All the problems I noticed have been mentioned by now, especially technologies cost a lot more than they are worth, 10 trait points for a level 1 technology which costs only a few turns ingame researching are overpriced. Even if I start on a class 2 planet I don't use the according technology to fully use that planet because I can just research that technology as the first thing.



Tolerant should be a little more useful. Sometimes there were those situations were Tolerant really gave me an edge but it sometimes is just useless. Reducing the point cost would be sufficient I think.

Hello fellow players!



We're constantly working on the balancing of the game and I need your opinion regarding the faction traits! We want to improve the dynamic of the custom factions and avoid to have "pre-selected" traits.

Could you tell me which traits you consider as a MUST HAVE for your custom factions? And why? It can be either a positive or a negative one.



In the other hand, are there traits you find totally useless? And why?



Thanks for your cooperation!





P.S.: I'm going to update the list in order to gather your opinion in the first post.

P.S. 2: thanks Nycidian, I made a mistake with Dust Impaired and Sloppy Sawbones when I edited the post this morning ^^"



Must Have:

Optimistic:

Help a lot to expand in early game

Help to raise tax early which is especially good for UE Affinity



Eternal War

Alliance are useless if you don't build yourself for trade. Moreover, you can use Blockade Breaker to compensate the absence of alliance.



Scientists

Give a useful bonus from the start to the end of the game.



Entrepreneurs

Give a useful bonus from the start to the end of the game.



Crowded planet:

A pretty nice bonus event at level 1



Cloning:

Really useful in early game



Blockade Breakers:

Can create one of the most powerful combo, especially with Amoeba's affinity



Spray'n Pray:

Can offer extra points for a little disadvantage



Traits increasing ship's weight capacity:

It's significantly better than the other combat-based traits because an extra few guns will always be better than a marginal increase in accuracy or health. Not only that, but this trait is vastly more flexible than the others



Master of Destruction

Can be used to build weapon-focus ships for nothing and even more if combined with Militaristic.



Legendary Heores

Allow to have and administrator Lvl 3 turn 2, giving a flat bonus of 15 industry.



Dust impaired:

Double the cost of hero's ability which worse it for -4 points



Sloppy Sawbones:

+100% Healing cost on Hero is well worth the -6 points it gives

It's easy to avoid injured heroes.



Useless:

All the military tech:

They are outdone by a military Hero



Technologies:

Don't help the player in the long run.



Tolerant:

Regarding the cost, the approval and FIDS bonus are too high.

LordReynolds wrote:
[nowwithmorespellcheck]



All traits that are useless are: those that cannot in any way or form positivly affect expansion - basically FIDS.

All traits that are useful are: those that give you off-the-shelve boosts that require no secondary effort on your part and give a noticable benefit.

Neutral: those that just increase the time to get something, be it slow traveling or slower xp gain. Safe to get those for points.



An Example for bad traits is: Stellar guardians - territory does not matter, players will rush to your throat anyway and AIs, well AIs are object lessons for unpredictable madmen. They war dec you without rhyme or reason.



Food production bonus is not, however. While the short term boost to pop growth might make it seem worthwhile, it turns out that you get enough food with standard methods so the whole line of traits dealing with + food is entierly pointless UNTIL you get to the stage of the game where you turn surplus food into industry.

I just don't see either of these being useless. One of my most successful empires was built around gobbling up huge amounts of territory FAST and then just playing isolationist.



I used Stellar Guardians and +Food production to cause my early plants to grow very very quickly, and thus my influence sphere was HUGE. This effectively stunted all the other empires and they had to start fighting with each other. It wasn't until very very late in the game that they started turning on me because my sphere was pushing so far out and gobbling up planets that they owned, so I could just cold war attack them.



I find very few of the skills "worthless", I can think of a scenario for nearly all of them in which they would be of use.



----



And as far as Blockade Breakers being a must have... I didn't even try this skill until my 6 or 7th empire. It's nice... but meh... I would much rather get my research points and dust through the skills that allow give it through CP points destroyed.

Might It be a good idea for the starting technology's to be cheaper, and then have the factions start with 3, 2 T1 and 1 T2?



Allowing players to spend their left over points to unlock starting technology, or for extra turn 1 Science to boost the start?

LordReynolds wrote:
[nowwithmorespellcheck]Oh and at last: Buff, rather than nerf. BUFF up traits that are Underpowered, do not run around with the nerf stick and ruin those that work. Do not make everything cool expensive. Give us proper point gains for disadvantages.

