Published on November 22, 2006 By Zydor In Beta Reports
The Super Ability of reducing opponents down to 3 moves that the YOR have needs to be amended. Its way over the top at its current value, and extremely frustrating. Build in game frustrations and you ask for angst from new or casual players. It destroys the flow of the game.

Of course it can be countered by using heavily defended ships with Eyes of the Universe ability, that can just plough thro anything they throw at them on their way to taking out high value influence planets. Thats not the issue.

A new player will be put off the game very rapidly before realising how to counter it, and you'll lose them. The move reduction should not be as harsh, a value of (say) 50% would still achieve the desired result of delaying entry and exit, but without destroying the flow of the game, and the likely the side effect of the player putting their fist thro the screen

An absolute value of 3 move points will just achieve player frustration, not innovation. A percentage value (say 50%)- as opposed to a hard coded absolute value - will gradually degrade the effect over time as opponents fleets get faster, but stilkl achieve the effect of protection when most vulnerable at the early game stages.

Game features have to make sense when placed in context with the rest of the game, or you lose players and gain bad reps. In my view this one makes no sense as it stands.

Regards
Zy
Comments (Page 1)
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on Nov 22, 2006
While you do make a good point, but most people who buy DA will have already played Galciv 2.
on Nov 22, 2006
Echoing Jeff Graw, most people playing an expansion probably bought the original game first.
on Nov 22, 2006
I agree it's a little much, just the three moves. A percentage would seem to be a much better solution, but coding that kinda thing could be a bear with having to account for different ships with different speeds. Late in the game though, I think taking a transport from 85 moves to 3 is a quite extreme.
on Nov 22, 2006
I'm not sure it's too much. The whole feel of DA is that ships are much, much slower. Engines are larger and more expensive, granted these numbers are just placeholders and will be adjusted, but...
on Nov 22, 2006
I for one am against any concessions made simply for the sake of new players, I've seen way too many games ruined by being 'dumbed down for the newbs'.

I like the Yor ability the way it is, god forbid you may actually have to adapt your attack plan for a single opponent... You know you can also change/disable the super ability for any race? or just dont select Yor as an opponent.

To me the Yor ability is no more unbalanced than the single turn factories, first strike, or super breeder abilities.
on Nov 22, 2006
Variety is the spice of life. I went down from 21 movement points a turn to 3 when I went through Yor space. I thought is was cool, from the standpoint of different super abilities. I agree that is is not any different than having the super hiver, first strike, and superbreeder abilities. It's part of the game. It adds strategic depth. How are we going to deal with the Yor? You can create your custome race and choose the Yor's ability as your own and screw any invasion fleets, maybe. Right now I'm playing a game where that's the Yor's only benefit because I am ahead of them tech wise. They are getting squished.
on Nov 22, 2006
OMG it's like a SUPER Ability.
on Nov 22, 2006
... speeds. Late in the game though, I think taking a transport from 85 moves to 3 is a quite extreme.


One could argue that any transport capable of traveling 85 parsecs per turn is pretty extreme.

Why are you guys so quick to complain when a race gets a powerful defensive ability, especially when there exists powerful enough offensive abilities to warrent something this powerful. The Arceans get pre-emptive strike which allows them to destroy all enemy ships without them getting to return fire. The Korath get their spore ships which can capture a planet and move on and possible capture a dozen more in the same turn. Those two abilities retain their full power outside of Yor space. Is it a bad thing if the Yor want to protect themselves from such overwhelming power.

Another thing to consider is: Would the slow down even matter if it became 50%? The transports could still move 42 parsecs per turn, which is fast enough to deal some pretty extreme damage. The spore ships could overwhelm all planets that are on the outer two sectors of Yor territory. The Arceans could possibly destroy all of the Yor ships before they could shoot back in that same distance. That 50% slow down might only buy the Yor a couple of extra turns before their demise, instead providing them with a possible means to survive.

