The devs have recognized this

BTW, the random-map generator needs some touching up -- specifically, amongst other issues, it shouldn't place the jump drive relic A) in the "locked" asteroid expansion of a Vasari player, or in a single star map.

Yarlen,

Does this mean that there's no hope for more emphasis on few-but-powerful for the Vasari in the future? I certainly respect your vision for the race, but I don't see where your vision of how the race broadly plays is incompatible with what many people have been asking for. A well-constructed Vasari fleet, resource-for-resource, shouldn't be able to stand up to its TEC counterpart -- nobody disagrees on that at this point, I think. We just think that the ship-for-ship difference in capability could stand to feel more pronounced, with corresponding increases in cost.

In the end, of course, it's your game and the final decision is yours. I just hope I've been able to clarify a bit what I (and apparently a few others) are asking for.

I don't think we'll get a definite answer on this just yet. Blair mentioned in IRC and in another thread that they may make the ship-to-ship difference more pronounced, but 'may' means they're thinking. And I imagine they have plenty to consider, especially since we don't know anything really about the Advent, and they do. So they not only need to consider Vasari vs TEC, but the relationships between all 3 races which becomes a lot more complex.

Ah, well, that's certainly fair enough. And I do understand that the Advent are a factor in the differentiation process that we don't have any information on yet.

(Blair's comment in the other thread is why I'm asking, actually. From his comments in this thread, Yarlen doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of that kind of change, and I'm wondering if they're still even considering it or if they've decided against it. )

Well, Yarlen is a Stardock rep, and Blair is one of the Ironclad folk developing the game, so they're sort of in different positions and I don't claim to know exactly how the hierarchy goes I know that Stardock owns the IP, but they've said that they give Ironclad a lot of freedoms as well and they try to collaborate and work together as much as possible.

My guess is, whatever they decide, we'll see in the first actual patch to the beta, not a bug hotfix

I played a couple of games, small and medium maps this weekend, with Beta 4.

There weren't any bugs that I could find, but a couple of thematic issues and an AI flaw that should be addressed (I think).

Thematic:

The Vasari are supposed to be on the run from a god-like power and find the TEC as unorganized slave-fodder. However, in single player games the Vasari are fairly evenly matched with and often aligned with TEC players! This sort of thing makes sense for multi-player (non-AI) games, but does not jive at all with the storyline.

Also, as so many other players have already noted, the Vasari really aren't all that mighty. I was expecting something more akin to the way I felt in one of the early GC II scenarios where the Dread Lords' scout would whack my whole fleet single handedly and the only way to win against it was to sneak around the edge of the map or to overwhelm it with targets so that a few could make it past. Changing the game at this point may be a little difficult, so perhaps a tweak to the storyline is in order. (Note that playing with the Vasari isn't un-fun at all. It's just not what the storyline conditioned me to expect.)

AI: The AI is extending itself too fast. In both games the AI attacked a colony defended by a few gauss canons, which defended at least until I could get my fleet(s) there too. This led to many frigates lost by the AI and a torn up capital ship. Pressing the advantage led to the loss of the AI homeworld and fleet in no time - a medium sized map being cleared in under an hour. (Maybe thats not good, but it is for me. I am usually a conservative player.) Also, in one game there were 6 players on 3 teams. I left my flanks unattended (except for gauss/hangers) to pursue the AI player who had made the above mistake and fully expected to get assaulted by the neighber. All I ever had to deal with were a couple of scouts and a frigate or three!

I just had an idea that might make the Vasari issue work out.

Make Vasari production even more expensive than it is now. Way more. BUT, make their most powerful weapon and shield techs cheap and early in the tree. Make their later techs stuff that make it cheaper for them to produce ships and upgrade planets and structures.

The TEC already have cheap, but weak ships with the most powerful techs way up the tree.

If done right, this would make the Vasari player try and find a quiet little corner of the map to nest and build up undisturbed, until those techs can be found that will let them expand faster. I think that might make it feel more aligned with the storyline.

