There is a similar thread on Steam forums, if anyone's interested: http://steamcommunity.com/app/392110/discussions/0/135514507318350383/?ctp=1 

I wonder if we'll hear anything from the devs' on their feelings about releasing the game with known gameplay deficiencies. Could be that they don't consider them deficiencies, but then I'd prefer they were open about it. If the plan is to push on with the release and address these issues in paid DLSc (bad) or patches (better), then fair enough. Seems like the focus of the attention is on AI now. This doesn't bode well for changes to gameplay as this will require further calibration and time is short.

The last patch before the release of Endless Legend there was similar concern that the game wasn't ready, mainly due to the fact that combat was refactored and seemed broken because changes weren't made to minor faction units. A lot of people, myself included, thought that they completely ruined and the game was in a bad state. Turns out a little balance goes a long way in making a game feel polished. That being said, I'm a little concerned that things like fully implemented diplomacy and faction specific tech haven't been touched by anyone other than the devs and the VIPs, but then again, both groups seem intent on releasing a quality game.

A this stage i would consider game in Alfa anymore 1 month to release is truly beta stage.

I would say a lot of the game can be improoved if they find the right spot for balancing.

Some other will need patches and right down DLC.

Its no new in the gaming industry.

From functionality point the game is "ready"

From expectation point due to EL and ES1 quality i would say it lacks some strenght.

I agree with the author of the topic.

Amplitude is too much based on casual players & artistic production. But smart & competitive players wants balanced and complex games, with strategic decisions to make, as the author explained.

The problem existed in Endless Legend, I see it still exist in ES2.

It would not be complicated to hire 2 professesional beta tester for a couple of months. To playtest, give feedback, propose changes. Even without being professional, I could do it, as some others competitive players could do it.

I was myself in the VIP forum section of Endless Legend Tempest expansion, and I remember most of the players had no point of balance of the game. No experience in multi, or the idea to seek to abuse of game features (what any competitive player always seek to do).

It would not cost some money, to optimise their game, and MAKE MORE MONEY in the long term of Amplitude !

I also have some concerns over this games impending release. but some things to consider:

1)            Marketing strategies over recent years have led to unfinished games being released prematurely.  This has more often than not been met by critical fans, and for good reason.  The idea is to get the game into the market and then fix it or improve it.  So maybe 12 - 18 months later it will be a great game.  Or maybe they will lose a shit load of revenue as fans are sick of this marketing approach, EA Bioware case in point, and a load of other games we can all think of. 

2)            ES2 is a entry to mid level space strategy game.  That is its place in the market.  So no illusions here, that is what you will get.  Play Stellaris if you want a deeper challenging 4X game,  I can tell you it is hard and uncompromising, but it plays well.  It just looks shit and so old school, although you can mod it.  If they had Amplitudes art direction and faction diversity it would be the only 4X space game you would play.

3)            ES2 has nowhere near enough core game mechanics to really make this game attractive to serious 4X players, the influence system alone is going to get a lot of criticism after release, fans start to get deeper into the game and then realising it has some serious flaws.  Presentation will give it the wow factor but game play will be mediocre at best and ultimately unsatisfying.   

This game needs 2 months extra work on it.  Core system stuff added, 4X end game content.  Space stations, espionage EL style, diplomacy interactions like GAL CIV 3,  Unique map modes for single players, Custom maps and scenario editor at release.  Basic 4X stuff that fans have been asking for from a space 4X for years.  It is just not going to happen in this one, sorry but that is the way it is.  Still its only forty bucks so what can we expect, maybe eighty bucks and we could get the game we all want.

cjfoster1960 wrote:

I also have some concerns over this games impending release. but some things to consider:

1)            Marketing strategies over recent years have led to unfinished games being released prematurely.  This has more often than not been met by critical fans, and for good reason.  The idea is to get the game into the market and then fix it or improve it.  So maybe 12 - 18 months later it will be a great game.  Or maybe they will lose a shit load of revenue as fans are sick of this marketing approach, EA Bioware case in point, and a load of other games we can all think of. 

Yeah - the foot is going to drop on this at some point.  At least I hope it will - because the current approach is just frustrating for everyone.

3)            ES2 has nowhere near enough core game mechanics to really make this game attractive to serious 4X players, the influence system alone is going to get a lot of criticism after release, fans start to get deeper into the game and then realising it has some serious flaws.  Presentation will give it the wow factor but game play will be mediocre at best and ultimately unsatisfying.   

