Internal Build Feedback

from Stardock Forums

There was a stream at http://www.twitch.tv/primevalciv that had the latest internal build with Soren, his wife, some friends, and some players. Here are my thoughts:

 

1. The game needs an early win condition, something to prevent every map going into 1 Steel, 1 Aluminum or 2 Steel. Obviously, this is RTS, and this won't happen in every game, but I feel there needs to be something to bring excitement to the early game and prevent standard or greedy openings from happening every game. 

Good things happen when you have early threats: See a related Starcraft example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE59uz9z4Qo. The game is game 7 of the biggest tournament in the world for Starcraft, and the player DOESN'T pick the safe option. Obviously, there's a lot of visual back-and-forth that I don't know how or even if we could include this into offworld, but I feel the presence of an early option/threat is a necessity.

 

2. Blizzard missed out on tons of opportunities for microtransactions. I won't go into details, but in general, there is tons of room for customization in Starcraft. Your units all have in-game models that, in a perfect world, could be changed (a little, but not an unrecognizable amount) for a bit of cash. In League of Legends, there is a software called MKJOGO that shows a different character model for only you, and nobody else. This would give the user enjoyment, but prevent the confusion of other players.

Here, you could have a restaurant theme: the materials could be tomatoes, milk, and grain that build into marinara sauce, cheese, and dough that finish into pizza and garlic rolls. Or, you could be a weapons shop. Springs, triggers, bullets, chambers. Your company could be a biological organism. Amino acids, proteins, carbohydrates, lipids. Remember, the other players won't be confused. To them, your resources will look the same. Maybe only your command center would look different. Your personal overlay could look different. The labels on the resources would change, but not the underlying game mechanics. 

 

3. Easier learning curve. Disclaimer: I come from a heavy Starcraft 2 background. I played since release in 2010, and played in an MLG open bracket (Winter 2012 in Dallas), and actually won some of the games I played there. This being said, I think it's so easy to become frustrated and give up playing something that you just don't understand. I purchased the Early Access after watching Day9 play it, and quickly became confused. I even found myself going back to Starcraft, simply because it felt better to me to know what the heck I was doing. 

Maybe this easier learning curve comes from a walk-through, hand-holding tutorial (the prices are high! you should click *here* to sell), or from super easy campaign missions. Everyone makes fun of easy early video game levels, but I think they're a big deal in teaching new players and getting people acclimated without sending everyone to PrimEval's Youtube channel (which has been awesome, by the way). 

 

Let me know what you think! Hoping to hear back from Soren here :D Love this game, job well done so far. 

 

 

37,300 views 6 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

Thanks for the feedback - would love to hear suggests about your first point as I am also concerned that Steel, Steel, Aluminium is becoming such a standard strategy. (That is not so bad for new players, but there should be some alternatives, at least.)

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

I've already moved far away from going for the standard steel/aluminum start. There are definitely alternatives that work counter to the current metagame, at least in large FFA's.

Star Control: Origins
Reply #3 from Stardock Forums Top

That's interesting. What are your current opening(s)?

Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top

Look at water: it's worthless early on, but as people start producing fuel, oxygen and food it can skyrocket. It can also serve as fuel or power, with right technology. It makes water much more interesting resource. Both when it's scarce and plentiful on map.

 

Steel and Aluminium are backbone of a standard strategy, because they are the most basic resources needed in order to expand. The way around this is by starting producing pricer goods to offset the need of buying Steel and Aluminium off the market. I guess this is especially good approach on Iron and Aluminium rich maps as everyone sell the excess goods, driving down their price.

 

I am going to check the viability of such shift in approach and report back here in a day or two.

 

 

Reply #5 from Stardock Forums Top

If a player doesn't produce their own construction materials the prices will soon skyrocket almost always because the largest propensity of other players is to upgrade and upgrade and upgrade. The cost of construction materials will rise by 50-60$ just from upgrading to lv 3 or 4 and building life support structures. Life support + power + fuel can go into debt which isn't so bad because debt has practically no consequence until later in game. Steel Aluminium and Carbon are the easiest to produce and consequently the ones that are produced first, because they can not be bought from debt whereas consumables can. I've never seen any competitive player do well who produced life support first. A player with construction materials production can move into anything, whereas a player with life support is at the mercy of what other players do (and thus what happens to life support) and that is a major weakness.

One the major weaknesses of robotic is that they have almost no construction bonuses whereas other factions like scientific don't need iron or silicon harvesters, scavenger can quarry from carbon triangles and expansionist has half the steel cost. Construction resources are consumed in much greater quantities than life support and that is why they must be produced first if a company is to maintain its competitive edge because con mats have an intrinsic value that is much greater than that of life support. The demand for life support is too low in my opinion.

Reply #6 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Soren_Johnson, reply 3

That's interesting. What are your current opening(s)?

 

Well, for a while I was going early power production since the price of power generally rose for the first part of the game with everyone going steel + aluminum instead of power. Founding on silicon was useful since you could get both high ground and good deposits, with little location competition. This doesn't seem quite as reliable now since wind turbines were increased 20%, so it doesn't take as many players building power buildings to keep the prices low. Prior, you could build a solar panel at level 1 to contain debt, then build a 2nd once you get additional claims either upgrading or from the blackmarket, for the adjadency bonus, using the profits to buy steel. Now, I tend to scout a little more at the beginning to see what everyone is building, but I tend to go for aluminum adjacent to the colony. Good for early mining, and then you can scrap them to put them to better use midgame, and finally start mining aluminum late game for electronics or to sell to offworld spammers.

This works because you alot of expansive players like going dual iron, 3 steel at the start, which really keeps the prices going. Also, you can manage your steel costs by managing your building choices. You can get by to colony level 3 for roughly 350-400 steel even being generous, with little intention

Lately, I've been targeting dry-ice locations, preferably with resources to found on, either silicon (for solar panels) or Alum to upgrade quicker. Going robotic with 2x dry ice provides a very nice transition into glass/electronics. Assuming 3 claims go to 2xdry ice + 1 power, youll be able to hit colony 2 with no problem where you'll want to grab silicon and make glass.  Situational, but very strong. It's trickier if theres no dry ice, but you can go 2x fuel --> 2x glass with scientific and sacrifice a bit in the early game for a stronger mid-game, although thats 240 steel minimum. Getting an alum mine is helpful, but I'll found on it opposed to mine from far away as you get a stuck alum claim when prices fall as they usually do. As with any of these, you really want to see what the players are going for to look for the shortages exploits.

With expansive its easier to skip steel entirely since it only uses half as much and you get extra claims (costs more steel) but at the same time you can produce other resources to offset the higher steel costs.

All of these plays assumes sticking at colony size 3 until steel is cheap on the market. If steel appears underproduced, I'll jump into its production. Also, it makes patent lab/engineering difficult and ignores geothermals.

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