Nominations for Most Important Pre-8.0 Polish

[keith.lamothe]

Periodically in the history of this game there have been times where everything looked more-or-less ok from my perspective based on my own experience with the game and the sorts of feedback I was seeing from players.  Then someone's concerns would get to the point where they'd post something along the lines of "I think the game's current state is a total mess" and a bunch of other players who'd been gradually coming to feel the same way (perhaps to a lesser degree) would chime in with varying degrees of "me too".

Over repetition I've learned not to worry about it as every time it's worked out fine in the end, but it does generally mean re-prioritizing.

In this case I was planning to get the #3 item from the big items for 8.0 (Diversifying Fallen Spire events) underway before switching to "just polish" for base-game work, but given recent feedback from a fairly wide variety of players it seems wiser to just delay that to post-8.0 and start focusing on polish now for the base-game work. 

Expansion work is in a separate category, and proceeds on a different schedule except for both the official release of expansion #6 and the official release of 8.0 being planned for early August.  Those plans are not rock-solid yet,  but whenever it is both will happen at the same time.

So, what would help me right now is to know what folks consider the most important polish to make sure gets in before 8.0.  If you can each nominate whatever you think should go on the poll (which I'll probably put up, say, Friday the 16th or earlier if discussion peters out here), that would be a big help.

Some items that already come to mind as probable's:


1) Nerfing the human side of salvage so the player isn't frequently swimming in more metal than can be spent.
- and make it so the player is not frequently in situations where provoking tons of attacks via raid engine or hacking seems like a _good_ idea

2) Nerfing the amount of starships the AI gets in waves (partly because they give so much salvage, partly because they're a giant pain in the rear).

3) Giving the AI's response to hacking more teeth.

4) Continuing to refine carrier balance in light of recent changes (specifically, probably having them not fly through forcefields anymore)

5) Continuing to refine the alt-progress and alt-nemesis champ stuff so that it's actually a satisfying option that doesn't (unduly) Murderusoon.

6) Buff the normal-response to champs to make those less easy-mode.

7) Buff the AI's response to Golems-Hard, Spirecraft-Hard, and (perhaps) Fallen Spire to prevent the overall impact of those making the game way easier than without superweapons.
- but do this in a way which doesn't mess with the balance of the game-without-superwepaons

8 ) Buff the highest difficulties, as 10/10 (even without superweapons) is still winnable.

9) Continue to refine warhead balance in light of recent changes
- right now I'm wondering if we need to just ditch the build-missiles-here silos and give the player a certain number of "warhead storage silos" at the beginning of the game, whose destruction-by-the-AI does nothing (no AIP, etc), but when scrapped-by-the-player produces the warheads for normal use (and AIP when detonated); that way they can actually be a finite supply of get-out-of-jail-free cards... but perhaps that would be too excruciating a change for the players

10) Obviously, any desyncs need to be fixed.  All that I'm currently aware of have been fixed (as of 7.025, which I hope to have out Monday before noon eastern time), but if more are found I definitely want to know about them.

11) Any bugs that are really getting in the way of people's enjoyment.  Other bugfixing needs to happen to, but knowing which specific ones are the worst would be very helpful to me.
- So nominating specific mantis records here would be good

12) Nerfing any excessively OP units (possible ones on the edge that come to mind being Riots, Area Mines, Decoy Drones, etc).
- So nominating specific units here

13) If a given is so underpowered that its mere existence seriously detracts from the fun of the game, buffing those
- So nominating specific units here

14) Misleading UI, textual issues, etc.  While we normally _really really_ prefer one-issue-per-record in mantis, compilation mantis records like this one are fine for textual and other really simple issues that take longer to mark the mantis resolved than to fix individually.


Bear in mind that some of the less controversial of these may be done before the poll is even posted.

Anyway, what'd I miss?

Thanks for the feedback!

[chemical_art]

That is...a lot of options...and not in the usual poll format.

I am not one for "middle of the road" comprises. Usuallly I think "It either is...or it is not"

However, some division of labor is necessary. Or division or...priorities? SOME division of some sort is needed...


Anyway, I see both buffs to AI and buffs to player here. I think it would help to divide it AT least so that the "best of buff to" AI and player is in order.


As for what I say? I'm not good in specifics. My time is fleeting it feels these days that I prefer "big picture" ideas, not specific ones. "I want 7/7 to be beatable without cheese!" ...which of course not very helpful to a designer.

[keith.lamothe]

That is...a lot of options...and not in the usual poll format.

It's similar to what I did here.  Which I think is actually the last time we did this sort of thing.

Anyway, the buff/nerf polls were mainly for the purpose of sanding off the roughest edges of "what's too useful?" and "what's too useless?".   What I want here is "what's, overall, most getting in the way of the fun?".

That said, I don't expect specific ideas from everyone.  In your case, I think 7/7 is already very beatable without cheese, right?

