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Topic Summary

Posted by: Pali
« on: June 03, 2016, 03:11:31 AM »

But you also can't deny that two remnant player will always work largely the same way and two NR players will work largely the same.

In the NR's case I would not mind a bit more variety of styles, but I've got to agree with Corey on the IR: right now, the IR is Ascendancy's most versatile faction, IMO.  Two possible Titans, can go heavy military or fortify quite well against culture intrusions, and the burnt-Galaxy option if you wish it.
Posted by: Corey
« on: June 02, 2016, 10:32:03 PM »

That's not any more true of base Sins than of the mod. Especially militarily. We're at a point in development where we've been able to set the basics enough to make each faction different, and we have upwards of 60 techs per faction left where we can allow more divergent playstyles within that faction, something we already started to do a lot more with the IR (techs focusing on openness versus regaining old Imperial way) or techs about strengthening the masses vs techs that focus the IR more on superweapon. They were the faction where this was most developed, but since everyone absolutely just had to have the PA as a distinct entity, a lot of that ultimately went from divergence within the faction to being a completely different faction, so that's something of an unfair assessment.
Posted by: kucsidave
« on: June 02, 2016, 03:13:26 PM »

I completely disagree- in their essentials, every faction was the same and every ship the same between factions; the main differentiation between factions came from the absolutely broken bullshit mechanics, which is something that if you say we haven't emulated, well, mission accomplished. I feel like we've managed to make the factions all have different playstyles without resorting to one broken mechanic that the faction ends up playing around entirely, ie the Vasari's absolute bullshit phasespace node bypassing (the main bullshit of which comes with its effect being paired with the superweapon). Yes, the end result was that you'd have this one mechanic that would, on the surface, make each faction feel unique but it wasn't for any reason of depth, it was because of one particular hook which was completely broken; games are determined by who was is best able to play around this one mechanic which is, to the other factions, an untouchable thing. For us, we've spread the differences out more among everything so for certain factions, the differences are spread more among that 90% than among the 10% that Sins had it between, meaning we have fewer individual things with the same seemingly-huge impact, but more with a smaller impact, and that will only increase as we go.
But you also can't deny that two remnant player will always work largely the same way and two NR players will work largely the same.
In sins two TEC loyalists could be VERY different
Posted by: Revanchist
« on: June 02, 2016, 11:16:42 AM »

I would totally read or watch anything like that you'd post (well, I'd do that whatever it was about). It would be very interesting indeed.
Posted by: Pali
« on: June 02, 2016, 07:03:40 AM »

I'd read a super-long post, but I make no promises on videos.  I do a lot of long post-reading online in scattered bits of time at work, but video-watching doesn't work well in that setting.
Posted by: Corey
« on: June 02, 2016, 06:57:46 AM »

It's why we wanted to mod Sins, but it's not necessarily why we want to mod every game we mod. We didn't initially think base EaW was crap, and the evolution on that opinion has been the cause of a lot of issues in TR's history, a lot of which began far earlier in the relative timeframe of development of the early TR version sets than in Ascendancy. I say this a lot, I think, but I really want to write a pointlessly long post or do some sort of video that nobody will care enough to watch or read about the history of the mod and the lessons we learned, mostly up to about the time 1.3 or 2.0 was released (especially with the whole tenth anniversary thing happening). ModDB used to have some people who did post-mortems on some projects that I actually found kinda interesting/useful when we were just starting up.
Posted by: Pali
« on: June 02, 2016, 06:43:25 AM »

Nope, I'm definitely not saying it's a bad game, that's why we wanted to mod it in the first place.

