Matrix Games Forums

Most negative reviews that I have read about the game comes from people that the game really are not marketed for and who though this was something it is not.

If anything the game should be marketed harder as a space simulation grand strategy game rather than a typical 4x game, that would weed out allot of misconception of what the game is about and get the correct player audience from the start.

But that is just my opinion and not necessarily true in a broader sense.

StormingKiwi wrote: Sun Jul 21, 2024 6:06 am

Jorgen_CAB wrote: Wed Jul 17, 2024 9:46 pm Could the upgrade be better and smoother, sure yes it could be. Perhaps they will do something there eventually. I would just be happy if I had the option to automatically obsolete the copied model after I copied a hull and edited with a new components. Now I have to manually obsolete the old model.

I'm sure they will improve on this eventually but I must say it is not a high priority on my list of things I want for the game.

You can do that. Use the upgrade button, then edit the components you need changing.

That is MUCH worse as the AI will remove/replace and rearrange the components I carefully laid out on the designs. using the copy function is way better in almost all cases for me personally.

I realized I was regarding UX as synonymous with UI and would amend that it is a higher level complaint from "dismissible" to "unimportant" with regard to the lack of a substantial in-game tutorial. The Galactopedia and in-game Tours do cover the majority of the game enough for anyone that reads it attentively. This admittedly is a little hurdle, but it works. There are a few bits of information that are outdated but these are largely inconsequential. Part of the charm of the game is for the player to find their way to play and what strategies they'll develop, adapting as they learn the mechanics of the game. Even deciding what constitutes a win is entirely in their hands.

These points are in disregard to my personal preference. Its instead focusing on what I've observed in others as discussed. It is not take a raw account of what they're asking for, but rather what developments would actually help them with their biggest legitimate gripes. These are what I think are the most important points for development from that narrowed perspective.

1. Performance
It has come a long way, and its questionable if there's much more to improve in the current state, all things considered, but... if tapped by a magic wand, this is still the biggest singular thing. More than just an issue of getting in the way of enjoyment, it occasionally disrupts the game with induced errors and slowly updated values.

How to improve it? *big shrug* - maybe use the GPU for some low-level computations that are repeated on a large scale. As I understand it, the GPU is under-utilized, especially for those of us who get a decent GPU for other games. Maybe fighters can be handled by it, depending on how they're simulated off-screen. Maybe it could handle some of those off-screen simulations, like positions and movement. Perhaps things could be locked into simulation mode with only symbolic representation of what's going on even at a local level (showing 'fleets A, C and E are here') until actively selecting something involved. Mere guesses for more solutions to this.


2. Notifications and Suggestions
The importance of notifications should not be dismissed, no pun intended. As it is, the mass of notifications is diluting their usefulness, and is contributing to the numbness that players experience if they aren't tracking the actions of the empire themselves. At least by some point in the game.

There's a number of improvements to be had here. Its the notifications themselves and the filter that need attention- the way they are presented is fine. By the midgame, the player is barraged with notifications, the majority of which are insignificant. The current filtering system leaves much to be desired with broad categories including vital notifications lumped with absolutely trivial ones, and the suggestions are tedious to handle with no filter for them.

In other words, regardless of the setting, the notifications are a lose-lose as is. A player relying on these will be overwhelmed and disoriented eventually- many of these notifications require the game to be paused to handle the swarm of them- not even considering the ones that pause the game on their own. On the other hand, its also easy to forget or not notice things entirely with the notifications off (you won't know one of the four colonies in a distant nebula got a lucky sneak-invasion in on it until you look at the system level), or let the automation handle things comparatively sloppily.

Its not just "Yes to All" and "Don't Show Again" that is missing, it ought to be "We now have the Planetary Fighter Facility V3. It will cost 0 to upgrade. Shall queue upgrades our facilities?" and "Shall we automatically dismantle terraforming once complete?" and be able to filter out many more categories of messages.

