I've come back to the game after a while and noticed that oblitorators were rebalanced. I'm not sure why they were rebalanced in the first place, because I was not privy to the dialogue, but upon obtaining one I noticed that it would take 40 turns (approx 1/5 of a standard normal game) to fire without cost, and the costs of firing earlier being quite expensive unless you've gamed the galaxy resource settingsin the menu setup, or are already an economic behemoth.

I think they may have been nerfed too hard....?

Maybe it's more balanced from a purely competitive perspective, but in terms of fun factor seeing a lot less galaxy destruction is honestly disapointing. Why not have a range limit on the shot and a more restrictive oblit limit instead? The charge cost makes them kind of pointless to invest the tech/resources into when there are far better (and less exciting) choices for tipping the balance in a situation where you may be desperate, or limits the ability for an AI to become a bit more a villain in your gameplay story.

And on that note, can this be modded out? This seems like an instance where a portion of the community has actually detracted from the game with their feedback.

PARAdoxiBLE wrote:

Main reasons for nerfing Oblits were 1) Double-tap and 2) absence of downright hard counter, which are not proper reason to nerf Oblits like this from my perspective.

And I think that would be moddable. Actually I tried to do something in my mod but I got some bug report on Oblits changes so currently in fixing.

What is 'doub-tap'? 

I can kind of understand the hardcounter perspective, yet I think if a player has invested in an expensive piece of hardware with such power to use as a break-through offensive weapon I think it would have been better to have:

a. A much lower charge time, but high cost of firing earlier

b. the oblit marked on the map at all times

c. a large diplo malus and other empires aligning against you and being far more willing to be aggro

d. A one system adjacent range

e. really limit how many can be fielded to... 1, or 2 max.

Have the oblit be really powerful, make it a really meaningful decision to commit to with the tradeoff of risking a pile in and cornering yourself. 

As a meaningful tactical and strategic decison and break-through mechanic it fails to be anything other than useless. Imagine putting a really freakin' cool idea for an epic space 4x game for us armchair emperors and then knee-cap the thing into the shadow realm because some people didn't like the expansion.

Keimpe wrote:

I for one play with obliterators, and found them a bit too easy to get and to fire.

Now you can still fire them if you so desire.

I for one was blown out of space earlier. But it doesn't happen all the time.

I think the perfect balance has been made, at least for my team of players.

I don't think so. Obliterator already did not have substantial effect on strategies. It wasn't that rewarding, because you have to sacrifice potential +1 economic behemoth. Plus to that, it was not able to hinder or cripple enemies with mere shields, even before the nerf.

Keimpe wrote:

I for one play with obliterators, and found them a bit too easy to get and to fire.

Now you can still fire them if you so desire.

I for one was blown out of space earlier. But it doesn't happen all the time.

I think the perfect balance has been made, at least for my team of players.

I don't see how the current balancing justifies in anyway the cost of producing one obliterator let alone firing it even once in a game. Yeah, you may destroy one system, but at that stage in the game it will have little to no meaningful impact and is an utter waste of time. It singlehandedly poses little threat in the late game.

It's supposed to be a doomsday device.... 

TheFunMachine wrote:

Keimpe wrote:

I for one play with obliterators, and found them a bit too easy to get and to fire.

Now you can still fire them if you so desire.

I for one was blown out of space earlier. But it doesn't happen all the time.

I think the perfect balance has been made, at least for my team of players.

I don't see how the current balancing justifies in anyway the cost of producing one obliterator let alone firing it even once in a game. Yeah, you may destroy one system, but at that stage in the game it will have little to no meaningful impact and is an utter waste of time. It singlehandedly poses little threat in the late game.

It's supposed to be a doomsday device.... 

I think it still is, i just finished a game where i obliterated 5 systems.

I think it still is quite doomsday. But not so doomsday as being a bit overpowered, what i think they were. (little consequence)

I had 2 Obliterators in my last game. Which was a shock to my group of players.

I think it is perfect as it is. You know they are there. But you have to put effort in it.

I do agree however that the turns could be less. I forgot the name, but there is a tech that reduces the countdown 25%? 

I think that should maybe be standard. And then 25% extra as a tech.

Sublustris wrote:

TheFunMachine wrote:

PARAdoxiBLE wrote:

Main reasons for nerfing Oblits were 1) Double-tap and 2) absence of downright hard counter, which are not proper reason to nerf Oblits like this from my perspective.

And I think that would be moddable. Actually I tried to do something in my mod but I got some bug report on Oblits changes so currently in fixing.

What is 'doub-tap'? 

I can kind of understand the hardcounter perspective, yet I think if a player has invested in an expensive piece of hardware with such power to use as a break-through offensive weapon I think it would have been better to have:

a. A much lower charge time, but high cost of firing earlier

b. the oblit marked on the map at all times

c. a large diplo malus and other empires aligning against you and being far more willing to be aggro

d. A one system adjacent range

e. really limit how many can be fielded to... 1, or 2 max.

Have the oblit be really powerful, make it a really meaningful decision to commit to with the tradeoff of risking a pile in and cornering yourself. 

As a meaningful tactical and strategic decison and break-through mechanic it fails to be anything other than useless. Imagine putting a really freakin' cool idea for an epic space 4x game for us armchair emperors and then knee-cap the thing into the shadow realm because some people didn't like the expansion.

From bad to worse. You really don't understand or use Obliterartors.

That's a great point. I appreciate the bit of input you wrote here, your detailed insight and I feel like I grasp your position even if we disagree.

I apologize, I misunderstood and thought you want to nerf them further, because that's what "b, c, d, e" you propose do.

Slashman wrote:

I think they should reduce the malus to apporval by 10. Shorten the firing time by 15 turns and reduce the needed resources by approximately 25%. 

I really don't like waiting half the game to get to play with my doomsday weapons.

I second this proposal. 

TheFunMachine wrote:

Maybe it's more balanced from a purely competitive perspective, but in terms of fun factor seeing a lot less galaxy destruction is honestly disapointing. Why not have a range limit on the shot and a more restrictive oblit limit instead? The charge cost makes them kind of pointless to invest the tech/resources into when there are far better (and less exciting) choices for tipping the balance in a situation where you may be desperate, or limits the ability for an AI to become a bit more a villain in your gameplay story.

And on that note, can this be modded out? This seems like an instance where a portion of the community has actually detracted from the game with their feedback.

Adding a range limit would require modifying the AI, the thing with infinite range is that you don't have to bother telling your AI how to shoot on the target it has already chosen, you can do it from anywere. At this point of the dev cycle, the probability of them doing that is close to zero.

There are mods out there that made some more sensible (imho) changes to obliterators to counter double tapping and to slightly nerf them as they were a bit too good, if you wish to revert the changes to how things were pre 1.4.2 patch it is also possible via mods.