(Mostly) Late Game Feedback

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

Moderator: Oberlus

Forum rules
Always mention the exact version of FreeOrion you are testing.

When reporting an issue regarding the AI, if possible provide the relevant AI log file and a save game file that demonstrates the issue.
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
labgnome
Juggernaut
Posts: 833
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2015 5:57 pm

(Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#1 Post by labgnome »

So I've played through a few games now, and a few to completion. And I have some general feedback, especially about the late game.

Thoughts:
  • It really makes you feel like you're controlling a massive galactic civilization. There are so many planets and stars, and you can create absolutely massive fleets.
  • You feel like all your work early and mid game is finally paying off. You aren't constantly having to stretch your resources to
  • Because they're so close to the endgame, a lot of the late-game techs I don't really get to put to use.
  • It wasn't until I actually looked at the .txt files that I realized that the telepathic trait did anything besides make researching psionics cost less. If you're even going to try for psicogenic domination, you're already far enough along in your research that you should probably just go for the tech victory anyway. Also typically I'm either investing so much in research to grab the tech victory at that point, or investing so much in production to fend off enemies or monsters that having the psychogenic domination or stargate focus is kind of pointless, and I've never actually gotten to use either.
  • While I understand wanting to make most of your research lead-up to the tech victory, the fact that nearly all of the research-boosting techs lead into it I think creates a bit too much positive feedback.
  • In general while there is a very noticeable buildup in both production and industry as the game progresses, pure energy metabolism seems just broken. I've noticed that once I get pure energy metabolism my production and research shoot up so fast that it might as well be over, I know there are other systemic issues in that area, but it should probably just go.
  • Due to researching the growth techs, I didn't even use terrafroming until probably my third game, It doesn't seem very useful by the time you get it. If I grab a decent colonizing native species, or enough of them, in conjunction with growth techs, there isn't going to be a reason to use it except to apply the gaia transformation. This may be a positive feedback problem like the tech victory, with terraforming being dependent on the other growth techs.
  • Though not a late-game issue per-say, growth specials aren't that "special". Some of them are so widely spaced that I never got to put them to use, or by the time I did, like with terraforming, I'd researched enough growth techs that their difference wasn't really even worth considering for colonization in many cases. Especially with Egassem the narrow environmental tolerance meant most of them weren't even suitable to colonize until later on. At first I though they were completely randomly associated to planet type, but looking at the .txt files I saw they were not, but didn't seem to be spaced evenly, or associated with the planet types used by the species who would benefit from them.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#2 Post by Dilvish »

labgnome wrote:Because they're so close to the endgame, a lot of the late-game techs I don't really get to put to use.
Yes, that's one of the areas noted for particularly needing attention.
psychogenic domination or stargate focus is kind of pointless, and I've never actually gotten to use either.
Psych Dom is a bit of old content; it was recently scaled back to require the planet focus but still I'm not aware of anyone particularly enamored of it.
While I understand wanting to make most of your research lead-up to the tech victory, the fact that nearly all of the research-boosting techs lead into it I think creates a bit too much positive feedback.
Yes. The tech victory is currently considered a bit underwhelming and I think too easy as well. To make it a bit more of a challenge I just made it so its cost scales up with the galaxy size, with the previous fixed cost corresponding now to a galaxy size of 50 systems. That's not really intended to suffice as a long term fix; just a bit of a stopgap. More ideas are needed.
pure energy metabolism seems just broken.
Vezzra recently started a thread about revamping the whole related framework.
I didn't even use terrafroming until probably my third game, It doesn't seem very useful by the time you get it.
I agree that at least for most galaxy setups it is probably not broadly useful. So long as it has some niche uses (like low planets galaxy without natives, or maybe making a Ruins planet more favorable to a good researching species) that is probably *enough*, but I think many people share your view of it as an underwhelming tech. I knid of think Mat might be taking a look at adjusting it in some way, in fact.
Though not a late-game issue per-say, growth specials aren't that "special". Some of them are so widely spaced that I never got to put them to use, or by the time I did, like with terraforming, I'd researched enough growth techs that their difference wasn't really even worth considering for colonization in many cases.
It sounds like you might be overlooking their value with a growth focus setting. That can be a very significant contribution empire-wide. If you are already taking that into account, then I would just point out that not all specials need be super-special.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
labgnome
Juggernaut
Posts: 833
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#3 Post by labgnome »

