Sacred spawnings or how to fix the blessed spawnings mechanic

Forumaccountkroqgar

Blessed Spawnings suffer from a series of problems that make it a boring mechanic, mostly that they are completely random, give the player no agency, and don't include DLC units.



A simple system that can be adapted to all DLC units is the sacred spawnings mechanic from tabletop which allowed you to specialize your units with blessings that reflected the strengths of each old one. You could even field a sacred host where the whole army was themed around one god. It allows you to customize your armies based on themes like scrap,tree aspects, runes or the marks of chaos in a future WoC update do.

Sacred spawnings

CA would have to create a blessing for each old one giving bonuses that could be fitting for most units, below is a list of possible blessings inspired by other suggestions, mods and the lore of each god.
For example, tzunki lizardmen are more quick of reflexes than other lizardmen and have affinity to water, so they get more melee stats and aquatic. Chotec lizardmen are fueled by the energy of the sun and thus have flaming attacks and perfect vigour.

Ideally each spawning would have their spine painted a special colour just like in the lizardmen army books, but since we haven't gotten an army painter maybe changing unit colours dinamically is actually too complicated, no idea.




The only unit in the whole lizardmen roster that I think completely overlaps with these bonuses are the red crested skinks, which already have the bonuses of the blessing of sotek.

I haven’t given numbers for the stats because that’s a matter of CA balancing. On the whole I consider them balanced since all of them are worse than the current perfect vigour+ extra hp combination for the best LM units the current blessed spawnings offer.

Blessings

- Blessing of Tzunki: Aquatic, melee attack and defence

- Blessing of Sotek: Frenzy and poison

- Blessing of Quetzl: Physical resistance and armour

- Blessing of Tlazcotl: Expert charge defence, Immune to psychology

- Blessing of Chotec: Flaming attacks and perfect vigour

- Blessing of Huanchi: Strider and stalk

- Blessing of Tepok: Magic resistance and magical attacks

- Blessing of Itzl: Charge bonus and speed

-Blessing of Xokha: Weapon strenght and extra leadership

How to access the blessings


Given this blessings there are a number of ways it could work to make the player gain access to the blessings.

In lore lizardmen don’t control when a new spawning happens or what blessing it has, but the old ones provide them with the ones they need the most, the mechanic should reflect that.

All lizardmen factions could have available missions like Oxyotl has, to choose from. But instead of being rewarded directly with units to recruit at any time, players would get “prophecies” of a new blessed spawning after completing one of these deeds of the old ones.

Missions shouldn’t be random, but reflect the campaign map and the lore. Lizardmen get spawnings when at war or when big trouble is coming, so missions should have a number of predictable triggers:
Being at war with a faction.
Having a rebellion.
Strongly negative diplomatic relations which forecast a war.
A faction owns part of a province you own.

Alternatively they could just trigger each few turns, but the timer needs to be much lower than it currently is in that case.

You would get the dilemma interface with four choices.
Examples:
One for a nation you are at peace with and could foster better relations with, one you are at war with and could attack, one you are neutral with and could declare war on, and one that can be done without changing diplomatic relations like a wood elves or empire incursion event.
Each of these would tell you what the recompense is in advance.

Ally x nation, three prophecies about Sotek blessings.
Attack an empire settlement, two prophecies about Quetzl blessings.
Defeat in battle a dark elven army, two prophecies about Huanchi blessings.
Norscan incursion, four blessings of Tepok.

After beating the mission, next time you recruit a unit you would get asked if this spawning is the prophesied, and if you agree it gets the blessing.

You’ve chosen the empire mission, attacked their settlement and gotten two prophecies. Next time you’re recruiting a unit, you get asked (or have the possibility vi some interface) if they’re blessed. In this case you decide the next two chameleon stalkers you recruit are blessed by quetzl.

Since they are prophecies, you shouldn't be able to store them forever. They could last maybe 15 turns, which is a reasonable time to recruit new units while making sure you don't keep them until you can recruit all T4-T5 units.

Alternative systems.

