I'd prefer the newer ship designer system to the older system if there were more meaningful module and battle choices.

In general, a lot of people who preferred ES1 to EL seem disappointed that Amplitude decided to shun micro in favour of macro-level control. I preferred Endless Legend to Endless Space, and I personally appreciate the lack of fiddling about with sliders and tonnage limits and not having to research 4 obsolete techs to get the one I want.

That being said, there is a lot that is missing from the game right now, but I want Amplitude to continue building and refining on the existing systems rather than scrapping them entirely.

I definitely do agree with you that the tech tree needs to be reworked from the ground up, but besides all that I am generally happy with the direction of the game. Sorry you don't seem to feel the same.

atejas wrote:

I definitely do agree with you that the tech tree needs to be reworked from the ground up, but besides all that I am generally happy with the direction of the game. Sorry you don't seem to feel the same.

I don't begrudge anyone for liking the new direction, but I also don't think it's unreasonable to be upset that the game is not the game its title would suggest. :)

Fenrakk101 wrote:

I thought so too at first, but the more time spent playing and thinking about it, the more it became clear that this was an entirely different game. The tech system is the most strikingly insane example, but you would also need to change the ship design screen (so that you can build kinetics/lasers/missiles on all hulls instead of it being predetermined), you would need to revert the resource system (currently you accrue resources like in EL, instead of simply having a set amount like in ES, which itself is taken from Civ), you have a diplomacy system based on Influence instead of resources, a completely different battle system, you have minor factions roaming the map and also in your empire and also politics, the list goes on and on and on. This game will not be enjoyable for the same reasons Endless Space was enjoyable.

I wouldn't put words in their mouth and say they're under communication lockdown or anything like that. For one thing, it's the weekend, but far more importantly, they also released Tempest last week, on top of how busy they must have already been after the launch of ES2. Which takes me back to the fact that they delayed ES2 to this point - again I wonder, what was the delay for? And to schedule these two in the same week, I have to wonder if they genuinely did not expect the negative reception to ES2, whatever much of it there is - it still feels like the release has been largely positive even here, as most people are suggesting hybrid systems, rather than demanding complete overhauls. It still feels like there's much more anger over the new battle system than the tech system, even though the battle system is the one thing I could probably live with in an ES sequel.

Right, but that's a bit of a problem. The whole point of buying a sequel is that you enjoyed the previous entry. If I enjoyed Skyrim and the sequel is a shooter with magic set during WW2, I'm going to be annoyed. It doesn't matter if it's the best game on Earth, because it's too different from the previous one. A new game/series should be revolutionary. A sequel should be evolutionary. There's a reason Pokemon and Call of Duty only add a few new mechanics, yet sell millions each time. Because the fans have a pretty good inclination they'll enjoy it. The rest of the points you make are all little refinements, not a completely different mechanic.

And this second point also doesn't seem to hold much water. The issues with Vodyani? They've addressed them. The force truce mechanic? Addressed them. Various bug reports? Addressed. Almost every major issue has had a developer reply, with the glaring exception of the tech tree. While I adore Amplitude and I'm sure it isn't intentional, it does strike the community as alarming that the issue hasn't even been acknowledged.

Romeo wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

I thought so too at first, but the more time spent playing and thinking about it, the more it became clear that this was an entirely different game. The tech system is the most strikingly insane example, but you would also need to change the ship design screen (so that you can build kinetics/lasers/missiles on all hulls instead of it being predetermined), you would need to revert the resource system (currently you accrue resources like in EL, instead of simply having a set amount like in ES, which itself is taken from Civ), you have a diplomacy system based on Influence instead of resources, a completely different battle system, you have minor factions roaming the map and also in your empire and also politics, the list goes on and on and on. This game will not be enjoyable for the same reasons Endless Space was enjoyable.

Right, but that's a bit of a problem. The whole point of buying a sequel is that you enjoyed the previous entry.

