mezmorki wrote:

I hope they don't make too many dependencies.  I don't want a normal tech tree - I hated that about ES1 (I know you loved it, we clearly differ on this point).  I'm all for finding a middle ground but I definitely don't want something that looks like a normal connect the dots-style tech tree.  Frankly, those are just boring at this point - and I'd expect something different and more fresh feeling with ES2.

I keep seeing this push to change things for the sake of change ... I don't get it sometimes. If something ain't broke it don't need fixing. Trying to force change for the sake of change is not a valid reason in my book to enact change. You do not go about it with the attitude "well, I did this once, I need to do something different even if it's worse".

If something has to be changed care has to be taken that this change acomplishes these following conditions: 1) is it needed? What about the old system needs to change? If the only answer is "the old system still works perfectly fine but it's been used for a long time now", then sory, not change needed. However this can be overruled by condition ...

2)is this change a revolutionary new concept? If yes, then atempt the change, but realise it may not work as intended. This is where we find the era system of EL beeing transplanted to ES 2 and the backlash incured. Sometimes, just because something is new and sounds cool, does not mean it will fit, and trying to crowbar it in in place of a system that allready workes is not a good ideea.

Finaly in my book is condition 3) does the new system acomplish the same design and thematic principles of the previous one? Again, in the case of the era system in ES 2 the answer is no. Thematicaly if fits about as well as tits on a bull due to moving from a system that told the story of fledgling galactic civilizations rising to mastery of the mysteries of life via the scietific method, in other words: logical scietific progresion and mastery of technology, to a system that tells of a desperate mad dash against an invisible threat with strict time limits and no scietific method as technology is discovered not through logical rigorous experimentation, but haphazard luck. I refer of course to the era system's lack of consistency when it comes to how techs are learned, nowhere more evidently showcased than in the weapon tech department where a civilzation that has 0 clues what anti-matter even is, let alone how to harvest and store it, sudenly researches hyper advanced planet busting anti-matter weapons.

And from a design perspective the era system curently STILL fails by locking away vast swathes of gameplay elements behind techs that thus become mandatory picks and remove the flexibility and specialization factors that the old tech system permited in the early and mid game, before technological singularity was reached and the survivors of the late game would all reach a similar tech level.

If the only reason to make the change is "make the change because let's change" I hope you can see the pitfalls of that kind of circular logic. You trade logic, cohesion and franchise recognition for randomly changing shit. I mean hell, let's follow that line of thinking to it's logical conclusion right? ES is a 4x and 4x are just so boring today, nobody has time to play those long ass games, I find them frankly boring now, let's make ES a space sim! Change is good right? I love space sims! I'm all for a middle ground but I don't want a boring 4x.

Disclaimer: the above was sarcasasm, no I do not think ES should be a space sim ... just in case someone does not pick that up. I've had cases of that in the past, not risking it.

I'm all for creating a new tech system IF it's a good one that fits the game, the theme and does not ditch the goals of the old tech system. What I am agaisnt is arbitrarily crowbaring in something that flat out does not fit the game in any way because "INNOVATION!". That's not inovation, that's stupidity, and the fanbase reaction more than proved that.

As to the changes proposed: I am skeptical. My advice would be atempting to do this in update 2 to let us have enough time to see the impact and discuss it properly. Because with the first update, I find myself starting to hate the tech system even more now that MORE gameplay elements are locked behind early era techs and the escalating costs, while diminished, are still a penatly that only exist because "arbitrary gameplay restriction" not any logical in universe reason. Hopefully we can see this new tech system in update 2 and have ample time to analyse and break it down, because so much of this game rides on it's implementation working properly.

Pejman wrote:

so in the end it's going to be a tree?

I really liked the tech tree from CIV : BE (beyond earth) the system with "main tech" (branches) and secondary tech (leaves) was really cool (it gives a great amount of balance between linking techs and leaving room for freedom)

Basicaly it's : main techs are linked toogheter and make the core of the tech system (one can see this as the research of a new technology paradigm or a breakthrough in a field of research). Once researched they allow for the research of any of it's leaves tech freely (they would be the uses found for the main tech, for instance in nthe current system the discovery of a new strategic would be a main tech and each of it's uses would be a branch (be it weapons or defense or other uses (for instance allowing new sources of energy thus leading to a new system improvement that produce dust etc)

No, mostly still the Era system, but now the individual categories are separated.

mezmorki wrote:

Romeo wrote:

hibbidy_jibbidy wrote:

era progress by quad? sound pretty cool actually

Better than what we have at the moment, for certain. Hopefully once it's finalized we can force more dependencies on it to try and fake an actual tech tree.

