Legends: leave your impressions here, pls!

[elliotg]

ORIGINAL: jezwhywhy
sorry im taking over this thread im just full of questions

diplomacy empire statutes is giving me detailed information on gdp, revenue etc of all empires how accurate is it? Is it an extrapolation based on known planets or more likely 100% all information on that empire even though I haven't shared empire maps or nothing?

The numbers shown in the Diplomacy screen are accurate. This gives you some idea of the strength of the other empire, even when you have not fully explored their territory

[malkuth74]

Still on my first game but so far impressed with the added stuff.

The borders was one of my biggest problems in the original game.. Now that I have borders and some sense of Control over what comes into my systems, biggest thing for me.

[jezwhywhy]

even the music is awesome 

[LoBaron]

I am now in the 2nd large expansion phase of my first Legends game and having a blast
(Human empire, republic, about 12 colonies atm)!
Congratulation guys, awesome expansion. The game really feels complete now on most levels.

Heres a few pros:

- Vectors!! Who first got that idea should get a medal. Helps so much in decluttering the information.

- Diplomacy. Works much better than in RotS, you feel less forced to go for anihilation warfare because
there are so many other options. Great addition, and even more so as the AI seems to be able to use them.
In general AI seems to react more realistic to threats. I had an early border clash as humans with a
Naxillean empire. I defeated 2 of their raiding fleets in pitched battles after they had killed 2-3
mining stations, and then decided to strike their homesystem. 2 minutes after I came out of warp and
killed a gms they sued for peace, which I was happy to accept with the ammount of reparation payments they
offered.
All in all I slowly get the impression back that I am dealing with real diplomats of real alien empires, which
I found so impressive in the good old times of MOO2. Good stuff!

- Borders (clearly an improvement and any additional comment would be a repetition I guess....)

- Map overlays in general.

And cons:

- I still have to force the occasional construction ship back into my own borders because it wants
to build some hi fidelity research station on the other end of the galaxy, just because some location
looks juicy enough. Same for freighters, they still try to cross distances way to big for their
fuel. I usually add a LR freighter design which I´d like to take over such missions, but it does not
look like the AI checks for max range when assigning transport missions?

- Am I the only one who gets a headache from the sounds? I belive it is definitely time for an improvement.
Its not a gamebreaker, but staying zoomed in at a colony, building a CS next to 2 moons with
mining stations happily grinding away really makes me want to throw my (pretty expensive) sound system out
of the window. Through the window. To at least for once hear a different sound.
I know that was never the core of the game, but hey, a highly complex strategy game may sound like
an 80´s arcade machine when its turnbased, and you can turn off sound without impact,
but not if its a realtime game where you are (or should be) relying on some sounds effects to warn you
off and gather information.
MY suggestion would be smoother, more variable, less repetetive, sounds. PLEASE! I tend to listen to classical music,
and in the unlikely event I develop masochistic tendencies I can go to a Noise party for torture...

[Bingeling]

Building a juicy research station on the other end of the world could be very much worth, it, though. I am more worried about a steel mine in the middle of nowhere, I can't possibly be that troubled by steel shortages when I see no construction issues, can I?

As for the sound. I never noticed that. Maybe check the volume settings? Or zoom a bit further out when watching construction? When it comes to sound, the "attacked" one is most important, and it is rather clear even at lower volume settings.

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: Bingeling
As for the sound. I never noticed that. Maybe check the volume settings? Or zoom a bit further out when watching construction? When it comes to sound, the "attacked" one is most important, and it is rather clear even at lower volume settings.

Its less the volume but rather the type and repetition of the same low quality sound effects which are highly annoying to
my ears. Sound effects in general add a lot to game immersion IMHO, and this is is an area where DW lacks.

Current mining and construction sounds are on top of my irritation list, independent of that I
doubt a modern high tech mining station sounds like a 20th century jackhammer.


Yes, I know I can turn off sound as a whole, or just keep the music turned on, but this is not a
solution I find satisfying.


Edit: In general many of the sound effects suggest the emitter is something very small.

In a game where the smallest scale is planetary, this leaves an almost toylike impression. One of the few
effects that come close to what I find bearable is ships entering hyperspace.

[hewwo]

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Edit: In general many of the sound effects suggest the emitter is something very small.

In a game where the smallest scale is planetary, this leaves an almost toylike impression. One of the few
effects that come close to what I find bearable is ships entering hyperspace.

I agree with this comment, it can be a real immersion breaker. But given limited resources there are other things that I would rather see

[MaxyGamer]

[:)] Finally, have some time to post. I haven’t spent too much time with Legends yet. Only a couple of hours. Just made sure that it all still worked on my system. The game just got even better and the new additions including the new UI elements bring some freshness and are, simply put, quite fun. Waiting for patches to fix up some things but I’ve been reading some posts and it’s all known/to be fixed. Happy that I purchased Legends. Any additions by the developers to Distant Worlds based on fan feedback can only mean one thing – classic to gracefully stand the test of time. Overall, thanks to the developers.

