The Future of Endless Space 2: A New Faction With Old Friends

sheredynplayer wrote:

This sounds very interesting. However whenever I play ES2 it feels like many core mechanics still need a big overhaul. I do not get this feeling with Endless Legend. Its a complete game and the expansions add meaningful content because the core gameplay is solid.  (...)

Great post. I'm still pretty early in the game, and managed to win with only one faction so far, but I can already confirm the flows you mentioned:

Food growth techs - at some point it becomes pointless to invest in them. The only problem I face with the growth is that it generates overpopulation. Ofc I'm able to mitigate it, but my point is that population growth is not an issue and it rather becomes an annoyance at some point. I assume the late game techs for growths are added because on bigger maps late game you kinda want to populate new systems as fast as possible. Guess that was the basic idea at least...

Marketplace - yeah the system is irritating. I never found enough of the stuff I needed, and getting anything from your allies via Diplomacy is almost impossible without a steal on their behalf. I literally need to give my newest and best techs for a few scraps of resources. I know there is the diplomatic demand system, but it gives not nearly enough. Yeah I know that with supply comes the demand, but I think the Marketplace should have periodic shipments of resources either way. 9 Orichalcum on the Market through my entire game didn't help me much... and this leads us to:

Diplomacy - weak aspect of the game. AI is unresponsive, makes some idiotic demands, and never gives you anything on reasonable terms. The only good thing that comes from it are alliances because it's less factions to crush on the map. Also, maybe add a surrender option for AI? Chasing those last few Vodyani arcs was really irritating and those stupid AI allies accepted a truce with them which I needed to insta-break :D...

Luxury resources - a big step down since Endless Legend. I never needed to use it for population boost, and leveling up the systems is so expensive that you will never find enough of the resources on your own (the good ones that is, why would I need a food growth boost for instance?). And we all know the stock prizes for resources :/ In Endless Legend those have a significant influence on the economy so those are that much more sought out. The good thing is changing this seems to be high on the devs "to-do" list.

Battles - I know those are not the most immersive, but I wouldn't touch this aspect of the game. The game is already complicated as is, and adding another tactical/gameplay layer? It's not Total War or Homeworld series... and yeah, stacking accelerators seems op. Suddenly all your movement problems go away :D

Behemoths - the system is flawed imo, but not because of the economic ones but military. When I had problems with other factions skirmishes, literally the only thing to do was to build a a fully fitted out Behemoth. It eats AI fleets for breakfast.

There is simply no way to not get bored with a game at some point, so I think shaking things up drastically won't magically "save it" in the long run. Things like different tech trees for factions are impossible to do without breaking the balance (maybe add a customizable tech tier level for games to at least skip some of the early game repetivness?). I've never seen a 4X that wouldn't get repetetive at some point, but I think ES2 does a great job still. There is so much flavor and style here, and factions do seem distinct. At this point I think devs can only add new layers cause they won't be able to change some core systems like research or battles. We simply need to accept those. In Endless Legend we didn't get system overhauls, what we did get was new layers added like sea poi or Winter/Dust Eclipse systems that filled the "boring parts" of the game. That is still doable in ES2. With a few more tweaks the game will be even more enjoyable!

Plus on a personal note, I would love an in-game encyclopedia. I mean it's so obvious to add one with such a rich in-game lore!

PotatoesAreBland wrote:

Mairon wrote:

Maybe you guys could focus on the replayability of the game itself. I am very much in love wtih the game and its universe, but it can quickly become quite repetitive once you ve crushed the AI a few times on Endless difficulty.

As for the new expansion i would suggest refraining from adding another layer of complexity, but rather rework some mechanics in order to enable new players the opportunit to really get into the game, rather than scratching the surface and than being intimidated by the sheer amount of information that is required to play the game. I would even go so far as add a small kampaign to the game to further improve on of the greatest aspect of the game itself; The Universe/History and visual storytelling.

This however wouldn t be a quik fix, but rather a long term goal to work towards when trying to improve this, already awesome, game. I bought every expansion, but since the Hissho update I wasn t as invested in the game as I was before. That is probably due to the problem I mentioned earlier by saying that at some point the game becomes, lets say repetitive. Some things don´t feel unique enough to the factions and some are so unique that they become obsolete when in a normal playtrough. An example would be the collection benefits of the minor as well as the major factions. Horatio and the Cravers (and the Unfallen) are the only real factions that even really benefit from collecting minor factions and cultivating their growth.

I really love the game and I hate the idea that someday this game will get lost in my steam library. Capitalize on the strengh that is your core universe and the most important part of your game. Trying to multiple things at once and spreading the game out will only lead to loosing the "flavor" of the game so to speak. For me that was the hacking feature, but I feel like the majority of the community really enjoys the new feature so I guess thats a personal issue.

