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Topic Started: Jun 7 2009, 02:18 PM (783 Views)
David Alteron
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Writing Admin, Lulzmaster General
Well, now that we have a nice little playerbase of 200+ people, I think it's time to finally open up the writing of The Fall to suggestions, too. Sure, there's the Suggestions forum, but most people take explanatory and upgrade text for granted and never think to suggest any alternatives for it.

So, based on what you've played so far, are there any recommendations you have about what you read in the Fall? Different, better-sounding upgrades? More helpful explanatory text? (Don't tell me about the horrible misspellings in Admin PMs, I'm working on that.)

Fire away!
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Prefontaine
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I'm not sure about later game situations, since I didn't beta the game and don't know how things scale later on. However, early on the increase on your income from Transportation is much higher than the other two categories that increase collections. Also, Transportation costs per build increase drastically compared to everything else. Perhaps toning down the increase just a bit.
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Mercutio Midas
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I think this is for the flavor text.

Most everything looks cool, but some explanation as to the nature of the Arthran could be cool. There's some ambiguity as to whether they're even human. If this is intentional, that's cool. If not, then spell it out.

Also, do aliens exist or is it just humanity out in the stars?
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David Alteron
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No, this is for the flavor text and all the storyline that is to come. An explanation will come for the Arthran, yes, just like the other two factions, as well as a treasure trove of information I'm sure you will all appreciate.

There have been no sentient alien species discovered in our galaxy yet, despite a rough 80% of the galaxy having been colonized - probably due to the saddening realities of the Drake equation. That is worth repeating: no sentient species have been discovered. The phrase "nothing bigger or smarter than a dog" is a common way of describing alien species discovered by man.
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Squinj

Have other living species been discovered?
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David Alteron
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Hehe, this is quickly becoming Twenty Questions.

Yes, as I pretty heavily implied in my last post, but I probably won't go out and say "these are the species that we have discovered, don't invent anything else." I want players to involve any native (non-sentient!) species they want in their histories or stories. First because it's easier if I don't have to write everything, and second because the Fall's storyline is as much about the players as it is about my big galactic plot :D
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Pete McCavoy

The aid system, its messed up, that is all
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Squinj

Pete McCavoy
Jun 10 2009, 01:05 AM
The aid system, its messed up, that is all
Quote:
 
Well, now that we have a nice little playerbase of 200+ people, I think it's time to finally open up the writing of The Fall to suggestions, too. Sure, there's the Suggestions forum, but most people take explanatory and upgrade text for granted and never think to suggest any alternatives for it.

Learn to read, that is all.
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Arctic
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Feedback/Questions:


Economics:
The nerf to the space elevator was a good move- Trade was way too dominant as a source of income initially. But I am not certain if it will remain so in the future. At the moment is appears to be a large component, but because it is a constant (or nearly a constant that only changes with periodic upgrades), it seems that it will become trivial rather soon. I am not sure if this is the mathematical progression that you are looking for with this component of the economy, particularly when the other two components are directly or indirectly tied to a geometric progression.

Industry is nearly worthless at the moment, but I can see how its connection to Civil will make it a big deal late in the game.

I think that Civil is decent at the moment in terms of balance- the initial investment takes alot of collections to pay off, but it is seemingly in balance with the current pace of the game. But I am concerned about its future balance because it is a geometric increase. It will make it very hard for new planets to catch the older planets because there is no ceiling for growth. I suspect that war will take care of this to a degree, but even so, a high Civil Infrastructure will allow for a much more rapid recovery of population post war.

So to summarize my feed back on Economics, I think that you have a nice model, but without knowing how much tweaking you have done to the components, I can't say alot with respect to balance. However I am concerned for the well being of trade. It's mathematical structure means that it is either too large or too small relative to the other components and the time that the model has run.