This game needs 2 months extra work on it.  Core system stuff added, 4X end game content.  Space stations, espionage EL style, diplomacy interactions like GAL CIV 3,  Unique map modes for single players, Custom maps and scenario editor at release.  Basic 4X stuff that fans have been asking for from a space 4X for years.  It is just not going to happen in this one, sorry but that is the way it is.  Still its only forty bucks so what can we expect, maybe eighty bucks and we could get the game we all want.

I don't think a lack of mechanics is the problem.  The bigger problem is that the mechanics that are in place are simply not tuned and calibrated enough so that your decisions matter all that much.  Sure, other features can be added down the road, but I'd much rather see the mechanics that are in place improved first before adding anything new.  

See my post below for ideas on improving the existing mechanics.

Alright, in an effort to be more constructive - and despite my intensely worded earlier critique - I really don't think ES2 is in an irrecoverable position. Quite the opposite in fact. I think they are well poised to get this game mechanically compelling - but I don't see that happening in the next month short of a major miracle.

Nevertheless, I like to see the following addressed and/or implemented. Frankly, most of this feels/looks like tweaking the numbers and formulas affecting balance. Here we go:

INFLUENCE
- Re-work the influence growth functions so they aren't based on total cumulative influence gain. Frankly, the situation is game breaking in certain situations. The growth ring needs to be capped to total population capacity (or something similar) and be more dynamic and changing in response to other pressures (wars, etc.)

ECONOMY – OVERALL BALANCE
- The economy desperately needs to be re-balanced to make choices about what to build where more important and strategic. Right now, building everything everywhere is almost always the right choice. Upkeep costs are really the only mechanic currently in place (since there is no building slot system or anything else to restrict development) but those costs do not scale nearly enough with your economic growth. Greatly increasing upkeep would prompt players to be more mindful of what gets built where and lead to more planetary specialization as a choice.

For example - what if upkeep costs in a system basis scaled with each new system development? Sure, you might have some core worlds/systems big enough to support everything – but for other worlds you'd want to focus on as few of buildings as you needed to emphasize certain outputs. I'd skip building +Industry buildings on systems planned to be research hubs for example.

ECONOMY – Food
In my almost 40 hours with the game – I don't think I've ever built +food buildings. Food doesn't really matter enough IMHO, and +food buildings should perhaps serve other uses in the game. Ideally, if food were a global resource then you might have an incentive to specialize food production on certain high fertility worlds (especially if coupled with escalating development costs) to help support your overall empire. Suddenly, blockading an opponent's food world would have serious implications for your entire empire! (nothing like that exists currently).

ECONOMY – Trade
Great ideas – but understanding the pros and cons of different trade HQ and subsidiary options is completely opaque. The "Economy Scan" (Trade Scan) is a useless screen and could repurposed into something functional as a sort of trade route planner. Have that be the interface for upgrading your trade companies as well.

ECONOMY – Build Orders
The game needs a custom build queue system (preferably doing away with the AI governors entirely) and more intelligence in how it handles manual overrides. Copy + paste from Starbase Orion.

Alternatively (though not as good), make the system list page function in a way so you can select a particular development(s), have it highlight systems without that development, and then be able to select which of those system queues you'd like to add that development to. Like a development painter. Starbase Orion also did this with its filtering system. Seriously – PC 4X gamers are getting shown up by a freaking iPhone game bigly.

ECONOMY – Rush Building
Consider adding temporary happiness (or other output) penalties for rush building things.  As it is, rush building is way too powerful and pervasive with absolutely no feedback.  It under cuts the need to do any sort of planning in the game.

ECONOMY – Population Management
Moving population between planets WITHIN a system needs to provide more information about the selected populations per resource bonuses across the planets. Figuring out which species to move to what planet is a total PitA.

Likewise, moving pops between systems is cumbersome. Why not just be able to drag pops from one planet to another in the System list screen? The whole loading of population onto ships to move to a target system is clunky and unnecessary.

POLITICAL SYSTEM
I think this system needs to be reworked a bit. There is an inherent conflict in the game design where players are encouraged to build & do everything everywhere – which means your political parties inevitably skew towards equal and low representation – locking players out of the higher tier laws and making the whole political process a bit of a sideshow and not all that relevant. Couple ideas to address this:

#1 – Make the party changes far more legible and discrete in response to player action. For instance at the extreme end, if I build an "INDUSTRIAL" development, then there would be a 100% chance that one of my non-industrial aligned population units will flip to industrial. The UI should respond so that as I hover over possible development projects (the senate breakdown changes dynamically, etc.) so I can see the possible impacts. Something like this would help make the process clear and more tangible for players.

