New version has the same old problems

Describe your experience with the latest version of FreeOrion to help us improve it.

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Morlic
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#16 Post by Morlic »

IamZeke wrote: I realize the difficulty when I say this, but the pedia writers should be independent of the group actually making the game. Pure players, preferably with not much experience at the game. Then when they can't find answers they pester the creation team for answers and write from a player perspective.
Did you consider to volunteer for that task?
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

defaultuser
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#17 Post by defaultuser »

IamZeke wrote:5) Having to keep rerolling the game start. Just give it up already. One of the setup options should be "Rich Home System" with a yes or no. Give it an extra small planet that is of the same type as the species wants, a few other more difficult planets, a gas giant, and an asteroid belt. This is what we reroll constantly to get, so standing on some kind of principle is a waste of time. The switch in the setup screen means purists can take their chances.
I'm not entirely clear what you meant my "rerolling the start". Do you mean constantly restarting the game with a new seed to try to get a starting setup you like better? If so, I'm not sure what the purpose is.

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EricF
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#18 Post by EricF »

defaultuser wrote:
IamZeke wrote:5) Having to keep rerolling the game start. Just give it up already. One of the setup options should be "Rich Home System" with a yes or no. Give it an extra small planet that is of the same type as the species wants, a few other more difficult planets, a gas giant, and an asteroid belt. This is what we reroll constantly to get, so standing on some kind of principle is a waste of time. The switch in the setup screen means purists can take their chances.
I'm not entirely clear what you meant my "rerolling the start". Do you mean constantly restarting the game with a new seed to try to get a starting setup you like better? If so, I'm not sure what the purpose is.
Yes he means restarting the game to get a better starting system. I do it all the time when I play CivII, but I never do it with FO. With FO you won't really know you have a bad starting spot until after several turns of exploring. Have I lost games because of bad starting positions? Yea, but big whoop. That's life. And it hasn't happened very often. And I use low starlanes and low monsters.
For CivII playing at Emperor level or above getting a good starting spot is crucial to success so I restart those games sometimes many times before I'm happy. Does that make CivII a bad game? I don't think so. Just a challenging one. (Don't know about the later Civ games. I don't play them)
If I'm playing Master of Orion II at Impossible level I'll restart to get a good starting system as well. Sometimes many times. Again, it does not mean it's a bad game.
And I am not trying to sound like some elitist super player. I'm just telling it like it is. I lost many many games at low levels of Civ II and MoOII before I could routinely beat it at the highest levels.

defaultuser
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#19 Post by defaultuser »

I think it's important to play through on those starts because you learn techniques, strategies, and tactics for dealing with them. How do you handle an Egassem start with nothing to colonize and no natives nearby to conquer an use? Or when you're bottled up in a small area with Sentinel blockage? Or when the nearest neighbor is close and crazy? You learn these things by doing.

Anyone can win when you find excellent natives like Mu Ursh, Scyllior, and Kobuntura nearby. Or when their area is chock with good and adequate planets.

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em3
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#20 Post by em3 »

@defaultuser

This depends on your goals when you play a game. Some people like the additional challenge of the universe being randomly rigged against them - some prefer to start from a "fair" situation and their success to depend only on wether they make any mistake.

I'm not particularly ascribing to either viewpoint, but I understand both.
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

defaultuser
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#21 Post by defaultuser »

I guess I don't understand that. The variation in start is one of the nice features of the game. To complain because every start isn't rainbows and puppy dogs makes no sense to me. The OP seems to give the impression that the only way to win is to do that. It's not the case. You win be getting better. You can't get better if you never challenge yourself.

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em3
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#22 Post by em3 »

I think, that IamZeke prefers to fight the competition (AI) more than to fight the circumstances (generated universe).
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

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Ouaz
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#23 Post by Ouaz »

IamZeke wrote:I realize the difficulty when I say this, but the pedia writers should be independent of the group actually making the game. Pure players, preferably with not much experience at the game. Then when they can't find answers they pester the creation team for answers and write from a player perspective.
Hi, I'm the FO french translator since 3 years now, and at the end, I know FO more by translating it than by playing it. And yet, there's some game concepts/features that I still don't fully understand. So I consider myself like having not much experience at the game, and some things in the game that appear obvious to FO programmers, are still not for me.

Therefore, aside from the french translation, my main goal as FO contributor is to make the game more user-friendly and accessible (thanks "ironically" to my limited experience), mostly by working on the pedia articles (categorizing articles, articles for beginners, oh... and "I got a fever! And the only prescription.. is more pedia links!")

