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They should stop developing dlcs for Endless Space II and move on. I think the game is getting worse for every dlc they add now. They have to include some new major twist for every new race they introduce to make it a selling point, and the new systems introduced just don't mesh well with the existing gameplay. It is possible to juggle it all as a player but the AI is clueless. It has no idea how to prioritize. As an example I have played a few endless games lately and the AI Nakalim is just worthless. They are unable to do anything of value and their so called "early game advantage" is just not there, as it takes only 6 easily researched techs to reach the same level of military as they start with. And those researches get done by all the other ais at the start of the game. And then they get pushed around for the rest of the game as their research is abysmal. Another example is that the AI builds way too many behemoths early game. It is not cost effective compared to developing infrastructure on your planets. It is more a late game thing when your swimming in resources anyway. And lastly I have never gotten hacked in a way that actually was threatening from an AI on endless. While I can use it to get technologies, make invading easier and freeze ships. The only AI empires that can pose a small challenge is the Cravers because their thing is very straightforward. United Empire, Lumeris, Hissro, Vaulters and Sophons can pose a feeble challenge as their things are also not very complicated. The other races are just pathetic at actually competing for a victory in the game. It is like stealing candy from children. Hryme fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Nov 1, 2019 |
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Nov 1, 2019 03:01
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Yeah, I came to think that their models isn't suited for DLCs that well. Same happened with Endless Legend. First expansion was just about interesting mechanics and tweaks, it feels organic. Then you have espionage and pillage. Those are integrated surprisingly well for a modular addition (Paradox does the same thing but their DLC additions are always out of place, usually those buttons are shoehorned into an existing UI). And they're added in such a way that ignoring them is a valid choice. You either use heroes for governing or fighting, now they can also spy on the enemy. But then every expansion adds a mechanic that every player should use, ignoring them is objectively wrong. When pearls come you should micromanage lone dudes to gather them, it costs almost nothing and gives decent benefits. With new sea stuff you should send scouts there exploring twice as much stuff (and getting twice as many quests probably) as you did previously. Then an eclipse hits and now you should move a lot of scouts to gather bonuses. A game with a perfect balance of macro and micro turned into a game where I have to spend more time with lone units than in Starcraft. I haven't played the last expansion of ES2 but I think only hacking felt like unnecessary boring mechanics you have to engage with. The problem with ES2 is still that you don't have to actually use any of those mechanics to utterly destroy any opposition on max difficulty. The only difficulty would be meeting Cravers early, yeah, those guys can destroy you with AI bonuses.
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Nov 1, 2019 08:59
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The research model for ES/EL is pretty distinctive: you have to make decisions about which techs to skip and which ones to take, because they make other techs more expensive. It's not just a matter of increasing the power of your science firehose to get everything faster, because the speed at which things run away from you makes this strategically dumb. Effectively, techs are competing with each other And this is a pretty major problem for the way they make expansions. The most obviously bad one is Tempest in EL, where the techs are deeply competitive with a set of techs that the base game had already balanced. But this happens with other expansions - Shadows in EL and Supremacy in ES2 also gently caress up the whole balance and pace of the game, and pretty much every expansion has some greater or less extent of this. The 'obvious' answer is pretty painful, which is to completely rebalance the tech tree whenever they add new techs. Which, ugggggh, I understand why they don't do that. Penumbra ends up being quite clever - they didn't add new techs but piggybacked hacking stuff onto less powerful techs, so instead of the whole tech tree now being a mess it just makes some of the decisions a little tighter.
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Nov 1, 2019 13:02
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EL devs certainly do see the problem. That's why all of the pearl stuff is in a separate "tech tree", same for those Giants But Gianter things. Espionage is just a few techs, and most of them are a clear commitment to a specific playstyle (I don't think you even have any espionage techs, just stealth/pillage ones) so it works more or less. But sea techs are problematic, there's a lot of them and they do compete for your attention. They're not quite optional but not quite necessary so they stretch the game, and not in a nice way. Another thing they did was expanding hero talent trees. Pearl gathering, espionage, seafaring - it all appears there making hero development more complex too.