In fairness, I do recall you saying on more than one occasion that vanilla EaW is crap, so you having a similar opinion on Sins was a reasonable hypothesis. ;)
Posted by: Corey
« on: June 02, 2016, 06:41:03 AM »

Nope, I'm definitely not saying it's a bad game, that's why we wanted to mod it in the first place. It was the team's go-to game to play together for a while before we even started Ascendancy, and there were at least three iterations of mods we had discussed before deciding to go with Ascendancy for it. If it sounds like I'm focusing on the negative bits, that's a function of the specific topic at hand and also because it's my job to identify these problems and try to figure out what causes them; I do the exact same with the mods as well.
Posted by: Pali
« on: June 02, 2016, 06:36:38 AM »

Well, if you agree that Sins isn't a bad game, then I think we're pretty much in agreement, as I've got little or no issue with anything you said above.  Sins certainly has its problems, and I think you've nailed most of them - my position is that they don't make it a bad game, they simply limit it at being a good game instead of a great one.
Posted by: Corey
« on: June 02, 2016, 05:34:19 AM »

I'm not attempting to make the case that every tech is entirely different in Ascendancy; there's certain things that simply have to exist, and certain hardcoded limits we have to work within (a lot of the more interesting techs have to be done with abilities tied to planets or structures which get unlocked by the tech and jury rigging a buff chain out of that for the desired effect, as opposed to being a direct effect of the tech itself)- each faction has to have some increase in income, some increase in culture, etc. We have a bigger difference in what those numbers for each stat mean to each faction, though. There is a perception I've seen from some people that the base game actually does different things, but that's simply a side effect of how the base tech tree is arranged- they have the same sort of branch in different places doing the same thing, whereas we've made the organization standardized so as to help people transition between factions (plus simplifying the icons to the type of stat that's being changed makes it seem more similar than it is). As far as defense (and diplomacy) goes, that's true although also simply a function of us having not reached the point where we're working on that yet, as of 1.0.

i'm not trying to make the argument that Sins is a bad game or that the factions in practice end up being homogeneous. i'm making the argument that the things that make the factions different (one of the most important aspects of a game like this) are sadly the results of some of the poorest decisions made in development. A lot of them just plain lack counter-play or have very little interaction from the player; some are downright frustrating. The links between the TEC and pirates have some interesting aspects (the alliance part, which led me to the strategy of hiding my flagship in pirate bases) but also had the random pirate fleet spawns in at the enemy planets. It's one of the key hooks of the faction, but you're doing literally nothing to play around that. You don't control the ships, you don't even have some sort of budget for attacks or targets; it's just an RNG mosquito-like pest (the thing where the militia don't attack you is cool, but in the context of the mod would mean things like Warlord bases and minor factions would also be aligned with you, which makes it unusable).

The Vasari node-bypassing effects of phase gates and superweapons are also problematic for some similar reasons; if it were just a way to travel quicker between your planets, that's mostly fine (and also something I've considered for the Empire of the Hand) but once it lets you bypass border worlds and attack wherever, whenever with very little risk because of how common the superweapons become, it's just pure frustration. No matter how well you plan or how much you invest in defense, if the Vasari jump their main fleet in the back of your Empire, you're probably gonna lose at least one planet for very little cost before they can either progress or jump back to safety. It becomes a race to see whose non-interactive mechanic such as this becomes more powerful sooner.

Essentially, the differences in Rebellion specifically come from Titans, those non-counter-playable or non-interactive mechanics, and the specific effects of their superweapon. Sure, it does end up requiring some different playstyles but it's ultimately, in my opinion, for the wrong reason, and the techs not related to that ultimately don't end up mattering. It's all about how soon you can do the uncounterable culture-bomb + carrier spam with the Advent, phase node with the Vasari, or be an annoying little jerk with the TEC (as ended up being my preference, with the Ragnarov titan). The Titans ultimately also are unique and provide a lot of the unique elements, but that's also because they're so central to the strategies you employ; ultimately, your fleets are going to have to be built around a titan and you typically can't hope to beat a strong titan without one of your own. This can have some cool and unique effects like the Railgun and the Maw, but it's also a central cause of the 'fleetballing' I've always hoped to reduce in Sins, which is why we're so reluctant to give Titans abilities that are too powerful.

