Disable Tech Tree Specializations! » Forum Post by alphaprior

Dumhed

Join Date 08/2005

+29

I'd be in favor of a bit of nerfing.

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I like having to choose and knowing that I am giving up something else when I do. Keep it as is.

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a0152570

Join Date 06/2014

+49

first : I apologize

i was going to say something tactless to all you haters like;

get a life, it's SD's game and specializations are part of it

but the point about Extreme Worlds and invasions (especially invasions ) is kinda valid

so i'm glad i didn't say what i was going to say

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Quoting kestlstw,

reply 73

Yes the nerd rage is strong because paying $50 for a game and having to mod it extensively to make it enjoyable was exactly what I wanted.

You took a gamble when you bought into an alpha or beta of an unfinished game. Your gamble didn't pay off for you. You win some, you lose some. You make it sound like you paid $50 for a finsihed product with full understanding of what that product was and would be at time of purchase. No, you gambled $50 that a video game would be enjoyable in the end. You took that risk becuase you just had to play galciv 3 at that time. You just couldn't wait, could you?

+1

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Quoting jmontesi4,

reply 36

"Pick A, B or C, those you didn't pick get more expensive or it's effectiveness gets reduced."

So the "choice" instead becomes "I choose to specialize and I get a benifit, but I can get the other choices at a cost (time and/or lost opportunity)"

The only issue I see with this, which actually I'd written a post advocating before I saw this one, is how easily can get the game to accurately go: "Right, Player 1 researched Missiles to their fullest capacity so their Missile V = Top Grade, however they subsequently researched Beams. Now, the workers spent so much time researching Missiles that their research on Beams was a little off, so let's nerf their Beams so each of Player 1's Beam Upgrades = .Something of Dedicated Beam Researcher's Beam Upgrade ie Player 1's Beam III = Dedicated Beam Researcher's I.5"? That seems quite a tricky calculation.

I absolutely see the logic behind making a choice have a negative or at least not-optimal affect on choices you make in a related area.

torklan - seems to me if there's an option to make weapons lighter, that should affect a ship's speed/moves per turn (how the heck do you judge maneuverability outside of combat? Speed is relevant in or outside of combat situations) Something tangible and easy to see when moving your fleet/ship - as you say, you can see the effect of making weapons cheaper (less bc to spend) and smaller (more room for more stuff on your ship) so why not do that with weight?

I'm advocating that when you build a new ship, the game tells you it's Base Speed (based on what Engines you've chosen) unencumbered by any Weapon/Module/Defence and calculates the effect each Weapon/Module/Defense Addition has on that Base Speed. The game also knows an unLightened Sparrow Missile II weighs 1.5, affecting speed negativily by say -.1 per turn. So when you choose the "Make My Weapons Light" specialisation road (whatever it's called in the game), that now weighs 1.3, affecting speed -.08 per turn.

Sorry if what I'm suggesting already occurs, I haven't touched the Ship Designer yet.

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+1 for specializations and +1 for the need to balance them so there isn't always a superior choice. Oh, and +1 to let us colonize all planets, so no specializations for that tech.

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Quoting Stanley Tarrant,

reply 104

Quoting kestlstw,

reply 73

Yes the nerd rage is strong because paying $50 for a game and having to mod it extensively to make it enjoyable was exactly what I wanted.

You took a gamble when you bought into an alpha or beta of an unfinished game. Your gamble didn't pay off for you. You win some, you lose some. You make it sound like you paid $50 for a finsihed product with full understanding of what that product was and would be at time of purchase. No, you gambled $50 that a video game would be enjoyable in the end. You took that risk becuase you just had to play galciv 3 at that time. You just couldn't wait, could you?

I paid my Founders fee hoping I could influence the way GalCiv3 ended up but fully expecting some random choices would be selected by SD as being worthy of being in the game, some of which I'd not like. If I'd expected SD to listen to me and do what I'd wanted, well, I don't think my bank would loan me $300,000 or so to influence the development of a video game.

Moral of the story: You want the game to be perfect for you - design it yourself or pay someone shedloads of money to do it. I wasn't prepared to do either.

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As mrblindini said, I paid to try to influence the direction of the game. I've generally gone for make things optional so both sides of all of the many aspects of these games where people like different things are accommodated. I'm really not happy with the amount of modding I'll have to do to get things where I want but that the game was designed to be fairly easily modded was the main selling point for me when I bought it last year.

