How I envisioned the Vasari

Actually, problem is a lot of people didn't read the story "right". The initial "moves" of the game probably played like that, but as has been pointed out its been ten long years of warfare. The Vasari have had to adapt to the situation, and are effectively planet based now (to better utilize available resources).

Endurell I would love to play you in a game, show you how seriously different the TEC and vasari are. the differences may seem subtle and minor at first, but trust in me when I say that they are quite profound from the proper perspective. as for the Vasari not fitting what you imagined? there has never been enough evidence to found any sort of solid claim to what the Vasari "should" have been (trust me, this argument has been going on for half a month) the Devs described elegantly what they truly meant, and if you look with an open mind you will see their vision is much more elegant and true to what they wrote than the classic protoss-zerg comparison too many jaded RTS fans are used to

if you dont want to be bothered with that, I'll give you a hint: the vasari emphasize not strength for cost, they focus on mobility, intelligence and phasegates for their elevated costs.

As I prefer to phrase it, their power comes not from individual strength, but from mobility and intelligence

you learned that from me, you leaching luggie.

I'm the one that came up with the phrasing You just came up with the idea behind it.

hence you learned it from me.   

Wanna say that to my face, in ICO?

actually the beta says that they are running from something. they need to collect all resources that they can and move on quickly.

Yes there is certainly only one way to read a story... the right way. Certainly the art of fiction, written word, and especially poetry has only one valid interpretation, and by goodness if someone thinks otherwise we must immediately come to chastise them to save them from themselves

Lay off the guy, he went to allot of effort to explain how he was just speaking his mind, not necessarily demanding any change. That should have been enough.

Thats not what I said. Note the quotation marks around the "right". Yes, there are other possibly valid readings, but only one really fits with what we got in-game.

The thing about the lore is that it can change at any given time before the final release.

If you consider that the Vasari have been fighting TEC over the last 10 years, and are now in a stalemate. Then the gameplay makes a lot more sense, because they had to adapt from the all mobile steamroll strike force to a "dug in" attrition force. They cannot retreat, and they cannot surrender because of their fear of this unknown threat.

Much can happen in 10 years of warfare. TEC adapted to the Vasari invasion very fast, and now the Vasari have to adapt to a stand up fight. Which you gather from the lore is the 1st time they faced an enemy that was their match during the exodus.

Still, don't go strictly by the lore. It was only meant as a fictional back story leading up to the events of the game.

lay off the guy? everything since the first two (extremely tame, almost PRlike) posts has been away from topic...

Im just saying considering how he prefaced everything you went immediately into defense mode even though he stated he wasn't expecting or even asking for change. Bu I wasn't saying you were being overwhelmingly negative or anything.

I think a very visual adaptation could be taken from his suggestion, Vasari homeworlds could act just like they do for everyone else...

But you could make the Vasari Homeworld a a very large ship that can't move lol. Or just alter their HW so that in orbit among the 'traffic' instead of space elevators have big evacuation ships...

Some aestetic changes could be done easily enough, but not before release I'm betting.

Certainly people misinterpreting the backstory has been a cause for much grief over the past month.

The Vasari are running from some horrible, unknown entity. We don't know what it/they are, but we do know that this enemy is immensely powerful. This is saying something as the Vasari were the toughest kid on the galactic block for thousands of years. In an incredibly short span, this enemy wiped out large sections of the Vasari Empire and the decision was made to pack up the entire remaining Vasari civilization, leave the slaves/non-Vasari citizens to fend for themselves, and run for it. The Vasari have been running ever since, stopping only now and then to replenish their resources.

Then something unexpected occurred. The Vasari entered Trade Order space and instead of rolling over, the humans fought back. Initially this was pretty one-sided for the Vasari, but at heart when the chips are down, humans are good fighters. The newly formed TEC used their powerful industrial base to retool for war and soon began to mire down the Vasari. Fast-forward to Sins present and it's been 10 years of mucking around for the Vasari against the TEC. They're in a panic. They still don't have enough resources to move on and they know their ancient enemy is getting closer and closer. Since they've been in TEC space so long, they've had no choice but to use the existing structures and populace to work in their current frameworks - forcing the Vasari to adapt and even take new slaves to control these planets.

