Then you are simply not willing to stray from your path.

Compare UE and Sophon gameplay: The former should heaviliy invest in happiness upgrades and Dust, so they can ramp up their taxes and get more Dust and Industry. The latter focus on almost no taxes to avoid having to build all the happiness buildings and still receive huge Science bonuses.

Don't get me started on Hissho, another type of gameplay altogether. You just have to discover their strengths and play accordingly.

Just going to link this thread for expansion disapproval discussion: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12835-decaying-expansion-disapproval

Shivetya wrote:
To fix the problem you have with the technology trees you would have to dispense with them in their entirety. Something like MOO2s system where you could actually be MISSING technologies at certain levels would make for a more interesting game. Not the default behavior mind you, but one to challenge players. There is no replay value in any fixed tech tree. If you remove the intertwined aspect of one it becomes even more fixed in how you must play it. There is always going to be one or two best paths to follow in a game with a fixed tree.



G-6 You cannot lose as Cravers as long as you keep expanding or stop attacking. It is impossible. By design they have to win, only another better played Craver should be able to beat them.

I disagree that (non-randomized) tech trees have no replay value. Especially ones with completely separate branches. (Actually, having a game-mode with a randomized tech tree could be fun. I might add that to the G section.) By actually separating the branches, the developers would create 4 completely different paths (obviously, faction bonuses will make some of these more preferable than others). But looking at the current branches, there are really (roughly) 11 different approaches (ground combat, laser ships, missile ships, kinetic ships, colonization, happiness, diplomacy, food, industry, dust, and science). Mixing these different branches to find unique gameplay styles, should create a ton of re-playability. Combining just 2 different categories results in 110 possibilities (granted, some combos won't work well, but that's beside the point).



If Cravers can't lose, that's a pretty big balance problem. A good defense by a Hissho player (or a coalition of multiple other factions) should be able to beat a Craver player (if played well enough, of course). Non-Craver factions would probably lose some ground at first (especially if they hadn't researched war techs), but by dramatically slowing the Craver player's expansion, the Craver empire would slowly consume itself. After that, the other empires would just have to mop it up. The Cravers are (or at least, should be) an all-or-nothing gamble that their leader can conquer enough in the early game to outgrow any opposition.

Nosferatiel wrote:
@OP: You can discuss your ideas and refine upon them in the discussion format, of course, but unless you post any of them as a single suggestion per thread in the proposals section, it is unlikely that any of them will be regarded.



Just making the point again, that suggestion lists are really hard to cope with.

Thanks for the advice. I was (and still am) hoping to refine my and others' ideas into a more cohesive vision. That way we can offer more in-depth suggestions to the developers without contradicting ourselves (at least as much). I'm rather saddened that ideas might be disregarded if they are not placed into their own threads, since I'm hoping to gather a ton of them. Furthermore, many suggestions (most, actually) work best when paired with other ones. I consciously used patch notes as an inspiration for this thread. There's a reason patch notes clump all the changes together: it helps give a clearer picture of how the game as a whole has changed.

Sahal wrote:
A1. Technology trees are fine. Your example shows it.

A2. There is end game technology. It gives you science victory. Plus, we have to end technology trees in some point, it can't be infinite. While end game techs aren't game-breaking (or significant), they give us little a more than incremental advance.

A3. This is so one can focus on one tree, while easily not staying far behind with others. So your "war-mongering faction" could not struggle with lack of industry, problems with colonization, etc.

B2. If we could choose cards for automatic combat how would it be different from manual?

B7. Guarding systems works how it was intended to. It blocks enemy fleets from leaving the system. It could be nice if it would block invasion too.

B9. They do? I play with insane pirates, and didn't notice that. They are annoying early, but mid game they do nothing to me. Sometimes I see pirate's systems, that they took from AI, but no problems with them too.

C1. They can. Ctrl + click. Ctrl + Shift + Click.

D2. If they only generate dust, they are in plus taking cost in account. I don't see any problem here.

D3. Influence area as it is work fine IMO. Controlling it by diplomacy (trading, selling etc.) would be unnecessary complex without said tiles.

