Please vote on your top 3 interests for The Last Federation in v1.026 and later versions.- Updated Poll to reflect current game state.
- Please note that previous poll results are available later in this post as well as a link to the previous poll.
- If someone wants to write up a history of each of the options and how Arcen has previously deal with it, I can add it to this thread or provide a link to the summary.
ExplanationEveryone has an opinion. Everyone has crazy ideas that jump around in our heads. Sometimes those ideas are crazy, sometimes they are okay, and sometimes they are good. The problem is that you can't always evaluate your own ideas, because you are too close to them. This applies to games as well. We all have ideas about
the best way to change tLF. This poll is a way for us to try to organize ourselves, to try to provide to the devs a way to see the consensus among the players. If 1 person has a particular idea (e.g., using a combination of multiplicative and additive bonuses in game calculations) it might be something that would help the game, or perhaps not. However, if 50 people are consistently agreeing (e.g., saying that the game interface is clunky and we need more information about what's going on), that's a sign that the devs can use to improve tLF.
That's what this poll is about. To try to distill our thoughts into a simple structure that the devs can use to reduce their own biases and blind spots when it comes to tLF. If you have an idea, something you think is causing problems, list them (and then write them up on the mantis). The key is to try to distill your ideas to their fundamentals, to reduce all the extra language, and make your idea simple. It's a hard task to do that, it takes time, effort, and you really have to think about things. However, it's hard to read
walls of text and the devs have to deal with a huge amount of information. Just think if you had to deal with only the mantis bugtracker? You'd need to organize it, structure it, summarize it, rate it, sort it, and the prioritize it. That's just the
simple version of the feedback the devs have to deal with. So if you want to help out with making tLF a better game, please take a minute, and contribute here.
Current Poll for version 1.0026Strategy Game - Really consider changing multiplicative formulas to Additive or Combination formulas
- Many of the mechanic formula all multiplicative, resulting exponential growth patterns. This rate of growth makes it impossible for less gifted or lucky races to compete, unless the mechanic is bogged down and doesn't do very much. Efforts have been made to curtain the culmulative effects of some bonuses (e.g., each successive Science Stations provides less of a bonus than the one preceding), however the solution is inelegant and leads to too many special edge cases. As a compromise to a pure additive system, a combination multiplicative-additive system might also work. In such a system each unique class of bonuses are additive (e.g., you would have a science bonus which would increase by 1 per science technology, so 4 techs would give you a x5 bonus) and then class bonuses are multiplied (e.g., science bonus of 2, race bonus of 3, research station of 2, in a combination system, your total bonus would be 2*3*2 = 12, in an additive system 7).
- Here is a link to a mantis entry showing the differences between additive, multiplicative, and a combination system.
- http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14851#c37828
- Focus on low level mechanisms to improve game depth
- The majority of recent racial AI improvement has been focused on specific actions (e.g., Burlust Hatred or Andorian Love) which are high level mechanisms. These cause major impacts in the game. However, it is arguably the lower level actions and options that the races have that make the solar system more living, organic, interesting, ultimately effecting game depth. An example would be GDP and population. The planets differ in habitable size by a huge range, yet the Burlust who are on the world with a 2 billion population cap doesn't vary much from the Burulust on the 100m population cap world (only in effective combat strength?). If the player had to be more concerned with the high population races (because they are more productive), than the low population races, that would provide more depth to the game. The player could then attempt to keep the higher population race in check or use it as the bludgeon to form their alliance.
- http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,15559.msg171883.html#msg171883
- http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,15525.0.html
- Federation Development
- Currently the Federation doesn't really impact the game. You just need X races in it to win the game. Membership in the Federation does cause some minor behavioral changes and bonuses, but doesn't majorly impact the game. If we could create more varying Federations that would extend gameplay depth. One example would be to make the Federation exist just like the races do. Give them a leader, a government style, the ability to go to war, develop trade, etc, etc. Additionally, the Type of Federation you have could be determined in initial Federation creation, wherein the races you Federate and the Hydra negotiate as to the characteristics of the Federation. Later political actions could be performed, by the races or player to shift the type and policies of the Federation.
- Unique Race development
- The Races have been gradually gaining more unique characteristics (e.g., Burlust Tormoil, Andorian Eden, Skylaxian Honorbased Warfare). Keep it up.
- Racial War AI
- Further develop the AIs ability to gauge and implement a successful war. Also, to retreat and seek peace if things start looking bad.
- Racial Strategic Level Mechanisms and AI
- Further develop a "mental state" for each race. Allowing them to measure and evaluate the past, present, and future of the system (other races strengths and weaknesses). Then give them the ability to use that information to their own ends.
