I would have to agree with the folks offering counter-arguments on this post. This game isn't at a perfect state at the moment but in no way is it unplayable or broken. Unblanaced? Sure. And as Frogsuadron mentioned, they've addressed some, if not all (unlikely), of the balance issues in the upcoming patch (i.e., release). A game that's broken would be clicking on a ship and the game crashing and installing leprechaun sex tapes on your computer. What folks are describing here are balance issues regarding either mechanics or the numbers ticking in the background. And, honestly, folks calling to cut off some features from the game (e.g., Influence) seem set to be discontent with the game. As Poliocretes eloquently stated, a lot of the gripe here are standard features in other 4x games. Why folks seem so angry is beyond me. Well, perhaps not. As an old saying goes, "For the willing, nothing deters. For the unwilling, anything is an excuse."

Also, I'd just like to say that some of these folks feel like implants from rivaling companies trying to sow discontent. I know it seems outlandish but honestly. The arguments are so blatantly bad that I'm not sure what else to think.

Thanks for all of the constructive feedback. I will download the full release patch tonight and try it out. 

planetnine99 wrote:

This game is great in many ways. HOWEVER, the forced truce and influence conversion and influence growth need to be options that can be disabled. I am going out on a limb and assuming this, but if we took a poll from Steam users, not games2gether users, but steam users, I believe the majority, meaning 51%, would opt out of those options. 

Now that the embargo is lifted on the release version, I can share a few things:

The crazy influence growth rates have been toned back considerably.  You still probably want one system to make a deep push with influence to exert some control and protection - but the edges of your empire are more fluid in relation to other empire's influence spread. 

I think the system could use further refinement and clarity - maybe even splitting apart influence into a separate border control vs. influence mechanic.  But is isn't nearly as game breaking and ridiculous as it was.

Regarding Forced Truth - the hostility to this mechanic is a bit over-exaggerated in my opinion.  And it isn't properly a "forced" truce mechanics either.  You always have the option to ignore the request and press on.  Sure, each time that incurs a happiness penalty, but how is a fixed -10% happiness every ten turns that fundamentally different from some more linear war weariness penalty (i.e. -1% every 1 turn).  Moreover, there plenty of ways to mitigate this various laws and system developments.  Get in an alliance with two other factions and some level of pacifist laws enabled and you can have a +60 empire happiness right there.  Which gives you 70 turns of warfare before dipping into your baseline happiness.  If you can't conquer and empire in 70 turns then you maybe need to adjust your strategy.

planetnine99, there is the idea section if you want to check what other people think about your suggestions.

Actually, I think your proposal of implementing defense orbital station could have some success. For truce/influence, well, I am more in favor of a pacific playing style, so...

If other player(s) influence zone bother me, I declare war (so no "peaceful" takeover of my planets can happen), or decide to conquer the system causing the influence zone. Don't see any problem caused by this mechanic. About forced truce anything is said.

No, I am not a plant from another company. 

If there is a workaround bug for declaring war on the same turn to avoid forced truces, then why have the forced truce happen anyways? Either have it or don't have it.

There are MORE 4x games that do not have influence/war weariness than games with it. You are pulling 2-4 examples out of 100s of games since the 90s. 

I stand by my statements and appreciate those who stand with me. Let me reiterate them:

This game is great in many ways. HOWEVER, the forced truce and influence conversion and influence growth need to be options that can be disabled. I am going out on a limb and assuming this, but if we took a poll from Steam users, not games2gether users, but steam users, I believe the majority, meaning 51%, would opt out of those options.

When you dig down deep, those are basically "opinions" the dev has built into the game, to give the game more character, and stand out from other 4x. They are not true in any sense. If we lived through a real life 4x game, either prior history, modern history, or future history, you will NEVER see such things as influence conversion or forced truce. They don't exist. It is made up and annoying as hell. I put in actual work and time to conquer someone and I feel like the liberals of the gaming universe said wait a second, your too dominant, lets get everyone back to equal grounds. I am taking back over those planets you took from me because of a bogus game mechanic and I am penalizing you for continuing to battle me. 

All I am asking is to give me the option to play the game "normally", and I define normal by how it has been done in the past by the majority of 4x games. Leave the bare bones system alone and add options. I think you will find enough of your customers that want to just play the game without these oddball conditions. I have given you guys the benefit of the doubt by buying the game and I will stick to it through the release date. If those features aren't made into options I can disable, then no sweat, you won't see or hear from me again. Game will be removed from computer and it just didn't work out, not the first time or last time I have wasted money on a game that almost had the potential. You guys will move along just fine too and I am sure game2gether will continue being successful. You just won't have me as a customer.