D4. That's because it's beginning of their own turn too. It's different from turn by turn concept. Has it's pros and cons. Developers want it this way, so it will stay this way.

E1. You can break deals any time (except ceasefire) at cost of relation points from other side.

F1. AI would be too easy if it wouldn't cheat.

G3. Didn't play. Don't know. But their affinity gives them advantage in that they can focus industry and still boost their population growth. Ability to colonize any planet isn't their affinity.

G4. Some combinations of traits are unbalanced. But that doesn't mean custom factions are.

G5. Colonization disapproval means people are unhappy because government focus on getting more planets, while neglecting their needs. New outpost are burden, and that why people aren't happy about them. That's how I explain it to myself.

G6. I have no idea. I didn't play Cravers. But it goes well with their lore without serious disadvantage like reverse terraforming.

A1. As I've stated before, making the 4 tech branches interdependent to such an extent ruins the entire idea behind having for distinct branches in the first place. It forces every empire to research techs in almost the exact same order, which makes the game more boring (at least for me).

A2. Having a finite amount of technologies isn't quite the same thing as having end game technologies. I was referring to the introduction of new types of gameplay, which is woefully absent. The only branch that actually mixes things up is colonization. By the end-game you can terraform planets at will and move ships without the help of warp routes. But such progression is completely absent in the other branches, which usually only offer % increases to existing gameplay styles. In short, I want more creativity in the various techs.

A3. But that's the point of specialization. Investing heavily in one area should make you fall drastically behind in others.

B2. Players would have to pick all the cards from the start (instead of potentially waiting til mid-battle). More importantly, it would skip the fancy but unnecessary light shows and explosions. Although, now that I think more about it, picking cards wouldn't work well in a multiplayer match.

B7. Why would the developers call the action "guard system" if they didn't intend for it to actually guard that system from attack? Why else would someone want to park their fleets over their own planets, but to stop enemies from invading or blockading?

B9. You must either be parking ships at every nearby system (which stops them from spawning) or just be a militaristic faction in general. For a colonial/diplomatic faction, pirates are hell. In one of my games, pirates had managed to take over half of an Empire's total holdings (over a dozen star systems).

C1. Really? I had no idea that was possible. I'm gonna go try that out.

D2. I've noticed that dust improvements (with the exception of trade route improvements after a trade pact) don't give very good rewards. They take time to build, and when balanced against their maintenance costs, they only generate a few dust per turn. This isn't nearly enough to offset the costs of other improvements and upgrading ships.

D3. Yeah, tiles would be a huge help, but would also take away from the game's atmosphere. I just wish borders were realistically portrayed in strategy games .

D4. Ah, now it makes a little more sense. Does the game attempt simultaneous turns in multiplayer matches as well? I can't imagine those would play well.

E1. I kinda forgot about that actually (although the penalties for ending deals such as mutual trade agreements is ludicrously high) . Still, players aren't able to reject peace treaties when their allies sign them, and breaking cease-fires would be nice.

F1. Not if the AI is actually competent. *Sigh* Maybe that's asking too much, though.

G3. Yes, they can focus more, but the overall bonus still only adds up to 90% (out of 100%), which makes it negative instead of positive. I grouped in their other ability since it is pretty much the only thing they having going for them.

G4. That's true. Sorry, I really meant to say that some individual traits/combos are unbalanced.

G5. My main issue is that colonization disapproval never, ever goes away. When outposts become full colonies (and should therefore be self-sufficient), the other colonies need to stop whining about them.

G6. The problem is that (from what I hear; I haven't played as them yet) Cravers are nearly unstoppable because they get a +25% boost to all FIDS in newish systems. This allows them to get an early lead on competitors, which means they can settle colonies before their old ones get the -25% penalty to FIDS. Basically, the penalty needs to be higher later on to stop them from steamrolling the entire galaxy.



I'll list your disagreements on the various topics after I get some sleep.

