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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:Making invasions more event-based like CK2 sieges would be cool. I want to hear about how in spite of my limited bombardment campaign one of my cruisers accidentally glassed an entire university and now the entire academic population is actively working against us. What is it with people always wanting to rip out entire features from their games? Is that some weird kind of video game nihilism taking form here? Seriously, rework the army system a little bit, maybe even throw a couple events in, done. Just "Getting rid" of armies makes no sense.
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Jan 23, 2017 19:58
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Libluini posted:What is it with people always wanting to rip out entire features from their games? Is that some weird kind of video game nihilism taking form here? A feature being present in a game does not always make that game better. If I added a QTE minigame that you'd have to play every time you built a building I'm pretty sure you'd be clamoring for that particular mechanic's removal. (That said, I wouldn't want to entirely remove armies from the game. I don't see the need to directly control them as units though.)
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Jan 23, 2017 20:03
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Tbh even with the Space Marine flavour, there doesn't seem much point in having a detailed ground game unless you're going all the way towards having a tactical minigame, which would probably break the flow of the space game too much.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:06
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Wiz posted:A feature being present in a game does not always make that game better. If I added a QTE minigame that you'd have to play every time you built a building I'm pretty sure you'd be clamoring for that particular mechanic's removal. Yeah but the thing about going into a game that is really barebones and barely working and demanding that whole swaths of it be dumped seems odd. I don't go into the CK2 threads saying that the game would be better without all that annoying politics and infighting. Stellaris has already invested a ton of time into the ship components, the ship designer, the combat system. The goal is to find a way to make those relevant, aligned to the game, and work to enhance the gameplay throughout. Not to jettison them. This is the right game with the right framework to implement a fun combat system in a Paradox game. Make folks believe - Combat can be fun!
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Jan 23, 2017 20:07
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Maybe instead of two blobs running ones anothers health bars down we could fight over the building grid, moving lil armies from square to square and having partisans spawn from POPs and damaging buildings as we fight over them and do orbital bombardments
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Jan 23, 2017 20:08
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Rakthar posted:Yeah but the thing about going into a game that is really barebones and barely working and demanding that whole swaths of it be dumped seems odd. I don't go into the CK2 threads saying that the game would be better without all that annoying politics and infighting. There is basically no way to add complex ground combat to Stellaris because the scope of the game prevents it - when you're dealing with wars involving hundreds of planets, it's unreasonable to expect the player to have to care about/manage each one. The current mechanics understand this, but at the same time suffer from there being very little actual *point* to micromanaging anything about your armies, because all you actually have to do to win is land enough troops to overcome the defenders. Thus, what you should do is identify the actually worthwhile parts of the army system (the flavor of all the diferent army types and the feeling that you are invading planets with ground forces) and identify how to preserve those while getting rid of the tedious micromanagement of building armies, launching them into orbit, and manually landing them on planets. All that aside, the idea that just because a game is 'barebones' (and Stellaris is not barebones) you should keep features that add nothing but tedium and frustration is simply wrong-headed. Tedious, frustrating features without depth do not make a game deeper, they just make it more tedious and frustrating.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:13
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My recommendation: keep ground combat as is, except play a random line of dialogue from starship troopers at the start of every invasion I'm joking, but only very very slightly
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Jan 23, 2017 20:19
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Wiz posted:while getting rid of the tedious micromanagement of building armies, launching them into orbit, and manually landing them on planets. While we wait for that, can we at least get a keyboard shortcut for embarking armies from planets? Anything to save me a click in this process would be greatly appreciated
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Jan 23, 2017 20:20
