Character balance?

[GeeWhiz]

What does everyone think about the balance between the three different character types ( Trader vs Warlord vs Researcher)?

At the moment it appears like the trader has a huge advantage in resources and able to build huge fleets.

I know we need to wait and see how all the starting servers end - It should be interesting.

[JetJaguar2000]

I've tried all 3, the trader has a huge advantage in terms of conventional fleets, but the other two have "come from behind" win conditions, so who knows.

I definitely feel that the trader's RO advantage is way too extreme. I'm literally barely monitoring the game in which I'm a trader, and I'm up to something like 30k RO last time I checked. As a researcher or warlord I've had to bust my ass to get even 5k RO, and that's only the result of fighting over Jovian planets that I wouldn't otherwise have.

[Supamand]

You can't really judge by the starting servers, because there are a lot of starting bugs that got grandfathered. But that's off topic....
I tried playing trader and researcher so far. It looks like with the new fixes, scientist would have an upper hand on expansion. So at start scientists will be better than any other class hands down.

However, as you advance The need for RO groves and traders become effective. As a scientist I tried to use trading to obtain RO and it seams to be a good alternative.

As far as playing a Warlord, I haven't tried one yet, but I'd say it looks like the most challenging class to play. Because they have nothing going for them to gain the boost of RO and those super capital ships are expensive! Maybe a month into the game is when warlord will gain power over other classes (if they are not killed off first).

So to recap:
Scientists - fast at expansion in early game.
Trader - average at start, but picks up speed when demand of RO goes up
Warlord - average at start, but picks up power mid/end game where 1000 ship limit becomes an issue (due to availability of super capital ships).

[Tsagoth]

When people start saying they all suck, we'll know we have reached balance. :p

[Leedot]

On Researchers acquiring ore / rare ore - The intent is that warlords and researchers should have to seek out traders and setup trade routes with them to get RO but we didn't want to go as far as making it so that you're completely screwed because everyone refuses to trade with you.

[ChickenHawk07]

I can't remember if this has been asked or discussed in the many trading threads out there, so forgive me if I'm asking a repeat question. Is it possible (haven't tried yet) to have a harvester you own on a source planet you own take ore from source planet and deposit it on another player's Destination planet?

[catswift]

If warlords are dependent on traders, and researchers are dependent on traders, then who are the traders dependent on?

[Supamand]

If warlords are dependent on traders, and researchers are dependent on traders, then who are the traders dependent on?

Traders depend on warlord and researchers to trade with and protection :D

[Tsagoth]

I can't remember if this has been asked or discussed in the many trading threads out there, so forgive me if I'm asking a repeat question. Is it possible (haven't tried yet) to have a harvester you own on a source planet you own take ore from source planet and deposit it on another player's Destination planet?

No. Harvesters can only operate between planets you own.

[catswift]

Traders depend on warlord and researchers to trade with and protection :D

Traders can trade with other traders, and it's already been established that traders don't need protection until very late game (if then).

[Leedot]

Traders can trade with other traders but since they share the same win condition it behooves them to trade with at least a few non traders to get a leg up on the competition. I do agree though that there's more work to be done to really get a better balance between the specialties but I'd like to wait until the combat changes and planetary control changes go in so we can see how the balance of power shifts before tackling that particular issue. One thing we've talked about doing for the researchers is to allow them to terraform other people's planets and share jump gates.

[GeeWhiz]

Agree with Catswift other characters cannot field what a trader can produce in warships. I suspect that in future games will see a lot of traders. Other characters will probably need a boost in something early game.

To build a cap ship takes tons of resources. Trader just stops supplying a warlord so they cannot build th one advantage they have - the big warships. Maybe warlords need to be able to build battle cruiser for no rare or something.

Or we need alliances that can win together.

Anyway, time will tell.

[Wrath]

I like the sound of alliances. But I don't think the current client set up is really conducive for setting up or maintaining alliances - especially since the end game is all about an individual winner. Plus, I initially thought with Trader being one of the character choices, and having a chat menu, etc that this game would be more social, but of all the multiple servers I'm on, I've only ever been contacted by like three people, which is averaging less than one per server/game. At that rate, getting an alliance together consisting of more than two people would be impressive, lol.