I hope they don't make too many dependencies.  I don't want a normal tech tree - I hated that about ES1 (I know you loved it, we clearly differ on this point).  I'm all for finding a middle ground but I definitely don't want something that looks like a normal connect the dots-style tech tree.  Frankly, those are just boring at this point - and I'd expect something different and more fresh feeling with ES2.

Well, you're in luck, they already said they want to avoid dependencies in most cases.

Meedoc wrote:

Hello dear players,

Thank you for all the feedback on the technology tree! We’re currently working on how we will make it evolve.

What we already have done in the current dev build:

• Reworked the cost evolution to provide more freedom: within an era, the cost evolution is smoother than before, but the climb between two eras is steeper. Thus, you can more freely explore an era, and there are more incentives to go for older technologies.
• Changed the unlock prerequisites: because of the changes on cost evolution, you now need to research technology from the last era to unlock the next one.

What we want to do:

• Change the shape back to a disc, as it was in Endless Space:

It will have consequences on:

• How Eras will progress. We’re still discussing how it will work but there are two main options:
  • We keep the current system of global eras
  •  the era progress will be by quadrant

• The presence of links between technologies: so far we didn’t implement it even if it’s doable in terms of gameplay as we first wanted to draw the global picture, and the current shape isn’t the best for this kind of mechanics. Going back to a disc shape will allow us to add more links between technologies, and even between technologies of different eras.

Cheers,

I think the new disc-based design already counts as a link between technologies. I think this is very much a step in the right direction. I approve this system.

Meedoc wrote:

@atejas

I saw it indeed and will look at it; the concern I have for now is to explain clearly the quadrant unlock with these mechanics.

+1 for atejas's suggestion.  I think I suggested as much previously.  

In my mind, the key balance-point to achieve is between allowing players to "go back" to earlier techs if they need while softly incentivizing players to specialize to some degree. Fundamentally, there are two variables you have to play with:

1. How do eras (or quadrants) unlock
2. How does the cost of technologies change as you progress

Both of the above need to be considered in tandem to achieve the right balance.    Then you also have to consider what is easiest for players to understand.

Approach #1

• Keep the system for global eras unlocking after X-number of technologies overall, regardless of quadrant (like it is currently)
• Scale up the cost of technology in each era, but have little or no scaling back to lower eras (i.e. remove tech cost escalation)
• Provide a discount within a quadrant for having researched lower era technologies in that same quadrant.  

This approach maintains the amount of flexibility that comes with an era based-system, allowing you to skip some technologies and jump into higher tier ones.  But you'll pay extra for making that jump because you won't get the discount from having researched the lower tier tech's in that quadrant.   The downside is that, unlike the ES1 tech tree, you can't go far down a given quadrant without having to build up in another one (in order to unlock the next global era) - but frankly I think players will need a little diversity within each anyway, so maybe it isn't a big deal.

Approach #2

• Eras progress by a hybrid of global/quadrant advancement. So...
  • Each quadrant needs a certain # of technologies researched within it (e.g. 4) until the next era for that quadrant is available.
  • When a certain total number of total technologies in an era are researched (e.g. 10) the entire next era is unlocked.
• Costs scale up in each era (as with above approach #1).
• Provide a global discount for technologies in an era based on how many technologies you've researched in the prior era.

Conceptually, this is basically how the hero advancement works.  This approach allows for potentially greater specialization.  You could, for example, shoot right up from era 1 to era 3 military (or 4 or 5) military tech - but the costs would ramp up VERY steeply if you aren't researching and unlocking other technologies along the way.  It gives you the option to bee-line right to the end of a quadrant (as you could in ES1 tech tree), but it would be pretty expensive to do so.

More practically, this approach would let you specialize a little bit as you progress between eras.  Maybe you want to go heavy on economy and research era 1 and a few era 2 economic tech's, before going back to research other era 1 technologies.  This gives you the flexibility to do that, but still within the era system.

Romeo wrote:

hibbidy_jibbidy wrote:

era progress by quad? sound pretty cool actually

Better than what we have at the moment, for certain. Hopefully once it's finalized we can force more dependencies on it to try and fake an actual tech tree.

I hope they don't make too many dependencies.  I don't want a normal tech tree - I hated that about ES1 (I know you loved it, we clearly differ on this point).  I'm all for finding a middle ground but I definitely don't want something that looks like a normal connect the dots-style tech tree.  Frankly, those are just boring at this point - and I'd expect something different and more fresh feeling with ES2.

Talfos wrote:

Kadriar wrote:

I keep playing ES1, and I'm wondering...

Aside from the obvious time constraints with how close the game is to release, why did they ever want to get rid of the tech tree in the first place?

