Edited to clarify some parts



I just wanted to list a few things about standard factions and custom factions, and try to get a discussion going about trait point and give out my suggestion.



1) Standard Faction Trait Point Distribution So assuming 65 points is the max (60 for amoeba and sowers), therefore the lure of standard factions trait/gameplay wise is that generally they get to pass the 65 point limit.

However if you compare the standard factions amongst each other, you'll notice that the amount of points they go over 65 can range from



UE/Sher: 70

Sophons: 72

Hissho: 74

Amoeba: 70

Cravers: 71

Horatio: 79

Sowers: 62

Pilgrims: 71



So as you can see, most of them are around 70 points, but the sowers are all the way down at 62 and the amoeba at 70, remember that their max custom is at 60, which imo is a big difference.



Same issue with the other factions, as UE are at 70, whilst the Horatio are at 79.



So there is quite the imbalance between the factions (min/maxing wise).



2) Custom Factions outshine the use of Standard Factions The idea of custom factions is a great one, don't get me wrong, but ever since I got the hang of the game's mechanics I just make custom factions to suit my play style, and I haven't really bothered playing a standard faction, and its the same in multiplayer, everyone has their own custom faction.

While there's nothing wrong with this, I would like to make a suggestion.



3) Standard Factions waste too many points on starting techs while allocating points on starting tech isn't bad per say, however Rudest makes a valid point as to why custom factions can be preferred over standard factions

Rudest wrote:
Furthermore, custom races are not required to pick up starting techs at all, which frees up lots of room to load on more passives which ultimately make for a more efficient race.

This is especially the case with Sophons who have 3 starting techs, and is a waste of points, 1 or at most 2 starting techs is enough imo





Suggestion

Set the average trait point distribution of standard factions up to 80, ranging between 78-82 or so (or 75 for amoeba and sowers), with the awesome devs at amplitude allotting the traits themselves for balance issues.



IMO this will give the the standard factions nice boost to lure players to select them more often then they are currently, as they will have 20 more points than than a custom faction and in turn more traits. Also this will balance the standard factions amongst each other in terms of min/maxing trait points.



Suggestion 2 by LordReynolds

LordReynolds wrote:
And sir, nothing will work around that unless you specifically add soem new traits that are "premade empires only" and as such not accesible by customs.

This is actually a really good idea imo, give the standard factions one small trait that can't be used when creating a custom faction

Edited the suffix so this becomes a discussion in earnest.

If you want to submit your suggestion, you'll have to additionally open a dedicated thread for this in the proposals section.

The power of custom races is the ability to trade in easily circumvented negatives for very powerful positives.



Its not that the standard races are badly made. its more like we are way to good at min maxing our customs.



And sir, nothing will work around that unless you specifically add soem new traits that are "premade empires only" and as such not accesible by customs.





ideally, those traits would be combinations of traits already there. The premade empires gets combi traits. the customs do not. customs need to buy them separatly (more expensive point wise)so to speak.







The customs main boon should still be the ability to select your affinity and the look of your people.

LordReynolds wrote:
The power of custom races is the ability to trade in easily circumvented negatives for very powerful positives.



Its not that the standard races are badly made. its more like we are way to good at min maxing our customs.



And sir, nothing will work around that unless you specifically add soem new traits that are "premade empires only" and as such not accesible by customs.





ideally, those traits would be combinations of traits already there. The premade empires gets combi traits. the customs do not. customs need to buy them separatly (more expensive point wise)so to speak.







The customs main boon should still be the ability to select your affinity and the look of your people.

The highlighted part is actually a really good idea!! I'll edit that into my post thanks for the feedback

In my opinion the problem with the imbalance between the premade and the custom factions is the min-maxing of the custom factions. The premade factions offer a lot but they are nonetheless allocating bonuses and maluses rather broadly so you get some distinct advantages in one area, e.g. ower: or but not all of them. Custom factions on the other hand can grab all the bonuses available in on area while being at a slight disadvantage in many others.

Therefore I think balancing custom factions in themselves would be the way to go.