#2 – There should be a system whereby you can spend influence on global policies that will buff or nerf the rates of changing parties. Call it a propaganda system perhaps. Basically, if I want to max out on Industrialists ideology, then I could push some policy (consuming influence) so that each time I built a SCIENCE thing (for example) that it was not at all or less likely to flip a population into support of the scientists. Investing lots of influence into propaganda would let you get at higher level laws – but might come with the risk of mass upheaval or unhappiness when the propaganda campaign stops.

POLITICS: Government Types
Maybe the UI screen is just broken – but the UI doesn't provide any information about what the other government types actually do. Aside from getting more law slots, I don't see many advantages for changing to other types of government. This needs to be looked at closely.

RESEARCH
I mostly like the research system as it has evolved. It's a nice combination of an era based and web/tree based system. My only problem is that it is freaking ugly and cumbersome to navigate. It needs more fluid zooming and I'd rather see the older and more evocative thumbnail graphics for the research + tech items rather than the hard to read iconography (or a merging of the both). This could be made a lot more clear.

Ideally, I'd like to see some more technology tree randomization or something - but I don't think that's in the cards for this game.

DIPLOMACY
The tug-of-war bar above the diplomacy options makes no sense to me what-so-ever. It seems to shift depending on my state to tell different types of information? Like when I'm at war it's a measure of war fatigue (somehow? I have no idea what it's telling me at all). Other times its some relationship balance bar? Anyway – it's very difficult to tell what the AI's actual standing/tolerance of me is. Star Drive 2's tolerance system (by comparison) was much more interesting.

WAR FATIGUE
This still needs more work. Example: The Cravers forward settled on me at a location within my empire (Borders were closed, so I don't know how they got in in the first place – but that's other issue). So, I declared war and took the system back. But then …. I couldn't declare peace as my people were not war fatigued enough yet. Uhhhh…okay. So the next 20- turns were spent swatting down one Craver fleet after another (seriously, they lost about 30 ships to my 2 or 3 just running at pikes) before THEY finally said "okay, we've had enough! Peace!" and then I could do the peace thing.

The simplest solution is this: Either side should be able to press for peace at ANY time (whether winning or losing). If the offer is rejected, the rejecting side takes the happiness penalty (as they do now), and the offering side has to wait some number of turns (5?) or events (lost another 3 battles or another system?) before offering peace again. Seems like that would make it simple and would work.

Footnote: Cravers are currently screwed under this system and how they interface with the war fatique system needs be handled differently.

FLEET MANAGEMENT & ACTIONS
The current handling of multi-fleet battles is clunky and unpredictable – and I think simplifying it would not only make the combat resolve more smoothly, but also make battles more exciting and interesting. Couple of thoughts on this:

Problem: For example of a bad thing that occurs: AI send 4-5 ships at one of my systems with each ship in its own fleet. :facepalm:. In order to fight all 4-5 ships, I have to manually split my one big fleet up into smaller chunks so that each can engage a different one of the AI's single-ship fleets. It's a cluster fuck of micromanagement.

Solution(s): One direct & simple approach is to give fleets a number of ACTION POINTS equal to the fleets command point value (or number of ships). If I have a fleet with 7 command points, then I could initiate 7 battles with that fleet over a course of the turn.

Alternatively, and a little more complicated (but more interesting), would be to have a more clear and engaging mechanism for resolving multi-fleet battles. For example: The combat system allows up to three flotillas in combat at a time. All fleets are engaged and "locked" in combat. Players would get a listing of their fleets and each side arranges their fleets in an order of battle.

Battles proceed one-at-a-time with each battle allowing a max of three fleets to be assigned across the flotilla slots at a time. Battles cycle until all fleets have either participated at least once in a battle round or ran away. If ships on both sides are still alive after all fleets have attacked once, the battle remains "locked" and more fleets could arrive as reinforcements to continue the conflict next turn.

COMBAT
I don't mind the combat system in concept – but it could be made far more interesting while still retaining the general approach. A few ideas to this effect:

#1 – Let players manually assign ranges for each flotilla (and remove them from the tactics cards).