From a role playing rationale, it seems likely that trade would be very much tied to the infrastructure of the target planet. A small backwater is not going to be a massive source or massive destination for trade. So there may be some rationale for scaling the effects of trade to the infrastructure levels or some other increasing function.

You can still keep the minimum value well above zero so that Trade can serve it's initial function as being a source of start up income, but it would continue to grow with population so as to avoid becoming trivial in the late game.


Eras:
Not having gone through an era change yet, I can't speak definitively. But since Era is tied to the ability to declare wars, it seems that there have to be some very large incentives for a planet to up it's era. Particularly for the Kantus and Arthran factions who would spend a massive amount of cash on advancing, only to find larger, more numerous and long established Edictus planets waiting for them. I am cool with the idea of treating this like a CN infra jump, but I just want to make sure that it is worth it, particularly for our less numerous brethren in the other factions.


Factions:
Once again, I haven't seen enough to make well informed criticisms, but at the moment I see some some potential problems for faction balance.

First off, there are the numbers in each faction. At the moment, I and many others seemed to have picked the "vanilla" faction that is the least specialized and most economically viable. This is natural tendency for a newcomer, so I think that it will continue to be a problem over the life of the game. I am cool with the quantity over quality aspect at work here, but there going to be alot of quality Edictus players who will be able to use their numbers to dominate even if their troops and ships are crap compared to the other factions.

It is important that the balance be finely tuned enough that each faction is nearly as desirable as the others.

One thing that I would recommend is that you work on a feature that will enable players to change faction. It will extend the life of the game for the players and promote a more mobile player base so that you will see more balance in terms of the numbers in each faction.

Obviously such a feature should have a substantial penalty (perhaps a reset to the base level of the next lowest era or something like that).

One caveat to this is if you plan on resetting the round regularly (every six months or so). If that is the plan, then I wouldn't worry about it because if the balance is good, the veteran players will choose new factions in future rounds.


Second, there is a mechanics problem with respect to the Kantus/Arthran balance. It seems that the space component has a large advantage over the ground component. I have heard that you need local superiority in space to get troops onto a planet in the offensive and there is the planetary bombardment function which makes ground combat much less necessary than space combat. Kantus can reduce Arthran planets from space and completely negate their ground combat advantage, while Arthran cannot do the same to Kantus and would have to fight a serious uphill battle just to get troops on the ground.

If I misunderstand the mechanics then my apologies. But if I am correct, then you will need to think about rectifying this. Perhaps make the Kantus +150% in space and +125% on the ground and make the Arthran +125% in space, +150% on the ground and +5% economically? I'll leave it to you to consider the balance, but I just wanted to point out that Battleships are going to make late era Kantus players far better than late game Arthran players. And I doubt that the midgame Arthran players will have any appreciable advantage over the Kantus because of the difficulty of landing their MBT's on the planet.



Anyway, there is a whole lot of speculation here, but since you put so much effort into developing this game, I feel compelled to take 30 minutes writing down my initial thoughts.

Good luck, it seems like an interesting idea so far and I hope that is succeeds.
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Arke
Administrator
First off, thank you for writing such a critiqe of my game, I know it's definitely needed.

On trade, it jumps a lot with each era. When I tested the game through all the way until its cap, trade remained relativly on par with taxes, though it did lag a little. I may give it a bit more of a boost later on. I feel I did an ok job on the tweaking of economics, but a test environment and the real world are different so we will see. I'll constantly be tweaking.

On Factions, Eras, and combat, ya I kinda agree. I've been planning on lowering the Kantus and Edictus bonuses to equalize them some more, I've never been thrilled with the unbalanced numbers. You can reset your faction, though it requires a reset of your entire planet. So hopefully players do it early on if they change their mind.

I have no plans to reset the game.


I was never much of a writer, so I'm sorry my reply is not as indepth as your topic was, but I can assure you I'm taking it all into account, and if it turns out I'm wrong in the future, I'll be sure to adjust the numbers, hopefully my adjustments now are enough. Thanks.
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