As I have suggested previously, you could limit the amount of negative traits in a faction. This way you would inherently limit the number of positive traits and thus force more balanced factions similar to the way the premade ones are designed.

Accidentally voted for option 1 instead of 2. I doubt it's possible to change it, but if an admin is able to that'd be great-or at least just move one over if considering this.



My reasons for my choice however are that while I do see a problem-the main factions are there for a reason, but I have never used them since my first game except to see all the opening intros (not actually playing with them). I feel that making the factions have 80 point avaliable would make them too powerful vs custom fleets in multiplayer (assuming that both custom and pre-made faction players are the same skill level), as a lot can be got for that extra 15 points.

I wasn't sure what exactly to vote. I rather liked the basic idea of your suggestion but I feel it would take more than it alone to fix the issue.



A balance has to be struck between customization and limitation. The issue needs to be addressed with meticulous caution! Go to stringent and the magic of creating a custom race is gone. To much lenience lends itself to bland min-maxing. Min-maxing itself isn't exactly the enemy here as there should always exist a meta-game, but in comparison to vanilla races the atypical multiplayer custom race has weaknesses that do not inhibit it or weaken it all. There are simply to many inconsequential weaknesses that do not hinder your empire enough to make a noticeable difference. A weakness should be worked around, it should add to your gameplay in that you, as a player, have to micromanage and work your way around it.



Master of Orion 2's culprit was always Creative coupled with Democracy and/or other traits to have an absurdly high tech advantage that dwarfed most styles of play. The community developed DC and VDC (Difficult, and Very Difficult Choice) mods to mathematically combat the issue. A hard limit on weakness (-10) and a limited number of points as well as boosted costs for the more game changing traits. I -think- buffed vanilla races, and a point deficit between vanilla and custom were implemented, but do not quote me on that.



Furthermore, custom races are not required to pick up starting techs at all, which frees up lots of room to load on more passives which ultimately make for a more efficient race.



TLDR = So while you are right, this is an issue, but it needs a multi-pronged fix:



1. More attractive vanilla empires that still retain their flavor of lore and weaknesses. (Your point deficit between vanilla and custom is a solid idea.)

2. Increasing point costs on monumentally game changing traits, incentivising heftier weaknesses to be taken to compensate.

3. Removal or buffing the effect of custom race weaknesses that are inconsequential, so that they proportionally weaken and balance your empire or simply do not exist. (As they have done with Isolationist for example)



4. Of course, time; trial, error, meta-game and fan base development to determine how and to what degree such tuning is made. Overtuning or undertuning will leave the issue unresolved! Custom races and vanilla races should both be rounded out without losing their appeal.

I don't think this is a huge problem, but I like your "fix" nonetheless, so I voted option one.

Agree with all three points, although #2 needs to address game-changing NEGATIVES as well. Like, -5/lvl for Black Thumb? Ok? Those 15 extra points will get you, what, Snipers III? Enjoy losing horribly anyway thanks to nonexistent pop growth. Even Sower affinity gets (further) screwed by Black Thumb. Same with Space Cadets. Basically, they need to re-visit the costs of all of the serious traits (both +/-), and transform/remove as many of the useless ones as possible.



The patch change to Sloppy Sawbones from +25/50% to +50/100% is pointless. It's still free points, because healing costs rarely matter. Get rid of this trait entirely, or add multiple other properties to it, like Fatigue Recovery (healing recovery time), etc. Not every little thing needs its own trait - similar positives and negatives that really aren't worth more than a point or two either way (regardless of how good/harsh the percentages are) should be grouped to make them meaningful. In my modding experiments, I've converted this trait into a Fleet trait with a global ship HP regeneration mult (which was a rather involved process), which certainly makes it worth the cost and far from a free negative.



