Aigis Game Design Review

[faketurtle]

Because I'm toying with the idea of designing an Aigis like game in the future, I wanted to break down what Aigis had going for it in gameplay design. Mainly because Aigis is less an H game and more a strategic tower defense game with an H feature.

I guess the first thing that really caught my attention about Aigis is that while premium units are strong, event units, depending on the unit, can be on par with some of the units from the summon gate. Most other gacha type games usually place all the power units in the gacha (I'm thinking back to when I used to play Brave Frontier, and events in that game were less about featured units for usage and more for featured units for acquisition).

[Ericridge]

I give it an 0/10 because it shut down. The game design wasn't good enough to stay up.

[A Time to Screw]

The porn and the waifus.

[Gamma]

There was something fun in seeing the Prince being a unit strong enough that he can be put into the front lines and fight with all the characters that we know and love, whether he's placed right next to a Julian to help cover a path, or has a strong archer/ranged unit shooting arrows to assist with getting that one boss type downed faster, Its just really neat to have the prince in the fray, especially with the whole title mechanic.

[lolix]

well , first and foremost it had 3 things that people like :


1. colecting stuff
2. actual gameplay ( tower defense - which were pretty popular in my days - back in the warcraft 3 age )
3. somewhat decent story that didn't revolved around H stuff (h stuff was cool in the begining , but it gets really old really fast. the fact that h content was not forced down your throat is what separated aigis from other h games)




Also the leveling/cc/aw mechanic was interesting even tho it was a grindfest , and units actually felt good to level up becuase they gained significant bonuses

[NotThatGuy]

Also the leveling/cc/aw mechanic was interesting even tho it was a grindfest , and units actually felt good to level up becuase they gained significant bonuses
Adding onto this, it struck a good balance of making it take effort to grind units up to higher tiers of power, but once you got a few there, it it only took a bit of dedicated effort to rush a new unit up if you knew what you were doing, meaning that while you might not manage to level everyone, you could still manage to level and use any unit you got that you liked without a major setback to your team, unlike some games where leveling costs can be almost prohibitively expensive as to prevent branching out using new units.

That aside, the gameplay was actually strategy/skill based without much in the way of luck (only really factors in if you use assassinate/dodge units which are not required outside possibly skipping past some harder maps sooner than your team is otherwise ready for them). It also allowed for many possible ways to win that often allowed you to use what you wanted rather than being forced to use some specific winning combo. Sure not all units were equal, but almost all of them were viable.

[Arkinum]

As others have mentioned Aigis was great because it was an all round great game.

One of the things that I REALLY liked about it is the fact that a working joe like me could put in a few minuets each day and be successful. Most of the other games want you to sit there and watch your character do the same thing over and over....

Aigis was really nice to casual gamers that didn't have a lot of time to play.

I learned a lot about what makes a good balanced web game by playing Aigis. Making a web game is one of those things I want to try eventually too.

[MalusCorvus]

I'll start with a few of the things I disliked about it... namely, that maps are all-or-nothing. Either you win and get rewards (you hope), or you lose and get absolutely nothing. Related to this is that there's no way to practice maps. The result of both of this factors is that when going into a tough map, rather than test out strategies it's best to just look up a guide, and then it becomes a matter of trying to follow it as best you can... which can become frustrating if your units aren't exactly the same.

I'm not a tower defense wizard or anything, and to me the fun part of Tower Defense games is methodically trying new strategies and figuring out what works on my own. This game takes that away from me. Either the maps don't really challenge me, or they stump me and I just look up a guide because I can't waste stamina and charisma on trial-and-error. I'm normally fine with slowly figuring things out, but when you lose resources with each attempt, it just becomes frustrating - particularly since Aigis is the kind of game were variations in units, placement, timing, and even order can mean the difference between victory and defeat. There are a lot of ways to go about an Aigis map, and on the toughest maps only a handful of them result in victory.

Another issue I have is that if your browser/computer crashes, or you lose power or internet, you lose that attempt... although that's more of a issue with the way the game handles that, than any issue with the game design itself.