That's more or less the entire point of this thread :P

Romeo wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

I wouldn't put words in their mouth and say they're under communication lockdown or anything like that. For one thing, it's the weekend, but far more importantly, they also released Tempest last week, on top of how busy they must have already been after the launch of ES2. Which takes me back to the fact that they delayed ES2 to this point - again I wonder, what was the delay for? And to schedule these two in the same week, I have to wonder if they genuinely did not expect the negative reception to ES2, whatever much of it there is - it still feels like the release has been largely positive even here, as most people are suggesting hybrid systems, rather than demanding complete overhauls. It still feels like there's much more anger over the new battle system than the tech system, even though the battle system is the one thing I could probably live with in an ES sequel.

And this second point also doesn't seem to hold much water. The issues with Vodyani? They've addressed them. The force truce mechanic? Addressed them. Various bug reports? Addressed. Almost every major issue has had a developer reply, with the glaring exception of the tech tree. While I adore Amplitude and I'm sure it isn't intentional, it does strike the community as alarming that the issue hasn't even been acknowledged.

It does warrant more elaboration, but I do think their response has been underwhelming. The tech tree is of course a glaring omission, but more important, they have no acknowledged the overarching issue of the game not being a sequel to Endless Space. While they have responded to problems with specific mechanics, they have failed to address the community about the overall shift in design. Added to the suspicious word choice in the GDDs that I referenced earlier, it gives the impression that they're trying to avoid the issue.

Of course, it's still just an impression, and that's why I say I don't want to put words in their mouth. It seems like they're ignoring it, but they could very well be putting together a long post about it. But if they are, it would also be nice to know that they're working on one.

Romeo wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

I thought so too at first, but the more time spent playing and thinking about it, the more it became clear that this was an entirely different game. The tech system is the most strikingly insane example, but you would also need to change the ship design screen (so that you can build kinetics/lasers/missiles on all hulls instead of it being predetermined), you would need to revert the resource system (currently you accrue resources like in EL, instead of simply having a set amount like in ES, which itself is taken from Civ), you have a diplomacy system based on Influence instead of resources, a completely different battle system, you have minor factions roaming the map and also in your empire and also politics, the list goes on and on and on. This game will not be enjoyable for the same reasons Endless Space was enjoyable.

I wouldn't put words in their mouth and say they're under communication lockdown or anything like that. For one thing, it's the weekend, but far more importantly, they also released Tempest last week, on top of how busy they must have already been after the launch of ES2. Which takes me back to the fact that they delayed ES2 to this point - again I wonder, what was the delay for? And to schedule these two in the same week, I have to wonder if they genuinely did not expect the negative reception to ES2, whatever much of it there is - it still feels like the release has been largely positive even here, as most people are suggesting hybrid systems, rather than demanding complete overhauls. It still feels like there's much more anger over the new battle system than the tech system, even though the battle system is the one thing I could probably live with in an ES sequel.

Right, but that's a bit of a problem. The whole point of buying a sequel is that you enjoyed the previous entry. If I enjoyed Skyrim and the sequel is a shooter with magic set during WW2, I'm going to be annoyed. It doesn't matter if it's the best game on Earth, because it's too different from the previous one. A new game/series should be revolutionary. A sequel should be evolutionary. There's a reason Pokemon and Call of Duty only add a few new mechanics, yet sell millions each time. Because the fans have a pretty good inclination they'll enjoy it. The rest of the points you make are all little refinements, not a completely different mechanic.

And this second point also doesn't seem to hold much water. The issues with Vodyani? They've addressed them. The force truce mechanic? Addressed them. Various bug reports? Addressed. Almost every major issue has had a developer reply, with the glaring exception of the tech tree. While I adore Amplitude and I'm sure it isn't intentional, it does strike the community as alarming that the issue hasn't even been acknowledged.

In their defense, most of the changes that people have asked for as far as race rebalancing and combat is simply a matter of adding on to what exists or tweaking things. What the community (and I) want from the tech tree is a total top-down redesign. That takes longer to work out. Sooner is better than later as far as acknowledging it goes, though.

