When I first heard about the titans, I was very excited about the concept. After a few weeks of playing around with them, I am nowhere near as excited as I used to be. The problem is they are not a strong addition for multiplayer.
The reason is the game is becoming a giant game of "don't feed the titan". With Permanent xp and levels, there is every incentive for a player to risk his titan to kill a ton of frigates just to level it up. As a result players are afraid to bring in frigates until LATE LATE LATE LATE LATE game for fear of leveling the other players titan too high. Also, players are rushing the pirate base for experience and the guy who gets the level 3 titan from killing the pirate ships has a massive advantage.
Please, don't try to argue the "well if he goes to the pirate base, hes vulnerable elsewhere". I thought that too, but sins is slow paced enough where you can't deal a decisive blow while he is leveling his titan. Also, you may argue that suiciding your titan because of the cost and build time is foolish but if you take out enough ships to gain a level or 2, it was well worth it, because even if your opponent starts to push on you, you just bring your titan back out into play even more powerful than before and continue leveling it.
The only real and reasonable solution is to make it so xp and levels DO NOT carry over upon death.
So the concerns about corvettes being OP rest mostly just on 5v5 where they make it easier to defend? Or generally in cases where there will be fighting/rushes early on it seems...I've often wondered how/why 5v5 became the standard for online MP in Sins. Most RTS is 1v1 as it is easier to balance for and a more clear indicator of skill - plus imbalances are easier to spot. I kind of wonder about nerfing corvettes just because they are too good for early game 5v5. Even in 2v2 or 3v3 on larger maps, I wouldn't see them as having as big an impact.
5v5 became the standard because there is more variety and more potential to use all the different techs and strategy that this game was built for.
So basically late game your uber Titan FINALLY takes out your enemies uber Titan in a battle to the death. Who- hoo I did it..!!!!
5 minutes later his heavily entrenched Titan factory spits out his splitting image brother another uber....what's the point in that victory?
Anyone else see that here we go again situation besides me?
No xp no levels.
@ Ekko_Tek
This isn't an "us vs. them" war, where people who enjoy small games are against the people who enjoy large games.
Large games are harder to balance, because they offer the greatest number of variables. This also makes them much more interesting, and you have a level of player experience that you cannot get with any other game on the market. Traditional RTS's cannot compete with the sheer magnitude of this game. You should get into the intense, large, online games.
The community online enjoys large games, and they are quite easy to pick up nowadays. If you just like fighting one mind then go for it...The strategies employed in smaller scale games won't be much different no matter what the balance changes to the larger games will be(out micro your opponent, just like starcraft). large games allow you to add in your ability to work as a team player and help your team win. This is something that the RTS genre has largely ignored, and this is where sins multiplayer shines.
Also 1v1 scenarios are mostly determined by luck (if you are random). You getting an easy desert planet early and your opponent not getting one means you immediately have a huge advantage...Same with getting a lot of early asteroids and moons.
No skill whatsoever in this. Corvettes take some micromagement skill, but this is easy to acquire. Do you know how effective corvette spam is? You should ask multiz about how i rushed him across the map when he was going titan...it was funny how easily he folded to my 30 corvettes... I blew his constructors at his HW, then blew his frigate factory, then blew the constructors at his other worlds...all the while colonizing a nearby world to provide fleet production support. I caught him with his pants down across the map... corvette spam is powerful because of the distance that you can support it. In 1v1 if i build covettes and you don't, you will be at a large disadvantage. Flak is easily retreated from so it isn't a viable corvette counter. What is? Spam corvettes of your own!!! duh!!!
who needs frigates?
Frigates, a fun idea that was well executed, are becoming obsolete because titans and corvettes are designed to destroy large numbers of them. The game used to be frigate centered...now its titan centered...and what a boring replacement this is becoming.
exactly, this should be rewerded...your opponent made a mistake with thier most valuable piece on the board and therefore should pay for this mistake. Persons playing in single player shouldn't be penalized by losing their titan to an opposing force however, let them keep it.
Or we could go with a previously mentioned thread suggestion and make a new research technology that costs a lot that allows for titans to retain their Xp when they are destroyed.
