Slashman wrote:

AlmondBrown wrote:

"I actually mostly enjoyed my time with it. The art, music, and writing are all fantastic, as expected. It's a very beautiful game. And the endless universe is more alive than ever. But"

It was to much like another 4X game they played. OK. Cool! So how "do you make a 4X game not a 4X game" but maintain the 4X genre base? 

That is something I would want to READ in all honesty... Let US all get together and make the NEXT Gen of 4X and then let Paradox see if THAT vision is actually "codeable" and if it is WE will grant them Full rights to produce and Publish. :)

What should we call it?

"Infinite development time and resources!"

Umm, oops. Was thinking elsewhere. Corrected the instance. ;)

BmB wrote:

No it is not personal preference. I give some very good reasons why it is key to the genre and gameplay. You are also wrong about approval which is exactly as I say a thing which began with Civ 5.

Your inability to understand what I say because you didn't like a word I used is sad, but I don't think a problem with my post.

Master of Orion - the original one, literally the first space 4X game, had a morale system for planets. As has every subsequent MoO, and MoO clone since, which comprises the majority of space 4X games. Every Civ game, has a happiness system. Since Civ 1. These are all mechanically equivalent to approval. Maybe you mean something else by approval? 

Saying 'You didn't understand me' seems to be the get out clause for angry posters on these forums. Maybe, just maybe, you either were not clear, or you should own the things you say a little more. No one said you didn't give reasons. They said some of your reasons were rooted in personal preference, which they were. And your presentation of these preferences was not very pleasant. Nor was your response to me to be honest.

I didnt get enough courage to read all the argue, but why the combat is designed like that is super simple :

It's designed like it because the gaming experience of ES2 is about rule an empire, not be a admiral (almost copy pasted a dev message read long ago). It's a entierely pondered choice related to micro-gestion, game feelings, and story telling, and probably other stuffs.

ES2 is almost entierely a strategic game, and not a tactical game. The main combat decisions are made in economic management phase, ship design management, and rapidly with tactical cards. Some extra interraction, especially more time allowed to manage fight, would break the game-design consistency of the game, because the game is not built around combat... It have a large importance, but it's not the center of the thing.

There are some very good turn-based tactical games, like XCOM, Divinity original sins 1 & 2, heroes M&M, etc, . ES2 is not of of them, ES2 is a very good turn based strategic game. If you dont like this part of the game, the problem is not the game, the problem is about your taste. Nobody can blame you for your taste, of course, but solution is not about changing the game. The solutions are coming from you : try to enjoy the game like it's designed, or simply go play anything else. It's ok to not like a creation like a video game. 

If you have suggestion, ideas, and things to talk about the game, be sure in a first time it's not too much out of the initial consistency of the game. Remind youself that developers here are the pros, they build their game about real limiting factors, very hard to get if being a game devoper is not your main job. They take a lot of time to listen the community, and i can tell you from my point of view they are not joking when they say they build the game with us. Their abilty to compile the demands and ideas of the community, with real constraints of game developement is just crazy. I have no word.

Fact is, those constraints rule everything in a first place, and the consistency, the guideline, of the game is one of them. Asking for changing this guideline is like asking for making the game free or a new entire patch every day. It's not possible. 

It's actually hard to get the guideline of ES2, but there are clues everywhere in the forums. Just take the time to read developers posts, and understand it will help you a lot.

Cheers.

It is entirely personal preference and giving reasons for your preferences doesn't make them any less an opinion. Many of us don't agree. 

And regardless of where the approval system began, it is not out of place. Expansion of an empire makes managing an empire exponentially more difficult (how much more so a galactic empire?). You have more people to try to keep happy and satisfy. More internal factions rubbing shoulders. More individual and societal problems to address. This is pretty much abstracted in most games, but you could easily make a game out of the system if you want. The Anno series actually does something very similar and lets you micro manage seeing to the population's needs, gripes and desire for entertainment/stimuli. 

Hi BmB

The problem with your post is that you mix in some genuine constructive criticism about design - such as maybe thinking in the future about giving an option for non-simulataneous turns, and the auto camera problems in battles - to some pretty personal gripes about core features which is simply down to your personal preferences and are no reflection on the quality of the game - such as your dislike of quests, your dislike of minor factions, and, if I'm understanding you correctly, approval (which is in every 4X since the dawn of time, so I'm a little baffled). You might not like vanilla ice cream, but you don't need to go on the vanilla ice cream fan forum and complain about it. What does that achieve? If you don't like those core design features, the game just isn't for you (even thought you enjoyed it?). Not every game has to be for you.