Dilvish wrote:Psych Dom is a bit of old content; it was recently scaled back to require the planet focus but still I'm not aware of anyone particularly enamored of it.
It seems like without it there really isn't anything, aside from getting a couple of techs on the cheap that makes telepathic species distinct. Though I may still be missing something about them. What is psi-dom supposed to do? Would it be too broken if used earlier in the game?
Dilvish wrote:Yes. The tech victory is currently considered a bit underwhelming and I think too easy as well. To make it a bit more of a challenge I just made it so its cost scales up with the galaxy size, with the previous fixed cost corresponding now to a galaxy size of 50 systems. That's not really intended to suffice as a long term fix; just a bit of a stopgap. More ideas are needed.
What about re-structuring the knowledge branch of the tech tree, so that the research boosters are off of the path that least to the tech victory? Maybe each research booster is a "dead end" in and of itself, like distributed though computing currently is. That way it's more of a challenge to shoot straight for the tech victory, but also still makes them worth it if you want, or need, to improve your research.
Dilvish wrote:I agree that at least for most galaxy setups it is probably not broadly useful. So long as it has some niche uses (like low planets galaxy without natives, or maybe making a Ruins planet more favorable to a good researching species) that is probably *enough*, but I think many people share your view of it as an underwhelming tech. I knid of think Mat might be taking a look at adjusting it in some way, in fact.
Perhaps something where you get it much earlier, but have to research further to make it faster or cheaper? Alternately, like the growth techs,maybe it could progress through planetary hostility? So terraforming1 lets you go from adequate to good, terraforming2 lets you go from poor to good and terraforming3 lets you go from hostile to good. Mind you it would also be possible to do both.
Dilvish wrote:It sounds like you might be overlooking their value with a growth focus setting. That can be a very significant contribution empire-wide. If you are already taking that into account, then I would just point out that not all specials need be super-special.
That may be true, and I'll certainly be trying to pay closer attention to it, but the way they work could be improved. I had no idea when I was even getting new planetary focus options, when they happened, or what planets I could, or couldn't use them on. They also are set to industry by default, which isn't bad, but it makes them really easy to ignore. Maybe, for later (maybe much later) down the road there could be some kind of overall focus management? Maybe that would be part of a "government" or "political" system if that's implemented, IE: each "government" or "political system" has a different default focus?
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.

User avatar
MatGB
Creative Contributor
Posts: 3310
Joined: Fri Jun 28, 2013 11:45 pm

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#4 Post by MatGB »

labgnome wrote:
Dilvish wrote:Psych Dom is a bit of old content; it was recently scaled back to require the planet focus but still I'm not aware of anyone particularly enamored of it.
It seems like without it there really isn't anything, aside from getting a couple of techs on the cheap that makes telepathic species distinct. Though I may still be missing something about them. What is psi-dom supposed to do? Would it be too broken if used earlier in the game?
At the moment, PsyDom and telepathy in general doesn't do much. We've talked a bit about future plans, and I've got a few ideas (that would also involve Translinguistics) but it's one of those "when we get around to it" things.