Before we made Ascendancy, the team played a lot of base Sins amongst ourselves, and even talked about doing just a small base mod to ameliorate the parts of the game that we found obnoxious while we were getting to a point where we could actually play Ascendancy, and these are essentially the things we would talk about nerfing. Everyone would get pissed at me for rushing the Insurgents that I no longer had any influence over after clicking "research"; everyone would get annoyed with Ca3ba and Kalo for their shenanigans with Orkuluses (Orkuli?) and phase nodes that we saw coming literally the entire game but could ultimately do very little about until after it happened and hope our fleets could take out more of their planets before they took out all of ours; we'd all get annoyed at Code for his culture taking us out entirely on its own, passively, instead of being a tool that if used properly helped you accomplish other goals, all the while cannon shells flying from planet to plant every 3 seconds. And that's the thing; these are unique, but they're all frustrating and its not frustration because you're outplayed or caught off guard by some strategy, it's just "I know exactly what's coming and when, but ultimately none of us has control over it or can prevent it."

If you think about development of the game/mod like a maze, where the exit is having made something that's engaging and fun with unique factions, in some ways Sins may be closer to the actual exit than, us, but they've also done that by running into a few dead ends that ultimately render that progress kind of meaningless; where we may be slightly farther behind in some areas, we're trying to do it in a way that actually allows us to reach the goal. If for example, Dave feels that the base game has achieved those unique factions, he's entitled to that opinion, but in my opinion what they've achieved in terms of unique factions is for all the wrong reasons and ultimately detracts from the game and is a matter of flash rather than substance.
Posted by: Pali
« on: June 02, 2016, 03:36:18 AM »

I'll never deny that Ascendancy does a far better job at making distinct factions - but even Ascendancy has a fair number of techs shared between factions, and a fair number of similar researchable techs for each (economy/culture buffs are a bit different per faction, but you've got to pay attention to notice, and the defense trees for the NR/IR/PA are almost identical).  You guys are much farther along the path towards completely different factions, but it's a matter of degree, not absolutes.  It's also a degree I've no doubt will continue to widen, since you guys have done more than most mods in trying to NOT just stick to the way Sins is set up (I try to play others and not needing to manage fighter supply, not having ships lose combat ability as they get hurt just BUGS me now and its all your fault! :P).

I'm not at all here to defend vanilla Sins as some perfect strategy gaming experience, but I will heartily argue that it does not deserve to be considered trash.  A 10?  Hell no.  An 8?  I'm pretty comfortable with that score.
Posted by: Corey
« on: June 02, 2016, 02:50:50 AM »

Every faction is so different that I became a much better gamer in every strategy game. Without sins, I would still do the same thing over and over again, not being able to adapt to certain situations.
This is the best thing in since in my opinion, and as sad as I am to say this, I am still waiting for Ascendancy to bring this feeling back to me.

I completely disagree- in their essentials, every faction was the same and every ship the same between factions; the main differentiation between factions came from the absolutely broken bullshit mechanics, which is something that if you say we haven't emulated, well, mission accomplished. I feel like we've managed to make the factions all have different playstyles without resorting to one broken mechanic that the faction ends up playing around entirely, ie the Vasari's absolute bullshit phasespace node bypassing (the main bullshit of which comes with its effect being paired with the superweapon). Yes, the end result was that you'd have this one mechanic that would, on the surface, make each faction feel unique but it wasn't for any reason of depth, it was because of one particular hook which was completely broken; games are determined by who was is best able to play around this one mechanic which is, to the other factions, an untouchable thing. For us, we've spread the differences out more among everything so for certain factions, the differences are spread more among that 90% than among the 10% that Sins had it between, meaning we have fewer individual things with the same seemingly-huge impact, but more with a smaller impact, and that will only increase as we go.
Posted by: Pali
« on: June 01, 2016, 11:48:26 PM »

I'll freely grant that the tech trees could've used a good deal more diversity, but that's at most a point off the end score, not something that ruins the game for me (edit: think Total Annihilation or Homeworld - did the near-mirrors factions ruin those games for you too?).  They did a decent enough job in the end result of Sins: Rebellion, and I'd say every faction feels distinct from the others in play style and look.