What I really don't appreciate is Brad and Paul mocking the people that support them because they have different opinions and enjoy playing the game differently. Although I find if funny that about half of the people crowing they got their way are still whining, according to themselves, about extreme worlds. I don't understand how people can say specializations are great, except here and here and not get that this is the point they are arguing against. Specializations as they are presented so far are not special and don't improve the game and I don't have confidence that Stardock will make those choices balanced before release or even a month afterward.

My expectation at this point is that I will have to make my own tech trees for each and every race to get the balance I want and while I'm at is I'll add some buildings I think will be interesting and probably just kill morale because, again, I expect Stardock isn't going to make it worth paying attention to before release.

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I hate the fact that no matter what,,,I cannot research a tech to improve. Specialization is like saying, no matter what you do,,,you can't have this.,,,Well maybe I'll just go back to playing GS2, or Birth of the Federation. BOF has some great mods now too......

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Maiden666

Join Date 12/2008

+62

Technologies that come with penalties are problematic in that these techs can destroy/harm stuff that already works well enough and it might even cause bugs. For example, a ship-design could become unproduceable if the penalty of a price-reduction bonus would be increased space. Suddenly, a frigate could only muster n-1 attack modules, and this design (which would have less attack) will become the best new design and the AI might upgrade ships to this, making himself weaker.

Even if the amount of modules stay the same, the shipdesign will become cheaper and the AI might upgrade his ship to this which will still cost him money (ie. downgrading is expensive as well), providing no bonuses but in the case of future upgrade - making these even more expensive because the base value of this new design is of less value than the original one.

And the AI doesn't decline techoffers or gifts with any consideration of this mechanisms in mind, so a player could exploit this weakness. It could even be that current produced ships in the shipyard might become stuck (because unproduceable) or that the queues are cancelled out completely.

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Quoting BuckGodot,

reply 22

Specialization is just a name. If they were never called "Specializations" I doubt many people would be clamoring from them to be restricted in many of the cases.

As it is, SOME of the "specializations" absolutely need to be re-worked. Being only able to fully upgrade a couple of Extreme Worlds is Unfun. Trying to finagle the game so other factions research them for you is not realistically possible in some cases, as they are at the very end of the tech tree.

Yes, I can see the case for some specializations being exclusive, though I don't agree with the idea. But others? Like, again, Extreme Worlds? No way. That really needs to change, IMO.

Extreme world specialisations, is IMHO, one of the few actual specialisation choices we actually have to make. The idea of being an aquatic world, and a frozen world, and a barren world "expert" all at the same time is not logical - we cannot realistically expect to be an expert in every field. Choosing this specialisation is a real choice with true impact on future game turns/outcome. Sadly we have all to few real choices to make.

To have more impact, a specialisation choice should probably have a whole set or branch of further research that can only be accessed because of the previous "specialisation" choice. For instance "green techs" or "out right production boosters"... green techs might give smaller prod bonus but the outright production boosting choices while giving more production add to population discontent. Having chosen to go green, all future production has to follow the green track not give me the option in the next step to pick a polluting tech. Or green give access to some of the terra forming options that are denied to the non green if tying in population happiness is too complicated.

The idea that I can research beam weapons but not make them smaller, cheaper, faster, etc. etc. is unrealistic.

Possibly we should be able to go back in the tech tree once we have developed the next step, or the one after that.

Just a few thoughts

Ian

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Specializations fit in with the lore of the game. Afterall, for some odd reasons, the Drengin never figured out how to make portable hyper drive when they had a form of huge hyper drive (the star gates). It seems to me, some Drengin mad scientist would have eventually figured it out, but they didn't. Also, as was pointed out earlier, the span of the game is a few devades. Yes, eventually, a civ might be able to perfect everything (have stuff be better, faster, AND cheaper to boot), but in a few decades in a warhammer 40K type world, where maybe not as much time is spent on research because the galaxy is on fire with constant war with other civs MAY be realistic.

Also, realism aside, a point was made a long time ago that if this game was going to be realistic, then battles in deep space should never occur. This is because even a huge ship in several thousand cubic light years of vaccumme is far worse than the tiniest needle in the largest haystack. Is it realistic that a civ can research all specialisizations? Sure. Is realism a cornerstone for this game? I would say no.

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Also, Frogboy is not mocking anyone. He is giving very short and to the point answers on his position. As CEO of a growing company, he doesn't always have time to cobble together multiple paragraph answers. Remember, he is also the AI programmer. How many CEOs of companies also do grunt work?

Stardock should take a poll on the old way vice the new way of doing specializations. While I very much support a constitutional repbulic over democracy, I think democracy is appropraite for game development. I have a feeling those who prefer the old way are in a minority.