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It'd be neat if you could keep some of the flavor of it all with a broad-based "army doctorine" setting. Like, even though the micro is a bit much I really like the whole Jedi Knights fighting xenomorphs conceptual slugfest that can go on. I really want to keep the flavor of being able to say "My armies are filled with robotic warriors" even if I don't want to care about the robotic warriors on an army by army basis.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:21
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Conskill posted:It'd be neat if you could keep some of the flavor of it all with a broad-based "army doctorine" setting. Like, even though the micro is a bit much I really like the whole Jedi Knights fighting xenomorphs conceptual slugfest that can go on. I really want to keep the flavor of being able to say "My armies are filled with robotic warriors" even if I don't want to care about the robotic warriors on an army by army basis. This is the one truly good thing about the Stellaris army system. I'm not removing it.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:23
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As has already been said, 75% of the issue with the ship designer is that you don't actually have the intel system you'd need to make the whole 'build a fleet specifically to fight nation x' actually work - at least not without suffering tons of losses first, or checking the wiki about what each FE prefers... which is a bad solution too. It seems like if you can afford to build a mega space fleet, you can also afford to pay off some random disgruntled janitor in a enemy station to tell you what's mounted on his ships. Over and above that, though, the game definitely needs more of a spy and intel game to flesh out the diplomacy side. Having intel on the other guy's political factions, which planets of his are the most ideologically compatible with your empire, or even engineer diplomatic incidents between your aggressive neighbor and someone that's not you, incite/support rebellions in his new or badly managed sectors, or find out how many slave pops he has then get word to all his slave pops that your borders are open to them and screw over his food and mineral economy. The game just sort of calls out for that sort of thing and it feels odd that it's missing. Coldbird fucked around with this message at 20:26 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 20:23
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Bohemian Nights posted:While we wait for that, can we at least get a keyboard shortcut for embarking armies from planets? Anything to save me a click in this process would be greatly appreciated Sure.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:25
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Libluini posted:What is it with people always wanting to rip out entire features from their games? Is that some weird kind of video game nihilism taking form here? An "army" is basically a starship that can only influence planets. There are other ways to achieve that influence without using the cumbersome process that we currently see. I am not saying get rid of planetary combat, I am saying fold the army units into fleet ships and make invasions more entertaining and engaging. That can easily fall under your suggestion for rework.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:28
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Wiz posted:This is the one truly good thing about the Stellaris army system. I'm not removing it. Nor should it be removed. In fact it should be emphasized.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:30
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Could we just build transport ships at the space stations and use an army module for them?  It would be pretty cool to use xenomorphs defensively too. When the enemy forces land you open the cages.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:32
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Wiz posted:Sure. Sweet! This'd make building multiple planet's worth of queued up armies and launching them a much less painful experience.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:32
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Wiz thank you for making this game gooder.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:34
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Poil posted:Could we just build transport ships at the space stations and use an army module for them? Xenomorphs as a 'gently caress my own population, nobody's getting off this planet alive' trap card is a neat idea.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:35
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:An "army" is basically a starship that can only influence planets. There are other ways to achieve that influence without using the cumbersome process that we currently see. I am not saying get rid of planetary combat, I am saying fold the army units into fleet ships and make invasions more entertaining and engaging. That can easily fall under your suggestion for rework. They can also hide from enemy fleets while still exerting their influence which your ships can't do
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Jan 23, 2017 20:42
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Wiz posted:Xenomorphs as a 'gently caress my own population, nobody's getting off this planet alive' trap card is a neat idea. Especially if they somehow accidentally end up on other planets...