An extremely simple system would make it so that every time you recruit a unit there's a % chance it gets one of the blessings. The % could be dependent on both the geomantic web level and the strength of your current enemies, incentivizing tough wars(based on a system like the waagh trophies). Every race opposed to the great plan (so, all of them if the player feels like it) would have a bonus for a certain blessing. You’re defeating skaven, you get more blessings of sotek, beastmen huanchi, etc. This system solves the DLC problem and agency but is still completely random.

Another simplistic way would be to make it a simple scrap style upgrade paid for with a new lizardmen campaign currency like all the other races have.

Dread saurian

Dread saurian had their own blessings on tabletop, I’ve taken the list from a mod because I don’t have the monstruous arcanum.
Blazing Configuration of Chotec - adds Flaming Attacks and Fire Resistance
Shadow Rebus of Huanchi - adds Stalk and Missile Resistance.
Golden Shroud of Tlazoctl adds +15 Melee Defence and the Golden Shroud of Tlazcotl ability (damages undead and daemons within 50 meters)
Quetzl's Flawless Heartstone - adds Unbreakable, +60 Armour and reduces Speed by 25%
Tepok's Crystalline Eye adds +75% Physical Resistance, Strider, Magical Attacks and reduces Armour by -150 and Leadership by -10
Given how they only affect a single unit, I think they should be a scrap style upgrade, paid for in gold or a new lizardmen resource.


If no new blessed spawnings are coming ever:


CA has invested in the reskins for the current blessed spawnings and may not feel like adding more.

In that disappointing case they could tie the current spawnings to having complete provinces of Lustria and the Southlands, just like the empire elector count units work. So, for example, to get blessed solar engines you need to own the complete Hexoatl province and either use Old One Energy or a cooldown like the empire units have.




What do you think? Seems a worse mechanic than the current one? Too much of a power down from the current blessed saurus random gift? Any suggestions on how you would make it work?

Edit: updated with dilemma suggestion from sauriandruid.

Seswatha#7633

I would first ask what's the intent behind this change? What problems are you trying to solve apart from just making it different or more complicated than the current mechanic?

Forumaccountkroqgar

MadDemiurg said:

I would first ask what's the intent behind this change? What problems are you trying to solve apart from just making it different or more complicated than the current mechanic?

First line of the post? Blessed spawnings are completely random, you can go 30 turns without one or get two missions in three turns. They don't include any of the DLC units like other mechanics like scrap do and have almost zero connection to actions that you take in the campaign map. You don't get rewared for taking risks and fighting well, but because the RNG smiled on you.

Gameplay wise it allows you to customize your armies, just like all the tabletop rules to that effect did, like marks of chaos. You can have a fire focused army where your chotec blessed skinks have a sinergy with the ancient sally inflamable bonus. You can make a hunter army where on top of your chameleon skinks and ripperdactyls you have huanchi blessed saurus.

ladymissfit#8688

i think it's a bit too long? good ideas but getting the prophesies randomly as big things like war or before battles happen might be better cause right now it's 1 mission to choose, get a portent, THEN recruit. it's a lot of steps

Forumaccountkroqgar

ladymissfit said:

i think it's a bit too long? good ideas but getting the prophesies randomly as big things like war or before battles happen might be better cause right now it's 1 mission to choose, get a portent, THEN recruit. it's a lot of steps

It's mostly three steps. Choose a mission given by the game, beat the mission, and recruit a unit.

It's a bit convoluted because I've also added ways they can make the missions less RNG, I'll try to make the explanation more clear.

Seswatha#7633

Well, let's talk about all of them:

1. No DLC units. Not an inherent problem of the current mechanic. This is just CA being lazy to write a check to whether you have the dlc or not or to make blessed templates for the DLC units. They could be just as easily recruited in the current mechanic.

2. Frequency. This can be again easily adjusted within the current mechanic e.g. the number of turns between missions is randomised between 5 and 15.