I want telepathy to do more, for naturally telepathic species to get a bonus but not have an overwhelming advantage, etc. But it falls in the category of "cool stuff I'd like to see at some point" and not "things we really need to fix" or "this is hideously unbalanced/too powerful/unusable", so I haven't really worked on it.
Dilvish wrote:Yes. The tech victory is currently considered a bit underwhelming and I think too easy as well. To make it a bit more of a challenge I just made it so its cost scales up with the galaxy size, with the previous fixed cost corresponding now to a galaxy size of 50 systems. That's not really intended to suffice as a long term fix; just a bit of a stopgap. More ideas are needed.
What about re-structuring the knowledge branch of the tech tree, so that the research boosters are off of the path that least to the tech victory? Maybe each research booster is a "dead end" in and of itself, like distributed though computing currently is. That way it's more of a challenge to shoot straight for the tech victory, but also still makes them worth it if you want, or need, to improve your research.
I like this idea actually, and I also liked the idea of making the Enclave available earlier but with improving techs similar to Industrial Centre, definitely something to look at in the shorter term, but it'll need consultation with the AI team as it has the potential to very much break the AI if done wrong.
Dilvish wrote:I agree that at least for most galaxy setups it is probably not broadly useful. So long as it has some niche uses (like low planets galaxy without natives, or maybe making a Ruins planet more favorable to a good researching species) that is probably *enough*, but I think many people share your view of it as an underwhelming tech. I knid of think Mat might be taking a look at adjusting it in some way, in fact.
Perhaps something where you get it much earlier, but have to research further to make it faster or cheaper? Alternately, like the growth techs,maybe it could progress through planetary hostility? So terraforming1 lets you go from adequate to good, terraforming2 lets you go from poor to good and terraforming3 lets you go from hostile to good. Mind you it would also be possible to do both.
I use terraforming a fair bit, and I don't actually have much of a problem with it as is. I think the real problem with it is that the growth/habitability techs are too good rather than terraforming being too weak.

It should be possible to research the ability to colonise hostile worlds, but it should be barely, a tenuous existence, currently it's just too much. and given population keys into every other bonus in the game, it matters.

(actually, the only thing I dislike about terraforming is the micromanagement, that I'm not sure on what to do with).
Dilvish wrote:It sounds like you might be overlooking their value with a growth focus setting. That can be a very significant contribution empire-wide. If you are already taking that into account, then I would just point out that not all specials need be super-special.
That may be true, and I'll certainly be trying to pay closer attention to it, but the way they work could be improved. I had no idea when I was even getting new planetary focus options, when they happened, or what planets I could, or couldn't use them on. They also are set to industry by default, which isn't bad, but it makes them really easy to ignore. Maybe, for later (maybe much later) down the road there could be some kind of overall focus management? Maybe that would be part of a "government" or "political" system if that's implemented, IE: each "government" or "political system" has a different default focus?
[/quote]
At the moment, each species has a 'preferred' focus that defaults to industry if not set (and we need to do more of setting that, Scylior and Humans have it, not sure about others, Chato don't and ought to). Then there's the Objects menu and Vincele is working on a bulk setting system. Not sure I'd want a global setting though, I tend to have a mix.

We possibly could look at expanding info in the techs/buildings or even have a "the X focus setting is unlocked" sitrep the same way we do for buildings, but improving the in game documentation is an ongoing project.

We definitely need to do more to improve the late game (it's got a lot better in the last two years but there's still a long way to go), I definitely like the great sweep of empire feel it gives but there are balance issues, AI issues and content issues, all can be worked on but it'll take time.

Also worth observing that there's the nascent plans for a tutorial mode with a series of sitreps, scripted events, etc. But I've no idea how long that'll take to get going.
Mat Bowles

Any code or patches in anything posted here is released under the CC and GPL licences in use for the FO project.

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#5 Post by Geoff the Medio »

labgnome wrote:What about re-structuring the knowledge branch of the tech tree, so that the research boosters are off of the path that least to the tech victory? Maybe each research booster is a "dead end" in and of itself, like distributed though computing currently is. That way it's more of a challenge to shoot straight for the tech victory, but also still makes them worth it if you want, or need, to improve your research.
Sounds like a good idea... I'd be inclined to try doing so for all research-boosting techs, right from the start of the tree.

User avatar
labgnome
Juggernaut
Posts: 833
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#6 Post by labgnome »

MatGB wrote:At the moment, PsyDom and telepathy in general doesn't do much. We've talked a bit about future plans, and I've got a few ideas (that would also involve Translinguistics) but it's one of those "when we get around to it" things.

