Fenrakk101 wrote:

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?

I think you might be looking at your population as having one will / being under one. However, as we've seen with the senate, each pop has a distinct influence on the affairs of the empire. You can't always do what you want and the elections mechanic will put spokes in your wheels, for better or worse. If you, the emperor, refuse peace, the non-militarist section of your empire will not like that and you'll get an influence hit. I think that's a very good way to keep player agency and allow early truce mechanic to work.

As for other empire-wide disapproval hits related to war, I think that's par the course and a separate issue from refusing a truce. Besides, with the ability to raze systems, you might get round the expansion disapproval anyway.

Though many issues are tied to the lack of refining (I'm thinking of truces, for instance) there is a whole feeling that the games tries to stack many new systems at the same time with each of them in a kinda "raw" state, be it politics, warfare, colonization, heroes. On one hand it's a EA period designed to gather feedback on all of this, but on the other hand it's giving a striking impression of lack of direction. If we consider the diaries, I'm thinking there is an explanation of what the system ought to be, but not why. 

I don't have feelings about the closeness to EL, but for the era pool. I've just written a long diatribe on how it harmful to my (and possibley other) enjoyment of the game so far. I couldn't get into EL in the long run, much less than ES, ultimately it's about the way I feel I'm making decisions in this game that bears the most impact. 

So let have them try new things (because if not, why not stick to older games ? ) but tell us how they hope they will affect our way of playing the game and then give them answers. My current stance is they should fix some foundations one system at a time, even if they have interactions. Otherwise the whole task will be daunting and my hopes for this game vanish. 

Romeo wrote:

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?

"War fatigue" and "popular unrest" are not the same thing. Popular unrest is when the war becomes unpopular with the public, whereas war fatigue can refer to the economic and buraeucratic tolls of war. Strain on your supply lines, on your management, your coordination. War fatigue is a fine system, and is already implemented in past games, through the mechanics I keep referring to of expansion disapproval and dust cost.

Besides, at another point I made the point that it's still stupid that your populace gets upset when the other empire sends a peace request; if you wanted your people to get angry at you for ongoing wars, it should happen steadily over time, not trigger by your opponent sending a truce demand. The Vietnam war was mentioned as an example of a war that people hated in response to my "British empire" analogy, but that's also a false equivalence; Vietnam didn't do anything to the US, nobody in the public cared about going to war there. Compare to when the Japanese spit on us and we entered World War 2. In a Force Truce situation, if you want to continue the war in order to reclaim something you've lost, it's unthinkable that your people would be against it. Especially if Approval is high - "No no no, great leader! Let our enemy have our entire Titanium supply! It doesn't matter that we'd have an incredible victory and get to make them pay reparations afterwards; it's more important that our empire's economy weakens!" What?

N.N.Thoughts wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

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?

I think you might be looking at your population as having one will / being under one. However, as we've seen with the senate, each pop has a distinct influence on the affairs of the empire. You can't always do what you want and the elections mechanic will put spokes in your wheels, for better or worse. If you, the emperor, refuse peace, the non-militarist section of your empire will not like that and you'll get an influence hit. I think that's a very good way to keep player agency and allow early truce mechanic to work.

As for other empire-wide disapproval hits related to war, I think that's par the course and a separate issue from refusing a truce. Besides, with the ability to raze systems, you might get round the expansion disapproval anyway.

I would totally be down with it being tied to the Senate, if it was in any way tied to the Senate. They only said they would relate it to the generic Approval meter, which is a "one-will" representation of your people. The developers made the system act as if your people had one will, I did not insert that assumption myself.

Of course, tying it to the Senate will have other complicated ramifications. Not least of which being, if you had an empire that was entirely Militarist, you should theoretically gain approval from denying a force truce, and lose it for accepting, wouldn't you?

N.N.Thoughts wrote:

I think you might be looking at your population as having one will / being under one. However, as we've seen with the senate, each pop has a distinct influence on the affairs of the empire. You can't always do what you want and the elections mechanic will put spokes in your wheels, for better or worse. If you, the emperor, refuse peace, the non-militarist section of your empire will not like that and you'll get an influence hit. I think that's a very good way to keep player agency and allow early truce mechanic to work.

As for other empire-wide disapproval hits related to war, I think that's par the course and a separate issue from refusing a truce. Besides, with the ability to raze systems, you might get round the expansion disapproval anyway.