#2 – Tactics cards become focused entirely around their bonuses. Tactics would be assigned to flotillas (rather than the whole battle).

This could let you do things like, for example, put short range brawlers into a close range flotilla and assign it a tactics card that draws more enemy fire and reduces damage take, but greatly reduces its own damage output. Suddenly you have a reason to make cool defensive screening ships instead of always just more raw firepower. It opens the possibility for combined arms strategies while retaining the same basic combat resolution system.

It would also make the tactics system more meaningful, as unlocking more slots and card types, when you have the opportunity to assign one card per flotilla, would give you far more tactical flexibility.

#3 – The battle viewer "overview" mode with "scan" turned on is started to get more useful. But the graphic bars around ships are still confusing and I'm not sure what information it's providing. That needs to be more useful.

#4 – Allow players to "simulate" a battle before finalizing your plan. I wish more games made this idea a part of the gameplay. Just a small thought ;)

#5 – Weapons need to be better balanced. Seems to me that lasers (100% long range, 100% medium range, 80% short range, can't really be shot down, etc.) are the clear winners and can respond to almost any situation.

COMBAT – STRATEGIC INFORMATION
The level of information reported on opposing fleets is too great IMHO. Being able to hover over any visible fleet and immediately see it's design and balance of energy vs kinetic weapons & armor means I can, with very little cost, immediately retool my fleets to perfectly counter the AI's fleets the turn before a battle. I would keep that information hidden up until combat starts – maybe only providing a list of the size of different ships in the enemy fleet in advance and an overall measure of off/def strength. Something needs to be done here.

VICTORY CONDITIONS
The basis for scoring and determining victory rankings needs to be much more clear. Why does the victory screen not show your position along with the position of all other races (or even just the one's you've met?). As it is – that screen is mostly useless, and the lack of information means I don't really have the information I need to understand what victory path to pursue and how. It's just – bizarre.

Were all of these things done – I think the game would be greatly improved.

To add one point to your excellent set of suggestions:

I think it would be beneficial if we could assign targeting orders on a ship by ship basis before the battle starts.  Nothing fancy just click on the ship, right click on the target.  It would be totally optional but would be one more tool in the player arsenal to influence combat.

Keep in mind Detla, depending on the ship hull, each has an automatic "type" they target.   Although good luck remembering which targets what.

But still, the game is in Alpha state and not feature complete. Less than a month to go in Beta, test the new features, balance the economy, fix major bugs,...

I am not optimistic.

Excellent list of suggestions, thanks mezmorki.

I would add one thing: I think the game needs a list of all explored systems with detailed informations about each planet.

Some days ago i created an idea about that (LIST OF EXPLORED SYSTEMS).

I think the game is in good shape but needs some months of polish and balancing to really shine.

Fieswurst wrote:

Excellent list of suggestions, thanks mezmorki.

I would add one thing: I think the game needs a list of all explored systems with detailed informations about each planet.

Yes!  It needs this list  badly.

idlih10 wrote:

My biggest gripe is balancing of the different victory requirements, particularly the economic victory. The truce/ownership cap system is skewed heavily towards moderating military expansion, yet nothing is done to moderate progress towards other victory types. For example, economic victory requirements should not only include a fixed dust amount, but also say the need to colonize 3 economic hubs spread across the galaxy that you need to discover and colonize. This also makes for more interesting late gameplay instead of just rushing dust production and sitting back waiting for time to pass like the turn victory.

Another issue is the need to let the player track his victory progress. Win an economic victory by earning a "certain amount" of dust or being ranked second on the economic victory screen is too vague. Exactly how much? What about a "dust meter" to track the victory progress? Such tracking features are also needed for all the other victory types.

In my current game I'm around turn 130.  I'm in second place in score (almost at 1st place)  - but I have no idea what to do to really grow that score beyond just continuing to grow.

But the bigger issue is what you point out in terms of the balance and pacing of the victory conditions relative to each other, and especially how progress is communicated to the player.

- Conquest: it seems absurd to try and control whatever portion of the galaxy it is (50%+?) as it would put the player 3-4 times above their system cap and the happiness penality would wreck your performance.  Not to mention the tedium of managing 30 planets.  The game just doesn't seem to be designed to make this an achievable win.  It really needs to work as a diplomatic victory so that you will collectively with close allies.  Or maybe it's something where if your allies and you have enough systems, you request them to vote for you as the grand chancellor or something and you win.