Likewise, Dust-Attuned should should affect hero upkeep as well as ability cost, and should be +50%/100% and -50%/100%, i.e. double upkeep and costs on L2-, and free ability dust cost and a flat -2 upkeep on all heroes on L2+. Suddenly you have a positive trait actually worth 3-4 points a level, and a negative trait that can really hurt in the early- and mid-game by putting your hero upkeep into high double digits. This kind of change should be made to the Dust Wielder ability as well, as it's absolutely worthless right now.

Thanks to all for your opinions/feedback.



I think one of the key points made was

Rudest wrote:
Furthermore, custom races are not required to pick up starting techs at all, which frees up lots of room to load on more passives which ultimately make for a more efficient race.

I will add this to the OP.

Master-Alaethyr wrote:




Suggestion

Set the average trait point distribution of standard factions up to 80, ranging between 78-82 or so (or 75 for amoeba and sowers), with the awesome devs at amplitude allotting the traits themselves for balance issues.



IMO this will give the the standard factions nice boost to lure players to select them more often then they are currently, as they will have 20 more points than than a custom faction and in turn more traits. Also this will balance the standard factions amongst each other in terms of min/maxing trait points.

I wholeheartedly agree with this. it gives more incentive to play as the default races without ruining the magic for the custom players.



Also, for people who say custom races are OP and should be nerfed to the point where the defaults are just as good/better: Well I'll admit the custom factions still needs fine tuning, but nerf, nerf, nerf is not usually right way to go. I say just make the defaults better.



Custom races will never be balanced (in all aspects) with out making them under-powered. Because, the ability to choose your strengths and weaknesses at will, is an inherently powerful ability in it self, and that's always going to compete with the presets. For instance, regardless of it being a good debuff on paper, some weaknesses just won't affect some players as much because it does not reflect in their play style. Also, making them all such huge drawbacks that it affects all play styles it could make them not worth the point reduction.



A weakness is a noticeable (but not usually major) impedance, and they should not a horrible maim to a gameplay aspect.

It is not that the starting factions spend too much on starting technologies, it is that that the traits cost too much for the benefit received.



10 points for N-Way? A 30 research point tech? A tech most races can research without and changes to sliders before they finish building their first exploitation?



The issue here isn't that the points assigned the races are wrong, its that traits are scored wrong.

I see your point, but with a little re-touch on the faction traits and make more equal the number of points may be enough.

Your proposal does seem reasonable. Although I don't think this is currently a huge issue, I still voted for it

Actually, I see that points between custom factions and classic factions should be equal. For the sack of balancing. But that's my own point of view.



The issue as you describe is less about classic/custom factions than about points. Tech costs a lot too much to be valuable in traits. Their prices should be reduced. The classic factions gets too much points on traits that are worthless and that a custom wouldn't take (like AI vs Player). The classic traits should be better balanced and selected. Of course that wouldn't make classic factions more used, but before custom factions, I used to play random, cause I knew that I like to play a different faction each time with a different gameplay (even if I wish they got really different gameplay, no slighty difference).

Thanks to all for the feedback/opinions

PanH wrote:
Actually, I see that points between custom factions and classic factions should be equal. For the sack of balancing. But that's my own point of view.



The issue as you describe is less about classic/custom factions than about points. Tech costs a lot too much to be valuable in traits. Their prices should be reduced. The classic factions gets too much points on traits that are worthless and that a custom wouldn't take (like AI vs Player). The classic traits should be better balanced and selected. Of course that wouldn't make classic factions more used, but before custom factions, I used to play random, cause I knew that I like to play a different faction each time with a different gameplay (even if I wish they got really different gameplay, no slighty difference).

I must say that I disagree with your first point. If standard factions are in line to the level of custom factions (65 or 60 points respectively) then not only would it make the standard factions obsolete because the points distributed for standard factions can never match up to custom factions, it would also cause any number custom faction builds to stand out even more as imbalanced and OP.



As for the trait points, well it's not just about how much traits cost in points, because the costs are the same for both standard and custom. It's just that, with custom factions you can choose what you want, and really excel in certain aspects of the game, whereas with standard factions, the traits are set, and while you may have more traits, it still doesn't compensate for the fact that custom will always have that much more of an advantage overall.