ENDLESS™ Space 2 is turn-based 4X space-strategy that launches players into the space colonization age of different civilizations within the ENDLESS™ Universe. Your Vision. Their Future.
Firstly, before I continue, ES2 is easily one of the best 4X games out there and the level of support you guys at Amplitude have put in deserves to be recognised. I find myself swinging between ES2, GalCiv 3 and Stellaris. What is strong and unique about Endless Space is the interesting and unique factions, the jaw-dropping audio and visuals and the quests. The game is dripping in atmosphere like no other, and provides the one-more-turn syndrom that every great 4X provides. It is also an immesely ambitious game, as well.
I had put the game down a few updates ago after I documented a bug with the battle-camera which would cause incredible amounts of FPS stutter and visual artifacting. It killed the mood during a good Craver playthrough. I just finished a run with the Vodyani.
Here are the things I picked up on:
1. Performance and turn times are immensely improved. I play on medium with 6 players, and the entire game held together very nicely in terms of performance all the way through. No issues with the camera as well! Turn times are particularly important for these games.
2. Balance has improved a lot as well. I find myself no longer drowning in Dust, and fleet-based heroes finally feel useful as they level up.
3. I think some info is too buried in the UI. For example, until I got the religious law that pegged morale to 50% (content), one system would constantly dip into low morale. The tool tip would say that the malus was due to a particular planet, but it didn't give me anything more than that, and none of the planets had any negative anomalies, etc. I can surmise this is due to the Vodyani pop factor interacting with the planet, and my understanding that the Vodyani have inherent morale malus'. However, finding the actual information neatly summarised is currently unintuitive.
I would say the same with battle stats as well. The fleet tool tips technically show what the enemy fleets are armed with in terms of projectile or energy weapons, but I personally find the little graphs harder to eyeball than a straight comparitive statistic. Also, it isn't clear whether missiles are energy weapons or projectiles. Would it just be better to give a straight statistical breakdown of the weapon distribution on enemy/friendlty ships? ie: x missiles, y lasers, z kinetics, etc.
4. Combat. I like the system overall, and I like the idea of playing certain cards. However, there are a lot of cards that don't seem to have any real use. I find myself sticking with certain cards a lot (Barrage Fire?), and it seems to me to be quite easy to optimise for long range and keep everything in your favour that way. I'm not sure the card system is there yet. I would like to request more work on the card system, and I think the AI could use a bit more of a hand when it comes to the kinds of weapons it loads onto their fleets and also getting the techs that upgrade hulls (especially for the medium ships).
Things I would like to see:
1. More new factions! I love the way you guys do factions!
2. The academy quest is a really neat idea, but are you just going to leave it there? Who are these outsiders?
Anyhow, I'll probably do more detailed posts at some stage as I play more of the game. These are the things I wanted to put up after coming back. Thanks Amplitude and keep up the the great work!
EDIT* I somehow screwed up previously. I meant it is unclear whether missiles are projectile or energy weapons. Haved edited the post the be clear.
Thanks for your super kind message! It is always great to see returning players tell us how they think the game is developing, and seeing as you seem to appreciate all these changes, I'd say we're on the right track!
For your feedback on weapons, we have some changes in the works that will affect somewhat dramatically weapon balance and lead to more interesting ship and fleet designs. As for the information and the UI, we do try and keep the UI streamlined to make sure the game doesn't hide menus within menus, but at some point with so many systems, there's only so much we can do before we run out of space (ha.). But we're still working on it. If you've got specific suggestions, however, feel free to share them.
On a closing note, welcome back! Hope we see you around the community!
By the way I believe that Fleet loadouts and information about fleets should be hidden in the game. This require you to cover more bases and build more diverse fleets rather than special counters
By the way I believe that Fleet loadouts and information about fleets should be hidden in the game. This require you to cover more bases and build more diverse fleets rather than special counters
Thats actually brilliant, fleet load outs should be hidden until after combat!
By the way I believe that Fleet loadouts and information about fleets should be hidden in the game. This require you to cover more bases and build more diverse fleets rather than special counters
Thats actually brilliant, fleet load outs should be hidden until after combat!
And that info is only available if you Win the Fight outright right? No Draws nor Retreats just to garner such info. ;) ;)
By the way I believe that Fleet loadouts and information about fleets should be hidden in the game. This require you to cover more bases and build more diverse fleets rather than special counters
Thats actually brilliant, fleet load outs should be hidden until after combat!
And that info is only available if you Win the Fight outright right? No Draws nor Retreats just to garner such info. ;) ;)
I don't agree with that, because realistically once you're in battle you're going to see the enemies defenses and attacks so the knowledge is gained and theres no reasonable explanation for why the battle data couldn't be transmitted live so.
that's exactly why I think this information should be hidden. It encourages players to watch battles and to look at the Battle report to see what happened. Then you can retrofit accordingly. the battle cards are the secret that you should never know what your opponent is going to play, that's where the strategy of educated guesses come into place.
Watching battles is fun the first time, after that it's largely inconsequential and in MP everyone watching every battle will significantly increase turn time. Not to mention forcing players to write down what fleet has what is neither fun nor adding a layer of complexity, it's just more tedious actions needed in a late game that has more than enough already.
Watching battles is fun the first time, after that it's largely inconsequential and in MP everyone watching every battle will significantly increase turn time. Not to mention forcing players to write down what fleet has what is neither fun nor adding a layer of complexity, it's just more tedious actions needed in a late game that has more than enough already.
If that's truly the case, then the developers wasted a huge amount of time and resources on ship models, texturing, weapon effects and battle scene backgrounds and I guess they could have gone with ASCII graphics for most things. Other players and the developers may feel differently.
I personally like watching battles if they are big enough to be interesting visually. If the player 'needs' to pay attention to one or two battles out of 10, I don't think thats a huge deal. I'd say then the time they spent on those things I mentioned above was at least a bit worth it.
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