- Superiority: Controlling everyone homeworld is vastly easier than trying to control a huge amount of total systems. 

- Economic: Doesn't even say what victory threshold is in game?

- Wonder: How many times do I need to build the thing?

- Research: This seems like it would take forever relative to the other victory conditions.  I've never made it close to this one before being in a position to do one of the other ones.

mezmorki wrote:

Fieswurst wrote:

Excellent list of suggestions, thanks mezmorki.

I would add one thing: I think the game needs a list of all explored systems with detailed informations about each planet.

Yes!  It needs this list  badly.

I would be very happy if you could post your feedback and posssible improvements to the idea (maybe the devs are listening...):

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/ideas/633-list-of-explored-systems

Unfortunately, regarding the IDEAS, there are 600+ posted, 60+ flagged as a greenlit, and 0.0 listed as implemented.

I'll thumb it nonetheless. 

mezmorki wrote:

Unfortunately, regarding the IDEAS, there are 600+ posted, 60+ flagged as a greenlit, and 0.0 listed as implemented.

I'll thumb it nonetheless. 

Thanks!

I know but i still hope at least some of them getting implemented...

@Zenicetus

I concur.  They have their VIP users - and hopefully they're getting to see and test more frequent patches.  But as you say, some issues and concerns have been present since day 1 and haven't yet been resolved. 

Yep.  I've been in a LOT of EA and betas.  This one is "above average", but still, it's not ready imo.  I'm fairly concerned.    I only hope they do another release for us to beta test before final.  The fact they this is scheduled for release 3 weeks after DoW3 means that putting off release for more testing and polish is even a better ideal.   You don't want a semi buggy; semi finished; meh type release immediately after DoW3,  or you'll never shine past the shadow.

Good point about DoW3.  You'd think with Amplitude and Relic both being under SEGA that maybe they would've coordinated that a little better. 

I agree 100%. Thank you for making this thread. In addition to the points you raise, I feel the Ideas section didn't receive as much love from the developers as it merited. The release date has been announced, but the features list doesn't contain any of the greenlighted, wishlisted and otherwise approved ideas. If you turn on the filter on Implemented you get...nothing. 591 ideas submitted and none Implemented yet. Are we going to have crises / end game quests (3rd idea by votes)? Are Cravers going to have a fitting government system? What about other ideas? There are 62 that have been greenlit / marked as must have - it's a lot to do before May 19 and will inevitably add more bugs to the game. Personally, I don't feel it's bug-free enough as it is and with one major faction still to be added, people paying full price at release will end up beta-testing the game. I think it'll turn out good in the end, after a few DLCs and updates, but it's still disheartening and, unless addressed, will be another example of a studio serving up unfinished product to be patched post-release.

P.S. I wonder if anyone else who's been following ES2's Early Access from the beginning felt a bit let down when the Make War not Love event discounted ES2 Early Access by 75%?

I can't write as long as you did mezmorki, but you make me curious about what types of 4X games you find yourself enjoying, because currently I am actually quite enjoying the game right now, and while I agree to some of the flaws you pointed out, I actually found them less of an issue than you did.

Can't say more. Actually, I was surprised a bit when I saw EL2 would be full-released in next month. Playing this game recently, I thought, of course this game is so brilliant and enjoyable, many things were still ready to be revamped, so truth be told, I couldn't be sure that this game would be in ready perfectly in a month.

As a big fan of Endless series, ES1, DotE, EL and now ES2, I don't want players consider this game as 'above average' or 'so-so'. Hope 1 month would be enough.

Seconded mezmorki.  One thing about the pacing though:  I thought resource production was intentionally dialed up during EA to facilitate faster gameplay so that more of the late game could be tested for bugs and such.  Does anyone else recall that?

Sulendil wrote:

I can't write as long as you did mezmorki, but you make me curious about what types of 4X games you find yourself enjoying, because currently I am actually quite enjoying the game right now, and while I agree to some of the flaws you pointed out, I actually found them less of an issue than you did.

Someone on Steam asked me the exact same thing.... check my reply there:

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/explorminate/discussions/0/541907675758973640/?ctp=49#c135514649164143852

I don't agree with everything in the post, but there is some valid criticism there. 