I hope next time you'll think about the differences between constructive criticism, and complaining about your personal preferences not being satisfied. Also:

Comparing with the classics it seems like a kind of cancerous growth.

This is horrible and completely unnecessary language, and is liable to make people very annoyed at you. Why use it? Try not to in future.

SuperMarloWorld wrote:

I didnt get enough courage to read all the argue, but why the combat is designed like that is super simple :

 

It's designed like it because the gaming experience of ES2 is about rule an empire, not be a admiral (almost copy pasted a dev message read long ago). It's a entierely pondered choice related to micro-gestion, game feelings, and story telling, and probably other stuffs.

ES2 is almost entierely a strategic game, and not a tactical game. The main combat decisions are made in economic management phase, ship design management, and rapidly with tactical cards. Some extra interraction, especially more time allowed to manage fight, would break the game-design consistency of the game, because the game is not built around combat... It have a large importance, but it's not the center of the thing.

There are some very good turn-based tactical games, like XCOM, Divinity original sins 1 & 2, heroes M&M, etc, . ES2 is not of of them, ES2 is a very good turn based strategic game. If you dont like this part of the game, the problem is not the game, the problem is about your taste. Nobody can blame you for your taste, of course, but solution is not about changing the game. The solutions are coming from you : try to enjoy the game like it's designed, or simply go play anything else. It's ok to not like a creation like a video game. 

If you have suggestion, ideas, and things to talk about the game, be sure in a first time it's not too much out of the initial consistency of the game. Remind youself that developers here are the pros, they build their game about real limiting factors, very hard to get if being a game devoper is not your main job. They take a lot of time to listen the community, and i can tell you from my point of view they are not joking when they say they build the game with us. Their abilty to compile the demands and ideas of the community, with real constraints of game developement is just crazy. I have no word.

Fact is, those constraints rule everything in a first place, and the consistency, the guideline, of the game is one of them. Asking for changing this guideline is like asking for making the game free or a new entire patch every day. It's not possible. 

It's actually hard to get the guideline of ES2, but there are clues everywhere in the forums. Just take the time to read developers posts, and understand it will help you a lot.

Cheers.

That argument I've heard before, but it has many cracks for a very simple reason:

War is an important part of this game. There are many conflicts, many pirates, many frictions between the empires, many missions. Even one scientific branch and part of others are completely dedicated to war.
To say that the game does not want to focus on the battles is inconsistent because the reality is that the fighting is very present in the game experience.

Look, the bottom line is we were asking for more intereactive combat since ES1. They said no then and they said no to it in ES 2. The basic framework for the formations from ES1 are there in the flotilla system and the ability to use support ships as tanks to draw enemy fire. The only thing really missing is the ability to set target priorities to possibly get past the tank and hit the ships they are protecting but I'm not sure that's a huge priority with the way battles currently play out.

Let's keep it civil, yeah? I'm not a big fan of personal comments, insults, etc. 

I think you both have good points, so try to keep making them, if you so wish, without insulting one another, k?

@minurominerwin

At some point you are going to need to get through your head that most of us do not agree with you. No matter how many colours you highlight your posts with, that won't change. 

The devs are really unlikely to change this system and you need to move on with your life and accept that there are some things about the game that will not change no matter the length or colours of your rants.

minurominerwin wrote:

Naskoni wrote:

Sorry, but you're spitting a bunch of nonsense. Seemingly in multiple topics. I've actually played Master of Orion in multiplayer and have conducted endgame battles with MANY ships on both sides. It takes so long to even move and attack with all of them that each turn drags on for forever. And if you are playing with multiple people the rest might as well go watch a movie meanwhile, or at least an episode of whatever series they fancy. Yes, it took that long.

You literally whine that hero skill trees are, and I quote, "HUGE" and too complicated, that even having to deal with heroes levelling up is seemingly bothering you to death, yet ask for battles to be an order of magnitude more micro-managy... Seriously...?

You are by all means entitled to an opinion, but please stop pretending you are talking on behalf of anybody else, not to mention ALL of us. You most certainly don't talk on my behalf.