Wish we could see if anyone was getting closer to completing a win condition for their character selection, to know if they are balanced or not. Have any homeworlds been destroyed by a Warlord? Have any traders accumulated over 1 billion of CO or RO? Has anyone collapsed a star? How do we know when the game is over - will we try to log on to a server and there will be a system notification? I thought games were to continue until someone won, but I see that some end July 23, 24, etc. so will the winner be whoever has the most points, or is the closest to meeting their win condition? hmmmm Probably the wrong thread for these questions, sorry! lol

[Leedot]

Adding greater visibility into how other players are doing is on the list of changes to come. We don't want to give exact details about what a player has / hasn't done but we're looking into a general scoring system the incorporates the win conditions so you'll be able to look at a list and see where you stand roughly. Hopefully this will also encourage players to unite against a common enemy even if it's only a short term alliance.

[JetJaguar2000]

I would like to know if it's even possible to build a Planet Killer without having traded a ton with Traders. In my personal experience, I don't see how you could. Even maxing out Advanced Mineral Collection, a non trader doesn't generate nearly enough RO from mining.

On the surface this seems like a major imbalance. The Trader achieves its win condition by doing what traders do, and ultimately can "force through" the win with skills like Blockade Running without having to rely on the kindness of others. The Warlord is oddly completely gimped with regard to its win condition without a LOT of help from traders. The Researcher isn't quite as bad off since its "win mobile" is much less expensive.

I agree with the suggestion above that Warlords need some other ability. I would propose that they can build all the way up to dreadnoughts with no RO cost. At least then they can build some scary fleets on their own and rough their way up to more resources under their own power.

[GeeWhiz]

I am currently researching Cap ships as a Warlord on a server where I am one of the top scorers. No way will I be able to build even one dreadnought. First I have very little rare ore. One problem I see to be effective as a warlord I should be upping my combats skills. But now I have to worry that my traders could be upping their trading skills which means I really have to counteract them with trading skills. I cannot concentrate on my own profession's skill set.

I do not like being so dependent on others to build my own speciality ships. No way am I ever going to be able to build a planet killer. Warlords need a boost. Maybe the ability to build a planet killer for no rare but need a certain level or research to balance it out. Or at least dreadnoughts. Or a better battlrship for no rare. Or the use of fighters on low level ships. something to keep it interesting. I am losing interest in a game where I am in top three but cannot do much to help myself.

[JetJaguar2000]

Heh, everyone who is enjoying this game is a Trader. I am in the same boat, both as Warlord and Researcher.

The fundamental and obvious problem, besides the Warlord's end game ships being ludicrously priced, is that the Warlord has to be a Trader in order to be a Warlord. It doesn't make any sense. As you point out, it detracts from what a Warlord should be doing, which is warring. To put it another way, does it make any sense at all that the ethos of a Warlord is to build a vast trade empire that allows them to afford a Planet Killer, and then quickly kill 15 planets to achieve galactic domination? Not to me.

If you ask me, each speciality should be able to make progress AT EVERY STAGE OF THE GAME towards its win conditions through the mechanisms of its specialization. Traders are already aligned this way. They win the game by trading, and make progress towards that victory by developing their trade skills. Warlords and Researchers gameplay should revolve around their specialities too. The Researcher's research bonus is nice, but not definitive enough. Terraforming is interesting, but so far I'm failing to see a significant value from it. The only thing that keeps their victory condition open is that the Solar Tap is not insanely expensive. I'm just repeating myself now, but Warlords get the double shaft: not only do they have to work "off-specialization" (ie. focus heavily on trading in anticipation of Planet Killer costs), but Traders (!!!) will beat them at their own game, being able to mass produce conventional warships, until they get those Planet Killers online.

Let me say, again, I really like the underlying concept of this game, but the more I play the more I feel like very little about the mechanics have been well thought out. It's disappointing. One would hope that in game that requires a 2 month investment of time, the mechanics would be balanced enough that players don't feel like they just wasted a lot of effort when things don't pan out in a sensical way. I guarantee Traders are going to win every game, unless they're really sleeping on the job. For sure, once Traders realize that they have trade AND military superiority, they will start playing more aggressive early games and easily win every game.

