Hu ? Tells me that you're a nitpicker, that's about it. What it tells about me, I wouldn't know, because it's really not much of a difference.
'Twas in jest, good sir. Hence the humorous emoticon, which you left out when you quoted me.
Either that or they just waiting for the steam cards to sell =). Anyway, 82% ain't good, considering this. But Keith has a point there too. The real point is the 10 hour landmark with is currently 5.5%... That's a bad attrition rate.
Hmm . . . yes, that is more troubling. Fair point. Although I maintain my previous points about small complexity changes not really helping to improve this.
First, it remains to be seen if those features are "fun & gameplay enhancing". Frankly, I'm not the only one that found all modular ships to be a pain in the ass to use.
True, you're not the only one who disliked modular ships; there are probably about ten others.
Ok, so that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I can say with confidence that modular ships is one of the things most wanted by players since the original campaign was being planned, perhaps having even more support than the spire (I'm curious, would you disagree with that?). So I disagree, it does not remain to be seen if people find modular ships fun and gameplay enhancing.
Same with snipers, it was mostly OP ass-pain with balance issues - especially in the AI's hand. Radar dampening ? A band-aid meant to counter the above-mentioned range abuses. Immunities ? Same as above, plus other abuses like cutters & stuff. Scavenging ? This feature that punishes me for losing stuff, meta-games me into defending my homeworld rather than setting protections around it, does not affect lower diff players, and does not accomplish its goal of reducing the refleeting time ? Yeah... that was a useful, fun & gameplay enhancing feature.
Frankly, a large part what has been added in the first game improves gameplay, but there was another large part that didn't.
It sounds like you're not enjoying playing at your high difficulty level. Maybe you wouldn't have a problem with all that stuff if you lowered it a little.
It seems the main difference between difficulty levels is how tight the variables can be that still allow a winning game. On lower difficulties - which, I remind you are the ones the vast majority of players play at - none of the problems you listed will make a player lose a game they otherwise would have won, so they're not nearly as infuriating. So, to address your miscellaneous gripes as a happy lower difficulty player:
AI Snipers: Ah, I guess I'll have to use a bit of strategy to deal with this planet. What fun!
Radar Dampening: Yeah, I don't really like radar dampening either. But current changes mean it's unnecessary and not coming back, so the point's moot.
Immunities: More need for strategy. Yay! But current changes mean it's unnecessary and not coming back, so the point's moot.
Scavenging: More metal for my Mk V ion cannon. Yay!
As for your final comment, I agree that a large part of what was added to the first game improves gameplay, and I even agree there are a large number of places that aren't. What *seems* to be the points of disagreement between us is that:
1) We disagree on whether some features are fun.
2) We disagree on how difficult it is to make unfun features fun.
Which contributes to:
2) We disagree on what to do about unfun parts. You seem to feel that most of the unfun parts are irredeemable, and the best course of action is to remove them. I feel that most of the unfun parts could become fun, and the best course of action is to try reworking as many of them as we can.
Does that sound about right? Or do you think our disagreements are in different areas?
To me, you sound like the type of guy that base his "this game's good" on "the more, the better" criteria, with little care of if the features added actually add anything. If I'm right, that means continuing this discussion is pointless - you'll just propose to add & add & add until it's a mess - I'll never agree to that.
Well, I hope you didn't spend too much time thinking about whether you would agree to the hypothetical game-ruining proposals you have assigned to me, which you based off of a broad, sweeping generalization of my ideas on game development, which you extrapolated from the 'sound' of a couple of posts.
So yeah, when I see modular ships as proposed in the OP, I don't see "fun & gameplay enhancing". I see 15 ships over 5 marks, 50 of which with an high chance of being useless because Arcen has a high chance to not have the budget / time to make them balanced (one version better than all others), and the remaining possibly being unused because they also compete between themselves (limited research), not being needed due to the AI not having this particular ship, and so on. I then see long threads about balancing them, focussing on those issues, which restart everytime an extension is out (because of new counters & ships), and the "gameplay enhancing" part is out of the window. Because other parts of the game need attention, but a lot of people keep nitpicking about ships stats.
As you may have gathered by this point, I don't see it that way
. I think of the modules from AIWC, where I used most of them, and most of the ones I didn't use had mechanics that aren't returning. So, I see lots of good discussion had by the many alpha testers - far more testers than the original - resulting in relatively quick balance fixes, modules being even better than AIWC, and a better game overall. I admit I have less time around these parts than you do, but unless you are going to tell me that the original modules were some horrible nightmare of five years of balancing, with forum members leaving in droves out of frustration and lots of intended features being cut to make time for balancing modules, I don't think you are going to change my mind. Sorry.
More grave IMO, I spoke up here, because I fear a focus on making other decisions like this one, with lots of choices "because lots of choices is inherently good". Thing is as I stated above, it's not "just this one". If this decision is made to add 10% complexity from start there, then the same decision is going to be taken everywhere else. And there you're not speaking about making the whole game 2% "complexier", but twice or thrice, making the intimidation factor explode.
Well, I doubt that will happen, as long as you keep speaking up
. From what I have seen, I trust Keith and Chris (or Chreith, for short) to make every design decision based on the individual merits of each idea, and to prompt forum discussions on each topic so everyone has a chance to say their piece before any decisions are finalized; so I don't believe this one, small, specific increase in complexity will lead to AI Dwarf War Fortress II or anything.
But, we'll see. Keith & Chris seems to be more on the "remove intimidation factor" and "cut features that didn't add stuff" to me, so even if I'm not always on the same lines as they are on what to cut out, I think I'm going to like what AI War II will be like, because I'm on a somwhat parallel line as they are. Are you ?
Cutting features that don't add stuff is great. I support that fully. The point of contention is what features actually fit that definition. I argue modular ships do not.
The only thing I was countering here was the "it's easy" part, which you still underestimate by a lot. It's fairly obvious that people still play with even minor balance issues, but yes, the number of testers, the number of devs, the money you can throw at it counts a lot. Same, 500 early access = testers in the KS is quite the shortcut. My guess is that most just want the game early, and that most will not even go to the forum to write their opinion back. It also remains to be seen if the guys that do go to forums have advice - and there's another filter for meaningful advice (not the usual "this is great" / "this is shit" with no useful remarks in them). We'd be lucky to have 10% of those to actually comment. Second issue, the guys that actually do subscribe to KS ? They're a highly specialized group of people. Arcen will crave & need people with different opinions and views to test the game - in order for the test to be meaningful. Frankly, I wouldn't rely on KS testers only, but then again, seeing how the previous betas went, I'm not worried.
The tester number I used was about 700, as there were 1378 total early release copies, and I was assuming half of them wouldn't have offered any help. That may have been a bit optimistic of me, but I also think only 10% is a bit pessimistic. Even then, that's ~140 testers from the KS, with more likely to come from other sources as you noted about previous betas. And I don't think having a disproportionate number of KS testers is something that should be worried about. The only way I can even think of balancing that without finding other testers is by counting the comments of KS testers with proportionally less weight, which seems like a really really bad idea; and why would you need to? Balance is balance. If someone finds a big balance issue, it won't matter who it comes from.
Finally, there's a limit to what a 2 guys team can do when a lot of variables are in the pipe. Like AI War classic, AI War II will have glaring major balance issues which they'll correct fast once found, if the past in any indication. Can't really ask for more: too much stuff to balance, relatively few testers & devs.
That's all I'm asking for.
I guess what we need at this point is that balance post from Keith, so we know which of us is mistaken
. In the mean time, I'll end on a note of unity: can we all agree that there's almost no way people are going to be able to create 50+ unique AI personalities from the current mechanics?
