Wed Jan 26, 2011 7:37 pm
Haypi needs a serious overhaul
I’ve been playing Haypi for awhile now casually, and I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on the game. I think the game has really good potential, but some serious flaws that I wish would be addressed. I’m pretty sure these issues are preventing the game from getting any kind of mass-appeal (thus the huge numbers of inactive players, need for server mergers, etc.)
First the good stuff:
1) City management is pretty cool. There is a good blend of resources needed and the available buildings are useful and well varied.
2) The available troops seem well thought-out, each with distinct advantages/disadvantages. Of course, the actual battle mechanics are severely lopsided, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a few tweaks (more on that later).
3) The action house concept is nice. The economy is pretty messed up, but I don’t see this as a major issue w/ the game (other issues should definitely be a priority).
4) Guild/guild management is great, if only you could actually form a guild w/ your RL friends it’d be near perfect...
Needs improvement:
1) The biggest flaw IMO is the most significant game mechanic; prestige. Prestige implementation is horrible. You have all these cities you build up, forts & oasis to capture, and the whole time the most important thing is to make sure NOT to defend any of it. Even the biggest, most-powerful player has 0 army devoted to defending his empire. Huh? Of course beginners have a lot of trouble getting this concept, mainly because IT MAKES NO SENSE. Not to mention the fact it’s annoying having to keep track of my latest troop build timers all the time for fear if I forget to hunt them right away they will be killed. That’s not fun, if you find that fun you could probably make a good project manager at the office, but I’m not playing this game so I can keep track of a schedule. Super lame.
2) Related to this is the way a lot of players actually gain prestige; build armies & send them to their deaths (attacking forts or oasis). So long as you don’t lose the battle, you don’t lose any prestige gained from building the army so & it frees up crop availability to build more troops (& get more prestige). This is an actual strategy to build prestige that works, but is not much fun for me, as well as again being completely absurd.
3) There is no way to choose servers, so you usually can’t form a guild w/ your RL friends. I was excited to invite my friends into the game initially, but when they were all placed on different servers, they quickly lost interest (and I honestly can’t blame them).
4) The player stats are WAY unbalanced. Speed is horribly over-powered, to the extent that the other stats are for the most part irrelevant. Pvp battles just come down to whichever player has the highest speed. Even if horribly unmatched, if a player can strike first he/she has no fear of losing prestige. Losing the battle isn’t a big deal unless you actually lose prestige. There should be a balance between stats, choosing one stat over another should require an actual decision to be made based on advantages/disadvantages of different builds. This kind of strategy is simply not there.
These are only my opinions, & I mean no offense to the game creators. I’d love to see this game take off, but as it stands I truly believe it will be eclipsed by competition from other game designers (*cough* Playmesh *cough*).
First the good stuff:
1) City management is pretty cool. There is a good blend of resources needed and the available buildings are useful and well varied.
2) The available troops seem well thought-out, each with distinct advantages/disadvantages. Of course, the actual battle mechanics are severely lopsided, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a few tweaks (more on that later).
3) The action house concept is nice. The economy is pretty messed up, but I don’t see this as a major issue w/ the game (other issues should definitely be a priority).
4) Guild/guild management is great, if only you could actually form a guild w/ your RL friends it’d be near perfect...
Needs improvement:
1) The biggest flaw IMO is the most significant game mechanic; prestige. Prestige implementation is horrible. You have all these cities you build up, forts & oasis to capture, and the whole time the most important thing is to make sure NOT to defend any of it. Even the biggest, most-powerful player has 0 army devoted to defending his empire. Huh? Of course beginners have a lot of trouble getting this concept, mainly because IT MAKES NO SENSE. Not to mention the fact it’s annoying having to keep track of my latest troop build timers all the time for fear if I forget to hunt them right away they will be killed. That’s not fun, if you find that fun you could probably make a good project manager at the office, but I’m not playing this game so I can keep track of a schedule. Super lame.
2) Related to this is the way a lot of players actually gain prestige; build armies & send them to their deaths (attacking forts or oasis). So long as you don’t lose the battle, you don’t lose any prestige gained from building the army so & it frees up crop availability to build more troops (& get more prestige). This is an actual strategy to build prestige that works, but is not much fun for me, as well as again being completely absurd.
3) There is no way to choose servers, so you usually can’t form a guild w/ your RL friends. I was excited to invite my friends into the game initially, but when they were all placed on different servers, they quickly lost interest (and I honestly can’t blame them).
4) The player stats are WAY unbalanced. Speed is horribly over-powered, to the extent that the other stats are for the most part irrelevant. Pvp battles just come down to whichever player has the highest speed. Even if horribly unmatched, if a player can strike first he/she has no fear of losing prestige. Losing the battle isn’t a big deal unless you actually lose prestige. There should be a balance between stats, choosing one stat over another should require an actual decision to be made based on advantages/disadvantages of different builds. This kind of strategy is simply not there.
These are only my opinions, & I mean no offense to the game creators. I’d love to see this game take off, but as it stands I truly believe it will be eclipsed by competition from other game designers (*cough* Playmesh *cough*).
