Requirements for XP Morph

The morph system was removed because its mechanics, implementation and polish levels had dropped below some arbitrary threshold and nobody fixed it for a lengthy period of time. Apparently a decent number of people like morph so perhaps one of them will fix it. There are a lot of issues so perhaps a group of them will be required.

Turret morphs which cause footprint problems are not going to be readded. Turret morphs in general are unlikely to be readded because morphing a turret is a fairly static thing involving your opponent suciding their units into your defense. There are also very few possibilities due to the footprint problem.

The three main gameplay issues are as follows. They are addressed in by changes required in the ticket.

• Farming and randomness - I think this would mostly be addressed by requirement 4.
• Free BP - Would be fixed by optional requirement 6. Otherwise morph times can be increased for light units. Less of an issue in practice because Commanders are already a reliable source.
• Automatic Synergy - Zeus -> Crabe was a morph which gave your army automatic synergy with itself. The fix is to simply not implement such role crossing morphs.

Apart from gameplay fixes there are many bugs and UI polish issues which would need to be fixed. ZK will need to reach this level of polish and I don't want to spend my own time on the backlog of issues that have grown up around morph.

Also here is a morph discussion with Klon: http://pastebin.com/hXZMu9h6

The morph gadget is 7-year-old spaghetti and I would not like patches which further hinder maintainability. I advise an initial cleanup of the code.

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Ticket: https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/issues/340

These are the requirements for readding an XP morph system.

1. Fix the issues in this ticket: https://github.com/ZeroK-RTS/Zero-K/issues/165

2. Fix the way morph is handled by Integral Menu:

• If some units in a selection have the required XP to morph then the morph button should be active. Currently the activation of the button depends on which unit was added first.
• Clicking the morph button when many units are able to morph should only give one morph order. Ctrl+click could give all eligible units the order.
• The morph button should not also be the stop morph button. Create a 'Stop Morph' button with a different image and description.
• Morph (and stop morph) commands should be placed after every other ordinary command to better preserve the command placement order for the rest of the menu. They should be before Retreat Zone and Ferry.
• Fix the bug where a morph option from the previously selected set of units appears at the bottom of the command card for the newly selected units. This button is often larger than the rest of the buttons. This bogus command remains even when no units are selected. To reproduce select a unit with a greyed out morph, then select a commander with a commander morph, then select the unit with the greyed out morph.
• Improve the tooltip to convey what morph is, what the rank requirement is and why the button is greyed out.

3. Improve rank display and make morph easier to spot.

• Ranks should correspond to the ranks set out by the morph gadget. They currently do not.
• Ranks should be displayed for enemy units to increase the interaction provided by the system.
• Units (or their rank icon) should flash or otherwise be more obvious for several seconds after they gain the required rank to morph. A morph-able rank should be more obvious in general.
• Selected units should somehow have their unit portrait modified (perhaps with an icons) if they are able to morph.

4. Improve the XP system:

• Remove the last hit bonus for XP. This mechanic is the worst offender for the creation of tedious farming and farm countering (self-ding your units or causing chain explosions to deny large amounts of XP).
• This will require a re-balance of the rank system if the ranks are supposed to be 1x, 2x and 3x cost.
• A suggested gadget implementation is to subtract XP from a unit whenever it kills something in such a way that the bonus is counteracted.
• A better implementation would be to provide a patch for the engine which makes the last hit bonus configurable.

5. A well thought out morph graph. Consider whether monospam + morph becomes a viable strategy (eg Zeus -> Crabe to counter the counters to Zeus). Give reasons for each morph.

6. (Optional requirement that grants a lot more friendliness towards the system)
Nanoframe morph. Constructors have to do stuff to a morphing unit to make it progress. This removes concerns about free BP. Care has to be applied to make sure that UI for this is good.

If 6 is not implemented then low level morphs may need to take a bit longer to reduce their ability to completely tank your economy.

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Possible approach to solution lies in that, unlike most RPG games, ZK has corpses, which:

a) are persistent
b) contain resources.
c) occur solely from units dying

Rather than having experience granted on damage, it could be granted by consuming wreckage. Think "qualitative puppy", or some such.

Implementing it in UI sounds like a wreck though, so probably this mechanic would better be implemented on a single unit (think tiberium wars Avatar)

An issue possibly exists with "feeding" with purposely slaughtered owned units, but that is bound to be inefficient due to wrecks having less worth than complete units.

Anarchid - if you want more corpse interaction, I'd rather just see more puppy-goo-based units. Let XP be XP.

BlueTemplar - how would you have a hotkey for "morph" unless you restricted it to one "upgrade" morph per-unit? I mean, if you have a hotkey for "morph" then which morph should the unit use?

On the other hand, only one morph option would prevent morph options from cluttering the command-list. You could have one global "morph" command that is contextual per-unit instead of a zillion morph commands.

Do you need more than one morph per unit?
In that case, have "Morph1", "Morp2", "Morph3" commands maybe?

I agree 100% with hokomoko.

The inherent flaw in the design is tying morph to xp bonuses. Morph and XP bonuses should be split into two mechanics independent from each other.

quote: 1) Time based morph: Allow a unit to morph after staying alive for x minutes. UI-wise you could show how much time is left on the button.

Sounds insufficiently cool and a different system.

quote: 2) Allow morphing only in the energy grid. This will solve the "warrior in enemy base" issue.

That sounds hard to communicate via the UI. Perhaps if that ever becomes a problem. Warrior behind base may also be a desirable tactic and it should look less random when a units XP is both more visible and visible to opponents.

quote: 3) Bidirectional morphs: Have 2 (or more) units with similar cost that can morph to each other (morph cost will be more than the difference). Think about Leveler and Ravager, this will allow changing your army composition rapidly (for instance moving from offense to defense) but will be less metal-efficient.

That sounds like too much role switching and the morph system is a bit clunky for it. Some other unit transformation would work better.

quote: 4) Morph based factory: Like 3, have morph cost more than the difference, and allow a raider to morph into most other units from same factory (might fit amphibs?). Can be also combined with 1, 2.

Then someone would have to design a new factory.

I still think Golden Morty is the best morph unit concept. Every unit could get a "golden morph" like this, if there was some kind of a visual cue to represent the elite status, like a shader that'd add a golden glow to the unit. (Because nobody would want to go through every texture to create a golden version.)

The morphs could work the same way as they used to, with sufficient XP being the prerequisite and the morph costing resources, but buildpower being free.

The golden/elite versions of the units could cost, say, an extra 0.5-1 times the unit's normal cost, and they could get relevant buff with an emphasis on cool. Random ideas: Glaive could get cloak, Slasher could get the ability to move and fire, Warrior could have both of its weapons able to fire constantly + some HP... I'm sure someone(s) would have a lot of fun coming up with these concepts for all units.

#LateNightIdeas

Moved post to [url=9916]a separate goo thread[/url]. I think Goo would be a better successor to XP so it's somewhat relevant to this topic.

I think this new poll should have an option for "put it back how it was but make Google's improvements in the future".