Oh, the new players air plenty of their own grievances too. Look at the gripes about siege frigates before this patch. Most experienced players have no trouble fending them off and hardly ever build them beyond late game mop-up but there were still plenty of people willing to contend that they were nigh invincible en-masse because they weren't expecting to see them used the way the AI used them.

Discounting mods, we're all playing the same game here and if changes are going to be made in the interests of balance, I'd rather take the advice of people who have some idea what the current playing field actually looks like (even if those people happen to be incapable of civil discussion).

Let us assume that one race has units that are simply better than another races. but race 2 has a special unit called the Wiggle Dancer which, if you click in a certain pattern constantly, competes with race 1 normally. Pros know how to use the Wiggle Dance and for them the game is balanced. But newer players use it like a normal unit or have trouble using the Wiggle Dance properly. Therefore in a newbie vs newbie matchup, Race 2 will always lose.

Incidentally, it took 3 or 4 years before Starcraft achieved its vaunted 'perfect balance', and there are several units the pros virtually never use.

Which I would argue is not balanced at all, since in the ideal case every unit would have a use.

The game can be not balanced for new players because new players don't understand what some veteran ones do (IE, flaks countering LRM.)
This is largely due to armor/damage types and their effects not displayed ingame(takes someone who cares to know to look it up) and flak is listed only as a counter to fighters, not to lrms too.
If in the flak tooltip it said "Counters fighters, and LRM support frigates" there would never have been a huge LRM issue.

LRM spamming worked because newbies didn't know to make flaks. Flaks kill LRMS 3.5:1.

So while 1.02 was fairly well balanced, it took knowing the game to knowing this. What was needed is better tooltips, better information IN GAME.

But now it is more imbalanced.. while javs cost more, tec is getting far more resources than the other races, much better than the slight cost increase of javs, so jav lrm spam is worse than before. :/ While assailants cost a ton more and vasari is getting far less eco, so assailant spam is really not a problem.. vasari doing anything at all isn't a big problem.

Funny, but that group of people complaining included the developers.

And there are NO units that the pros never use. The pros use what will counter the enemy.

The only units I can think that pros don't use are:
Siege frigates(never at all in 1.03, rarely in 1.02)
Overseerers

anddd.. that's it!
Some would be used more than others, but for the most part if someone makes lrms, you made flak, if someone made light frigs, you made lrms(or just outspammed disciples as advent with just a few illums), if someone made flak you made light frigs.

Lrms where considered the best for "make it if you don't know what else to make" unit since you could use them to kill caps(since you knew you'd always be against one) and buildings(hurting eco, killing defenses), and they did good against other lrms if you simply outnumbered

I'm not here 24/7 so feel free to point it out if I missed anything but the only comment I saw on the subject from anyone in-the-know was that their gameplay data suggested that siege frigates were getting a lot of use. There wasn't much elaboration on that point so I'm still wondering 'when' these things were getting heavy use as a main offense.

And I have no doubt that newer players are trashing each other with these things on occasion but I'd attribute that more to poor scouting and poorly documented counters (which is the case for quite a few things in this game) than unit imbalance.

The only part of this post that is correct is that ultimately, the decisions on how to balance and rebalance the game is up to the devs. However, as was just pointed out, the devs keep a close eye on these forums and pay attention to what players have to say. Thus, players post feedback about how to make the game better, and maybe it will influence the dev's decision, maybe it wont. Thats all this thread is: feedback. Haeso identified a problem in the new patch - that the new market system heavily favors TEC. Legions of idiots have descended upon this thread, claiming that he is just whining that his strategies were nerfed. Perhaps Haeso is a selfish noob who just wants Vasari to be godly, and is miffed that TEC have become more powerful in this patch. However, I think it is much more likely that Haeso is a competitive player operating with the best interests of the game at heart.