I want telepathy to do more, for naturally telepathic species to get a bonus but not have an overwhelming advantage, etc. But it falls in the category of "cool stuff I'd like to see at some point" and not "things we really need to fix" or "this is hideously unbalanced/too powerful/unusable", so I haven't really worked on it.
It still might be worth-while to discuss what you, and others, want telepathy to look like in the game. In my experience I've found discussions like that can often lead to solutions that are simpler than anyone initially anticipated.
I like this idea actually, and I also liked the idea of making the Enclave available earlier but with improving techs similar to Industrial Centre, definitely something to look at in the shorter term, but it'll need consultation with the AI team as it has the potential to very much break the AI if done wrong.
I generally avoid the various "x of the void" techs for flavor reasons, but I would really like something like early game "science centers", analogous to industrial centers, that you can research improvements to.
I use terraforming a fair bit, and I don't actually have much of a problem with it as is. I think the real problem with it is that the growth/habitability techs are too good rather than terraforming being too weak.

It should be possible to research the ability to colonise hostile worlds, but it should be barely, a tenuous existence, currently it's just too much. and given population keys into every other bonus in the game, it matters.
I can also see that, it might honestly be a case of a little bit of both, and each being accentuated by different people's play-styles. Going back to the positive feedback idea: I don't thing any of the population-boosting techs should be on the rout to terraforming. I don't know what coding in bonuses and maluses between techs would do (especially for the AI concerns), or even if it would work, but this strikes me as a potential "competing strategy" situation. So civilizations that are "good adapters" should probably be "bad terraformers". So researching in the terraforming rout should give you a malus to techs that make it easier to live in already hostile environments, and similarly researching techs that make it easier to survive hostile environments should make it harder to research techs in the terraforming rout. I'm drawing from the "greens vs. reds" situation in the Kim Stanley Robinson Mars Trillogy, a sort of ideological split between changing a planet to suit the needs of the colonizing species, and changing the colonizing species to the environment of the planet. Actually this gives me lots of ideas.
(actually, the only thing I dislike about terraforming is the micromanagement, that I'm not sure on what to do with).
At the moment, each species has a 'preferred' focus that defaults to industry if not set (and we need to do more of setting that, Scylior and Humans have it, not sure about others, Chato don't and ought to). Then there's the Objects menu and Vincele is working on a bulk setting system. Not sure I'd want a global setting though, I tend to have a mix.
Initially having a configurable "default" strikes me as the simplest way to macro-mange that sort of thing. Thinking about it further, perhaps, at some point, a way to tell multiple planets at once to do something. Maybe though the object finder menu? Something like: look up all planets with caretaker's fruit, then the option of "set focus to"; or look up all planets with shipyards, then "set production to", that way you can have your giant galactic empire, and actually put it to use without hours of micromanagement. I can't even run a game with a 5,000 star galaxy, but after playing a game alone in a 200 star galaxy I'd hate to trying to manage an empire that big.
We possibly could look at expanding info in the techs/buildings or even have a "the X focus setting is unlocked" sitrep the same way we do for buildings, but improving the in game documentation is an ongoing project.
I mean it doesn't need to happen immediately, but it would be a handy bit of info to have, especially as the game goes on any you have more and more to keep track of.
Also worth observing that there's the nascent plans for a tutorial mode with a series of sitreps, scripted events, etc. But I've no idea how long that'll take to get going.
I think a tutorial should definitely happen by any version 1.0.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.

