No more bad guys?

[mordachai]

Everyone is heroic now in the .8.0 and .8.1 eras.

Mortalen, and to some real extent, even the Boscara.

Everyone wants to befriend. Everyone wants a trade deal coupled with a non-aggression treaty. WTH? Everyone just trusts everyone (or really, really wants to) on Chaos, constantly?

Everyone befriends everyone else - so if you - out of extreme boredom - attack someone - the entire galaxy goes to war with you, which is just not that interesting. All or none. Not really a recipe for fun.

Where are the mortalens or boscars at least conquering neutrals? Seems gone.
Where is the humans or haakonish deciding they just want to conquer a few stubborn neutrals? Gone.

There's a bug in the game - incontrovertible - where any worlds in an empire that go-neutral, are never reconquered by their former masters. They'll sit neutral begging me to come colonize them - while their empire just sits there and never lifts a hand for a dozen generations (probably forever, seems to fall out of their vision and become invisible to their former masters - never something to be dealt with).

In general - AIs stop expanding early and often, and just sit there. I'm exploring, finding neutral worlds or great colonization candidates - and even if I ignore them for eons - my neighbors ignore them longer, and in the current system - I become ultra-Heroic and they beg me to join without ever lifting a finger. So eventually I'm like - hell - if you want to joint that badly, I'll send a colonizer, jeeze!

And my empire grows - without ever fighting a war - without ever being contested - to span the galaxy, while everyone else is buddy-buddy (on Chaos, and me Extreme Difficulty, them starting at tech 1 + young empires, me pre-warp).

What's extreme is the ho and the hum.

I so want to have a game where the AIs are willing to fight me (and each other) to expand. Where maybe alliances are formed, but not everyone is in an alliance together!!! Maybe two teakens can get along, or say Humans + Liir, or maybe even a rare Haakonish + Mortalen -- but most often, folks should be suspicious and envious and there should be a reason to go to war to expand territory or obtain needed resources.

I mean - that's kind of a sucky philosophy for the real world, but it's a shit ton more fun for a space 4X game where war is a major, major component.

Unless this really is "sim city" in space, and there's NOTHING TO DO but watch the nice freighters deliver materials for a new United Empires facility celebrating endless galactic nirvana?

[arvcran2]

*chuckle* ... the GAME settings can fork an experience for sim city in space, or have the simulation of the fun you are looking for ... I think the Betas are geared to testing out a biased setting. Or ... it is bugged as you suggest.

[StormingKiwi]

Yes this a real problem, and it contributes to making the game boring.

A similar thread started discussing this issue on the Steam forums too.

[arvcran2]

Yes this a real problem, and it contributes to making the game boring.

A similar thread started discussing this issue on the Steam forums too.

Ultimately a person is in charge of setting their mode to interested and fun. You can always find a way to make something interesting at least, making it fun enables your potential to succeed with your interests. But that is only my opinion on the matter.

[StormingKiwi]

Yes this a real problem, and it contributes to making the game boring.

A similar thread started discussing this issue on the Steam forums too.

Ultimately a person is in charge of setting their mode to interested and fun. You can always find a way to make something interesting at least, making it fun enables your potential to succeed with your interests. But that is only my opinion on the matter.

So what settings would you recommend?

[arvcran2]

Yes this a real problem, and it contributes to making the game boring.

A similar thread started discussing this issue on the Steam forums too.

Ultimately a person is in charge of setting their mode to interested and fun. You can always find a way to make something interesting at least, making it fun enables your potential to succeed with your interests. But that is only my opinion on the matter.

So what settings would you recommend?

I have not read the steam forum thread. By 'setting' I meant a person's attitude toward what they are doing, immersing themselves into a state of interest, and also seeking enjoyment from the feedback of their journey ... if those words make any sense. The pirates are a source of 'bad guy' potential seeing as they are nomads and are possibly survivalists desperate for the next scrap of Mebnar and things. How you react to the game is up to you to appreciate or not. I like to make everything interesting and fun if I can. Admittedly it is not always an easy task ... but I am getting better at it every day *fingers crossed*.

[StormingKiwi]

Ultimately a person is in charge of setting their mode to interested and fun. You can always find a way to make something interesting at least, making it fun enables your potential to succeed with your interests. But that is only my opinion on the matter.

So what settings would you recommend?

I have not read the steam forum thread. By 'setting' I meant a person's attitude toward what they are doing, immersing themselves into a state of interest, and also seeking enjoyment from the feedback of their journey ... if those words make any sense. The pirates are a source of 'bad guy' potential seeing as they are nomads and are possibly survivalists desperate for the next scrap of Mebnar and things. How you react to the game is up to you to appreciate or not. I like to make everything interesting and fun if I can. Admittedly it is not always an easy task ... but I am getting better at it every day *fingers crossed*.

Oh right, I see what you are saying.
Why do you assume that the mode of Mordachai and myself is not set to interested and fun?