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Jan 23, 2017 20:42
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Enjoy posted:They can also hide from enemy fleets while still exerting their influence which your ships can't do This is true, and not something I agree with. If I want to glass a planet with soldiers on it that should be an option.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:43
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Wiz posted:All that aside, the idea that just because a game is 'barebones' (and Stellaris is not barebones) you should keep features that add nothing but tedium and frustration is simply wrong-headed. Tedious, frustrating features without depth do not make a game deeper, they just make it more tedious and frustrating. I'm simply saying that if the first approach is "dump it" in a game that people are eager to see fleshed out with expansions, then it's kinda counterproductive. I agree with what you said - the systems should be aligned with the game design so that they facilitate the gameplay / narratives that people want, without tedious micro to get there. I don't think "just axe it" is the solution though, and that seems to be a recurring sentiment in the thread. I don't like the current army system, I don't think it should be entirely scrapped. I'd like to see ship design be more relevant to combat overall, which ideally would tie into the research choices and empire type - and I imagine that's coming with expansions, patches, and mods. So in that sense, simply dumping the ship designer would be unfortunate.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:46
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:This is true, and not something I agree with. If I want to glass a planet with soldiers on it that should be an option. Asynchronous warfare is cool because it's a brake on player expansion without just being another goddamn AE penalty
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Jan 23, 2017 20:46
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Wiz posted:All that aside, the idea that just because a game is 'barebones' (and Stellaris is not barebones) you should keep features that add nothing but tedium and frustration is simply wrong-headed. Tedious, frustrating features without depth do not make a game deeper, they just make it more tedious and frustrating. It's a lot like in web development. Not all features or content are needed or add value to a website and can often cause conflicts. You have to at times make a decision to cut your losses and drop a feature because it is not working or is causing the user frustration and look for another way to achieve what you want to do. Not all features add to the website/software/game and can even be a detriment. People have mention possible alternatives, but I am not sure what would be better for Stellaris. Ship designer talk: I am glad to hear you are keeping it Wiz. Stellaris' designer is simple and not as flexible as other games but it's still fun to use. For me, a lot of the fun in space and naval games is designing ships with different roles, experimenting with them, and trying out different doctrines in how to use them. Having all classes using the same unit with only percentile modifiers takes this away. It's also makes the game more boring since combat would be just about who has the bigger fleet or the right mix. As Wiz points out, not all battles can be won in the game by pure numbers or the same strategy and it's because of the ship designer. The best examples are how you can counter FE and crisis fleets by how you design your ships, which Wiz has pointed out before. Kilravock fucked around with this message at 20:53 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 20:47
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Enjoy posted:Asynchronous warfare is cool because it's a brake on player expansion without just being another goddamn AE penalty A really awesome thing in Sword of the Stars is when the AI starts sending cloaked cruisers that ruin your planets with bio plagues and if you don't have the ability to see cloaked, welp.
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Jan 23, 2017 20:47
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As somebody who never played a game beyond the 'expand until you bump into everybody else's borders' part of the game I have to ask: Are the win-cons in this game supposed to be self-evident, or do they only reveal themselves in the endgame? Is domination the only way? Because that seems unfeasible, but I'm not seeing anything else.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:15
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Rakthar posted:A really awesome thing in Sword of the Stars is when the AI starts sending cloaked cruisers that ruin your planets with bio plagues and if you don't have the ability to see cloaked, welp. Goddamn space dolphins. Also, SotS (the original; we don't talk about the sequel) is an amazing game and any 4X space game could do worse than look to it for inspiration. ChrisBTY posted:As somebody who never played a game beyond the 'expand until you bump into everybody else's borders' part of the game I have to ask: Paradox games aren't generally mean to be "won" in the same manner as, say, Starcraft or Civilization. In fact, in EU4 and CK2 all you can do is run out the clock; even conquering the entire world doesn't give a "you win" screen. Zurai fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Jan 23, 2017 |
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Jan 23, 2017 21:21
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I'd love to see armies more conceptual in nature you merely say, "army group 1 attack this planet". There of course would be alerts like space defenses, planetary defenses, out of range, and upkeep cost. Make the combat long and drawn out so either side has time to respond before a planet falls and cause things like space superiority to affect upkeep cost. This way the defender could try to funnel their own army group into the fight at cost unless they send in ships and contest the space superiority. Basically make armies a missile. You build the missile at the planet and customize it. You select its target and it launches and travels there on its own, have it spawn 4 cool looking troop ships that are there for purely early warning purposes. Unless you control the space around the missiles target it will likely not reach it. Its a fire and forget so once its in space you don't worry about withdrawing or garrisoning it. It will just return to its home planet and rebuild itself. I'd love to see the defensive and troop related buildings on their own grid so the troop recruitment window would have its own grid where you'd stick things like clone vats, barracks, bunkers, and fortresses. This way you wouldn't interfere with the normal planet buildings and you could invest in fortress worlds. There's defensive buildings that almost never get used so this way you'd have separate grids for them so why not?
