Stardock Should Have Hired Me to Break Their Game Mechanics During Testing

When they were testing the game, they should have hired me to break their game strategies and mechanics.  I'm good at that.  Why didn't they do that? Why??????

And now after 8 hours of playing this game I've figured it out.  Godlike AI in tag teams don't stand a chance.  No fun in that.  

Stardock could have saved themselves a lot of headaches and I would have had more fun playing this game if they hired people like me during testing to BREAK THEIR GAME.  That way they would have produced better AI and more balance.  

14,483 views 13 replies
Reply #1 Top

Well...actually they did...by letting themself get paid by founders for this testing period. ^^

Reply #2 Top

I hear that if you sent your saved games to them with a description of good strategies/ai exploits/etc, the AI guy uses it to improve the AI. 

 

If you want to get paid, it's probably not that hard to find a QA job at some game studio, and then you'll figure out why they don't pay random people for that work :P

Reply #3 Top

I should market myself as some sort of consultant who breaks game mechanics for a living.  

Reply #4 Top

The founders obviously didn't do a very good job.  The reason is because most of the wolves will stay away until the game comes out to rip it to shreds.  

Reply #5 Top

You realise that major Ai development only started in march orso right? If you want money and are really good, consider streaming. Tho admittedly the only strategy game with a good scene is sc2. 

 

As a side, mind sharing your steam/metaverse name?

Reply #6 Top

YuZhongLu (real name).  Do you know me in real life? 

Reply #7 Top

Bleh it says "player exist but not found on ladder" with just about anybody that posts on forums! Super annoying when stalking people.

 

On the other hand you don;t have any victory achievements, so i guess you are one of those "it's to easy i cba to finish a game" kind of persons.

 

On the subject of metaverse is somehow managed to get into the top 50 players, but i don't play that much, metaverse is weird thing. 

 

 

Reply #8 Top

Yeah.  Well, once you get to 100 colonies with a power graph that's already twice as high as the nearest AI and still exponentially increasing, it's hard to micromanage to the end. Especially if you're pretty sure you've already won.  I like playing on the larger map sizes.  

I haven't even had an actual SPACE battle yet because in all of my games so far I've effectively won before I even get to that point (Benevolence level III with Colonizer and the Constructor ship trick, combined with Thalan Hives and Hyperion Matrix and the Gaia Vortex +4 production for ALL colonies wonder).  

Like if I get into a situation where I can tech anything in 1 turn, and still outproduce the AI, I reckon I've won.  

Reply #9 Top

Quoting marigoldran, reply 8

Yeah.  Well, once you get to 100 colonies with a power graph that's already twice as high as the nearest AI and still exponentially increasing, it's hard to micromanage to the end. Especially if you're pretty sure you've already won.  I like playing on the larger map sizes.  

I haven't even had an actual SPACE battle yet because in all of my games so far I've effectively won before I even get to that point (Benevolence level III with Colonizer and the Constructor ship trick, combined with Thalan Hives and Hyperion Matrix and the Gaia Vortex +4 production for ALL colonies wonder).  

Like if I get into a situation where I can tech anything in 1 turn, and still outproduce the AI, I reckon I've won.  
End of marigoldran's quote

 

I personally don't consider setting a galaxy up in a way where you win a tech victory before you meet your opponents to be breaking the game. That's more you choosing to play sim city. 

Reply #10 Top

Quoting marigoldran, reply 4

The founders obviously didn't do a very good job.  The reason is because most of the wolves will stay away until the game comes out to rip it to shreds.  
End of marigoldran's quote

While I don't work for Stardock, I am in the Software QA business and have been for a very long time.  The types of issues that exist in the current game are not ones which are great surprises, they were found and documented by folks.  Based on experience, my assumption (could be wrong) is that it's more an issue of developer time.  There are plenty of small bugs left, but little that is truly a major gotcha.  It is feature complete, works and runs on a huge collection of different systems.  That's definitely a victory.  What's left are mostly smaller errors and balance issues.

Some of those balance issues definitely need attention (Carriers) but if you don't like the way they work right now it's easily moddable.

Reply #11 Top

Quoting marigoldran, reply 4

The founders obviously didn't do a very good job. The reason is because most of the wolves will stay away until the game comes out to rip it to shreds.
End of marigoldran's quote

The founders found many bugs and issues throughout the alpha and beta process, some of the issues were documented back then, however, as others have said most of the AI work was done in March.  In the whole scheme of things though, the game isn't broken, that is just an exploit right now, which if you would like more of a challenge I would avoid using at the moment or try to play on Godlike and see if the AI can keep up with you.  With so many different types of play strategy it's nearly impossible to fix loop holes of every play type prior to release even with testing.  I would suggest you create a ticket outlining how you exploited the game so it can be addressed in a future update to make the game more fun for you.

Reply #12 Top

Quoting EleventhStar, reply 5

You realise that major Ai development only started in march orso right?...
End of EleventhStar's quote

 

No wonder the AI sucks is this true?

Reply #13 Top

Quoting J5S, reply 12

No wonder the AI sucks is this true?
End of J5S's quote

The AI doesn't suck, does it have it's weakness's sure but, is better than a lot of other games out there.   The basic pieces for the AI have been a work in progress throughout the game development period, however, since March has been when a lot of the extra work was put into the AI to tie many of those pieces together.