Grarg, I tried to edit my post but it didn't take effect.

fenwe, your argument here is a bit silly. Are you saying that because you don't play the game competitively, no one should be allowed to play the game competitively?

Us vs Them is also a bad mentality. What many people fail to see is that everyone play the game differently. Some prefer to play vs the CPU where others prefer to play vs other players. Some prefer to go for the larger ships, where others go for more but smaller ships.

Playing vs the CPU requires a certain type of gameplay and generally tends to lean on AI flaws and predictability. Playing vs other players is where it's all not far from exact opposite of vs the CPU.

So really, it's quite a feat to balance this to fit both. I have no doubt the developers have their own way of deciding what's the best way to go, to make the game fun for all aspects.

Seeing as the game in its current state leans more towards playing against other players is fairly obvious, lacking a single-player campaign and all. This is most likely where they will begin to make the game work to satisfy the most people.

Once there is (Whenever that may be) a single-player campaign there's no doubt the game engine itself is already finely tweaked and ready for it. Mind you there's no doubt certain single-player only rules will apply.

Balance affects everyone, casual, competitive, whatever. You're still an idiot. We love this game and want it balanced, you just like TEC being overpowered like all the noobs massing trade ports and then kodiaks don't you? Well I don't want to play just TEC. I like variety.

as soon as someone posts after you, no more edits, silly eh? lol

Just won another game going full eco with two allies and pooling them, 3v3, clan match with XX, just jumped in to give em a full 6. My economy dominated that game even though I had three planets, and got my third one late, and researched ice right before one ally decided to take the ice as well.

(Razors edge)

with 3 planets, 2mil lab, 2 civic labs, I pooled one ally to mass HC, and built flak myself, my second ally didn't do much but build defenses/cobalts the whole game and we still won because of my economys ridiculous power. I was second overall eco but I had so much credit income that it didn't matter with the new market.

Countering fighters/bombers/lrm with my flak, HCs popped everything else with second ally killing all the carriers with his cobalts.

Haeso plz don't let the HC+Flak cat out of the bag ;(

And yes most of team games go that way, one person takes a pounding while the others go econ, then once they top off their fleet cap, they just feed the last person to their fleet cap.

Yeah calling people noobs, idiots, numbskulls and whatever else insults and derogatory comments is REALLY going to make it more likely for you to be listened to. Try behaving like that in any company meeting and you'd be kicked out faster than you can open and shut your mouth.

If you can't see past the words to get the message written then you aren't really listening, so what does it matter? The words may seem flammatory, but the message is not. The same cannot be said of certain others in this thread...

I don't understand the hostility. I believe quite firmly that people should play any darn way they choose too. I haven't written anything different than that. What I am saying though is that the belief that the "competetive" MP crowd is doing the rest of the community a favor is a fallacy that has been statistically proven incorrect over countless of studies. Let me be more clear.

There isn't anything wrong with playing competitively, if that is how you want to play. Because competitive players play differently than the rest of the community, they will discover issues that the rest of the community does not see, are not affected by, and in many cases don't even understand.

Competitive MP players are the smallest denomination of any IP. It doesn't matter if we are talking about PvP in an MMO or online MP, as soon as you start going out of the "solo" mode, the number of players in that market group drops significantly.

Often times the vocal minority influences the majority, especially in this case. This is the reality of the situation. How you perceive that reality is up to you.

I am not and have not made any personal attacks. I never said I wasn't a competitive MP player. I am just making folks aware of the reality of the situation. Live with it or not, it is your choice.

Yeah HC+Flak is quite a powerful combo.

Flaks really ought to be nerfed against bombers.

Balance effects everyone, competitive or not. Try again.

Balance effects everyone, competitive or not. Try again.

Balance effects everyone, competitive or not. Try again.

Me and Cykur did a test on a small map 1v1 to test this idea of TEC ecospam being too powerful. I was TEC, Cykur was Vasari and I went pure ecospam. After about 30 mins the game was pretty much over. Also, I don't think either of us did anything particularly wrong (apart from the fact that I neglected to get development mandate... oops, but the game was over by then). After this test I definitely think TEC are too strong and need a nerf. Incidentally, WHY oh WHY did they nerf illums and buff javs so much? (javs need a range nerf, illums need to be cheaper again).

Replay: TECEco.record

Actually Haeso said that. I played all three races depending on game type and map but am now pissed off that i'm confined to TEC only.

A valid point! We only see imbalance because one tactic is significantly better the others, if we all stopped using this powerful tactic then balance would surely be restored.

Now make every single player online agree NOT to use TEC economy spam and we'll be ok.

Don't really see that happening to be fair.

Aye as I've been telling you guys.

Having 100-50% more income over your opponent just 15 minutes into the game is a huge advantage now that stuff on the black market is too cheap.

At least before tec got bottlenecked by metal and/or crystal and would end up wasting a lot of their credits.

I don't really care how the hell you want to play, I am a casual player, and I like to think of myself as proficient in this game. That being said, I do not use "winning strategies," as I am not in it to win. I don't think this is a "superior game style." I just find that it suits me best. I have my own experience with competitive gaming, and still prefer to win by far, but care more about the experience now-a-days than I used to.

