What is the point of game-enders?

To break otherwise never-ending stalemates (common due to coordination issues in the big team games or negative sum fights in FFA).
The existence of a way of ending the game also allows a greater degree of planning and increases the need for scouting.

As a part of this, they need to be far more useful offensively than defensively. If two "game-enders" can counter each other in a stand-off then they're simply part of normal gameplay.

What are some nice features for a game-ender to have?

• Letting the enemy team have one last shot at victory. A game-ender that causes instant resign when it's seen is less fun for the winning team than one they get a chance to use.
• Making the a game have a climactic ending rather than a long, drawn-out one. In a book or film the climax is a relatively short part of the entire thing, you can't easily sustain the heightened arousal for long.
• End the game decisively. Should the other team kill the game-ender this should also be a game-over, otherwise you're possibly getting the giant adrenaline spike of the game-ender repeatedly, which is very wearing. (This works atm because the game-ending buildings will be well at the back, requiring defeating all enemy forces in order to destroy it)
• Involve the entire team in the outcome. A game-ender that has the controller doing things and everyone else twiddling their thumbs isn't as much fun for the others. (currently the friendly team's job is to defend the game ender, scout for targets and sweep the area for silos)
• Be visually satisfying. This should be the climax of the game, stuff should be destroyed in a viscerally appealing manner.
• Require active use. A game-ender shouldn't just play itself, the user should be actively involved in its use to really feel like they've earned their victory and to keep them engaged until the end.

Above thoughts my own. Curious to hear GoogleFrog's.

imho it would be more fun if it was a stoppable game-ender

what about a portal projector that lets you attack a location with your armies just like a lamp but the portal is projected to a location rather then summoned. so you can attack new locations at will but it could still technically be stopped for a short time.. you would still win because even if an army defended that location you could just move the portal and attack a new location.

super op without being instant win..

a win button seems a bit too boring to me

yeah but it would cost allot like 6 starlights so its only something you make when your team cant win normally by natural means

EDIT: .. wait.. now i think about it there will still be two low ranks building two of them at the back from minute 1 =P

Game ender is not nice. Game ending with super weapon is nice(ish). Game ending with super weapons trying to end game for 10 minutes is not nice. Super weapons should have unlimited range for a very good win chance without it being an instant !resign the second its built. Super weapons should drain a lot of energy and cost way more, making it a team effort to build. Super weapons should boom like a singu. Super weapons should not appear even in lob pot as often as they do.

SmokeDragon: The super I'm working on atm (it's mostly functional, though got some polishing to do) sorta does that.

It's a transforming mech that teleports in friendly units. It has a base building that provides power and can rebuild it if destroyed.

The powering building

Standard experimental building, ~50k price point, shoots a giant highly visible arc of lightning over the battlefield to power the superunit.

Because it's powering the superunit, if the building is stunned then the super unit is also stunned (the superunit itself is immune to stunning due to being powered by distant lightning and capturing the superunit just destroys it (no power!)). If the building is destroyed then the superunit will also be destroyed.

Requires a 600 E/s grid connection or once again the superunit loses power and is stunned.

Rebuilds the superunit if it's destroyed. Takes 100 seconds at 30m/s.

Flying form

Very fast flyer with cloaking (when it's cloaked the powering lightning fades out after leaving the building so the enemy only knows what part of the map the flyer is in) that costs -600e/s and has 0 decloak radius. Has a heavy implosion missile d-gun for 6k damage (wiping out un-Funnelled balls and singus) with a long reload time and a moderately powerful chain lightning gun (800dps) for self defence but only 24k hp.

Not that much of a frontline combatant (though the implosion bomb can turn a key fight against balls without strong AA) but with the cloak can easily get to the backline and land to transform into:

"Beachhead" turret

A very powerful 48k hp turret with an 800 range, 0.6sec emping, 1600 damage, 1 shot/sec plasma cannon and most importantly the ability to act as a super-djinn. Quickly placing a portal and allowing your team's units to rush in and destroy all enemy eco!

While the turret itself is very hard to destroy in a direct assault, arti will wear it down over time so you'll need to reposition if the enemy manages to redirect their arti at you (tricky for them as arti is slow).

It can transform back into flying form, though it takes a few seconds so you won't be using it to dodge.

How you might use it

Your main goal should be getting a concentrated block of firepower deep into the enemy base. The missile, EMP plasma cannon and even the lightning are really satisfyingly punchy to use (an entire ball of amphbots evaporating with debris flying everywhere is very satisfying!), but the raw numbers are not very high, so in particular avoid just roaming around with the lightning gun, trying to kill that Cyclops or Paladin. Sure, it'll work, but it's like using a DRP to kill a windgen farm.

In fact, in general sing the superunit in either turret or air form on the front line is a waste, long ranged arti will wear down the turret and with only 600 range and 24k hp the air unit can't do sustained operations against a dense AA cluster.