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Nov 1, 2019 13:16
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yeah, hero skills have the same thing - the choice structure means than any not-useless addition effectively messes up the price of every other choice, and EL even more than ES2 is very tight and quantized. A major overhaul is probably due but that's a temporary solution if they add more expansions (they will).
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Nov 1, 2019 13:41
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Hryme posted:The only AI empires that can pose a small challenge is the Cravers because their thing is very straightforward. United Empire, Lumeris, Hissro, Vaulters and Sophons can pose a feeble challenge as their things are also not very complicated. The other races are just pathetic at actually competing for a victory in the game. It is like stealing candy from children. The only quirk is that for some reason the Cravers go from being public enemy #1 to a distant second behind the Sophons. I stopped putting them in games since they'd just roll half the galaxy with insane death fleets that were perpetually 2 tech levels above everything else before I could even get to them.
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Nov 1, 2019 14:17
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I will try that next time I go on a ES II binge. Thank you. I am really looking forward to Humankind. I want a new Amplitude game as I love their style. I hope they work a bit more on the AI though.
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Nov 1, 2019 14:41
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Hryme posted:I will try that next time I go on a ES II binge. Thank you. that's an advantage of Dungeon of the Endless and Love Thyself - the enemies aren't even really supposed to have AI
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Nov 1, 2019 15:17
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The disadvantage of DotE is that it lacks Amplitude's sleek style. It's an 8-bit pixel art thing.
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Nov 1, 2019 18:04
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It's Endless Weekend! These games are currently free on steam if you're interested. 
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Jan 18, 2020 19:46
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The sale got me to (finally) pick up Symbiosis and Inferno. I only played the Kapaku but they're very cute and funny, so that's worth it.
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Jan 18, 2020 21:17
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Is it just me or is the academy faction pretty bullshit. Even if you take all his systems and wipe out his fleets he still respawns fleets every few turns and attacks.
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Jan 30, 2020 07:46
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gonna give endless space 2 a whirl for the first time since release and was gonna ask about DLC but from reading this page it sounds like I might be better off just playing the base game? Unless there's like one or two DLCs that are genuinely good and mesh well with the base game?
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Jan 30, 2020 16:25
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fuf posted:gonna give endless space 2 a whirl for the first time since release and was gonna ask about DLC but from reading this page it sounds like I might be better off just playing the base game? I think all the DLCs are good except for the last one which was mediocre at best.
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Jan 30, 2020 16:54
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fuf posted:gonna give endless space 2 a whirl for the first time since release and was gonna ask about DLC but from reading this page it sounds like I might be better off just playing the base game? Penumbra and Awakening you'll probably want to learn without. The former's hacking system takes a while to figure out and Awakening has issues that completely break the game that don't look like they'll be fixed any time soon. Supremacy is decent with adding the behemoth units and a fun race in the Hisshio. The Vaulters DLC basically just adds that faction (who are my favorites,) the ability to capture enemy ships with boarding pods and the ability to have diplomacy with the pirates which can add a lot to your strategy. But feel free to start with the base game. It's solid enough without the expansions.
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Jan 30, 2020 17:11
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fuf posted:gonna give endless space 2 a whirl for the first time since release and was gonna ask about DLC but from reading this page it sounds like I might be better off just playing the base game? The core game is very complete so DLC is very much "if you feel like it." That said, Endless DLC is typically either "major" or "minor." The minor DLC - additional songs, sidequests, etc. all mesh seamlessly. The major DLC are somewhat variable, and tend to make playing a bit messier. This isn't to say bad, but the core game is pretty tight and they tend to unravel some of that tightness.
