Chronic Logic

I want to thank the devs for pushing out new stuff. Always appreciated to see a good hard work. Some of the pieces are really awesome, however, as a whole I have a really bad review from this next expansion:

This will be the last I will be playing Zatikon as it has reached the boiling point for being too confusing for me (and for new players will be too incredible).  I  I really appreciated the simplicity and the ability to calculate all the pieces based on 1-2 unit abilities.  Adding more and more units which I can't decipher how they work at first go is really bad news. The game needed more simplicity overall, not complexity.  To confuse it more, all the new relic's made the game far more unpredictable how to plan out a game, made it more unbalanced towards super pieces and overall complicates the game.  This may be appreciated by other die hard veterans here, but it is going to make it much harder to attain newer players.  Best of luck on the game.

Finally got $200K. Soon I will be able to buy a house with my Zatikon money.

The new modes presented below should help revitalize the community especially with a low population. With a low population, it's hard to get games going. I've seen the desire to play lots of 2v2 games but the fact is logging in, we need more things for players to do when people are in other games or no one is there:

(1) BOSS MODE: Unfortunately, this would take a lot of effort, but this mode would be another single player mode, where each level's goal is just to kill the boss unit.

(2) 2v2* (Upgraded!): Player's will now have the choice to add up to as many AI's as they want. So, technically you could start your own game and play against 1 ally AI and 2 enemy AI. Also, means lots of combination like 2 humans vs 1 human& 1 IA, or still 2 human vs human. etc. All enemy AI, start with double (2000pts) worth of random army, just like it operates as single player to an extent. The big revision in 2v2 needs to be players must choose the seat (team) they will play on. This will help them easily add the AI to the correct team and position.

(3) 2v2 RANDOM Everything is the same as step 2, but all player's armies are random selections.

(4) MIRROR ARMIES 1v1: Random armies, but mirrored. All selections will include 1 archer and 1 horseman type minimum.

This problem has occurred since the beginning of me playing Zatikon. I can't verify if it's because of the JAVA, the application, my cruddy computer, or combination of the above. I'm pretty sure I've updated my Java to the latest and have never witnessed a problem like this on any other game despite I don't run heavy graphic intense games.

PROBLEM: Even after just a few minutes of playing with only running Zatikon as the only program, the screen will not let you move,click or perform any actions. If will appear like everything is working, but if you minimize and bring the window up again the entire screen is all white. It typically takes 1-4 minutes to have the screen finally catch up again.  It feels like the Facebook app works better, but I think the same problem occurs.

Haven't been playing much Zat lately, but here is some feedback that I think could help.  Apoligies ahead of time too as I'm sure most of these idea may have been thought of but it's always good to hear a reminder. There has been growing trends in the game industry with an expanded population of younger players and also more and more women mid-age.  The biggest trend is really is obvious, players have ADD.  Shiny gem games to more social based interactive games may becoming more popular, and that should be a hint that Zatikon should reconsider simplifying it's model. I think the entire game should be simplified but that's an entire project of itself. Alas, with a small player pool, the game needs to harvest more cooperative computer fun and less competitiveness/chess'ness.  Adding an additional game mode and/or changing coop mode to survival/boss mode would be a great start.  A simple step might be making a lite* version where there are only the basic units of the game in the same formats of constructed-random-coop-etc.  So, in both deck builder and picking a game mode you would have to 2 options of lite or pro mode.  Deckbuilder would toggle the two modes. 

Reiterating: get someone who has never played the game and sit them down to watch their responses. Without any explanation or helping them, you will watch how frustrating and confusing things probably are.  Yes, I understand the game is complex, but there are things like trainer, youtube videos and Zatikon lite* that might entice them more.  Maybe if the website and shell of the game looked a bit more medieval with detailed looking.  Just like chess, I'd rather be playing something that looks simple, but people are drawn or repulsed by the graphics.  The units are perfect, but maybe the game board, shell and website could just use a face lift.

Can we please have a system similiar to the Elo chess system?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elo_rating_system

When ever that gets implemented, a rating reset would be necessary.  Having a real thirst to achieve a higher rating would be nice.

I'm really surprised to see that no one has ever posted about the channeler.  For $200, she is clearly the best $200 unit.  5 range attack and one of the very few units to kill a dragon in 1 hit.  So yes, it's currently overpowerul.  It's good to see units over/uner their power level per the price, so all I'm really asking is for it to be tweeked to one of the following:

(1) Make it cost $250.  Yes, it's worth just as much as a druid, not a warrior.

or

(2) Remove it's 2nd ability to use up all it's stored actions to attack 1 target.