Spero42 wrote:
Just going to link this thread for expansion disapproval discussion

Thanks for the link. I somewhat agree with that OP: expansion disapproval should decrease to nothing with time. However, I still find the concept of expansion disapproval unnatural and forced, which is why I still advocate removing it entirely.

Wow. A list! Some comments:



A1) I don't mind this, especially with the military.

A2) Not yet had a problem with this

A3) This is because Magnetic Field Generators produce too much research.



B6) Only thing I really agree with in this section. Hangers need a limited capacity.

B10) Actually, I agree with this, but not strongly.



G1) Agree.

G3) Agree.

G4) Yes. My MP group only play stock factions because of this.

G7) Need fixing.

Ganpot wrote:
A -2 & 3

I generally agree on late game tech, something feels like its missing on the late game tech rewards. On early tech or tech in general being too fast, I thought that to myself alittle while back too.

Oh man. People are saying that current research tree is good. Now there is one and only one the best route for victory with any faction. I never change my research order regardless of faction i play. If you think that is good you are so wrong.

Shivetya wrote:


F. AI

1. Sorry it needs to cheat, its too stupid to have a chance otherwise.

The stupidity is the point criticized here. Their greatest failures are not even things that should be hard to sort out. There is stuff the AI does wrong that is really, really obvious.



Like constantly using fleets that are not at the command-point-cap, having fleets sit around at their systems when in war.

Using Instructor-Heros on fleets instead of planets but not actually using those fleets.

Building useless and inefficient stuff at their systems while ignoring really important things.

Setting all Planets to the same specialization... not that big of a deal unless they do that with food-production on systems with full pop. And they have done that!



Without an AI that at least appears to be competent the game is no more fun to play. Playing GalCiv2 Ultimate-Edition now. It has outstanding AI. The difficulty level where the AI is on par with the human there is the 6th out of 12 not the 1st.

For me I think most of the issues stem from the UI rather then anything else really. First time playing I took forever to find how to do the simplest things like colonize a planet. If the UI was much clearer it would be good.

trinest wrote:
For me I think most of the issues stem from the UI rather then anything else really. First time playing I took forever to find how to do the simplest things like colonize a planet. If the UI was much clearer it would be good.

Reading the Tutorial more or less solves this. And after a few games there's little left of things that you don't know how to do. And at this point you will probably also see the more pressing issues.

Not saying there's nothing to improve about the UI tough.

Refitting ships only doable from the fleet-screen for example is rather ridiculous.

I pretty much agree with most of your points. Overall, the game is just too static, especially late game, it's like "Build improvement that increase FIDS and approval, then get tech that allow to build improvements that increase FIDS, then build improvements... etc" at the beginning ; and at the end, spamming ships, auto-ing most of the battles (especially against the AI aka "I build 5 junk fleets/turn on each system I got") and waiting for a circle around a system to be filled with the color of our faction (that was an invasion ?). Every games just look the same, because no matter which faction I chose, I'll always do the same things.

A1. Technology trees are fine. Your example shows it. War-mongering faction needs to invest into industry, beacause it's industry that creates ships. It needs to invest into exploration if they want to colonize planets. You can't demand to change trees so you could colonize more planets, and produce more ships without investing into trees that focus these aspects. Ships designs and increasing max fleet CP could be put in military tree, but they are where they are not without a reason. Exploration tree deals with engines so it has ships designs. Increasing max CP is in diplomacy tree cause that's where technologies dealing with empire management are.



A2. There is end game technology. It gives you science victory. Plus, we have to end technology trees in some point, it can't be infinite. While end game techs aren't gamebraking (or significant), they give us little more then incremental advance.



A3. This is so one can focus one tree, while easily not stay far behind with others. So your "war-mongering faction" could not struggle with lack of industry, problems with colonization, etc.



B1. Agreed. But still it's work in progress.



B2. If we could choose cards for automatic combat how would it be different from manual? More cards? Yes, please.



B3. It would be fun if we had random events during combats, like reversed combat stage or something. Diversity can be fun.



B4. Agreed.



B5. They don't have to. It's only rough approximation. If one wants more, he should have other means to check details.