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Jan 30, 2020 17:12
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Tulip posted:The core game is very complete so DLC is very much "if you feel like it." I've never liked their DLC pattern of new faction with unique mechanic as their defining strength and shoe-horned into the rest of the remaining factions.
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Jan 31, 2020 00:54
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Mjolnerd posted:I've never liked their DLC pattern of new faction with unique mechanic as their defining strength and shoe-horned into the rest of the remaining factions. I'd say it's kind of a mixed bag. I prefer it to a lot of other models AKA 'just releasing a bad game.' I haven't played much with either Awakening or Symbiosis so I have trouble judging them, but of the remainder, Shadows is the only really bad one. Shifters' gimmick mechanic is just such a good mechanic that I don't really care that the Allayi are slightly better at it, and Kapaku are fundamentally fine with or without dust eclipses. Tempest I just dislike on the whole, and Penumbra has an oddly opposite thing where I love the mechanic (makes the early game + invasions much more dynamic) but Umbral Choir is kind of a cluster gently caress even (especially) if you're not the one playing them.
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Jan 31, 2020 02:01
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I disagree with Shadow being 'bad', if only that you can play with it enabled and not really care. The AI totally ignores espionage, and is quite bad as the Forgotten faction itself (so you can ignore them or just force them not to spawn). I occasionally use espionage around mid/end game to fun effect, and I appreciate what it could theoretically do in multiplayer (that I don't play). Tempest, otoh, is outright malicious with the way it dicks with resources and tries to force you to engage with a system that's mutually exclusive with normal gameplay, ie building ships for the ocean instead of playing with your neighbors. No comment on the ES2 DLC as I've found I've gotten all I want out of the game and new factions/mechanics won't change that. But I appreciate Amplitude's design ethos in it, the DLCs feel like proper expansion packs rather than... paying for single player portraits. I'm looking at you, Paradox.
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Jan 31, 2020 03:31
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Serephina posted:Tempest, otoh, is outright malicious with the way it dicks with resources and tries to force you to engage with a system that's mutually exclusive with normal gameplay, ie building ships for the ocean instead of playing with your neighbors. I quite liked the Morgawr, but would acknowledge that Tempest kind of sucks overall. The strong-arming to participate would have been fine IMO if they actually fleshed out asymmetric navies/abilities for every faction (way beyond the scope of 15$ DLC, admittedly). Instead, every faction except the Morgawr gets access to the same 2 (?) lame, generic boats, and the naval combat the game pushes on you functions exactly the same as on land except with 5% of the unit variety. Avasculous fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Jan 31, 2020 |
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Jan 31, 2020 09:30
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Serephina posted:I disagree with Shadow being 'bad', if only that you can play with it enabled and not really care. The AI totally ignores espionage, and is quite bad as the Forgotten faction itself (so you can ignore them or just force them not to spawn). I occasionally use espionage around mid/end game to fun effect, and I appreciate what it could theoretically do in multiplayer (that I don't play). Totally agree, as I've said previously a few replies above: quote:But then every expansion adds a mechanic that every player should use, ignoring them is objectively wrong. When pearls come you should micromanage lone dudes to gather them, it costs almost nothing and gives decent benefits. With new sea stuff you should send scouts there exploring twice as much stuff (and getting twice as many quests probably) as you did previously. Then an eclipse hits and now you should move a lot of scouts to gather bonuses. A game with a perfect balance of macro and micro turned into a game where I have to spend more time with lone units than in Starcraft. Serephina posted:No comment on the ES2 DLC as I've found I've gotten all I want out of the game and new factions/mechanics won't change that. But I appreciate Amplitude's design ethos in it, the DLCs feel like proper expansion packs rather than... paying for single player portraits. I'm looking at you, Paradox. Behemots/Aztec Bird Samurai expansion was fine cause behemots were an option even if they're very strong. And AI could use it too, I saw people complain about enemy Behemoth shooting their system into dust. Then you had Pirates/Vaulters expansion. Everyone had to engage with pirates so it changed a balance a little: you can't ignore military anymore, and it seems that after this expansion AI became forever crippled cause it just can't handle pirates. You arise from an early game with an experienced admiral and powerful fleet while AI barely manages to fight off those pests. Hacking/Ghost spies expansion seems to be disliked by everyone. I didn't get that hacking mechanic at all but neither does AI so it balances out. The problem with it is that like Pearls/Eclipses/Sea in EL you're constantly reminded of all that hacking for very dubious gains. The last expansion I haven't played.
