WeLoveYou wrote:

Sorry if I'm repeating others here, but I think your evaluations of what is critical, and what isn't, is way off.

I rarely ever build any of the buildings you've stated in all my systems, or any of my systems for that matter. Predictive logistics and Graviton Research are the only ones I would consider 'critical' in the list as it gives you the next industry and science boost to begin making the T3 structures and ships, and as you've said, titanium and hyperium are well balanced. 

ValhallasAshes wrote:

To be honest, when it came to critical (I've been working on this all day) I was simply referring to it being critical to system "progression".  It was more of a generalization of the importance of the structure for progression of your empire, rather than declaration of critical importance for every system.  I do think on a per tech basis, there are different levels of how important they are.  Important, Ideal, Critical, Nice to have etc.  But that would've meant having to deep dive into every single structure/tech, which would've required more than just today to do and fully flesh out properly.  Something I just wouldn't have the time to do, nor did I think it was absolutely pertinent to the point I was trying to convey.

WeLoveYou wrote:

The other thing I disagree on is the balance. I think endgame Quad and Orich buildings could do with a buff. They give some pretty lacklustre bonuses for their cost given that you should be gunning for a victory type by that point. For example: Why get 10% to all FIDSI for a big cost when you could be building ships with the strategics on the modules, or just infinite turning science/dust for 50% industry, all of which will actually push you closer to your victory type. IDK what others think about this.

That one is more of an argument regarding a structures stat improvement offerings.  I wasn't talking about those kinds of issues because it relates to a completely different aspect of game balance.  I was simply talking about the resource costs of the structures themselves in relation to typical resource generation at corresponding points of a typical game and how that relates to resource balancing issues.  What you're talking about there is more of a discussion regarding the cost to benefit ratios of the structures themselves.  Rather than a cost to game environment issue and the problems those issues cause at the relative points in the game where they become a factor, which is what I'm talking about with this thread.  I hope this clears up any confusion.

The problem is that the costs increase by multiples, but our production generally increases by flat amounts. So if a building costs 5x as much Antimatter as its previous equivalent demanded Hyperium, but the next Mining improvement only provides +2 to deposits that generally only provide 5, that means the supply has gone up by 40% while the demand has gone up by 500%.

Tier 2 Strategics are definitely used too much, in comparison to other strategics, but I think the issue isn't just that they cost too much, but the others cost too little. If we had some more building that required Tier 1 resources, and required 10 stocks each instead of 5, then we'd have tougher decisions to make earlier on. Then reduce the Tier 2 costs from 25 to 15, while adding a Tier 1 cost of 10 to each of them so we need a combination of resources. Then leave the Tier 3 buildings where they are at 25 stocks required, but also stack on 15 Tier 2 stocks and 10 Tier 1 stocks. That way previous tiers of resources don't just fall completely out of use as time goes on.

Also, WeLoveYou, I very much agree that end-game buildings are typically rubbish compared to their immediate predecessors, but for OP's sake I've created a new thread for that over here.

Dragar wrote:

If anything, I'd like to see more demand for Titanium and Hyperium, rather than less for Tier 2 resources. I never find myself resource constrained by those at all.

Higher tier buildings in Endless Legend required significant amounts of early tier resources along with smaller amounts of higher tier resources. I'd like to see more of that.

I agree...if anything, I would prefer it if strategic deposit values were slashed by 1 across the board. Luxury ressource quantities seem to be in a good place, even if their value is severely different (+4 production per pop vs. manpower capacity?). For strategic ressources, selling them in the hundreds even in the early game seems to happen to me basically happen every game, and I never see the need to research "Chamaleon spaces" for the +1 ressource improvement.

On a somewhat related note, has anyone noticed the market prices for titanium being very high since the last patch? Might be coincidence, but in my last two games it had higher prices than adamantium, depsite me consistently selling it in the hundreds.

Ok, I'm a big believer that painting a picture can put very complicated discussions into an easier to understand context.  So here's a couple images I made using excel that frame this issue into context.  Then I will state the issue and propose the fix.