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Jan 23, 2017 21:24
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Beer4TheBeerGod posted:This is true, and not something I agree with. If I want to glass a planet with soldiers on it that should be an option. Tomb worlds, made to order. The ability to devastate entire worlds with super weapons and planetary bombardment is the best part of space warfare.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:24
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Wiz posted:Xenomorphs as a 'gently caress my own population, nobody's getting off this planet alive' trap card is a neat idea. Just on a side point to the "xenomorphs as armies doesn't make sense" bit it's worth noting Weyland Yutani were desperate to experiment on them to turn them into an army of perfect killing machines, so I've always viewed the tech as "Weyland Yutani, but successful". It would be cool though if xenomorph armies in sufficient numbers could basically trigger some sort of rebellion where they just eat all the handlers and then everything on the planet. More stuff that is a "risky technology" is always cool. On a slightly different note Wiz, you guys originally said ages ago in something (can't remember what) that the vague intention was to add another end game crisis in every DLC expansion, is that still the case? I appreciate leviathans was more of a story based DLC and most of it was focused on a massive free patch, but it would be cool to see some more end game crisis.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:36
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Kitchner posted:Just on a side point to the "xenomorphs as armies doesn't make sense" bit it's worth noting Weyland Yutani were desperate to experiment on them to turn them into an army of perfect killing machines, so I've always viewed the tech as "Weyland Yutani, but successful". It would be cool though if xenomorph armies in sufficient numbers could basically trigger some sort of rebellion where they just eat all the handlers and then everything on the planet. More stuff that is a "risky technology" is always cool. I don't know that anyone said that, but either way no there's no such intention. Besides the current priority being on the midgame much more than the endgame, I really don't think adding another end game crisis is in the cards until we have the ones we already have in the game working well.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:38
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It's entirely possible it was purely in my head in some sort of stellaris fever dream, but either way was just curious. I appreciate there's a huge long list of things to develop. I'm pretty psyched for Banks though, so I'm putting off playing Stellaris because I know the patch will make it such a better game I just sit there thinking "Man the new version of this is going to be so much better".
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Jan 23, 2017 21:43
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AI rebellion seems to be the most rare one. I've never had an AI empire trigger it, so eventually I had to do it myself. Of course, being absolutely ready for it beforehand certainly helped it not be as strong as it could have been.
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Jan 23, 2017 21:45
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Personally I'm really looking forwards to Banks's hotfix
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Jan 23, 2017 21:50
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Libluini posted:What is it with people always wanting to rip out entire features from their games? Is that some weird kind of video game nihilism taking form here? Sword of the Stars removed planetary buildings from the space 4x equation and nothing was lost. You don't need to click 50 times to make resource collection numbers go from +5 to +15.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:08
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Wiz posted:Xenomorphs as a 'gently caress my own population, nobody's getting off this planet alive' trap card is a neat idea. Xenomorph-infested planets that can't be used without going through a long and grueling army landing/event chain would be hilarious and great. Huge opportunity for quotes from Aliens.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:11
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Hey Wiz, any chance of adding a randomize button for ship names? Also the ability to manually change your ship name prefix ingame.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:13
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Party Plane Jones posted:Are the dudes in that orbital even human at this point? They'd be soaking up some gigantic amounts of radiation that close. Some people call them Enders. 
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Jan 23, 2017 22:16
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One really easy flavor injection: the tile clearance techs could use real names. Right now they just say what they do.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:17
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Party Plane Jones posted:Are the dudes in that orbital even human at this point? They'd be soaking up some gigantic amounts of radiation that close. I don't think it's to scale.
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Jan 23, 2017 22:18
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