[zarkwizard]

Jet -> You hit upon our conversation last night. We have a rebalance of ship costs in the works. We have been discussing what we want out of each ship, and Lee spent some time working on new ship costs. We also discussed the warlords and how they are probably the hardest class to play right now.

One of the things we thought of was Warlords get RO from attacking people. For every ship/planet they destroy they get "scrap" ore from them. That way they can build their ore reserves doing what they do best.. Killing people.

The biggest issue we had was beta testing. It was very difficult to see some of the results in beta testing since we had limited keys, and then even after we gave out all 100 keys we couldn't get any more. I think probably 70% of the beta test people didn't even download the game, which was quite frustrating for us. After all why would you apply to a beta and never download the game.

So we have maybe 15 people that played a lot, and then 15 that were casual. We have been discussing extending the free period till we feel you are all getting the game you want. It's important to us that you all have a game that plays like you feel it should, and we will do everything in our power to get the game there.

Perhaps Lee will post the new data here so people can see the ship data. We also have some stuff we are looking at to stem the land grab, so it'll give people a more even game. I'll let Lee go in to detail on both those.

[Noah David]

@Zark: I'm not a Warlord, but obtaining RO from killing ships and destroying outposts and colonies sounds fair to me. In fact, you could give them an option to decimate a planet they own (reduce terraform down to 0%) to obtain a chunk of RO. That'd be an interesting mechanic.

[JetJaguar2000]

I appreciate the effort you guys are putting in to the game. The fundamentals are really solid, you just need to work out all the details.

I was thinking something similar for Warlords, some kind of mechanic that allows them to convert outposts in to shipyards with some kind of significant RO bonus. I haven't thought through exactly how it would work, but the idea is that they "sacrifice" a planet in order to build a super-capital ship, but in a way that also requires them to defend the planet during construction. I don't really know what "sacrifice" means in this context, though. Destroy the planet? Reduce it's resource generation rate to zero? The balance I'm looking for is for the Warlord to make a significant, interruptible sacrifice of a resource other than RO in order to get a super-capital ship without paying for it through the normal channels.

[Leedot]

I posted this in the combat thread as well but you can see what we're looking at for the new combat values / ship costs in the future. In general the cost of the ships should be more consistent in terms of cost per point of defense / damage.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArcazSep5Y77dHlsb29Dc3o4TER6b0JBM013djlwX 0E

[Supamand]

I posted this in the combat thread as well but you can see what we're looking at for the new combat values / ship costs in the future. In general the cost of the ships should be more consistent in terms of cost per point of defense / damage.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArcazSep5Y77dHlsb29Dc3o4TER6b0JBM013djlwX 0E

Wow this looks more realistic and balanced!
One comment though, shouldn't a 1mil colony have at least equal attack/def as an outpost? Just looks a little too vulnerable vs. cost.

[Leedot]

Fair point on Outposts vs. beginning colonies, Royce mentioned that as well in the other thread so I've adjusted the sheet accordingly.

[GeeWhiz]

Battleship was 100 rare and now it is 720? Am I reading the chart correctly?

I do not understand the point in raising the costs? I have to survive the traders battleship fleets. I know one trader had hundreds of them early in the game. Without a way to meet a trader's production it really does not matter what the costs are in a sense.

The priority of the game right now (to me at least) is balancing the character's abilities. I do not want to nerf the trader as much as boost the other two.

[Leedot]

GeeWhiz - The prices wound up going up because I was trying to keep the costs internally consistent so high end ships don't have a disproportionately high cost. Also, at the old costs RO was proportionately cheaper than CO considering the generation rates so they're now more balanced / consistent.

As you say without a way to meet the trader's production it doesn't really matter what the costs are since regardless of what they are the trader will always have more. For the this specific problem we're focused more on getting the costs of the ships to be internally balanced / consistent along with reworking the combat system itself to be more balanced while offering greater strategic depth.

After we have that problem sorted out I think we'll have a better foundation from which to address the greater balance issues with the specialties.