To put it quite simply, the strategic resource cost per structure for both Adamantium and Antimatter is way too high.  Especially for a mid-game resource.  On their own, per structure, it might not seem like much, but when you take into account their importance for mid-game development, your ability to progress, and the total number of mid-game structures that almost all require these resource, it combines and compounds into an overly excessive and downright extortionate cost in resources just to advance your systems.  Just look at Adamantium.  The structures that resource is tied to, are all extremely important to your empire.  None of them are sacrificial.  Yet each one costs 25 Adamantium to build.  Times 5 buildings at 25 a pop, that's 125 Adamantium to upgrade and progress just one system.  Let's say you have 10 systems in your empire, which is a fairly normal affair in this game.  That's 1025 Adamantium you would need just to fully upgrade all of those systems.  You can't even hold 1025 Adamantium in your coffers.  Now let's put this issue into further context.  Look at the next image:

Now let's take just the base values (not the boosted values as those come into play considerably later in game when you unlock the required tech) of this example empire I have here.  This is from an actual game I played.  Now as you can see, I've actually got pretty lucky and managed to get 5 Adamantium mines.  But I had to cherry pick those, and I had to skip over quite a few systems just to get them.  And as you can see, I have 24 systems, which is very big.  But this is just to put this into context.  So pretend I have 10.  Trust me, it doesn't look any prettier when you realize the chances of you having 5 Adamantium mines in a 10 system empire are beyond remote.  But we'll say it is for this example.  So at the mid-point of the game, let's say you have 10 systems, and you are lucky enough to have 5 Adamantium mines.  But while you have progressed to the point of having unlocked all of the Adamantium based structures, you haven't upgraded those systems to make use of the mine boosting structures just yet.  So you are at base values.  So in this example empire, you are producing 19 Adamanium per turn, and you have to produce enough Adamantium to buy all the Adamantium based structures for 10 systems.  That's 125 Adamantium per system (not including wonders or mixed resource structures, just pure Adamantium structures), times 10 systems.  So that's 1025 Adamantium.  Do you know how long it takes to produce 1025 Adamantium at 19 produced per turn?  Now take into account how many Adamantium mines you are likely to actually have with a 10 system empire.  And now you realize just how bad this situation really is.  And those boosted stats.  Those are for the strategic resource extraction boosters.  One of which you unlock at Tier 2 economic which gives you a measly 1 extra per mine you build it on.  The next you unlock at Tier 3, which gives you 2 extra.  and the 3rd, you don't get until all the way at Tier 5 which gives you an extra 3 for each mine you build it on.  And the situation is just as bad for Antimatter as you can clearly see in the first chart posted in this post.

Have a look at this next picture:

Now these numbers look far more reasonable don't they.  They should.  But you have to realize this is extremely late game.  With nearly all tech unlocked.  Every mine with all the production boosters built.  All my mines using the top NPO specialization.  The Mineral Misers Law from the Industrialists activated.  AND using using heroes with extraction rate skills boosting mines where I can put them.  That is a lot of boosts I had to put down just to get my minerals up high enough to compensate for the insane Adamantium and Antimatter costs for building structures.  And most of these important boosts don't become available until very very late in the game.  Which means, you can definitely use them to boost your deficites for Orichalcix and Quadrinix.  But Mid-Game when you desperately need them for Adamantium and Antimatter, you're pretty much completely out of luck.  And don't even think about trying to buy Adamantium or Antimatter on the Market.  There's never any Adamantium nor Antimatter on the Market either.  My best guess for that is because all of the AI's are constantly out of the those resources too and never have any extra to sell on the Market either.

And at the current cost per structure, you can pretty much forget about using any Adamantium or Antimatter modules in your ship designs.  You're never going to be able to afford them, because your structures are using them all up constantly.  The last 8 games I've played straight, not one of them have I even once built a ship using Adamantium nor Antimatter.  I'm never able to afford them any more, because I need every last scrap of both for my empire structures.

