To the Developers about the Superweapons Cap

from Sins Forums

I am speaking up against the Super Weapon Cap.  It is the worst idea against the players of this game. One of the greatest lure of this game that I have enjoyed since 2008 has been that it is a space game that keeps with what a real country can do. You completely ruined that when you cap the Super weapons.  It also destroys my game style. I usually play the Varari and play maps 5 or 6 star systems.  A Super Weapon Limit makes them completely useless. It takes forever to send a weapon blast from one solar system to another. It makes it so I can not use it at all now.  Any complaints against Super Weapons were solved in the Entrenchment expansion.  I hope that in the next patch that you remove this offensive change to in my opinion the best video game ever made. 

68,925 views 55 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top

I would like to point out that the next step by the devs was to buff the superweapons, presumably in the next patch....

Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top

SO it doe not help with any of my strategic problems nor does it help fix why we liked the other versions. Nor does it make it useful which is what this damages.

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting bilun, reply 30
People keep overlooking that a single novalith can keep it's debuff on 3 planets at a time.  4 novaliths can keep their debuff on 12 planets. That's a tremendous amount of income lost.

 

 

It isn't "useless" because you can't keep it up at all timeso n every single planet your opponents control.  12 is more then enough to keep the debuff active on all of a player's major worlds(desert/terran/ice), and likely will blow a few asteroids/moons out of the sky as well.

 

I hate how some people can't seem to distinguish between "maximal" (read: debuffing or destroying every enemy planet) and "useful".

 

 

The first shot of a novalith to a fully populated terran world costs the enemy upwards of 7000 credits over the next half an hour with debuffs alone. 

 

A single cannon can keep it's debuff on 3 planets at a time.  If the investment in the novalith doesn't cripple your defenses and you survive the next 15-20 minutes or so it will have already payed back it's cost in economic damage- and everything after that is a net gain.

 

A limit to how many can be built does not reduce your chance of surviving those 15-20 minutes.  It simply reduces the number of time you can make this advantageous long term investment(with a short term risk).

The point is a single novalith has always been a net gain and thus useful(so long as you can survive those key 15-20 minutes).   This change just reduces the chance of a game snowballing out of control once the TEC player has already survived planting the first few novaliths and can continue to drop more novaliths for similar long term benefits with drastically reduce short term risks(as the enemy's economy has already been hamstrung so even after the cost of new cannons isn't really putting the TEC player behind in fleet investment).

 

Yes it is a nerf, but I strongly disagree with those who say the novalith is useless unless spammed.  This is only really the case if you're too lazy to use it intelligently, manually ordering each shot to maximize spread of the debuff among key worlds while scouting regularly to keep tarck of which worlds are being economically developed.  It's certainly a certainly a nerf for players who relied on just mindlessly bombarding everything rather then choosing high value targets & spreading the debuff around.
End of bilun's quote

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top

Obviously you did not read my complaints when you posted this.  Because I play super large multi-star games. A limited amount of guns is completely useless to me.  It is also completely useless to almost any player who plays Advent or Varsaris.

Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

Did we really need another thread on this?

Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Emplear, reply 4
Obviously you did not read my complaints when you posted this.  Because I play super large multi-star games. A limited amount of guns is completely useless to me.  It is also completely useless to almost any player who plays Advent or Varsaris.
End of Emplear's quote

 

Uhm, the Vasari's is probably still the most useful one... you got the Kostura because of its phase stabilization unit, and the advents was always bad. And as stated above we don't need another thread on this.

Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top

Apparently, yes.

 

Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 5
Did we really need another thread on this?
End of Tridus's quote

We didn't need the 20 or so threads calling for the Novalith nerf did we?

Again the superweapon limit should be removed. You are limiting options that you can take.

Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top


One of the greatest lure of this game that I have enjoyed since 2008 has been that it is a space game that keeps with what a real country can do. You completely ruined that when you cap the Super weapons.  

End of quote

 

By the same logic, then please remove the Cap on Max Ship Slots and Cap ships.  And the cap on only one Titan!

 

Sarcasm aside, a simple slider on Super Weapons Cap (With default=4) would keep everyone happy... as has been pointed out millions of times.

Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top

Emplear, as a fellow Vasari player, I do not feel your pain.  Kosturas can be used for bombardment, yes, but ever since the nerf way back when they went from uber to just good, they aren't worth it.  They are primarily for jumping in your fleet to the enemy's rear worlds, so this nerf has almost no effect on the Vasari.

You can debate the Nova all you want because technically you don't need more than 4 and yes, once a player brings those first few online, you need to strike unless you turtle, at which point all I have to say is don't turtle.

Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top

stop whining, if you need more than 4 or let a game progress to that stage you're playing it wrong, or extremely well against another player, even so there has to be a point when someone loses even without the aid of a super.

Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting aGAvA, reply 11
stop whining, if you need more than 4 or let a game progress to that stage you're playing it wrong, or extremely well against another player, even so there has to be a point when someone loses even without the aid of a super.
End of aGAvA's quote

It's an AI he is playing against. Wtf Are you saying? Not everybody plays MP here.