Let's start with the fact that having to fight your own empire on top of all the enemies sounds like an awful idea, and serves to take away even more agency in a "Do this, or else you're taking a punishment" way.

I went back to the Dev post on forced truce and it's clear that the consequences of refusing the offer of an early truce will tie in with the diplomacy situation:

The recipient of the proposition will be able to refuse and keep the war going for a few number of turns. However, refusing a truce will result in an approval penalty: the population being unhappy about the war being waged longer than necessary. If truces keep being proposed and the same party keeps refusing them, the disapproval from civil unrest will grow bigger each time, to the point of becoming utterly crippling.

Regarding how militarist governments / dictatorships / Cravers / whatever warmongers etc… react to this new system: this will come in a later stage, since right now all the Major Factions have the same diplomatic behavior. Once we start refining their personalities and behaviors, we’ll consider whether some government/politics/affinities should be taken into account in this regard.

HaxtonFale wrote:

N.N.Thoughts wrote:

I think you might be looking at your population as having one will / being under one. However, as we've seen with the senate, each pop has a distinct influence on the affairs of the empire. You can't always do what you want and the elections mechanic will put spokes in your wheels, for better or worse. If you, the emperor, refuse peace, the non-militarist section of your empire will not like that and you'll get an influence hit. I think that's a very good way to keep player agency and allow early truce mechanic to work.

As for other empire-wide disapproval hits related to war, I think that's par the course and a separate issue from refusing a truce. Besides, with the ability to raze systems, you might get round the expansion disapproval anyway.

Let's start with the fact that having to fight your own empire on top of all the enemies sounds like an awful idea, and serves to take away even more agency in a "Do this, or else you're taking a punishment" way.

But you're not fighting your own empire. You're managing it. That's the point of immersion. If you decide to refuse the truce, you're balancing the risk of empire disapproval with more military gain. If you conclude the war a few turns later on good terms for your empire, you might get some of the approval back - it all depends how the devs implement the more sophisticated aspects of this mechanic. 

N.N.Thoughts wrote:

I went back to the Dev post on forced truce and it's clear that the consequences of refusing the offer of an early truce will tie in with the diplomacy situation:

The recipient of the proposition will be able to refuse and keep the war going for a few number of turns. However, refusing a truce will result in an approval penalty: the population being unhappy about the war being waged longer than necessary. If truces keep being proposed and the same party keeps refusing them, the disapproval from civil unrest will grow bigger each time, to the point of becoming utterly crippling.

Regarding how militarist governments / dictatorships / Cravers / whatever warmongers etc… react to this new system: this will come in a later stage, since right now all the Major Factions have the same diplomatic behavior. Once we start refining their personalities and behaviors, we’ll consider whether some government/politics/affinities should be taken into account in this regard.

Eventually, and they don't tell us how. They say the Senate has no personalities or behaviors, and considering this is supposed to be a major selling point for the game and they're hoping to have it out in six months...

But I digress. The point is that their implementation of Force Truce is, in fact, having a one-will effect on your people.

Sotnik wrote:

Given all the forum input, planned improvements, engine flexibility (as far as I read) and Devs' capabilities, I believe this will eventually be a good game though different from ES1. The question is - when. Will it happen in time or the release will be delayed? I hope it will occure earlier than with the last DLC like it happened to EL (ok, EL was always good, but absence of sea battles was giving it a feel of incompleteness like a big hole in game design).

Which is my turnoff. This is supposed to be a sequel to Endless Space, and it's currently only that on a very superficial level. It's a decent game, but an awful sequel.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

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.

I don't mind them changing stuff, but I will point out -bad- mechanics. The combat system as is, is -bad-. The dreary and dull weapons and armour design is -bad-. The stunted ship micro is -bad- when the Empire Macro lacks the tools to really compensate *for* the stunted Ship Micro, -and- when it's clear that Amplitude really want Ship Micro to still be -a thing-. Now they're free not to listen, you're free not to agree, that's your good right, but given I've seen enough games go through the sausage making process and more often than not I've ended up wearing the "I told you so" t-shirt I've the nasty feeling this may well be another unless they pull their fingers out quick sharp.