Endless Legend : Beyond Auriga ... hahaha. Ouch. That's actually rather cutting.

That said, smashing ES and EL together is definitely not the right recipe to create ES2, I think that much is clear with the way the Technology Tree has become a horrid mess of required technology researches (which in turn bar you from revisiting earlier eras) and the combat which at this point is at the very least a strong candidate for a massive revamp if not a total rewrite.

I've been marshalling my thoughts on weapons and defences, and I've a lot to say there, much of which isn't going to be positive once more, because by using Endless Legend's model they've managed to come up with a poor substitute again for what they're shooting for. That'll be for another post though.

It's more like EL wearing the skin of ES than smashing those two together right now.

Since playing EL again I've come to the realization that a changed tech system would directly affect so many other aspects "borrowed" from EL that it would take a lot to rework them. I am not quite sure for example how the current weapon techs can fit into a proper tech web/tree with the current unit system taken from EL.  The same thing goes for strategic resources and their use for weapons/improvements. The whole weapon tier system would have to change.

A horrid mess is a fitting describtion of the whole situation right now.

Hobbesian wrote:

Endless Legend : Beyond Auriga ... hahaha. Ouch. That's actually rather cutting.

That said, smashing ES and EL together is definitely not the right recipe to create ES2, I think that much is clear with the way the Technology Tree has become a horrid mess of required technology researches (which in turn bar you from revisiting earlier eras) and the combat which at this point is at the very least a strong candidate for a massive revamp if not a total rewrite.

I've been marshalling my thoughts on weapons and defences, and I've a lot to say there, much of which isn't going to be positive once more, because by using Endless Legend's model they've managed to come up with a poor substitute again for what they're shooting for. That'll be for another post though.

You could keep making post after post after post of every system in the game. Without the developers coming out and making it explicitly clear what they want this game to look like, there will be an endless tirade of posts. I don't mind the new combat system so much, it seems mostly alienating to EL players; so EL players are on this side making EL-based suggestions, and then players like myself are on another side making ES-based suggestions. We agree on stuff like the tech tree and force truce, but every major mechanic is going to have problems for one end of the spectrum. It's a mad tug of war and we're all going to lose at this rate.

Force truce itself is an interesting point of discussion; the devs' stance on it seems to just be, "We'll do what we like." Amidst angry posts and complaints about the system leading to unfun situations, the first dev response in the thread was, "It's going to be okay in the final game, because it'll happen less often!" Uh, what? That doesn't acknowledge a single problem; an infuriating system that shows up less often is still an infuriating system. The more recent post elaborated on how they intend to fix it, which was not "we're going to remove this system because nobody likes it and nobody asked for it," they fully intend to leave it in, except giving you the option to decline. Which raises a billion other questions about "What's even the point?" - it comes off as the developers trying desperately to say "we'll do what we like" in response to people telling them they don't want what they like.

If this was a new game, a new IP by them, that would be a perfectly fine way of doing things. They're the game designers here, they're making the product, they have a vision and our job is to refine it. But another key point of this thread has been that "creative freedom" isn't passable as a be-all end-all excuse here; you're selling a game called Endless Space 2, people are buying it because they want a sequel to Endless Space, and you're not actually providing a sequel to Endless Space. The game already had a vision, and it was called Endless Space, and now they're changing it. I think I said in the OP (if not then it was another thread), it feels like so many things have been changed just for the sake of changing them. The force truce is a clear example of that; there's literally no point to that system existing, except to be different. But sequels aren't supposed to change every single thing possible. It's almost like sequels simply aren't compatible with Amplitude's philosophies, and their apparent desire to never ever do the same thing twice.

The major bad thing is the tech tree. At first I thought that this wasn't really a bad idea, just that it needed some improvement. But now I think it just doesn't fit the game AT ALL. As it has already been said somewhere, a limited tech tree doesn't fit a game where your goal is to expand and develop yourself exponentially. Every tech you research feels like a punishment because of the science cost augmentation and that's quite bad. The idea of developement, progression of a civilization come with the idea of things growing biger and faster, and that's not what this tech tree is about. The tech tree with this science cost increase is a huge killjoy and nothing else.