You can do anything against the AI and win and he wants to win his way because it's enjoyable to see all those planets get blown to dust so he likes to spam novaliths. What's the problem here. It was the AI issue that caused the Novalith spam against players.

Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top

yea, thats my point, the game should wholly be balanced around multiplayer, IF you wanna play singleplayer and do those things, rolling back your updates isn't a problem is it?

Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top

super weapons dont come into play in MP game most of the time so it needs to be balanced in SP

Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting aGAvA, reply 13
yea, thats my point, the game should wholly be balanced around multiplayer, IF you wanna play singleplayer and do those things, rolling back your updates isn't a problem is it?
End of aGAvA's quote

With Steam rolling back updates is harder. Also superweapons have no issues in multiplayer. This is a singleplayer issue only really. This isn't even a balance issue but rather an AI issue.

When was the last time you've seen a superweapon in a player vs player match? I havn't seen any in a long long time thus they have no issues at all with the multiplayer thus no changes are required against it.

Balance with units should be MP based but when you change something that has no effect on MP you go to the SP responses.

Thus for SP enjoyment not balance superweapons should not have a limit and have the AI fixed. Not everything is centered around MP.

Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

Exactly, superweapons were never a problem in multiplayer. It was the single players who were sick of Novalith spamming by the AI that brought about this limit.

Rolling back updates though is not fun (you can also roll back to before the AI used superweapons). Honestly, the problem was with the AI, fix that instead of limiting the number of superweapons (which is already limited by tactical slots anyways).

Being on the receiving end of a Novalith spam can be unfun for the players but so is this limit.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting aGAvA, reply 13
yea, thats my point, the game should wholly be balanced around multiplayer, IF you wanna play singleplayer and do those things, rolling back your updates isn't a problem is it?
End of aGAvA's quote

When 95-99% of the people who buy the game never play multiplayer according to Stardock? Good luck with that.

They want to make money, and that means caring about SP balance.

Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top

not really, regardless of who plays it, the multiplayer community should come first.

you balance things according to human input, but a computer which cheats, likewise you're all crying now the ai and use supers, like i said before in another post it's doing everything you can do.. if you wanna play a city build go back to sim city :/

Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting aGAvA, reply 18
not really, regardless of who plays it, the multiplayer community should come first.

you balance things according to human input, but a computer which cheats, likewise you're all crying now the ai and use supers, like i said before in another post it's doing everything you can do.. if you wanna play a city build go back to sim city :/
End of aGAvA's quote

So are you for or against the superweapon cap? The cap was due to outcry from singleplayer community.

Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top

I think it would be better to rool back to version where ai does not build superweapons that limit them if you guys cannot balance early ai super weapons spam.

In any way this issue only pops up with vicious ai and his ability to start building things even before they are finished researching and even then only with TEC loyalist. Vicious should be ultimate ai anyway and therefore beatable only by best players so i say keep things as they were before limit was set up.

Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top

My problem is just the arbitrary limit.  "You can only build, let say, 4 super weapons!  Yeah, I've always like the number 4."  That's an easy fix but a better fix would be to mix in some other game mechanic when determining the cap.

What next?  We can only build 11 trade stations?  Or how about we can't build titans during the first 26 minutes and 18 seconds?

 

A few ideas:

- Make super weapons cost supply or command points or both.

- Cap super weapons based on the number of planets you control.

- Make it so two super weapons can't be built on adjacent worlds, so you have to spread them out a little.  It also requires some thought to find the optimal layout among your planets.

Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top

people also keep going on about it being early, but really early is anything in the first 20-30mins, any more and you have ample time to either win or get your own, defences or whatever.

 

im against the cap, not that i use more than 4 at a time, but in a mp stalemate, having 7 on hold waiting to kill 2 specific planets or whatever is a really nice thing.

 

But it seems like the sp community could just take some lessons from the mp community in regards to speed..

Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top

No you need to stop trying to make everyone do it in a multiplayer style of play.

The majority is a singleplayer community that likes to play the game at their own certain pace or style. It can be simple gaming options and decisions or modding the game all togethor.

Reply #24 from Sins Forums Top

Quoting Tridus, reply 17

Quoting aGAvA, reply 13yea, thats my point, the game should wholly be balanced around multiplayer, IF you wanna play singleplayer and do those things, rolling back your updates isn't a problem is it?

When 95-99% of the people who buy the game never play multiplayer according to Stardock? Good luck with that.

They want to make money, and that means caring about SP balance.
End of Tridus's quote

 

Lets count the number of people online on rebellion ICO.

 

Lets count the number of people steam says play rebellion.

 

When i did this i got ~130/1000 = 13% of the players who played sins that day were all online at ONE TIME.

 

lets not be stupid dumb and use questionable statistics which are clearly incorrect,  and out of date.

Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top

well vicious ai starts to build them and shoot them as early as 15 min into the game.