However, just going to the enemy main base guns blazing isn't ideal, you're particularly vulnerable to Ultimatum and Odins but Paladins and Detriments are also a concern. The portal has a high transportation capacity and quick set up time, a swarm of 50 glaives, a troop of 10 Ettins or a squad of 5 Cyclops can be teleported in in 5 seconds. Even a Detriment won't take long.

Key units good to portal in are:

• Light raiders for doing the damage against that juicy eco
• A screening force to prevent Ultimatum attacks
• AA to defend against Odins
• An Aspis to defend against Zeno attacks

On the way to the enemy base it is a good idea to see if you can snipe a critical ball of arti or shields with your missile. This can make the key difference in letting your allies hold out against enemy attacks long enough for you guys to destroy all enemy eco.

As a fast, cloaked, flyer with no decloak radius and high vision, you can scout fairly quickly to see where you can do the most damage (and maybe to plop down next to an under-construction enemy super!).

How you might overcome it

First thing to note is that perfect defence against it is impossible. Even in the extreme scenario of 100k worth of AA and Lucifers everywhere, a suicide run will easily kill a couple of singus and 4k of other stuff, for the price of a 3k superunit rebuild.
As such, the main thing you want to do is stun or destroy the powering building while minimizing the damage to your own eco.

Scouting is vital to identify what superweapon the enemy is making. With this one if you think you're not doing to kill the building in time you need to start building AA or Raptors/Tridents early to defend your forces. Build at least two, but preferably 3 Artemis in your base to prevent the air strider having a free reign and force it to either hit-and-run or land.

Missile silo can be very important, slowing the turret and the emerging enemy forces and lighting them all on fire. The latter is particularly important to prevent the turret being screened against ultimatum (which will 2-3 shot it). Eos is relatively cost effective compared to most other things.

A squadron of Odins is great at forcing the turret to move, potentially letting it be (temporarily) killed by AA and stemming the tide.

As with all superweapons, you want to push as hard as possible to get a missile silo within range of the building. Arti and heavy AA will both be key here, as will not bunching your forces making them vulnerable to a missile attack.

Similarly to other superweapons, getting your own super finished first will let you win, but, just like when the enemy has a DRP, finishing afterwards might not help as they'll just destroy your superweapon fairly quickly.

When on the offense trying to push enough to take out the building, heavy striders like Paladin and particularly Detriment do quite well against the turret. If possible include them in your attacking force.

Similarly, Impaler and Lance will dislodge the turret relatively quickly.

Other details

• The superunit has out-of-combat regen to fully heal in a couple of minutes so that you aren't incentivized to destroy it and wait for the rebuild if it's badly damaged.

Do you have a name for the new unit?

It sounds like the first attack by the remote would likely be devastating. Would it be worth fighting on after that? I suppose it depends on the size of advantage that the other team gained while the game ender was being built.

I do wonder whether the flying form needs weapons. Perhaps having the d-gun overcomplicates things? It can just deploy and start blowing things up / teleporting units. To that point, maybe it doesn't need weaponry at all, isn't the teleporting more interesting? Does this unit clash with the terraporter game ender idea?

On the general theory, I think involving as many players as possible in the end game is a really good goal to strive for. It sounds like this would do a lot towards that. My personal advice would be not to make it too awesome for the controller to use in itself. We wouldn't want every new player to be drawn towards this flame from the moment they start a game. So I think I disagree about the satisfaction, the reward should be in enabling your team to do cool things, not in gaining control of a brutal weapon that is under your sole control.

more ideas:

* unlimited ressource generator
* starlight etc could gain range over time with unlimited max. there is your game ender. start range stays current maxrange, range enhancement is 10% of map width per 5minutes or so. this would avoid any neverending stalemate. same for other supers
* make superweapons DRAIN energy while fireing. and i mean drain. like 50e per DRP bullet, 25e per captured meteor and starlight could have a damage modifier somehow controllable by the user plus a default drain. this would make everything more fun. make your own base require to be a giant singu farm!
* also, nice idea with the teleport anywhere strider. but:forget the backdoor strider. introduce massive mapwide lobster! we are ZK at last.

Ramping up Starlight range is pretty interesting. Would it make more sense to give it a very slow pitch change rate the first time you "visit" a new angle, and infinite range, so all you have to do is aim across the map and it will push its range up to that point.

Or really, why not just give it infinite range (some technical reasons perhaps) and cut the aim time in half or something. If we want a real game ender. Be simple.

I think it's right to see the starlight again.
As it is conceived, it is not a decisive weapon. There are several games played recently where there were more starlights per team. And the game seemed pretty samey as well as boring.
It would be fun to imagine instead the starlight as it is now as a ray that expands into the opponent's territory but which creates a landing point like the djinn in a few seconds in one point to pass to another nearby point and do the same thing, so that the attacking team can drop behind the lines with their troops, Dante etc., in several points, making even the trenches located in the middle of the pitch partially useless, creating havoc in the opposing team.