QuoteFirst off, I think Josiah's clean up job was wrong and unnecessary. We're not in totalitarian dictatorship North Korea here. This is America (or for me, Britain) one of the greatest Democracies in the world, where people fought and died for freedom of speech, including some of my ancestors.  Forums are all about spreading ideas and creativity. Unless something very offensive pops up, then everything in forums should stay. I'm definitely a bit angry about having some of my things deleted, and Norsker little harmless Simpson comment. I thought it was quite funny and actually provoked me to become more creative and think about how Zatikon could be improved. But my mood has definitely changed now.

This will be my last comment on this forum I make, and hopefully some people see it before Josiah deletes it.

When Mongolian was talking about advertising and YouTube (and he is completely right about this game needing more advertisement) I went to YouTube and searched 'Chess Evolved' to see what popped up, for this is how I found Zatikon, by typing these words in Google. I mentioned this in a previous forum comment but maybe it's deleted now. What popped up was Chess Beyond.

I've actually just started playing Chess Beyond. It is like normal Chess however every time you make a move you also move a square on the board. Beyond Chess offers a whole new level of strategy because the board directly influences play throughout the game. This creates a new arsenal of weapons in addition to those already known by chess players. With new strategies comes new terms like Trenching and Boxing. So when you play Beyond Chess you must always be aware of your surroundings – not just where the pieces are at any given time, but where the squares of the board are also. The location of squares directly effects where pieces can maneuver. A key concept of playing Beyond Chess is manipulating the board to your advantage and to your opponent's disadvantage. By isolating his pieces and rendering them useless, you can paralyze your opponent's ability to threaten.

They give a quote on their website from Frederick the Great to his Generals in 1747:

'I approve of all methods of attacking provided they are directed where the enemy's army is weakest and where the terrain favors them the least.'

Then the developers of Chess Beyond add 'Judging from his quote, Frederick the Great probably would have been a great Beyond Chess strategist. Too bad he was born in the wrong century!'

The developer of the game is actually a Marine. He created the concept of a moveable board to more closely reflect modern warfare and to take Chess to a whole new level never before seen. He even played it in Iraq when he was out there fighting!

He states that 'A true test to one's personal ability is to play in an ever changing environment in which you must think, analyse and adapt using your own creative mind.'

The game takes some getting used to but I think it is brilliant and at the moment I think really does deserve the name 'Chess Evolved'. I think you Zatikon developers should take notice of their website and the things they have achieved: http://www.gobeyondchess.com/pages/home.htm

Of course they are feeding off an original game that has always been and still is immensely popular; however they have definitely done some good advertising. First, as already mentioned, they are snugly under YouTube as 'Chess Evolved'. I think you Zatikon Developers should fight for that spot. Also they have developed a Beyond Chess Strategy Guide PDF document to help out beginning players along with an online tutorial. Zatikon definitely needs something similar.  They also set a day and time for people to jump online and play each other. Concerning your tournament idea, this could be a way you could do it. 'Tuesday night 8pm, everybody online to play their tournament game.' If you don't go online at that time and day then you lose. Some players might argue about what happens if they can't make that time on that day. Well real athletes or tournament Chess players have to show up at the venue and play. If they don't then they have to forfeit. However, if you want to be a bit nicer then you can have each player have like a holiday day off or something. So I think this type of thing could definitely work.

And now, I will leave you Zatikon with these last words:

Healthy competition, will power, creativity and freedom of speech has made America one of the greatest countries in the world. Continue those ideas Zatikon Developers and Zatikon could be one of the greatest games ever made in America.

To all you Zatikon players, keep up all your great comments. The Zatikon developers are lucky to have such dedicated players who offer for free such great ideas and feedback.

I wish you all the best for the future

Sean Gainford

To me it's always strange to see my favorite/best games on the net with the fewest people.  So how did a game so almost perfect like Zatikon fail?

I realise the game has a small demographic, but I find this a cop-out excuse.  Or was it truly too small a demographic?  Are strategy gamers really that few to count?  Was there not enough advertising-marketing?  How is a game with no budget supposed to get more exposure?  Was the game too complicated?  Was the game too difficult to pick up?  Was the community not connected enough?  Or is this a diagnoses that too many people like lame real time strategy games?  Or are people so shallow that they can't get past graphics?  