3. Not being connected to the actions you take on the map - every quest has an objective atm, so it does require you to do some actions on the map. However, it doesn't give you a choice. If you want to give the player more agency, instead of immediately getting a quest, you could get a dilemma out of 4 different quests with different rewards and conditions. This is similar to your mechanic #1 but seems easier to implement. RNG is not always bad however, e.g. if you can always chose which blessed units you can get you would probably go for the most "meta" options every time. Whereas RNG allows to create some variety between playthroughs.

Forumaccountkroqgar

MadDemiurg said:

Well, let's talk about all of them:

1. No DLC units. Not an inherent problem of the current mechanic. This is just CA being lazy to write a check to whether you have the dlc or not or to make blessed templates for the DLC units. They could be just as easily recruited in the current mechanic.

2. Frequency. This can be again easily adjusted within the current mechanic e.g. the number of turns between missions is randomised between 5 and 15.

3. Not being connected to the actions you take on the map - every quest has an objective atm, so it does require you to do some actions on the map. However, it doesn't give you a choice. If you want to give the player more agency, instead of immediately getting a quest, you could get a dilemma out of 4 different quests with different rewards and conditions. This is similar to your mechanic #1 but seems easier to implement. RNG is not always bad however, e.g. if you can always chose which blessed units you can get you would probably go for the most "meta" options every time. Whereas RNG allows to create some variety between playthroughs.

The current system has the downside when it comes to expanding it that it would need a new reskin for each DLC unit. I don't know anything about programming, game developing etc so I don't know if that is significantly more effort for CA than changing the system or not.

The adjustments you suggest would be enough for me to be satisfied, I'm suggesting what I think would be a improvement in two regards. As you say the current system can be a bit gamey, in that some blessed spawnings are awful (blessed skink skirmishers? what's the point of magic resistance in an extremely low tier unit) while others are OP (blessed saurus).

My suggestion includes all DLC units + skink units, is not necessarily so gamey and allows you a great deal of customization.

Let me make you a question, would you be fine with CA giving you blessed warriors with game 3 WoC update instead of Marks of chaos?

Seswatha#7633

yukontherun said:

MadDemiurg said:

Well, let's talk about all of them:

1. No DLC units. Not an inherent problem of the current mechanic. This is just CA being lazy to write a check to whether you have the dlc or not or to make blessed templates for the DLC units. They could be just as easily recruited in the current mechanic.

2. Frequency. This can be again easily adjusted within the current mechanic e.g. the number of turns between missions is randomised between 5 and 15.

3. Not being connected to the actions you take on the map - every quest has an objective atm, so it does require you to do some actions on the map. However, it doesn't give you a choice. If you want to give the player more agency, instead of immediately getting a quest, you could get a dilemma out of 4 different quests with different rewards and conditions. This is similar to your mechanic #1 but seems easier to implement. RNG is not always bad however, e.g. if you can always chose which blessed units you can get you would probably go for the most "meta" options every time. Whereas RNG allows to create some variety between playthroughs.

The current system has the downside when it comes to expanding it that it would need a new reskin for each DLC unit. I don't know anything about programming, game developing etc so I don't know if that is significantly more effort for CA than changing the system or not.

The adjustments you suggest would be enough for me to be satisfied, I'm suggesting what I think would be a improvement in two regards. As you say the current system can be a bit gamey, in that some blessed spawnings are awful (blessed skink skirmishers? what's the point of magic resistance in an extremely low tier unit) while others are OP (blessed saurus).

My suggestion includes all DLC units + skink units, is not necessarily so gamey and allows you a great deal of customization.

Let me make you a question, would you be fine with CA giving you blessed warriors with game 3 WoC update instead of Marks of chaos?

With regards to reskins - well, you either make a new reskin for blessed units or if that's too expensive for CA accept that they would look the same, that's not really an issue with the mechanic itself.

With regards to the Marks of Chaos question - mechanically I would be completely fine with getting random marked units through a mechanic, however from RP perspective it makes more sense that the warriors "choose" to dedicate themselves to a particular god. Spawnings seem random based on their lore. To avoid "useless" blessings the pool of blessings can be adjusted based on the unit in question. Both options have their merit, I'm not considering one to be vastly superior to the other, so I'd go with the option that's more reflective of the lore. I don't mind "negative" rng either, e.g. chaos warriors randomly getting cursed by the chaos gods or developing crippling mutations. These things allow for creating more diverse gameplay situations.

