So after a few days of playing I'll agree the beta is pretty stable with some nice extras we weren't expecting. Good job Stardock. However, there are two things that technically function but don't agree with how they were implemented, the subfactions and titans. Here are my arguments why and what I think should be done about it.
1. The subfactions really don't play that differently from each other. Sure, they have a couple of nice goodies, and perhaps an extra way to win each (Early Novalith bombardment, super rapid colonization after allying with neutral factions), but they could have more. However, the bigger issue is I don't think there play styles are going to be all that different, especially in the all important early game. This may have made more sense when you choose your faction after the game start, but under the current system it just feels generic. My biggest gripe is that you need at least 3 labs before you can get any faction specific tech (minus the almost identical corvettes). I think each faction should get a few bonuses either at the start of the game or within the two labs in each tree players usually build right away.
Now these bonuses could take a few different forms. My personal favorite would be to have a few small bonus that are active at the start without any research, but these things could also be done as very early research to keep things consent. Another option would be to have each subfaction have slightly different versions of units that are superior to their default counterparts. Some ideas I think would make nice early (unless otherwise noted) bonuses include.
Loyalists
Rebels
2. The titans are unbalanced. Now everyone has their own idea of how they want titans to be, but as it is now they pretty much make fleets irrelevant, and the game often becomes a contest of who can get the highest level titan. Players are also coming up with ever more strategies to exploit this situation (hit and run raids with titans, which can quickly do serious damage but can move fast enough and take enough hits to retreat with minimum damage to be healed with repair bays and a Dunov). Its one thing to have a very powerful game ending unit, its another to have a very powerful game ending unit that can be deployed fairly early and can only be killed with another, higher level game ending unit.
The first thing I would try is to make titans more specialized. I really like the ability to put your upgrade points into starbase like stat boosting upgrades. However, the titans get enough stats on level up to make them very powerful even if you choose just to max out your abilities. I would suggest removing (for the most part) the health/shield/damage etc. stat upgrades from level ups, and instead give them all entirely to upgrades. Thus you can get a titan that's as strong as it is now, but you won't be able to spend very many points getting the high level abilities, and if you want the super powerful abilities your titan as a ship will be much weaker. Thus, players will need to think even more carefully about what kind of titan they want, and should over all make them easier to deal with (though another solution will probably be needed).
Summary: I think the factions could be more diverse, especially early game, and gave some concrete constructive ideas of how to make this better. I also think Titans should be specialized as either very powerful fleet destroying warships or high level ability casters (I.e. as super capitalship), but not both. Both changes are fairly easy to implement and would give the game more depth and ultimately more fun.
I like your ideas.
How about having Trade ships be able to defend themselves?
I'm not sure what faction would use that idea though.
Edit: Hmm. If Rebels get more money from killing trade ships, perhaps the Loyalist can weaponize them as a counter?
And Rebel trade ships do some sort of small explosion when they die, hurting attackers?
Overall agree with the concept but some of your specific suggestions would need tweaking to find the right balance.
Also certainly possible. The only thing is that neither side seems particularly better at trade than the other. I only gave the rebels the extra resources thing because I was having trouble thinking of economic bonuses for them. But I don't especially care which set of bonuses the devs choose on, as long as they start playing more differently from each other in the early game.
Of course, balance comes first, and I'm not saying the Devs must take my ideas and do them exactly the way I want them. I just wanted to point out that there is a lot of things the Devs could do for the subfaction diversity, especially early game. I just didn't want this to be one of those threads with only complaining and no ideas.
That said, as an old pro I'm curious what you find objectionable JJ, as I might implement many of these later in a mod if they aren't officialized.
The ideas are great.
What confuses me is the Devs took years to balance three sides, now they basically have to start from scratch. Three new totally different races would have been much easier to implement. But its their work....my enjoyment. I guess.
I'm having a great game currently against a cruel ai with a 80+ map, I took out their Titan, but cruel is cruel...
And I'm still getting used to the ai building superweapons. Plus every well of theirs has a sb with aux government, so my Novaliths are useless. Fun but useless.
Meh. Loyalist bonuses are more general and much more useful. +tact slow, +7,5% income, repair bay bonus (give any buff to already powerful tech reps and they're OP), cheaper trade. All good/too good.
Rebels get crap. free krosov tech-crap, extra credits for trade ships- epic crap, extra xp for caps- crap, frenzy- dpends on balancing, extra weapon banks- depends on balancing, cheaper weapon techs- good. Crap prevails.
Specializations...
I think that we need an Anti-Titan
EVERYTHING in this game has a counter, except, so it seems, Titans...
And don't tell me that bombers counter them...
cuz I really don't want to build 60+ carriers with ONLY bombers to counter your massive titan...
Ogrovs counter Starbases, but we don't have a way to reliably stop titans, correct?