The Bottom Line:

Titanium, Hyperium, Orichalcix and Quadrinix are all balanced well enough.  Their appropriately priced for their relative entrance point and importance to empire development.  But Adamantium and Antimatter are completely out of balance.  They're structures cost way too much (especially when you consider just how many structures use them compared to the number of structures that use other resources), especially for their mid-game entrance, and the cost to extraction rate deficite is impacting other areas of the game such as ship design, making ship designs incorporating Adamantium or Antimatter modules almost completely untenable.  Adamantium and Antimatter structures need to have their costs slashed considerably.  Literally by about half.  5 each would definitely be too low.  Those are Titanium and Hyperium early game pricings.  But 25 is way way out of the ballpark.  Adamantium and Antimatter structures need to be brought down to a more realistic 10 to 15 per structure, MAX.  Maybe even 12 each.  That would put their cost exactly in between Titanium/Hyperium and Orichalcix/Quadrinix.  Yeah, 12 sounds like the right number to me.  But either way you go about it.  The costs for these structures desperately need a drastic price cut.

P.S.  Sorry I didn't post this during the closed beta.  I did notice the big issues I was having with Adamantium and Antimatter during my many many play throughs during the beta, but I am not one to jump the gun.  I like to isolate the cause of the issue before complaining about an issue.  I did make a post to Nasarog that I had concerns that Adamantium and Antimatter mines were not popping up enough or that I was constantly out of those two resources, but back then I was leaning toward a map generation issue.  But now that I've had several more games gone through, I now know it's not the map generation at all, but the actual system development structure costs.  That is why I've waited this long to post this.  I wanted to have a clear idea of where the problem is and how to fix it.  As you can see from this post, I'm not suggesting a map generation alteration at all.  This issue doesn't require that.  A simple price cut is all that's needed to bring these resources back into balance with one another.

I hope this helps, and I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

It is surprising that you play so much and did not think of changing the combat system or the heroes level up, for example. I love this game and I appreciate your effort very much, but the game has several design decisions that seem completely wrong and incompatible with the fun. For that reason, I think that.

After playing for hours, do not you get tired of resolving battles in a almost passive way? Or read a lot of skills in a huge tree every four turns to level up to 10 heroes, in late game?
It's hard to assume that this game has so many hours of testing.

Do not take it as ungratefulness. It is that there are very important problems that remain unresolved, and it does not seem that you are fully aware.

The whole point of strategic ressources is that you should not be able to build everything that requires them consistenly on every planet in every game, at least not without a significant investment. I never research Chameleon spaces/Autonomous Mining, and still find myself selling them far more often than buying, even adamantium/antimatter. I do agree that those two, especially antimatter, are still more in demand than other strategic ressources, but I would rather see the other ressources brought down to at least the relative scarcity of antimatter, if not more. 

A good step towards this might also be nerfing miner's union/Expanded mines which seem quite powerful compared to chameleon spaces/autonomous mining, being 1/2 tech tiers earlier and requiring only techs that you would get anyways in most cases. Perhaps move the miner's union building to the chameleon spaces tech, and expanded mines to Autonomous mining? It would fit thematically , and otherwise these buildings seem like too much of a no-brainer to me.

ValhallasAshes wrote:

That one is more of an argument regarding a structures stat improvement offerings.  I wasn't talking about those kinds of issues because it relates to a completely different aspect of game balance.  I was simply talking about the resource costs of the structures themselves in relation to typical resource generation at corresponding points of a typical game and how that relates to resource balancing issues.  What you're talking about there is more of a discussion regarding the cost to benefit ratios of the structures themselves.  Rather than a cost to game environment issue and the problems those issues cause at the relative points in the game where they become a factor, which is what I'm talking about with this thread.  I hope this clears up any confusion.

The two are connected though, and you have connected them. If the buildings you've listed as critical to system development were, in fact, critical to system development then I might agree that the costs are too high (although really the net result would just be that the game pace would slow down too much in the mid game, which was the problem when the resources were T4 rather than T3). But as the buildings you've listed are situational, then the overall strategic cost is much lower than what you've indicated.