People complaining about campaign map rng or mechanics that have downsides has gotten us where we are - game getting easier and more dumbed down with every dlc.

Forumaccountkroqgar

MadDemiurg said:

yukontherun said:

MadDemiurg said:

Well, let's talk about all of them:

1. No DLC units. Not an inherent problem of the current mechanic. This is just CA being lazy to write a check to whether you have the dlc or not or to make blessed templates for the DLC units. They could be just as easily recruited in the current mechanic.

2. Frequency. This can be again easily adjusted within the current mechanic e.g. the number of turns between missions is randomised between 5 and 15.

3. Not being connected to the actions you take on the map - every quest has an objective atm, so it does require you to do some actions on the map. However, it doesn't give you a choice. If you want to give the player more agency, instead of immediately getting a quest, you could get a dilemma out of 4 different quests with different rewards and conditions. This is similar to your mechanic #1 but seems easier to implement. RNG is not always bad however, e.g. if you can always chose which blessed units you can get you would probably go for the most "meta" options every time. Whereas RNG allows to create some variety between playthroughs.

The current system has the downside when it comes to expanding it that it would need a new reskin for each DLC unit. I don't know anything about programming, game developing etc so I don't know if that is significantly more effort for CA than changing the system or not.

The adjustments you suggest would be enough for me to be satisfied, I'm suggesting what I think would be a improvement in two regards. As you say the current system can be a bit gamey, in that some blessed spawnings are awful (blessed skink skirmishers? what's the point of magic resistance in an extremely low tier unit) while others are OP (blessed saurus).

My suggestion includes all DLC units + skink units, is not necessarily so gamey and allows you a great deal of customization.

Let me make you a question, would you be fine with CA giving you blessed warriors with game 3 WoC update instead of Marks of chaos?

With regards to reskins - well, you either make a new reskin for blessed units or if that's too expensive for CA accept that they would look the same, that's not really an issue with the mechanic itself.

With regards to the Marks of Chaos question - mechanically I would be completely fine with getting random marked units through a mechanic, however from RP perspective it makes more sense that the warriors "choose" to dedicate themselves to a particular god. Spawnings seem random based on their lore. To avoid "useless" blessings the pool of blessings can be adjusted based on the unit in question. Both options have their merit, I'm not considering one to be vastly superior to the other, so I'd go with the option that's more reflective of the lore. I don't mind "negative" rng either, e.g. chaos warriors randomly getting cursed by the chaos gods or developing crippling mutations. These things allow for creating more diverse gameplay situations.

People complaining about campaign map rng or mechanics that have downsides has gotten us where we are - game getting easier and more dumbed down with every dlc.

How does my mechanic dumb down the game? It's a straight nerf, the current blessed saurus are the most broken campaign unit, almost 12k health and perfect vigour. Scrap which isn't obtained via rng but battles and stances didn't dumb down greenskins, overpowered waagh and economy and reducing their tech tree to take something like 60 turns did.

Seswatha#7633

yukontherun said:

MadDemiurg said:

yukontherun said:

MadDemiurg said:

Well, let's talk about all of them:

1. No DLC units. Not an inherent problem of the current mechanic. This is just CA being lazy to write a check to whether you have the dlc or not or to make blessed templates for the DLC units. They could be just as easily recruited in the current mechanic.

2. Frequency. This can be again easily adjusted within the current mechanic e.g. the number of turns between missions is randomised between 5 and 15.

3. Not being connected to the actions you take on the map - every quest has an objective atm, so it does require you to do some actions on the map. However, it doesn't give you a choice. If you want to give the player more agency, instead of immediately getting a quest, you could get a dilemma out of 4 different quests with different rewards and conditions. This is similar to your mechanic #1 but seems easier to implement. RNG is not always bad however, e.g. if you can always chose which blessed units you can get you would probably go for the most "meta" options every time. Whereas RNG allows to create some variety between playthroughs.

