Donalejandro wrote:

SteveRaptor wrote:

Going to talk from MP perspective.

The fleet acclerator nerf was probably the best change that have been made to balance in this game.

You are absolutelly correct. However, the new problem arises.

The nerf to FA brought back the importance of fleet mobility, modules and everything that comes with it and ressurrected a long time dead strategy layer back into life.

That`s also correct. But! The case is - not every faction has a lot of support modules on their hulls or even, in Horatio`s case - lesser amount of modules at all. So the main problem here is not a reduction of speed itself, but rather serious balance changes it brings. Some factions became stronger and some weaker that`s all.

Oh, by the way, I absolutelly love new Hissho cause now they have new, special playstyle. However, the thing I don`t like is that now they recieve too much from federation in comparation with other govs.

one could also make s case for rebalancing some faction ships, like maybe giving Horatio ships an innate +1 move, or just let them embrace the turtle and change something else

There are numerous options for addressing the issue here, did Amp choose the wrong one? Sorta maybe, but it does make warfare more strategic and limiting which needed to happen. Lets face it, before it was easy to wage a war on all fronts, and this should not be possible (unless your empire is heckin tiny).

Meaningful choices are something that defines good gameplay. The changes to F-modules does not arguably make choices more meaningful; hero ships specs are only meaningful very early (this value is further reduced by CP changes now) and using a mod slot for a fleet accel doesn't diminish the value of the hero by anything noteworthy (It just makes Flag-class ships slow as heck now, lmao). Heroes always will be powerhouses because of their skills, not their ships.

That being said, lore-wise it's an odd choice. It makes sense that when the hero equips things only the hero can equip (like an inspiring war banner module) the army fights more good-er. Super shiny awe-inspiring shield? Defend more good-er! Neato space folding warp engine thing? Fly more good-er? Why can the hero only equip this? Does it somehow inspire the regular-soldier ships to fly faster? I dunno, these hero-fleet accels feel out of place for me.

Other (better) options for fix:

• Nerf: By far the easiest change to implement, just straight up reduce move bonus of fleet accels, instead of hyperium being a 1mp reduce it to something like .25mp per H-accel module and quadrinix a flat 1mp per Q-accel module. Goodbye taxi fleets.

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  Diminishing Returns: My favorite option for balancing things that are OP in large quantities is to utilize diminishing returns on said thing. Apply this to fleet accels. First H-accel on a fleet grants +2 fleet mp, then the bonus is reduced by a percent, say 50% for each one in the fleet beyond the first, so if you have 3 in a fleet the grand total move point bonus is only +3.5; I really like diminishing returns so much as it makes choices much more meaningful. Again, goodbye taxi fleets.

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  Exorbitant cost: If something causes an overpowered/undesirable mechanic, make it much more difficult to achieve. Taxi fleets were easy to make as they were cheap as heck for the benefit they offered. Multiply that cost, lets say 10, make fleet-accels 10 times more expensive in either industry, strategics, or both. Taxi fleets are possible but are they worth it? If you have the economy to spare for this then you have probably already won and who cares if you have a taxi fleet.

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  Tech Wall: Plenty of fantastic things in ES2 require a good deal of development to reach. Perhaps a big issue with f-accels is the ease of accessability. Perhaps the technology to increase the move speed of a whole fleet (A HYUGE AMOUNT OF SPACE to encapuslate all the ships, epsecially in 20CP fleets mind you) via big ol' warp bubble or whatever magical space science, should be much higher than T2, make it T4&5 or something. It could also be the only thing you get from researching a tech because it is that powerful. Tech wall functions similar to above, if you sink the time and energy to research the shiny, it will cost you in other tech you missed out on, so while your fleets are super mobile, do they have the weapons and tech to remain relevant and put up a fight?

Thanks for reading

delraith wrote:

Neato space folding warp engine thing? Fly more good-er? Why can the hero only equip this? Does it somehow inspire the regular-soldier ships to fly faster? I dunno, these hero-fleet accels feel out of place for me.

Better navigation? FAs don't necessarily mean better engines.

