Impressions (beta version)

miendiem · 06-08-2012, 01:33 PM

I did this for the Alpha already, but as the saying goes, "things have changed". And since they have, it's time to update the list. I'll try to keep it in the same layout as last time, for ease of use.

UI
I know there is a lot of love it or hate it with the new galaxy UI. Put me down in the category that considers it a functional improvement generally, but it could use some visual tweaking - modifying the length of the bar to the number of planets in the system is the major change I would suggest, unless all star systems having the full six slots is a sideways nod to the ability to build planets in an upcoming revision.

The ability to access the hangar from the galaxy view without a fleet in orbit is a good visual indicator. It can be a bit fiddly to get at, though, particularly with an opponent's ship in system. Making its clickable area slightly larger would probably solve this.

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I still can't figure out if ship level/experience is displayed somewhere. If it is, it needs to be more obvious.

What different research options actually provide should be shown even at maximum distance on the tech tree. Scrolling in and out to check on them is tedious at best, especially for a player without a mouse wheel.

Still hoping for some kind of indicator of how far a fleet can actually travel without sending it on its way.

GAMEPLAY
Going to start off reiterating my desire for completed ships to be able to be waypointed to another system upon completion, and additionally for an option to have them batch into a fleet and then head for a waypoint.

Beta's updated penalties for expansion need to be balanced with the AI's FIDS bonus, badly. I'd say that, one on one, same race to eliminate variables, Easy is playing at what I'd consider Normal difficulty level, bonus-wise. I never have been and don't particularly intend to be a 4x master - winning a game on impossible difficulty isn't in my cards. That said, higher-than-normal difficulty levels seem to me to be what AIs getting bonuses should be saved for.

The above ties into one of the points I made about the Alpha, which the updated expansion penalties have actually exacerbated, and I will quote in full from my Alpha impressions post: Dealing with the empire's happiness seems to me to need work. The only real control the player has over it for the opening section of the game is the tax slider. At least one additional early option for this would be nice - perhaps something along the lines of a "work week" slider. Work your population harder to get more output, but they'll hate you more. Find a balance between the work week and taxes to keep your planet from going on strike. Maybe this slider could differ by star system, while the tax slider stayed empire-wide, so that it could be used to micro-manage based on other improvements made to the system? An established system with several +happiness improvements could be treated differently than the new colony just starting out. Alternatively, make taxes a two tiered system, with both an empire slider, and a local slider. That might not feel as good, but it would accomplish the goal without having to iterate on another system to a greater extent.

Dust generation seems to have been negatively impacted in some way. Carrying a decent balance of Dust for emergencies has been all but impossible for me in the Beta iteration, even with systems set to convert industry to Dust instead of Research.

Some UI indication of which world is a home world should exist for the purposes of attaining/avoiding a home world conquest victory.

DIPLOMACY
I still haven't gotten this to work in a game. I've actually had games where, during peacetime (not cold war), options from the research for trade were not available. The whole system of diplomacy seems ignorable to me at the moment, aside from accepting cease fire agreements. (Even with superior tech and forces, having won several battles in a row, I've yet to get an AI to accept a bog-standard cease fire.)

This is particularly troublesome to me when it comes to the inability to convince AIs to make even a simple trade agreement. As long as diplomacy is this difficult to even make work, single player games against AI feel like playing in a void (even more than they should, compared to playing with real people).

More feedback is still needed on why an empire's relations with you alter state. It's obvious if I attack them, of course, but the changes that just get announced periodically have no real context, nor any particular explanation in the announcement.

COMBAT
I'm still not a fan of Endless Space's combat system. Combat outcomes still feel too random, even in situations where an obvious tech advantage or commanding hero should make the outcome reasonably predictable. It's impossible to trust a fleet to the auto resolve, and manual control is only marginally better. The ability to pre-set commands for all auto resolve battles would at least bring them up to the (admittedly poor) level of manual control without having to manually control all battles.