I mean, I don't personally see anything wrong with ES1's handling of tech progression. I just don't see any flaws to be fixed; any that were there seemed to be taken care of with Disharmony (i.e. having the additional CP techs mainly in the diplomacy side of the Tech Tree in ES1. Still some there, but the ones in the warfare side are more practical initially). Frankly, I liked the freedom the inital tree design gave us, and the first time I opened up the tech screen was one of the best parts of getting the game. The options felt limitless, and I could go any direction I wanted. Now I feel a bit boxed in, I suppose. 

In short, what does the new system do better? Because there has to be something it accomplishes, or the devs wouldn't have put it in, right?

 Thoughts?

I dont like the new tech design, but i'm not sure how you could feel more free with the tech tree. Want that mid game missiles upgrade ? You had to research everything before, even if you didnt want to fight before. With the era system you can choose to skip military tech until you can get the one you really want. 

Want to rush for Barren colonization? Great! Just research twenty things that might not matter first. Want to build up a military group? Sure! Just know that it will completely screw you to take Era I military techs. Want to get access to wormholes quickly? Too bad, research two full eras first.

The new system is massively more restricting compared to the old tech tree. Almost everyone is forced to take all colonization tech, government tech and forced to ignore certain techs. You can prioritize later technologies, because it will always take you the same amount of time to get there. There isn't any choice with the current system, only the illusion of choice. The old system might have appeared more constricting, but was actually very open in comparison.

Kweel_Nakashyn wrote:

I think each people could have its own tree aswell. It's not very normal Cold planets being colonozable by Sophon until late Era (IV or V ?) and not by default, or in the very begining of their science, rigth ?

That's definitely something that I strongly hope will be corrected as time goes on. Cravers have diplomacy, the Vodyani have specialization tech, and no one has anything unique yet. The original didn't have completely custom trees (Barring the Harmony), but they still had enough changes to make each tree somewhat specialized.

Trentius wrote:

Don't these technologies represent the big issue here? The current systems create A LOT of useless stuff if you take the viewpoint of a possibly endless game (the viewpoint most fitting of space 4X IMO). Take Expedition power for example : the Era 1 tech raises power to 2, then the Era 2 tech raises it to 3. Not raises it by 1, just TO 3 even if you skipped the previous one, making the last one useless if you even consider taking the second one. A lot of game systems have become like this, increasing to fixed heights, not incrementally. It's the Era 1 strategic resources weapons all over.

^^ good point here. Devs: take note, even if you want to mantain the rea system. Better techs increasin +1 to actual level than actual going direct tol lvl 3.

mezmorki wrote:

Couple follow-up thoughts.

The current era system is nice because it lets you skip potentially redundant and unneeded technologies in one era in favor of more advanced ones in another.  The weapon techs are a great example.  Maybe you can skip era 1 weapon upgrades - but you want to be able to slide into era 2 weapons without having to go back and research the era 1 one's in the process.  This is a good thing IMHO with the current system.  My proposal would work against that - since each field techs up independently.  

Maybe you don't fully need to separate the fields.  If you do #2 (splitting up the tech's and adjust the "required techs" so they are less of them) that might be a good step.  You could keep a connection within a field such that tech cost escalations stay within a given field.  Or simply take a conventional approach and just have fixed costs for tech's that increase as you move through the three.

Don't these technologies represent the big issue here? The current systems create A LOT of useless stuff if you take the viewpoint of a possibly endless game (the viewpoint most fitting of space 4X IMO). Take Expedition power for example : the Era 1 tech raises power to 2, then the Era 2 tech raises it to 3. Not raises it by 1, just TO 3 even if you skipped the previous one, making the last one useless if you even consider taking the second one. A lot of game systems have become like this, increasing to fixed heights, not incrementally. It's the Era 1 strategic resources weapons all over.

Considering that, allowing the player to skip ahead isn't a nice feature, it's a quick fix. It changes your mindset from 'Damn those early techs are useless' to 'I can not take them if I plan on using X later on'. But let's be honest, plans can fly out the window pretty quickly. The Era system however keeps you locked in your previous mindset, because if you're not going to take that later tech you planned for, then you forfeit that entire mechanic from your playstyle. Specializing is useless because the best goodies of every mechanic are locked behind a single tech, not many.

Again, if we take the perspective of value in a never-ending game, things should only ever increase incrementally. If the techs that increase this or that are well spread accross the tech whatever-it-will-be, that design rewards specialization but doesn't penalize players who don't, as they can get access to 'earlier' mechanics through later, also useful technologies. Expedition power is the perfect example for this : few would be worse off if the techs gave +1 instead of setting it to fixed levels as you will no longer feel bad for either researching Baryonic shielding or NOT researching Arid Epigenetics. In the current design, taking both seems silly unless you have an incredible abundance of Boreal planets (almost as rare as Monsoons for me).