If someone could shed better light, greatly appeciated or please point to strategy games that have had better success that are TURN BASED or in a similiar vein.  Is there anything that can be done to help save the game and/or find better solutions for the future?  Also, I thought Zatikon was going to advertise more, what happened?

ARTIFICER.  I propose revising the Artficer.  He is a truly a crucial unit needed in this game, but the problem is that he's too expensive to help balance the game.  As in, a $350 artficer doesn't help make the game more rock-scissor-paper.  It actually burdens it more. Even if Articer doesn't get changed, please add the following:

- does not affect shape shifters (aka the changeling)

ARTFICER (*REVISED*)
-------------------
Power: 4 Armor:0 Hp: 2 Cost: $200 Actions: 1

- The only ability it has is to make a unit inorganic!
- Remove the units gain armor ability!
- Artficer can not affect shape shifters!

Wyvern - Movement needs to be modifed.  It's currently way too weak for $550.

Changeling - Need to be swap within 5 not 6.

Doppleganger - whenever a dopple is hurt, it's max HP is reduced to whatever it was damaged for.  Aka, if the original gets hurt, then the clone will become that HP not the original.

Armory - Every 3 or 4 turns, can give 1 unit +1 power (casting within range 2)

Conjurer - Range of Casting to 3.  Both portals only have range 3.

Sergeant - Unit must be retargeted each turn.

I like the wyvern but I think it needs a crucial tweek:

- It doesn't cost an action to move/jump wyvern.

I don't even mind if you make it -1 power or -1 armor, but this is an essential change.  Wyvern is just too expensive and with all the other goodies out on the board he is never going to make the cut for any coop or constructed army where it's currently at.

This has been a problem for a long time, I guess I just never bugged it cause it was low priority.  I'm running Windows XP.

If Zatikon is not finished loading up and I close the Zatikon application, I will not be able to reopen Zatikon.  The reason for this is the "javaw.exe" is still be running, despite I closed the application early.  The only way to resolve this problem is Ctrl+Alt+Delete and terminate the "javaw.exe".

As anyone should know, I'm a Zatikon junkie and I love it!  But, I often see the game lobby with low numbers.  Worse, is there is usually a good percentage when in or after a game, that my opponent's get frustrated no matter what the type of game.  I know Zatikon isn't everyone's cup of tea, but people are definately coming here looking for specific types of things.  Some are casual gamers that mainly enjoy the coop/single modes and want to see more development on that.  Others are casual gamers that want to try out all the modes and love all game modes.  Then, most of the hardcore gamers are here for the strategy aspect and 90% are falling under the random category and 10% constructed.  In all scenarios I find common scenarios: two complex and not enough to do.

After owning all the cards and playing every game mode, I've recently gone back to thoroughly enjoying my "demo" only account.  I must admit that both constructed and random are much more enjoyable then owning all the cards.  I have to ask myself why is that, and I believe it's because I love simplicity and I love a limited set amount of variables.  It's also because with all the cards there are many scenarios where random/constructed games result in almost no ways of winning.  Sure, more pieces could be fixed to game balance these modes, but I believe an even better solution could occure and I'll get to that later.  For example, I recently had an encounter with a newer player, where we had mirror demo armies but instead of me having an enchanter(huge advantage) he had a bunch of cav's in combination to both of us having 2 catapults among other things.  He almost beat me and should have if he played perfectly, but win or lose, it's alot harder to replicate this balance and simplicity in demo only scenarios.

But, let's look at this from a developer's point of view.  They need expansions, they need to make money to justify the endless hours put in.  I get it and respect it.  But at the same time, Zatikon has been constantly developed to create game balanced revolved around the additional pieces added.  With the release of each new set of units, more variables come out, which obviously results to more complaints and more pieces being adjusted.  This is a good natural process, but in the mean time, bigger fish need to be fried in how to help make Zatikon a gem.   And don't get me wrong, It's a brilliant idea to bring out a new unit every month.  But, what Zatikon is failing at more then ever is being simple.  Zatikon will always be "complex" but it also can be simple too at the same time.  By simple I mean, there should always be a core set of units and variables that should never change.  When the basic units get new abilities and players are gone after a while, it's very frustrating adapting to the new settings.  But, the larger problem is addressing the overall complexity of Zatikon as I whole heartly believe it's one of the biggest disseases towards keeping new players.   This and aside that more single/coop modes need to be developed, but that is another discussion of itself.