It is an incredibly common misconception that competitive players campaign to get their own strategies buffed. On the contrary, most competitive players, including myself, are much more concerned with the overall quality of the game, so that regardless of the strategy I use, my victory will be meaningful. For example, I think that Advent is currently useless. Completely unviable in competitive play. I dont find their style to be particularly appealing, either. However, I think they should be buffed. Alot. That would be for the good of the game, not towards the benifit of any strategy I use or plan on using. The same logic applies here. Until they fix it, Im going to be using and abusing TEC. At the same time, I am advising the devs that TEC need to be nerfed, because they are too good in comparison to the other races. Is that so difficult to understand?

I am totally baffled by the argument that by making suggestions to improve the game, competitive players are ruining it. That makes no sense. If you ask me, the real culprits are the casual gamers who whine when they cannot defeat simple and badstrategies. Example: seiege frigates. Seige rushes are incredibly, abysmally bad. No one should ever lose to it. But sure enough, alot of players had no idea what they were doing, lost to the AI, and whined. The devs should have told them to just stop failing so badly and learn to counter it, but instead coddled them and made the game easier for them, making the game worse in the process: seige frigates are now even more useless than they were before.

I consider myself a chronic-gamer-helper, and a casual-gamer

I have however never once in any game ever bitched about anything, other than people bitching!  

In my experience, those "bitching players" are usually split 50/50. Half of them are "casual gamers" and the other half "competitive gamers".

All I ever want is to play the game (any game) the way the devs envisioned it, period. Which is why I've said "... SD/IC to thine selves stay true...". I don't really care what anyone else says/thinks should be changed/patched.

the Monk

Both Stardock and Ironclad are committed to continuing to improve Sins.  But "better" is subjective.  What one person considers better another person may consider worse.

We read through the posts on the forums and make our own decisions.  Having been designing PC games for a decade and a half, I am always looking for new ideas and take suggestions seriously. I also know that a lot of the complaining about "balance" is dubious because they are looking at it from purely a particular way to win at multiplayer versus general strategy.

1.03 wasn't really designed as a balancing update. Some changes were made so that we could gauge their effect for 1.04 which IS a balancing update with some pretty significant improvements.

Speaking of Starcraft, having been involved in Starcraft's development process, having designed one of the expansion packs for Starcraft (Retribution), I can tell you that the Starcraft of today only remotely resembles the Starcraft that was first released. Same for Warcraft 3.

Thank you Dev's for an uber awesome game and even making it better after it comes out you rock!

Just had my first full game with 1.03

I must admit, the computer on hard does provide more of a challange, even considering my efficient way of playing against the computer.

What I noticed:

(1) The game ran smoother
(2) The game looked nicer (neither of these two were mentioned I thought)
(3) The balance of the units appears to be better
(4) The CPU is more challanging and less "stupid" although still not perfect. Considering I only played a 4 player FFA on a medium map, there is far more potential for challange.
(5) It felt on the whole a little easier to play. I don't know why. Perhaps a little more polish.

I guess the patch for me was a big success. I didn't find the changes unbalancing, but then again I only played one game against the computer with it.

A big thumbs up to IC for being supportive developers. This is what makes PC gaming truely great.

One thing to the nay sayers. If you are so uber and wont play against inexperienced players because you are so good, why do you care that TEC are apparantly so superior? Surely this just adds to the challange? I rather like the idea of going down in a blaze of glory against an unfairly superior opponant. Only to think of ways of getting around that and winning against the odds. That is of course, if the game is now unbalanced (I really didn't think it was lol).

Neither am I, but I'll oblige you.


Quote from Blair Fraser:

This was a problem before release and they were nerfed a fair bit. We'll look at it again for the next round. The suggestion at the moment is to increase their cost. With decent scouting and probing and preparedness (EMF and DEF) it should be fairly easily countered and then you know he's way behind because he wasted so many resources on a dead product and you can nail him. I rarely leave the local vicinity until I know what the enemy is up to, where he is, what he's got and I have a wide enough sensor net to detect a siege push early enough to do something about it. If you don't know about them until they are at the front door then its GG. But again, the concern could still be valid and we'll be reviewing it again very soon


Quote from Frog Boy:

wasn't talking in theory. I've done it.