The combat strength numbers still seem meaningless to me, again due to the random nature of combat outcomes. If, for example, my fleet has 4000 combat capacity, and is up against one with 750, the outcome should never be in doubt, though I may unluckily lose a ship. With combat as it stands, it's possible, even sometimes plausible, to expect that I'll end up losing the whole battle.

Another reiterated point/idea from my Alpha impressions: The ability to make fixed defenses (a-la the missile bases in Orion) for a system would be a nice touch. The downside is they lack the power to project to other systems like ships do, the upside could come in some combination of reduced expense and/or increased firepower.

Overall, the Beta changes and the lack of changes to combat have made me less inclined to play the game recently. Generally, the game has become: Fall behind due to the expansion penalties and the AI FIDS bonuses. Go to war with inferior production but superior tech. Lose tech advantage due to AI's FIDS bonus. Lose game. Scratching and clawing to keep up on hard difficulty is part of any game. Maybe you could even call it the point of a 4X game. Scratching and clawing (and failing) to keep up on easy difficulty is simply not fun, particularly to a player who was capable of winning normal difficulty games before the Beta mechanics alterations.

At this point, I'm going to set ES aside until the next big round of balancing happens, and preferably until combat gets an overhaul.

ScouseSandwich · 06-10-2012, 12:09 AM

Quote:

Still hoping for some kind of indicator of how far a fleet can actually travel without sending it on its way.

This would be really handy, just a No of turns indicator when you have a fleet selected or something

Quote:

Some UI indication of which world is a home world should exist for the purposes of attaining/avoiding a home world conquest victory.

This is in the game, look at your homeworld in the galaxy view, there is a box on the left of the planets with a crown in it, this is the same for the enemys too.

As for combat, it is incredibly predictable when you start noting the technologies used by enemy fleets. My last game I was being trounce by pirates who could field bigger and 'stronger' fleets than mine, but when i built a ship specifically to combat against their beam weapons i started destroying their larger fleets. Same game, turn 200ish myself and one empire left. me 1/4 of galaxy they another 2/3 with some neutrals trapped in border conflicts. my enemy seemed content in using kinetics/flak on their ships so i built beam/deflector ships. in one round my one fleet of strength ~5000 destroyed thirteen of their fleets, most 'stronger' than my own as they had a larger fleet cap than me.

I didn't lose a ship, or in fact much health because their technology on their ships was next to useless against mine and mine was perfect against theirs. The number may indicate a sort of strength but with the right equipment you can highly predict outcomes.

Vimp · 06-10-2012, 01:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by miendiem

Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I still can't figure out if ship level/experience is displayed somewhere. If it is, it needs to be more obvious.

When you click on a fleet it will show a window in the bottom middle of screen with pictures of each ship in that fleet. If you mouse over any of those ships in that window it will display another window with all the details on the ship including its level and xp, (bottom right corner of the window).

Quote:

Originally Posted by miendiem

Alternatively, make taxes a two tiered system, with both an empire slider, and a local slider.

I think this is actually a really good idea. Its not good having to lower the empire wide tax rate based on the worst of your systems leaving the happiest systems wasting a lot of potential tax income.

I wonder if many of the other troubles you are having are related to you perhaps playing a saved game from alpha? If you are then that would explain some of your economy and happiness difficulties as alpha saves can be really broken in the beta. If you focus highly on production then making a system convert production into dust should net you considerable amounts of income. At least it does in my games.

Also, related to helping you with your economy, it sounds like you don't have any trade routes going on in your games as you never go to peace with anyone. Trade route income can potentially be a huge part of your income so its definitely worth while pursuing peace with at least one race, preferably the furthest away and/or the largest race to maximize trade.

Additionally to help with economy I wonder if maybe you are building a lot of buildings in your systems that are not benefiting you or are more costly then they are worth? Being selective in what you build in each system is a big part of being successful in this game.

