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Thread: Character balance?

  1. #11
    Traders can trade with other traders but since they share the same win condition it behooves them to trade with at least a few non traders to get a leg up on the competition. I do agree though that there's more work to be done to really get a better balance between the specialties but I'd like to wait until the combat changes and planetary control changes go in so we can see how the balance of power shifts before tackling that particular issue. One thing we've talked about doing for the researchers is to allow them to terraform other people's planets and share jump gates.

  2. #12
    Agree with Catswift other characters cannot field what a trader can produce in warships. I suspect that in future games will see a lot of traders. Other characters will probably need a boost in something early game.

    To build a cap ship takes tons of resources. Trader just stops supplying a warlord so they cannot build th one advantage they have - the big warships. Maybe warlords need to be able to build battle cruiser for no rare or something.

    Or we need alliances that can win together.

    Anyway, time will tell.
    Last edited by GeeWhiz; 06-06-2012 at 04:48 AM.

  3. #13
    I like the sound of alliances. But I don't think the current client set up is really conducive for setting up or maintaining alliances - especially since the end game is all about an individual winner. Plus, I initially thought with Trader being one of the character choices, and having a chat menu, etc that this game would be more social, but of all the multiple servers I'm on, I've only ever been contacted by like three people, which is averaging less than one per server/game. At that rate, getting an alliance together consisting of more than two people would be impressive, lol.

    Wish we could see if anyone was getting closer to completing a win condition for their character selection, to know if they are balanced or not. Have any homeworlds been destroyed by a Warlord? Have any traders accumulated over 1 billion of CO or RO? Has anyone collapsed a star? How do we know when the game is over - will we try to log on to a server and there will be a system notification? I thought games were to continue until someone won, but I see that some end July 23, 24, etc. so will the winner be whoever has the most points, or is the closest to meeting their win condition? hmmmm Probably the wrong thread for these questions, sorry! lol

  4. #14
    Adding greater visibility into how other players are doing is on the list of changes to come. We don't want to give exact details about what a player has / hasn't done but we're looking into a general scoring system the incorporates the win conditions so you'll be able to look at a list and see where you stand roughly. Hopefully this will also encourage players to unite against a common enemy even if it's only a short term alliance.

  5. #15
    I would like to know if it's even possible to build a Planet Killer without having traded a ton with Traders. In my personal experience, I don't see how you could. Even maxing out Advanced Mineral Collection, a non trader doesn't generate nearly enough RO from mining.

    On the surface this seems like a major imbalance. The Trader achieves its win condition by doing what traders do, and ultimately can "force through" the win with skills like Blockade Running without having to rely on the kindness of others. The Warlord is oddly completely gimped with regard to its win condition without a LOT of help from traders. The Researcher isn't quite as bad off since its "win mobile" is much less expensive.

    I agree with the suggestion above that Warlords need some other ability. I would propose that they can build all the way up to dreadnoughts with no RO cost. At least then they can build some scary fleets on their own and rough their way up to more resources under their own power.

  6. #16
    I am currently researching Cap ships as a Warlord on a server where I am one of the top scorers. No way will I be able to build even one dreadnought. First I have very little rare ore. One problem I see to be effective as a warlord I should be upping my combats skills. But now I have to worry that my traders could be upping their trading skills which means I really have to counteract them with trading skills. I cannot concentrate on my own profession's skill set.

    I do not like being so dependent on others to build my own speciality ships. No way am I ever going to be able to build a planet killer. Warlords need a boost. Maybe the ability to build a planet killer for no rare but need a certain level or research to balance it out. Or at least dreadnoughts. Or a better battlrship for no rare. Or the use of fighters on low level ships. something to keep it interesting. I am losing interest in a game where I am in top three but cannot do much to help myself.

  7. #17
    Heh, everyone who is enjoying this game is a Trader. I am in the same boat, both as Warlord and Researcher.

    The fundamental and obvious problem, besides the Warlord's end game ships being ludicrously priced, is that the Warlord has to be a Trader in order to be a Warlord. It doesn't make any sense. As you point out, it detracts from what a Warlord should be doing, which is warring. To put it another way, does it make any sense at all that the ethos of a Warlord is to build a vast trade empire that allows them to afford a Planet Killer, and then quickly kill 15 planets to achieve galactic domination? Not to me.

    If you ask me, each speciality should be able to make progress AT EVERY STAGE OF THE GAME towards its win conditions through the mechanisms of its specialization. Traders are already aligned this way. They win the game by trading, and make progress towards that victory by developing their trade skills. Warlords and Researchers gameplay should revolve around their specialities too. The Researcher's research bonus is nice, but not definitive enough. Terraforming is interesting, but so far I'm failing to see a significant value from it. The only thing that keeps their victory condition open is that the Solar Tap is not insanely expensive. I'm just repeating myself now, but Warlords get the double shaft: not only do they have to work "off-specialization" (ie. focus heavily on trading in anticipation of Planet Killer costs), but Traders (!!!) will beat them at their own game, being able to mass produce conventional warships, until they get those Planet Killers online.

    Let me say, again, I really like the underlying concept of this game, but the more I play the more I feel like very little about the mechanics have been well thought out. It's disappointing. One would hope that in game that requires a 2 month investment of time, the mechanics would be balanced enough that players don't feel like they just wasted a lot of effort when things don't pan out in a sensical way. I guarantee Traders are going to win every game, unless they're really sleeping on the job. For sure, once Traders realize that they have trade AND military superiority, they will start playing more aggressive early games and easily win every game.

  8. #18
    Jet -> You hit upon our conversation last night. We have a rebalance of ship costs in the works. We have been discussing what we want out of each ship, and Lee spent some time working on new ship costs. We also discussed the warlords and how they are probably the hardest class to play right now.

    One of the things we thought of was Warlords get RO from attacking people. For every ship/planet they destroy they get "scrap" ore from them. That way they can build their ore reserves doing what they do best.. Killing people.

    The biggest issue we had was beta testing. It was very difficult to see some of the results in beta testing since we had limited keys, and then even after we gave out all 100 keys we couldn't get any more. I think probably 70% of the beta test people didn't even download the game, which was quite frustrating for us. After all why would you apply to a beta and never download the game.

    So we have maybe 15 people that played a lot, and then 15 that were casual. We have been discussing extending the free period till we feel you are all getting the game you want. It's important to us that you all have a game that plays like you feel it should, and we will do everything in our power to get the game there.

    Perhaps Lee will post the new data here so people can see the ship data. We also have some stuff we are looking at to stem the land grab, so it'll give people a more even game. I'll let Lee go in to detail on both those.

  9. #19
    @Zark: I'm not a Warlord, but obtaining RO from killing ships and destroying outposts and colonies sounds fair to me. In fact, you could give them an option to decimate a planet they own (reduce terraform down to 0%) to obtain a chunk of RO. That'd be an interesting mechanic.
    --
    Noah

  10. #20
    I appreciate the effort you guys are putting in to the game. The fundamentals are really solid, you just need to work out all the details.

    I was thinking something similar for Warlords, some kind of mechanic that allows them to convert outposts in to shipyards with some kind of significant RO bonus. I haven't thought through exactly how it would work, but the idea is that they "sacrifice" a planet in order to build a super-capital ship, but in a way that also requires them to defend the planet during construction. I don't really know what "sacrifice" means in this context, though. Destroy the planet? Reduce it's resource generation rate to zero? The balance I'm looking for is for the Warlord to make a significant, interruptible sacrifice of a resource other than RO in order to get a super-capital ship without paying for it through the normal channels.

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