With some great work made by others contributors like dbenage-cx, LGM-Doyle, UrshMost, MatGB (sorry for the ones I don't mention), the pedia has been greatly improved these last months and it is night and day compared to what it was before, and IMO, the game is much more accessible now.

But FO is a very deep game, so there's still a lot do to to improve the game accessibility (I have a text file full of new article ideas, pedia structure suggestions, article improvements, etc.)

Although some of your complaints are legit, I think it is really important to keep in mind that FO is free and open-source, built and maintained entirely by volunteers.

A word to the wise...
I release every updated file under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 license.

defaultuser
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#24 Post by defaultuser »

em3 wrote:I think, that IamZeke prefers to fight the competition (AI) more than to fight the circumstances (generated universe).
I guess I question the contention that there is a large "we" that is restarting to get better initial positions. If that's a common complaint, then that might be something for the developers to look at. So far, I've never seen any other posts. Yeah, new people get clobbered in the beginning, but that's to be expected.

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Oberlus
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#25 Post by Oberlus »

em3 wrote:I think, that IamZeke prefers to fight the competition (AI) more than to fight the circumstances (generated universe).
With the AI that we have right now, although it being a very good one, I like to fight both at same time. At roughly the same circumstances for AIs and me, I would be playing with advantage (assuming Human or Laenfa, other species would be a boost on my side).
defaultuser wrote:I guess I question the contention that there is a large "we" that is restarting to get better initial positions.
In my case, when I start a game in which I see a nice start ahead of me (some adequate or better planets on my starting or very close systems), I re-roll. But that's my fault as an "elitist" player (if that means one that wants to get a challenge to have fun, nothing to do with the real mean of elitist, since I'm not aiming at letting other player out of the fun).
defaultuser wrote:If that's a common complaint, then that might be something for the developers to look at.
Let's start a poll?

defaultuser
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#26 Post by defaultuser »

Oberlus wrote:
em3 wrote:I think, that IamZeke prefers to fight the competition (AI) more than to fight the circumstances (generated universe).
With the AI that we have right now, although it being a very good one, I like to fight both at same time. At roughly the same circumstances for AIs and me, I would be playing with advantage (assuming Human or Laenfa, other species would be a boost on my side).
As the game stands, if coming from a great start as the OP describes, the AIs aren't going to be much of a challenge for me. Really the only hope they have is for me to be battling the elements in the early going, and to get a great start themselves.

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em3
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#27 Post by em3 »

defaultuser wrote:As the game stands, if coming from a great start as the OP describes, the AIs aren't going to be much of a challenge for me. Really the only hope they have is for me to be battling the elements in the early going, and to get a great start themselves.
Emphasis mine.

Still, I guess I should leave this discussion, as currently I'm trying to advocate OP's point of view, with witch I don't 100% agree.
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

defaultuser
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#28 Post by defaultuser »

Sure, I understand that players are at different levels. However, given the number of games the OP claims to have played in the two threads, IamZeke ought to be up to a pretty high skill level.

Again, the game not having a feature that you want doesn't necessarily make that a general "problem". One game can't have everything.

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Oberlus
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#29 Post by Oberlus »

em3 wrote:...for me...
So true. We want game to be good for everyone that likes 4X.
My point from start (when I got into that conversation at cross purposes with the OP) was that for those that see AIs as too much of a challenge (due to the military pressure the AIs put on them, unbearable unless they get a very nice start), they can play in the beginner's mode and get a sense of "fairness".

defaultuser wrote:given the number of games the OP claims to have played in the two threads, IamZeke ought to be up to a pretty high skill level.
I would say there might be more explanations for this dilemma, but for now I can see only two: he is trolling this site or he is not perfectly suited to master this kind of games (or a combination).

Edit to make clear I'm not insulting IamZeke. Thanks for the pointing out, em3.
Last edited by Oberlus on Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:21 am, edited 2 times in total.

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em3
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Re: New version has the same old problems

#30 Post by em3 »

Now, now, Oberlus. No need to be insulting. :) Yes, OP made quite passionate and angry post, accusing developers of laziness and some ill will, but things never needed to get that personal.

Thanks for easing up a bit, Oberlus.
https://github.com/mmoderau
[...] for Man has earned his right to hold this planet against all comers, by virtue of occasionally producing someone totally batshit insane. - Randall Munroe, title text to xkcd #556

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