And believe me, if this game got booted out of the door tomorrow, I absolutely would not recommend it, and judging by the lukewarm response it got over at RPS, I have a sneaking suspicion that it won't get champagne and ticker tape among the MSM either. I'd not complain if the changed stuff was an improvement, but it's not, it's change for the sake of change, the amplified vision is a gimmick of the worst kind, the combat system drives you into a state of dribbling boredom after the first two or three times you've sat through it and realised that you only need pick the option that suits your range and you can safely ignore -everything else-, the weapons, even the ones needing titanium or glasteel are merely era up versions with maybe a bit of extra crit if you're lucky. This is supposed to be *creative*? My dinner showed more promise.

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.

This seems to be your personal bugbear, the devs seem to have their own issues about force truce and I have no idea why, it's not a great idea, and they're making it a complicated workload by saying "Oh we'll tie diplomacy together with the government", because that's never going to spell trouble when paired with a 4X AI >.>

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.

Except they are sortof doing the same thing twice. As people have pointed out, this is more or less Endless Legend : Beyond Auriga, and there's more than a grain of truth to that. They've seen the success they've had with Endless Legend and now they're trying to trap lightning in a bottle twice. That's a mistake developers make once they hit upon a successful formula, they *try to repeat the exact same formula*, and unless you're making Endless Legend 2, guess what? It's not -going to end well-. Endless Space is not Endless Legend, and the quicker this little nugget sinks into their head the better.

Good *GRIEF*

Hobbesian wrote:

This seems to be your personal bugbear, the devs seem to have their own issues about force truce and I have no idea why, it's not a great idea, and they're making it a complicated workload by saying "Oh we'll tie diplomacy together with the government", because that's never going to spell trouble when paired with a 4X AI >.>

Now that you mention it, I guess it really has started to grate on me, even more than the tech tree has. Because, again, everyone seems to agree that the current tech tree is terrible. It's an awful design decision that they've been called out on. And while I still find it troubling that so many people are willing to settle for a "hybrid" system, I find it far more troubling that Force Truce - a mechanic with zero redeeming factors - is being so diligently defended by so many people. Force Truce is a representation of everything that seems to have gone wrong with the direction of Endless Space 2, and with the devs' attitude about it all, and yet people keep recycling debunked arguments and looping back on faulty logic to argue that it's actually secretly a good mechanic.

Maybe the ultimate problem with fan feedback is that people are very, very hesitant to criticize developers they like. As if, to some degree, they have more faith in Amplitude's ability to make good decisions than in their own ability to criticize bad ones. Not only do I think that's an incredibly anti-consumer attitude, but as I argued in the OP, an unwillingness to fairly critique a game or its developer makes you less able to provide useful feedback. If a developer does something bad, they need to be called out on it, so that they don't do it again. I want to see Amplitude make more great games, but at this point it seems like that can only happen if they go back to making new IP; but if everyone is so blindly supportive of this game as a sequel, we might see them work on more sequels next, and if they mishandle those as well, it won't be good news for anyone, especially not the fans.

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Maybe the ultimate problem with fan feedback is that people are very, very hesitant to criticize developers they like. As if, to some degree, they have more faith in Amplitude's ability to make good decisions than in their own ability to criticize bad ones. 

Or it could simply be that not everyone agrees with you about what constitutes a bad decision.

N.N.Thoughts wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Maybe the ultimate problem with fan feedback is that people are very, very hesitant to criticize developers they like. As if, to some degree, they have more faith in Amplitude's ability to make good decisions than in their own ability to criticize bad ones. 

Or it could simply be that not everyone agrees with you about what constitutes a bad decision.

There's broad agreement that the Tech Tree is pretty much garbage and yet the developers are nowhere to be found on that matter. There's at least reasonable agreement after the post concerning the direction of combat along with the stunted ship and weapon design schema that it really -does- need a deep inspection and a revemp, but that's being taken care of, the Force Truce is just another symptom of the underlying problem.

Endless Space isn't Endless Legend.

Amplitude had a great game in Endless Legend, and that they should be congratulated and praised for, but they should not fall into the trap that thinking Endless Legend is the model for all future games to come, ES2 is very much "Endless Legend in Space" and that's a -big- problem because it's a jacket that ill fits the theme. They need to go over their decisions as to -why- they felt recycling EL's mechanics into ES2 was a good idea (particularly the tech tree, which has clearly been shown to not -work- here) and then reconsider and look at alternative options, ones that better fit ES2's design purpose. Force Truce -might- be made to work, but by the sound of it they're intending to weave a lot of the diplomacy into the governmental system and the govt system is still very much a "work in progress", that doesn't sound like something you can magic together in six months, but then again, maybe Amplitude are able to wave a magic wand and that'll all "click".