The current system has the downside when it comes to expanding it that it would need a new reskin for each DLC unit. I don't know anything about programming, game developing etc so I don't know if that is significantly more effort for CA than changing the system or not.

The adjustments you suggest would be enough for me to be satisfied, I'm suggesting what I think would be a improvement in two regards. As you say the current system can be a bit gamey, in that some blessed spawnings are awful (blessed skink skirmishers? what's the point of magic resistance in an extremely low tier unit) while others are OP (blessed saurus).

My suggestion includes all DLC units + skink units, is not necessarily so gamey and allows you a great deal of customization.

Let me make you a question, would you be fine with CA giving you blessed warriors with game 3 WoC update instead of Marks of chaos?

With regards to reskins - well, you either make a new reskin for blessed units or if that's too expensive for CA accept that they would look the same, that's not really an issue with the mechanic itself.

With regards to the Marks of Chaos question - mechanically I would be completely fine with getting random marked units through a mechanic, however from RP perspective it makes more sense that the warriors "choose" to dedicate themselves to a particular god. Spawnings seem random based on their lore. To avoid "useless" blessings the pool of blessings can be adjusted based on the unit in question. Both options have their merit, I'm not considering one to be vastly superior to the other, so I'd go with the option that's more reflective of the lore. I don't mind "negative" rng either, e.g. chaos warriors randomly getting cursed by the chaos gods or developing crippling mutations. These things allow for creating more diverse gameplay situations.

People complaining about campaign map rng or mechanics that have downsides has gotten us where we are - game getting easier and more dumbed down with every dlc.

How does my mechanic dumb down the game? It's a straight nerf, the current blessed saurus are the most broken campaign unit, almost 12k health and perfect vigour. Scrap which isn't obtained via rng but battles and stances didn't dumb down greenskins, overpowered waagh and economy and reducing their tech tree to take something like 60 turns did.

I'm not talking about your suggestions in that instance, just the overall trends of the game where most of the new mechanics are just buff factories because people complain every time they see a penalty of any sorts.

As I said, I don't really mind if you could pick which units to bless, although it would likely mean that you would only bless stegadons with the current meta.

davedave1124#4773

I've not had a proper look (I will when I play it) but Oxyotl appears to get a plan of the old one's type mechanic that would be ideal for the LM as a whole. Maybe they could have expanded his secret cabin type mechanic and given the LM hi Old One mechanic.

Forumaccountkroqgar

davedave1124 said:

I've not had a proper look (I will when I play it) but Oxyotl appears to get a plan of the old one's type mechanic that would be ideal for the LM as a whole. Maybe they could have expanded his secret cabin type mechanic and given the LM hi Old One mechanic.

The idea about the missions is based on the oxyotl mechanics but adapted for the rest of Lizardmen who can't teleport. I'll give CA a kudos on Oxyotl because his mechanics reflect very well the lizardmen priority of fighting chaos and making sure the great plan is followed.

SaurianDruid#4682

I definitely like the idea of a wider range of sacred units with different blessings.

MadDemiurg's way of accessing them seems simpler though. It is also thematic. Remember that true masters of Astromancy like the Slann or Tetto'eko don't just predict the future; they can bend fate to their will too.

Say you get a dilemma that has four choices. One for a nation you are at peace with and could foster better relations with, one you are at war with and could attack, one you are neutral with and could declare war on, and to keep it spicy one that can be done without changing diplomatic relations. Say an Incursion event or something.

While choosing you see the rewards for each so you can pick what batch of sacred spawnings you want to pursue.

This would simulate the Slann peering through time and selecting the course of action they feel will lead to the most desirable end result.

steam_165171714789pPAEKOH

Ahem

Chora#5222

Sacred spawning won’t likely change as several lords, including the new one, have them tied to faction specific mechanics. Which is unfortunate as the core one is badly outdated and boring.