I play games such as sins to spend time with my friends, and to play the role of the leader of a space-faring civilization. Competitive players play specifically for the challenge, and the euphoric feeling of victory that no one can deny. Neither is better than the other. That is not an opinion, that is fact. We all payed for this product to enjoy it in our own way. Now, if someone wants to complain about it, go right ahead. What I'll ask though, is that no one acts the role of an elitist snob who believes that they are the only people worthy of giving their 2 cents towards what the devs should do to fix what they find to be the games problems. If competitive players such as Haeso have a complaint, let them post it. If others disagree with this, let them post it.

Here I will criticize the prominent competitive players that have been posting in this thread thus far. Keep it civil please. By far it has been your crowd which has resorted to name calling when someone posts a contrary opinion to your own. They have a right to object to something they are in disagreement with. Take what they say and come up with a convincing argument to try to sway them rather than take the stance of "I know more than you, so you should just stfu." Its that attitude which polarizes an entire community against competitive players. Besides, do you really think the devs are really even going to pay attention to a discussion that has evolved into little more than a squabble between a couple of kids trying to one up eachother?

I find that casuals can be little bitches too of course , as I am not really a fan of catering to the "carebear" community. This has been aimed primarily at the competitive players because they have been who I perceive as the least mature among the two groups in this particular discussion. Final bit of advice: be civil. Everyone wins if you keep this discussion just that, a discusion. Turning it into a petty flame war isn't going to help anyone.

No offense, but if they're throwing flaks, cobalts, and lrms at you while you have Destras, you're not playing a very good TEC player. Also during the time that you're defensive, a player with a brain would make proper efforts to destroy your military labs to slow you down.

(1) I usually try not to be pedantic, but really, if you're going to say something like that, I'd like see some sources .

(2)(3)(4) Note that 2 and 4 are very closely related. A lot of times this leads people to the conclusion of 3. However, this is most certainly not the case. Game balance affects everyone playing the game. Even the smallest detail. The only things that wouldn't crossover are things that don't exist in this game for the most part (advanced micro methods). Anything related to numbers affects any gameplay.

(5) This might be a relevant point if there were two separate games here - one for single player and one for multiplayer - but this is not the case.

(6) In this case, that's a good thing. The minority in this situation are the experts that are more knowledgeable about the game than others (please note that I do not play this game competitively and so do not consider myself an expert on this game) simply because of the hours of work they devote to getting to know the game.

(7) Simply saying that you're correct doesn't make a good argument . You need to back it up with other points.

(8) If we all remain civil, we will eventually get somewhere with any discussion. The competitive players among us that choose to throw insults and call people 'noobs' and 'numb skulls' are not helping anyone and every point they make is getting overshadowed by the emotional noise.

Too quote myself...



You guys need to quit stating the obvious. Things will be fixed and tweaked & instead of moaning why not do something constructive and give suggestions on how to fix said issues.

a good example can be foundhere

I was insulted and mocked before I said a single inflamatory word. I showed evidence of a clear game imbalance between the races. If you want to blame the fact that this clear imbalance is being ignored, I don't know what to say. Stardock has access to all the records, they could go ahead and see the steep rise in TEC players, who already dominated most games.


and as far as telling me to "Do something constructive" his post was pretty much brought on by my own.

Is there a reason you quoted me? You seem to agree with me about game balance. If you're referring to my suggestion not to turn arguments into mudslinging and name-calling - then all I really have to say is that no one should be doing that as it doesn't accomplish anything. And actually the specific person I was referring to was the person you were arguing with.

Ahem....

I would just like to point out Haeso, that before you even posted this thread very, very, very many inflamatory choice words were in fact being used by you in the ICO chat! Anyone having had to listen to you on ICO would have gotten a terrible impression of you...


..just my take.


the Monk

Maybe you'd best let it drop for a bit, Haeso? You've made several points after all, and once a thread gets down to arguing about who flamed first it's basically over anyway.

I was originally posting to say something like "Sim City in space: I'd buy that like a shot", which is true enough, I've always been a sucker for moonbase themed games. I don't think it's really an accurate description of SoaSE patch 1.03 though, and perhaps that title itself seemed inflammatory to some players even if you hadn't intended it to.

And I'd totally buy a new sim city game astatine. I like them. It just felt accurate to me, I've never seen so many trade ports compared to this patch.

And monk the point was I never insulted any person, just the patch itself. I was messing around with people probably, I always do that and if anyone takes me joking around in a lobby seriously, I don't know what to say. It's the internet, get some thicker skin?

But seriously, what you think of me? I couldn't care less, what anyone thinks of me does not matter, if this whole DAMNED community hates me. So be it. But I won't sit on my ass when I see a problem with something I *CARE* about. I will voice my well placed concern. So hate me all you want everyone. But if you want to be so thickheaded that you let me your HATE get in the way of what's best for the game, I think it is YOU not ME who needs to take a step back and reflect.

I don't care if your AI doesn't actually use the broken strategies, people I play against does, and they shouldn't be ignored so you can exploit them against the computer and other people can use them against me forcing me to do the same thing in response if I want a chance to win, see my problem? Or should I just handicap myself and fight a downhill battle?