If there is one thing that worries me the most about the current status, it's that the devs have said (IIRC) that there won't be another patch for EA user feedback before the final phase and release. There are some game mechanics right now like influence spread/lack of rollback, food abundance, economic surplus, etc. that are arguably "broken" and need some severe balance adjustment. 

The Amplitude devs must be very confident that they can balance all this in-house, without outside EA user feedback. 

I seem to remember more intermediate patches released for user feedback in the Early Access period for ES1 and EL, compared to this project. Frankly I've been surprised that we're just getting these big "Phase" releases and not much else except for a minor hotfix here and there. It may be one reason for the relatively low forum participation. There just isn't that much to talk about, once problems have been identified and then left there for months.

So I originally posted the below on the eXplorminate steam forum thread covering ES2.  But I'm re-posting it here for discussing - and perhaps also as forewarning for the dev team on what some reactions are to the current state of the game and its imminent (May 19th) release.  Needless to say, I'm quite worried about the state of the game and finding my well of optimism drying up. 

For reference, here was my Update 1 feedback thread, of which the criticisms still stand.

Here we go (I was playing on hard this time around BTW):

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, after 6 or so hours with EA release 3 I hit “the wall.”  The wall for me is that moment when you stretch back in your seat and ask yourself “why am I playing this game?”  It’s the moment where the spell is broken and you’re no longer absorbed in the gameplay, but rather playing on auto-pilot.  Needless to say, for me, this isn’t a good thing.

I think ES2 has three major issues, which I’ll discuss in more detail.  But briefly they are:  #1 - The underlying game design doesn’t lead to deep or interesting strategic decisions.  #2 - The UI, and much of the game’s overall thrust, emphasizes aesthetic glam over functionality and information conveyance.  This compounds with #1 in some unpleasant ways.  #3 - The pacing and balance is just off and, I feel, even undermines what little strategic interest there might be in the game.

Let’s break these down a little.

#1 - Decision Depth & Interest 

As I mentioned a few comments back, decisions in this game largely fall into one of two camps: Either they are trivial decisions about sequencing something (i..e Tech A then Tech B? The other way around?), which is not very interesting and not strategic (it’s puzzle solving). Or, decisions are so clear-cut and important to basic gameplay and survival that they are the obvious moves (e.g researching lots of essential technologies, picking the battle tactics card that most optimizes your range compatibility, etc.. ).

Over the course of playing, and getting into wars with AI empires, and colonizing, and performing most activities in the game - I rarely feel like I’m making an interesting strategic choice.  There aren’t enough consequences or limitations on your actions to create an environment where you have to make tough trade-offs.  You can always have your cake and eat it too.

What you DO end up doing is a lot of menial tasks: swapping out weapon modules for the latest version then upgrading all of your fleets, cycling through your dozen colonies to queue up the next unlocked system development for construction, cycling through all your survey ships to mindlessly launch probes and explore anomalies.  Sending colony ships to practically every planet you can colonize, queuing up the next batch of research, and so on.  When I'm doing these things, I feel like the game is wasting my time - especially when there are ways the drugdery could be taken out of it (mass orders, custom build queues, etc.).

Overall, there just isn’t much tension or challenge or constraints forcing me to make tough and interesting decisions.  I think a good strategy game absolutely needs to do this.

#2 - The UI: A study in form over function 

ES2 has a number of compelling ideas and mechanics: the political system with its interplay of governments and laws, minor factions, trade route networking, etc.  Unfortunately, the UI and the way many of these mechanics (and even other more typical mechanics) are conveyed to the player through the UI and its “info graphic” approach is cumbersome and confusing.

For example, consider the empire + victory progress UI screen, which lists what place you are in terms of achieving different victory conditions.  This explains some basics, but doesn’t provide nearly enough information for me to actually understand how or why I’m in a certain position or indeed what my competitors are doing to put them ahead or behind me.  Mousing over the End Turn button shows each empire’s score - is that the same as the score victory placement (I think so).  If I have 965 score - what is contributing to that score?  How does the game tell me specifically what I need to do to raise my score? Is it only a function of population and how many anomalies I’ve discovered? How does doing those things affect my score?  This UI page, as attractive as it is, tells me almost nothing useful.

The above was one of the lesser offenders.  The other scans and overlays in the game are worse.  The entire operation of how actions in game affect population units political affinity, and how that translates into the election process is terribly opaque - despite all the fancy population and system scans and slick vote tabulation viewers.  