B6. More interaction would be fun. Blockades could block hangars. Nothing gets in, or out. Or hangars could be attacked.



B7. Guarding systems works how it was intended to. It blocks enemy fleets from leaving the system. It could be nice if it would block invasion too.



B8. Not priority. It would be nice to have more.



B9. They do? I play with insane pirates, and didn't notice that. They are annoying early, but mid game they do nothing to me. Sometimes I see pirate's systems, that they took from AI, but no problems with them too.



B10. Yes... I want ability to choose which fleet I want to destroy. Still, knowing that weakest fleets are attacked first gives me some flexibility.



C1. They can. Ctrl + click. Ctrl + Shift + Click.



C2 and C3. Yes. Scouting ships should do that.



C4. We got plenty of planet anomalies. Adding star anomalies would add more flavor. But it's not a priority.



D1. Can't complain. Still seeing FIDS per pop over planet would be cool.



D2. If they only generate dust, they are in plus taking cost in account. I don't see nay problem here.



D3. Influence area as it is work fine IMO. Influence area around fleets could be intresting. Controling it by diplomacy (trading, selling etc.) would be unnecessary complex without said tiles.



D4. That's because it's beginnig of their own turn too. It's different from turn by turn concept. Has it's pros and cons. Developers wats it this way, so it will stay this way.



D5. Upgrading ships using industry and not money? Intresting. Agreed.



D6. And they heal too fast in combat too.



E1. You can break deal any time (except ceasefire) at cost of relation points from other side. It would be good if breaking deals would undermine our reputation in eyes of other factions too.



E2. Realtion is more between leaders/goverments than population. So declaring a war would lower relations drastically and so it does. But it would be nice if diplomacy status with other faction affect empire happines and by it system happines. Of course depending on faction and on what that war is about. When I defend myself, it shouldn't affect as much as offensive war. Same with winnig, losing, and short/long war.



E3. Yup. More diplomatic options would be fun. It's planned, if I'm not mistaken.



E4. Close borders could be less punishing unless we really take their lifespace.



F1. AI would be too easy if it wouldn't cheat.



F2. Yup. Diplomacy is lacking. But it is stil WIP.



G1. Techs that lower time to establish colony would work.



G2. Neat idea.



G3. Din't play. Don't know. But their affinity gives them advantage in that they can focus industry and still boost their population growth. Abillity to colonize any planet isn't ther affinity.



G4. Some combinations of traits are unblanaced. But that doesn't mean custom factions are.



G5. Colonization dissaproval means people are unhappy because goverment focus on getting more planets, while neglecting their needs. New outpost are burden, and that why people aren't happy about them. That's how I explain it to myself. But happines should be affected by other things. Invasions, wars, casaulties...



G6. I have no idea. I didn't play cravers. But it goes well with their lore without serious disadvantage like reverse terraforming.



G7. Agreed. It's annoying.



Peace.

I've been away for awhile because of schoolwork and various other responsibilities, but I have some free time in the next couple of days. I think I'm gonna start posting individual threads in the proposals section. I'll try to avoid posting anything that's been said before, but it's still going to be a LOT of new threads (since I need to create a thread for each idea).



Moderators, I'm just doing what you suggested, so please don't punish me for spamming the proposals section, alright?

Ganpot wrote:
I've been away for awhile because of schoolwork and various other responsibilities, but I have some free time in the next couple of days. I think I'm gonna start posting individual threads in the proposals section. I'll try to avoid posting anything that's been said before, but it's still going to be a LOT of new threads (since I need to create a thread for each idea).



Moderators, I'm just doing what you suggested, so please don't punish me for spamming the proposals section, alright?

I only punish people if they spam old threads, but I gave you a list of what's really new: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11266-discussion-comprehensive-problem-list-with-suggestions

Everything I didn't mention as "already proposed" there is safe and unpunishable for you to post.

Nosferatiel wrote:
I gave you a list of what's really new

Here's my problem: some of those ideas have been brought up before, but they don't have a poll attached. The developer-sanctioned thread I'm trying to get these ideas listed on (here) only accepts ideas which have an attached poll (with more than 10 votes). Which means that even though some ideas have been mentioned, they aren't being investigated. So should I create new threads (with polls) for those threads as well, or just hope the original thread-starter does?