I'm fine with this game becoming a "who can build and upgrade the titan the fastest" game, but if Sins going to reach that point, we need more depth revolving around it...
Titans need to be weaker at lower levels, as something that can solo a pirate base at level 1 is a wee bit out of scale, methinks, even for a game-ender...
An anti-titan should also be resistant to instantly dying to a snipe from the Ragnarov or anything similar...
Such as coming in range and dying...
Maybe mines can do 500x damage to titans? I dunno, it just seems like
I build 300 Javelis, and you counter with a bunch of Gardas and Fighters...
I build 100 Kodiaks, and you counter with a bunch of bombers...
I build a ton of Cobalts, and you counter with a bunch of Javelis...
I build a titan and you counter with another titan and this is so fun and imaginative...!
Maybe Capships do more to them? Maybe Scouts deal more to them? I just feel that a late-game titan is strong enough to steamroll the largest fleets...
and that's not really very fun, is it?
I agree, this list was more for showing the diversity of things they could do that would fit the themes. Its not a recommended to be taken unmodified or as a package. You're absolutely right that its easier to make good general bonuses for a faction that is focused on winning a war of attrition than an aggressive one, which you really need to reward decisive military action.
I certainly agree that Titans are overpowered, and I admit my suggestion is just part of the problem. However if you want to press for a specific unit to deal with them this is not the thread for it. I'd rather they do moderate nerfs to them throughout the beta, such as implementing my suggestion or moving them up the tech tree, until moving on to more extreme steps like a major all round stat nerf or creating a counter for them.
I'm just throwing my brain to the masses here, not really trying to make a major change or implementation
I noticed most of your suggestions on loyalist are impossible for rebels to get, but the loyalist can get most of the rebel tech with just with a slight adjusted cost.
Killing trade ships barely affect trade to be noticeable and currently a player I believe gets 50 creds per ship. Maybe instead of getting free credit, rebel can decrease the overall income rate per each trade ship. Penalize the loyalist for letting trade ships die.
Rebels need passive buffs on enemy territory. Promotes attacking then defending. Frenzy is a good start.
Rebel max weapons research level not only should be cheaper but higher. How else can they break the better defense of the loyalist.
Also true, I'm sure there are far more specialized bonuses that could be made.
Indeed. Perhaps the ship that destroyed the trade ship could get some hull/shield/antimatter restoration, under the assumption they were getting extra supplies from the destroyed ships. Would give them some more staying power in hostile gravity wells.
I think the reduced trade income for ships destroyed should be a global change, not just a bonus for the rebels.
I don't know if they should get bonuses for just being in an enemy gravity well. Seems to much the inverse of the loyalists. I think they have the right idea with it requiring a specific action, like planet bombing or destroying a certain target, which is what I tried to do with frenzy and the trade ships. Anything that leads to them getting more momentum as they destroy stuff.
They actually gave the Rebels another tech for each weapon to increase damage further already. However its usually higher than the default weapons and only for 5%. If they wanted to expand damage they should just make these better. Maybe +10% or an extra 5% rate of fire.
Well keep in mind we'll have six other factions to deal with as well, and I don't think they'll be anywhere near as defense focused as the TEC loyalists. They need something as unique as the loyalists defenses but I don't think the rebels should be designed on countering them. If anything the TEC Rebels should be more interesting in killing the non-TEC factions.
I do see that tec rebel has extra research for damage but the cost is the same for all and not reduce. Maybe research time can be decrease as well.
I was reading on all the titan ships and looks like the devs did a decent job and differentiating them. Advent ability to take over a planet as an ultimate will end many entrenchments.
Micro phase jump for vas titan will be fun to use.
I suggested in another thread that Orgrovs and Adjudicators be able to attack titans as well as structures.
Another random thing...a lot of abilities are able to be used on titans like Dunov's magnetize, EMP, Akkan's Ion Bolt, and others. It would make a lot of sense for all these capital ships abilities to actually be used on titans!!
At the moment a starbase seems to be capable of dealing some serious damage to a titan. If you have two starbases in the same gravity well, you could counter them being a TEC Loyalist.
The TEC Rebels could bring in a massive Pirate fleet and have all of these ships focus fire on the enemy titan.
There is no need for a specific anti-titan ship if you ask me, though I agree that titans are a bit too early accessable at this point.
What would the vas anti-titan be? Their corvettes?
In my mind, corvettes are the logical choice to make as the anti-Titan ship...
They have debuffing abilities that, if made properly, would be vital to dealing with titans...imagine a stacking penalty to ability cooldown, or AM regen, or weapon regen, or linear speed?
If 100 Corvettes could get a Titan to more or less constantly suffer from massive ability cooldown penalties or weapon cooldown penalties, then even early game you'd have a pretty damn good counter to titans...sure, it may not be easy to kill them but if they can't use their abilities and aren't doing ridiculous amounts of damage, then it isn't as problematic...
