koxsos wrote:

But most games I am in, end prior to introduction of obliterators. But it definitelly makes the science factions look a bit more scary.

You are still mostly capable of rushing or getting rushed by someone completely ignoring the concept of behemoths sonner than that.

Sadly, I'd second this - the only thing keeping obliterators from really affecting the gameplay experience of ES2 is the fact that games are often essentially "over" before they come into play - if they do at all.

If they actually came into play ... it'd be pretty miserable on my end.

Jetrel wrote:

I think they can be fixed, but unless drastic changes are made,  I'd consider them the first outright design failure in the game.  I've otherwise been running completely unmodded for the vast majority of my playtime (~700hrs or so), but this is the first thing in ES2's history I'd want to have a mod for to simply delete from the game.  This is an incredibly harsh thing for me to say, and I've never said it about anything you've designed before.  My heart sank when I read the release notes, and I'm sad to say the consequences of the mechanic are exactly what I feared.  I'm sad about this because I'm a big fan of you guys, and I'm a huge cheerleader for this game - and generally the last person in the world to complain about things (c.f. my unusually low usage of balance mods compared to the average player).

I have had a similar reaction to you. I own Endless Legend and Endless Space 2, and all the DLC. Supremacy is the only one I've ever wanted to turn off (though I've yet to give Inferno a look at).

I also have to agree on that as well. I don't remember who said it in another thread, but playing with Behemoths in their current state really does make them feel like a silly alternate game mode or something since they dominate every possible part of the game throughout the match. Rather than feeling like a powerful trump card that requires proper gameplay focus, behemoths are so common that every faction can and will easily spam them everywhere. Them dominating different parts of the game once properly specialized is kind of a given due to them supposedly being superweapons, but they're unlocked so early that the unlock quest might as well not exist at all. It doesn't really make any sense that they're unlocked well before large or even medium hulls, plus they're also very cheap to produce before the increasing costs eventually start racking up.

Even the basic Economic behemoth is very powerful in battles once you end up getting the passive bonuses like increased health techs and kit it with proper modules, which allows it to dominate many parts of the early game warfare even with the supposed downside of being unable to merge with regular fleets. I'm still of the opinion that the Economic behemoth should be given the Vodyani ark nerf treatment: that they're both much less powerful and also visually smaller in early game compared to when their proper potential is fully unlocked. Perhaps even attach a time / resource cost to every time you want to "level it up", with the final specialization being unlocked at the last level.

I actually got another idea: 

Greatly decrease the number of behemoths you can field all across the board and increase their build costs, so players actually have to be choosy with their behemoth specializations. Maybe also change the Citadel specialization so that rather than covering only one system, it gives an AoE anti-obliterator shield and also smaller economic / normal anti-invasion bonuses to other systems it encompasses, kind of like how Hissho Keii bubble bonuses work but stationary. 

You could even tie Influence or other pressure mechanics into Citadel as well, if the AoE bubble happens to encompass an opponent system: slightly how building the citadel in CiV forcefully expands the owning empire's borders. What these changes could possibly achieve is that the Citadel becomes a slightly more comparable specialization to its polar opposite Obliterator since it can actually affect many systems at once just like an Obliterator can currently choose its targets, while an overall lowered behemoth count across the board would prevent buffed Citadels from making Obliterators completely useless. Citadels affecting multiple systems could also turn the systems they're attached to into interesting strong points that have to be contested due to their defensive and influence effects, if you actually want to keep the neighboring systems you just captured.

Regardless, what I feel about behemoth-like superweapons in general is that less is more. Behemoths should be very powerful, but limited! When someone builds a big superweapon in any other startegy game it's usually a really big deal that is possibly even announced globally to other players. Building a behemoth in ES2 on the other hand is something you do all the fricking time due to how ridiculously powerful, spammable, cheap and early accessible they are.

Apart from other offered solutions I did create an idea including a simple fix for Obliterators here: Nerving Obliterator shots