Suggestions From Da Map Maker

posted on October 17th, 2010, 10:28 pm

Hello, team

 
  I've been very excited for the coming redoes and know that whatever it brings will be fantastic!  The past few patches have shown such ingenuity and creativity that I can only imagine what exciting things will come soon.

  I do have a few requests about how certain factions elements work.  These are things that I feel very strongly affect how maps CAN be setup and stay fair for all races .  Granted that I know the redoes will bring a lot of new things, but I feel these are pretty broad and simple requests that can be looked at as an overview .



-  Turrets:

Maps can be set up with full (2-moon) expansions or be set up with separated moons.  Clearly the lone moons are more susceptible to attack, but also help since you can't lose 50% of your economy in one blow .  Races that rely on 1 or 2 heavy, expensive turrets clearly take a hit here in that they cannot put a turret at each moon.  I'm not saying that anything is imbalanced right now, but that the maps most played are with separated moon pairs to support back and forth gameplay.  .  Feds have a nice advantage in this area with a very strong turret for both avatars that is easy to put up and very difficult to avoid .

  Again, not saying anything is unbalanced right now, just saying that this seems to be the way expanding works with regards to turrets.


-  Moons

  Dominion do rely quite a bit on full moon pairs in order to set up their ketracel synthesizers effectively.  It never bothers me too much but I think the more "efficient" Dominion players might feel differently.  What I would request is just that how the economics of races work in regards to moon placement.  It's tough when you realize while making a map that you HAVE to have moon pairs for some races and such ... Early Bird is a good example of how it's difficult for some races to compete when their moons are separated .




  Anyway, I know these kind of things will be handled as the redoes occur, but I thought I would put my two cents in there.  Cloak is a powerful thing, yes, and it's important to find economic and "logistical" ways to balance that like by making defensive structures harder to set up for the cloakers .  That way they have to reconsider sending out all their ships and leaving some for defense .

  Away we go!

posted on October 17th, 2010, 11:45 pm

YAY! More Confusion! it's like all the pokemon in the pokemon world are about to use confuse ray on our world! YAY! *packs antidotes to recover from mass confusion*

posted on October 18th, 2010, 12:41 am

Nice suggestions, Boggz.

@Arash

Yellow flutes/full heals/full restores heal confusion, not antidotes.

posted on October 18th, 2010, 1:01 am

Map control is a very subjective area of game balance, and relies quite a bit on how people play and what units are present on the playing field. That being said, as near as I can tell (and based on 95% of the maps) factions have been balanced according to a "moon pair" arrangement, so splitting up moons generally causes problems in creating any balanced fleet. The further apart moon pairs are split up, the more you see very dilithium heavy fleets with few to no support ships in the mix (as people like their dilithium first). I don't think there's any trend for or against split moons as being a majority or minority of played maps though - both types of maps are quite popular in online games .

posted on October 18th, 2010, 2:01 am

What I'm asking is that, as things are being developed for the redoes, that it be done considering the notion that having split moons often yields a very exciting type of gameplay that people seem to enjoy.  It would really be too bad if there was no way to make a map with split moons balance-able.

  Again, it's just a request .

posted on October 18th, 2010, 9:11 am

about dominion on split exps. i like to put several ketracel synths around a tri moon i dont need badly for tri. thats where my first perimeter goes too. its harder to get right, needing precision, but if u get it right u will have just enough tri to keep making stuff with your di and have plenty of supply. especially to give to allies if they need it.

posted on October 18th, 2010, 3:41 pm

I do that with a spare Di moon, since my most common map has spare di moons.  4 Ket Synths, with 6 miners working.  Supply ends up being no problem at all once that's going.  Rolls in far faster than I can spend it.

posted on October 18th, 2010, 4:36 pm

I do that with a spare Di moon, since my most common map has spare di moons.  4 Ket Synths, with 6 miners working.  Supply ends up being no problem at all once that's going.  Rolls in far faster than I can spend it.

Sounds like overkill to me, although i admit my knowledge of playing as Dom is pretty weak.

posted on October 18th, 2010, 4:58 pm

If you start building larger ships you will need additional supply.

I am all for the separated moons...brings so much more fun. However the turret things as Boggz mentioned need some adjustment imo.

posted on October 19th, 2010, 12:02 am

I'm just asking that, as the game evolves in the redoes, that consideration be given to making all races capable of functioning properly with split moons or paired moons.  That's all. 

  That way it does not limit map-makers unnecessarily.