Gameplay Review/Thoughts

[Seatbelt]

So I've played a couple of games and I have a few thoughts. As a preface I really enjoy the mod. I appreciate all the work that went in to this, and I've been watching its progress since sins came out. That game seriously should have been a Star Wars game, and Lucas dropped the ball and should have bought it up as soon as people were aware of it. So all my criticism comes from a place of enjoyment.

 

So things to note: I've only played 4 games. One trial run with a friend to make sure it ran and to "learn how to play." An unremarkable comp stop. Then a comp stomp where me and my friend lost horribly. Finally, a fourth one where we tried again with same settings but different strategies that we managed to win. I've only played the Alliance, my buddy has only played the Empire. We're not terribly interested in the Clone Wars civs (or even the Vong and whatever else is cooking) except to blow up their stuff.

 

My biggest complaint is the redundancy. This mod what I consider a similar problem to the HW2 mod (which I also enjoyed to death). There are too many ships and they are either redundant, or it is not clear enough how they are different. For example the Corellian Gunship and the Nebulon B Frigate are both anti-fighter platforms. They have minor stat differences. As far as I can tell the Neb is a slightly superior ship. It is also cheaper than the Corellian Gunship. I can't figure out why I'd ever want to build Corellian Gunships, aside from the fact that they are cool. Likewise with the Assault Frigate Mk2. I have no idea what role its supposed to fill. I know when I build them they tend to die a lot. They seem to serve no purpose. They are also (IMO) not that cool a hull, so I don't build them. The Assault Frigate cruiser seems pointless too. I build maybe 2 or 3 in the early game and then never again. The MC30 seems to be a more effective ship, and only a little more expensive. The Assault Frigate's speed boost is cool in the early game but in large fleet engagements its a liability, because it closes with enemy ships and then gets killed.

 

Aside from the stat blocs, the tool tips are virtually useless. They give me an in-universe description of the ship. This is cool from a fanboy's point of view. But this is bad game design. As a player I need to know why I should build this ship. "A tough ship with hanger bays" or something similar is used in the description of like every Mon Cal class ship I can build. This is not helpful information when EVERY mon cal ship in the game is "a tough ship with hanger bays."

I have no idea what specials ships get from the tool tips, or how many squadrons they get. For example, I had to build one of every Imperial ship to discover which one had the colonize ability. I discovered on accident that one of the Mon Cals gets it. This is bad game design. The tech tree has a similar problem. Ships with locked specials do not tell me how to unlock them. In the tech tree, the "unlock ability" techs do not tell me which ships or abilities they unlock. This is also a problem. The in-universe information is COOL but it is not HELPFUL. This was also a problem in the HW mod. The tool tips were cool (I frequently asked wtf is this ship??!? and the tool tip told me) but they did nothing to help me make informed decisions about my units.

 

I don't know if this is just my poor play style or if its a function of the game. Maybe the Requiem mod has tainted me? By the time I get to high level play I can craft fleets that are virtually indestructible. I either lose very few ships or all of them. But in this game ships seem softer. I have to replace them more often. Thats fine for frigates, they are all very cheap and build very quickly. Which I like - it allows for large space battles and just straight up more ships to patrol my worlds. Cruisers though, suffer a similar problem but they are all somewhat expensive and time consuming to build. This is not a problem exactly, it's just something I've noticed.

 

I can't speak for the other Civs, but the Alliance needs a healer type unit. Ships I think do way more damage than they did in unmodded Sins or in Requiem, and while they also have more shields they have paper thin hulls. So my ships die a lot. In one match, my level 7 MC80 battleship capital ship caught with its shield restore ability down and it went from full health to dead in less than a minute and there wasn't a darn thing I could do to save it. The enemy fleet was of equivalent size (if not smaller actually) and it was focusing on my capital ship. I didn't expect it to survive, to be honest. But it would have made me feel better as a player to know there was a unit somewhere I could have used to restore some shields or hull or something. Even if it only bought me a few more seconds to try and maneuver away.

 

A dedicated bomber unit would be very helpful too. I know it's not really cannon for the Alliance to have one. But there are a select few Rebel ships that can bomb planets and they all suck at it. Sometimes cannon has to make exceptions for playability. Taking a world, especially late game with all the planet strengthening techs and upgrades etc, grinds gameplay to a halt. My friend who plays Empire has had a similar experience, although more of his cruisers can bombard a planet.