Related to combat, I can't help but wonder if you are overlooking the info given in the game and perhaps also by chance picking all the worst possible modules for your ships. I don't know how to explain any other way for you to lose with a 4000mp fleet against a 750mp fleet. I haven't seen anything like that happen before.

In the pre-battle timed window you have a chance to mouse over the enemy fleet's ships to see what their strengths and weaknesses are. This is very useful info not only for determining what modules you should try to focus on for your ships but also in deciding what cards would be most effective in battle.

Unless up against an enemy fleet with a hero in it I find any battles that are even roughly close mp-wise is almost always going to end well for me due to knowing and countering what the enemy is using.

Also if you go really heavy on defense modules you can often not even shoot at the enemy and still survive the fight. For this reason I put all defense modules on my colony and scout ships so that they can sometimes escape an unwanted battle simply by surviving the fight even though they have no weapons.

GenericAmerican · 06-11-2012, 04:29 AM

After playing some more, I still can't figure out all these problems people have. Empire gets unhappy. . .but it has never been a problem for me. Just get a hero to oversee your production system, and your fine. You still churn out dreadnaughts at one per turn, all the other systems still spit cash out at you.

Combat is laughably easy once your build hard counters because the AI is stubborn and refuses to use anything other than Kinetic and Flak against me.

Only two problems I have now that I didn't before, is initiating siege on a system seems to decide I can now, or maybe 5 turns later. . .or maybe never. It's annoying to just see my fleet sitting there doing nothing.

Then there is a bug (fixed by restarting) where my fleets decide not to move at all.

ScouseSandwich · 06-11-2012, 09:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GenericAmerican

Then there is a bug (fixed by restarting) where my fleets decide not to move at all.

Actually a restart isn't necessary. Just tap the shift key (it is a bug related to the steam overlay, the game still thinks you have the shift key held down)

