Only two things really. 
My list contains maybe something one does not agree with, so I invite discussion about it. It won't help me to see disagreements if you dislike one line in my text. I did try to collect what i also heard from hours of complaining from others.
1. The Surrender Button
- this only concerns human players, not AI.
- surrender should not be an option to a total war. wait what, your political leaders decided to give it all away, and let the enemy eat us?
- surrender should not be possible before 50% attrition has been reached. no more "i attack you and surrender" shenanigans.
- surrender should generally probably not be available in any case, where the surrender will end the game for you.
- bonus, if an option to wars become to stay as a vassal with one planet
1. NAP Abuse
Non-Aggression Pacts can be broken with rivalry, and do not suffer from a 10 year penalty to war. I would consider this a bug.
This should also not work with insulting the AI.
Rivalry should only be declarable if you are not in a NAP, by both AI and player. It is kind of an aggression, after all?
This should also be a rule for truce, aka 10-year nap after wars, however i think you cannot abuse that.
1. The Total War Empires ( or the reason of NoTW)
They are outlawed in most games. Especially devouring swarm; In the past it was Determined Exterminators aswell, but since LeGuin, robots are basicly useless anyway, even if i think the two TW robos are still viable at some extent.
It would be generally nice to change TW mechanics generally, or give them some downsides besides no diplomacy, which until now was not even a real nerf.
If you ask me, TW should never be able to take the capital of the enemy empire without first taking out other sectors, or vice versa, and have a lot harder time pacifying territory they gained.
Even if i think, without thinking about some more interesting war mechanics, that give you better goals than increase your blob might be more the way to go, I tried to come up with a few ideas.
However I admit, I am not sure, how one could make these races multiplayer friendly with all the buffs they get from start. Maybe this is worth discussing. Any ideas!?
If not changed in general, I would adjust at least:
1. Market Abuse
This has been reported anyway. I think the global market needs a bit more fine-tuning. There is generally some funky broken builds with markets being more energy valuable than actual energy production...
1. Vassals and Tributaries
This system needs a proper overhaul to be honest. It is crippling any empire, that is not a megacorp; it makes it way too easy to abuse players to leave the game and stay with an AI that will just pay your game; it is absolutely inflexible to set up proper relationships with benefits or at least compromises for both; integrating a player without a notice is just antisocial game design deluxe; And it kinda gives a totally wrong impression how powerful actually diplomacy can be in the real world, rendering this a really sad situation all over.
There should be more finetuning options creating hierarchies in the game, and definitely, tributary taxes should be capped.
I have written about this in the past. Vassals are kinda less integrated now because of the Admin Cap of course.
2. Options for the Host.
- Disable further hot joining. With tick-box for rejoining allowed.
- See who is pausing the game in chat log. Or create a separate tab for hosts with infos like this.
2. Fixes of the Netcode
- Really, get that sync in order.
2. (New!) That Chat log without borders that is always on
cmon guys, UX design 1.01. Add some toggle, even if you make it initially on.
- if you disable it, give host a shout command, which can display a message there for everyone.
2. Play games with players
you do not have to show yourself as devs. Just start up sometimes a game, join a few communities, play games as silent discord user. I know family and stuff, but @Wiz and co - it would truly give you better insights.
After all, I know just exactly, that being the game dev often makes your view very different from the player, and needs a large humility to realize stuff from the outside.
My list contains maybe something one does not agree with, so I invite discussion about it. It won't help me to see disagreements if you dislike one line in my text. I did try to collect what i also heard from hours of complaining from others.
1. The Surrender Button
- this only concerns human players, not AI.
- surrender should not be an option to a total war. wait what, your political leaders decided to give it all away, and let the enemy eat us?
- surrender should not be possible before 50% attrition has been reached. no more "i attack you and surrender" shenanigans.
- surrender should generally probably not be available in any case, where the surrender will end the game for you.
- bonus, if an option to wars become to stay as a vassal with one planet
Reasoning: all too often, inexperienced players facing a hard fight, surrender and leave a game. However this brings all into inbalance, as suddenly, an empire gets free resources. Some players even count on this when they rush other players. It gives them a free boost. Surrender has been outlawed by most online lobbies.
Imho it should not even be there, or work this way.
Note: I am not saying, claiming an enemy homeworld isn't just as crazy. Imho even that should be impossible, until all other worlds have been subdued. So taking out an established player should take 2 wars. But this is just me, wanting more drama, and less battle royale.
Imho it should not even be there, or work this way.
Note: I am not saying, claiming an enemy homeworld isn't just as crazy. Imho even that should be impossible, until all other worlds have been subdued. So taking out an established player should take 2 wars. But this is just me, wanting more drama, and less battle royale.
1. NAP Abuse
Non-Aggression Pacts can be broken with rivalry, and do not suffer from a 10 year penalty to war. I would consider this a bug.
This should also not work with insulting the AI.
Rivalry should only be declarable if you are not in a NAP, by both AI and player. It is kind of an aggression, after all?
This should also be a rule for truce, aka 10-year nap after wars, however i think you cannot abuse that.