So I've had a chance to play and/or participate in reviewing most of the 4X games in the past few years (I'm one of the staffers at eXplorminate BTW).  

I think, conceptually, that ES2 has the potential to be the space 4X game I've been looking for.  As I mentioned in other threads, I was very encouraged by thee GDD's, and I mostly think Amp is headed in the right direction.  I don't really mind if ES2 feels a little like EL - so long as the mechanics and design result in making for challenging decisions, deep gameplay, and an engaging narrative.   

I've been playing Stellaris again the past few days since Leviathans DLC and 1.3 Heinlin patch.  Stellaris is not living up to it's potential, IMHO, because the internal faction system, leader system, and overall pacing is incredibly dry and unexciting to me.  Every so often something "cool" happens, but it's on the players to make it happen and as an actual "strategy" game I don't find it particularly engaging.

I think ES2 might finally be able to create an interesting internal dynamic in a 4X game.  Conceptually, they are trying to make it so that your choices (tech, development, warfare, etc.) effect your populations political party affiliation, which in turn affect elections (and how you respond to them), which in turn affect the kind of laws and other controls you can put into effect.  This is a core gameplay loop and is the highest and best opportunity to bring some innovation into the space 4X genre.  Stellaris continues to fails at accomplishing a similar thing is their faction system has been put on the back burner and is pretty irrelevant to play.

BUT ... I think ES2 has a ways to go before this gameplay loop really delivers on it's promise.

For one, the loop needs to operate in more asymmetric ways as it ties into the different factions and other mechanics.  The forced truce is a perfect example.  In a peaceful democratic empire, your population should become more and more displeased with you the longer perpetuate a war of aggression.  This should (could) result in citizens becoming increasingly unhappy if you don't accept pleas for truce and/or the citizenry canceling laws or the senate forcibly passing laws to undermine the war effort.  The cravers should be the opposite!  Accepting a force truce plea should make them unhappy and agitated!  That's just one example.

I'd love to see you elected leader have some pretty strong abilities and benefits, so that the big elections have more impact behind them on your gameplay - and in turn how you jockey the politics will be more important.

I don't have a huge problem with the tech tree beyond wanting more tech's and more different routes for tech'ing up.  Right now, too much of the tech is mandatory and designed to block off access to core gameplay mechanics, which isn't a particularly exciting approach.  If it's a tree or a web, I don't really care, so long as I have some interesting decisions along the way - which means having a system where you can't "do it all" in a single play through.  I like having to make tradeoffs choices (e.g. MoO2 tech system), and in that regard I like, in theory, the era system more than a conventional tech tree.

If combat and ship designer are improved (as it appears they are), the tech tree giving some enhancement, and energy really put into making a compelling political game - both internally and diplomatically with other empires, I think the makings are here for a great game.  But it has a ways to go still before it gets there.

mezmorki wrote:

So I've had a chance to play and/or participate in reviewing most of the 4X games in the past few years (I'm one of the staffers at eXplorminate BTW).  

I think, conceptually, that ES2 has the potential to be the space 4X game I've been looking for.  As I mentioned in other threads, I was very encouraged by thee GDD's, and I mostly think Amp is headed in the right direction.  I don't really mind if ES2 feels a little like EL - so long as the mechanics and design result in making for challenging decisions, deep gameplay, and an engaging narrative.   

I've been playing Stellaris again the past few days since Leviathans DLC and 1.3 Heinlin patch.  Stellaris is not living up to it's potential, IMHO, because the internal faction system, leader system, and overall pacing is incredibly dry and unexciting to me.  Every so often something "cool" happens, but it's on the players to make it happen and as an actual "strategy" game I don't find it particularly engaging.

I think ES2 might finally be able to create an interesting internal dynamic in a 4X game.  Conceptually, they are trying to make it so that your choices (tech, development, warfare, etc.) effect your populations political party affiliation, which in turn affect elections (and how you respond to them), which in turn affect the kind of laws and other controls you can put into effect.  This is a core gameplay loop and is the highest and best opportunity to bring some innovation into the space 4X genre.  Stellaris continues to fails at accomplishing a similar thing is their faction system has been put on the back burner and is pretty irrelevant to play.

