Fenrakk101 wrote:

Also, a side note for anyone who didn't notice, since I imagine someone will bring it up at some point: technically the Era 2 weapons tech aren't strictly upgrades; they don't do more damage, they are simply the Long and Medium range variants of the same weapons. 

Really? That isn't something I figured out from the UI at all. I figured it was like EL where you'd get the higher level weapons without needing their lower level equivalents (at least in EL, they gave you a discount on tech if you'd researched an earlier era's weapons and armour tech, so they weren't completely useless if you chose them early).

Add yet another piece of constructive criticism to the pyre!

Thorin937 wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

- Add a generic weapons tech that doesn't require any special resources.

I think advancing eras already gives you upgrades to the generic weapons, just like in EL. 

Ah, I hadn't noticed that. I guess that does help to keep your fleets relevant even if you don't put effort into the military tree - at least, as long as you research the hull techs. And the command points techs.

In fact the era-based weapon upgrades are strictly better because they don't require strategic resources.

Cronstintein wrote:

In fact the era-based weapon upgrades are strictly better because they don't require strategic resources.

Not necessarily.  They cost twice the production value of the previous eras' weapons, generic or specialized.

I had no idea that the titanium etc weapons from era 2 were simply range variants and not straight up improvements (although as someone else noted as battles start at long range having a long range variant vs an opponent that is close range will favour you) ... is this communicated in the tech tree (sorry, screen) at all?

Thaeos wrote:

I had no idea that the titanium etc weapons from era 2 were simply range variants and not straight up improvements (although as someone else noted as battles start at long range having a long range variant vs an opponent that is close range will favour you) ... is this communicated in the tech tree (sorry, screen) at all?

I seem to have been completely wrong about that - instead, it seems weapon ranges are determined by ship hulls. Which I don't believe is communicated at all, no.

Though, considering no one called me out on it, I'm not sure I really feel bad about that. The whole system is counterintuitive.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Having had a night's rest to think on it, I wanted to elaborate more on why I find this tech tree so problematic, and why the tech tree in ES1 worked so well in comparison.

It all stems from one observation: there is no reason to get military techs when you're not at war. Thanks to rising tech costs, it is actually, genuinely a waste to research a military tech you never use. If you get a weapons tech for safety, but then don't get into any wars until you have better tech, you are now at a disadvantage to everyone else - especially if they waited until Era 2 to grab their first military tech, meaning they now have an extra economy/infrastructure tech and better weapons than you.

In ES1, it was next to impossible to have an actual waste of a tech. Even if you never used a particular tech, most techs were requisites for other techs, and that tech would likely be helpful in some way. Plus, techs didn't rise in cost. Also, in ES1, the player who focuses on the military tech will have the advantage in any battle, but the other fleet-related techs were spread throughout the entire tree. The diplomatic race will have more command points, the expansionist will have bigger hulls, the industry guy is going to be better able to replace their ships. The military guy will still have the most cost-effective ships, but the other players will at least be able to mount some defense. And if they've gone into the lategame and completely ignored the military branch of the tree, they've made a critical strategic error, and the aggressive player is simply capitalizing on it.

There's no such system of checks and balances in ES2. The military upgrades exist solely in the military tree, and the better hulls are their own separate techs. And again, there's no reason to get them until you need them. Not only that, but there's no way of knowing when you'll need them. Both you and your opponents can get any tech at any time. Say you're at 9/10 techs to get to era 2, you have no military techs and you really want a planet colonization tech. If you get to era 2 without that colony tech, it's no longer worth the investment, because of the rising tech costs. If you're not under any immediate threat, the only logical choice is to get the colony tech, and then get an era 2 military tech. Except, you can suddenly be under immediate threat at any time. Your opponent can come out of nowhere with their own tech advantage and decimate you. There's no warning, no time to prepare. If you come under threat while choosing the colony tech, you're at a disadvantage. If you get the military tech but don't come under threat soon, you're now at an economic disadvantage. You didn't make a strategic choice, you didn't assess any risks; they were both risks, and you made a blind guess. And the game is now so fast-paced that decisions do have consequences that dire in that short a period of time. You succeed or fail based on arbitrary luck.

In Endless Space 1, you did make strategic choices. If you wanted an advantage, you had to commit to it, and you had to be right about it - you had to know if your opponent was using missiles and had no shields, for example. If you fall very far behind in an area, that's on you. But Endless Space 2 gives you far less information, while asking you to choose from many more options.

I'm sure that, given enough playtime and experience, you could suss out enough tactical intuition to know what techs to get and when. With enough investment, it probably isn't as arbitrary as I'm describing it. But I absolutely do not find this system compelling enough to warrant that amount of investment; at this point, the tech tree is actively making the game unenjoyable for me.

