backer Wiki Editor
    Hi CastleBuilder,

    I checked and the amount of Bricktrons you start with is different, the time between each wave is different and the budget Corruptrons have to spawn enemies is different from wave to wave.
  • CastleBuilderCastleBuilder Member
    edited May 2018
    "and the budget Corruptrons "

    Interesting, I've noticed that on normal, when I've reached the high 40s the hardest wave I've ever gotten is like 15 Corruptrons/minitrons (a mix really), 2 biftrons and a warlock. Does that mean that the RNG would allow for some insane variations like 3 Biftrons 2 Warlocks and then a few Corruptrons plus Minitrons? First time I've heard of a "budget" for corruptron spawning patterns.
  • ShatojonShatojon Administrator Developer Backer Wiki Editor
    The budget can affect their difficulty/level too.
  • So the budget is also for buffs and debuffs too, gotcha.
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