In general you are right, that it is nicer for players to let everything working. But several skills are overpowered, those must be changed. Those skills are affecting the gameplay in a negative manner. Blockade Breakers for example makes the whole mechanic around trade routes irrelevant and make it just another source for dust/science-income. It is not good, if it stays this way. The necessary steps, must be done.

[nowwithmorespellcheck]



All traits that are useless are: those that cannot in any way or form positivly affect expansion - basically FIDS.

All traits that are useful are: those that give you off-the-shelve boosts that require no secondary effort on your part and give a noticable benefit.

Neutral: those that just increase the time to get something, be it slow traveling or slower xp gain. Safe to get those for points.



An Example for bad traits is: Stellar guardians - territory does not matter, players will rush to your throat anyway and AIs, well AIs are object lessons for unpredictable madmen. They war dec you without rhyme or reason - even if just 10 turns before they basically hung on by the hair growing on their balls.

If its not a trait that enhances short, mid or long term my ability to expand its pointless. And markign space as mine is such a trait. its only mine if i can defend it and if i can d othat, i do not need that colored sphere now do i?



Crowded planets 1 is good? Well 2 is better. Thats usually 2 more pop per world and we are talking alot of worlds here. Its an universal bonus that benefits you at any stage in the game and synergyzes with a fckton of techs and improvements. More pop = good.



Food production bonus is not, however. While the short term boost to pop growth might make it seem worthwhile, it turns out that you get enough food with standard methods so the whole line of traits dealing with + food is entierly pointless UNTIL you get to the stage of the game where you turn surplus food into industry. Then it has an impact - or so you would think. Moast games usualy are over before that stage is reached. And once you have reached it: would you not trade that +ind in for a permanent off the shelf bonus for your ships?



Scientists is good? No. No its not. Its percentage based, once you reach the magnitude of base sci to make this ability worthwhile, you do not need it. Oh and at some point you have researched everything useful - so unless you play for sissy victory (in which case you takign the race designed for it makes you the designated sissy leader ^^) that bonus jsut sudedenly goes poof.



You say combat related boni are pointless. They are not. Yes, a hero is better, but you do not have 20 + heroes. A fleet with +30 tonnage and deadly weapons (and whatever other mods you want to include) is better than an off the shelve fleet that does not have those boni.

Its a permanet bonus that is on and does not require you to do anything else. See?





Now Take dust recycler and that other one that gives you research for every cp killed. Yes. Now look back at the last game you played, especialy at the amount of cp that gets wasted every turn. its staggering. And you can get both money and sci from it. from actively murdering your foes. You do damage, conquer and get rich and tech up while doing it. Why are these treated like garbage abilities?



20 points for entreprenur? What? 20 points for a permanent +1 per pop.... which you bascially get with the first research. You just put 20 points into a trait that gives you something... that will only impact the game at a point where you do not need it any more. And its totaly based on TAX rate too, which shoots thing thing down at last. Why not get optimistic instead and raise taxes early or colonize more problematic planets early? So why not combine both? Because for 20 points you should beef up your fleet instead. The fleet is what will stave off foreign murder. It enables you to facilitate foreign murder.



I love micro managers. Yes its a bit of a bummer in regard to admin heroes - but they do level quick enough and you get more points to spend in other fields. + levels are capped so any advantage others have is lost over time.



What is a must? Builders are. Because the faster these improvements get build the faster your planets can go back to conversion or ship building.





Tolerant - it sucks for any affinity but one: craver. -25 fids? pulease. craver locust makes that up. You get to instantly colonize end exploit any world as long as approval holds up. Later on things get better when you have the planet techs. But its a powerfull early boost. And kind of uniquely synergetic with the craver affinity. The sowers? Tolerant was the first thing i deleted with them. I added mostly ship enhancements for them and build cost decreases. 30/30 each. why? pop growth it atrocious undtil you get proper industry boons running. there is basically nothing in the trait tree to boost industry. So the MO is: get your fleets up and running and while you may be behind in tech, your industry focused race can usually churn out more ships. Which are boosted right out of the factory - a boost that never, ever goes away. while the research perk does have an upper ceiling - its called a finished tech tree. then it evaporates into fart gases. while the boosted ships.. truck on....







As you can see: please be careful what traits you label as op, or up its not as clear cut as you make it out to be.





You might also want to consider having people be rewarded for not using all trait points...