The critical failure here is not only are these UI screens not very useful, but that the pertinent information is needed at the point when you are making a decision in the game, to be used as an input or factor to assess your options.  It’s one thing to know that building a +Industry development is associated with the industrial faction - but can anyone tell me what the exact impact of building one more +industry versus a +military is on a given system? And even if it was clear what the impact was - would it even really matter to the strategy?

And at the end of the day - does it really even matter? This is where issue #2 intersects with #1.  The political system for example is not a coherent enough (via the UI) or impactful enough of a mechanic to be really be worth worrying about.  I am not going to avoid building +Industry buildings for example - because I need industry for everything, especially when you can convert excess industry into more Dust or Research, which is always needed.

There are a host of other UI issues throughout the game: poorly explained manpower, hard to parse technology disk/web/thing, no system finder, no information about where to place trade HQ’s and subsidiaries, a UI that relies on too many different approaches (dedicated screens vs UI tabs, vs. scan overlays, etc.) and lacks coherency.  Diplomacy mechanics are completely opaque (and diplomacy itself is bog standard - don't be convinced its otherwise). When I'm changing governments, the UI screen showing my options doesn't actually say what the other government types do ... only how the election process is different. On and on...

#3 - Pacing & Balance 

One of my issues with ES1 and EL on launch, which repeats itself in ES2, is that the details and fine-tuning of balance and pacing seemed to be lacking - and the result was that the pacing and balancing never felt like where it should be.  This is a significant cause for alarm because it affects people’s overall impressions of their experience more than just about anything else.  Some specific issues:

By 100 turns into my current game I’m generating +600 dust per turn and +500 influence per turn.  I’m basically swimming in resources and if I have any sudden needs I can insta-buy my way out of any problem. Need a fleet of warships?  No problem, I can build about 20 warships in 2 turns.  Heck, I’m even at a point where I can consistently use influence to insta-buy technology.  If I’m short on a strategic resource I can purchase all of a given stock from the market without thinking about it.  And apparently I’m only in third place on the economy victory ranking.  The economy needs to be reigned in badly, because resource limitations are about the only hard constraint the game throws at you.  But in their absence, its results in mindless “build everything, everywhere” approach.

Another issue is influence.  Influence (the extent of the galactic map)  for certain factions grows WAY too quickly, and more worryingly doesn’t adjust nearly dynamically enough.  If one of my planets is falling under foreign influence, and I then wage a war to capture the influencing planet - the influence border doesn’t change fast enough to liberate my other planet.  In my current game, my influence extends over 4-5 systems of one enemy faction and another 3-4 of a different faction, and is continuing to grow with no end in sight.  The way influence is handled has been criticized for the past 3-4 months on the forums, but there’s been little change or acknowledgement.

Combat continues to remain a bugbear for ES2.  I do think it’s getting better at a mechanical level now, but again it’s something where the fancy UI gives an impression that there is more going on or more depth to be found than there is.  In reality, you pick the tactics that best matches your weapon range 95% of the time, and everything else is just noise.  If you get into a war, upgrading your ship design to counter your opponent’s ships is easy (especially when you’re flush with resources) allowing you to game the AI to a pitiful degree.  Again, there are no hard consequences or lasting decisions in the game.

Wrap-Up 

There’s more I could rant about it - but I’ll spare you all that for now.  ES2 has some great ideas and a gorgeous aesthetic presentation.  Some of its most lauded features, such as exploration, I find in practice to be pretty mundane and repetitive (so not really a selling point).  The quest system is well done and interesting, and if the Endless lore is of interest that is certainly a potential highlight of the game.  But none of that really makes up for a lack of depth in the game.  And what’s worse is that many features are so convoluted in their presentation - while at the same seeming to have a trivial or irrelevant consequence on gameplay - that I’m not sure why they even exist at all.  At times, I feel like the game is trying to make itself appear more complicated than it is - as if using its own complicated appearance as a proxy for depth.  That’s a really odd spot to be in.

I had high hopes for ES2 given the success of EL and the range of ideas they wanted to bring into the game.  Right from the start of the EA process it seemed like the game had a long ways to go.  I remained optimistic - but as time wore on it became clear that they  (the devs) were not going to deviate from their initial 4-release roadmap and I think it’s going to majorly hurt the game’s perception at launch. At a minimum they need another balance and polishing update once the game is actually feature complete - but that doesn’t appear to be in the cards (at least before release).  As an aside, forum activity has slowed down considerably - especially from the more critical + constructive posters - and I wonder whether that’s a harbinger of people’s waning interest. There is still so much to be improved big and small (heck, a random minor faction population still starts on your homeworld every game … seriously!?) - but with a May 19th release date I don’t see it happening.