The way battles are conducted is a matter of a design decision. The first game had it, and the second one does too. You apparently played the first one prior to buying this one so this hardly came up as a surprise either. Go play some Age of Wonders 3, it's on sale, battles there just what you are looking for - this game simply isn't on the other hand. And I happen to like a lot of it just the way Amplitude envisioned it.

I want more depth in the combat and less in the heroes because the combat is fun, the hero's skill management is not.

With respect to masters of orion, I insist that in the multiplayer, the battles can be solved as now. automatically and with some pre-battle settings. It is not necessary to wait so long if the players do not want to.

If I speak on behalf of everyone, it is because I am convinced that what I say is true regardless of personal visions. Please, listen me.

The management of the heroes is clumsy and unnecessarily extensive. In fact, the heroes system dont aport anything to the game, except for a layer of unnecessary depth. I appreciate depth in diplomacy, combat or trade, but heroes do not currently benefit the game at all. It only makes you waste your time. Think it objectively. Really the current design of the heroes contributes to make the game experience more fun?

I will repeat what I told you in the other thread:

Look for example the level system of heroes of might and magic 3: In this system there are a number of predefined skills. Each hero, when level up, can choose between two new semi-random abilities, which appear depending on the type and race of the hero. A hero can not have more than 6 different abilities, but you can upgrade your current skills if they reappear when leveling up.

This system is fast, simple and elegant, and it can make the management of heroes, an experience IMMENSELY more pleasant for 2 reasons:

1-Reducing the possibilities to two, the game gain fluidity, speed and simplicity. And one of the bases of game development, is that simplicity is always positive. Simplicity does not mean little depth, and always helps to offer a pleasant gameplay.

2-As there are only two possible options, the skills can be more versatile (and more powerful, why not), this can lead to increase the XP necesary for level up. Spend less time to level up your heroes is a real relief in late game. At the same time, this makes leveling more relevant, because it's not like "yay! +1 to industry!" But the decisions have more weight.

When you think about what other games do with their heroes, you realize that the current system is weak and tasteless.

The combat system becomes repetitive and unintuitive. It is possible that a passive combat system can be fun, but now it has many cracks. The cinematics are often bland and are reduced to: ship 1 shoots a minute. Ship 2 is destroyed. End. Besides that the combat routes are very confusing to understand, and some times the interface does not provide enough data to know why your fleet has won or lost.

EDIT: Kryto has comented that battles are a means to an end. This is a half truth. Battles are a very important part of a game in which there are pirates, missions and diplomatic conflicts. A whole branch of science and part of others, are dedicated to war.
Many people like the game, in part, because of space battles. I understand that the game prefers to focus on other things, but the current system does not even reach a minimum for me. It's as if the game does not recognize how important war is.

That you like something badly done does not mean it's good. Maybe you're tolerant with this weak mechanics, but it's still weak in spite of everything.

The combat system has plenty of depth, yet despite claiming to the opposite you are either not able to see it, or simply can't be bothered to plan ahead and take advantage of it, but instead want to compensate for it during the battle itself. Since managing heroes is such a major chore for you I can only assume that managing your ships every time you research a new ship module is practically a horror show as well... That being said we will be getting more ship modules soon, thus even more depth is to be expected.

So, in regards to multiplayer, you insist, nay, demand, that the devs implement something to your very personal liking (because you are so apparently oh-so-very-very special) that would be completely irrelevant to multiplayer games where players would be expected to simply pretend all the changes you require do not exist, at all (autoresolving anything and everything instead of taking advantage of the clearly superior gameplay you propose).

As for speaking for everybody else - if your real life name was Horatio the irony would be astounding. I mean, it's pretty obvious you really like and value yourself, including your very own opinions and such. Imagine being able to clone yourself several million times - how wonderful the world would be with so many superior humans being available to help everybody else see the error of their ways...? Until that glorious day comes upon us you might still want to talk in singular though as you do speak only on behalf of yourself... Just because you think the game should be something it was never meant to be doesn't make it bad, or wrong, or weak, or... Maybe it means you simply bought the wrong game? Just an idea...

As for simplifying the game to the extent that heroes are limited to 6 skills total and the player is presented with a choice to upgrade up to two random ones upon reaching a new level - if I wanted to play games so dumbed down and oversimplified to such an extent I wouldn't play any of Amplitude's games. And I own every single piece of content they've released so far - go figure...

Seemed appropriate to post this here than to make a new thread as I hopped on board during the F2P weekend as well. 