[JetJaguar2000]

If you put those prices in to the game before balancing the specialties, there will be no point in playing anything other than Trader. Cruisers and battleships are the only thing non-Traders can produce in quantities large enough to be effective. With these prices you take that away.

I'm not sure you have actually played the game as a non-Trader. If you cannot capture and hold a number of Jovian planets (and you can't if there's a Trader around who wants them), a non trader will have sub 1000 RO until deep in to the game. At a time when you need stacks of dozens of ships, you'll only be able to make a handful. These costs are the exact opposite of what is needed.

[SG7]

The new ship prices look quite high. Battleship 720 RO? 7 times more then now? Indeed it will tip the balance of the game towards traders. These feels too drastic .

[Leedot]

Jet - The specialties are definitely out of balance, there's no doubt about that. As it stands it doesn't matter what I make the resources costs as Traders will always have more resources and access to build the same ships (other than the highest tier) so whether I make a battleship cost 50 RO or 500 RO doesn't really matter in terms of specialty balance. As it currently stands Traders will always be able to build proportionately more units, faster than anyone else because they'll always have more resources and faster build times.

So, I agree the specialty balancing does need to be addressed but it's a separate issue. I think I probably just confused things by cross posting the new ship balancing spreadsheet in this thread.

[Parsons]

I do agree that the specialties need to be balanced as well as possibly reworking the ship balance. One thing i see these prices affecting is the pace of the game. As we are only days or so into server life its hard to tell the long term effect. One example ill use actually happened today. It actually involved jetjaguar, no hard feelings buddy! So I was bored today and took a fresh group of destroyers out for a stroll. We are on ningal i belive, only a few days old. Very few of well anything yet. I started taking a few of jets outposts and came across his fresh colony. Im talking 7mu people fresh. I hadnt seenthat it was a colony and just auto attacked it and lost, but just by a hair by my figures. Well i spent the rest oft he night racing trying to get a fresh fleet built and across the sector to claim this colony before it outgrew my attack ability and fleet size. In the end I did not manage to take the colony! Oh but what an afternoon, nailbiting race to the line. If these new costs were put in I do not see any ability to catch up with colony growth before it becomes too big and part of the end game. I like the slowed growth of colonies as they sit now but these changes will effect that portion of the game.

[Parsons]

I guess i did not make it real clear why this Situation would not happen if the costs were brought up so high. Money is very limited early game, even for traders. Its all about the co the first week or so, and that week makes or breaks budding empires. We up the costs to these numbers then you wont see more than a few ships produced a day unless im missing something.

[JetJaguar2000]

Jet - The specialties are definitely out of balance, there's no doubt about that. As it stands it doesn't matter what I make the resources costs as Traders will always have more resources and access to build the same ships (other than the highest tier) so whether I make a battleship cost 50 RO or 500 RO doesn't really matter in terms of specialty balance. As it currently stands Traders will always be able to build proportionately more units, faster than anyone else because they'll always have more resources and faster build times.

So, I agree the specialty balancing does need to be addressed but it's a separate issue. I think I probably just confused things by cross posting the new ship balancing spreadsheet in this thread.

The fact that the specialties are unbalanced does not mean you should give up making costs reasonable. Cruisers, for example, level the playing field. There is no imbalance in ships that only require CO, since CO is effectively unlimited for any speciality. While Traders can build faster, in practice it will also come down to how many factories each side can put to use, etc.

If you increase the RO cost of everything, that's what shuts out non Traders and slows down the game. If anything, more ships should cost CO only. There is a HUGE difference between not being able to build the same ships at quite the same rate as a Trader and not being able to build those ships at all, to say that it just doesn't matter since Traders build faster is an oversimplification.

And by the way, if you ask me, th current cost of the Planet Killer is grounds for an emergency patch. I truly believe it is impossible for a non-Trader to reach 440k RO right now (let alone multiple times if their Planet Killer is destroyed), which means it is currently impossible for a Warlord to win the game. If you can refute this, I'd love know how it can be done.