The reason I'm against a change lowering strategic costs is that it discourages system specialisation. As the buildings you've listed are situational, you need to make serious choices about where you build them, or if you build them at all. The strategics cost plays a role in that decision - Can you afford it? Will it mean that you can't build something else more important? Will your ship modules suffer because of it? Should I really research that thing that I can barely afford to make? It also devalues the systems that contain the resources. I will go to war with someone for extra deposits if I need them/can't trade for them. If the costs were lower, then sitting on one deposit would be fine. This is why the costs being higher is important for the mid game - it accelerates the interactions between players.

Dragar wrote:

If anything, I'd like to see more demand for Titanium and Hyperium, rather than less for Tier 2 resources. I never find myself resource constrained by those at all.

Higher tier buildings in Endless Legend required significant amounts of early tier resources along with smaller amounts of higher tier resources. I'd like to see more of that.

I'd like this as a change as well. Adding the same cost to hyperium/titanium to the Orich and Quad buildings at the end would keep the T1 resources relevant in late game.

WeLoveYou wrote:

The two are connected though, and you have connected them. If the buildings you've listed as critical to system development were, in fact, critical to system development then I might agree that the costs are too high (although really the net result would just be that the game pace would slow down too much in the mid game, which was the problem when the resources were T4 rather than T3). But as the buildings you've listed are situational, then the overall strategic cost is much lower than what you've indicated.

The problem is just that.  Mid game is slowing down too much because these structures are way too high in cost.  With the example I gave, it was under the assumption that in a 10 system empire you would have 5 adamantium mines.  But if you think about it, what are the chances you would actually have 5 adamantium mines in a 10 system empire.  Almost zero.  You're more likely to have 1 or 2.  3 if you're really lucky.  And even if both of the ones you have are abundant and you haven't been able to build the boosters yet (which takes time), you are still only talking about producing 10 adamantium per turn when you have 5 buildings at 25 a pop.  Even if you only put one building per system, or lets say you put 3 of those buildings in 3 or 4 systems.  That's 75 adamantium required per system.  Over 4 of your 10 systems, that's 300 adamantium needed for your systems, when you're only producing 10 per turn.  That's 30 turns just to earn enough adamantium to build the buildings you need (let alone the time required to actually build them) even in your scenario of not building in every system.  And that scenario I've highlighted isn't even for all of the buildings in a couple of your systems.  That's just a couple buildings for a couple systems.  That's the point I was trying to get across.  You're focusing too much on one statement that I was specifically using to explain a point.  Where if you looked at the whole picture (which is what I was trying to frame to make it easier to understand), realize how much your typical generation is in a mid game scenario when these factors come into play, compared to what you actually need even for your "not every system" scenario, you begin to see just how overly expensive the scenario is for it's relative mid game point of becoming a factor.  That's the point I was trying to make.  Examples are meant to frame a concept to make it easier to understand.  Stop focusing on the minutia of one sentence that is inconsequential to the point of that post.  Look at the big picture.  That's the part that's important.

The funny thing is, you are thinking I'm being overly critical by the "every system" part of the post.  But you forgot about my giving a player 5 adamantium mines in a 10 system empire (which is beyond overly generous).  You would think those two contridictions in an example designed to frame a concept and put it into perspective would've balanced each other out.

jhell wrote:

I don't currently have the time to dig in your analysis but we've noticed the post and will take a look at this when we get some more time.

It's possible there are some needed tweaks as we did move the strategics down 1 stage, but from when we tested them in the balance mod it didn't seem there was a problem (or maybe the players just didn't report it :))

That's more than fair enough.  It's just great to hear, that you are aware of this thread and are going to look into it.  Thanks for the heads up.  When you get round to reading the post, you'll see I apologised for not highlighting this during the Beta.  I needed more info before I could present my concerns, and unfortunately it took several more games and outside the closed beta time limit before I could get enough of the needed info to present this post.  I agree with most in here, that Adamantium and Antimatter, should be more expensive than Titanium/Hyperium buildings, but 25 each building is just way too much.  I think it should be a 15 cost at the absolute max.  Especially when you consider typical resource generation in a match at the relative mid game point that these structures become a factor.  But I think adding a Titanium/Hyperium cost to them to keep their value makes sense and is a perfectly acceptable alternative to me.

