Champion Options

[Histidine]

The nebulae themselves could use some variation (more scenarios, make the existing scenarios more variable), but I don't think punctuating the main game with "minigames" is necessarily a bad thing as long as the minigames themselves are good and don't take too long.

[MaxAstro]

My experience is that playing solo with a champion sucks all the fun out of nebulas.  Honestly, having a command center sucks the fun out of nebulas.

On the other hand, if you have a normal player and a champion player, the balance feels ~perfect~.  Nebula take up the time where the normal player doesn't have anything they want you to destroy, and you can devote your whole attention to the nebulas.

I would definitely be in favor of more varied nebula scenarios, though.  I seem to get the "three faction war" as my first mission nearly every time and that mission is pure grind without a destroyer.

[Mick]

Every time I've started a game, the first one I've seen was three faction war. I just kinda assumed it was always going to be the first (and it seems like a terrible one to get first).

[Cyborg]

The CSG

You lost me at CSG. :-D

[Faulty Logic]

This thread was on-topic for 1.5 posts. Even for this forum, that's a little ridiculous.

What do folks think of the proposed champion changes? Are they worth the dev-time compared to other stuff?

[TIE Viper]

I think that those changes would be good.  On whether it would be worth the devs time comparatively...I dunno.  Honestly I don't think having that adjustable scale would affect me.  I'd probably still play on the default settings.  I almost always play normal+champion and I really enjoy things for the most part.  I would also very much like to see more scenarios.  Not just multiple nebula story scenarios, but I'd like standalone scenarios as well.  And randomization if there are more scenarios than nebula would be ideal.  That way when you are playing you don't know for sure exactly which scenarios you are going to end up with in any given game.  I was under the impression that our current nebula selection was just the beginnings of what was planned.  I hope that is still the case.  If the devs plan to continue on that route I'm definitely in favor for it just as much as I want them to work on other areas of this game's progression.  I guess I'm trying to say if it is simple enough to implement without taking away serious time from the devs as to greatly impact their work on the game's progression champion related and/or non-champion related, then yes, otherwise no.

Ugh, sorry for the discombobulated thought process.  Brain tired, no work good...I think the AI somehow managed to figure out how to send a not-sleep-well-last-night exo to my brain while the hybrids made my job effectively demolish me today.   

Only just now recovering.

[TechSY730]

I think to "fix" champions, I think adding more nebula missions, possibly new types (like something that requires going out of the nebula at some point in the mission), balancing rewards, (including the module unlocks may not be compatible with hull unlocks that seems to crop up sometimes), and possibly adding someway to unlock stuff outside of nebulae missions, though possibly in a less "time effecient" manner. Nebula missions should remain the primary way to unlock stuff, but some sort of fallback just in case something goes wrong making nebulae too hard with the unlocks you got or something, or you want to reward helping out normal players more directly would be a great idea.



*fix is in quotes, as I'm not sure if there is something broken, just merely something lacking

[Aquohn]

Feature suggestion for next AIW expansion: Valley Mode.

Fly around with your champ and purify the galaxy! Direct the survivors to build useful buildings like farms energy collectors and clinics repair stations while fighting monsters waves and keeping morale up.  Every so often you get fight the AI's nemesis champions, all distinct personalities who nevertheless have one thing in common: they like to insinuate that you are just as evil as them (with the exception of the brainwashed Spire who is forced to fight you). The CSG network is the source of your enemies' immortality, but so is it yours: once it goes down every death you suffer bleeds the human survivors directly. Your ultimate goal is to destroy the two central processing nodes for the evil AI "Demonaica" and win the war.

For extra points: A third of the tracks should be reused from Shattered Haven.

...

This...

Couldn't stop laughing.

[Aquohn]

Crazy idea: Make all Nebula rewards redeemable with EXP, including forts and hull sizes/types.

This gives you infinitely more flexibility. Do you want to sacrifice the Neinzul Mod Fort to level up your shields? Stuff like that.

Maybe we could retain some degree of the current unlock system; e.g. you can only get Spire stuff after your first Grey Spire mission, etc.

But we definitely need to make the reward system more transparent. Have some sort of objectives screen, like the Shattered Haven level things, for each nebula. So for example, if having X starbases alive at the end gives you Y extra EXP, mention that in the journal. If taking longer than Z minutes costs you W EXP per minute, say it there too.

[tmm]

My biggest issue with champions in their current state is that nemesis champions remind me a lot of Hybrids, and so playing with a champion at all is basically forcing you to have Hybrids on.  The main issue with champions as I understand it is that the player basically gets a superweapon for free that can wreck AI systems on its own (though its quite a bit harder after the guard post and guardian buffs), with no counterbalance from the AI.

So what I'd like to see is a defensive counterbalance from the AI to prevent champions from running over it, then the offensive counterbalance of nemesis champions could be broken out into it's own AI plot, similar to hybrids, and balanced accordingly.

A defensive counterbalance to champions could take the form of special guard posts or system structures seeded at generation that only activate when a shadow drive equipped ship (champion) is in the same system or an adjacent system, or can only target shadow drive equipped ships.  This would create a reason for the player's normal fleet to be out and active, taking care of the shadow defenses that would otherwise wreck the champion(s).

A few ideas :
Shadow Driver I-IV: Bigger, scarier version of the OMD, Mark level is the champion hull size that it's scaled against.
Hybrid Raid Engine: Raid engine that's been infested by Neinzul Astrid organisms.  Works like a normal raid engine (except for only triggering off Champions), but the spawned raid consists of Neinzul Astrid nebula ships.
Astrid Viral Cluster I-IV: Works like a Neinzul Viral Cluster, only triggers off champions, spawns Neinzul Astrid nebula ships.
Hatred Generator: Renegade Dark Spire partnering with the AI to wipe out all life in the galaxy.  Gains charges every second(s) a player champion is in the same system, and the spawns are AI-allied.
Inactive Shadow Golem I-IV: Sleeping version of the Ravenous Shadow.  Wakes up when it detects a shadow drive equipped ship.  And it's HUNGRY.
Shadow Prototype Facility I-IV: The AI wants to get into nebulas too, and has research facilities where it's constructing it's own prototype champions.  Self destructs if a player champion is in the same system to release one or more nemesis champions to threat as a one time spawn.
Shadow Research Center: The AI is experimenting on shadow wormholds and the results do... strange things to shadow drives.  Works like a gravity drill, but only affects ships equipped with a shadow drive.

[keith.lamothe]

My biggest issue with champions in their current state is that nemesis champions remind me a lot of Hybrids

Interesting; their logic and mechanics are actually massively different, but I suppose you mean the "threat that comes after me even if I don't do anything" aspect?

[tmm]

It was more their aggression level.  This was before 6.031, and I've since restarted to see the difference post patch, but haven't made it to the point of triggering nemesis spawns yet.  However, about 3-3.5 hours in I had lost somewhere in the neighborhood of 6-8 command stations almost entirely to nemesis action.

Granted, I was being fairly aggressive myself in expanding to gather enough knowledge and energy so that I could survive the first exo waves (Golems-Hard, Normal + Champion, and FS on, so I needed to clear the city sites at some point anyways), but the nemesis champions made for an extremely aggressive response that reminded me a lot of playing against Hybrids.

In some ways even worse than hybrids, because champion high durability would pretty much guarantee a command station kill even if they picked a system to attack that I could respond to immediately with my main fleet.

Another factor was probably that I tend to play on more open map types, it was probably going to be another 2-3 hours past the point where I restarted for 6.031 before I could get any serious chokepoints set up to help protect against nemesis champions hitting anywhere they wanted.