- Currently the races are not active participants in the game. They don't have a goal they are seeking towards. They have sometimes end the game by military dominance of the system, but they aren't making choices designed to get them there. It just happens. This could be changed. Designs goals for the races and the mechanisms to obtain that goal. This would characterize their behaviors in game and then the player has to decide how they are going to deal with the race as it reaches toward that goal. For example, the Thoraxian Queen (in a particular mood) might be dedicated to the idea of a conquest victory of the solar system. Currently she can be warlike, but she doesn't do anything except make her attack more often. Deeper goals she would evaluate her goal, determine her strengths and weaknesses, and then compare it against the strengths and weaknesses of the other races. She then might end up plotting a way to get the Skylaxians to suicide their great armada into the Acutians thus enabling her lesser fleet to take over both of their empires. Or she might decide to bide her time and continue to build up armadas. Or she might think to ally herself to the Skylaxians and to get them to share technologies increasing her own strengths, get the Skylaxians into wars and steal the planets taken from the enemies and gradually build up her own strength at the cost of the Skylaxians. Then once she is big enough, she betrays them and takes all their stuff.
- Different Political Alliances
- Allow races to develop pacts of various sorts (trade, defensive, offensive, etc) to influence Racial AI and provide an intermediate step between cohabiting the same system and Federation (or war to the death).
- Planetary Trade
- Increase the role and influence of Planetary trade
- Pirate Enhancement
- Increase the role and influence of Pirates.
- Player Power
- Increase the benefits and the kinds of actions a player can do.
- Quest Development: More and More Complex
- Add more quests.
- Add events that later cause other events. Example: You receive reports of Pirates attacking a convoy. You can accept a bribe from the pirates, save the convoy, or kill everyone. If you save the convoy you earn the thanks of a Peltian Scientist. 5 years later he rewards you with a free tech (or nothing, or a sandwich). Each of the actions you choose can start its own chain and the event outcomes are probabilistic and branching as well. Similar to the quest/events in FTL.
- RCI Rebalancing
- RCI balance still needs to be adjusted, event fluctuations are too higher and player/building effects are too low.
- Ground Combat Rebalancing
- Defeated Race Mechanics
- Currently once a race loses its last planet, it is pretty much history. Develop more options than the somewhat weak insurgent route. Suggestions include: Rebel Fleets, Hydra Game Preserves, Skylaxian Refugee Centers.
- Federation Formation Costs
- The difficulty in forming a Federation is still off.
- Player Credit Income Options
- Players need more ways of making credits that are fun.
Action Game- Burlust Duels
- Burlust Duels are still too dull and systematic.
- Player Weapon Variety
- Add more Hydra ship weapons
- Enemy Ship Variety
- We need more things to shoot at.
- Combat Mission Balance, Gameplay, and Variety
- Combat has some rough edges where your predictions and the outcomes don't match up. The number of spy sats in missions. The arrangement of defenses. Passive unlisted hull bonuses.
- Autoresolve
- Outcomes of autoresolve still isn't quite right.
Information Access- Additional Information Screens
- Increase Information Content and Mechanism Clarity
- Add more information to the already present screens. For example: Add monthly changes to the planetary information screen (e.g., Net Population Change +10m).
- Combine current and monthly changes and otherwise make it easier to process relevant information. Example: Current Population, Min Birth Rate, Max Birth Rate, Min Old Age Death, Max Old Age Death,.... Each have their own entry on the planetary information screen. However, it could be combined into a single line (e.g., Population 100m (+10m)). Rollover tool-tips would then break down population increases and decreases by the various factors.
- http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15002
Other Features- Modding Support
- Push things out from the executable into accessible and modifiable data files along with the documentation to use it.
- Bug Fixing
- Issues are being added to the Mantis tracker faster than they are removed. Focus on knocking this back down.
- Automatic Event-driven Modifiable Pausing System
- Font Adjustments
- The font is a little small on higher resolutions, can give us some font options?
- Steam Achievements
- Add more achievements to Steam.
- Space to Ground Combat with Giant Hydra Robots
- Do a major renovation to the battle engine with tons of new art to add more combat dispatch actions.
- Typos and Grammar
- Work on cleaning up the text.
- Enable the console or other debug tools
- Enable the console option or allow us access to the debugging tools, and tell us how to use them, so we can look into the game state just like you can.
- New Features
- No real aims, just add new features.
Previous Poll Summary1.016 SummaryHighest Rated Issues:
Basic Mechanisms,
Strategic Race AI, and
Increasing information availability and mechanism clarityMajor work was performed on: 10 versions since this poll, tons of things including: Planetary Action Fixes, Federation Formation Cost Adjustments, New Mechanisms for AntiFederation Effects, Ground Combat Fixes, Technology Balancing, Pirates, Flotillas, Events, Lifespans, Unique Starting Buildings and Artifacts, Autoresolve, etc.
1.012 SummaryHighest Rated Issues:
More AI,
RCI Tweaking, and
Increasing information availability and mechanism clarity.
Major work was performed on: RCI balancing, Planetary Information Screens, Autoresolve, and Action Announcements.
Link to Previous Polls
1.012:
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic=155071.016:
http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic=15607
Poll