Ron Lugge...

Not to reminisce, but I remember you from Master of Orion 3 years ago. You were an apologist for that game also. Right up to the bitter end in fact you were telling everyone how the game was completely different and total production failures such as the bug crippling point defense was in fact a 'feature' that the devs meant to include and was totally within the scope of the game. Your posts always supported Quicksilver and how 'the next patch will fix everything'...

Look how MOO3 came out, it was and still is awful.

Now you're telling us that we're not reading the story 'right'. Just like the general consensus interpretation of MOO3 was never 'right'. You don't do anyone any good by feeding the developers exactly what they want to hear. Right now to the non-professional eye it appears that the sides are near equal.

-->Each side has the same ship slots, with an near identical counterpart on the other side.
-->Each side techs the same way, and has near identical techs with limited variation. -->Each side even colonizes in the same way although the system of colonization that is 'explained' to us contrasts completely to what the game is displaying.

Yes, the developers have altered the backstory to explain that the Vasari are now colonizing worlds. And the Devs are telling us that the planetary bombing is in fact the transfer of 'new administrators' to rule the apparently ubiquitous (and hereto unmentioned) human population.

Many players are telling the Devs that this doesn't mesh with what they're seeing and what they're feeling in the game. Thats their right and it's our job as 'beta testers' to tell Ironclad and Stardock what works and what feels right and what doesn't. Yes, you're welcome to your opinion and I personally welcome it. Telling another poster that he's not looking at something 'right' and then providing the developer 'talking points' helps no-one.

Lets not end up with another MOO3.

Okay, I guess I didn't understand the time frame. I guess I'll hold my tongue until after release.

@ Schod - I'd love to play you sometime so you can "illustrate" do you have any free time this weekend?

With the tiny amount of factions I honestly expected a huge difference in gameplay,but the devs just took the Supremecommander clones route.I wonder why the devs didn't make a more epic 10+ races in the game,seeing that the races are so similar.

Frigates yes, cruisers and capital ships no.

The frigates really do come off as terribly non-descript, although a few tech upgrades change them up a hell of a lot. The phase missiles, when working well instead of negating their own benefit, will be the ultimate dunov counter, their meatgrinder ships upgrade into self repairing freaks that take a lot more of a beating than cobalts to start with, and then get to repair the damage without any help. The planet bombers are still planet bombers, if better ones, and the flak frigates are just flak frigates, but the two sides are not identical even just in frigates, nowhere near as close together in function as supreme commanders units are.

With the cruisers, only the carrier is a matchup for TEC cruisers. TEC have real support cruisers, they actively support the other ships, repairing and restoring shields, increasing firing range. The kodiak on the other hand is a purely offensive meatgrinder, with a tech upgrade to make it a powerful persuit vessel too. The Vasari by comparison have little in the way of support abilities, an instant hull boost with accompanying armor, phase jump inhibiting capabilities, and very nice disabling shots. Their kodiak variant is likewise different. Instead of being a persuit type, it's yet again a disabling type. It slows the enemy, letting your entire fleet persue and destroy it instead. None of the capital ships behave the same way, the TEC capital ships are designed to support each other, range increases, shield restoration, the ultimate bomber defenses. Their carrier is a standoff weapon, sitting at the edge of gravity wells daring you to come and screw with them and their missile platforms while they bomb you and steal your income. The battleship is the perfect target, massive shield mitigation in combination with dunov shield restores gives you an invincible target to run into packs of frigates, defense platforms, anything and everything. The dreadnaught is a pack killer, dot's and multiple ship targetting abilities, with the extra cheesy level 6 missile spam radius effect ship killer. The battlecruisers are support ships, shield restore, extra range, minor disabling abilities, and cease fire.