Eras or no Eras, having useless technologies on the tree-like game object is a failure, not a feature, of game design. I know this may sound harsh, but I want to say it because Amplitude has been able to produce 2 games with a minimum of such flaws, since every little thing they unlocked remained usefull later on, with a few exceptions (like the T1 weapons in Legends, but that's mostly because they have poor stats and I never found myself lacking ressources enough to downgrade from T2s). An example : Legends' stockpiles. Avaible from 2 different techs and being their only unlock, you feel free to take one or the other, the later one having a better efficiency and the first one simply being cheaper to produce, thus making it a valid production even for small cities. Taking both was very silly, but you could commit freely to one or the other depending on your needs and they both remained useful until the game's end.

In the end, it's clear in my opinion that 'being able to skip ahead' is not a positive gameplay mechanic for the ''intended'' dynamic and, as such, should not be taking as a positive element of design in a game feature.

N.B. I really like the current proposition with specialized tech-tiers, capstone abilities unlocked with every step foward and such. But I also feel like it's trying to hard to save the Era system. I know it might be a positive and, at times, critical element of the current game, but I get the feeling it'll never get along with any decent tech tree design. You're either gonna place your techs in order to fit your Era design, or you're gonna bend your Eras to fit your tech design, as exemplified by the conundrum of allowing or not allowing research in later Eras at a higher cost. Also, every new design proposed here will be a mess when Oracle of Science is thrown in. I won't miss it if that law gets replaced though, too volatile. I think what we need is to keep Era design and technologies as far apart as we can. Both can progress with Science, but any further intermingling seems lethal to fun in general.

Couple follow-up thoughts.

The current era system is nice because it lets you skip potentially redundant and unneeded technologies in one era in favor of more advanced ones in another.  The weapon techs are a great example.  Maybe you can skip era 1 weapon upgrades - but you want to be able to slide into era 2 weapons without having to go back and research the era 1 one's in the process.  This is a good thing IMHO with the current system.  My proposal would work against that - since each field techs up independently.  

Maybe you don't fully need to separate the fields.  If you do #2 (splitting up the tech's and adjust the "required techs" so they are less of them) that might be a good step.  You could keep a connection within a field such that tech cost escalations stay within a given field.  Or simply take a conventional approach and just have fixed costs for tech's that increase as you move through the three.

mezmorki wrote:

1. Split Eras by Field. Continue to use the era system.  HOWEVER ... each "tech field" (i.e. the quadrants within each era for discovery, military, economic, social tech) progresses through the eras independently.   The next era of a field would be unlocked by researching a certain number of the tech's within that field only.  A further restriction might be considered that you need at least two fields in a given era to be unlocked before you can unlock the next era in one of those fields.  So you can't go to era 5 military without building up at least one other field along the way.
2. Split Tech's into More Techs.  Most tech's currently provide TWO benefits.  In order to provide a greater diversity of technologies, split all/most techs apart into two separate technologies.  Each field in each era would therefore have 8-10 technologies (instead of 4 or 5) within it.  Advancing to the next era would require say 50% of the tech's to be researched in that field.
3. Escalating Tech Costs - Part 1.  Research cost escalation is constrained within each field, rather than rise across the entire technology tree.  So you could make, for example, a beeline down the military tree, but still be able to go back later and pick up early era social techs (for example) at a relatively low cost. 
4. Escalating Tech Costs - Part 2. The degree of technology cost escalation can also be coupled to the size of your empire.  Larger, less nimble empires would see their tech costs rise more quickly within a field as part of #3 above, while smaller empires would see less severe increases.  This would help create a nice organic balance between growing tall vs. wide - and also help out start positions where players don't have as many colonizable worlds.
5. Era Bonus Techs.  Certain critical or required technologies could be given to the player as a free bonus for unlocking the next era of a particular field.  For example, progressing into Era 2 on social would automatically unlock additional diplomatic options.  Era 2 economic would automatically unlock the trade system techs.  Military or Exploration could automatically unlock a certain hull type.  Other technologies could replace these that would provide more passive bonuses to their respective fields.  E.g. an optional tech that would further boost your diplomatic effectiveness.

I agree with all above but No. 2. Splitting eras by field seems very interesting, though it would really need the implementation of No. 3. A problem could arise, for example, if you needed at least 66% of all researches in a field to progress til the next era. For example, I usually skip the era 1 political except for 1-2 techs, since the only really needed technologies for diplomacy are in era 2. With your proposal, I'd need 4-ish technologies, half of which I wouldn't really consider having otherwise.