As for the things I like about the game, that'll take a longer post. I actually have thought about what I'd do if I were to make an Aigis-like game, though since I have no artistic or programming expertise, those were just idle fantasies...

[Unregistered]

My two cents on this, I'll quote myself from a conversation on another thread, regarding MWA's approach to the newcomers-veterans gap, both F2P and P2P



While this holds true for most games, I don't really think it applies to MWA, since there's no direct competition between the players themselves, unlike games like PPS.
PvP and Ranking systems are walls that get larger as time goes by, keeping newcomers (specially F2P) away from getting rewards, unlocking stuff, etc.

But in Aigis, if you fail at completing an event, you don't really lose the possibility of getting the featured unit, you just need to wait for a revival or for another event tha happens to drop the unit you want. And most importantly, you don't have the risk of waiting for the next event, and being hard trolled again by veterans. It is just you and your hard work, what older players or P2P do with their accounts will never prevent you from obtaining a certain unit.

That's one of the greatest things about MWA's design, IMO. You can join at any given time, play at your own pace and eventually get results. Might as well post this thoughts on faketurtle's thread.


IMO that flexible dynamic is a huge advantage, since it allows each player to advance and enjoy the game at his/her own pace, which is particularly appreciated when you see the opposite side in games like PPS.

[MalusCorvus]

My two cents on this, I'll quote myself from a conversation on another thread, regarding MWA's approach to the newcomers-veterans gap, both F2P and P2P



IMO that flexible dynamic is a huge advantage, since it allows each player to advance and enjoy the game at his/her own pace, which is particularly appreciated when you see the opposite side in games like PPS.

That reminds me of a browser game of sorts that I played a while back, called Dragon Tavern. While the style was drastically different, it was also totally PvE. It did have rankings, but that was the only real form of competition - what I call "indirect" competition. It was actually really nice, although I'm biased since I dislike PvP in general.

[kayfabe]

I give it an 0/10 because it shut down. The game design wasn't good enough to stay up.

That hits me as a pretty silly way to look at it given that the Japanese version has ran successfully for years. I think the biggest problem is that the English version ran off a lot of players early by having a painfully slow update schedule. That's a fatal flaw when you consider that the sufficiently determined whales can just jolly well go ahead and play the Japanese version instead.

[faketurtle]

After playing DMM Aigis for a bit, a few drastic differences exist, mostly in favor of DMM Aigis.

First, upon leveling, charisma and stamina, instead of capping at the max, goes past the max. Makes leveling more of a reward, and gets rid of annoying levels of trying to optimize exp when leveling.

Second, when a mission quest is failed, half of the cost for both stamina and charisma is returned. It really replaces a lot of the punishment found in many other games (including Nutaku Aigis) with an energy mechanic, and it actually encourages a bit more risky gameplay.

One of the general understandings of players of your game is that the player will always find the safest game loop to play with time, no matter how boring. For example, for a game like the newest Doom, without the reward of health pickups and bonuses for playing aggressively, the players would keep distance from the enemies, returning to the boring gameplay loop of some FPS PVE, where the player just stands back and slowly kills enemies (hi Halo).

DMM Aigis partially solves Nutaku Aigis's loop. While N Aigis's safest loop was a lot of YouTube a run and then attempt to emulate, unless the map really demands such a run style, DMM Aigis allows for some level of risky or blind running for certain maps, as the player knows that even upon failure they can still play on or return to the attempt faster. And it still manages to retain punishment for failure; depending on current stamina/charisma, the player likely will be unable to attempt the mission until much later.

Third, the FTP vs whale situation was described earlier. I won't go too into detail about it because, well, it was already addressed. Since Aigis is PVE with no PVP elements, direct or indirect, it really needed a well fleshed out singleplayer experience. And Nutaku's Aigis, even the most recent updates, cannot compare to DMM Aigis.

I guess it's unfair to compare an older, well supported version of a game to its newer and less supported version. But hey, there is one mechanic that N Aigis has over DMM Aigis. No mosaics ;).