Thanks again.

WeLoveYou wrote:

There is a difference between being in a position to make decisions due to limited resources, and not being in a position to make decisions because the resources are not available yet. The latter slows the game down as you run out of choices to make (this was partly the state pre-patch). The former does not (or at least, considerably less so, and in a less dull manner - this is the current state). Your suggestion speeds the game up, but it also removes making meaningful decisions as the resources are not limited, but abundant.  

There was no focus on the minutae of one sentence. Your original post was framed as 'These buildings cost lots of resources, and these buildings are necessary, therefore these buildings cost too much.' The second premise was contentious, and the conclusion didn't follow without adding what the negative gameplay cost is (which I assumed was game pacing, hence the focus on the claim that the buildings are necessary).    

Anyway, my points have been made, so I'll leave it at that. Maybe everyone else will disagree.

I've already stated why I framed it the way I did.  There's no point in my repeating it yet again.  If you still don't understand then I can't help with that one.  And no, reducing the cost the doesn't remove the requirement to make meaningful decisions.  All I've said is it needs to be slashed, because right now, it's way too expensive for the point at which they become a factor.  I think I've made that point pretty clear.  Even with the second example where I showed that even following your paradigm, with the current pricing in a typical "mid-game" scenario, it takes far too long to acquire enough resources let alone the time it takes to actually build said structures.  Hell, with the second example I just gave you using only a couple buildings in a couple systems (not all of them for either) it would take you 30 turns just to produce enough resources to build the structures you need.  It takes less time than that to research both the next 2 higher tier resources.  Why should you already have the next 2 exploitations for Quadrinix and Orichalcix researched before you've even been able to put Adamantium and Antimatter to actual use?  That makes no sense.  This is about balance.  I am arguing for a reduction in cost to put those structures and resource costs back into balance.  Not only for their balance in relation to where they're supposed to sit between Titanium/Hyperium and Quadrinix/Orichalcix, but also back into balance for where they should be, usage and cost wise at the mid-game point where they become a factor.  That's all this is about.  Balance.  I'm not trying to ruin your requirement to make a decision.  A reduction wouldn't cause that, because it will still be dependent on your production vs need from game to game (since every game and situation is different).  A removal would, but a reduction wouldn't.

As for not framing secondary negative side effects.  Yeah, I did.  Several times.  Such as never being able to find Adamantium nor Antimatter on the market, because the costs are so high right now, nobody ever has any spare to put on the market.  So even if you did have the money to buy it (if your resource production was so low you couldn't produce enough), you couldn't buy them on the market even you wanted/needed to.  Meaning you can't even use the market for what it was meant to be used for in the first place.  And I complained that due to the excessively high structure resource costs, I never have any spare for building ships that make use of either resource.  I specifically stated that the last 8 games straight I've played, I've not built a single ship that uses either Adamantium nor Antimatter modules, because I never had enough in stock spare to build ships using those modules.  Because my structure costs were using every last scrap I had.  So for the last 8 games straight, I've completely skipped over Adamantium and Antimatter modules and instead jumped straight over to Quadrinix and Orichalcix builds.  Because those 2 resources I always seem to have tons spare of.  Others have made this very same complaint in this very thread as well.  So I don't know where you're getting the idea that I haven't stated the negative secondary issues this issue is causing.  I quite clearly have.

This has nothing to do with removing challenge from the game.  This is a balance issue, pure and simple.  Right now, Adamantium and Antimatter are completely out of balance with all the other resources.  And both are them are far more valuable than any other resource in the game, even the higher tier resources due to the issues I've highlighted throughout this thread.  Which again, makes no sense.  As such, Adamantium and Antimatter need to be reigned in and brought back into balance with the other resources.

Do not get angry, Valhalla. This conversation is very interesting. Just when one has convinced me, the other appears and makes me doubt. I really agree with both (if something like that is possible). Would not it be possible to find a middle ground? It is not necessary reduce the resource cost of the improvements too much. I dont want that buy improvements be something "automatic" that you must buy yes or yes, but I do not want to spend resources on something unprofitable either.