You guys are doing great things and I m going to support this game and it s studio each step of the way and I hope everyone who s read this far will too.

I'm sorry you have such a large IQ that the game is boring. Me I'm still struggling to figure out how it works. I have no complaints if they focus on a simpler faction and maybe this attention to a faction that starts out established will help them to polish the balance of the early - mid game.

Do not feel ashamed. ES2 was my first 4X game and I was overwhelmed at first aswell. Just stay calm and have fun learning. 

This is not about intelligence. You only need to be mindful about your choices and question your own decisions till you find the most effective way to play. In most cases this will be very similar for all factions. Focus on Industry and Science output. Get enough food to grow 1 pop per turn. Make enough dust to not go bankrupt, sell useless luxury ressources to the marketplace each turn to keep the price high.

Pay attention to the ingame numbers, ask yourself in what order you should build your buildings to develope your systems quickly (hint: its almost always going to be industry buildings)

Read the tech tree carefully. Research Tech in the correct order to have buildings,ships,colonizazion technology ready on the exact turn you need them, plan accordingly. 

Here is an example of what you can learn about the game with a quick analysis:

• Take 10 minutes to read the tech tree. Compare all food buildings available. 
• After playing some games, you will realize you only ever need the first 2: 10 Base food +5 on hot/cold and +2 Food per Pop building. The rest will come through hero bonuses, pops, lategame buildings. 
• You can find atleast 3 more food buildings, 2 of them have the exact equal output. 
• Only one costs twice as much industry and the highest rarity strategic ressource in the game. 
• Everyone will come to the conclusion that its better to build the cheaper building if it gives the exact same output. This is the level of "depth" in this game. 

These are the main problems. Its so painfully obvious that some numbers or mechanics are not what they ought to be. 

You can produce 1500 food but only 300 of that is used to grow a pop. That doesn't mean 1200 excess food will go into manpower. Way less will. You won't be able to spend this manpower for most of the game and your maximum amount of manpower is so low that thousands of manpower and therefore food are wasted every turn. This happens every game if you play a faction that produces a lot of food, like the Horatio for example or the Cravers. 

Another thing that wasn't considered at all: On fast speed, you only need 150 food to grow a pop. So you have even more excess food to go into manpower each turn! But wait, your maximum manpower amount is not double compared to normal speed so you waste even more food and manpower. 

Meanwhile you can take a look at Endless Legend and the food and growth system works perfectly fine. 

I don't understand why a game that was mader after Endless Legend still has such huge flaws more than a year after its release. You already made a great game with a working FIDSI system, just do the same again. Before you release more dlc.

As a long time fan this frustrates me to the point that I do not consider buying any more dlc (didn't pick up Penumbra either) until these things get fixed.

My feelings about this expansion are pretty much in harmony with the already stated opinions, the game needs a serious patch now which will improve the AI, make Behemoths scarcer (I personally dislike them and feel like they made strategic decisions far more streamlined and shalower instead of adding to the games depth, this in turn kills replayability), fix the markets, rework hacking, address useless luxury resources, improve diplomacy, add more to the exsisting core mechanics.

I would love to see the new faction, but a large rework/update would benefit the game far more at this point and might cement its position as one of the best in the 4X genre in the future. Unfortunately, I know that wokring hard on fixing these issues is time consuming and might not be commercially viable as it makes sense to make most of these fixes free, however I would more likely invest in further DLCs, as as I am sure would other players, knowing that polishing the game had been a priority.

I think a good overhaul on many systems and gameplay elements is definitely in order but unlikely to happen as they are already outsourcing content for ES2 which means they are likely well into working on their next project.

I'm sure @cat09tales agrees with nearly every opinion already stated in this thread and around the forums, but has no pull and no say in what happens; simply relays what everyone already knows (including the devs) to the devs.

Also, it might actually be too late for changes from Amplitude simply because they are likely on to the next internal project -with funding they've already aquired- which they cannot allocate to older projects because they can't make that choice, the supplier of the funding would make that distinction.

SOOOO, lets just enjoy what NGD can do for us!  And hope that they decide to throw in some fixes to some of the issues in their collaborative expansion if possible!

PS: This doens't mean any of us should stop giving our opinions or asking for changes!  :D

A very mysterious eternal return, I sense, of possibly the long forgotten clockwork beings - Automatons, maybe.........surprise me, please. 

Eager, I for I am, to know which faction started in out large, but newly cometh?  Beings from the ancient abyss, and are they?  Revival or not, I think will reminisce their return.