Tough love.

Zenicetus wrote:

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If there is one thing that worries me the most about the current status, it's that the devs have said (IIRC) that there won't be another patch for EA user feedback before the final phase and release. 

It is more likely just being forced due to deadlines.Balance is unlikely until a few patches.To be be fair that is the general pattern in 4x games.

Alright, lemme drop in some of my own opinion on balance and such. For me, I think the game is properly balanced to finally launch. A lot of people have said and argued that ES2 is far from being finished and should not be dropped from EA. However, I think an important thing we should take into consideration is that Amplitude is acting under a publisher (Sega) and they might not have all the time in the world. 

Now, I'm very curious about people talking about balance. Call me daft but I think the game and factions are pretty much balanced now (maybe except the Sophons). Before going on, note that most of my experiences are from multiplayer (which includes AI at hard difficulty and human players). The games I played were usually fair unless you end up with shitty planets in the early game.  To counter-act the point that you are making a lot of output; you are gonna need as much as you can because your enemies also have a hell lot of output. Sure, you can spam out tons of ships but your enemies can also do the same. This is a design philosophy which I love. None of the factions are balanced but instead over-powered in their own little ways. Now, influence is a different thing as I have not played enough matches with people who generate tons of influence so I can't really  judge influence. On the economy however, I do not think that needs to be severely changed. Speaking of OP's +600 dust per turn and +500 influence per turn, I think that a lot of people seem to forget or not notice the important mechanisms of dust inflation. Let me go on that further in the next paragraph.

In one game, I was out-putting 3.6k dust (total ship costs were at around 500 dust) per turn. Meanwhile my friends were doing roughly about 500 dust per turn. However, they had much more ships than me. I thought I could output plenty of ships too (for example, one of my system could shell out 4 cruisers/battleships per turn) but unfortunately, I lacked resource deposits. I thought it would be simple to just purchase them from the market but due to how much dust I was making, dust inflation was very high and I couldn't afford as much as I wanted to. Ideally, this help balance out factions with too much output and serves to make a economically focused faction not too over-powered. Colonizing carefully is very important in the game and I may even add, very strategic. You may choose to settle in a planet filled with a strategic resource, but it could be constantly harassed by pirates and the amount of output expected would be much lower. There are also the decisions at what time you should expand. I started with only 2 planets but when I had sufficient output, I managed to quickly open up 8 systems due to amount of food I was making. Others started off with plenty of systems but in the late game, they were hindered by several things such as over-population penalties and lack of proper output (not making as much output as their enemies). They were still doing well just not as well as their enemies.

In conclusion, I think the game has some real deep mechanics but it's not very good at showing what it can do. I just wish a popular youtuber or streamer will highlight and explain the mechanics of the game so that more people would understand and possibly think better of the game.

I think the post is a bit harsh, after all we are in an Alpha, and the game looks quite well and completed ATM.

I have similar feeling in some of the points about strategic choices, but I'm optimistic, as EL is one of my favorite 4x game of all time, and really felt you have lots of strategic choices during your games.

About how community should influence in the final product, I think you are overdoing it. After all is THEIR product, they live from the results, and while community can certainly help to polish or highlight some issues, it shouldn't dictate many aspects of the game.

Ninakoru wrote:

I think the post is a bit harsh, after all we are in an Alpha, and the game looks quite well and completed ATM.

I have similar feeling in some of the points about strategic choices, but I'm optimistic, as EL is one of my favorite 4x game of all time, and really felt you have lots of strategic choices during your games.

About how community should influence in the final product, I think you are overdoing it. After all is THEIR product, they live from the results, and while community can certainly help to polish or highlight some issues, it shouldn't dictate many aspects of the game.

Agreed. However, keep in mind that the game is going to be released tomorrow.

Zennock wrote:

Agreed. However, keep in mind that the game is going to be released tomorrow.

lar feeling in some of the points about strategic choices, but I'm optimistic, as EL is one of my favorite 4x game of all time, and really felt you have lots of strategic choices during your games.ictate many aspects of the game.

Heh, I did that error too!

Its MAY, we are in April, they have one full month to tweak/polish the game :)