The suggestions should be less about telling the player what the automation wants to do and more about helping the player successfully manage the empire. I understand the game was made from the perspective of making a living galaxy with a lot of focus on the AI, but more love should have been given to the player role. Instead, it feels like the player was dropped on top of the automation and given the controls and authority to override it, a manual of the controls, and access to a few things automation doesn't have. That points to the feel of watching an ant farm.

There are potential UI improvements here as well (let me minimize an event to assess other things before making a choice, a log of suggestions, etc), but that's secondary.

This could be lumped into an expansion of empire policies to have finer control over various aspects (e.g. 'automatically upgrade facilities'). The notifications and suggestions could point to the policies as well, encroaching on tutorial-like messages. And in lieu of an in-game tutorial, decent suggestions makes a fine substitute. Include links to Galactopedia entries more often, like with new technologies.

A good notification system is the difference between feeling like an emperor and a paper-pusher.


3. Galaxy Presets
Many players don't know how to craft their own galaxy, or lack the gumption to do something different.

They need help with making something challenging, or a little easier, or simply a little unique. For example, one I know would be popular, a scenario optimized for a more militaristic Human Supremacist, which would be a wee bit more difficult than other scenarios. We're not talking about crafting a specific galaxy for it, but making presets for all the settings for galaxy creation that they can subsequently freely tweak.

People like having choice, but they also like not having to make all the choices, adjusting only the things they care about. Like ordering a burger at a restaurant- they don't want to choose what kind of ketchup, how many pickles, if the cheese should be directly on the meat or on the lettuce, etc. They just want the Bacon Cheese Burger with no onions.

Bonus points for thematic presets or going an extra mile for events specifically made for those presets.


4. Order Queue
Without the ability to configure the automation to do what we want, the ability to at least give a list of orders for our units to do what we want without having to pay constant attention to them with every move is highly desirable. The ability to pause the game is a workaround, but this would be a major improvement to QoL and player agency (micro scale, of course).


Additional 'fixes' in no particular order, again all based on forum posts:

a. Fix the component priorities in the automated ship design
It just needs to do an okay job in the first place. If this continues to be a difficult thing, then give the players tools to fix it themselves in absolute settings, like this thread suggests in various ways. It would be better to fix it directly. My guess is that racial tech is simply weighted too heavily.

They've been hitting this point since December, probably? It appears that every individual racial item needs retroactive attention, and that doesn't seem to be an ideal solution. 90% accurate isn't good enough in this- I see no reason it can't be 100%, even if it takes manually assigning absolute priority values to each item by category. Perhaps the formula needs reworked...


b. Fix population controls by making them proactive
Automation now does the right choices for population control, but it does so after the undesired population is on a colony. Why doesn't it do so before that happens?

I didn't pick up on when the automation got better to do population control at all, so perhaps its good enough now and those posts can be laid to rest.


c. Fix colony ships loading the wrong population
:3
Might I suggest resorting to cheating, magically converting population to the correct type so long as the empire has a valid source? I assure you, nobody will complain. Some might notice and comment about it, but if told colony ships were struggling with it, they'll ignore the body of the border inspector in the corner.


Okay, I should be putting my attention toward that tutorial that I've been working on. Re-working? Editing? Agonizing over? Eh, you get the point...

...

Say, you up for giving me your perspective on what I have (nearly finished) so far?

Nightskies wrote: Mon Jul 22, 2024 7:31 pm Okay, I should be putting my attention toward that tutorial that I've been working on. Re-working? Editing? Agonizing over? Eh, you get the point...

...

Say, you up for giving me your perspective on what I have (nearly finished) so far?

Sure, shoot it through.

Its a through step-by-step guide to playing for new players. I've temporarily published it on steam, so primarily you (and incidentally anyone else with the gumption to comment) can see it in its intended format.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/ ... 3196071242

Got it saved to my computer as a PDF, I'll read through it.