I do agree with you that they shoudl be nerfed but I know what I just wote works.

Also, the development team, according to Yarlen, got into a debate over the topic, since they were divided on the issue. It seems more believed it should have been nerfed.

Anything else? Oh, and if you'd like, I'll pm you the topic from which these quotes originated. I'm fearful of dead topics being revived.

That is not the argument (at least not mine), the argument is that by making such remarks as "CASUAL gamers who whine when they cannot defeat simple and bad strategies", take note on the "casual" name, you are immediately sending a bad message, by sounding like the other person is a moron who should keep his mouth shut simply because he is not a "competitive" player. Now, in no way I am saying that is what your saying, nor do I think you had any bad intentions when you wrote it, but some people start using terms like noobs, idiots, stupid, whiners, which are really insulting. Then these threads, which are a great way for the devs to get feedback from ALL players, degenerate into flame threads where everyone is throwing insults to everyone else.

Many players here have to simply step down from their e-thrones and stop being arrogant people. And simply LISTEN to the other players. Please, if what you see yourselve writing here is anything similar to "STFU you n00b", simply close this window and move on to play another game of Sins.

Won't be necessary, though I'd be interested in seeing some replays related to the subject. This...



... is the only part of the above that I've actually seen in practice to any worthwhile effect.

But that'll be a subject for another thread which, considering the changes, I doubt we'll be seeing anytime soon (much like the siege frigates, I imagine).

Thanks for clearing that up, brad.

If I could make one suggestion - you are in for a world of whines and crying if you make any change to anything at all, but you might consider expanding on some of the reasons for these changes, as you did when people queried the Siege Frigate changes for 1.03. I'm not suggesting that you and Ironclad pen multi-page essays on every single thing - just a brief footnote next to anything major on the changelog detailing what the changes are designed to stop or bring about. People will make up their own reasons if you don't, and attribute all sorts of weird motivations to it.

Erm how many people do I have to tell the math of cost of siege frigs vs. cost of siege cap?

Their cost and particular supply cap change was silly. At what they cost now they should do DOUBLE their current damage.

Wow, Elites v/s Noobs. How did that arguement get started?

Someone explain to me why the "elites" have more grammatical errors than the noobs.

Cost of 4 sieges(estimation based on percent increases):
3000 Credits
400 Metal
300 Crystal
60 supply


Cost of Capitol ship:
3000 credits
400 metal
250 crystal.
50 supply.

As I've said before, siege frigs have been removed from the game.

No, just hold on. I'm not suggesting the SF change was the best idea ever, but at least we got a reason as to why it was changed. Brad knows his stuff about competitive gaming and has access to logs of every game ever played on ICO, so if he says an exploit was possible then I will give him that on trust. But without explaining the reasoning for any change, it just looks arbitrary and weird.

I wonder how many commercial sales & profits that small elite of « high-level » competitive players generates.

Stardock & Ironclad are businesses, with payrolls & operational expenses to meet.

If they change the game to cater to that small elite of « high-level » competitive players, they risk alienating the silent majority of « casual gamers » who do not have the time, energy, and power-hungry passion to practice & compete until they achieve The High Level.

Stardock & Ironclad have to decide which is their profitable customer base, the majority that will generate significant & reliable revenues in the long term.

innociv and his « high-level » buddies must account for less than 0.1% of game units sold.

Innociv and his "high-level" buddies count for 80% of the whining though.

Have ye not heard the cry of the balance banshees? Those creatures of demon flesh and dragon bone screech forth there message of imba with the voice of hundreds of men, there calls tear the very fabric of your brain as they preform self righteous rituals for there own gain. They preach there gospel of correctness, yet banish those whom they dismiss as unworthy simply for being younger. The balance banshees are only second to the pissed off community manager in destructive potential.