Getting back to the actual gameplay issue, everybody being friends with everybody does not lead to an engaging interactive experience.

[Jorgen_CAB]

Some conflict obviously is needed or it will become stale and not as interesting.

There do seem to be some issues with how relations form in the latest patches released.

[mordachai]

yeah - it's hard to know for certain - not sure how far back the current positive rep modifiers for invasion and other nefarious things goes -

It seemed to me that earlier it was more of the gang-on behaviors where all of the "good guys" became one big happy family (on all settings, including chaos), except for the Boskarans.

Currently - even Boskarans get to be loved by all because absolutely everything results in a + modifier (well, declaring war with insufficient provocation is a whopping -1 to your typical +50 to +150 due to your earlier behaviors).

It's just impossible not to be in the club (despite Carlan's insistence that it's a big club, but you're not in it - more like all-inclusive club at this point).

Fixing that bug - I still think there's WAY TOO MUCH tendency for there to be "all good" on a single team. And that's just not how things become interesting (let alone realistic). It makes for a very dull encounter when Humans can't even be mad at Teekans for stealing the good trade routes or Haakonish don't snub the Humans, because why not?!

---

One of the major drivers of social strife that has been turned into a non-starter is the spying / espionage system.

Used to be it pissed folks off - but was successful often enough - and it made sense to use it.

Now it's useful for level 0 and maybe level 1 techs - after that - it's useless in all games, no matter your race or theirs.

So it stops being a diplomatic factor after the very early game - and doesn't drive anger / retaliation / reputation / etc., because it's useless / the automation refuses to take the extreme risk - so all of your spies sit on their hands up their dierreiers.

[arvcran2]

Why do you assume that the mode of Mordachai and myself is not set to interested and fun?

'mode'? Perhaps there was a miscommunication?

I agree in principle, that lowering the causality of playing with bad guys, or taking on the role of a bad guy, may be fun. I am a little concerned about the effects it might have in our safety. But also fathom to understand that the process is about providing it - a canondrum of effort . It is an interesting subject and am in the context of it based on what I am hoping to better understand in this community.

My intensions are not to offend or be offended but to participate, and also contribute.

Getting back to the actual gameplay issue, everybody being friends with everybody does not lead to an engaging interactive experience.

I think I am covering that in my reply above the last quoted. But I could also strongly disagree with you on the thoughts of the last quote if I understood it as was intended.

[Erik Rutins]

Everyone is heroic now in the .8.0 and .8.1 eras.
Mortalen, and to some real extent, even the Boscara.
Everyone wants to befriend. Everyone wants a trade deal coupled with a non-aggression treaty. WTH? Everyone just trusts everyone (or really, really wants to) on Chaos, constantly?
Everyone befriends everyone else - so if you - out of extreme boredom - attack someone - the entire galaxy goes to war with you, which is just not that interesting. All or none. Not really a recipe for fun.

This is because of a bug in the beta, which should be resolved in this week's beta.

[Nightskies]

Haven't even played 1.0.8, but its pretty clear. Feelin' like a bug-fix is a band-aid.

The reputation system's a bit brutish (like my communication). That Boskara will happily hold hands because of good reputation? Its not just that its too easy to get good reputation. Its that reputation is a linear black-white scale, and that empires don't start it to begin with. At best, reputation will be bearable as is.

It wasn't an issue before because most actions disappeared from reputation quickly, making reputation largely irrelevant until it's been stacked enough to make independent colonization easy, or difficult. Even then, in time, it faded entirely. With reputation more lasting, even somewhat permanent, it exposes the problem with black-and-white reputation starting from 0 across the board.

Aside from going back to the way it was, the only solutions to this are, unfortunately, convoluted. We are talking about a morality system, however, applying to different mindsets of alien governments that are inclined to war with each other over moral differences. Here are some ideas to fix it.

1. Default reputation based on race and starting government type that decays enough that it'll be gone late mid game, but strong enough that'll help draw lines, but also not so strong as to dissuade would-be nefarious allies. Or make some races/governments not care about reputation, or less so, perhaps even inversely.

2. Each individual kind of action can only push so far, for example, an empire that regularly captures stations out of war should never reach the reputation of an empire that engages in genocide, regardless of how many stations they take. Then, only the most extreme positive or negative modifier should be full value- every other modifier should be halved (or more). An empire that steals a few stations, bombs a little, declares a single unjustified war, and got caught doing espionage a couple times should not be a vile empire by reputation- and likewise for positive values. This is with the dabbling first time player in mind especially.

3. Make reputation not affect the willingness of an empire to sign treaties and engage in war. In other words, remove the relation impact of Reputation. Instead, make it affect the willingness to engage in and make favorable exchanges (explicitly not Trade pacts or treaties). Consider diminishing the impact of reputation on Independents as well.

4. Expand Reputation from a single value into 3 Reputation values. Each race considers each value differently, preferring a positive or negative value with differing weight, to the point that they don't care about some positive and/or negative values at all.