BUT ... I think ES2 has a ways to go before this gameplay loop really delivers on it's promise.

For one, the loop needs to operate in more asymmetric ways as it ties into the different factions and other mechanics.  The forced truce is a perfect example.  In a peaceful democratic empire, your population should become more and more displeased with you the longer perpetuate a war of aggression.  This should (could) result in citizens becoming increasingly unhappy if you don't accept pleas for truce and/or the citizenry canceling laws or the senate forcibly passing laws to undermine the war effort.  The cravers should be the opposite!  Accepting a force truce plea should make them unhappy and agitated!  That's just one example.

I'd love to see you elected leader have some pretty strong abilities and benefits, so that the big elections have more impact behind them on your gameplay - and in turn how you jockey the politics will be more important.

I don't have a huge problem with the tech tree beyond wanting more tech's and more different routes for tech'ing up.  Right now, too much of the tech is mandatory and designed to block off access to core gameplay mechanics, which isn't a particularly exciting approach.  If it's a tree or a web, I don't really care, so long as I have some interesting decisions along the way - which means having a system where you can't "do it all" in a single play through.  I like having to make tradeoffs choices (e.g. MoO2 tech system), and in that regard I like, in theory, the era system more than a conventional tech tree.

If combat and ship designer are improved (as it appears they are), the tech tree giving some enhancement, and energy really put into making a compelling political game - both internally and diplomatically with other empires, I think the makings are here for a great game.  But it has a ways to go still before it gets there.

+1
I hope that the devs read this. 

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Maybe the ultimate problem with fan feedback is that people are very, very hesitant to criticize developers they like. As if, to some degree, they have more faith in Amplitude's ability to make good decisions than in their own ability to criticize bad ones. Not only do I think that's an incredibly anti-consumer attitude, but as I argued in the OP, an unwillingness to fairly critique a game or its developer makes you less able to provide useful feedback. If a developer does something bad, they need to be called out on it, so that they don't do it again. I want to see Amplitude make more great games, but at this point it seems like that can only happen if they go back to making new IP; but if everyone is so blindly supportive of this game as a sequel, we might see them work on more sequels next, and if they mishandle those as well, it won't be good news for anyone, especially not the fans.

I think I'm caught between agreeing and disagreeing with this. Because on the one hand, the community has been very vocal with certain issues (The fact that the front page is over 50% topics regarding the tech system and force truce shows the community doesn't much care for them). On the other hand, I know I've been kind with my voicing of issues because you're right - I really like Amplitude, and don't want to see them begin ignoring the community like so many developers do. In fact, Amplitude's listening to the community is the single greatest reason they became my go-to developer. The worked with the fans, not in spite of them. This is the first release they've had that's shook that belief somewhat. Unfortunately, the complete lack of a word on the biggest debate raging - the tech system - has been left so long now, regardless of what decision happens, certain people are going to be pissed off.

I'm hoping the rest of the community can be sated, and the game won't suffer from the silence...

Romeo wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Maybe the ultimate problem with fan feedback is that people are very, very hesitant to criticize developers they like. As if, to some degree, they have more faith in Amplitude's ability to make good decisions than in their own ability to criticize bad ones. Not only do I think that's an incredibly anti-consumer attitude, but as I argued in the OP, an unwillingness to fairly critique a game or its developer makes you less able to provide useful feedback. If a developer does something bad, they need to be called out on it, so that they don't do it again. I want to see Amplitude make more great games, but at this point it seems like that can only happen if they go back to making new IP; but if everyone is so blindly supportive of this game as a sequel, we might see them work on more sequels next, and if they mishandle those as well, it won't be good news for anyone, especially not the fans.

I think I'm caught between agreeing and disagreeing with this. Because on the one hand, the community has been very vocal with certain issues (The fact that the front page is over 50% topics regarding the tech system and force truce shows the community doesn't much care for them). On the other hand, I know I've been kind with my voicing of issues because you're right - I really like Amplitude, and don't want to see them begin ignoring the community like so many developers do. In fact, Amplitude's listening to the community is the single greatest reason they became my go-to developer. The worked with the fans, not in spite of them. This is the first release they've had that's shook that belief somewhat. Unfortunately, the complete lack of a word on the biggest debate raging - the tech system - has been left so long now, regardless of what decision happens, certain people are going to be pissed off.

I'm hoping the rest of the community can be sated, and the game won't suffer from the silence...