[AgentFakku]

The only Nutaku game that doesn't reset a battle or map when you have crappy internet browser or service would be Kamihime

I don't think Aigis should be blame for it since it's an old game. Online Gacha games are pretty much iffy on the tech stuff. Have to use VPN, clear cache

Compared to console games, (well, the older ones that don't use internet) don't crash.

Edit:




I guess it's unfair to compare an older, well supported version of a game to its newer and less supported version. But hey, there is one mechanic that N Aigis has over DMM Aigis. No mosaics ;).

So gonna miss dat. I can't tell which hole for some Hentai scenes is his dick going into. In Anna's case, I can't tell if her 2nd scene had penetration or she's just rubbing his dick with her clit. Since I can't read the Hentai dialogue in DMM,

Sometimes, they don't show blood for virgins. Oh well :P

[lolix]

i personally don;;t care about the scenes , but i having everything in japanese is a bit much for me. I don't have the patience to go and translate everything

[MalusCorvus]

I'm going to do my best to get as many English sex scenes (thanks to the scene collection project) as possible... because I'm not going to care about it on the DMM version. The pictures are almost never enough for me on their own, the real fun for me comes from the dialogue...

Does sound like the DMM version doesn't have one of the major issues that the Nutaku version had for me (no rewards on defeat), so that makes me more interested in switching.

Anyway, I'll have to devote some time to everything I did like about Aigis, as well as my own ideas for what I'd do if I were designing stuff for this or a similar game. Kinda fun to think up unit ideas for Aigis...

[AgentFakku]

Does sound like the DMM version doesn't have one of the major issues that the Nutaku version had for me (no rewards on defeat), so that makes me more interested in switching.



It's not a reward for defeat. More like compensation or some hardcore folks who don't like it, pity stamina refund

[MalusCorvus]

It's not a reward for defeat. More like compensation or some hardcore folks who don't like it, pity stamina refund

Details, details. My issue was that you spend that amount and get nothing for your efforts. With DMM, the cost is mitigated.

[AgentFakku]

Details, details. My issue was that you spend that amount and get nothing for your efforts. With DMM, the cost is mitigated.

man, it's not a reward for defeat, getting a game over

it also works out if the game freezes on you or your browser crash

It's just a refund

[MalusCorvus]

man, it's not a reward for defeat, getting a game over

it also works out if the game freezes on you or your browser crash

It's just a refund

Never said it was. I don't understand what you're trying to say, or why you're making a big deal over it.

The cost of defeat isn't as bad on DMM. I don't see the point of quibbling over specifics.

[AgentFakku]

Never said it was. I don't understand what you're trying to say, or why you're making a big deal over it.

The cost of defeat isn't as bad on DMM. I don't see the point of quibbling over specifics.

Problem is you call it reward

You don't gain anything, you just don't lose much

[MalusCorvus]

Problem is you call it reward

You don't gain anything, you just don't lose much

So? The point is that there's compensation of sorts of you lose. What I called it is irrelevant. Actually, I never called it a reward, when I used that word I was speaking about an issue I had with this game where you don't get anything on defeat. What you get on DMM isn't a reward (I had in mind something like partial XP/Gold gain, or maybe some of the items), but it's still nice to have part of the cost refunded.

[AgentFakku]

I'm going to do my best to get as many English sex scenes (thanks to the scene collection project) as possible... because I'm not going to care about it on the DMM version. The pictures are almost never enough for me on their own, the real fun for me comes from the dialogue...

Does sound like the DMM version doesn't have one of the major issues that the Nutaku version had for me (no rewards on defeat), so that makes me more interested in switching.

Anyway, I'll have to devote some time to everything I did like about Aigis, as well as my own ideas for what I'd do if I were designing stuff for this or a similar game. Kinda fun to think up unit ideas for Aigis...

Yeah you did

[MalusCorvus]

Yeah you did

I stand by what I meant, but I don't care about trying to explain it anymore, and you are devoting way too much time to a confusion over word usage. It's derailing the topic, and I'd rather get back to what this thread is about.



