Highest Priority Fix [Updated for 1.012]

[ptarth]

• Previous poll content is present in the initial post. I don't know if you saw it and still want to generate separate threads. Please clarify.
• My thought that keeping only a single thread and recording poll histories in the first post would be good housekeeping, reducing spam, and preserving useful content. The board already has too many low count post threads. I also want to avoid situations wherein the poll becomes reality TV show equivalent for the forum. Regardless if consensus is, then splitting off is trivial.
• Two Information Screen choices - Rephrased to differentiate between adding more in-depth information and adding new additional information screens. The later being seemingly appropriate if the tool-tip system is unreliable for information purposes. In retrospect they probably should be combined, but given poll in is mid-process, I'll have to hold off.
• Deleted previous attempts to address side issue due to uselessness and being off-topic.
• If someone wants to create more detailed issue and event histories, please do. I don't have the time nor interest in doing so.

[topper]

• Previous poll content is present in the initial post. I don't know if you saw it and still want to generate separate threads. Please clarify.
• My thought that keeping only a single thread and recording poll histories in the first post would be good housekeeping, reducing spam, and preserving useful content. The board already has too many low count post threads. I also want to avoid situations wherein the poll becomes reality TV show equivalent for the forum. Regardless if consensus is, then splitting off is trivial.

Having the previous entries in the first post is useful, I did not notice them today after you updated the poll, thanks.
I would still recommend new threads for new polls. Low view count threads are not really a problem. And it helps to keep the discussion on track. That way, the discussion that relates to the current poll is also easier to find.

[nas1m]

I would like to second topper's view here. Having all discussion related to this poll (and its follow-ups) in a single thread will get unwieldy fast...

[lifehole]

Well, is someone going to start a new thread or update this one? If we're doing this every version, that is. Maybe every couple? Weekly? I dunno.

[topper]

Well, is someone going to start a new thread or update this one? If we're doing this every version, that is. Maybe every couple? Weekly? I dunno.

I think we should get some Mantis ticket links up for the top winners, so that people can get over there and support them. If the situation changes on the top issues due to a new patch, then we could do another poll. Then again, we could just do an new poll as often as we want as long as someone is willing to run them. 

[ptarth]

I don't believe anyone has sufficient experience with the 1.013/1.014 yet to say how things have changed. I'd say weekly or biweekly updates would be most reasonable for both expecting players to have played the game and for giving direction to the devs. This patch consisted of many bugfixes, a huge mantis cleanup, additional bombardment/combat information, event shortening, some other odds and ends, and some new features (e.g., Burlust hate & Andor love... That's almost a song title). There is still plenty of room to address the most popular complaints.

My favorite change is the addition of color coding to the action menus. I know it seems trivial, but it appeals to me. The combat rollover information is also pretty good.

Things I've noticed so far

• Still get some massive swings from events. The Thoraxian's had something happen that dropped their ground combat by 99% last game.
• Racial power comparison screen's numbers don't match up with other game information sometimes, ground combat is my major example
• Space combat is sometimes dominated by planetary defenses and damage from armadas is rather lower. I watched 1 pirate fleet with 250 power fight 15 other fleets with a total power of 1500. It lost .3 or so health per day and took almost a year to die.
• Silent features that cause unexpected effects and occur only in special circumstances. (e.g., The +6 RCI per month for Federation members effect that was in 1.011 and then fixed in 1.012.). These are hard to figure out and hard to figure out if they are working as intended.
• Race AI hasn't change.

[topper]

I would nominate: "Improve game ending and progress tracking" as a topic for vote in the next poll, even though it does not come up very often.

Here are a few Mantis tickets relevant to the idea:
Implement race and player "score" and graphs!
Anti-climactic ending..?
End game stats
Add a detailed end of game AAR screen.

can you link Mantis tickets for issues/suggestions in a poll or in the first post?