I just wanted to say you may be going on rather harshly on the force truce. While I am waiting for the implementation of changes to make any new pronouncements, what they have described as their solution is esentialy a war fatigue system, where a war will constantly drain your resources and population until it becomes counter-productive to wage it, at which point you may wish to engage in negotiations or accept a temporary cease fire and whatever bribe the enemy decided to shove down your way. Giving us the option to refuse this is a huge however, it basicaly stops the system from beeing non-interactive and turns it into a risk managment system where you can toy with how far you will push war fatigue in order to gain total victory and if that is even possible.

Again, this system demands more work and detatil than what they have offered up to this point, but it looks to be heading in the right direction. Simply removing the all or nothing nature of the system in favour of a granular aproach to mounting population discomfort with the war shifts this back in the player's hands and stops even having the mechanic be worthy of the name force truce. Granted, the comunity designed tree pacifists will have the force truce in the old form at the cost of sacrificing pops for it, but a racial ability like that is something I can live with much better than the entire system beeing unilateral.

XDAvenger93 wrote:

I just wanted to say you may be going on rather harshly on the force truce. While I am waiting for the implementation of changes to make any new pronouncements, what they have described as their solution is esentialy a war fatigue system, where a war will constantly drain your resources and population until it becomes counter-productive to wage it, at which point you may wish to engage in negotiations or accept a temporary cease fire and whatever bribe the enemy decided to shove down your way. Giving us the option to refuse this is a huge however, it basicaly stops the system from beeing non-interactive and turns it into a risk managment system where you can toy with how far you will push war fatigue in order to gain total victory and if that is even possible.

Again, this system demands more work and detatil than what they have offered up to this point, but it looks to be heading in the right direction. Simply removing the all or nothing nature of the system in favour of a granular aproach to mounting population discomfort with the war shifts this back in the player's hands and stops even having the mechanic be worthy of the name force truce. Granted, the comunity designed tree pacifists will have the force truce in the old form at the cost of sacrificing pops for it, but a racial ability like that is something I can live with much better than the entire system beeing unilateral.

Couldn't agree more with this "war fatigue" thing. This is clever, and this give us the control over the situation. I'm liking this.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

XDAvenger93 wrote:

I just wanted to say you may be going on rather harshly on the force truce. While I am waiting for the implementation of changes to make any new pronouncements, what they have described as their solution is esentialy a war fatigue system, where a war will constantly drain your resources and population until it becomes counter-productive to wage it, at which point you may wish to engage in negotiations or accept a temporary cease fire and whatever bribe the enemy decided to shove down your way. Giving us the option to refuse this is a huge however, it basicaly stops the system from beeing non-interactive and turns it into a risk managment system where you can toy with how far you will push war fatigue in order to gain total victory and if that is even possible.

If you haven't been following the force truce thread, I've been elaborating much more on why I find their solution incredibly problematic, one of the most recent posts is a long one by me in which I make my point quite well: https://www.games2gether.com/endless-space-2/forum/66-game-design/thread/20814-game-experience-force-truce?page=5 (is there a way to link to a specific post?)

The short version of it is, the concept of war fatigue makes literally no sense at all in the context of the game (for reasons explained in-depth in that thread). But even if we accept that, war fatigue that only activates when your opponent decides that they're sick of the war is absolutely insane. If it was just a slow-growing Disapproval rating, like increasing by -0.5 every turn or something, that would make way more sense than anything involving force truce.

Well the good news is, they've already agreed to fix the "Force Truce" option. As it goes, it'll be a "Request Truce" where the offerer chooses how much to offer to try and entice the other party. Should they refuse, they can continue to annihilate the other party, but with a slight happiness ding. After a set period of turns, another truce can be offered, with the approval ding stacking each time. Eventually the guy leading the assault is going to want to stop fighting (Theoretically), but if he can, he can still go on to wipe out the other Empire. I hated the Force Truce mechanic, thankfully, I like what the change suggests. Now if they could fix the god-forsaken tech system, I could safely name this my GOTY...

