Hi all ,

I recopied my message to the design forum,

Hoping I did the good thing



This is my first post and I wanted to give my first impressions on the alfa.

I am french speaking so excuse my basic english.



So I have to say I am quite impressed with the game so far!

Everything is not yet perfect but it is very promising.

I do not have enough indsight to judge the game yet. I will in the few next days post a more in depth impression.



Positives



+ design

+ graphics. I have noticed often that 4x games are with very kitsh graphics specially for alien races. Here nice design.

+ navigation

+ a lot of things to do and options

+ ship customisation

+ little things/details that give indepth. Like heroes gaining xp. Thats a nice touch

+ very stable for an alfa

+ The fact that players feel involved in the development.



Negatives



- not much events. It is very poor on that side. would be nice to implement events with choices that affects the game.

- Would be nice nice to have more immersion. Perhaps could have a voice (Kinda homeworld 2 sexy voice) that warns you whenever something happens.

- not easy always to understand what the ships are intend for. Would be nice to have a small line giving a general idea of what is the role/purpose of ships.

- Ship customisation is nice but would be nice to see graphically a few changes to the design + It would be nice to be able to zoom a little on the ship and be able to turn it.. •will it be possible to add skins/ colors to ships ?

•will it be possible like in Homeworld 2 to import logos on ships or even text?

- The ship identification and movement on the stellar map is a little strange.



- And finally space combat I understand the idea of making combats quick. The idea of using cards is nice but the combat lacks the EPIC feel and you are more spectator then anything. The combat is a HUGE DRAWBACK. I never felt involved in the fights I had. And after a few "cinematics" that are always the same I never really bothered with fights.



I would suggest a few things to have more a strategic feel to fights (those are simply ideas not sure they all work but its to give a direction):



- Perhaps do something more in turn by turn

- create a sort of grid where you could move your ships?

- Adding "objects" in space that could alter the combat in anyway: dust clouds, asteroid belts, wreckages where small ships could hide.

- ship formations could also give strategic bonuses.

- Are there some fighters dogfights?

- would it be possible to add ingame fight targetting ships subsystems?

- Are there special boarding ships?

- Add combat animations, ship damages etc...

- In fight comments and alarms when ship is taking critical damages...

- The possibility to flee at some point

- and finally perhaps something like blueprints of ships displayed where you actually see the parts of the ships damaged and where you could make urgent repairs.







I think teher is a lot to do still with the fights.



I have a few more questions:



- Will we have like a planet invasion fight also with cards?

- And in the diplomatic field, will it be possible to spy on other races? Steal technologies, assassinate heroes, governors any other important characters?

- Will it be possible to foment revolts on planets? Sabotage buildings etc...



Nevertheless the game has a good general feel to it.

I personally would be happy to wait a few more month for the dev to modify and implement a better combat system to make this game a GEM.



thanks for the good work!

Regarding combat I rather like the card system. It is fast for multiplayer and has room for more depth. I feel that if we were allowed to pick two cards (although from different categories) each phase, many options would be opened up. Specifically the second category of card would control things like doctrine/targeting/fleet movement while the first would remain as is, a systems card.



Here are two threads I created which go over my ideas in much more detail: /#/endless-space/forum/28-game-design/thread/11640-5th-tech-tree-military-doctrine and /#/endless-space/forum/29-archives/thread/13307-expanding-on-combat-doctrine-and-fleet-construction



I hope you read them and join in the discussion. All criticism and praise is useful. Most certainly I think combat needs to have something done to it in order for this game to be the amazing success we all want it to be.