The TEC would just go on doing their thing.

I encountered a small bug:

I had built a vasari overseer and was experimenting with its slow phase ability.
When an enemy fleet jumped in i activated it and they dropped out of phase space half way there.
They then crawled towards the gravwell in sublight
Interestingly they were counted as units of the arriving gravwell, as my units left the gravwell to chase them down.

Didn´t reproduce that error, yet as it would´ve taken ages to get my ships back :/

Unfortunately you are incorrect. Eldar collect the same resources, but they have vastly different weighing. They have an incredible hunger for energy, while their requisition need is less severe than the other races. You are also mistaken on how those races play (Marines are not defined by their brute force - they are defined by their ability to customize on the fly to meet specific threats, while Eldar are defined by their ability to deal a great amount of damage, with no ability to take damage and literally no customization. It's ultra specialization), and if you are unable to choose an example that's actually correct, then I begin to understand why the Vasari are so messed up.

If you ended that game then you should have a replay of it and you can send it in, provided they can't reproduce it themselves. Sounds like a pretty big bug, not a minor one

I imagine that's true. I'll be waiting with bated breath, then.

The New Economic System scares me...

Before a player with less planets could win by skill, if he could force the other player to waste/lose enough of his resources to balance it out, eventually the terms become equal as resources run out.

Now its infinite. Now there is no chance of that, and it makes come-backs harder not easier IMO, because the player with a lead in planets/mines is going to become more powerful at a much quicker rate than it used to. Can't we make this an option?

Inifinite Resources/Limited Resources As an option this has been done before in games.

This has been taken from the Gameplay description:
"Sins of a Solar Empire is a "RT4X" game, blending the epic strategy and empire management of the 4x genre with the fast-paced and tactical elements of a real-time strategy title."

I think that many people complaining about the Vasari did notice this sentence also and perhaps misinterpreted it (like me). For my part, I don't especially like RTS games (except Age of Mythology), but love highly strategic games (4x or whatever). When I pre-ordered Sins, I was thinking of a good mix of both types and liked the concept. In my opinion, the similarities (that have been mentionned before) between the Vasari and the TEC are making Sins really more RTS than 4x and for me, it's a disappointement. My expectations were really higher than this for the mixing.

But it's just me, no need to quote me and tell me: play more, blabla. This game is awesome for many people, but just ok for me. I will continue my search of the Perfect Space Game from MY point of view (GalCiv 2 is close ).

Anyway, good job (the devs and people involved)

EDIT: add the quote from Yarlen.

The Dawn of War parallel doesn't work like you want it to. Every race in the game operates on the same core mechanics, the same resources, the same resource gathering method, the same research method. The specific techs they research are named differently in places, but often have a similar effect to the research for every other race.

Dawn of War races differentiate themselves on the following items:

1 - Resource cost to build
2 - Combat Strength/Weakness

The first is a balance of unit & building price versus power relative to other races. The balance of which resource to use more heavily per race is partially story justified, but it's just a method to increase or decrease relative cost.

The second is just shifting what sort of tactics one must use. The eldar, as Yarlen said above, do quick strikes due to their high damage, but very low health. Imperial Guard work through sheer numbers. Each race has a specialization essentially that differentiate how they work.

The Vasari have very powerful weapons (phase missiles... eesh) and then there's their manipulation of phase space. Phase Gates to travel to/from anywhere, plus the one cap ship that acts as a mobile gate, allowing you to reenforce a battle from anywhere in your empire make the Vasari play dramatically different in the mid/late game because of this. You're not safe necessarily because they have their fleets several jumps away from your front, they can get around that in a hurry.

But that is the mid/late game. And the Vasari haven't been fully balanced yet, and we haven't even seen the Advent in the game. So it looks like on the high-end, the races have strong differentiation in technology, but at the start are pretty similar. That's something that can probably be taken care of with the balancing of the tech tree (adjust costs and benefits to improvements).