First: Deceptive / Loyal. A measure of willingness to engage in, and adversely break treaties and engage in espionage (notably against allies).
Second: Brutal / Chivalrous. A measure of willingness to cause civilian casualties, eliminate empires (based on their reputation in this value- a Chivalrous empire would gain Chivalry for eliminating a Brutal empire) and engage in bombardment/genocide.
Third: Tyrannical / Altruistic. A measure of willingness to declare unjustified war and subjugate or amicably end wars. Also forcefully or peacefully integrate independents.

Teekans would value a Loyal empire greatly. Humans would value an Altruistic and Chivalrous one and don't care about Deceptive. Mortalen- Chivalrous (maybe?) and Tyrannical, not caring about Deceptive/Loyal. Haakonish- favor Brutal, Tyrannical and Loyal. Boskara, Brutal, Deceptive, Tyrannical. Independents and pirates would only care about the third measure- as far as Reputation goes. Everyone still dislikes being the target of bombardment, regardless of how they feel about Brutality.

Creating the 3 Reputation values and setting the weights for each race/government would be the most time consuming part, but it would firmly solve the issue with Reputation making everyone Heroes without taking away the player's agency in becoming a Hero or vice-versa, and of critical importance, it wouldn't be a revamp of Reputation, but a sizable adjustment/addition.

...Well #4 is more of a dream, I realize, but it's already there, hoping to be seen...

[Jorgen_CAB]

I like the forth option. Having a few different categories of reputation would be so much better than the single value that really don't tell much about why that faction is liked or disliked and for what. It also introduce differences in how factions value the reputation score in the various categories.

This would be a more interesting system, I hope they at least to some degree contemplate something to this effect sometimes in the future.

[Erik Rutins]

You may not be aware, but the recent betas have involved a pretty major re-engineering of reputation, diplomacy and a bunch of related systems and effects. Far from just a band-aid. I'd suggest starting a new game with the latest 1.0.8.3 and giving it a try with fresh eyes to see if reputation, diplomacy and all that feel "right" now or not.

[mordachai]

You may not be aware, but the recent betas have involved a pretty major re-engineering of reputation, diplomacy and a bunch of related systems and effects. Far from just a band-aid. I'd suggest starting a new game with the latest 1.0.8.3 and giving it a try with fresh eyes to see if reputation, diplomacy and all that feel "right" now or not.

Woo Hoo!

Will do!

[Nightskies]

Apologies Erik, I did not mean to belittle the efforts (brutish communication). Rather, I appreciate it and continued effort in looking into the systems. I can't even imagine the situation/feeling upon discovering that the intended feature of subjugation was set up but not implemented!

With 1.0.8.3 I'll give it a go, intentionally going for a more political mess, trying to set up for no certain allies. And will be a disgustingly positive reputation monster as humans and try to make a hive mind Boskara as a friend at all costs to see just how much it costs.

[Nightskies]

The soft caps work well with 1.0.8.3, and some factions regard reputation differently. Both things I was thinking would be solutions, already in. The changes (at least I don't remember different factions regarding reputation differently?) are satisfying.

[StormingKiwi]

Why do you assume that the mode of Mordachai and myself is not set to interested and fun?

'mode'? Perhaps there was a miscommunication?

I agree in principle, that lowering the causality of playing with bad guys, or taking on the role of a bad guy, may be fun. I am a little concerned about the effects it might have in our safety. But also fathom to understand that the process is about providing it - a canondrum of effort . It is an interesting subject and am in the context of it based on what I am hoping to better understand in this community.

My intensions are not to offend or be offended but to participate, and also contribute.

Getting back to the actual gameplay issue, everybody being friends with everybody does not lead to an engaging interactive experience.

I think I am covering that in my reply above the last quoted. But I could also strongly disagree with you on the thoughts of the last quote if I understood it as was intended.

Here's the root of the miscommunication:

Yes this a real problem, and it contributes to making the game boring.

A similar thread started discussing this issue on the Steam forums too.

Ultimately a person is in charge of setting their mode to interested and fun. You can always find a way to make something interesting at least, making it fun enables your potential to succeed with your interests. But that is only my opinion on the matter.

To be clear, when I said "everybody", I did not mean forum users, but empires in DW2.

[arvcran2]

To be clear, when I said "everybody", I did not mean forum users, but empires in DW2.

Thank, you for that! My mistake in assuming forum users are actual players of the game.

[StormingKiwi]

To be clear, when I said "everybody", I did not mean forum users, but empires in DW2.

Thank, you for that! My mistake in assuming forum users are actual players of the game.

To be clear, part 2: when I say "everybody being friends with everybody", I am talking within the context of the game, not the forums.
In the game context, the empires can be openly hostile and actively murder each other. That is all part of the engaging interactive experience.
On the forums, forum users actively murdering each other is less enjoyable.