In my case Amplitude have been the example I've held up because they haven't been afraid to take risks. Dungeon of the endless broke so many conventions and it was this crazy, beautiful thing as a direct result. Endless Legend, once again, took the traditional ground 4X rulebook, decided to scribble all over it in lots of wonderful colours and then hold it up like some kid who decided that "convention is what other people stick to" and made something that really pushed the genre forward, even Civ VI has taken some quite serious lessons from it (see the way the cities now develop as a key example).

Endless Space 2 genuinely feels like the first game where they've got stuck for some ideas, then looked at what worked for them in previous games and went "You know, we could just use that again, but IN SPACE!", and that's a failing. Because it's not an advancement, it's not moving forward, it's moving -backwards-, and in the case of things like the tech tree, it shows when you're forced into constrained paths, it shows in the ship design, where the same weapon choices mean simplistic options again and again. A lot of the subtlety feels like it got lost somewhere, whilst the political system has the building blocks to advance the game in new areas, it doesn't excuse the fact they've gone "We'll tap Endless Legend because that worked".

I think if anything ES2 has shown Amplitude are at their best when they break stuff and look for completely new ways for their games to work, and at their worst when they try porting mechanics from games they've finished. If anything that should inform them of what they need to do. More of things like the political system, but deeper, more engaging, more consequential.

Hobbesian wrote:
I think if anything ES2 has shown Amplitude are at their best when they break stuff and look for completely new ways for their games to work, and at their worst when they try porting mechanics from games they've finished.

We don't know that. They hardly ported anything from ES as we know it, given that EL reimagined most of the mechanics, and a lot of the complaints I see and agree with can be summarised by ES2 being too close to EL and too far from ES (best example being the techs and further nickel-and-diming of basic functionalities, like resource extraction or buyout).

XDAvenger93 wrote:

Fenrakk101 wrote:

Now that you mention it, I guess it really has started to grate on me, even more than the tech tree has. Because, again, everyone seems to agree that the current tech tree is terrible. It's an awful design decision that they've been called out on. And while I still find it troubling that so many people are willing to settle for a "hybrid" system, I find it far more troubling that Force Truce - a mechanic with zero redeeming factors - is being so diligently defended by so many people. Force Truce is a representation of everything that seems to have gone wrong with the direction of Endless Space 2, and with the devs' attitude about it all, and yet people keep recycling debunked arguments and looping back on faulty logic to argue that it's actually secretly a good mechanic.

First off: I think I've shown I have 0 issues with calling out devs on bullshit.

Secondly: I'm in the same boat with you that needs more ES and less EL, but at the same time, a sequel needs to build up on the original, use it a jumping of point to expand. Amplitude seems to have the same ideea, they just chose the wrong platform to make the jump from and this is knecaping their efforts. On the subject of force truce, the mechanic as is right now is absolute garbage, nobody is questioning that. However, you seem to have hanged on to the name of the mechanic, when the dev post seems to ilustrate something that is actualy vastly different from a force truce. How can you force truce, when as the devs themselves have said: you can propose it and the receiver has the option of saying no? In my eyes, the name is no longer aplicable to what the devs plan to implement. You are not forcing truce, you are negotiating it and balancing external gains with internal strife as the war progresses. You reference old mechanics to counter expansion from the old ES, let me stop your faulty argument right here: Vodyani. None of those mechanics counter a vodyani player because they are intrinsicaly only tied to planetary managment and ownership, which surprise surprise the vodyani have none of when they "conquer", or more accuratly harvest, a new place. You can't use the old systems because this new and divergent playstyle of this new faction circumvents them. And at that point it becomes a game of just picking this one race that nobody can stop expanding and just rushing military and wiping out race after race. Should this faction be scraped simply to fit in with the old anti-snowball mechanics, or should a new system be designed that allows for this new faction to exist in it? One that also makes more sense given the curent stated goal of trying to expand on the political managment of the game?