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Jan 31, 2020 09:38
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I'm the odd one out for Penumbra I guess. I like hacking and The Umbral Choir both. Edit: The tooltips and documentation for hacking are garbage though.
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Jan 31, 2020 15:53
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Admiral Funk posted:I'm the odd one out for Penumbra I guess. I like hacking and The Umbral Choir both. Are there any hacking/choir guides you can recommend? They are systems that do not reward playful experimentation. (I gave up on the choir after I accidentally discovered that the "reward" for assimilating a minor faction as the choir is for the minor and their ships to instantly disappear from the map. Hooray?)
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Jan 31, 2020 22:32
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I recently bought the Endless Space 2 complete pack for $20 that was on sale about a week or two ago. Booted it up last weekend, read the faction descriptions while pondering what to choose, and as soon as I read about the HACKERS I not only didn't choose them, I disabled their content pack. I did not receive any prompting from an outside source to do this, and had no foreknowledge of them or any reviews of their content. I just read their in-game description, and immediately every ounce of my prior 4x experienced screamed that I didn't want them around. Checking this thread now is very satisfying.
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Jan 31, 2020 23:15
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Serephina posted:I occasionally use espionage around mid/end game to fun effect, and I appreciate what it could theoretically do in multiplayer (that I don't play). In MP it causes you to reset the lobby with Shadows disabled. Admiral Funk posted:I'm the odd one out for Penumbra I guess. I like hacking and The Umbral Choir both. I like playing the UC and their song is amazing, but they're very annoying to play against, even if your only interaction with them is "whoever bordered them and got a bunch of bonus planets."
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Jan 31, 2020 23:28
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Chomp8645 posted:I recently bought the Endless Space 2 complete pack for $20 that was on sale about a week or two ago. Booted it up last weekend, read the faction descriptions while pondering what to choose, and as soon as I read about the HACKERS I not only didn't choose them, I disabled their content pack. Good and well trained 4X instincts.
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Jan 31, 2020 23:58
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Tree Bucket posted:Are there any hacking/choir guides you can recommend? They are systems that do not reward playful experimentation. (I gave up on the choir after I accidentally discovered that the "reward" for assimilating a minor faction as the choir is for the minor and their ships to instantly disappear from the map. Hooray?) iirc I just sifted through a bunch of random threads for info. Assimilating a minor as UC should turn all of their colonized worlds into sanctuaries for you, and the ships should stay too. Dunno if that was fixed since you played?
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Feb 1, 2020 04:20
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Admiral Funk posted:iirc I just sifted through a bunch of random threads for info. Assimilating a minor as UC should turn all of their colonized worlds into sanctuaries for you, and the ships should stay too. Dunno if that was fixed since you played? I might try them again, for my next ES2 binge. Chomp8645 posted:I did not receive any prompting from an outside source to do this, and had no foreknowledge of them or any reviews of their content. I just read their in-game description, and immediately every ounce of my prior 4x experienced screamed that I didn't want them around. Checking this thread now is very satisfying. You've gained enough XP to unlock the skill "detect tedious game mechanic," one of the essential ones really.
