Mid Game still too "Grindy" (RESOLVED, sort of)

[TechSY730]

This game has come leaps and bounds in terms of variety needed to beat the game. From the new obstacles, to the smarter AI behavior, to the new types of ships both we and the AI gets; we have had to learn more unique ways of dealing with these challenges. However, these new obstacles are pretty much only relevant in the early and late games.
In the early game, you have very little to your name and such need to spend wisely to survive the initial onslaught and still be able to take over more planets. In the late game, both you and the AI have gotten lots of "cool toys" to work with, and now you must find a way to out maneuver the AI with what you have. That is, can you kill their home with your cool toys before they kill your home with their cool toys.
However, in the mid-game, the AI does not have a lot of threatening variety, and you can out-power most AI planets. As such, building a "blob of death" and capturing planets in the exact same way dominates the mid game. Sure, you will need to pull out clever tricks for those pesky Mk. IV planets (which, means this is the most fun part of the mid game), and you need to be able to handle special obstacles, (like black hole generators and raid engines), these are quite rare.
Thus, I think something should be done to improve the necessity of variety in the mid-game. Again, it is so much better than it used to be, but it still has a way to go.

Note, I have no idea what can be done about this. I am not an expert on applied game theory or maintaining pacing in RTSs or anything like that.

EDIT: I forgot to mention. The lack of variety of ship options availability to you in the mid-game also contributes to this problem.

[Wingflier]

What difficulty are you playing on?

I find on the harder difficulties (8, 9), you are kept on your toes the entire game, and are always in danger of losing; which to me, is the antithesis of "grinding".

That isn't to say that we just aren't having different experiences (or different definitions of "grinding"), it just doesn't feel that way to me.

[Fleet]

I concur with Wingflier. In my experience I have found that increasing the difficulty quickly and drastically reduces feeling of grindy-ness, and I spend a lot more time doing analysis and planning.

[Signata]

Definitely! The switch from turrets to using Guardians and many various Posts is something that definitely scales with difficulty rating. At even a normal range of difficulty, planets will be teaming with these things, some of which can make progression very interesting indeed, not to mention standard starships and fleet flying around as well. Taking even ordinary planets becomes challenging and interesting once the mid game begins in earnest, and the potential routes one might take deeper into the galaxy are much less obvious than they used to be.

At the very easy difficulties though, things are a bit of a grind, but that is to be expected. The AI isn't doing much at all, and the variety of tools that it uses to defend and attack are diminished, so its a lot more like 2.x and 3.x mid-game where you just trudged through turrets over and over until hitting homeworlds, and which planets to take was more a matter of wormhole topology and resources than anything else.

So I think this is another indicator of skill level. As with the other indicators listed on the wiki, if the game feels like a grind, then crank it up a notch.

[TechSY730]

I am playing against a level 7.3 and a level 7.6. However, upon further review, one of the types was a turtle (teleporter turtle actually). That probably does not help things any.   I'll try again with two non-turtles and see if that changes anything (maybe even bump it up to 7.6 and .

Anyways, that does bring up another question, do turtle type AIs break the pacing of the game too much? I mean, they turtle, so they are supposed to slow down your progression, but my experience so far seems to suggest they do a little too good of a job at it.

EDIT: Grr. Stupid 8) rendering as

[Wingflier]

There is a BIG jump between 7.6 and 8, so much so that you'll find the game almost unrecognizable (at least I did). When you hit 8, things will probably start to feel different for you ;p

[TechSY730]

Thanks, I will try that.

Is there a list somewhere of what AI behaviors get turned on at what difficulty levels?

[Signata]

That's a separate setting. In the lobby, beside the difficulty rating on the left. You can specifically choose a type or select one of the general random categories.

[Vinraith]

The turtle types do seem to be far more successful at slowing you down than actually threatening you. with the way the rest of the game has evolved I'm not sure they really fit anymore, at least not as they are right now.

[TechSY730]

The turtle types do seem to be far more successful at slowing you down than actually threatening you. with the way the rest of the game has evolved I'm not sure they really fit anymore, at least not as they are right now.

Since now I know I am not alone in this sentiment, I filed a bug report
http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=2186

I guess put further discussion about the Turtle AI there.

[TechSY730]

That's a separate setting. In the lobby, beside the difficulty rating on the left. You can specifically choose a type or select one of the general random categories.

No not the overarching unit choice and planet bonuses that is specified by the AI type, but rather how the AI manages its units. Like:
At what difficulty does the AI start retreating its units in a losing battle?
At what difficulty does the AI keep cloaked units in low power mode until they reach their target?
At what difficulty does the AI start to use mobile tractor beam units to pull units towards their planets?

Its these and other types of unit management behaviors I am asking about.

[hullu]

I've had my share of problems with grindyness lately, nto sure if it's after I started playing beta builds.

I'm playing diff 8, after 3-4 hours and 3-4 planets in the immediate vicinity taken all the planets are defended by 600-1000 ships. That in itself is not a huge problem, I can wear them down in time. Waves come in at 300-1200 ships or so, which are usually no problem, they take me back a few minutes and around one third of the time I can focus on offense and not defense.

My main gripes are transports, they get popped within seconds upon entering ANY planet. I can't skip any planets without first neutering them, ship cap of mk1 scouts can't get through even one planet, within a transport they get through one planet when the transport is popped outside tachyon range (sometimes it gets popped within tachyon range and that fails).

This makes for an incredibly grindy feeling since I have to have a formidable military presence in any system I want to skip. Also wearing down a planet takes upwards of an hour since even taking out one guard post makes a HUGE dent in my fleet - which is usually around thousand strong.

I've now played four games like this and it always ends when I get pissed off and pop the command station too early and subsequently am overrun by the 500+ mk3 or so ships:)

Has the game changed somehow, since I don't remember it being like this in the non-beta buiild?

[Lancefighter]

tbh I think the largest jump is from 8.0 to 8.3... rom 7.6 to 8 didn't feel that large. Its just a few wave/reinforcement multipliers after all :p

[Wingflier]

I've had my share of problems with grindyness lately, nto sure if it's after I started playing beta builds.

I'm playing diff 8, after 3-4 hours and 3-4 planets in the immediate vicinity taken all the planets are defended by 600-1000 ships. That in itself is not a huge problem, I can wear them down in time. Waves come in at 300-1200 ships or so, which are usually no problem, they take me back a few minutes and around one third of the time I can focus on offense and not defense.

My main gripes are transports, they get popped within seconds upon entering ANY planet. I can't skip any planets without first neutering them, ship cap of mk1 scouts can't get through even one planet, within a transport they get through one planet when the transport is popped outside tachyon range (sometimes it gets popped within tachyon range and that fails).

This makes for an incredibly grindy feeling since I have to have a formidable military presence in any system I want to skip. Also wearing down a planet takes upwards of an hour since even taking out one guard post makes a HUGE dent in my fleet - which is usually around thousand strong.

I've now played four games like this and it always ends when I get pissed off and pop the command station too early and subsequently am overrun by the 500+ mk3 or so ships:)

Has the game changed somehow, since I don't remember it being like this in the non-beta buiild?

The recent cause for Transports being insta-gibbed are the new Fortresses changes, which practically take out a Transport per volley now, where they used to tickle a couple patches ago.

[hullu]

The recent cause for Transports being insta-gibbed are the new Fortresses changes, which practically take out a Transport per volley now, where they used to tickle a couple patches ago.

Also I noticed that artillery guardians get x10 against scout hulls, which means they 1-2 -shot a transport, depending on the mark.