And if we are to adress some faulty argument here: "nobody sitting light years away from the fight is going to give a damn about it". 1)impying you will not care if your brother, sister, son etc. dies in a stupid prolonged war because your leader is just so hell bent on wiping out those xenos scum even though they still have a dozen planets left. You seriously do not consider simple obvious things here, do you? Given the scale of a galactic war and the inherent loss of life in these operations, unless you are leading a race so indoctrinated or facing an enemy so vile, these things will affect even people light years away from the actual fight. 2)impying logistics do not exist. And that a war will not cause shortages, disrupt every day life with safety protocols, cause restrictions and the like. Granted, this needs better implementation within the senate/population system, but my point stands. 3)implying a civilization of pacifists/ecologists will hapily sit at home and watch TV in luxury while light years away you are comiting galactic scale genocide and destroying vast ecosystems with your war machine and orbital bombardments. Seriously now? Even you partialy admit to this fault, but you still think we should not try to account for such a scenarion and consider how it may in fact imply your argument is not a tight as you thought? 4)implying a civilization that is proportialy far less populous than any other one in the galaxy (can you spell vodyani again?) will be ok with large numbers of their own dying in conflict over prolonged periods of time, especialy when each one of their number needs a large toll of special tech and resources to ascend to what they view as divine status. Status that is brought into question by constantly getting blown up in large numbers by the savege bugs next door. Really though, I think I can stop here, though I could go on and on all day about how wrong that statement you start your argument with is. Bottom line: People will give massive amounts of fucks about a war going on light years away from them if they happen to be one of the sides involved in said war. What you said only applies if you are the spectator to 2 other sides fighting.

At least up to now, what I have read in the devs reply in that thread speaks not of a force truce mechanic, but of war weariness. Which is fine, it's a perfectly adequate mechanic and much more sensible than expansion dissaproval was in EL. It also has the benefit of including the vodyani in the umbrela of factions it can support. It demands proper execution and expansion of it's systems, sure, it demands granularity and taking in consideration multiple factors (idelogical differences, curent political party, curent majority of population, curent race, enemy race, losses in manpower, logistics, hardware and planets, and gains in teritory and resources, political climate and alliances both on your side and the enemy one, etc.), but it is not an inherently bad mechanic as you seem to imply. In fact war weariness as a concept stands as the best possible way to handle anti-war snowball as a mechanic, but that will only translate well if it's executed properly and considers all the multi-faceted factors that a war involves, and doubly so if a war goals system can be added in (perhaps your population can even sugest them to you and give you a aproval boost if you go for them?). Simplistic assertions and flat "oh you took a new planet, we hates you now" debuffs are just as bad as getting forced into a truce against your will (which again, you will no longer have imposed on you because of that fancy refuse button).

If trading a simplistic system that no longer truly works for every faction and playstyle of this sequel for a new one potentialy vastly more complex and interesting one is a bad thing, we may be having the wrong talk here. Yes, force truce is idiotic. Good thing then it's will no longer be "force" but rather propose truce with consequences for each choice you make and war weariness driving the system. The mechanic you started complaining about will be removed from the game and replaced with something different, stop latching on the name of something that will not be present in the finished product and consider if this new mechanic, war weariness by it's true name and planned implementation, has any merits and if the old system actualy function in this sequel, or if the proportional stated goal of expanding the political gameplay and complexity  demands some new more complex mechanics to support it. I want this to be more ES, I don't think this mechanic, which is new and not in any other amplitude game, will ruin that, I think the curent EL feel comes from a massive misshandling of the tech system and choosing to follow a theme of reducing micro play which limits what the game can do. But war weariness? It's not bad, not anymore if what the devs said they want to do actualy makes it in the game. It's different and potentialy more complex than ES 1, and that's a good thing for a sequel. It expands on the political and population managment branch of the game in new ways, potentialy better ways, and that's exactly what a sequel needs.

Man, this is a lot to unpack.

I'll start with, I don't know why you felt personally called out by the "fear of calling them out" statement. I know I've gone back and forth with quite a few people here, but I wasn't speaking directly of any of them; especially not anyone who's actually tried to argue against any of my points. I was more speaking to a general attitude I've seen here and especially in Steam reviews, I was complaining about attitudes like the comment posted immediately after me which said "maybe people just don't agree with you." Cool, don't agree with me; but I've literally written essays at this point on why I think Force Truce is flawed, and basically every argument against me has either completely ignored arguments I've made, used claims I'd already addressed, or otherwise said things I was able to quickly refute (such as my response to when my British Empire analogy was questioned).