Yes, I agree the game has become Titan centred and that frigates have a much lesser role and I'd like to see it come to more of a middle ground with Titans as support/force multipliers rather than "whole army soloers" - at least at level 1. I have played online 5v5 and I enjoy it. I also like smaller scale games as well. My point was just that we don't really know what mode the devs are most concerned with balance wise and that what is OP in 5v5 might not work out the same in smaller games where you don't have suicide spots and eco spots in the same way. I'll take your word for it that corvettes are just as OP in smaller game modes and not just in rush situations as I haven't fully tried to exploit them yet.
As a person who plays almost only Single Player, I have to ask, why shouldn't a person in SP not be penalized? They lost a titan. A TITAN. For all we know, they could be doing an FFA againt 4-5 other Insane (or worse) AI's. It's still a big loss, they still made a mistake, they should still suffer the consequences (if there are any added) of it
I completley and totally agree with the op that the xp has to go but we also need to realize that titans are what makes Sins Rebellion Sins Rebellion. I couldnt wait to have a titan that could wipe out fleets singlehandedly and now that we have them people are saying that we shouldnt have them. People if you dont want titans just play Trinity its that simple if you dont like titans suck it up and find a way to take them out its life and who said it had to be fair.
YES! That would be awesome just to have a titan wreak in orbit they you killed "you see that yeah? I blew that up"
What if it crashed into the planet after a certain period of time!
Ah titans are a great idea, and completely doable.
Its just HOW they are incorporated into the game. The development decision to say "titans will be a early mid game ship". This is more detrimental to game balance then anything else, they asked for this knowing full well that they were upsetting the game at so many levels(did they get a new design leader who wanted to make their mark on the game? please god tell me no!). The player base doesn't like the game getting too upset as to render several fundamental ship types irrelevant. Also, this development decision could be EASILY changed by increasing the tech requirements of titans, and increasing their cost, and buffing the ship for arrival in the mid game.
A tech level 6 titan that costs a LOT of resources would be the ultimate game ender for large fleet vs fleet fights. (say 20k credits, 5000 metal and 4000 crystal, that you "feed" to the titan project, and have a little counter in your window ). This would be something that multiplayer games rally behind and if you don't pressure the economy player enough you will just get an uber ship of death knocking on your door. IMO, this would make endgame matches really cool, instead of just a spam fest. Might even get a frontlines player to get some feed researched so they could feed the economy player for a titan .
This would fit better with SoaSE as it is currently designed. The developers made the decision to get these ships early to ensure players got to use them more. They can still be achieved, but now they are achieved in the mid game. Many multiplayer matches reach this point, so its not out of this world to concieve that yes, players would be able to play titans.
Titans would offer players the stalemate capability IN THE MID GAME, where it has rarely, if ever, been possible.
Stalemating in the mid game allows for more longterm strategies to play out that enable the game to reach the END GAME.
In this way the game is better balanced and you might have the potential for some incredibly long and exciting multiplayer matches.
Also, my suggestion allows for stronger titans starting out of the gate, and stronger titan abilities. This would allow titans to still feel totally badass.
That, or the developers change the titan levelling curve so that they
A: level slower
B: Gain more in ability strength and endurance per level.
Currently developers are nerfing titan health.
WHY? because they are an early game ship...they are TOO STRONG FOR THE EARLY GAME.
I'd rather see titans later on in the game, as it stands they arrive too early and will wreck too many tried and true game mechanics.
They really shouldn't retain all their XP when they die. That's silly. Unless you're a level 6 Progenitor, you can't just bring back the crew. You're putting new people on that thing and there should be a penalty for their inexperience with what is essentially a brand new ship design.
Dropping back to half XP would be better then keeping all of it. It's still a penalty for losing the thing, but doesn't send you all the way back to level 1.
i agree that as it stands its too easy to get Titans, and the point where u get them, i.e early/mid they just wreck everything.
The only 2 options as i see it are
1) to nerf Titans heavily to have them act as heavy capital ships instead of super units
2) bring Titans into the game later so there awesome power can be countered more easily by strong fleets.
I personally love the titans, I use them in tandem with my fleet. I agree with losing levels when they die. Even in real naval conflict you don't let your men die you go pick them up and put them on a new ship. Titans should in a similar way. Not lose all the levels but lose like 2 or something in that area. I like the idea of having a star base type upgrade system. if anything for major upgrades like weapon systems and armor they should be in a friendly gravity well or return to the foundry for overhaul. it may be a bit much but its something for strategy and you cant just go kill stuff and become super powerful, you can kill stuff and then wait to have it take effect
just how does a Titan with thousands of crew, now dead, impart their experience to a newly constructed Titan? nothing about it makes sense.