They might be 0.1% at launch, but as Activision discovered with Quake and Blizzard with Warcraft II, etc, if you have a solid multiplayer game and keep it clean and free of hacks and horrible people (or at least make a decent attempt) you get a continuous drip feed of sales over a much longer time period, rather than the usual peak and immediate abyss from a conventional single player title. Quake still sells. Warcraft II still sells. Not a great amount, but more than a total bomb would expect to sell at launch, and those sales come both from bargain bins (not much money) and direct-to-customer sales ($$$$$$$$). More importantly, there is simply no way to buy the kind of brand image that comes from being a publisher/developer keeping one of your old games playable and compatible all that time.

Sorceresss,



You're actually wandering into some pretty funky waters here. You don't know the mind of the consumer; there are some who view the competitive community with awe and aspire to that to a degree. There are some who will buy the game regardless since it suits their flavor regardless of actual substance. Then there are other factors such as game reviews, leagues, etc. Suffice to say that sometimes the elite drags the rest to proper brackets and that sometimes they don't. Sometimes, it's an unique mixture of the two perfectly balanced.

The elite are that, however, I will be willing to commit a spiritual error and pretend like you meant competitive gamers in general who are not necessarily small. Competitive gamers share mostly the same attitudes across the board but casuals do not. The multiplayer aspect for casuals are generally amongst themselves in which, with a game like SoaSE, is independent of game balance and whatever direction Stardcok/IC chooses for mechanics. However, ICO will be the one directly responsible for which it caters to and currently it caters neutrally (though some may argue it really isn't anything more than a fancy version of Hamachi).



Of course they do, which is why they're working on an expansion most likely. The game is a success and they can already move on diverting minimal resources to patching. The units total sold will only increase over time providing a small flow of funding (which is mostly independent of any online gaming influences) while they use the money from the initial release to carry them over.

It would really take a lot to change it into the 'acceptable' RTS league style play and balance, while being part of it, is a closer to the bottom of the list than the top. However, balance is integral to having fun because no one enjoys their faction that they love being marginalized. Competitive gamers are generally the better testing subjects because they minimize their faction's weaknesses and maximize their advantages to the extreme.

Either way, the nature of your post suggests a casual player's argument which is a complete tangent as is my post and because of that unwarranted.

Community is community, cater to all of them. This game can do it for many reasons which I will not bother getting into (you could write a whole essay on how this game caters to both the competitive spirit and the casual spirit).



Thus, this statement here is largely irrational. You see, the customers don't come back, they aren't continually paying. An expansion pack will be judged on its own merits for the most part.

Furthermore, you're well aware you don't have the statistics, but all we know is that innociv isn't alone.




Every game has that problem until the game is balanced, even then there are still problems: "Zomg black is imba because they get to go first in Go!" Or whatever.

Also, grammar is not the highest necessity when it comes to arguing a point. Clarification might be necessary but bad grammar does not invalidate an argument. It gets annoying but oh well. You will live.




Worry not, sir! There are inherent mechanisms built into ICO/SoaSE that will prevent Stardock from ever deviating from their true selves! Rejoice! The Emperor protects!

And yeah, the complaints are usually 50/50. The silent majority doesn't even recognize that these forums exist or they simply don't care because statistics are all on IC/SD's side not player side. Then again, even recognizing that, discussion is fun at times even if it is more or less on pointless topics. I think by actually just playing many games instead of posting you'd be contributing more in general since they would be monitoring the games.

I do have one off topic thing though, I just wish the economic/research model was more of a 4X one then spamming wouldn't be so bad... =( Perhaps, the next patch should have a slider bar on each planet which you can divert tax on that planet to either speed up research, produce more minerals, build faster, or simply give credits like most 4X allows. Perhaps, we could have ships that come in squadrons and capital ships buffed to the point where they are stand along dreadnoughts that LRMs cannot take down or something along the lines to stop the unit spam. =(

But hey, that's just me. And I still wish that planetary defenses were planet based not grav well, it would make taking planets a bit harder but as of now, the soft/hard counter system needs tweaking and same goes for most combat mechanisms.

i agree i love the new map options for increased level cap and such. (which basically adds the level cap mod that was made for 1.1 that didnt work for 1.2) plus having option of no pirates in all maps really does help!