[Mad Rubicant]

How about the AI having the option of sending Guardians OR Starships in waves? Part of my issue with the wave Starships is how monotonous it is at Tech 1. Flagships, Leeches, and Plasma Sieges are all I seem to get. Maybe Raids. Adding Guardians to the mix would ease up on the monotony, and add a few offensive options to the AI. Like EMP or Self-Destruct Guardians.

On second thought, EMP Guardians in waves isn't a good idea.

[chemical_art]

In your case, I think 7/7 is already very beatable without cheese, right?

With salvage and superweapons? Sure.

Without one or the other. Maybe.

Without both. No. I tried that last in the 6.x era, and it worked only with cheese.

[keith.lamothe]

With salvage and superweapons? Sure.

Without one or the other. Maybe.

Without both. No. I tried that last in the 6.x era, and it worked only with cheese.

I meant without superweapons.  And salvage is more to cut down on waiting than to make it easier (though it has had that effect thus far).

Anyway, I'm kind of surprised.  7/7's seemed very easy to me for a long time.  The sort of thing that could be beaten in about 8 hours simply by being reasonably careful.

I guess it depends on what you mean by cheese.

[chemical_art]

I meant without superweapons.  And salvage is more to cut down on waiting than to make it easier (though it has had that effect thus far).

Anyway, I'm kind of surprised.  7/7's seemed very easy to me for a long time.  The sort of thing that could be beaten in about 8 hours simply by being reasonably careful.

I guess it depends on what you mean by cheese.

For me, the strategic reserve and "brutal" guard posts have made games of any sort difficult to actually finish. Hacking may have helped that, but that is a mechanic not friendly to a first time player.


No, I don't consider the current game friendly to "new" players.

[Andyroo]

Typically play on diff 8 in 2 player games here, sometimes we win, usually we dont. Heres some thoughts on these.

1) Salvage - it can be a bit much I suppose, although thats usually only after a few strikeforces have slammed into us.
Not something I care too much about, however I would suggest nerfing military stations salvage capability down to 1/2/3%. Right now military stations are one of our first researches, and the other 2 are ignored. Being able to choose stronger defences or nice salvage income would be nice choice to have.

2) Yes, yes, yes. Noticed this since we started playing, consider me a "chime-in" here. I assume this is because they were made stronger, but perhaps the AI still got the same amount of them. Its not just in waves either, oftentimes we are hitting an enemy system and the starships make the rest of the forces in there look pathetic. More guardians, less starships.

3) Seems fine to me, I can hack up to the limit, if I go over it I get in trouble. May have seen salvage coming from our superterminal hacking zombies though, that should be sorted.

4) Not played with the newest ones enough yet, but not had them go through FFs yet really. No comment yet.

5+6) In our game we are level 900something (alt + nebulae), and I lost my HQ to the 200 or so enemy champions. It was a bit insane, we only had 50 AI progress, dont know whether insane champ level caused or not. Would like to see scaled down a lot if not.
One thing having insane levels has shown: having choice with champion weapons is *fun*. Being stuck at level 35 or so after the nebulae are done is not fun, being shown all the new toys we cant get as theres no other viable source of XP.
I would like to see 1) champ XP shared (its a coop game) and 2) more ways to advance in non-alt mode. New toys dont really make us more powerful, just versatile, and as it is now the champs tend to drop heavily in usefulness towards the end for us. Especially a shame when one of us is champ-only.

7) This is what usually kills us. I dont see why it needs any changes, thats why it comes with a difficulty setting.

Never played past 8.

9) They are rather powerful now, especially if there are rocketry corps shooting them at you. I wouldnt like to see the silo go, but I do think they need refinement. Unsure what - dont use them that much.

10) We have had 1 since the last fix, no idea on cause, we just saved and rehosted. Not too fussed really, it happens.

11) Not noticed any, will put on mantis if we find some.

12) Not noticed any, will put on mantis if we find some.

13) Fortress. Expensive, high power usage, dies a lot. Used to love them, stopped using them now though.

14) Not noticed any, will put on mantis if we find some.

Overall I dont think its a "mess" really. Quite happy with the state of the game, look forward to seeing it evolve even more.

I would nominate champions as my #1 issue with the game needing refinement, followed closely by AI starships.

[vigilo confido]

I think one problem is you have to spend 40 minutes dealing with a really annoying non essential planet. Me and tech had this happen where we had to remove a DG lair. The system has a munition boosting command station and it had like 8 of the nastiest guard posts with an eye all right next to each other which were conveniently right next to the DG layer. It ended with us pulling all the ships to the other side of the system with raid ships and a scout to protect against the sniper guard post. Then send in all the starships to kill the unguarded guard posts.

Everything was going so well and then we hit that brick wall. I would just like to have less annoying situations like that and not have to go to such great lengths to kill the lair. Every other lair was not so awkward to deal with and I think they were good for the gameplay experience.

