Posted March 02, 2016
So a few things:
1. From a visual and audio design standpoint, I like what the game is doing with the various races. They have a lot of personality, which I tend to like in a lot of games.
2. Unfortunately, the current game design of the races isn't doing enough to differentiate them. They all feel sorta . . . samey I guess? It felt like in prior games each race was kinda geared for a specific play-style - Psilons were all about research since they were creative, Humans were about Heroes and making nice with everyone, etc.
In other words, your choice of race really influenced the type of game you were going to play. Currently, the new game is pretty much "make as many colonies as you can --> ??? --> Profit" no matter what you pick. That's disappointing.
3. I think this is a function of two things: (a) the tech tree being more or less omni-available with very few exceptions and (b) a lack of gov't types.
The tech tree matters because in prior games you could only research one tech in a tree unless your race was creative. The choices you made were often informed by your racial passives. You either steered heavy into buffing what was already good about your race or you tried to buff your weaknesses. You might even be able to ignore certain techs entirely (i.e. Silicoids don't need farming techs).
Over time, that had the tendency to differentiate races strategically - one might have focused on military tech while another might be about colony rushing. As a player that meant having to adjust your strategy depending on who you encountered. MOO is a strategy game, so more strategery tends to = better.
The gov't type matters because those were shorthand way of packaging several passive traits together. For example, a Democracy gave you + to research and income, but a penalty to spying. Unification gave you a bonus to production and morale but you had a hard time assimilating colonists, etc. Again, that helped make each race feel different and also tied into research.
So, to sum up, I think to fixing the race balance right now will require a change to how tech research works and also the re-introduction of gov't types to the game.
1. From a visual and audio design standpoint, I like what the game is doing with the various races. They have a lot of personality, which I tend to like in a lot of games.
2. Unfortunately, the current game design of the races isn't doing enough to differentiate them. They all feel sorta . . . samey I guess? It felt like in prior games each race was kinda geared for a specific play-style - Psilons were all about research since they were creative, Humans were about Heroes and making nice with everyone, etc.
In other words, your choice of race really influenced the type of game you were going to play. Currently, the new game is pretty much "make as many colonies as you can --> ??? --> Profit" no matter what you pick. That's disappointing.
3. I think this is a function of two things: (a) the tech tree being more or less omni-available with very few exceptions and (b) a lack of gov't types.
The tech tree matters because in prior games you could only research one tech in a tree unless your race was creative. The choices you made were often informed by your racial passives. You either steered heavy into buffing what was already good about your race or you tried to buff your weaknesses. You might even be able to ignore certain techs entirely (i.e. Silicoids don't need farming techs).
Over time, that had the tendency to differentiate races strategically - one might have focused on military tech while another might be about colony rushing. As a player that meant having to adjust your strategy depending on who you encountered. MOO is a strategy game, so more strategery tends to = better.
The gov't type matters because those were shorthand way of packaging several passive traits together. For example, a Democracy gave you + to research and income, but a penalty to spying. Unification gave you a bonus to production and morale but you had a hard time assimilating colonists, etc. Again, that helped make each race feel different and also tied into research.
So, to sum up, I think to fixing the race balance right now will require a change to how tech research works and also the re-introduction of gov't types to the game.