JulianSkieswrote:

one could also make s case for rebalancing some faction ships, like maybe giving Horatio ships an innate +1 move, or just let them embrace the turtle and change something else

When balancing, it's better to change as little things as possible to limit side-effects : it's easier to implement, test out and debug. I say, let's try to find some less drastic solution that doesn't require the devs to rework the entirety of the game's balance (because while RB and Horatio were hit negatively, other factions became way better because they naturally had tons of support slots already on top of high move speed, giving them an unwarranted buff in some cases).

twimpix wrote:

delraith wrote:

Neato space folding warp engine thing? Fly more good-er? Why can the hero only equip this? Does it somehow inspire the regular-soldier ships to fly faster? I dunno, these hero-fleet accels feel out of place for me.

Better navigation? FAs don't necessarily mean better engines.

Perhaps, but it specifically says "Accelerator" in the module. To rename it as "Hyperium Fleet Navigator" would make more sense cannonically, but it still seems odd to limit it to hero ahips alone.

delraith wrote:

Other (better) options for fix:

...

• ---

  Diminishing Returns: My favorite option for balancing things that are OP in large quantities is to utilize diminishing returns on said thing. Apply this to fleet accels. First H-accel on a fleet grants +2 fleet mp, then the bonus is reduced by a percent, say 50% for each one in the fleet beyond the first, so if you have 3 in a fleet the grand total move point bonus is only +3.5; I really like diminishing returns so much as it makes choices much more meaningful. Again, goodbye taxi fleets.

Diminishing Returns is the most appealing option - at least on my end.

nice and how you are supposed to paly vodyani now?

i played them with taxi fleets so you can have your arc setting and transport the arc with a taxi fleet to theyr destined system.

And now we are back to open Fleetmanagement make a new ersion of the arc with movement build the arc, open fleet system make the arc again a system arc when the arc arives doc it upgrade, risne and repeat .... so you have like 60 updates on arcs?????

at least give them 2 Build sides 1 docked and 1 undocked!!!

Dragisnaj wrote:

nice and how you are supposed to paly vodyani now?

i played them with taxi fleets so you can have your arc setting and transport the arc with a taxi fleet to theyr destined system.

And now we are back to open Fleetmanagement make a new ersion of the arc with movement build the arc, open fleet system make the arc again a system arc when the arc arives doc it upgrade, risne and repeat .... so you have like 60 updates on arcs?????

at least give them 2 Build sides 1 docked and 1 undocked!!!

Hahaha...that's funny.

Dragisnaj wrote:

nice and how you are supposed to paly vodyani now?

i played them with taxi fleets so you can have your arc setting and transport the arc with a taxi fleet to theyr destined system.

And now we are back to open Fleetmanagement make a new ersion of the arc with movement build the arc, open fleet system make the arc again a system arc when the arc arives doc it upgrade, risne and repeat .... so you have like 60 updates on arcs?????

at least give them 2 Build sides 1 docked and 1 undocked!!!

Make an Ark model that can be mobile

Make an Ark model that sits still

sacrifice your system modules for an engine on your mobile model

JulianSkies wrote:

Dragisnaj wrote:

nice and how you are supposed to paly vodyani now?

Make an Ark model that can be mobile

Make an Ark model that sits still

sacrifice your system modules for an engine on your mobile model

Or there could be an option to retrofit a ship laterally (instead of ONLY linearly along it's particular design line), as long as the hulls are the same I don't see any reason why not. That was a feature from a 4x game of yonder years, Alpha Centauri, and it was sweet.

Yes, the treaty upkeep is kinda nuts.

Oh, thank you. Howether, I believe you misunderstand me a bit. I suppose, I put too much complains in a single post. It's not, that I don't know all these information. After all, in time I spent good amount of time to fully grasp Horatio's gameplay logic. Now, for the most part, I can't understand why Horatio and some other factions receive this blow to their early (mainly) game...I mean, it's already may be problematic.

Yes, exuse me, I suppose I was too much expressive. Anyway, thank you !