Edit: The guardposts were also under mark III forcefields, so yeah.

[Cyborg]

9 is a bad idea. Warheads are fun. Why do we need less of these? If people are using too much of them, we should tune the AIP cost.


I do not want to see mines nerfed. We should be careful that we are nerfing units because they are overpowered, not because they are serving the purpose for which they were created.


I don't mind what happens to champions.


Is there the possibility for some interface enhancements for 8.0? Some things which should be easy to control are currently not. For example, I still have trouble placing mines in a direct line. That whole alternative menu thing needs to be consolidated into one context menu instead of different menus for different parts of the game. Windows has one alternative menu that just changes the options depending on context. We also need some kind of streamlining of how to organize, control, and find units. The finder tool is aging and becoming more unwieldy, especially with each expansion.



Will think more on the rest. Excited for a 8.0.

[keith.lamothe]

Is there the possibility for some interface enhancements for 8.0? Some things which should be easy to control are currently not. For example, I still have trouble placing mines in a direct line. That whole alternative menu thing needs to be consolidated into one context menu instead of different menus for different parts of the game. Windows has one alternative menu that just changes the options depending on context. We also need some kind of streamlining of how to organize, control, and find units. The finder tool is aging and becoming more unwieldy, especially with each expansion.

I would really like to use some of the stuff we learned from TLF for the interface, yes.  Specifically to pull all the context-menu options down into the bottom-left menu that shows when you have a ship selected (currently most ships that don't have build options just don't use that menu at all).  Because using the menu as it currently exists for such things would just be too much of a headache for me.

But the necessary engine work to pave the way for those newer GUI techniques would inevitably cause a huge pile of bugs, and the message I thought I'm getting here is that existing stuff needs to be cleaned up before that kind of upheaval starts again.

[chemical_art]

But the necessary engine work to pave the way for those newer GUI techniques would inevitably cause a huge pile of bugs, and the message I thought I'm getting here is that existing stuff needs to be cleaned up before that kind of upheaval starts again.

I remember long ago saying Chris saying that there will be no AI Wars 2...


however...

as another thread pointed out, things that were almost unthinkable at the start of AI Wars 1 are no almost par-for the course, things like mult-threads for multi processors, etc.

Sooner or later, Arcen will have to decide when these dramatic changes will happen. Eventually, the time to make "shortcuts" for software limitations will seem obsolete compared to hardware changes.

I'm not saying the time is now, but it IS coming soon.

AI Wars 2 will need to happen eventually. And I pray it will not follow the path of the Valley series.

[Winge]

My 2 cents:

• Seems reasonable.
• Waves: yes.  AI Defenses: definitely.  Starships should be rarer and guardians more common.
• Haven't experimented with the new hacking mechanism enough.  One thing that did bug me--I didn't have to defend the hacker, only deal with some wandering zombies.  Granted, my hacking response was very low.
• Seems reasonable.
• Haven't played with the new Champion mechanic, so I can't comment there.
• I like what others have suggested: make the AI go after the champion, not just throw more at the player's defenses.
• Ok as long as the response does not start until the player repairs/builds their first Golem/Spirecraft.  FS is a different animal entirely; I think it's OK as it is.
• Wrong guy to talk to, sorry.
• I really don't like this one, but then I don't use warheads much.  Except as a means of breaking 32-bit data types.  If warheads were finite supply, I would not like AIP on use.
• Don't know of any, sorry.
• Haven't had that kind of fun lately, sorry.
• Area Mines, I can see.  Riots feel strong, but not overly so to me.  Not sure about Decoy Drones, the RNG has never graced me with their presence.  To your list, I would add Tackle Drone Launchers.
• Autocannons, Tachyon Microfighters, Laser Gatlings.  Basically, any low-ranged, non-utility swarmer.  Ion Cannons need to be changed and seeded less as well, as you already mentioned.

[Cyborg]

I would really like to use some of the stuff we learned from TLF for the interface, yes.  Specifically to pull all the context-menu options down into the bottom-left menu that shows when you have a ship selected (currently most ships that don't have build options just don't use that menu at all).  Because using the menu as it currently exists for such things would just be too much of a headache for me.

But the necessary engine work to pave the way for those newer GUI techniques would inevitably cause a huge pile of bugs, and the message I thought I'm getting here is that existing stuff needs to be cleaned up before that kind of upheaval starts again.

Okay. That is fine. And maybe it is better for AI War 2, as someone else mentioned. Given the success of The Last Federation, will we be seeing the planetcracker in 8.0?

[keith.lamothe]

Given the success of The Last Federation, will we be seeing the planetcracker in 8.0?

One of the two anchor features for expansion #6 includes a planetcracker somewhat similar to the Acutian one, yes.  First test detonation was Thursday. 

The other anchor feature might also be considered one, depends on how you look at it.