Side note: is there any word on when the forums problems will be fixed?
I guess my counterclaim is: When is hoarding fun?
Somehow, in your examples i see everything but the things we are discussing in this thread.
When the actual process of obtaining your hoard is quick and simple (which is the case with fabs - you simply divert ships to home), the unfun part becomes minimal, and you still get to use those ships during critical moments, if needed. Isnt that fun?
What the hell is with this general dumb approach of "Hey is this very specific aspect of the game fun?". In some aspects i am not looking for fun, i am looking for challenge. Because fighting and winning against a challenging opponent is fun. If i wanted to get "fun" for every step i make, i'd be playing a cow clicker.
Tedious things, now those are generally bad, yeah. I dont see how anything related to fabs/facs can be considered tedious. Just a bunch of people whining about losing their bonus things forever after losing the system. Well that's the point, if you want a permanent bonus, go capture more ARS'es.
I'll agree with your definition of fun --- winning against a challenging opponent. There's not many games that put "it's like chess BUT IN SPACE!" as a selling point.
However, one reason that chess has been so successful is because of its
simple interface (apparently the original link is dead?
). Obviously this game is MUCH more complicated, but the same principle applies: essentially, the fewer clicks the better.
[Aside: This is why I hate Borderlands' weapons UI (vid is where the line's taken from). It's also why I'm SO glad AIW finally switched to auto-conversion of resources.]
I spend much of my time with respect to my hoard
ensuring I don't accidentally send my hoard along with other ships for an action. No small chore.
More importantly,
I have to remember I have them and where they are when I need them. This strongly discourages obtaining the cap early.
Most importantly,
I must constrain myself when responding to the AI (e.g., waves), because I have a resource that I've paid for (the hoard) that I cannot use.
Any player-level solution to these problems must, by your argument, relate to the high-level strategic implications of the game (i.e., I'm employing a bad strategy) and not just be a bookkeeping exercise. "Draw a smaller selection box," "hoard on a different planet," and "have a better memory" fall in the latter.
Similarly, winning without using the cap --- either because I forgot about them or because they were expended on an earlier, more immediate threat (presuming they weren't essential to that defense) --- goes back to
my earlier point that capturables aren't doing their job. If they're not doing their job, then what is their purpose? A bonus that requires more bookkeeping work on my part and detracts from
my ability to formulate and execute my strategy?
Watch how many clicks you spend managing your hoard and ask yourself how many of those clicks were truly part of your overall strategy.
This is what these questions are asking: does this very specific aspect contribute to your strategy? That's why we're here and not playing cow clickers.
As a final question, what if you were limited to building X caps of any unlocked ships? How would that impact your strategy, and what would be the bookkeeping cost of that strategy? At that point --- without falling back to saying that the game is winnable by just the unlockables (every ship "helps") ---,
why should the capturable ships be any different?
Poll