The Vasari have no restoration, their dreadnaught plays the same role early on in being able to hit multiple targets with abilities, but it's primary role is in planetary destruction, while the marza's is secondary and minor. The battleship isn't so much a meatshield as it is a ridiculously punishing damage dealer, huge weapon cooldown bonuses accompany a very nice shield regeneration boost. It can tear through anything very rapidly at high levels, including a Kol. The carrier, instead of a standoff weapon, is the only mobile repair station they have, and a mass effect one too. It's a front line support ship, regenerating hulls and phasing strike craft in and out to kill the enemy faster. The two others are likewise completely different, the marauder doesn't even have a near facsimile, a fast strike capital ship doesn't exist on the TEC side, let alone one that speeds up the entire fleet and lets them jump further out. At level 6, the portable phase gate is more than just different, it's a side defining tactical strike capability that the TEC can't even prevent, let alone duplicate. The Vasari colonizer is almost as different, the most powerful damage ability in the game, an area effect jump blocker and that wonderful vacuum cleaner of a level 6 ability that sucks up half a maxed out terran planet.

TEC are about group strength, complimenting abilities combined to create an invincible fleet that stops for no one. The Vasari are about wiping the floor with anything smaller and leaving no survivors, or blowing past the defenses in a surprise attack, leveling the planet in seconds, and jumping straight home if they run into that invincible fleet before they're finished with their conquest.

*hands psychoak a large jar of his favorite type of cookie and applauds*

Damn good post

Long too, ill wind and whatnot.

Come on guys, must I return from innactivity to this crappy repetition of the prior Vasari Threads.

Lets leave this thread be, if anyone else wants to share how they pictured the Vasari, they should go ahead, without fear of critics *stares at Schem and Ron*.

Endurell I would be happy to play you, unfortunately I am way too bogged down this weekend, perhaps another time?

Caael you are damn straight that people should express their opinions, we meant no harm in saying that you were (and are) technically "wrong" in how you view things. However, comparing discrepancies in your story plot to bugs in gameplay and imbalance, tsch... going a bit far. I saw from the beginning that this is how the devs planned to make the vas, does that mean if they tried your route that they would be making as equally terrible a game? the game is completely stable and from my point of view rather well balanced for 80 days to go (not that there isnt improvement to be seen). however, this:

suggests a very limited amount of time playing either of the factions. I can vouch heavily that if you take the same approach to two factions you will get creamed. they are quite divergant even from early techs, and they only get more so as the game continues.
Ashberry: these may appear to be "clones", but if thats all you see I'm giving you the same rebuttle as Caael: put more time into the vasari, play them differently.

finally Caael I have to say I agree with one simple comment "*to the untrained eye* the two look similar" this is something the devs have shot for since day one: races that are completely different, but still function similarly enough in bare bone structure that they in fact are extremely easy to pick up interchangeably. its a design function, not flaw.
if you do come back with some rebuttle about how I'm a kissass in league with Ron (true, he is a bit of one   ), just ask yourself who has been here nearly a year longer than you, we know what we're talking about. just a friendly hint, as we all know you wont.

No. I never called the point defense bug a "feature" -- I recognized it as a (nasty) bug, but you are right: I trusted them to hold to their word and fix it in the "upcoming patch".

Yes, your right, I tend to support the devs. I tend to like things the way they are. There are others who can't stand the way things are and want lots and lots of change -- good idea or not. I balance them.



Read closer, thats not what I do. I do happen to agree with them on many things, but I'm also one of the ones who digs up bugs for them. I'm one of the ones who complained about game speed -- thats hardly telling the devs "what they want to hear".

And let me point out that while there are many things about Moo3 I would change, even now... I did enjoy it, and I'd be enjoying it right now if the CDs weren't (mistakenly) left in storage and unavailable to me right now. Edit: But if you want an admission... yes, the game was far, far less than it could have been. But thats obvious just looking at the history: three different companies wanting three different things. And poor quicksilver had to take the same code and try to walk it through that nightmare.

Yarlen:


This is in contradiction to this part of the TEC lore:


The short time of 10 years and the initial floundering of the TEC is the main problem with the lore compared to the game. A longer period since the Vasari arrived, or at least a change to that the TEC miraculously retooled soon, as Yarlen says, would make it a lot more plausible that the TEC are currently able to stand up to them from where our game begins.

quote]The short time of 10 years and the initial floundering of the TEC [/quote]


how do you stop wave after wave of suicide ships. remember they can be robotic ships. these ships would be the trade and resource ships.

in the mean time you can start building your flag and cobalt frigates.