Though, good read, anyway. :) Have my upvote.

Curious when they are going to shed some light on their ideas for the tech system. 

Until that time, I'll be playing Civ.

Hobbesian wrote:

Seems like me and Romeo are on the same page on this one.

Yep, no arguments here. I'd actually go a step further and say the fans of Endless Space seem to be on the side of the tech tree - it worked in the last game, and worked very well. The fans of Endless Legends see that the Era system worked great in Endless Legend, and imagine there's no reason why it wouldn't work well in the other 4X series they make. Personally, I think the Endless Space fans should technically have the bigger say, given that it's their sequel (Just as I wouldn't want them forcing Endless Space aspects in to the next Endless Legend), but it ain't my call to make.

Made this post in response to someone else, but it covers the "tech is required" allegation, which I just don't buy:

I don't have time to reply to all of this, but i have had 0 issues with the ERA system on normal difficulty.  

I will generally only get the planet researches if i see planet, that i want now, of that tech, and will otherwise ignore them unless i'm doing a heavy military start (in which case i care more about the passives and not wasting time on research for things that i'll just ignore since my system development is spent on ships).

The only "Must haves" in my eyes are:

ERA 1:

The strategic resource harvesters, but I have had games where i've skipped the hyperium one due to a lack of sources on my planets (the titanium one being a flat boost i usually get as it's good for getting new colonies off the ground).  These are all on a "as needed" basis though so I never rush them unless i just feel i need the industry (usually because no viable colonies).

The approval and dust tech- you'll need them eventually so they can be worth grabbing, but again I never really rush them.

Everything else is basically either "well i have to research something" or "this game i need this right now".  I often skip the era 1 weapons tech unless i just feel the need, and I ALWAYS skip warp drive unless i have a planet to colonize that shares the tech (seriously there's so few cases where warp drive matters, and then i just go back and pick it up once i need it).

ERA 2:

System improvements is so vital i think it should just be a passive upgrade like era 2 ship modules rather than a tech, and sharing a slot with a good production improvement doesn't make it any less vital. I cannot see a reason to ever not get this, although it's not always the first thing i get.

Expansion passive help- again I see nothing yet giving me any reason to think I should go tall rather than wide. This flat out increases the max number of colonies you can have, so it needs to be gotten (again it depends when).

Maybe trade routes.  There's no question these are super super good, but i do wonder if you'll want it for a craver/voydani warlike playthrough.  That said if not one of those or in that sort of playthrough, yeah it's probably necessary.

Maybe the hull/cp upgrades

Again everything else strikes me as "how am i playing this game/what's my situation" stuff.

Planets are again as you need them.  there's no need to get all the planet tech if you can't even colonize the planets you're going to be able to inhabit due to production or approval chokepoints.  I usually get one or two of these, but rarely all of them.  Again i usually care more about the improvement past a point.

ERA 3:

i'm 99% certain this is not how era 3 will end up, since yes right now it's lots of must haves, but it's also the end of the tech tree so whatever.

The trade route improvements are really good, the resource harvesters will probably be necessary, the approval passive is really good, etc.

Anyways my only major complaint right now is neural robotics in era 2 because you just cannot pass system improvements up, it's way way way too vital to the game.  Everything else I see as stuff that will only get better as the tech trees are fleshed out (for example right now there are 0 support modules past era 1, and we know that's not going to stay, and all the diplomatic tech is vastly worse than it should be).

Kadriar wrote:

I keep playing ES1, and I'm wondering...

Aside from the obvious time constraints with how close the game is to release, why did they ever want to get rid of the tech tree in the first place?

I mean, I don't personally see anything wrong with ES1's handling of tech progression. I just don't see any flaws to be fixed; any that were there seemed to be taken care of with Disharmony (i.e. having the additional CP techs mainly in the diplomacy side of the Tech Tree in ES1. Still some there, but the ones in the warfare side are more practical initially). Frankly, I liked the freedom the inital tree design gave us, and the first time I opened up the tech screen was one of the best parts of getting the game. The options felt limitless, and I could go any direction I wanted. Now I feel a bit boxed in, I suppose. 

In short, what does the new system do better? Because there has to be something it accomplishes, or the devs wouldn't have put it in, right?

 Thoughts?

I dont like the new tech design, but i'm not sure how you could feel more free with the tech tree. Want that mid game missiles upgrade ? You had to research everything before, even if you didnt want to fight before. With the era system you can choose to skip military tech until you can get the one you really want.