Romeo wrote:

Well the good news is, they've already agreed to fix the "Force Truce" option. As it goes, it'll be a "Request Truce" where the offerer chooses how much to offer to try and entice the other party. Should they refuse, they can continue to annihilate the other party, but with a slight happiness ding. After a set period of turns, another truce can be offered, with the approval ding stacking each time. Eventually the guy leading the assault is going to want to stop fighting (Theoretically), but if he can, he can still go on to wipe out the other Empire. I hated the Force Truce mechanic, thankfully, I like what the change suggests. Now if they could fix the god-forsaken tech system, I could safely name this my GOTY...

You didn't read my post at all... :'D I explicitly said even with the changes it's a stupid mechanic, and wrote many a paragraph on why.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Romeo wrote:

Well the good news is, they've already agreed to fix the "Force Truce" option. As it goes, it'll be a "Request Truce" where the offerer chooses how much to offer to try and entice the other party. Should they refuse, they can continue to annihilate the other party, but with a slight happiness ding. After a set period of turns, another truce can be offered, with the approval ding stacking each time. Eventually the guy leading the assault is going to want to stop fighting (Theoretically), but if he can, he can still go on to wipe out the other Empire. I hated the Force Truce mechanic, thankfully, I like what the change suggests. Now if they could fix the god-forsaken tech system, I could safely name this my GOTY...

You didn't read my post at all... :'D I explicitly said even with the changes it's a stupid mechanic, and wrote many a paragraph on why.

This is where you and I will disagree, because I find games of this type need some form of war exhaustion penalty. Your example about the british conquering the world doesn't work at all if given a cursory examination. For one: the british were not conquering equaly advanced civilizations, but rather taking over small disorganised tribal comunities with vastly inferior tech. This was not a war, it was a hostile take-over, the proper comparison with what this would be in the ES universe is a major faction with multiple planets and era 2 guns going to war with a minor one with 1 planet and era 1 guns, and even that is questionable. When the british finaly faced a war and an oponent of equal strenght, most famously during the american independence war, they faltered eventualy and had to abandon the fight, and it did cause unrest back home as the fight began taxing the resources of the empire.

Same here: eventualy the strain of constant fighting will reflect in popular unrest. This is not you going around kicking mud hut dwealing savages in the teeth with practicaly non-existant casualties and bringing back vast never before seen riches and wonderous new things for the people back home to enjoy, this is you conducting galactic scale warfare and planetry invasions involving billions of troops with vast flotilas and god knows how many munitions expended, not to mention practicaly guaranteed large volumes of casualties. Even if you have the upper hand in the fight, it is still a taxing effort. The proposed fixes the the mechanics reflect such a war fatigue system that will over time and cause your populace to slowly and by degrees turn against you if you simply prolong the conflict with no clear resolution in sight. If you can easily win, then the system is a non-issue as you will triumph fast enough to not acrue too big a penalty. But if the fight drags on, even if you hold the advantage by a small margin, not capitalizing on it (or not beeing able to) will be punished by war fatigue setting in and thus make it desireable to call for a truce and recover. it achieves the goal of keeping single perpetual war wipes from happening and the military aproach from beeing the most efficient, while retaining an element of complexity and choice and control.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

I feel you have completely misunderstood/misinterpreted my argument, or at least, missed quite a few key points along the way. Did you read the posts in the original thread?

The British Empire analogy absolutely applies here. Because the only realistic reason for you to deny a force truce is if you're going to win it. If you're losing, you're not going to deny it; you want them off your back, and if you're already losing, it's probably not worth the Approval hit (see final paragraph as well about the significance of the Approval penalty). And of course, if you're winning, why would you force a truce? Only if you're going to suffer for keeping the war going - either you have too many wars going on and need to wrap this one up (meaning the other empire will have an advantage in continuing the war), or the other player has now built up a response fleet and is going to turn the tide of war if it goes on. No matter what, the penalty for denying a Force Truce is inevitably going to be the burden of the stronger empire. That's why the British Empire analogy applies.