On which note, I'll have to write a list of things I would hypothetically have suggested for Aigis itself, were the option available. faketurtle, do you have any ideas for what sort of game you'd like to design, or are you currently just gathering ideas and focusing on what made Aigis good?

[Arkinum]

I've been back playing on DMM and I agree that it's nice to not shell out the full amount if you loose a match. It also helps smooth out the aggravation if you loose connection or experience any other technical difficulties that force you to forfeit the match.

If you got more time allotment per day then loosing full cost would be a none issue. But Aigis was designed around a twice per day concept. Which I prefer because it's a pain the fucking ass having to log in every other hour to use up your time allotment in order to keep up.

[AgentFakku]

I stand by what I meant, but I don't care about trying to explain it anymore, and you are devoting way too much time to a confusion over word usage. It's derailing the topic, and I'd rather get back to what this thread is about.



On which note, I'll have to write a list of things I would hypothetically have suggested for Aigis itself, were the option available. faketurtle, do you have any ideas for what sort of game you'd like to design, or are you currently just gathering ideas and focusing on what made Aigis good?

My main issue was that you were flippant with the words: reward, refund, and compensation. These words don't mean the same thing.

This is part of the review of the thread. People will agree or disagree. I disagree with you in the first place over that word you used. That's it. We are having a conversation not an argument over these topics.

I agree it is a nice feature for Aigis

[AgentFakku]

I've been back playing on DMM and I agree that it's nice to not shell out the full amount if you loose a match. It also helps smooth out the aggravation if you loose connection or experience any other technical difficulties that force you to forfeit the match.

If you got more time allotment per day then loosing full cost would be a none issue. But Aigis was designed around a twice per day concept. Which I prefer because it's a pain the fucking ass having to log in every other hour to use up your time allotment in order to keep up.

In addition, I wish Nutaku Aigis had the stam overflow like DMM Aigis.

You had watch your stam when you about to lvl up

[MalusCorvus]

My main issue was that you were flippant with the words: reward, refund, and compensation. These words don't mean the same thing.

This is part of the review of the thread. People will agree or disagree. I disagree with you in the first place over that word you used. That's it. We are having a conversation not an argument over these topics.

I agree it is a nice feature for Aigis

And my issues is that you're taking my words to mean something I didn't mean. I said one of my issues was that you didn't get anything on failure on Nutaku. On DMM you get things back, so I don't care about the "no rewards" problem as much - thus, "it lacks one of the issues I had." I never said it was a reward, I said that one of the issues I had wasn't an issue. So essentially, we've both has to spend several posts over you misunderstanding my words. I understand perfectly well what it is, and have said so previously, so I'm not really sure what the point of this conversation is.

I normally would have just ignored all that, because what word I used doesn't really matter to me or to the point I was trying to make... but I really dislike being misunderstood. Personal irritant of mine. Hard for me to let things like that go.

[AgentFakku]

And my issues is that you're taking my words to mean something I didn't mean. I said one of my issues was that you didn't get anything on failure on Nutaku. On DMM you get things back, so I don't care about the "no rewards" problem as much - thus, "it lacks one of the issues I had." I never said it was a reward, I said that one of the issues I had wasn't an issue. So essentially, we've both has to spend several posts over you misunderstanding my words. I understand perfectly well what it is, and have said so previously, so I'm not really sure what the point of this conversation is.

I normally would have just ignored all that, because what word I used doesn't really matter to me or to the point I was trying to make... but I really dislike being misunderstood. Personal irritant of mine. Hard for me to let things like that go.

I don't care if you have a personal irritant or not. I'm trying to discuss the faults with your review especially with the reward part.

[lolix]

dont take it the wrong way guys , but this is honestly a pointless argument. It;s the equivalent of tomato or tomanto debate

[AgentFakku]

dont take it the wrong way guys , but this is honestly a pointless argument. It;s the equivalent of tomato or tomanto debate

I'll stop then. Sorry about that.

[MalusCorvus]

dont take it the wrong way guys , but this is honestly a pointless argument. It;s the equivalent of tomato or tomanto debate

I agree completely. That's what I've been saying. Sadly, I fear it's driven away other conversation.