User avatar
Dilvish
AI Lead and Programmer Emeritus
Posts: 4768
Joined: Sat Sep 22, 2012 6:25 pm

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#7 Post by Dilvish »

labgnome wrote:I think a tutorial should definitely happen by any version 1.0.
Lord knows how many years away version 1.0 might be :D
I think we'll want a tutorial long before then.
If I provided any code, scripts or other content here, it's released under GPL 2.0 and CC-BY-SA 3.0

User avatar
Geoff the Medio
Programming, Design, Admin
Posts: 13587
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2003 1:33 am
Location: Munich

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#8 Post by Geoff the Medio »

Geoff the Medio wrote:
labgnome wrote:What about re-structuring the knowledge branch of the tech tree, so that the research boosters are off of the path that least to the tech victory? Maybe each research booster is a "dead end" in and of itself, like distributed though computing currently is. That way it's more of a challenge to shoot straight for the tech victory, but also still makes them worth it if you want, or need, to improve your research.
Sounds like a good idea... I'd be inclined to try doing so for all research-boosting techs, right from the start of the tree.
Additionally, I'd consider making the "Tech Victory" a more involved process than just researching a particular tech, with some structure to it.

For example, there could be a series of techs that need to be researched, where researching the first few starts affecting the empire that researches them. There could also be some additional requirements, like Civ games' which require multiple spaceship parts to be produced, not just a single victory wonder, or Alpha Centauri, which has a two-project victory process (where I think the first few projects allow anyone to produce the later projects, no just the first Civ to produce it...)

The idea is that your populace, or at least part of it, is starting the process of transcendence, which should probably have some consequences in game. This might involve big penalties to happiness or species-empire relations, population, research, production output, ship combat stats, or other stuff as the series of techs leading up to victory are researched. In Alpha Centauri, the pre-transcendence projects cause massive outbreaks of native life activity on Planet, which complicates the process of completing the victory, and at least makes things more interesting, and fits nicely with the game story.

User avatar
labgnome
Juggernaut
Posts: 833
Joined: Mon Mar 02, 2015 5:57 pm

Re: (Mostly) Late Game Feedback

#9 Post by labgnome »

Geoff the Medio wrote:Additionally, I'd consider making the "Tech Victory" a more involved process than just researching a particular tech, with some structure to it.

For example, there could be a series of techs that need to be researched, where researching the first few starts affecting the empire that researches them. There could also be some additional requirements, like Civ games' which require multiple spaceship parts to be produced, not just a single victory wonder, or Alpha Centauri, which has a two-project victory process (where I think the first few projects allow anyone to produce the later projects, no just the first Civ to produce it...)
Actually I'm doing some work on an idea to bring for something more along these lines, but it would b a different victory condition. Basically you would, possibly in multiple stages, build a dyson sphere, capable of meeting all the needs of your entire population, then evacuate all of them to it, and when that's done it would cut itself off from the starlanes. It would be more of a "production" victory than a research victory. It would be something that you would have to devote a significant portion of your resources to from at last the end of the mid-game, and b a significant commitment. Once I get the order of operations, and potential after-effects figured out, I'll put something up.
Geoff the Medio wrote:The idea is that your populace, or at least part of it, is starting the process of transcendence, which should probably have some consequences in game. This might involve big penalties to happiness or species-empire relations, population, research, production output, ship combat stats, or other stuff as the series of techs leading up to victory are researched. In Alpha Centauri, the pre-transcendence projects cause massive outbreaks of native life activity on Planet, which complicates the process of completing the victory, and at least makes things more interesting, and fits nicely with the game story.
I do like the idea of buildup, however, I'm a lot more intrigued by the fact that there's been some suggestions about transcendence having some kind of after-effect. Maybe all your planets get depopulated with certain effects or specials applied.

The idea being that by achieving transcendence you reach the same level as the ancient precursor civilizations, that you become the advanced precursor civilization that the next generation of civilizations discovers. So some of your planets would get the ancient ruins special, maybe planets with the gaia special would spawn a sentinel, maybe any alien homeworlds would be reduced to population 1, but have the high technology special applied. Maybe you have to build a "transcendence gate" or "transcendent converter" on each of your planets to transcend your population.

Though in that area there is actually a "needs work" species of mind-uploads, that I'm thinking of putting some work into making into a "creatable" species.
All of my contributions should be considered released under creative commons attribution share-alike license, CC-BY-SA 3.0 for use in, by and with the Free Orion project.

Post Reply