[Parsons]

It's late and ive already ranted enough, but one idea for the trader imbalance may be a shift in how rare ore is come by. Say we take away the ability for them to get more rare ore from mining. Everybody would get the same amount from that route. We shift the ro to what traders are supposed to be good at, trading. Say something like trading with a trader class generates the bulk of the in the market. Both sides would get an equal amount during the trade, still let it be effected to some extent by the trader skill tree. Say for every x amount of co traded y amount of ro is created and included in the trade. Sure its kinda something from nothing but we could come up with a reasonable way to explain how to break a fundemental law of nature.

[Leedot]

Jet - I wasn't trying to say that we're giving up on making costs reasonable. In the previous sheet the high end ships are dramatically cheaper then they currently are in the game. When I was working through those numbers I was more focused on the high end and keeping the costs proportional which left the low end winding up higher than it was previously. I've since pulled everything down proportionately so it's closer to the games current numbers on the low end since you're definitely right in saying that making the early game units cost more would slow the game down.

I think where we differ is I think the Trader's near monopoly on RO is an issue that needs to be resolved separately (even if it's integrated into the game at the same time) so I'm more focused on having the RO costs be in balance with the full RO output of a planet than the 0-27% output non traders tend to have access to.

Yoda - That's a good thought, if nothing else I think shifting away from Trader's having vastly superior access to RO is the way to go. It's something that needs a bit more internal discussion but I think it should be doable.

[Royce]

I think where we differ is I think the Trader's near monopoly on RO is an issue that needs to be resolved separately (even if it's integrated into the game at the same time) so I'm more focused on having the RO costs be in balance with the full RO output of a planet than the 0-27% output non traders tend to have access to.

I don't know why you would focus on putting costs in balance with RO wealth available to 1/3 of players. If you mean you want to focus on balancing costs for maximum possible wealth, okay (though focusing on average would make more sense to me), but you'd better fix the RO imbalance before increasing RO costs. An even bigger issue than the 27% vs 100% difference IMO is the 0% that non-traders start with, and the snail's pace at which it increases. Charging RO for cruisers will prevent non-traders from having access to any useful ships for quite a while from the start of the game, and I believe will prevent non-traders from being able to get a foothold in the universe at all.

[Leedot]

I don't know why you would focus on putting costs in balance with RO wealth available to 1/3 of players.

That's my focus because I'd like to see -all- the players have access to that kind of RO wealth one way or the other.

[Balian]

Frankly I have no issue finding ample RO as a warlord, stop the qq people, a perfect balance does not exist in life or games.

[JetJaguar2000]

Frankly I have no issue finding ample RO as a warlord, stop the qq people, a perfect balance does not exist in life or games.

Worthless post is worthless. If you don't have anything constructive to contribute, don't bother posting.

[Balian]

^nice job doing exactly what you claim I'm doing. Tell me, how worthless are all of your posts? Perhaps you should show faith and trust in the Devs experience, wait and see how the game progresses before jumping ship? Do you really think that the devs haven't come across these ideas before? Have you not realized that even assuming that they haven't come across said ideas during the long, hard processes of creating the game that this thread and topic has been explored via membership since before beta? I don't know about other people but I don't consider qq about game balance when the game is brand new constructive, I call it needless complaining.

[Royce]

I don't know about other people but I don't consider qq about game balance when the game is brand new constructive, I call it needless complaining.

Well I think you're in the minority. Nobody expects a new game to be balanced, but why on earth would you be opposed to healthy discussion of balance? It's absolutely constructive, and an important discussion to have.

[Balian]

^ I do not have a single issue with constructive, respectful discussion on such a topic, but I do think that numerous posts in this thread were simple complaints and in my opinion most of these complaints are pure speculation seeing as the game is just so young. Besides should not this thread be in the suggestions section or at least in the game section?

[GeeWhiz]

The devs know the game is unbalanced and I am sure they rather have us bring up the fact then just quit the game altogether. I am a high scorer as Warlord but will not continue to spend money if I do not have a chance to win. I do not mind one character being harder to play but needs a good chance to win. No planning on my part will help me win the game.

The reason I give the devs a break on the balance issues is due to the fact they did not have enough keys to allow a thorough play test.