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Quoting wpkelley41,

reply 94

Devil's advocate: could the developers put in a simple racial trait like "Creative," for those that don't agree? Just a thought.

Great idea for those that want it.

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trims2u

Join Date 08/2010

+26

DO note, that tech specialization (and preclusion of alternates) happens in the Real World all the time. It tends to be heavily reinforced by the "installed base" legacy issue.

For example: we use Binary math in computers, and Decimal math elsewhere. We know about Trinary Math for computing, and it's even been prototyped. It also has some advantages over Binary. But the cost to swap our infrastructure over to Trinary is ludicrously high. The same goes for using Hexadecimal in ordinary life - we'd actually have very signficant bonuses if we used Binary in computing and Hex in normal life. But we won't, because we've (as a civilization) made the choice long ago to use Decimal.

The same kind of tradeoffs exist all throughout technology. There are lots of places where prior decisions simply preclude, from a practical standpoint, the ability to take advantage of new ideas. There are plenty of places where we certainly can introduce new memes and ideas to replace old ones, but it's by no means a universal truth that you can always change your mind (as a society) and adopt new technology whenever you want. That's simply not always possible.

Especially on the timescale we're talking about here, which is less than a century. The US has been trying to Metricize for a half century now. Still can't do it.

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Quoting Stanley Tarrant,

reply 113

Also, Frogboy is not mocking anyone. He is giving very short and to the point answers on his position. As CEO of a growing company, he doesn't always have time to cobble together multiple paragraph answers. Remember, he is also the AI programmer. How many CEOs of companies also do grunt work?

Stardock should take a poll on the old way vice the new way of doing specializations. While I very much support a constitutional repbulic over democracy, I think democracy is appropraite for game development. I have a feeling those who prefer the old way are in a minority.

Watch yesterday's dev stream.

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Quoting trims2u,

reply 115

DO note, that tech specialization (and preclusion of alternates) happens in the Real World all the time. It tends to be heavily reinforced by the "installed base" legacy issue.

Honestly, I am getting tired of the "realism" argument (and trims2u this is not directed at you but this argument point in general).

The "reality" is....both sides are realistic. In this sci fi world we have, both options would make complete sense in lore.

So the debate is not which way is the more realistic, but which way is simply better for the game.

Stardock has made its position on this point clear. I disagree with it myself, but I understand it. And this close to release, its not going to get changed.

So I think as a community, the best help we can offer is to tackle the new problem: making the specialization competitive with each other.

There are far too many specializations that are no-brainers, but that is a balance problem, and there is still time to fix some of those before or right after release. So I would recommend people's energies be geared towards that goal, or to a mod to go back to the old system.

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Quoting trims2u,

reply 115

DO note, that tech specialization (and preclusion of alternates) happens in the Real World all the time. It tends to be heavily reinforced by the "installed base" legacy issue.

For example: we use Binary math in computers, and Decimal math elsewhere. We know about Trinary Math for computing, and it's even been prototyped. It also has some advantages over Binary. But the cost to swap our infrastructure over to Trinary is ludicrously high. The same goes for using Hexadecimal in ordinary life - we'd actually have very signficant bonuses if we used Binary in computing and Hex in normal life. But we won't, because we've (as a civilization) made the choice long ago to use Decimal.

The same kind of tradeoffs exist all throughout technology. There are lots of places where prior decisions simply preclude, from a practical standpoint, the ability to take advantage of new ideas. There are plenty of places where we certainly can introduce new memes and ideas to replace old ones, but it's by no means a universal truth that you can always change your mind (as a society) and adopt new technology whenever you want. That's simply not always possible.

Especially on the timescale we're talking about here, which is less than a century. The US has been trying to Metricize for a half century now. Still can't do it.

We dont get many binary v. trinary decisions to make. Cheaper/faster/stronger is not a a fundamental society defining decision IMHO. We need more of the meaningful research decisions, leading to separate tech branches not restricting whether my binary PC is going to be either faster or cheaper or smaller but never faster and cheaper and smaller over time.

Ian

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Quoting kestlstw,

reply 116

Watch yesterday's dev stream.

Will do.... Perhaps I stand corrected. Oh frog boy... feeling froggy huh??

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Quoting ian7777,

reply 114

Quoting wpkelley41,

reply 94

Devil's advocate: could the developers put in a simple racial trait like "Creative," for those that don't agree? Just a thought.

Great idea for those that want it.

I second this.

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I watched the Dev;s stream posted on their YouTube channel. It confirmed three sad points.