Oh and at last: Buff, rather than nerf. BUFF up traits that are Underpowered, do not run around with the nerf stick and ruin those that work. Do not make everything cool expensive. Give us proper point gains for disadvantages.





The point of a custom race builder is to make cool races. Races you have FUN playing. keep that in mind.

Meedoc wrote:


Useless:

All the military tech:

They are outdone by a military Hero

I disagree with this overarching statement.

• For example: Sniper +15% accuracy <--- That it is HUGE for people trying to play more kinetic centric. Often my enemies don't survive the long range phase.
• Furthermore, NOT all your fleets are going to have a hero onboard, so a fleet that is effectively doing 15% more damage via accuracy has a large boost.
  
  

ferretersmith wrote:
Maybe useful on smaller maps but I never play anything below normal size.

Shouldn't the game be balanced around a medium sized map?

Bold= Agree Bold and Underline= Disagree Italics= Unsure

Meedoc wrote:
Hello fellow players!



We're constantly working on the balancing of the game and I need your opinion regarding the faction traits! We want to improve the dynamic of the custom factions and avoid to have "pre-selected" traits.

Could you tell me which traits you consider as a MUST HAVE for your custom factions? And why? It can be either a positive or a negative one.



In the other hand, are there traits you find totally useless? And why?



Thanks for your cooperation!





P.S.: I'm going to update the list in order to gather your opinion in the first post.

P.S. 2: thanks Nycidian, I made a mistake with Dust Impaired and Sloppy Sawbones when I edited the post this morning ^^"



Must Have:

Optimistic:

Help a lot to expand in early game

Help to raise tax early which is especially good for UE Affinity

Agree I use it in every build



Eternal War

Alliance are useless if you don't build yourself for trade. Moreover, you can use Blockade Breaker to compensate the absence of alliance.

As long as it is a non-trade build it can be extremely useful especially coupled with blockade breaker



Scientists

Give a useful bonus from the start to the end of the game.

Level 1 for sure, maybe level 2, but I wouldn't go 3/3 because of the diminishing returns aspect (% bonuses in game based on exponential growths aren't as effective as one might think). Also, from what I can tell it doesn't effect trade route income.



Entrepreneurs

Give a useful bonus from the start to the end of the game.

1/3 is useful in some builds I wouldn't go farther than that again because of diminishing returns. Also, as far as FIDS go Dust



Crowded planet:

A pretty nice bonus event at level 1

1/2 is a very nice bonus for the points spent but after that it is not worth it.



Cloning:

Really useful in early game

30 points for +1 food? Might be a little to much. I think 1/3 or 2/3 could probably be used to great effect in maps with galaxy age set to old.



Blockade Breakers:

Can create one of the most powerful combo, especially with Amoeba's affinity

Very useful with Amoeba affinity and/or eternal war.



Spray'n Pray:

Can offer extra points for a little disadvantage

Huge hit to your military for very little points.



Traits increasing ship's weight capacity:

It's significantly better than the other combat-based traits because an extra few guns will always be better than a marginal increase in accuracy or health. Not only that, but this trait is vastly more flexible than the others

+30% ship weight is a must for any military build. While it does mean +30% industry spent on modules being able to get +30% out of each cp is well worth it.



Master of Destruction

Can be used to build weapon-focus ships for nothing and even more if combined with Militaristic.

I haven't played MP so far but from what I read it is overpowered/required in human games (a significant increase to ship level/expience bonuses may shift human games back to using defenses. Since ships that survive fight after fight would be that much better.) Definitely useful in single player but I wouldn't say it is overpowered.



Legendary Heores

Allow to have and administrator Lvl 3 turn 2, giving a flat bonus of 15 industry.

It is a must have not because the trait is overpowered, but because admin heroes are early on.



Dust impaired:

Double the cost of hero's ability which worse it for -4 points

Free points. By the time I actually get around to giving my fleet heroes dust costing cards (if it happens at all) dust isn't really an issue.



Sloppy Sawbones:

+100% Healing cost on Hero is well worth the -6 points it gives

It's easy to avoid injured heroes.

Agree



Useless:

All the military tech:

They are outdone by a military Hero

While I disagree with the logical reasoning (the availability of fleet heroes or how powerful they are does not mitigate the strength of military traits in any way and probably only makes them more useful) in most cases however many military traits don't make the cut and are often outdone by traits like militarist, optimistic, legendary heroes, or MoD leaving little room for space battle traits. Not sure if the others are overpowered or military traits are under powered but something should be done to rebalance this.



