Hello Dear Community!
I have a question regarding to the Multiplayer UI. I have played Sins Of A Solar Empire, the original one, and Rebellion is such a cool game. I am still finding it hard to understand "Why isnt there an organized UI". Why isn't there a "Match-Making" system or a "Leaderboard". Rebellion Multiplayer hits about 150+ players once every day, and this number could be higher, if the system would be more organized. This is a topic, asking the devs a favour, could you please do a new Multiplayer UI?
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/368628 - Example of a Multiplayer UI System by GoldenEagle777
I find it hard to understand about the marketing of the game. This game has value in multiplayer. It has all the elements for multiplayer. Yes you would argue about the balance of "Random Maps" but this can be eliminated fairly easy. This game could actually reach the 500+ Mark if it had a better system online. Also it would produce more income for the Devs. These are simple elements In My Opinion, that should have been in the game already.
All in all, i like this game, and i like to be competetive in it. I just cant help to notice these problems in my mind that could make the game far better, cooler, more interesting and easier to play. Feel free to post and discuss about this!
MrM.
I, and most other MP players I'm sure, agree with you. Many similar posts have been made in the past. Many were made in the lead-up to the Rebellion beta. Developer response as far as MP features like these is usually: "What are you expecting?" or along the lines of "Not going to happen". It is a very primitive and old MP UI on ICO. You can't even do basic things like change the maps from within a game lobby. When devs ask "what are you expecting?" I have to wonder if they have ever checked out any other RTS MP title from the past decade. Not that anyone is expecting a new BattleNet - but there are definitely some simple, basic features lacking. So we make do and try to enjoy MP anyway. I just try and pretend like I'm time travelling to the 90's or playing some retro-mod when it comes to the MP UI on ICO.
One thing though - if you need to pause a replay, just open the menu and the game will pause automatically.
Thanks for replying. I am no developer, but i just think that it shouldnt be hard for an example: add a timer or add a pause button (ty for saying that escape can pause) and rewind in the replay, not talking about UI. Im just thinking that with the help of players maybe the devs might understand that this would actually bring them more "income" as to us, more fun experience!
To an extent, it's kind of like a chicken-and-the-egg situation or a Catch-22. The devs don't feel a need to invest time and effort in improving online multiplayer because so few people play the game online--and as a result fewer people play the game online. However, it's hard to blame the devs; this game just never appealed to an online multiplayer crowd. It always appealed more to a 4x offline single player crowd. As far as I know, most people who play RTS in online multiplayer don't know much about Sins and barely know that it exists at all.
The problem with skill-based matchmaking is that there just aren't enough people online to really make that effective. When only two PvP games are open to the general public at any one time, it just isn't very practical. People do try, to an extent. For example, some games will be labeled as "skilled" or "new players".
I totally understand what you are saying DirtySanchezz, but still i think that not even trying is way worse than leaving it out. They would at least try one thing out and see how it works. If it doesnt work out then yes, its not practical. But giving out 3 expansions (counting with rebellion) and not trying to improve the UI of the Multiplayer is kind of odd in my mind. Still i freaking like the game and i give credit to the Devs for that (really!!!!!), at least try guys .
By the way do you have any more ideas what the Devs should implement? Giving ideas to them might even convince them!
MrM
The time to make changes to MP like automatch was with the development of Rebellion. It was marketed with some vague bullet points about improved multi-player features so naturally many people were asking if it would have automatch. The fact that it didn't turned some people off from buying the game. There were 500+ playing online at release - if it had automatch, there was the chance that more would've stayed and more come and it could've got rolling more from there. That was its window of opportunity. Now it's back down to 100-200 with less than a handful of games available at any one time. I'm not sure if Stardock just doesn't have the interest/experience in MP (most of their games seem very SP oriented) or if they actually considered more MP features but the costs were too great given the smaller % of people playing it.
More like self-fulfilling prophecy...
Bottomline: devs don't care about MP...if you want to improve MP, ask for balance changes, that's the most you can ever hope for....
Sad but true. 22 friends in my Steam list bought Rebellion. About 4 of them play it now. Great for Rebellion sales. Not so great for future titles if this is representative at all. Not that it's a bad game by any means, or I wouldn't be here, but to have any playerbase longevity, it needs more MP features imo.
And thats what i want the developers to notice! Great job guys. Also wanted to point out one thing what someone said in this topic:
If you have any more ideas, post them here! Its easier for the devs (if they look up) to search these types.
Bump!
I agree generally speaking with the original host. The multiplayer UI needs improvement. This game could have so many more people playing online, but I believe it's the user interface that stops a lot of people because it is not that good.
I would love to have played the civilization games online, but they too had horrible user interfaces that made it hard to connect with other people hence I never played multiplayer. Sins is better than the older Civ games, but it still needs a lot of work.
Check this out. This is what I want to see them do, or something like this. Link is to an older forum post along with a screen shot of roughly how I would want the Multiplayer UI to look.
http://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/368628
Good Job my man! Added to the main. Keep up with the ideas!
Bump! Some of the Pictures are coming up what i had in mind!
https://forums.sinsofasolarempire.com/429378
All good ideas.
/signed
Its the culture and philosophy at ironclad that produces some of the greatest designs but also is its limiting factor.
No one will tell you rebellion performs much better than diplomacy because the peformance game is mediocre and they crammed shadows and more lighting to take advantage of the headroom.
The to do list:
MP IMPROVEMENTS, MULTI-CORE CORE SUPPORT, ANOTHER EXPANSION, DLC PACK, GAME UPDATES, SINS 2 & SINS TOURNAMENT..
This is just an example of what Ironclad has to choose from. My guess is they are going for the quickest and most cost effect solutions first or have small teams tackling all the areas.
Rebellion was advertised as expansion with improved multi player features. As it turned out so far those were just empty promises.
To be fair They promised some new maps and we are finally and slowly getting them. Some came with latest update and some will come with next one. So there is hope.
Current game balance is way out where is supposed to be and that is priority that needs to be sorted out. I am wiling to wait for MP features
Replay Watching 2.0 = The other day i was watching a replay, and i couldnt help to notice that there werent any pause or rewind buttons? What kind of replay is this that can only go forward or faster?
This game doesn't treat replays as sort of video replay. It treats them as 0 human players game with orders that are scripted....
I bought the original, I strictly play games for multiplayer, single player doesn't interest me, I plop down money though when I see a game I want to play, I wish they would add simple changes to this game to make it so I could play online and find opponents, Shit sid miers railroads has a better multiplayer than this game...
Im not investing my money into sins unless there are multiplayer updates.
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