TEC: Economic focus. Heavy armor. Big focus on ballistics over lasers. Planetary shields. They're the rough-and-ready faction. They don't excell at anything specifically in combat, but they're tough and can bounce back quickly because of their strong economy.

Vasari: Phase technology. Missiles that bypass shields, phase gates, mobile phase gates. Big focus on shields and high-end tech over traditional armor. Once their shields are down, they're in trouble. Technological superiority can give them a big lead in offensive moves early in the game because the TEC doesn't start improving shields until tier 2 or 3.

Advent: Who knows? Will we even see them in the public beta?

No, we won't Advent are saved for release.

This is ment to be a beta but we have one race just thrown in at the end and the last race we are not even going to test at all.This is more like a pre purchase demo in reality.It is bad enough only having 3 races but to have more or less clones is very dissapointing,no matter how you try to spin it the Vasari are more or less the same as the TEC,ecomony,ships,etc.

And still no bloody fleets or formations in the game.

This may sound silly, but the load game sequence (oldest save first) is a step back from the other betas, and other games (most curent save first). When you go to load a save, you want the latest, not the oldest as first choice.

pek

No, its a beta. Hence the increasing number of features, like



this still to come in a patch.



And the fact is they are very different from the TEC. Yes, the ships have the same (rough) roles. Your stuck with that from the get-go, really. Even in Starcraft that was true (to a degree). Marines -- Dragoons -- Hydralisks; Firebats -- Zerglings -- Zealots. Wraiths -- Scouts -- Mutalisks.

Fact is, the abilities and research make the difference between the two. And those differences are huge.

Yarlen, thank you for chiming in. I respect your decision to make the races very similar, but disapprove on the grounds said earlier, concerning the lore. Perhaps if you were to change the background story to match the actual game better it would require minimal effort, as changing text is a lot easier to do than overthrow game mechanics and rewriting the Vasari AI to match. Or you could ignore it, of course, inaction is always a valid choice, and quite likely many customers won't care about it. If you want, I can point out the things more precisely of the lore that I feel does not match. If you are unsure, then it would mean that I just haven't made myself clear, instead of that people on the forum only read the bold text.

Despite the huge debate that blew up about the Vasari/TEC feel, my main concern is the poor AI; as I said that should take precedence over any reworking the Vasari. I fear that the full effort will only be going into getting the Advent to the same basic level as the rest, like it was with the Vasari in Beta4. I hope I'm wrong, so that there is also a big effort going into improving the existing TEC and Vasari AI.

If Yarlen doesn't, I would like to hear it I'm not interested in starting another heated argument, but you don't give the impression of being someone who would rush into one, so perhaps we can have a rational discussion

I've read the lore, and I think the bigger problem isn't what it said, but rather what it left out. The lore itself is kinda vague, and it let people read into it what they thought it meant thus leading to the disappointment of many.

After chatting with lordkosc this morning, there's apparently been quite a lot of misunderstanding on exactly what people have been talking about with the Vasari.  Let me make it clear that, like in all the other betas, we are open to balancing suggestions in relation to fleet point costs, unit costs, ability placement in the tech tree, etc.   What we are not open to is a total rewrite of any race or other radical ideas - there isn't time for them (and honestly, some people's suggestions are just not realistic).

Blair has already stated that we will be tweaking the Vasari so that they get some of the special abilities earlier in the tech tree. We will also look at upping their power and adjusting their fleet costs to balance.

Hopefully this bit of info will get everyone back on the same page.

BTW - Ironclad owns the Sins IP.

i kind curiouse what you are referring to, when you say radical ideas/changes



Thats what ive been interrested in since the beginning of the discussion, i wanna see less Vasari ship flying around compared to the TEC, and i dont mean removing some models from the game

Stuff like every race playing totally differently with entirely different economic, resource and culture systems. That kind of stuff.

THe square hangars on the Vasari Carrier feel very out of place to me. I feel like more models should replicate overlapping/concial sea shell designs. Which some models do very well.

At the very least those hangars need to be rounded a bit.