Well I feel likewise. I loved the ES1 style of tech-tree and hope you guys from Amplitude reconsider things. It felt more strategic.

Clarste wrote:

I believe the devs have already said that they plan to add prerequisites to more advanced technologies. That's just something that's not implemented yet.

Do you know where they said this?

Also, another thing that occurred to me overnight: THE HEROES HAVE MORE OF A TECH TREE THAN THE TECH TREE DOES. Someone earlier pointed out (and I very much agree) that the current screen is a bit of an eyesore, and especially if they try to lay prerequisite technologies over that, it could easily become an opaque mess. Someone else responded that the boxes-in-boxes-in-boxes-in-boxes aesthetic is used everywhere in the game, but that's not true! The hero skill selection has a circular presentation, which also has an unlocking mechanic not unlike the era system. And I mean, I also wish that one had prerequisites like the skills system in ES1, but it's the presentation that bothers me more.

...actually, upon reflection, I don't really have a point to make with this observation. Just another frustrating inconsistency in the game. The more I've played it, the more it starts to feel like they've changed everything they could just for the sake of changing things, without regards to overall gameplay, and certainly not with regards to what the strengths of ES1 were. The gutting of the tech tree, of the hero skills tree, the overstreamlining of ship design, the removal of diplomacy locks in exchange for force truce... how much do these things contribute to the Endless Space formula? Does removing so many of the features of ES1 and replacing them with completely different features really advance it as a sequel?

I said way back at the beginning that the tech tree of ES1 was one of the most interesting and compelling features of the game - but perhaps I am alone in feeling that the tech tree was an integral part of the game's identity?

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Clarste wrote:

I believe the devs have already said that they plan to add prerequisites to more advanced technologies. That's just something that's not implemented yet.

Do you know where they said this?

https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/66-game-design/thread/20678-community-gdd-7-update-empire-management

Technology

• Technology links and prerequisites are not in the Early Access version, but on the long term this mechanic is subject to change

Well, it's obviously based on Endless Legend. That's less "changed for the sake of change" and more "we are building off of our experiences". The problem, as noted by most people in this thread, is that this system doesn't work nearly as well in a game like Endless Space.

Honestly, I really loved the tech web and would be perfectly happy if they just reverted to that, but I do think the Era system could be salvaged with some major tweaks. And it does offer some advantages.

Hmm... maybe? I've played ES1 so many times now that I don't even think about it anymore. The basic design of it has also been imitated (poorly) in Civilization: Beyond Earth. But upon consideration, yeah, I think the tech web was a very important part of Endless Space, and that needs to be taken into account by its sequel. That said, I still think some kind of compromise is possible. What we should be doing is clearly identifying the merits of the tech web system and maybe exploring other ways to achieve those same goals. That's what "building off their previous experience" should mean, at any rate. Maybe starting with EL as a base was a bad idea, but that doesn't mean we need to blindly discard everything about it.

From both my own experiences and this thread, I feel like these are the main perks of the Tech web:

• You can choose to deeply specialize in a tree, while barely touching other trees. This lets you choose what your empire is good at.
• It's incredibly easy to backfill technologies that you skipped the first time around. This is especially important for things like colonization technologies: maybe you don't need desert planets right now, but you can always just learn it in one turn later.
• No tech is ever wasted: even if you don't use it, it'll be a prerequisite for a later tech.
• The web is visually intuitive: you can see how everything connects at a glance.

However, it also has several "flaws" compared to the current system:

• You have very few choices at any given time, within each tree. Generally 2-3 nodes are open, compared to the 4-5 you get from the era system. This leads to a more linear, pre-determined tech progression.
• You can specialize too much, letting your empire atrophy in certain areas, which is quite hard to balance around.
• You can ignore vital techs until you need them. This makes planning ahead less important.

Well, Techtree or something concerning it, is not mentioned in the resent DEV's to-do list past EA.... ;(

Yeah, the hero skill tree is basically a better version of the tech tree in ES2. That was kinda the first thing I noticed after my hero got a level up and mentioned it here.

It has a tiered skill system which could work for the tech tree if they want to keep the eras.

After reading all the posts it seems that I need to pay more attention to the weapon techs and noticed that the colonization techs are pretty difficult to balance as well.

One game I got incredibly unlucky with lots of different planet types in all my close systems so 12 different colonization techs made this round even more restrictive with the round limit.

The current version just doesn't have the depth and feels off in general. Mechanically and visually it was much more enjoyable to plan your way of progression in ES1.

Maybe you could do the Tech Tree similar to the Hero Ability Tree? Like you have to research certain amounts of technologies to unlock the next Era, and these Techs are more like bubbles with certain sub techs like it was suggested before? Similar to the Civ BE, but less interconnected. That you take the ES1 Tree, split it in Eras, and put certain techs behind a keytech.