You also don't need to do all the research by any stretch unless you're playing a very long game - in any smaller, and especially in multiplayer competitive games, what techs you research will certainly determine your gameplay and fleet builds.  Does the TEC focus on missile techs, and therefore build a fleet heavy in bombers and LRM frigates and fight at long range, or do they focus on autocannons and build a fleet with tons of heavy cruisers for their speed and durability?  Or do they spend their money and time instead researching up their titan so they can get it out more quickly?  In any game that isn't going to last ten hours, these choices still matter a great deal even in base Sins: Rebellion (and slowing down research in the options makes them matter more and longer).

Your other point is a purely subjective and aesthetic one, so there's no point arguing it.  I've always thought most of the Sins ships looked pretty cool.
Posted by: tlmiller
« on: June 01, 2016, 10:07:12 PM »

See, my problem is that in the base game, 90% of the tech tree is shared between all factions.  So if they'd just drop that 90%, and leave the 10% that is unique, it might be fun.  but instead, I'm left with a game where nearly all the tech is shared between all factions, is therefore utterly useless, yet you have to do it to avoid losing.  That's IRRITATING that you're FORCED to do useless research just because they decided to include it.

The other major issue for me is that a majority of the designs are ugly.  I know, in reality in space you don't NEED attractive designs because there is no air pressure, so plain cubes actually are perfectly fine, but I like having ships that I enjoy looking at.  This is missing in a MAJOR way from base Sins, IMO.
Posted by: kucsidave
« on: June 01, 2016, 03:18:16 PM »

When you do post your thoughts.  There's 2 very different lines of thought about the unmodded game among us.  Some very much like the unmodded game as well, and then others (like myself) think the unmodded game is complete rubbish.
To be honest I didn't even heard of sins before you announced ascendancy. I watched some youtube reviews about it and red some around the subject and said I give this thing a try. In the beginning I didn't like it. the tech tree was too complicated, it was hard to know what is what and I had no idea what was good for what since the ships weren't categorized by roles, furthermore by the time I got to know which capital does what was a pain in the ass, but soon I found myself liking one or two things about it, and as everything cleared up, it got better and better for me. I loved the fact that every single capital ship was different, even in the same class. This way I could specialize my capitals while not needing to sacrifice something since an another one got that weakness covered. I loved that each faction was unique, even within the same race there were mayor differences and I got to have VERY different playstyles for each and every one. This never happened to me before.
In every single game(Including EaW) I was an early game economist where I built up my economy in priority over my army and took my sweet time in expanding. When I met any opposition I went full turtle building up unbreakable deffences and since I had the economy to support it made a big ass military. Then concentrating my attack i broke trough somewhere and since my economy was so much better than others I could easily crush them since no matter how much I lost, I could rebuild twice the rate of my losses. Then fortified the new territory too and repeat and very slowly but steadily took out everyone one by one. This to my luck worked out well with the TEC loyalist, the first faction I mastered. Then came the TEC rebels and I had to start from garbage since it did not work at all and I got beaten hard again and again. Then I realized that the whole faction was about 1 specific research. Truce among rouges which rendered all neutral fleet as ally. I expanded as fast as I could, barely building up the extractors and 1 level to population just so I get + in credits too and went on further without stop for the first 3-4 planets. That was the time when I finished the research. Then scrap some of that fleet if they were not destroyed to build colony ships only and sent them with SHIFT to conquer as much planet as they could in a minimal amount of time and I soon became the biggest empire in the whole game. Then all I had to do was just to build up a fleet and take out the still 5-7 planet large enemy empires and boom. Won without breaking a sweat.
I won't tell all my secrets, but let's just say... Every faction is so different that I became a much better gamer in every strategy game. Without sins, I would still do the same thing over and over again, not being able to adapt to certain situations.
This is the best thing in since in my opinion, and as sad as I am to say this, I am still waiting for Ascendancy to bring this feeling back to me.
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