There is, of course, another game that came out earlier in November and I’ve been spending some free time playing it but we all know it’s only temporary. Man… have spent ages tweaking that one just to make it stable on my system…. My rig is more than enough to handle most modern games on Highest possible by default settings…but this certain game has been quite poorly optimized...

I am soon to complete the storyline of that one and then it’s all DW which is my most favorite game anyways. By the way, the music for legends is great. Fits the atmosphere quite nicely and is much appreciated.

[Chet Guiles]

Sorry, I left this message in the wrong place. S/B here.

The new feature which allows us to select a series of designs in the ship design screen to delete is excellent. But the color highlighting becomes totally meaningless the minute we do a mass update for a new technology, since manually updated (not only new user-created) designs all turn red. I think there should be something to discriminate those changes made to update tech, from those made by a user to create or mod a ship design. Maybe when we use the "Copy as New" feature it could turn red, but any general update to new tech should not change color. The first time we update all our ships for better shields or a new weapon, the feature ceases to be of any value. All red is just the same as all white.

[Keston]

This is as good as Skyrim. Legends is also a role playing game, just a galaxy's worth of difference in scale and kind of game. Legends gives me the happy feeling that I hoped MOO3 would provide. And it is incrementally being improved and the management side of the game made easier. Bravo!

ORIGINAL: Nedrear

I really love the silver mist idea, though I haven't found it yet... BUT I would like to chose the space creatures which appear ingame or I will sadly keep it deactivated or on "few". Some of those just feel wrong in a RP sense. I can live with a space jellyfish drifting and looking for food in hibernation or the silvermist but the space slug is too much. That is beyond explanation.

I think the space slug is an ancient feat of bioengineering. Mining device? Automated guardians? Sadly, the original purpose is unknown. I suspect the Silvermist of being a self-replicating automated mining solution that consumed its own creators - if only they had waited another year to perfect the master command overrides before putting it on the market!

Who can know if there are technologies in the game which, when unleashed in combination, have dark and dramatically unexpected consequences?

Difficulty controls how much money your colonies make. At harder settings all AI empires earn more colony income. At easier settings the player's colony income increases.
So you have either more or less money available for ships/research/etc relative to other empires.

Thanks, that clears up the mechanism. I was hoping for better tooltips that explain the set-up settings and what they affect (particularly how they affect the player vs. the AI).

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins
{Penal colonies} happen automatically in my experience as long as you have the immigration policy and automation settings on. Being able to designate one manually is a good suggestion though.

This would be helpful because positining penal colonies is strategically significant. Being able to put subject races on different appropriate planets would be as well. How does being enslaved affect the quaity of troops recruited in game? It worked well with the Janissaries, not so well in some other cases - and that's just within humanity.

[MilanGru]

Silvermist is new space creature. What is new "hidden faction" ?  [&:]

[Gelatinous Cube]

I think its the Legendary Pirates.. but if its not, then I haven't found it yet.

[Neotheone]

Even with the crash issues and exception errors it's quite an interesting game.

I tend to believe it's like this:

It's becoming easier and easier though to compare this to X3:Terran conflict in the real time department, but, X3 is less headachee. The difference I see is in this game you colonize and conquer colonies, in X3 you capture enemy ships and conquer enemy factories and space ports/outposts and you actually get to sit in the cockpit of the ships in X3 and/or you can control it from a single ship. In this game you get to pick how much you want to operate, but, in X3 you can do pretty much the same putting your fleets or individual ships on auto pilot, patrols, transport duty and invasions. This game allows you to design your ships it has that over X3, but, then again designing ships is just a time consuming thing and usually puts the player over the top over the AI because the AI is never going to design anything as good as the player. In X3 all ships are built fairly an equally for player and AI by the game engine designs themselves. There's more diplomacy in this, whereas X3 just cuts to the chase and pretty much is a conquer game from the start.

I also tend to see a Paradox Europa engine game in space with this game. Real time with the ability to slow it down to a crawl (that's a plus for me). 10 million popups a minute that you can't adjust to pause the game when they do popup like a Paradox game. Diplomacy simular as well and too forgiving. Lackidasical AI that spreads out and colonizes too slowly (at least on Normal settings). I find that the AI is too giving in credits to me every 5 minutes. I think I make more money with other races giving 20000 credits every 5 minutes than I do actually building up my own economy.

All n all it's not a bad marriage of the two other designs; X3 and Paradox EU engine in space. I'll always wish for a more aggressive AI, but, I haven't tested all the features to make it more challenging yet and I'm just reviewing on the Normal difficulty game setup right now. I was just getting into the wars in the other game when all the crashing started so I don't know how tough the Shakturi are but I did get a taste of the Silvermist, Ancient Pirates and the Guardians which were fun and challenging. The Guardians most especially, man 100 ships lost to try to take out one of theirs that's some overpowered programming of the AI for sure.