DarthMelkor wrote:

SteveRaptor wrote:

Donalejandro wrote:

We are in distress...Some time ago, I decided to make an experiment. I played two games: my main faction Horatio and Sophons. Both games via military (Supremacy and Extermination). Endless difficulty. Both were pretty successful. Howether...one question. I understand that Horatio are late-game players, but! Lets imagine their early conflict. Basic attackers. Sophons - 2 weapons, two deffence modules, damage amplifier...and 7 MP with a proper law, which can be abolished during siges. Horatio...3 weapons and ammplifier...2 MP.  Engine+3 weapons/2 weapons+amplifiers...5MP. ... Then, lets add additional ship cost for Horatio and lesser cost for Sophons (even bigger if they go military). Oh, yes, we have more health! T_T.

You know, for the most part, let it be, "independently" I like new patch. No "taxy`s", bigger fleets, importance of engines and defence...But why!? all these changes must hit my favorite faction, which, as it is, is already famed as "week" (I don`t agree, but anyway)! Bigger fleets? Ok, but now we need even more time to build a fleet to compare with others in quantity. Importance of engines and deffence? Good, but we have fewer amount of slots (even lesser on carrier), so we have to chose strengh/something else, but also important...Yes, there are heroes with fleet accelerators and MP skills...but early accelerators are weak and different heros have different contributions to MP and battle prowess...It`s still posible to play, it`s still a very good game...but, what in the world? Is it some form of reccompensation for Horatio oriented game? Horatios already have problems, and now, there is even more of them. It is not impossible to play Horatio...It`s just sad.

Anyway...I have the idea. Not very clear, but... let`s build our own perfect heroes. Horatios were always good with them. Maby it`s possible to do something from this perspective? Clonning, additional bonuses for Horatio`s heroes (in Horatios hands), something in line with this point of view...what do you think about this idea?

Upd.

Oh. And I almost forget about headhunter skill that allow Horatio from original ES to search for special type heroes.

Horatio has "Average" small ships, great hunters and good carriers.

You should transition your fleets composition around those hulls.

For small attackers (with upgrade) I would go for 2x Defense 2x engines and 3x weapons, this allows their small ships to be competetive with all factions although they still get outgunned by riftborns (best small ships in the game) and vodyani small attackers.

You want to transition to Horatio hunter as soon as possible, horatio hunters are one of the few that can mount 5 small weapons +1 large weapons (compared to 4+1 on most of the other factions).

2x defense modules 5x small weapons 1x engine and you now have a choice of either:

1) Damage amplifier

2) 2nd engine

You could also remove 1 small weapon and get a 2nd engine and damage amplifer, this puts the hunter in line with most hunters of other factions.

A combined mid game fleet of small attackers and hunters will get you far.

Late game you can switch the small attackers with 2 carriers and finish off with 2 carriers and the rest hunters.

Horatio co-ordinator is fairly lacking so I don't bother with it.

With the buff to shield flotilla module, you can also mix 2 support ships filled with fleet shields as well, horatio support ships are quiet useful, even without the FA.

Sophons don't really care about FA, they have the most mobile fleet in the game and has access to a scientist hero right from the start with tones of fleet MS boni.

Hope this helped mr.baldyman.

The issue being that you've got to sacrifice a lot to even be competetive with other factions. Single player, you can win easily against AI even on Endless (I think they still don't use anything other than white modules). The only way to even make Horatio remotely competetive against other factions was using protector fleet taxis due to their lack of slots. They are still a strong late game faction due to their expansionist tendencies but, this change severely damages their chances of getting there as inevitably, you need military might to fuel your expansion and these changes have made it an even harder early/mid game for Horatio.

What exactly are you sacrificing that much to stay competetive with other factions?

Is anyone from the Dev team reading this? I feel the game is more boring and slow now, even more in large galaxy sizes. I can't stand these ships taking years to reach another system and discovering stuff with node connectivity set to max! Hoping they think about balancing the game again.

In one single they patch they've:

• Killed Hissho
• Killed Obliterators
• KIlled fleet accelerators and fleet mobility
• Nerfed fleet combat reducing CP

Now I can't play on large galaxies with a lot of other empires, which I used to like,  can't explode other empires' home system quickly, can't play as Hissho without having to be Ludwig Von Mises carefully calculating every single fraction of Keii spent.

After this patch they could at least let achievements on when mods are present.