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Feb 1, 2020 06:11
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For a while I thought that ES2 was a great 4X with a huge AI flaw. In my last 3 max difficulty games victory was too easy, and I've never won on max difficulty in any other 4X. Tried it recently and maybe I was unlucky (had bad relationships with Empire and Cravers from the start. Part of this was me confusing them with pirates and attacking, and for some reason I don't see a way to cancel attack once you see the enemy forces) but my rear end was handed to me. Maybe it was also just a first game with Vaulters. So now my interest has risen again, could it be AI has improved and ES2 is the best 4X game ever with no "but" in the end? A question about hacking. I sometimes get a prompt that my hack is tracked and that I should maybe cancel hack. But I don't see any way to do it! Also is there a way to trigger that hack defence or is it just random? The only thing I can do to defend is to add encryption program to my system, right? Also can you cancel attack you initiate?
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Feb 1, 2020 12:35
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A few things to know about the UC and hacking.
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Feb 1, 2020 18:54
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ilitarist posted:For a while I thought that ES2 was a great 4X with a huge AI flaw. In my last 3 max difficulty games victory was too easy, and I've never won on max difficulty in any other 4X. Zane fucked around with this message at 19:46 on Feb 1, 2020 |
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Feb 1, 2020 19:18
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Thanks for the advice! I think most 4X games have deep issues with the AI that you can't just fix by bonuses. The usual, you know: AI roleplays and doesn't touch you as long as you don't piss them off. And even on max difficulty it's easy to overproduce AI. He doesn't care if you win the game and if you start fighting AI late you can be close enough to defeat it easily. Same happens in Civ. So I'm not sure if this can be fixed easily.Admiral Funk posted:ilitarist, you can cancel hacks by right clicking on the hack in the upper left of the hacking overlay. Hacks that are being traced have a red arrow there. Canceling a hack in progress gives you a penalty of 30 to your bandwidth for a while. Thanks!
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Feb 1, 2020 20:02
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I bought ES2 during the sale and I'm into it. Boy, some of these factions are evil as poo poo, like at least two of them are built around ethnic cleansing as a game mechanic. I guess Amplitude decided to really lean into the colonialist implications of 4x games this time. Cool ideas though! I'll be curious to see how the Vodyani work, and in the meantime, Horatio is hosed up but the mechanics are really interesting. Not clear on why all their ships have to suck, though. I guess the thing to do when you have an aggressive neighbor is just turtle through superior manpower from all the food?
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Feb 2, 2020 21:44
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Ragnar34 posted:Horatio is hosed up but the mechanics are really interesting. Not clear on why all their ships have to suck, though. Because all ships must be as beautiful as Horatio.
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Feb 2, 2020 22:07
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Their ships have a big advantage you won't notice right away with the hardpoints making them all multipurpose. Use that food boost to build larger/more fleets than your opponent. Horatio fleets do good in numbers. You'll definitely need to still turtle somewhat with them but you can spread pretty quickly and their gimmick basically means you can grab so many good bonuses from other species. Vodyani are really cool but probably the most complex to play. Have fun with them. Mokinokaro fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Feb 2, 2020 |
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Feb 2, 2020 23:53
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Mokinokaro posted:Vodyani are really cool but probably the most complex to play. Have fun with them.
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Feb 3, 2020 02:22
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Admiral Funk posted:A few things to know about the UC and hacking. Today I learned that you can turn sanctuary pops into sleepers. I thought you had to do it manually one at a time with separate hacking event.
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Feb 3, 2020 02:44
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AAAAA! Real Muenster posted:They have, by far, the ocolest looking ships though. *sad riftborn sounds*
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Feb 3, 2020 02:46
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Tulip posted:*sad riftborn sounds* My favourite ship in the game is that tier 2 Riftborn beastie that basically has nothing but weapon slots. It can be upgraded to have yet more weapon slots.
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Feb 3, 2020 02:55
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Tulip posted:*sad riftborn sounds* Yeah the riftborn are probably my favorite ship designs too. The Unfallen and Horatio kind of tie for second (I really love the organic designs for Unfallen.) Though I kinda love all the ship designs. Even the UE's big submarine inspired capital ships are cool.
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Feb 3, 2020 02:55
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