You also completely ignored all of the points I made about why the idea of "popular unrest" in response to war is laughable. You're not kicking around mud hut savages, you're fighting battles in space, millions of miles from any civilians. They aren't going to care about the horrors of war from the luxury of their future-homes; I already referenced anti-German propaganda during both World Wars. Think Germans were the bad guys in both wars? Good, the propaganda did its job, the German's own propaganda was nowhere near as effective as the Allies'. "But wait, not all of them are in luxurious future homes! And not all combat takes place across the galaxy - there's invasions and ground combat!" Thanks for noticing, I hope you also notice that both those things already provide an Approval hit.

And, above all else, there's literally no reason for this mechanic to exist. You can deny the force truce, so it's not "saving" any smaller empires (and I also argued in the thread that you shouldn't be trying to prevent players from knocking out empires that are already far behind). Either the Approval hit is going to be very significant, which again, is just going to piss people off when they're about to turn the tide of a war in their favor; or it's going to be insignificant, and therefore there's no point even bothering with this system. The mechanics in the previous games required you to buy yourself a truce when you were losing, by offering resources or systems or techs to sate your would-be conqueror; and conquering a player already incurred negative penalties, notably the tax deficit you generally take, as well as the empire-wide expansion disapproval hit. How can anyone possibly argue that force truce is actually in any way a better mechanic, and that it wasn't worth just refining and perfecting those previous solutions?

There is a justification for this mechanic to exist: Without military has no downsides in the early and mid game. Science won't be enough to get them a science victory before late game, if you're killing them they can't get an allied win, if you're destroying all their planets you'll still win even by score. This is also besides the fact that plenty of times has the dominant side in human history experienced war fatigue (Vietnam war, both Afghanistan wars, Iraq war, and those are just the recent North American examples). And this is from a species that's fairly violent by nature. We love war. Now imagine someone peaceful like the Sohpons being annoyed that war is interrupting their studies, or someone like the Lumeris tallying up the cost of war. They'd be choked the longer it went on.

The mechanic works for the majority of us. If you have a personal issue with it, just modify the XMLs so it has no effect.

Romeo wrote:

Science won't be enough to get them a science victory before late game, if you're killing them they can't get an allied win, if you're destroying all their planets you'll still win even by score. 

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Your entire point seems to rely on the assumption that there must be literally no other conceivable way to implement a war fatigue system; if you read my post, you'd know I'm not against war fatigue, but this is the worst method one could possibly conceive of for it. I don't see any justification or reason for them to keep working on trying to make forced truce work, rather than improving upon the war fatigue mechanics that have already existed in their games.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Romeo wrote:

Science won't be enough to get them a science victory before late game, if you're killing them they can't get an allied win, if you're destroying all their planets you'll still win even by score. 

I have no idea what you're trying to say here. Your entire point seems to rely on the assumption that there must be literally no other conceivable way to implement a war fatigue system; if you read my post, you'd know I'm not against war fatigue, but this is the worst method one could possibly conceive of for it. I don't see any justification or reason for them to keep working on trying to make forced truce work, rather than improving upon the war fatigue mechanics that have already existed in their games.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

You also completely ignored all of the points I made about why the idea of "popular unrest" in response to war is laughable. You're not kicking around mud hut savages, you're fighting battles in space, millions of miles from any civilians. They aren't going to care about the horrors of war from the luxury of their future-homes; I already referenced anti-German propaganda during both World Wars. Think Germans were the bad guys in both wars? Good, the propaganda did its job, the German's own propaganda was nowhere near as effective as the Allies'. "But wait, not all of them are in luxurious future homes! And not all combat takes place across the galaxy - there's invasions and ground combat!" Thanks for noticing, I hope you also notice that both those things already provide an Approval hit.

Are you and I in the same conversation?