Character balance?

[Parsons]

I do agree that the specialties need to be balanced as well as possibly reworking the ship balance. One thing i see these prices affecting is the pace of the game. As we are only days or so into server life its hard to tell the long term effect. One example ill use actually happened today. It actually involved jetjaguar, no hard feelings buddy! So I was bored today and took a fresh group of destroyers out for a stroll. We are on ningal i belive, only a few days old. Very few of well anything yet. I started taking a few of jets outposts and came across his fresh colony. Im talking 7mu people fresh. I hadnt seenthat it was a colony and just auto attacked it and lost, but just by a hair by my figures. Well i spent the rest oft he night racing trying to get a fresh fleet built and across the sector to claim this colony before it outgrew my attack ability and fleet size. In the end I did not manage to take the colony! Oh but what an afternoon, nailbiting race to the line. If these new costs were put in I do not see any ability to catch up with colony growth before it becomes too big and part of the end game. I like the slowed growth of colonies as they sit now but these changes will effect that portion of the game.

[Parsons]

It's late and ive already ranted enough, but one idea for the trader imbalance may be a shift in how rare ore is come by. Say we take away the ability for them to get more rare ore from mining. Everybody would get the same amount from that route. We shift the ro to what traders are supposed to be good at, trading. Say something like trading with a trader class generates the bulk of the in the market. Both sides would get an equal amount during the trade, still let it be effected to some extent by the trader skill tree. Say for every x amount of co traded y amount of ro is created and included in the trade. Sure its kinda something from nothing but we could come up with a reasonable way to explain how to break a fundemental law of nature.

[Leedot]

Jet - I wasn't trying to say that we're giving up on making costs reasonable. In the previous sheet the high end ships are dramatically cheaper then they currently are in the game. When I was working through those numbers I was more focused on the high end and keeping the costs proportional which left the low end winding up higher than it was previously. I've since pulled everything down proportionately so it's closer to the games current numbers on the low end since you're definitely right in saying that making the early game units cost more would slow the game down.

I think where we differ is I think the Trader's near monopoly on RO is an issue that needs to be resolved separately (even if it's integrated into the game at the same time) so I'm more focused on having the RO costs be in balance with the full RO output of a planet than the 0-27% output non traders tend to have access to.

Yoda - That's a good thought, if nothing else I think shifting away from Trader's having vastly superior access to RO is the way to go. It's something that needs a bit more internal discussion but I think it should be doable.

[Royce]

I think where we differ is I think the Trader's near monopoly on RO is an issue that needs to be resolved separately (even if it's integrated into the game at the same time) so I'm more focused on having the RO costs be in balance with the full RO output of a planet than the 0-27% output non traders tend to have access to.

I don't know why you would focus on putting costs in balance with RO wealth available to 1/3 of players. If you mean you want to focus on balancing costs for maximum possible wealth, okay (though focusing on average would make more sense to me), but you'd better fix the RO imbalance before increasing RO costs. An even bigger issue than the 27% vs 100% difference IMO is the 0% that non-traders start with, and the snail's pace at which it increases. Charging RO for cruisers will prevent non-traders from having access to any useful ships for quite a while from the start of the game, and I believe will prevent non-traders from being able to get a foothold in the universe at all.

[Leedot]

I don't know why you would focus on putting costs in balance with RO wealth available to 1/3 of players.

That's my focus because I'd like to see -all- the players have access to that kind of RO wealth one way or the other.

[Balian]

Frankly I have no issue finding ample RO as a warlord, stop the qq people, a perfect balance does not exist in life or games.

[JetJaguar2000]

Frankly I have no issue finding ample RO as a warlord, stop the qq people, a perfect balance does not exist in life or games.

Worthless post is worthless. If you don't have anything constructive to contribute, don't bother posting.

[Balian]

^nice job doing exactly what you claim I'm doing. Tell me, how worthless are all of your posts? Perhaps you should show faith and trust in the Devs experience, wait and see how the game progresses before jumping ship? Do you really think that the devs haven't come across these ideas before? Have you not realized that even assuming that they haven't come across said ideas during the long, hard processes of creating the game that this thread and topic has been explored via membership since before beta? I don't know about other people but I don't consider qq about game balance when the game is brand new constructive, I call it needless complaining.

[Royce]

I don't know about other people but I don't consider qq about game balance when the game is brand new constructive, I call it needless complaining.

Well I think you're in the minority. Nobody expects a new game to be balanced, but why on earth would you be opposed to healthy discussion of balance? It's absolutely constructive, and an important discussion to have.

[GeeWhiz]

The devs know the game is unbalanced and I am sure they rather have us bring up the fact then just quit the game altogether. I am a high scorer as Warlord but will not continue to spend money if I do not have a chance to win. I do not mind one character being harder to play but needs a good chance to win. No planning on my part will help me win the game.

The reason I give the devs a break on the balance issues is due to the fact they did not have enough keys to allow a thorough play test.

The game is young but in order to grow old there needs to be feedback and complaints. Otherwise the devs can not improve for their player base.