Draxynnic#3149

Chora said:

Sacred spawning won’t likely change as several lords, including the new one, have them tied to faction specific mechanics. Which is unfortunate as the core one is badly outdated and boring.

Either adjust the affected lords as well or leave them with their special mechanics, as appropriate. It's not like Tehen and Nakai couldn't benefit from some additional polish.

Snoopac

I think you're in the right direction, TBH! I thoroughly dislike how the blessed spawnings system works at the moment, it's just not rewarding at all. I never do the quests because they're often too much work when I've got better things to be doing for such a random reward that is usually just Kroxigors in my case, and there's a time limit. At the very least I'd like to see the time limit removed, even if you're limited to just one quest at a time: that way you can actually bother with the quests when you have the chance. I think the random factor is fine and reflective of the lore (to some extent, the rest of the mechanic doesn't make sense though), but the quests having a time limit is just dumb and makes them not worth pursuing most of the time.

MiniaAr#5798

This is exactly what I think Blessed Spawnings should be reworked to. We can argue on the way to obtain them but there should be some randomness in obtaining them.

Nakal as part of his rework should be able to exchange his favours of the Old Ones against Blessings without the randomness (to replace the Blessed Spawnings in his mechanics).

This would spice up the LM mechanics, by giving a distinct mechanic and not a RoR-lite system, while being loreful at the same time and also don't be DLC dependent (you buff all the units you have access to, depending on the DLCs you own).

Sotek units: RCS and maybe the Bastiladon Ark of Sotek should have incorporated Blessing of Sotek without cost. Maybe the Coatl should get an incorporated blessing of Tepok as well.

I also agree that Dread Saurians should get special blessings. Below are the Monstrous Arcanum special blessings:

Forumaccountkroqgar

endikux said:

Ahem

I actually didn't take the name prophecies from that post, just what came up while I was writing in word. And most of my suggestions are pretty common among lizardmen fans and existed earlier since they're based in the tabletop rules, which I acknowledged in the post, I didn't quote anyone because I didn't look up any posts directly, just wrote this from memory. The change to quests is based on seeing an Oxyotl playthrough where he gets blessed spawnings via missions.

SaurianDruid said:

I definitely like the idea of a wider range of sacred units with different blessings.

MadDemiurg's way of accessing them seems simpler though. It is also thematic. Remember that true masters of Astromancy like the Slann or Tetto'eko don't just predict the future; they can bend fate to their will too.

Say you get a dilemma that has four choices. One for a nation you are at peace with and could foster better relations with, one you are at war with and could attack, one you are neutral with and could declare war on, and to keep it spicy one that can be done without changing diplomatic relations. Say an Incursion event or something.

While choosing you see the rewards for each so you can pick what batch of sacred spawnings you want to pursue.

This would simulate the Slann peering through time and selecting the course of action they feel will lead to the most desirable end result.

Using the dilemma system that already exist seems a great idea, instead of creating a new thing, it's even less effort to make for CA! I'll include that in the OP

Nazjax#2857

This mechanic definitively need some rework with the geomantics web.

I like the idea. I think a dilemma like the moon of Beastmen could be nice for them. You gain periodicly blessed units after you finish a quest, and you could choose what you want/need the most.

steam_165171714789pPAEKOH

A better sacred spawning system almost writes itself. This only makes it more egregious that CA refuses to actually update the LM faction mechanics.

Use the list of Old Ones for particular blessings.
Have the prophecies be mission rewards.
And offer multiple dates and locations for each prophecy where you can collect your blessed units.

This allows you actual interaction and it gives the player agency in knowing ahead of time which blessed spawning are available so they can hunt them down.

You still have to make it to the location at the appointed time, so that means you would need to pick and choose. Maybe you have to decide between prophecy dates that you physically can't make both of. Or you need to spend gold on building a new lord or army just to get to a prophesized spawning. Or you might have to decide between saving a settlement from an invasion or getting to a spawning. But it gives you that choice of something to actually do.

Victuz

I'm going to save this in case we need it in the near future, because this is diamond.