Technologies:

Don't help the player in the long run.

They're just to expensive for what they give in return.



Tolerant:

Regarding the cost, the approval and FIDS bonus are too high.

Since I was the one who suggested it I obviously agree with this.

A few more opinions from me

Must Haves

Growth plan: Probably the only +% FIDS bonus I would even consider going 3/3 in since food is so much more important than dust or science and unlike them can't be earned through trade routes.



Fragile Hull: HP doesn't keep your ships alive, having the right defenses does. An extra ten points is definitely worth this somewhat insignificant loss. Less useful with UE builds obviously.



Feeble Warriors: System defense isn't a big deal since your systems will be quickly captured no matter what you do by mid to late game. It is a free 4 points really.



Masters of Illusion + Sophon affinity: Allows you to really speed up early colonization.



Space Cadets 1/3 or 2/3 with trade build: Trade route science is unaffected by this and since you can more than make it up the losses to science with trade in this kind of build the cost is definitely worth benefit. However, there is a diminishing returns aspect that makes me unsure about taking 3/3.



Spendthrifts 1/3 or 2/3 with trade build: Same as above.



Useless

Pessimistic: Many more points would need to be given before I would ever consider this.



Anomolies: Cost is to high for a single planet bonus. Maybe useful on smaller maps but I never play anything below normal size.



Well that my two cents anyways.

Overpowered:

Legendary Heroes: Boosting a heroe to lvl3? This is SO overpowered, it takes ages in the beginning for administrators to level up - this trait enables to skip this whole phase & double the industry income on your home system & colonys! And all these advantages for only 16 points Oo!

Blockade Breakers: 15 points, which make trade routes overpowered. Regardless of what is happening, your income is secure. It makes trade routes to simple and enables aggressive players to have all the bonuses diplomatic players have, too. Trade routes and their income should be sth. you think about. Should you attack the Pilgrim or should you harvest dust + science @trade routes more? Especially with the new Trade Routes Overview, It should become an element, which you should think about!

Builders: SO overpowered ! This trait kicks in from the first round, till the last one - for just 24 points! It makes you much faster in building up your empire => 30% is so mega-overpowered! Taking it is a no-brainer!

Militarists: Not as overpowered as Builders, but boosts to much





Good Ones:

Deep Roots: The disadvantages are not so big and -1point seems fair

Feeble Warriors: Loosing defense on system is not hurting, but gaining 4 points for this: awesome!

Micromanagers: you can't take this, while you have legendary heroes (which everyone has!!), so noone is going to take this at the moment. But the trait itself would be worthy, if everything else around it would be balanced.

Big Fleets: More CP = more awesomeness, it is also very expensive, but it looks fine

Fast Travelers: Can give you a tactical advantage & is also very useful in the colonization-phase

Fragile Hulls: -30% HP are pretty nasty ! Especially if you are not UE => -10points seems to be fair for such a disadvantage

Optimal Structure: In the late game, noone is going to stop fleets with this trait!

Slow Travelers: Selfcrippling for -6 points , perhaps this trait is worth 8 or 10 points? Because movement is important =)!

Strong Alloys: As long as Weapons are not able to rip ships apart with one missile, this trait is good. At the moment i fear, that the game tends to favor glass cannons & HP are not that important

Wasted Space: This will hit you like a truck in the endgame - seems to be balanced and worth -8/16 points

Space Cadets: Can be useful in combination with other traits

Dust Starved: This trait is hitting you hard, 1point seems to be ok an increase to 2 should be also fine.

Merchants: For players, who rely on trade routes a good addition

Spend thrifts: Gives you a severe disadvantage at dust income, which makes you dust mgmt a little bit more interesting. I believe, that this trait is currently giving to much points. There are other traits, like builders which are so important, that you are willingly use this trait to get the points.

Crowded planets: depends on the galaxy => nice

optimistic: nice addition

Masters of Destruction: More expensive than builders, while effecting less => interesting trait

Diplomats: for merchants!





Bad Traits:

Fearless Warriors: Very expensive & defense is not so important. Traits in economic or military traits are MUCH better spent.

Rebellion: 6 points are way to much, it smoothes things, but is no game changer

Revenge: Nice idea of some kind of "comeback", but other traits are cheaper & have much more impact. Getting a system back is within the endless space gameplay a minor issue

ALL technology traits: It is nice to have some minor advantage in science, but only one tech for 10 points? While i can -10% costs on system improvement or ships?

