Lets just find the bugs and the balance issues in the beta and when the final game comes out you can play dress up with your new doll.
Not that you know or care, but several changes implemented in a mod known as Project Equilibrium were implemented in the ACTUAL GAME...
Such changes as:
- AM cost of GRG was decreased while damage was increased
- Flak Burst's cooldown was decreased while it's range was slightly increased
- Finest Hour regenerated slightly less AM in favor of more hull repair
- Some minor range/AM cost changes to EMP
- Magnetize had a raised target cap
- Incendiary shells was changed to stack properly
- Missile Barrage's range was decreased from 10,000 to 8,000
- Demolition bots no longer required hoshiko to face target
- Novalith hits decreased trade income
- Animosity was fixed and made to actually work (I think it was Zombie who first got a working version of this, but I'm not sure)...furthermore, max targets was increased
- Energy absorption gave a higher buff to armor
- Guidance became an AoE ability
- Clairvoyance had an increased duration
- The Jarrasul's colonize ability spawning extra constructors instead of buffing the structure build rate (credit to Darvin for that brilliant idea)
- PM Swarm had raised target caps
- PM missile platform was made to stack properly
- Kostura no longer affected ships in any way
- Massive buff to Pinpoint Bombardment's range
This mod was heavily discussed and tested right before v1.2 came out, and a lot of people contributed to it (many of which were not ICO regulars)...
In some cases, the devs implemented a change very similar to Project Equilibrium's changes but with some differences (ex: Guidance became AoE, but reduced ability cooldown instead of AM costs)...and in some cases, the exact changes were implemented (ex: Jarrasul colonize, Kostura, Finest Hour, etc)...that's not to say the Devs just "copied the mod"...perhaps they came up with the ideas independently, or perhaps they were merely inspired by certain comments and change logs...in either case though, both modders and developers agreed on a great list of changes to implement..
I'll apologize in advance for not giving proper credit to all those involved, as a whole host of people made suggestions, play-tested it, or helped make working entity files....nevertheless, many of the people involved were modders, and I distinctly remember some of the ICO Pros of the day making an effort to bash the mod (until v1.2 was released, anyway)....
Whether you like it or not, mods (and modders) do have an important impact on the developers and on the community...