The game is young but in order to grow old there needs to be feedback and complaints. Otherwise the devs can not improve for their player base.

[Leedot]

Ok, so after discussing it internally we're going to be removing Advanced Materials Collection from the game so planets will generate RO at their full capacity and everyone have the same access to that RO. This will mean that over all there will be more RO in the system during the early game but that will be balanced by the new planetary control system which will go into the game at the same time.

(in case you missed that thread the basic idea is to reign in the early game land grab somewhat by adding a shipyard equivalent orbital that controls the number of planets you can control. Also, we'll make sure you can abandon a planet when that's added as well. )

[Royce]

Interesting. Will anything be added in to replace AMC for the trade tree? Maybe you should just change the skill to bring more RO through trade instead of planet production.

[Leedot]

Not at the moment - right now there are three tier 1 trade techs and there's usually only two choices per tier so pulling AMC out of the list doesn't really imbalance things on that front. I don't really see the need to add more RO through trade as this isn't a nerf to the trader in any way, if anything it's a boost for them as well since they don't have to rank up amc either.

[SG7]

The land grab strategy was effective only because few people knew about it. Now I am afraid of any restrictive mechanisms which would prevent expansion.

[Supamand]

Wow Lee that's a way to think outside the box! A big move to take out a skill but it's ultimately takes out the advantage of being a trader. Come to think of it, maybe this will actually balance things and the population will not consist of 99% traders lol!

Love the idea, you guys should do a test server with this to see how it works ;)

[Wrath]

The land grab strategy was effective only because few people knew about it.


Well, i would say this whole game feels like land grab to me, since the trading process is virtually the same as the harvesting process, and unless you are a warlord attacking things, the only other thing to do besides the land grab process is build probes & send them out to scan; and add tech skills to research queue and wait.

[TheWhiteLights]

Come to think of it, maybe this will actually balance things and the population will not consist of 99% traders lol!

I never knew traders were so popular. I only chose it because I am not very good at combat and I like trading, not because it was the most popular. :(

[Balian]

Once the tech is removed are those of us who invested in said tech going to be at loss?

[JetJaguar2000]

Well, i would say this whole game feels like land grab to me, since the trading process is virtually the same as the harvesting process, and unless you are a warlord attacking things, the only other thing to do besides the land grab process is build probes & send them out to scan; and add tech skills to research queue and wait.

This is a good point that goes back to my original critique of the current gameplay. I do think land grabbing needs to be limited, but mainly because your ability to do ANYTHING in the game right now is directly proportional to the number of planets you own. You pretty much HAVE to land grab in order to do better than the next guy.

I had proposed research options that would allow you to "do more with less," so you could do something like build a much smaller empire of hyper-productive planets, rather than relying on quantity. The problem is that for this to make sense, research and production/expansion would probably need to be mutually limiting endevours (otherwise you could just expand AND become hyper productive, which would be absurd).

My second critique was that there aren't enough meaningful ways for players to interact beyond fighting over planets.
The way I see the game playing out so far involves a semi-tumultuous early game as players scramble to stake their claims. Once equilibrium is reached in this regard, it's purely a race to see who can research their end game tech first (or establish the most trade routes in that case). Assuming you have reached a reasonable equilibrium in terms of expansion and production, nothing about the mid game requires interacting with other players. Then only one specialty, Warlord, requires any kind of contentious interaction with players to end the game (but Warlord balance is way off so who knows if that is even relevant).

This feels unfortunate to me. I feel like player interaction should be encouraged as much as possible, and not just through combat. I'm kind of intrigued by the whole "holding artifacts" concept as a way to encourage players to fight over something beyond just resources, but I have not yet seen any evidence of that mechanic in the game.

Anyways, a lot interacting mechanics and design ideas at work here, so it's hard to imagine a simple solution, but this is one high level issue that should be considered, n my opinion.

[JetJaguar2000]

Once the tech is removed are those of us who invested in said tech going to be at loss?

I'm sure this change will only be introduced to new games.

[Royce]

I'm sure this change will only be introduced to new games.

I'm not sure how they'd do that. I believe removing the skill would require a client update, and that would remove it for everyone.