1. The Total War Empires ( or the reason of NoTW)
They are outlawed in most games. Especially devouring swarm; In the past it was Determined Exterminators aswell, but since LeGuin, robots are basicly useless anyway, even if i think the two TW robos are still viable at some extent.
It would be generally nice to change TW mechanics generally, or give them some downsides besides no diplomacy, which until now was not even a real nerf.
If you ask me, TW should never be able to take the capital of the enemy empire without first taking out other sectors, or vice versa, and have a lot harder time pacifying territory they gained.
Even if i think, without thinking about some more interesting war mechanics, that give you better goals than increase your blob might be more the way to go, I tried to come up with a few ideas.
However I admit, I am not sure, how one could make these races multiplayer friendly with all the buffs they get from start. Maybe this is worth discussing. Any ideas!?
If not changed in general, I would adjust at least:
Driven Assimilators
- The total war race for robots should be determined exterminators.
- Driven Assimilators should not have a total war for conquering. They should just as much claim as anyone else. Instead, their assimilation war demand could be really for assimilation, as in raiding, which however can be combined with claims. Total war against assimilators should still exist. This would make them a more risky race.
- Another take would be to change the total war as some kind of vassal state, which creates "forced emigration" to the assimilator.
- It would be nice to have cyborg race which is not malign, in the past DA could be played as nice if one put a lot of effort into diplomacy, charisma, and whatnot.
Ravenous Swarm
- holy crap they are op. i mean they are so op, it's not even funny, and even people playing it who have excuses for playing cookie cutter races every time admit it. imho they should have less growth rate per se, and more live through migration. it is really hard to balance them, but they can basicly ignore technology penalties, and just roflstomp everything. The buffs these races get in combat should be unlocked only later on, like give it a 3 tier tech or event chain. In fact that might be a good idea for all of them.
Purifiers
- they should have to struggle against inner tensions a lot more, and have a lot harder time to establish large empires without scientific struggles.
- they were the hardest to play pick of all TW races in the past. Atm. they hold place 2, but only because robos are bad.
Determined Exterminators
- atm hard to judge, they were the strongest rusher race with TW.
- The total war race for robots should be determined exterminators.
- Driven Assimilators should not have a total war for conquering. They should just as much claim as anyone else. Instead, their assimilation war demand could be really for assimilation, as in raiding, which however can be combined with claims. Total war against assimilators should still exist. This would make them a more risky race.
- Another take would be to change the total war as some kind of vassal state, which creates "forced emigration" to the assimilator.
- It would be nice to have cyborg race which is not malign, in the past DA could be played as nice if one put a lot of effort into diplomacy, charisma, and whatnot.
Ravenous Swarm
- holy crap they are op. i mean they are so op, it's not even funny, and even people playing it who have excuses for playing cookie cutter races every time admit it. imho they should have less growth rate per se, and more live through migration. it is really hard to balance them, but they can basicly ignore technology penalties, and just roflstomp everything. The buffs these races get in combat should be unlocked only later on, like give it a 3 tier tech or event chain. In fact that might be a good idea for all of them.
Purifiers
- they should have to struggle against inner tensions a lot more, and have a lot harder time to establish large empires without scientific struggles.
- they were the hardest to play pick of all TW races in the past. Atm. they hold place 2, but only because robos are bad.
Determined Exterminators
- atm hard to judge, they were the strongest rusher race with TW.
1. Market Abuse
This has been reported anyway. I think the global market needs a bit more fine-tuning. There is generally some funky broken builds with markets being more energy valuable than actual energy production...
1. Vassals and Tributaries
This system needs a proper overhaul to be honest. It is crippling any empire, that is not a megacorp; it makes it way too easy to abuse players to leave the game and stay with an AI that will just pay your game; it is absolutely inflexible to set up proper relationships with benefits or at least compromises for both; integrating a player without a notice is just antisocial game design deluxe; And it kinda gives a totally wrong impression how powerful actually diplomacy can be in the real world, rendering this a really sad situation all over.
There should be more finetuning options creating hierarchies in the game, and definitely, tributary taxes should be capped.
I have written about this in the past. Vassals are kinda less integrated now because of the Admin Cap of course.
2. Options for the Host.
- Disable further hot joining. With tick-box for rejoining allowed.
- See who is pausing the game in chat log. Or create a separate tab for hosts with infos like this.
2. Fixes of the Netcode
- Really, get that sync in order.
- Maybe add the option to resync
- Make sure to really really update the flags in the lobby
- Add a Lobby mode for loading savegames
- Support Mod Sync / Mod List, e.g. through 3rd party master server game list (is that a thing now?)
- Make sure to really really update the flags in the lobby
- Add a Lobby mode for loading savegames
- Support Mod Sync / Mod List, e.g. through 3rd party master server game list (is that a thing now?)
2. (New!) That Chat log without borders that is always on
cmon guys, UX design 1.01. Add some toggle, even if you make it initially on.
- if you disable it, give host a shout command, which can display a message there for everyone.
2. Play games with players
you do not have to show yourself as devs. Just start up sometimes a game, join a few communities, play games as silent discord user. I know family and stuff, but @Wiz and co - it would truly give you better insights.
After all, I know just exactly, that being the game dev often makes your view very different from the player, and needs a large humility to realize stuff from the outside.
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