I was on the fence about buying the game because it got so many things right while at the same time there were a number of detractors making me second guess proceeding with my purchase. In the end I jumped on board because:

- Gameplay (mechanics) is immensely deep, fun, balanced and each faction plays very unique in comparison to many other 4x games out there.

- Amplitudes acquisition by SEGA did not result in multitude of $10 faction dlc like is the norm with Total War games. I buy Total War games as well but only when all the DLC is packaged and on sale for a reasonable price, otherwise it breaks the bank if I am a loyal customer. Good to see all the Free DLC and updates and I look forward to any paid expansion packs in the future. 

I'll list the detractors that almost stopped me going ahead with my purchase and I feel needs improvement to draw more people into the ES universe:

1. Immersion breaking things in the game that make you realise you're playing a spreadsheet simulator. I can see a lot of strides were made to add unique tech and text for specific races so that it fits better within their lore to avoid breaking immersion for the player. However this doesn't seem to have carried over to photos or art in the game events or windows. For example, playing Cravers, when the population of my planet increases the same picture with super diverse set of aliens walking happily on a utopian world is shown. I cannot imagine Craver world's looking like this at all which instantly takes a dump on your level of immersion. This also goes for other races that all start out not very diverse. Diversity may be introduced to their empires later into the game but at the beginning of the game it makes no sense. The same thing with Vodyani and some other factions. Amplitude doesn't even need to make new art, just use things that already exist like the loading screen pictures instead so you are not presented with event photos that don't thematically fit the race you're playing. Diversity is not the strength of immersion. It also breaks immersion when you're role playing an empire that purges anyone not imperial, basically railroading everyone to either play diverse or cringe at the event popup windows every time they appear.

2. Obnoxious pirates. Took me a while to figure out how to properly deal with them. Sadly, after I figured out how to deal with them I realised the AI seems to be getting demolished by them. I find my neighbours have no fleets because they're constantly being sieged by pirates. This breaks the immersion again when pirates are walking all over your opponents and when you go to war with "Major" factions they put up less of a resistance than pirates actually do. It's very sad. I will try turning down pirate difficulty to see if this helps or turn them off entirely if the AI is still unable to deal with them.

3. Tutorial for Tech research is lacking. I basically had to dig this info out either by fully reading every tech and unlock description or via youtube videos. Some exposition for suggested "vital" techs would help greatly in accommodating new players with what they should research, especially for fleet combat and sieging. Things like siege modules, attack/protector ships, weapon/module upgrades, pop to infantry conversion are so vital but you don't realise you need them until pirates are walking all over your colonies. 

TL;DR: My main gripe is really just the first one which is immersion. I would love to see Amplitude improve the in game event popup screen art so they dont break your immersion when playing races that aren't meant to be diversity advocates or even have a switch, so depending on % of player pop diversity in your empire you see different window backgrounds, not flooded with look how super diverse and awesome we are advertising in majority of popups. Just turn down this diversity advocacy a notch, I see enough of it in real life already and it reminds me of real life politics than what's actually meant to be represented in game. Other than that I think the game is fairly solid.

minurominerwin wrote:

You are using demagoguery. I do not try to convince everyone that: all the things, the world and reality is as I say. 

Regardless of the interest of what you're saying, the way in which you're carrying your point across is pretty unpleasant to read. Please don't do this.

Imagine you would have to manually deal with all those conflicts. Like 5 minutes for little conflicts, and a hour at least for big fight like in tactical games, and each conflict would have a huge impact of your ability to win the game. The game structure would be entierely different. It would be less empire management than fight management. The developement focusing would also change a lot because of that. Instead of discussion about economy, diplomacy, also fight, fids, etc, we would talk almost almost only about fight, because it would be the center of the game. This would an entire other game. 

Anyway, fight is not the ultimate go-to for resolving all the issue you might face during a game. There are also diplomacy, influence, economy... Even for cravers the game is not only about make the war. Their gameplay ask for a lot of wise economic management that are way more important than war if they want to win. If you try to win a game only by spending energy and time in fight, abandoning the other aspects of the game, you have no chance to win even at easy difficulty. 

Fight is a part of the game, that you play out of the combat interface. As i said before, you really manage fight with your economy, strategic decisions, and tactical cards. Those are interractions, and no little. They are just strategic, and not tactical. It's already a huge part of management time, coherent with the general game design. The fight is everything but the center of the game. It's a fair part, but no more important than others.