06-08-2012, 01:33 PM	#1
miendiem Join Date: Mar 2011 Reputation: 24 Posts: 390	Impressions (beta version) I did this for the Alpha already, but as the saying goes, "things have changed". And since they have, it's time to update the list. I'll try to keep it in the same layout as last time, for ease of use. UI I know there is a lot of love it or hate it with the new galaxy UI. Put me down in the category that considers it a functional improvement generally, but it could use some visual tweaking - modifying the length of the bar to the number of planets in the system is the major change I would suggest, unless all star systems having the full six slots is a sideways nod to the ability to build planets in an upcoming revision. The ability to access the hangar from the galaxy view without a fleet in orbit is a good visual indicator. It can be a bit fiddly to get at, though, particularly with an opponent's ship in system. Making its clickable area slightly larger would probably solve this. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I still can't figure out if ship level/experience is displayed somewhere. If it is, it needs to be more obvious. What different research options actually provide should be shown even at maximum distance on the tech tree. Scrolling in and out to check on them is tedious at best, especially for a player without a mouse wheel. Still hoping for some kind of indicator of how far a fleet can actually travel without sending it on its way. GAMEPLAY Going to start off reiterating my desire for completed ships to be able to be waypointed to another system upon completion, and additionally for an option to have them batch into a fleet and then head for a waypoint. Beta's updated penalties for expansion need to be balanced with the AI's FIDS bonus, badly. I'd say that, one on one, same race to eliminate variables, Easy is playing at what I'd consider Normal difficulty level, bonus-wise. I never have been and don't particularly intend to be a 4x master - winning a game on impossible difficulty isn't in my cards. That said, higher-than-normal difficulty levels seem to me to be what AIs getting bonuses should be saved for. The above ties into one of the points I made about the Alpha, which the updated expansion penalties have actually exacerbated, and I will quote in full from my Alpha impressions post: Dealing with the empire's happiness seems to me to need work. The only real control the player has over it for the opening section of the game is the tax slider. At least one additional early option for this would be nice - perhaps something along the lines of a "work week" slider. Work your population harder to get more output, but they'll hate you more. Find a balance between the work week and taxes to keep your planet from going on strike. Maybe this slider could differ by star system, while the tax slider stayed empire-wide, so that it could be used to micro-manage based on other improvements made to the system? An established system with several +happiness improvements could be treated differently than the new colony just starting out. Alternatively, make taxes a two tiered system, with both an empire slider, and a local slider. That might not feel as good, but it would accomplish the goal without having to iterate on another system to a greater extent. Dust generation seems to have been negatively impacted in some way. Carrying a decent balance of Dust for emergencies has been all but impossible for me in the Beta iteration, even with systems set to convert industry to Dust instead of Research. Some UI indication of which world is a home world should exist for the purposes of attaining/avoiding a home world conquest victory. DIPLOMACY I still haven't gotten this to work in a game. I've actually had games where, during peacetime (not cold war), options from the research for trade were not available. The whole system of diplomacy seems ignorable to me at the moment, aside from accepting cease fire agreements. (Even with superior tech and forces, having won several battles in a row, I've yet to get an AI to accept a bog-standard cease fire.) This is particularly troublesome to me when it comes to the inability to convince AIs to make even a simple trade agreement. As long as diplomacy is this difficult to even make work, single player games against AI feel like playing in a void (even more than they should, compared to playing with real people). More feedback is still needed on why an empire's relations with you alter state. It's obvious if I attack them, of course, but the changes that just get announced periodically have no real context, nor any particular explanation in the announcement. COMBAT I'm still not a fan of Endless Space's combat system. Combat outcomes still feel too random, even in situations where an obvious tech advantage or commanding hero should make the outcome reasonably predictable. It's impossible to trust a fleet to the auto resolve, and manual control is only marginally better. The ability to pre-set commands for all auto resolve battles would at least bring them up to the (admittedly poor) level of manual control without having to manually control all battles. The combat strength numbers still seem meaningless to me, again due to the random nature of combat outcomes. If, for example, my fleet has 4000 combat capacity, and is up against one with 750, the outcome should never be in doubt, though I may unluckily lose a ship. With combat as it stands, it's possible, even sometimes plausible, to expect that I'll end up losing the whole battle. Another reiterated point/idea from my Alpha impressions: The ability to make fixed defenses (a-la the missile bases in Orion) for a system would be a nice touch. The downside is they lack the power to project to other systems like ships do, the upside could come in some combination of reduced expense and/or increased firepower. Overall, the Beta changes and the lack of changes to combat have made me less inclined to play the game recently. Generally, the game has become: Fall behind due to the expansion penalties and the AI FIDS bonuses. Go to war with inferior production but superior tech. Lose tech advantage due to AI's FIDS bonus. Lose game. Scratching and clawing to keep up on hard difficulty is part of any game. Maybe you could even call it the point of a 4X game. Scratching and clawing (and failing) to keep up on easy difficulty is simply not fun, particularly to a player who was capable of winning normal difficulty games before the Beta mechanics alterations. At this point, I'm going to set ES aside until the next big round of balancing happens, and preferably until combat gets an overhaul.

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06-11-2012, 04:29 AM	#4
GenericAmerican Join Date: Sep 2009 Reputation: 15 Posts: 319	After playing some more, I still can't figure out all these problems people have. Empire gets unhappy. . .but it has never been a problem for me. Just get a hero to oversee your production system, and your fine. You still churn out dreadnaughts at one per turn, all the other systems still spit cash out at you. Combat is laughably easy once your build hard counters because the AI is stubborn and refuses to use anything other than Kinetic and Flak against me. Only two problems I have now that I didn't before, is initiating siege on a system seems to decide I can now, or maybe 5 turns later. . .or maybe never. It's annoying to just see my fleet sitting there doing nothing. Then there is a bug (fixed by restarting) where my fleets decide not to move at all.