Never mind, I think I misunderstood the submission criteria. The thread states that ideas with polls must have 10 votes and be run for 7 days, not that all ideas must have those polls. My mistake. So I'll post the ideas which don't show up on that thread (as far as I can tell).

Adding polls to ideas is not compulsive, but can help if you formulate the polls right. That means give them yes/maybe with changes/no options that are all worded neutrally.

Hey Nos, if you're not too busy, I'd like to ask a favor. I've cut down my list into ideas not already present in the proposals forum (not just the general forums, since they don't count). I'd still like you to look them over, since I don't want to re-paste stuff. Here it is:



Key:

Underlined = not sure if new or not (I couldn't find anything)



A:

1. completely independent tech trees

2. building warp routes/planets/systems

3. branch tech speed bonus per tech known in same branch



B:

1. Revamped. separate card system for firing pattern with the choices of spread fire (target all enemies simultaneously) , concentrate fire (on largest ship), and duel (1v1 ship battles like normal), switchable once per round (just like the tactic cards)

2. new tactic cards for suicide ramming, lining up in front of the colony, and hit-and-run [Note:Thiswon'tgetitsownthread;I'llpostitintoanalreadyexistingone]

3. make most system anomalies have effects in combat

4. ship mobility card system

5. separate MP (might power) from IP (invasion power), and assign IP for certain modules instead. Also don't assign points in either category unless the modules actually effect that area

6. limited hanger space and destructible hanger / don't allow production in a besieged system

8. separate ship size from hull selection

9. hard cap on Pirate strength, both galaxy-wide and specific fleets

11. non-random retreat success



C:

1. free ship movement across empty space / changing course and parking mid-destination [Note:thetopicRevampedShipMovementreferstoadifferentproblemcompletely(lackofhot-seatmode)]

2. idea #3 merged with this one. Enemy fleet and system information from scout modules.



D:

1. ability to see amount of FIDS produced per person on planets

2. nerf trade route bonuses but increase effectiveness of other commerce producing improvements

3. change borders to work through diplomacy and military instead of culture

6. passively increasing heal speed and reducing passive heal after combat heals are used



E:

1. allow AI to anticipate backstabbing and initiate it when it makes sense

2. idea #4 merged with this one. Revamp diplomacy system to make approval/disapproval factors more consistent, including making disapproval among warring factions more dependent on ship and civilian losses

3. intelligence pacts to share civilian or espionage info / addition production pact to increase factions' build times when resources are shared by both parties



F:

1. tone down computer cheating (on medium difficulties) by improving AI



G:

1. increase settlement to colony transition speed through later-game techs

3. improve Sower affinity by providing a 15%-20% bonus to production

5. revamp domestic happiness system to make more sense

6. Locust points aren't drastic enough (including visually)

7. allow ships to travel towards friendly territory after a cease-fire



H:

1. race-specific victory conditions

6. allow private and public notes between players in multiplayer matches

7. allow player choices in response to events [Note:currentthreadssuggestmoretypesofevents,butdonotraisethepossibilityofplayerchoice]

8. tournament mode which disables all faction specials (including affinities)

9. religions in space. Space religions. Spreligions?

Well, let's see:



For A1, probably this would be the most fitting /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13777-suggestion-race-specific-tech-trees and my commentary in that thread would apply.

In A2, building planets has been proposed here: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12896-suggestion-building-planets , while the rest hasn't been suggested as far as I'm aware. You might want to read through that thread, because some of the counterarguments also would apply to systems.

I've never seen A3 anywhere before.



B1: The targeting in general has been proposed here: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11814-prioritise-targets-during-ship-battle-s , but you might want to post your card-version-extension in detail in that thread.

B2: This might be the right place, then: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/12076-more-combat-cards-phase-specific-ones-and-card-chaining

B3: There are no system, only planet anomalies, yet?