[lifehole]

* A huge number of improvements have been made to the advanced planetary details sidebar stuff.
** Things are better ordered.
** Things no longer run over from one line into the next.
** Everything is broken out into really sensible sections that start out collapsed and can be expanded and collapsed at will.
** Things actually have headers so that it's clear what each group of stuff is, whereas sometimes it previously was not.


That, along with the race-specific AI actions means that some of the highest voted poll options are getting addressed. Woo!

[ptarth]

If people want to follow topper and start adding issues, we can get the next poll up and running (perhaps on Wednesday?).
Please provide:

• Description of the issue.
• Mantis link if available.
• Other information at your leisure.

My personal interests are:

• Add rate (monthly) change information to basically everything. Specifically planet information and Racial Relationships.
• Add more transparency when it comes to calculations. (e.g., what does a research rate of 4 mean effectively? How am I dealing 43,000 DPS to this Lancer, etc)
• Adjust credit gains, research, manufacturing, and other mechanic rates to require less grinding and more interesting choices and fighting.
• Dream Features: Add a race AI wherein each Race tries to win a victory as if they were an AI in a 4x game (they are willing to settle for the "allied" Federation win).
• Dream Feature: Design your own Federation. Add the Federation as an entity. You get the design the laws and policies and the Federation members interact within the system, reaching for their own ends and means. They can even, with sufficient, political power, change the organization of the Federation (e.g., the Burlusts keep wanting to make the Federation a Warlord oriented War Machine, whereas the Skylaxians want a Grand Federation of Planets). A race might even leave the Federation if things go bad.

[ptarth]

The board has been pretty slow this week. Possibly due to the initial buzz wearing off. Anyone have any driving issues that want to add? If not I'll probably wait until Friday evening and see if a weekly version fits the schedule.

[GC13]

I'm not sure if it would fall under "give the player more power", but I'd like to see the game's strategy deepened, rather than the past few patches which seem dedicated to fixing easy play by making things take longer.

[topper]

The board has been pretty slow this week. Possibly due to the initial buzz wearing off. Anyone have any driving issues that want to add? If not I'll probably wait until Friday evening and see if a weekly version fits the schedule.

The board is partially slowing down simply due to the reduction in bug threads. Now that the bugs are mainly gone, the forum should settle in to a more normal level of activity and the Arcen continued feature development can really shine.

[ptarth]

Working up the next poll options.

• I've attempted to add some more illustrative text, where it as been suggested to be useful.
• Adding some categorical divisions.
• Added some links to forum posts and the bugtracker. I'm still unconvinced this is worthwhile to do. It takes a ton of time and effort. I'm I don't think anyone uses them. If I had a particular campaign issue, it might be worth it, but...
• Caveats, opinions, additions, etc are welcome.

Strategy Game

• 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 argueably 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.


• Quests: More quests
• Add more quests.


• Quest/Event Chains
• 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.


• Ground Combat Rebalancing
• Ground Combat is still hard to understand. Bombing, Troop Power, Racial Troop Power, Technology bonus, CAS, and other things make it hard to predict and effect ground combat in a reliable fashion.
• http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=15055


• 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.


• Ship Graphics
• Steal some I-KP's ship redesigns
• http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,15532.0.html
• (It's a joke, don't actually steal them. Get him to GPL them and then steal them?


• Combat Mission Balance and Gameplay
• Combat has some rough edges where your predictions and the outcomes don't match up. The number of spy sats in missions. The arrangment of defenses. Passive unlisted hull bonuses.


• Autoresolve
• Outcomes of autoresolve still isn't quite right.

Information Access

• Additional Information Screens
• Add charts and figures for more things to compare Races including across time. Examples: Add racial information screens that combine information across all planets of each race, Historical graphs showing power (ground, space, etc) across time. This would also be a nice way of reviewing the game after winning (or losing).
• http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14104
• http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14103
• http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14100
• http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14517


• 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).


• Redesign Current Information Screens
• 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
• 20 bugs and suggestions are added per day.  Only 15 are addressed.


• Automatic Event-driven Modifiable Pausing System
• Control over pausing the game to allow us to react to events would be great.
• http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=14455


• 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.