 

I DO like that Starbases are gone, but fixed emplacements are stronger, and hanger bays cost like 3x as much. A Starbase in a system essentially ment you couldn't take it without serious losses. It slowed gameplay in an already slow game. I also can't spam hangers anymore because they are so expensive. but I don't feel bad building a bunch of turrets. But they could do with having a few more HPs. Just my own opinion there. I LIKE that they get more special abilities (even if they are broken ATM. At least the broken button is there telling me it might have it.. or it might get it in a patch later). They FEEL more useful. I also really like the Golan as an intermediary. More HP, more damage output, more expensive. But not the giant road block that a star base represented. Also not the giant money sink.

 

I do miss the ability to expand my trade lanes or put a token defense in a nebula or something to guard against random colony ships jacking my collectors, or act as forward recon. I hope a more durable version of the Golan appears that allows me to do that in uncolonizable systems. But it doesn't need to be an unstoppable battle station. Just an outpost.

 

I like the super capitals. The executer is really cool. Its a win button, essentially. If you build one, you're probably going to win. It breaks fleets and lines by itself. Supported, it is ungodly. But if you managed to build one, you probably were going to win without it. So its not that big a deal. I like that with two ion cannon emplacements you can lock it down almost completely. That at least gives you a prayer of escaping or destroying it. Building a capital ship now feels like a big deal. My fleets feel better for having one or two in them. I just wished they had more hull points. If the shields drop, its essentially dead. Which is kinda lame. I guess it makes sense for the smaller ships, given the SW flavor and all. Shields down = dead. But I feel like large capital ships should be more durable. They're still ballin' though. I love the "Its a Trap!" ability of the Independence.

 

Which reminds me. Dead levels. The way capital ships level up means there are some dead levels. The two early game capitals have like 2, and 4 dead levels each. They keep getting stronger but they have nothing to put points in. I feel like this needs to be dealt with some how. In the late game it makes it hard to tell which ships have leveled and which ones just have floating random ability points.

 

Some of Requiem's mod enhancements might be good here too. Colonizeable gas giants, more world types, and more random planet traits would be really neat and help the Star Wars atmosphere. But I can live without them.

 

The midi Star Wars music is terrible and has to go. I don't know who likes it or who thought it was a good idea...

 

Most of these comments are negative. So I'm sorry. But I really do enjoy the mod and it will probably replace Requiem as my mod of choice. I know it's still a WIP. But I wanted to share my thoughts and experiences. I know a lot of times people will just polish your knob because they don't want to be offensive. But that doesn't help an artist improve and thats all I want to do.

 

Edit: In response to this quote

Compared to the existing in-game races, no

When the Rebels ships come in, they will be loosely balanced then. That is, you should be able to play a game as a Rebel or Imperial.

 

My guess is that ships will, stat-wise, match up to what is known about them. Eville Jedi really hates paper-scissors-rock games so ships won't be balanced just to support a "unit - counterunit" gameplay. The Empire will have its advantages, the Rebels their advantages.

in this thread: http://warlords.swrebellion.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=587&t=27342

 

My comments on tool tips and such, I agree that rock paper scissors gameplay is lame and I'm glad its not there. I like it when the "anti fighter" ships can engage frigates and not horribly fail. Or when capital ships can actually damage fighters. But it would be helpful if the game explained to me, even if its only just a line, why I would build a corellian gunship over a Neb B. Or why I want assault frigates at all? "This is an anti fighter frigate" and "this is an anti fighter frigate that sacrifices some anti fighter weaponry for more robust ship-to-ship weapons." Tells me that if there are lots of fighters, X is better. But if the enemy has a mixed fleet with some fighters, Y is better. Right now I don't have a clue.

 

Edit: After reading through the rest of the forum I sound like an ass. So I'm sorry.

[Evaders99]

It's okay. We appreciate the comments. At least we know someone is playing the game.

 

 

For the most part, you're right. There is a lot of stuff missing for it to be polished game. But some of it is definitely intentional.... why have multiple ships in the same role? Because we can.