Death before dishonor: getting XP while fighting others, is not a problem - you are reaching level 20 quiet fast + for 5-10points, the injury-thing is really nasty Oo!

Anarchists: This talent is self-dooming your military power, i am not sure if this can be balanced. It is so easy to produce whole fleets within 1 or 2 turns, so it really hurts you, if you can't put everything into one fleet. -6/12 points are not really reflecting the impact this skill has on your military power.

Scientists: Trait Routes are so powerful in the end game, 30 points for +30% are to much. Science is less important than industry & bonus on industry is as expensive

Business Man: Dust is not that important, to spend so much points on it. Ontop trade routes are also a very good income source.

Dust Archae: Being able to buy the first hero instant, sounds nice, but doing it in round 2 is not such a disadvantage and saves 2 points

Entrepreneurs: More dust, noone needs :P. It is about Food & Industry, not Dust.

Black Thumb: Noone is going to doom himself with this trait - Food is so important to build colo-ships.

Growth plan: To expensive, while only boosting the beginning

pessimistic: the disadvantage is SO big, there should be MUCH more points

Eternal War: being forced to make war all the time is a funny idea, but should give much more points. Especially in a human game this means auto-loose.

Naive: This is a endgame-trait, because alliances are only able in mid-to-endgame. Spending 10points for approval is to much. Other traits are so much better.

Symbiosis: To expensive for such a small bonus, which depends on so many factors (are other players offering cooperation contracts?!)



OMG

Stellar Guardians: useless^2

Dust impaired: This trait hits you in the late game, while you swim in dust - even if you would find the battle cards interesting, this trait is not hurting you at all

Heroic Medicine: Due to the fact, that there is a retreat-option, it is highly unlikely to loose a hero and even if it is so, this happens normally in late game => dust is no problem

Power Masters: And another trait with heroes + dust => useless

Sloppy Sawbones: The same as above, this trait does not hurt you at all! 6 points are way to much, it is more about -1 or even superfluous

Masters of Illusion: Wasting 10 points for what? This game is not about fake attacks, it is about HUGE fleets attacking each other

Meti Analysis: 6 points for more vision? You can't see on range, what weapons someone is using / not using and knowing only that something is coming is not enough for 6 points

Tolerant: Spending 20/40 points + having such a huge malus on FIDS is way to much. Keep in mind, that players are also suffering from negative approval on higher tier planets, which cannot be countered with improvements in this early phase.

Cloning: 30 points for so little food - not worth it.

The price of beauty: I would NEVER take it, because this game is about producing fleets, this trait contradicts with the purpose of this game. It's like loosing on purpose!

Unskilled Builders: This is ES in hardmode and giving you a huge disadvantage through the whole game!





I didn't look at Space battle, perhaps i will add it later. Anomalies are to expensive in general from my point of you. The small boost in the beginning is not enough for 8 points.

Wait: Are you going to get rid of starting techs entirely?



For me, starting techs are a key part of play: Especially in the earliest turns, it makes the difference between expansion and stagnation.



it should be noted that the AI does not make much use of certain traits. For example, death before dishonor means nothing to AI hissho, since AI never retreat....

I'll give you my opinion from the perspective of someone who really only plays multiplayer at this point.



Must Have's:



-At least the first rank of crowded planets; this allows your empire to be viable even with a less than ideal starting position and fewer or worse quality systems than your opponents.

-Militarist; Almost everyone takes this for obvious reasons, it helps early expansion and late game wars of attrition. If you don't get it as well, you are at a serious disadvantage during all phases of the game.

-At least the first rank of Optimism; similiar to Militarist above, this allows you to squeeze the most out of your empire during all phases of the game and opponents take this ability.

-Optimal Structure; with fleet size being tech limited by relatively expensive paths up the tech tree, squeezing the most out of every cp often makes all the difference in battles.





-Sloppy sawbones...as others have stated, it's pretty easy to keep hero out of harms way.

-Fragile Hulls; in MP at least, people tend toward glass cannons anyway, rather than the guessing and retro-fitting required to play the rock/paper/scissors game on defense. So, less base hp really has very little impact on battles and can be negated by a couple of armor modules.



Don't use:



-In MP, diplomacy is very hit and miss during any particular game. So, using points in any diplomaitc trait is a big risk usually not worth taking, points can be better used elsewhere.





Zazen