So there is a correct solution to the complexity problem.  Let's look at a similiar vein, Magic the Gathering (I haven't played it in 5+ years so excuse my incorrect evaluations).  Anyhow, MtG in the beggining realised many players were complaining that it was too expensive to play, so they invented a Type 1 & Type 2.  For those unfamiliar, Type 1 meant all cards were allowed where as Type 2 meant, you could only use cards from expansions in sets in production.  So it basically helped make the game fresh as Type 1 & 2 would constantly change but it also helped keep a more free mode of playing.  So how is this relevant to Zatikon?  Zatikon needs a bigger hook for "demo" players as we already have a good conversion rate turning them into non demo.   More specifically, a simple "DEMO" styled modes of games and "Non-Demo" style.

How it could work:

When ever one of the main game challenge modes is selected, you will need to choose more advanced game options.  More specifically 3 options:

(OPTION 1) Rated or Unrated
(OPTION 2) 1 min timer or 5 min timer
(OPTION 3) Classic (only demo units) or Advanced (all units)

It would also be very vital, that unrated, 1 min and Classic be the default game choices so the user doesn't have to keep clicking over and over the same options.  I've also recieved many complaints from players that they are unsatisfied with the fast 1 minute timer , so a 2-5 minute timer option would really help.  

Again, in summorary, Zatikon is a complex game that needs to tone down some of the variables (all units).  As much as the game needs to spruce it up with new units, it's almost more important to establish a classical "demo" style.  If anything else, after 4-5 expansion sets, people should be enjoying and still be able to play the same Zatikon for decades just like they would chess.

I love Zatikon, but over the course of my life with it, I've come into some very heated debates and some very hated opponents all over the way a unit acted or just plainly because they didn't like the unit.  So some of the units hear fall into the category they are too strong/too weak, but I'm really mainly interested to hear which units people don't like seeing when on the battlefield.  Before I get to my list, I've said this before, but I'm a big fan of simplicity.  When Zatikon adds more units, all I hope is that units don't change the game balance aka just simple units.

UNITS I DON"T LIKE:
------------------------------------------
(1) Arch-Angel. It costs $550, so it's supposed to be a huge game changer.  I loathe when I play a random or consturcted game and this is totally a I win or lose type unit.  Why can't the angel by cheaper to cost like 300-400 and be weaker by either it's stats or a weaker special ability?  Again, it's too big a win/loser.

(2) Armory. In all theory, I should love this card's simpicity, but too often not it's too much a game breaker for random games.

(3) Conjurer.  Ok, it's just too powerful currently. If all it's deploy and range for things was 3 (meaning 6 range for all it's targeting), I'm not too sure I can appreciate him.  BUt anyhow 4+4=8 Range in the game, nothing in this game should be further then 6 range.

(4) Changeling. Ok, changeling would NOT be making this list at all if swap only occured on 5 spaces vs 6.  But with 6, it's so impossable to stop the swap.  I also loahte changeling in how powerful it is against the AI.

(5) Wizard. Again, just not a fan of things that influence the range aspect of the game.  I'm exicited to see units manipulate and give more ways to move around the battlefield, but not add MORE range to other units.  I guess the only part of wizard that really bothers me is just that fact it can swap positions with an ally, giving him HUGE range.  If when he swaps positions it was only valid for enemy units...

WARRIOR
Actions: 3
Power: 5
Armor:2
Deploy:2
--------------
I'm sure we can all agree, the warrior is the worst of the $200 units.  Unless it's exploited via another combo unit like the serg*, the warrior just never makes the cut in any army. So I suggest the following tiny ability:

OPTION #1 (preferred) For every kill, it heals 1hp.
OPTION #2 For every kill it, gains 1hp.  With this option, I might start the warrior out with -1 HP, just so it sounds more reasonable.
OPTION #3 Deploy 0.
OPTION #4 Power:6, armor:1

I am so impressed at Zatikon's upgrades, it's really making this game a gem.  But, I feel one of the biggest areas it could improove to make the game more attactive is a better lobby (aka the main screen to connect to games).

I know this would take alot of work, but I'd love to see something similiar to the following:



Interesting things about the new GUI:
- Players can have their own icon (selected from a list of the units in game as your avatar)
- This would completely omit the need for a player list
- Everything has been made more compact
- Hopefully this is more visually obvious to see open games and who is playing who in what type of games...

Post your favorite type of basic unit that used yet.  Most concepts will probablly just be versions of working units:

PS - I've purposely left all the stats out of all my units to let Zatikon fill what they want in.