Corvettes also have the added advantage of having very light armor...making Titans and caps awful against very light armor would not affect their effectiveness against caps or frigates, only corvettes...
Furthermore, Titan abilities themselves could be made to be weaker against corvettes via the damage tables...
We really do already have all the tools necessary to make a good anti-titan ship with corvettes...no need for ogrovs (which already have a solid niche) to do that job....
I do understand that but for the purposes of balancing, making them work against titans might be a good step.
Ion bolt should not work against Titans....it just shouldn't...every faction has two ability interrupts, and for each faction only one of those can (and should) affect SBs and presumably Titans...
For TEC, this ability is magnetize...if magnetize isn't good enough, then the ability should be buffed or reworked...
Rebel:
-Envoys increase Diplomatic Ratings while applying negative buffs to planets (trying to force diplomacy by fear/subjugation)
-Scouts get Time Explosives much earlier and have it be re searchable for higher damage.
-Flak Ships get a research-able 'flak-burst' ability for each time they successfully destroy a strike craft with their guns (not the ability itself).
-Carriers gain Flak Burst Ability with longer cool down and low Anti-Matter reserves.
-Fighter Strike-Craft deal more damage but have weaker hulls
-Bombers are more resistant to Flak but do not get an increase in damage or a reduction in Armor.
-Refineries cost 400creds less and are 7.5% more efficient (as they are stripping resources in their push into enemy territory).
-Krosov not only is free but gains research to Double it's planet bombing rate (uses both launchers) (Tier 1 Research)
-Flak Frigate is moved to Tier 1 Research.
-Corvettes can be upgrade to use EMP weapons that steel anti-matter / increase ability cool-down in addition to their base damage.
-Research to reduce Fleet Supply/Cost of ships.
-Research to maintain Broadcast Center buff when not in own culture (i.e. ruthless Rebels doing horrible things to Loyalist populations).
Titans should act more like Capital Ships w/ upwards of 130%-180% Hitpoints, Shield, Anti-Matter and Hull/Shield regen rates.
Titan abilities should be scaled appropriately for damage output etc, Bombers already do much less damage to them than regular capital ships.
Civilian Tech for both TEC Loyalist & TEC Rebels needs to be severely overhauled / rebalanced as well.
I also agree that Titans should not be immune from Capital Ship abilities. If they are (as is current) the only way to truly counter them is with other titans versus raw damage from a mob of ships. Not too fun/tactical in my mind.
I am still of the frame of mind that I would like to see an 'In Game' Rebel/Loyalist choice! This choice would remove some techs while giving access to others as listed above. Etc. This choice could 'Be Made @ Tier 2/Tier 3' potentially and be non-reversible. If you diversify the techs there will be more reason to choose one way or the other.
GoaFan77, can you please update your OP with some of the balance suggestions for abilities etc so they are all in one place? I would like to link my Beta thread to this as a reference.
I don't know boshimi, it seems you want a new system rather than improving the current one (not that I particularly like the current system). There are always mods for that later, so exactly what they pick is not a huge deal to me.
I'll add some of the ones I like though.
IMO I think all of those would be better base buffs for the corvettes than the ones they have now. Hull repair is extremely slow in battle as it is so that bonus is almost negligible, while taking longer to phase jump won't be needed until the end of the battle, by which time many corvettes will be destroyed.
This seems like it would be better for the Vasari loyalists.
i like the idea for the titans that seem fun to me
GoaFann77, I like your idea about the factions having inherit differences from each other right out of the gate. This reminded me of the different generals from Command and Conquer Generals: Zero Hour. For example, the air force general had way better planes but no tanks, or the tank generals tanks were cheaper / started out at higher exp.
I think the sub factions need some permanent small differences to help differentiate them from each other.
Indeed, I had hoped we'd see faction diversity more like C&C zero hour in this. I added starting faction bonuses to a small degree with Diplomacy in my Enhanced 4X Mod (though the inspiration for that was more Rise of Nations than C&C), and I'll probably make them more pronounced when its ported to Rebellion.
For what it's worth Goa, it'd be nice if the inherent faction differences were very unique ie not more population at certain planets or more crystal production, etc...things comparable to the uniqueness of techs like Truce with Rogues or Twin Defenses (or whatever it's called)...
Understandably, you don't have a lot of options with diplomacy so what you got now is pretty good...but with the new entity modifiers and stuff being added, things will hopefully be quite different...hopefully...
Oh absolutely, but I don't have my expectations set that high and wanted to show that they could do more even with the current game engine. New modifiers would be excellent, and in the Rebels case maybe necessary.
at the very least, there is room in the policy sub-tree to move the new policy techs to tiers 1 and 2 instead of 3 and 4. I'm referring to Pillaged war chest and Savage Fury for the rebels and the fast shipbuilding and Field promotions for the loyalists. I don't think they are so overpowering that they can't be researched right away.
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