Hi, just curious as i also find the truce mechanic right now pretty annoying. Why not implement the truce mechanic of Endless Legend? Last time i remember in EL, granted i havent played EL in a few months coz im playing this, you could give a counter proposal to accept any form of treaty and also declaring war on truce spends more influence.

"Known Issues" from the changelog is doable. Keeping this up to date post-release is an altogether different challenge without some sort of automation process (which in turn would require development time).

@Ianethas Make sure you use the search function atop the page to search for similar threads, so you can check out if they deal with the same or simply a similar issue.

Would be useful stuff. Some work in the beginning, but if kept up-to-date the profit should be well.

Hey Frogsquadron!

Can we have a list of known issues in the bugs section after release?

I believe most bugs in the test version will be addressed, so I'd expect the list to be of manageable size by then.

Currently I'm report bugs without knowing whether there's an existing post.

OmegaPraetor wrote:

Also, I'd just like to say that some of these folks feel like implants from rivaling companies trying to sow discontent. I know it seems outlandish but honestly. The arguments are so blatantly bad that I'm not sure what else to think.

Let's absolutely not go there, shall we? Everyone has a right to express concerns or criticism, so long as the feedback stays constructive.

I am going to try and keep this short and simple as most of my complaints are already listed in detail on this forum. We are 8 days away from official release and it still says "Alpha"? I bought this early release 2 weeks ago thinking it should be close to being completed. 

Influence - this is just a silly idea, not named properly, and not executed correctly. So here on Earth we are hearing about the Martians power growing and their tales of glory spreading. We are going to sell out our planet to let them control us now? It makes no sense at all. It is an arbitrary feature you guys are implementing in hopes to make your game stand out a bit. It is not working and will back fire on you if you release the game with this feature working like it is. PLEASE give us an option to disable it, someone already wrote a mod to disable it or turn it down a lot. 

Forced penalties/truce - Wait a second, I just declared war, my planets are happy, we are warmongers. I take over 1 planet and the enemy AI offers me a truce for a pathetic amount and if i decline, because i don't know, i actually want to fight a war and win, i am penalized 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% ?! Or even better, the enemy AI knocks out a few of my ships, I am in the middle of responding, I get a truce notice from him telling me that I have clearly lost and I need to accept the truce and pay him or accept a penalty?!!?

This is the worse heavy handed feature I have seen besides War Score in Stellaris. If you guys can't figure out how to implement this correctly, then leave it out of the game. ( I don't think there is a way to implement this feature, it is pure crap)

People like to play the game and conquer their foes. Not everyone has 10 days to sit around and finish 1 game and tediously go through 100 truce/declar war scenarios. This is the bread and butter of 4x Games, the conquering part. Part of the fun for me is to carefully maneuver and position myself to launch a huge campaign towards the end of the game. 

Other minor issues:

As posted in another thread, how can you have a space 4x game and not think to have planet or system orbiting defense station? Huge oversight to leave that out.

Resources capped at 999? What is this, 1989? System resources can't handle more than 999? What a joke. Now i have to go micro manage that every 3-4 turns. 

There are some great things about this game but the above is enough for me to uninstall this after a few weeks and not play it again, ever. I am the Player, let me PLAY. It is your world but you build games that need to sell. If they dont sell, you dont build games anymore, simple math. The above features are too controlling and will be a turn off for many people. They WILL show up on all professional reviews as negatives and drive away potential space 4xers.

So much salt!!!


I think the game is in a pretty good shape right now, I haven't encountered any game breaking bug, the gameplay is engaging and most games feel unique. The things you thought that was unfun had the opposite effect on me. Most games make extermination by war the most straightforward strategy. But it's not like that IRL in any period of history. No empire have ever got to the point we see in 4x games. Being the biggest military in some point of history should not snowball into world (or space in our case) domination. H

I do agree with you, some features feel either incomplete or lacking. For instance, converting planets could be more interesting, like assimilating a minor faction where you have layers of bonus before total conversion. A orbiting battle station would be cool as fuck too (let's face it, every game is better with a death star). But a 4x game could always improve, and at some point the devs must ask themselves what is really important.  

I am baffled as most of the things you complain about are standard features of modern 4X games.  