I've made many an argument on why I think the system is fundamentally flawed, and I feel people are more eager to defend Amplitude than they are to think of reasons why I'm wrong. It's the feeling that everyone just assumes I'm wrong, and I must be wrong, because I'm not Amplitude! Even in this wall of text, you've reused and recycled so many arguments that I already addressed in some of my first posts on the subject. I don't mind war weariness, I explicitly said that, I just despised the idea that your opponent can trigger the weariness on you, rather than it being a natural and gradual thing. Nobody's given me a single reason for it not to be gradual, nobody's suggested a single benefit to having the force truce mechanic instead, and yet you're still ramming on about how it's war weariness and therefore it's fine. It feels like arguing about why pears are better than apples with someone who's trying to convince you raccoons can be rabid sometimes.

I don't care if people agree with me or disagree with me, but I'd rather feel like I learned something, like others had something to add, other than "I personally think you're wrong." That's not a bad thing, but it's also completely unhelpful and uncritical, and doesn't at all help me understand why people would disagree with me. Like when people say they like ES2 because they liked EL more than ES, that's cool, I totally understand that, that response gives me useful insight into why we disagree on the matter. The vast majority of your text here does not add in any way to the discussion, does not subtract in any way from my argument, because I've already addressed so many of these points and I keep repeating myself. If I repeat myself again for every one, then people will call out things that I addressed in my previous post but not in here, perpetually leapfrogging my arguments. That's how I ended up becoming so thoroughly bitter. I'm not angry at it because it's "Forced," I am FULLY aware that it's not Forced anymore, and I think that point actively makes it worse, as I've elaborated on to great length many times in both this thread and the Force Truce thread. Speaking to me as if I'm ignorant of the difference is, quite frankly, nothing short of insulting. I still dislike the system, possibly even moreso than when it was actually forced, if only because it felt like the system had a point back then (and if you're going to argue against that, at least read my past posts first, because I'm sick at this point of completely resummarizing every single point I've ever made on the subject over and over in every single post I make on the subject).

You do actually have a few new points, which I appreciate. I don't want to entirely dismiss the idea of friends/family being lost in war, but honestly, I feel this supports my stance on forced truce more than yours, because it again goes back to the point that the empire which will continue the war will be the empire that aims to win. If you've lost someone you know, you're probably more likely to seek vengeance on the enemy than to wish for peace. If you're just talking about the possibility of losing someone you know... well, again, we're talking about the side that's winning. As for logistics, I do doubt that war would have the effect on daily life that you suggest; having a war on one end of the galaxy doesn't mean that people on the other end are going to be living off of rations. You don't manage planets outside of just what buildings they construct; they have their own local governments. The only two things you can make them do are build warships (which shouldn't incur any penalty because constructing things for you is already a thing they normally do, even warships), or you hike taxes, which already have an Approval penalty. As for the Pacifists/Ecologists argument, just like the concept of war weariness, I've already expressed that I'm absolutely in favor of tying in the politics system to it; I never once said Pacifists would be happy with you continuing the war, quite the opposite. But the counterargument would be, why would Militarists be upset with you for continuing a war? Quite the opposite; they should be quite livid at you for accepting the truce.

I will say I like the idea of your populace suggesting truce. That makes MUCH more sense than the force truce mechanic, I could actually get behind that. But the problem with any system that happens spontaneously like that is that the game needs a way to measure who's actually winning, because that is tremendously important context. The game needs that context to know whether to punish you or not; as I argued before (and no one has adequately countered), it makes no sense for your populace to be upset at you while you're winning a war. A lot of people here have expressed a distaste for Stellaris's Warscore mechanic, but it did one great thing for the game: it gave a logical, quantifiable way of knowing who was winning. Without a system like that, a system that establishes clearly defined goals and has clear rules on how to progress towards them, I don't believe you could ever have the game fairly assess who's winning or losing a conflict without it being horribly, unenjoyably arbitrary.

Sorry if this comes off as rude, I really do want to be as polite as possible, but I have started to feel attacked by responses like yours which misunderstand or misrepresent my arguments, or are otherwise ignorant of them. And I don't really blame you, either; I would say it's the leapfrogging nature of these arguments that I mentioned earlier, where someone seeing one of my posts only gets an extremely narrow view of my stance because they're seeing only the slice of it that I elaborated on in order to respond to a completely different point. It might be a good idea to just make a single big post compacting it all together, and link to that whenever someone brings it up, but it'd probably be far too long for anyone to read anyway. I'm not sure anyone really cares about the topic beyond just telling me they think I'm wrong because of some reason I already debunked four posts earlier.