The max travel speed of 3 parsecs per turn puts the Yor on equal footing with the spore ships and pre-emptive strike. Both abilities forces you to think twice if you really want to pick a fight with them, so why shouldn't the Yor get something too. Besides, it slow down effect doesn't work outside of their space, so leave the poor Yor alone.

P.S. I don't recall the Yor normally have extremely large areas of influence. So unless you are at war with them, you could probally fly around their territory.

P.S. Yes, I do often play as the Yor.
on Nov 22, 2006
I for one am against any concessions made simply for the sake of new players, I've seen way too many games ruined by being 'dumbed down for the newbs'.


I find that more often than not, 4x games are ruined by designers adding every little feature they think is 'kind of cool' and bogging the game down to a crawl for the player. I do agree that in a lot of other genres games can be ruined by guning for the lowest common denominator (take mechassault vs. mech warrior 2), but I've never seen this be the case in 4x.
on Nov 23, 2006
Solutions are not the issue as I clearly stated - they are easy enough, dont play the YOR in a game, which I now dont - hit em hard at a narrow point of the boarder going for the high value influence planets to zap the AOI, which I did as a last time of playing them. The solutions are not an issue - there are many of them.

If the ability was an intrinsic part of the game I would agree that reduction is going down the dumbing down road, which is never a good idea. I dont believe it can be viewed as an intrinsic part of the game when it slows it incredibly for what will be seen as an obvious game mechanic. But even that is not my main issue with this.

As stated above is purely the effect on new gamers, it will cause a problem, games live or die by the grapevine - and I firmly believe this 'feature' will be vilified by new players to the detriment of the games rep, which would be an immense pity as its arguably the best TBS released for a long time.

Time will tell I guess ...... now back to the Beta   

Regards
Zy

on Nov 23, 2006
I for one am against any concessions made simply for the sake of new players, I've seen way too many games ruined by being 'dumbed down for the newbs'.


I suppose GalCiv 2 should be display in a completely made up language that you have to learn just to be able to play then? Darn "newbs" and not already knowing that language.

Ending a turn is too easy in GalCiv, all you have to do is press a button. You should have to play an extremely difficult mini game puzzle just to get the right to end the turn. The real players would already have the answers solved and memorized.

Heck, why is the interface even visible, it's not like I don't know where the buttons are already! Darn newbs and not having a pixel-perfect memory of the interface.

*ahem*

games live or die by the grapevine - and I firmly believe this 'feature' will be vilified by new players to the detriment of the games rep


Right... seems like that a single unbalanced feature of a playable race might actually attract players. Of course, it is a single player game...

That said, I see the real problem here is that "everyone" is too used to using very, very fast ships and utterly destroying the AI in a single turn or so, even on a very large galaxy when they have a lot of ships.

To me... a TRUELY new player would not be used to using very fast ships and would actually adapt better to the ability than people who have been playing the game since the retail release version, imho. Or at least adapt to it without complaining as much.

That said, a small Influence penalty SHOULD be applied to the Super Isolationist ability, just to restrict how far the AOE will really go. The speed reduction as currently is essentially necessary for it to work as intended.
on Nov 23, 2006
You can always disable the yor; say if you'r playing a metaverse game and not the campaign I suppose.
on Nov 23, 2006
I really do not see it affecting new players as much as the OP has claimed. Main reason is you can simply choose the races you play against.

Since I do not have DA maybe I do not have a right to comment but, In my humble opinion, the races should not be, and are not "equal". Makes the game replay ability that much more potent.
on Nov 23, 2006
You can also edit the Yor and give them a different ability if you don't like it. Super Spy might be a good alternative, after all, it shouldn't be too hard to spot enemy spies in a race of machines. He's the one wearing cardboard boxes and painted silver. You could also use influence bases to shrink their territory.
on Nov 23, 2006
Super Spy might be a good alternative, after all, it shouldn't be too hard to spot enemy spies in a race of machines. He's the one wearing cardboard boxes and painted silver.


That makes me ROFL...

personnaly I think this one is OK, IMO the one which is owerpowered (only for human playres not AIs) is Hiver (or whatever its called) - the one which garants you every factory is build in 1 turn...
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