B4: Especially this one is similar: /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13492-suggestion-navigation-cards-after-conventional-combat-ends linked to the one posted in B2.

B5: Haven't seen that.

B6: Haven't seen that, either.

B8: Haven't seen that, but don't know how that would work out, since I doubt the devs would like to load each shiptype times 3 for different sizes?

B9: Haven't seen that.

B11: I'm not sure what you mean. Retreat is always successful, if your fleet survives the enemy fire long enough.



I'm taking care of the rest once I find the time. Hopefully this is a good start.

A1. Well, my idea is neither to randomize the trees, nor make them racially specific. So I don't think it would really fit there...

A2. Interesting. I hadn't found that thread before.



B1. Yeah, I saw that thread but I wasn't sure whether it was specific enough. I'll add this point there then.

B2. Thanks, I'll add it there.

B3. I misspoke there. I meant to say that for a given system, all planetary anomalies and effects (including the star type) would be taken into account during any battles in that system. For example, having an asteroid field in the system would create hazards (ships are damaged when hitting an asteroid), while having a planet with the high gravity trait would decrease or eliminate the close combat phase (since the ships wouldn't be able to get too close to the planet without crashing). Things like that would allow fleets tailored to individual systems, enhancing strategy depth.

B4. Hmmm.... the major difference is that the OP of that thread wants his system to be largely separate from normal combat (only taking place immediately afterwards) whereas I want the system to be completely integrated (taking place at the same time). EDIT: Just realized that thread was in the archives, so I can't reply there anyway. Time for a new thread then! lol

B8. Uh, wouldn't it mostly just be a matter of up-scaling the smaller hull designs or down-scaling the larger ones? I wouldn't think it would be that hard. After having the player select the hull design, just have the option of 3 different sizes.

B11. When I've used the retreat options (either normal or adaptive) in my games, it did seem to randomly decide if my ships died after the conflict was over. I remember specific instances where I had a larger, more powerful fleet and decided to retreat (the enemy had several other fleets moving to that system as well). Afterwards, I was informed by an event message that the retreat was unsuccessful, and all my ships were gone (despite not being destroyed by enemy fire). It might be a glitch, and it is possible that this was changed lately (I haven't played in a few weeks) but it definitely happened to me.



Thanks for the response.

Ganpot wrote:
I. Questions:

1. Can the Cravers engage in diplomacy with other Craver factions? (It would make sense from a lore perspective.)

2. Do ships actually gain XP? If yes, what effect does it have? If no, then why are there improvements specifically designed to give ships nonexistent XP? (For the moment, I'm assuming this system isn't finished yet.)

3. What does the Adventurer hero class do, exactly? The other classes are fairly self-explanatory, but Adventurer is never well-explained.

4. Does culture from a single system ever reach a maximum limit? By this I mean, if there was only one system in the entire game that built culture buildings, would it eventually cover the majority of a larger map given enough time?

5. What does a system improvement mean when it claims building it will allow me to see all fleets orbiting that system? I already own that system, and unless ghost ships exist, I can already see all the fleets orbiting it.

Okay, waaaay too much for me to address completely...I can try answering the questions, though.



1.) No. Looking at the lore, there wouldn't be any other real Craver factions. They operate as a whole, as a hive-mind essentially. And even if there were seperate groups, I'd imagine their mentality would be the same...You have what I want, and I will take it from you, regardless if you look like me or not.



2.) Yes. It increases their health, as they gain XP and "level up."



3.) I haven't messed with this class that much. But from looking at the class's abilities, they help get you resources. They can leech money and science off of enemy systems, and can generate Dust for each enemy ship that they destroy. They can also tap into the sight range of any enemy empire whose system they are docked at, allowing you to see any enemy movement in that empire.



4.) Influence, not culture, might have a limit but I'm not sure. There are techs you can build to give it a boost, but seeing as it is based primarily on population, I'm going to say that once a system's populations stops growing, the influence radius stops growing as well.



5.) It allows you to see the fleet compositions, I believe. So when you are invaded, you can look at the enemy fleet and see how strong it is, letting you know what you're dealing with instead of flying in more or less blind.