I'm slightly against this approach myself, given the confusion it adds to the gameplay. But it's different from the rest of the games out there.

 

If you've ever played Total Annihilation, that's a lot of what Eville Jedi is going for (even from the HW2 Warlords mod). It really is more on diversity of ships.

 

We're definitely looking for help with descriptions, tool-tips, balance issues. I know Eville doesn't have a lot of time (neither do most of the staff), but we give what we can.

 

Expect star bases to come in some future version. And someone is even working on the planets from 7 sins. In terms of music, I don't remember there being midi files... but there certainly could be. I know Eville has taken them from some other games. We're trying not to distribute the entire soundtrack, but if people want to integrate music themselves....

 

At any rate, comments are always welcome. Helpers are even more welcome

 

P.S. We like Requiem too. Given time, I'd certainly like to see their help on SOGE, but I don't know if they have the time

[Seatbelt]

I would be happy to help by rewriting the tool tips. I know nothing about modding Sins at all (though I used to do some modding for ST:Armada...) I'll have to play around a little bit with the various ships and *gasp* even delve into the other Civs. But it would be helpful if you or Eville could drop me a line and give me the general direction you were going for in setting up a ship or faction like you did. theesfeld@wisc.edu

 

My friends and I will see what we can do about seriously testing the balance. I think our first goal will be to see how much it really takes to kill an SSD. From what I've seen they are not really killable.

 

Re: Total Anihilation... I played it a looong time ago. I don't know how much its unit selection is like Supreme Commander's.. but if they are similar, Supcom has some variety and while there may be some overlap, I can point at one T2 or T3 assault tank and tell you why I chose it over another tank in a given situation. I'm not sure I can do that in this game beyond rule of cool. Just something to think about.

 

I don't know if they are really midi files. But they have that kind of sound to them. They usually pop up during the combat scenes. I don't expect the entire sound track (that could get you in trouble, anyway...) but what ever those tracks are they seriously take away from the atmosphere.

 

This week is finals week for me, and then I'm off adventuring for a week or so. You likely won't see much contribution from me until after that. But I will definitely help by rewriting the tool tips in word or something, so you can copy and paste them where they need to go.

[Evaders99]

I don't really have any directions to go on. If there's something you really don't like, change it

Most of the files are text, so it's fairly easy to change. (Though a hassle if you want to do multiple edits)

I think the SSD is kinda meant as a game-ender unit anyway

 

Music was attributed to Pedro. Whether that means he created it or mixed them from other sources, I have no idea. Easily changed if you want to put them in game.

 

I totally understand about time. We're quite busy too. We're really not expecting immediate changes

[quantum_dragon]

I am really glad that Eville Jedi isn't a friend of the rock-paper-scissors approach because any galaxy spanning empire would just include all strengths and weaknesses into one big ol ship anyhow. Not to mention Star Wars was never really big on a rock-paper-scissor approach. With the exception of fighters taking down turbolaser oriented capital ships, or giant deathstars...lol

 

As for repair and shield restore abilities, I am double grateful you do not have those in this mod. It comes down to fleet size and tactics now, and knowing when to cut your losses, retreat and let your ships get repaired or recharge their own shields. Like modern navies would have to do. I could see a resupply ship launching little shuttles to repair a cap ship, ( similar scenarios that have happened in some of the x-wing/tie games.) but that would be the extent of it. I love the fact there isn't some big old dumb magical DNA strand looking beam, stretching across space "magically" restoring another ships shields. Always hated the overly visually gaudy "special abilities" you see in these kinds of games. A little icon to let you know something is "active" is ok, but seeing the hand of God appear from no-where and doing something... that drives me crazy.

 

Unless of course your talking force storms caused by the Emperor onboard the eclipse, but thats only cause its visually something that actually happens.

[Renown]

the whole problem with creating something like this however, is you still need rock, paper, scissor. You just need to NOT notice it. In effect, what we have is more like rock, paper, lava, scissors, water, air, dirt, sand, vacuum. It's the same principle, just a helluva lot more complicated.

 

Without it, you kiss balance good bye, and any hope of getting people to play the game. The trick is making people believe it's not as simple as it really is. Catch them with eye candy, long battles, etc etc.