1. The change to how specialization work is something they always intended on doing and from the sounds of it some point of the campaign.

2. The Dev's have no interest in rebalancing the tech trees now that we are forced to only select on option. I believe their comment was along the lines of just trade for the other techs.

3. The Devs have no respect for our comments on the forums. The two of the three developers doing the stream had a fun laugh opening mocking how they viewed our posts about the game.

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eviator

Join Date 08/2014

+62

Quoting torklan,

reply 121

I watched the Dev;s stream posted on their YouTube channel. It confirmed three sad points.

1. The change to how specialization work is something they always intended on doing and from the sounds of it some point of the campaign.

2. The Dev's have no interest in rebalancing the tech trees now that we are forced to only select on option. I believe their comment was along the lines of just trade for the other techs.

3. The Devs have no respect for our comments on the forums. The two of the three developers doing the stream had a fun laugh opening mocking how they viewed our posts about the game.

1. Okay

2. Wanting you to trade for the other techs doesn't imply they don't intend to balance them more. That is a poor inference.

3. I didn't sense a mocking or disrespectful tone. The whole stream they are laughing and joking trying to keep it light. Perhaps you are being hyper-sensitive?

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a0152570

Join Date 06/2014

+49

Quoting eviator,

reply 122

2. Wanting you to trade for the other techs doesn't imply they don't intend to balance them more. That is a poor inference.

IIRC > Paul said he was planning on re-balance them. Think it was the stream before last

Quoting eviator,

reply 122

I didn't sense a mocking or disrespectful tone. The whole stream they are laughing and joking trying to keep it light. Perhaps you are being hyper-sensitive?

Agree, however i did get a slight impression of >> It's my game and i make the rules so deal with it << which is all too true

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The guys at Stardock can make Galciv3 to be how they'd like it.

The situation we're in (by "We're" I mean those of us who offer up suggestions/complaints/compliments in the forums, not something I do too much of myself) is at worst- if I may be so dark and cynical - a generous con that the Founders were told that if they invested in Galciv 3 Alpha 0.0.20 (whatever it's number was), then they could offer up their suggestions, complaints and compliments and those would be listened to but, oh, look, on Gold Date there's not one thing you can point to where the SD crew went against something they'd orginally implemented.

But obviously we're not in this situation. We're just in the situation we all should have expected from Day 1. We make suggestions that get taken into the next patch/Beta/update whatever it's called. We make suggestions that get partially taken into the next etc etc. We make suggestions that get roundly ignored.

I think it's a hard line to toe, on the one hand wanting to put out the game you'd always intended to make while also letting advice, criticism etc from the forums have an impact on the game. I know that if it were me as Frogboy, I'd have three lists:

1. List of things that stuff the freaking forum bitching it'll create I'm boss and I want and will fucking well have in GalCiv3. Making us pick only 1 of 3 Specializations might well be one of those things.

2. List of things I'd really love in GalCiv3 and will vote and scream and yell to try and get my way but if I'm outvoted, ah well next time I'll yell louder. I'd try to get what I wanted added in a future DLC/Expansion. Might be races/traits etc and how they work, say.

3. List of things I'd like but if they get voted down really it's just cream on the cake stuff. Try again for a future DLC/Expansion. Effects/graphics/sounds kind of things.

And of course SD's ultimate damn smart thinking on their part Get Out Of Jail Free card after they've designed GalCiv3 to do things you don't like is:"Hey, we've made the game moddable so if you think our take on tech trees is crap, make your own. Don't like our Diplomacy? Go at it and fix it how you'd like it. We've given you the access to." As an addition to this, I don't think it's beholden on SD to give modding lessons/tutorials to fix what you don't like about GalCiv3. Good PR if they do, no biggie if they don't.

Having started playing Beta 6, I like the specializations so far. I have of course found an 18 Level planet I can't colonize without some Extreme World Tech but as I'm no where near researching that yet I have yet to come to the decision "which extreme worlds do I want to colonise?" given the different types and their effects.

I'd better see Lord Kona's ass as he flies by Earth soon which SD promised on this forum or GalCiv3's getting uninstalled. Or will there be some space soap opera romance between Lord Kona and Akiri Malara? I ask this because of the new Load Screen: Is it meant to indicate where things are heading? Just please God don't include the Y&R theme in the game...

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Quoting mrblondini,

reply 124

but, oh, look, on Gold Date there's not one thing you can point to where the SD crew went against something they'd orginally implemented.

I know this is not true because there have been bug fixes and other interface tweaks that have been addressed based on our feedback. Seilore or whoever keeps the grand bug list would know.

+1

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