A twig snaps

[x4000]

I'm accustomed to seeing threads with a specific purpose derail and venture off into randomness.  It is considerably less common for a thread with no purpose to assign itself one.

Only around here are the fans that awesome.

[Echo35]

I'm accustomed to seeing threads with a specific purpose derail and venture off into randomness.  It is considerably less common for a thread with no purpose to assign itself one.

Only around here are the fans that awesome.

It is generally the opposite around here. A formless thread turns into a thread with purpose, and a thread with purpose gets derailed 6 times.

[x4000]

 

[Red Spot]

Thats because I like banana's!

[Orelius]

While we're still off-topic, does anyone else feel that defender mode is very, very boring compared to conquest mode?  Maybe I'm just playing it wrong, but there just isn't the same feel or pace that conquest mode has, especially since all you get to do is defend and you have no chance to counterattack or recolonize.  The lack of warheads is pretty depressing, too.

[Red Spot]

Somewhat, I find it fun at times to experiance those situations you can not save yourself from. Usually I end up getting overrun ~15min in. Its a nice feature, but as I see it is a bonus to the game, something on the side.

[x4000]

It depends on what you are looking for, really -- in a lot of respects it is a completely different genre of game (just straight up tower defense), and a lot of folks don't like that that like the more 4X-inspired aspects.  Most of the limitations you mention are endemic to the tower defense genre in general.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, to be honest we just didn't get very much feedback on Defender mode in general, either pre or post release.  What we did get was largely concerned with "how do I set this up?" so we made the tooltips as clear as we could about what kind of setups work (just like how having a 10 planet game of Conquest is going to hurt, starting with 40 planets or 1 planet in defender mode is going to hurt, albeit moreso).

One of the main goals was to provide a short-game experience for folks who would prefer something other than the usually-8-hour-minimum Conquest mode, because we really don't want to try to make Conquest work as a 2 or 4 hour game (much less 45 minute).  The scaling just wouldn't work right and one end of the spectrum or another would get the short end.  So Defender is just different, variety, etc.

All that said, if anyone has feedback on what they think would make Defender mode more interesting to them, I'm happy to hear it.  If it amounts to "make it like Conquest", well, it doesn't have good chances, but you know

[Echo35]

While we're still off-topic, does anyone else feel that defender mode is very, very boring compared to conquest mode?  Maybe I'm just playing it wrong, but there just isn't the same feel or pace that conquest mode has, especially since all you get to do is defend and you have no chance to counterattack or recolonize.  The lack of warheads is pretty depressing, too.

I actually haven't even played it yet, though I probably should, as I do enjoy hopeless survival mode type games (L4D2 survival, Killing Floor, Reach firefight mode, etc).

[Shrugging Khan]

Reverse Entropy up in this thread?

Anyways, happy to hear the big men are at least talking about further work on AIW 

[x4000]

We haven't abandoned the game, or even close, but we can only do so much at one time.  A lot of the post-5.0 work that we did (and pre-5.0, for that matter) was to get the game to a state where it was polished enough that we could leave it stable and not so rapidly changing for a while.  We did that last year about this time, too, when we were working on Tidalis.  That would have basically been post-3.0, or particularly post-3.060.

[Buttons840]

On the subject or short games.  I've become a fan of 30 planet maps with a 100% resource bonus given to myself.  These games can usually be finished in about 4 hours.  Granted I do have Golems and other aids on, like the Dyson Sphere.  Less planets means the interesting stuff is easier to get to.

[BobTheJanitor]

On the subject or short games.  I've become a fan of 30 planet maps with a 100% resource bonus given to myself.  These games can usually be finished in about 4 hours.  Granted I do have Golems and other aids on, like the Dyson Sphere.  Less planets means the interesting stuff is easier to get to.

I think shorter games could be made more viable if some sort of sliding scale was implemented to balance it, so that you're not starting out next door to the AI homeworld and needing to capture every planet in sight in order to have the resources to mount any kind of assault. However, a fix like that is easy to describe but doubtless would get bogged down in ridiculous fiddly details if it were actually implemented. Saying 'just adjust the resource costs' sounds simple, until you try to do it. Still, I wouldn't mind seeing a small map version of the game some day.

I want to like defender mode, but the limited time I put into it didn't leave me with much enjoyment. Of course, I know now I wasn't playing with enough planets. It seems like it really does need some sort of balancing though, if you're expected to start with a lot of worlds and then lose them steadily until the timer runs out... that doesn't sound fun. And from what I hear it can be cheesed by just starting a huge map with all the planets as human worlds and then doing nothing until the timer runs down. Perhaps it shouldn't even be an option to start with one world. Or you should be able to start with a hugely increased number of resources, or auto-build times should be cut by 1/2 or more for this mode only, or something. That would allow holding out on a single world to be a viable option, which sounds more interesting to me. When I tried it, I got steamrolled by the first wave and that was it. I decided I wasn't fond of that and went back to the regular game.

[keith.lamothe]

However, a fix like that is easy to describe but doubtless would get bogged down in ridiculous fiddly details if it were actually implemented. Saying 'just adjust the resource costs' sounds simple, until you try to do it.

Yes, that's why we don't want to go that route; trying to shoehorn two different games into the same general scenario doesn't have good results.

if you're expected to start with a lot of worlds and then lose them steadily until the timer runs out... that doesn't sound fun.

It might not be your thing, then   Though in my experience a successful defender game doesn't involve steadily losing planets the whole time, but rather holding your outer defensive line pretty solidly until something massive just smashes through and you figure out how good you are at disaster recovery.  In a 45-minute 10-starting-planets (central planet and inner ring on a concentric map) game I managed to hold my two chokepoints pretty well (though increasingly tenuously) for the first 35 minutes or so, and then they busted the door down.  But I'd held them off long enough and fought a pesky enough rolling retreat that they didn't reach my last world in time and I won.

And from what I hear it can be cheesed by just starting a huge map with all the planets as human worlds and then doing nothing until the timer runs down.

Several things are in place to make that less likely, but yes, I imagine if you play a 120-planet snake map and take all but one extreme end then you'll win automatically on a small enough timer.  My suggestion (and that of the lobby tooltip, via the suggested number of planets) is to simply not do that, unless that's the kind of game you want to play for some reason (seeing how many planets you can actually keep against those uber punishing waves, etc).

Perhaps it shouldn't even be an option to start with one world. Or you should be able to start with a hugely increased number of resources, or auto-build times should be cut by 1/2 or more for this mode only, or something.

Have you tried taking a single world and a +300% handicap for yourself (and possibly a negative handicap for the AI, or some other adjustment like that)?  That may not be as much change as you're looking for, though.  I haven't tried it to see if it works.