Is the more Open Playground feel of 3.0 making a comeback?

[Cyborg]

But the gamble was on growth; attracting new players, especially from the Mac "gamer" ( ) contingent.

Heh.  You laugh, but at any given time probably half the group I play with is happy to be using the Mac version instead of having to reboot into Windows, run it in Parallels, or deal with the series of hacks that getting it working in VirtualBox involved.  Rather bizarrely, we played L4D2 last night, and I was the only one running the Windows version.  If you'd asked me a few years ago if I'd thought that would ever happen, I would've been laughing, too, and I didn't even have a Windows box at the time.

I do laugh. Macs almost always get games last. When I use the word "gamer," I'm talking about people that actually feel passionately about games. I'm not talking about people that play angry birds. You cannot be a serious gamer and ignore the Windows platform, unless you want to play old games. Like left for dead 2. Which is fine. my Mac rant is actually a lot longer but I'll spare you.

[TechSY730]

But the gamble was on growth; attracting new players, especially from the Mac "gamer" ( ) contingent.

Heh.  You laugh, but at any given time probably half the group I play with is happy to be using the Mac version instead of having to reboot into Windows, run it in Parallels, or deal with the series of hacks that getting it working in VirtualBox involved.  Rather bizarrely, we played L4D2 last night, and I was the only one running the Windows version.  If you'd asked me a few years ago if I'd thought that would ever happen, I would've been laughing, too, and I didn't even have a Windows box at the time.

I do laugh. Macs almost always get games last. When I use the word "gamer," I'm talking about people that actually feel passionately about games. I'm not talking about people that play angry birds. You cannot be a serious gamer and ignore the Windows platform, unless you want to play old games. Like left for dead 2. Which is fine. my Mac rant is actually a lot longer but I'll spare you.

I beg you, of all of the tangent topics this thread develops, can a Mac vs. Windows style debate, even if it is limited to the context of gamers, not be part of this thread? If it is that big of a deal, can it please be taken to some other thread?

This is a plea from the OP himself.

[keith.lamothe]

Personally I find windows vs mac highly entertaining.  But yea, the other thing you guys were talking about was more helpful.

Mostly I'm staying out of this one because I think some discussions of "what we wish AIW could become and/or get back to being" around here don't get a chance to mature before Chris and I jump in and try to fix things or defend decisions, etc.  Kind of similar to that whole 6-months-of-changes-made-everyone-exhausted deal from the end of 3.189 through to 5.0.  There are times where it's just too much of a good thing (or a thing that would be good if applied properly).  So carry on.

But one bit for consideration: I can definitely see why the different bonus types felt more individual in TZR than now.  After 4.0 and the shields->armor and individual->hulltype bonuses changes balance was completely up a creek without a hyperdrive particularly for fleet ships, and it got to the point where people didn't want ARS's because so few bonus types were even worth it.  So I basically buffed all bonus types up to a roughly similar "dps at cap" with varying rules based on how many hull types it had a bonus against and how big that bonus was, etc.  This did succeed at drastically reducing (i.e. basically eliminating) the feeling that tons of bonus types were worthless, but I can readily see why it contributed to a feeling of "sameyness".  Superking really gave it to me on making Space Tanks basically into Bomber+'s, as a matter of fact, and I suppose he can say that he told me so.  Anyway, interested to see if that sparks any ideas.

[TechSY730]

Mostly I'm staying out of this one because I think some discussions of "what we wish AIW could become and/or get back to being" around here don't get a chance to mature before Chris and I jump in and try to fix things or defend decisions, etc.  Kind of similar to that whole 6-months-of-changes-made-everyone-exhausted deal from the end of 3.189 through to 5.0.  There are times where it's just too much of a good thing (or a thing that would be good if applied properly).  So carry on.

Yea, I kind of understood that you and Chris are too "close" to this thing to fairly gauge the current communities "feelings" about the game and the metagame. As such, I don't feel bad for you guys staying out of this discussion for now until it matures a bit more.

[Nalgas]

I beg you, of all of the tangent topics this thread develops, can a Mac vs. Windows style debate, even if it is limited to the context of gamers, not be part of this thread? If it is that big of a deal, can it please be taken to some other thread?

This is a plea from the OP himself.

Eh.  All I was going to do was thank him for sparing me his rant.  I'm plenty sick of it, too.  There's just about nothing new to be said about it after this many years.  Decades?  Scary.

[TechSY730]

OK, so after a few weeks, I think I can come out with a "todo" list from this discussion and a few others. (Note, though inspired by many others, this is still largely my opinion)

1. One or two more balance passes of the fleet ships (this includes making sure that each fleet ship type has its own "feel")
2. Figure out what to do with starships (there are plenty of other good threads with good ideas talking about this)
3. Figure out how to make armor play a bigger role in battles (while still keeping it deterministic)
4. Tweak the balance of offense vs. defense (at standard difficulties (6-8, inclusive), the AI needs to do a good job keeping you back and threatening you, but not so much so that you don't get a chance to attack yourself) (close to being right, but still not quite there yet)
5. Figure out how to deal with the "focus fire makes big things less useful" effect

Less important todos:
6. Balance pass for the guard posts and guardians
7. Balance pass for the golems (armored, black widow, and regenerator in particular)
8. Balance pass for the spirecraft (though, pretty much only the shield bearer and the scout are left)
9. Introduce a little more variety to the Fallen Spire campaign minor faction

EDIT: Numbers 1 and 4 are probably the most important to solving the issue I originally highlighted, so those should probably be the focus once development resumes

[TechSY730]

Sorry for bumping old thread, but I just found a good quote to consider regarding this topic.

Currently we have the AI at the endgame level in the midgame, stagnating progress (as the player can infinitely fend off the AI at that AIP, but the player is unable to use their fleet for anything BUT defense).

(link)

Is this still a problem?

Keep in mind I am talking about standard difficulty levels (6-8, inclusive).

[Lee]

Sorry for bumping old thread, but I just found a good quote to consider regarding this topic.

Currently we have the AI at the endgame level in the midgame, stagnating progress (as the player can infinitely fend off the AI at that AIP, but the player is unable to use their fleet for anything BUT defense).

(link)

Is this still a problem?

Keep in mind I am talking about standard difficulty levels (6-8, inclusive).

On 7.6 I haven't had that problem. Gate raiding/neutering  usually leads to enemy waves running into my turrets + a small number of effective defensive ships (5-ish mark I spire maws under a shield can happily devour a couple hundred high mark enemies during an attack wave).  Or if you really need a lot of ships on defense you can make some slow progress against almost any enemy world using just about any golem, spire rams if you have a ton of asteroids, spire penetrators, or raid starships.