Influence - standard feature, also known as Culture in other games.  Common examples are 1990's East Germany or Poland leaving the Warsaw Pact and joining NATO.

Forced Truce -  Common game feature, also known as War Weariness.  Common example cited is Vietnam War 1970's.  As for the notion of people suddenly signing a truce after losing a single battle; historically sometimes it works (Blitzkreig France) and sometimes it doesn't (Pearl Harbor).  

Planetary defense/system defense - also known as Castles.  Implementation is variable depending on the assumptions you make about the ease of taking asteroids at the top of the gravity well and moving them to the bottom where your stationary target sits.  Given the historical trends of the twentieth century (Castle + ship = battleship;  Castle + Wheels = Tank) and the island hopping campaigns of the Pacific in WWII, the viability of non-mobile castles in space is debatable.                 ie. Castle + warp drive = USS Enterprise.

As to how well all the game mechanics mesh together, that is always the hard part in making a fun game.   

Poliorcetes

Lanius wrote:

WeLoveYou wrote:

The system in ES2 requires that some losses are actually incurred by at least one side before peace can occur.

lets say if i pissed off some cravers on another constellation enough to declare war on me, but they are playing defensive and i dont really care about them because i got another closer target

am i going to be locked in this (slightly hotter cold) war until one of us attack each other?

thats hilarious

'Cravers' ... 'Defensive'

Now that's hilarious!

  

WeLoveYou wrote:

The system in ES2 requires that some losses are actually incurred by at least one side before peace can occur.

lets say if i pissed off some cravers on another constellation enough to declare war on me, but they are playing defensive and i dont really care about them because i got another closer target

am i going to be locked in this (slightly hotter cold) war until one of us attack each other?

thats hilarious

UndeadPuppy wrote:

Influence conversion has to stay in the game. I don't want another game 4x game where you can play as pacifist factions but still can only win games and expand by war and conquest.

I fully agree with you

"Influence conversion has to stay in the game. I don't want another game 4x game where you can play as pacifist factions but still can only win games and expand by war and conquest."

Amen to that. Words can't express how refreshing it is to have a viable option that is not knuckle dragging war monger to achieve victory. Planet conversion feels much more active than the passive economy/science/score victory .

Influence conversion has to stay in the game. I don't want another game 4x game where you can play as pacifist factions but still can only win games and expand by war and conquest.

You're pointing out a balance issue. Influence area growth has been scaled back quite significantly in internal builds, and release should see that kind of occurrence a lot less often.

So much rage just because of that peace conversion tech

It's simply a different game-design philosophy; I personally find it a decent compromise compared to Stellaris' 10 years of unbreakable peace. That said, the devs have acknowledged before that they are tuning what determines who's "winning", and influence conversion has been changed to happen only when you are at peace with the other empire (i.e. safe during cold war). There probably won't be any more builds this close to release date, but to call this "not caring" is to be objectively insensitive to all the hard work and open communication the devs have committed since the beginning. Above all, you came into this early-access knowing the risks and potential shortfalls that early builds of the game might have (or at least you should have). If you have an all-or-nothing approach to game features that are works-in-progress, then the iterative process of early-access is not for you. This isn't new either; Endless Legend went through the same process and became a well-polished game with expansions by the end.

Just stopped a game from last night. Late into the game, 3 races left. UE (ai) controls 50% of the galaxy, Horatio (myself) control 40% and Lumeris (ai) left hanging on with 10%. I am trying to drive deep into UE territory. I have taken over about 7 systems, in 15 turns or so. Meanwhile i am dragging my empire up to 80% penalty because i keep having to decline a truce. Finally I give into the truce with UE and re-gather my ships and tend to all the new systems i took over. About 10 turns pass, all those planets are now around 80+ approval rating and thriving. Next turn, i lose all 7 back to UE because of his humongous influence bubble. 25 turns of work wiped out in 1 turn without me being able to do one thing about it. 

How broke does that sound? If that sounds normal to you then you need to re-evaluate what you enjoy in a game. That sounds to me like the computer is using cheat codes. "Human defeated me in combat and took over my systems, release the truce virus too slow him down. Now release the insta-takeover magic code of suck and take back our planets we lost." 

TERRIBLE Game mechanics. I will give this until release date to see if you guys give the option to disable influence and forced truce penalties. If not, then scratching you guys from never trying 4x game again list. Obviously you dont care about one consumer but minus your hard core fans, this is going to be a problem with many people.