Gonna be a good game I think when they get it fixed. Has great potential.

[Gelatinous Cube]

Well, that's certainly one way to look at it. Like i've been telling people over at the forum I usually hang out at, this game is a niche title. Not everyone will appreciate what they are doing.

That said, with a game this big there is always room for improvement, and Codeforce seems more than willing to give it all they've got.

[Erik Rutins]

Ok, that pretty much confirms it. We have a previous forum user who is still banned who went by the name of "Ravinhood". Neotheone sounded exactly like him and his e-mail address is extremely similar (containing "ravin" in the name). Combine that with Ravinhood's love of X3 and I think we have a match.

Neo, please reply to me at erikr@matrixgames.com if you'd like to try to convince me otherwise.

Regards,

- Erik

[Neotheone]

Neo, please reply to me at erikr@matrixgames.com if you'd like to try to convince me otherwise.

Sorry, but I don't have time to play silly games. I don't know what you are talking about and I'm not going to waste my time emailing you to prove something I have no clue what you are talking about. If you're that paranoid about this person well I'm sorry I can't help you. I guess if two people have the same name or like name and like the same things they have to be the same person correct?

I reviewed this game as I saw it nothing more nothing less. If you can sit there and say or think they are not simular then you don't have much of an open mind.

At any rate you're suppose to be a professional businessperson, is this what you call professional? Accusing someone you don't even know of being someone you banned before because you don't like his review or comments an on an open forum at that? That's being a bit petty I think. I mean why don't you just outright ban me, afterall it's your forum and you can be dictator anytime you want to be right? I had hoped this site wasn't like the Paradox site. I guess I was wrong.

I guess it's uncommon for someone who buys a game to be frustrated with the outcome when it doesn't work properly? That's it isn't it? Because I've been a bit forward with my postings about issues I'm having you need to find some way to make it look like it's not your games fault. That's very good. It amazes me how management handles customers these days. Whatever happened to the customer is always right customer service?

I certainly don't need this kind of treatment. If that's how you think and treat your customers I won't be buying anymore of your products and will certainly tell my friends an associates how I was treated here.

[Whydmer]

Erik and all the staff of Matrix games that I have interacted with have been helpful, willing to listen to criticism, and tolerant of people's views on their forum.  Several people have mentioned to you, Neotheone that you are coming across negatively, yet your replies have continued to portray the same strident and self centered attitude.  This is a community site, hosted by Matrix, and if you are interfering with the communty's enjoyment of this forum, (and not with your criticisms of the game, you're just as entitled to your opinion as anyone else, but rather it is the manner in which you communicate to the rest of us that is aggravating), then the hosts have the right to protect the community that exists here.

[Erik Rutins]

Hi Neo,

The only thing you've possibly done wrong is being a sock puppet for a banned user. If you are not, then of course you will have my apologies. However, your personality and posting style are an exact match as well and this previous user was banned for good reason. We don't ban people for posting bug reports.

I'll take this to the other mods for their opinions.

Regards,

- Erik

[Erik Rutins]

After discussion with the other mods and some research, we were able to confirm through further research without any remaining doubt that you are indeed a sock puppet for the banned user Ravinhood. Creating a new account to get around a ban is a violation of forum policies. Your new account has been banned as well.

Regards,

- Erik

[Farrels]

Hey Guys

Just like to share my thoughts about legends with the new patch and after a weekend of play:

Fleet postures - once you get your head around them they really make things a lot easier (many thanks to the guy that made the guide in the War room) to manager your empires defences. Had a decent war agains the Mortalens (sp) and the AI did a good job of defending my colonies

SOI - I know people have stated that it grows too small but i think its okay, however i still occasionally have other empires build stuff in my SOI? This mainly occurs in where i have stars that i have not explored yet and the AI empires manage to sneek a base in their

The AI - still too easy to play against on a level playing field. However if you give them advanced start they can really give you some headaches. I gave the Mortalens and Quameno an advanced start in my last game, the Quameno pretty much dominated all wonders and the economy, while the Mortalens waged an effective campaign against me for some years until i broke them. This leads onto my next point where i think the AI struggles - limited construction bays. I was able to break the Morts because they ran out of construction capacity - at one point they had 91 ships being constructed at their HW space port where i just proceeded to mop them up.

Performance - very stable no crashes, this is on 400 star galaxies which is about the limit on my laptop - however i have a weird issue where sounds stops working or becomes choppy - ive twiddled with the settings but i always have this issue.

All in all its a great expansion and im really enjoying it, my only minor gripe at this point is making the AI a bit more competative [:)]

Farrels