IMHO, there was never a need for Titans being the ultimate battleships. I mean they could be big, powerful and fearsome, but their strength could have lied in their special abilities, and not talking now only about the fleet supporting/buffing ones like those of capships.
The only real battleship could IMHO stay the Ragnarov (but even that one would need to be killable with decent sized fleet), the other ones could be pretty much like:
Coronata: planet conqueror (the repossesion being its main purpose, no need to level toward it)
Eradica: lets say it could have been big carrier as Advent have a thing for strike craft + could have ability to ressurect something (planets/ships) - but more prominently than currently with those low chances, no, something stronger, more Necron-like
Vorastra: mobile base, fleet beacon and planet devourer with added capability to do those Microjumps would be IMHO just enough
Kultorask: something related to phase lanes, ability to lock down those natural ones, built-in phase stabiliser
...in summary, titans could have one or 2 game-changing abilities, but there was no reason to be the ultimate fleet killers as well. You would build them to repossess enemy planets, or strip them, or use it as mobile homeworld, or to meddle with phase lanes... but you would not build them to take on enemy fleets instead of fleet of your own.
My 2 cents...
I've only played singleplayer and haven't yet lost a titan, so I had no idea they keep their xp. That's...problematic. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing them getting weakened drastically, to the point where they're just really awesome capital ships. If you did that, then perhaps you could purchase more than one of them, and actually compose a fleet the way you want to. Right now the game really feels like it has this specific formula for victory, and that if you don't follow it exactly you're hopelessly dead. I'd love to see Capital ship-lead armadas with an emphasis on frigates and cruisers be a viable option that isn't completely nullified by the presence of an enemy titan.
Bottom line is that Titans also need to get pushed much further into the tech tree, you should have the threat of losing the game before you even obtain a Titan.
They seem to have moved the Titans front and center to sell the new product, as if we couldn't wait to get our hands on them.
We do want to get our hands on them, just not at the expense of the current game experience.
What about having each Titan after your first one double in cost? The titans keep the XP, but you end up having to pay for that in a serious way?
You could even have an option to build a 0 XP titan at the base cost, or a Titan levelled up to the previous XP by paying 2-3 times the base cost of the titan depending on the level?
Keeping the experience is silly indeed. A starbase like system and moving them up the tree sounds like a much better system than the current one. Titan should be a strategic choice to make, an addition to your fleets to break through heavily defended lines, not a necessity to have around already by midgame. Their power seems fine to me, as they are huge and bad-ass looking, but such power should not be cheap and losing one should be a heavily blow to your economy.
Maybe make them use more capital ship crew (like 4?) to make it more of a trade-off to have one?
This ^^
I've a few ideas.
When a titan is near to being destroyed you should have an option to eject crew to escape in pods which act a bit like trade/cargo ships and head for the nearest starbase. When the crew has ejected then there will obviously be a delay while the crew travel back home. When the crew has ejected the titan will not be able to fire weapon systems although remaining armor will last until it is destroyed.
If you choose not to eject crew then you will be required to train/build a new crew just like you do with a capital ship.
There may be an option to destroy an escaping crew, but this will be made difficult due to the speed of the craft. This will slow down the process of producing Titans and also make people think twice about committing a Titan.
There could also be options for resupplying a Titan crew if some or all are destroyed after they eject, reduced time to build etc.
Titans = heros in this game
Steps to balance would be first to increase the time it takes to rebuild your titan based on the level.
As others have suggested maybe 1 min or 1.5 min per level.
If titans still need further balance devs can also make the titan lose experience per death and also increase build times per level. % base would make sense.
If SOASE Rebellion wants to take the wimpy route by giving players with more resources than brains their titan back with full xp, it's just gonna diminish the game. If your titan gets popped, well too bad. File a reimbursement petition, complain about lag, disco, hax, etc... but once dead, it's dead. Deal with it and rethink strategies for next game.
Well. Realistically it wont cost more to make another Titan that is the same with the last one. So here are some ideas:
Additionally I think that having the Titan be an uber unit killing everything. Is a bad idea. I would like the defencive stats of the Titans nerfed a bit so you can take a Titan out with a lategame frigate fleet but when the Titan is supported by a fleet of its own it will still deal TONS OF DAMAGE.
Titans can go down fast without AM
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