Spearman(like ballista) can attack once per opponent or ally turn.  Will attack anything ally or foe within 4-5 tiles in front of it's straight line. (power 6)
Can move up to 2, but it can not attack the turn it moves.

Flanker (like pikeman) Flanker attacks the following squares automatically, but only on opponent's turn maybe...

o x x o o o x x o
x x x o o o x x x
x x o o F o o x x
x x x o o o x x x
o x x o o o x x o

(o=Miss, x= Hit, F=Flanker)


Sling(like old sergeant) Sling unit, pushes unit 1 square left/right away from Sling.  Sling can target unit anywhere within (2).

Goliath(opposite of barbarian) Starts out with power 10, has -1 power each turn.  Moves 2 per turn, but has 4 actions. Can only attack in straight lines. (no diagonals)

Juggernaut(similiar to elephant) Can only attack when 2 or more pieces are in a row/column/diagonal).  Same attack/range as current elephant.

So a top player has complained at me for surrendering in a random game to them.  It was clear that with my draw, it would have been impossable to put up a fight, even if my opponent had a bad draw.  So I was called out for cheating with surrendering on turn 1 cause it won't count to rating.  Why do you think the game makers made this ability for both constructed & random?

Then, I was called that surrendering wasn't fair because I go 2nd and I can see what my opponent has to give me an advantage if I want to continue. 
I respond with 2 things, just wait 1 turn to bring out your "i'm gonna kill your army units".  I've also noticed that player 1 can also concede on turn 2 and it won't count towards rating, so there ya go.  Seems pretty fair to me.

In an ideal world, the game should begin with 1 option to restart in case you don't like your army.  The other option brought up is you could keep restarting infinitly, but each restart means -50 pts total off your total 1250 random points.  With either solution, the game would have to revert counting turn 1 surrender's as loses then.  I think this will help the game out alot.  Balancing random armies still seems too tricky, so enabling the option to restart seems more fair.

Been playing Zatikon for a long time now and I've hit the wall for how much I can enjoy it. Sure 2v2 has been fun, but it's very limited enjoyment factor.  And all these new units are NOT what I have been looking for.

So, let's start with what Zatikon has to see how it can be improved:

OVERALL GAME BALANCE: Currently the game is still too much about a range game, as in who ever has the further ranged units tend to win.  If the game can change/remove the sergeant & wizard the game can returned to a far more balanced game.   I'm sure research could show that more people are playing ranged units like rider & cav vs a warrior, footman or a pikeman.

RANDOM MODE:   Random mode is by far my favorite mode, but it has it's limits due to the fact most armies are not fair.  For starters, certain units need to be omited if not an extreme rarity: armory,dracolith, sergeant.  Sergeant just makes any army significiantly better, so it makes armies unbalanced.  Draco & armory are complete game losers at the top level of game play.  2ndly, tacticians.  Please just make all armies either have 1-2 or none at all.  When, 1 player has 2 and another has 0, it's far too much advantage.

So long story short, RANDOM MODE has too many advantages/disadvantages to make it enjoyable.  The last thing people hate is winning/losing because 1 player had a better army.  When it's not balanced, this is the stuff that can make players quit.

CONSTRUCTED MODE: As I've already explained the game is too much about ranged, constructed is the worst exploitation of unbalanced armies.   I really can never see constructed being a fair mode of playing, becuase the game is constantly adding units not removing them.

But, constucted mode could be a great mode of playing.  What happened if every 2-3 months, a new constructed mode came out.  Each 2-3 months, only a set # of units will be able to be used.  So for example, only Commanders/Cultists/Hoseman/Nature would be able to be played.  Then, the next 2/3 month cycle would be a new set that could only be played.  This would help keep the game fresh as players would constantly have to make new decks.   I guarnatee you if you had 2 constructed modes, the normal one and the 2-3 month constructed one, the 2-3 month cycle one would easily grow to be more popular.

SINGLE PLAYER MODE/COOPERATIVE: Seeing as how Cooperative seems to be the most popular, I woudl reccomend making a new mode: Boss mode.  Instead of fighting an infinite # of enemies, why not make a super boss mode where typically the only objective is to kill the 1 boss unit on the board.  A boss would typically have combined multiple abilities and high HP.  Boss modes would have lower # of troops and maybe to change it up, could all start with structures on the board to differentiate it from normal cooperative mode.

As a final note, the game has become really great how many improovements have become, but I feel like more drastic actions are needed to bring in more players.  And 10-30 more units is not going to be the answer to get that there.