This game takes too long? » Forum Post by Xboxerdude

I dont think being a jerk about it will solve any problems.

Basically I feel that I can play the game at a way faster pace then what it is at now. This isn't a complaint about the game, I love how well it is balanced, i just think the speed option should allow for faster speed games..

I would just like an option to speed things up a little more. I dont like how it takes 10 minutes to fight a pirate force to capture a planet, with a small task force. If this could be done in 2-3 minutes instead I would be happy! Thats not to say Im not happy now!

Their are pros and cons to both ways of this:
pros is that thos who feel ready can play a game at a faster setting, and be done faster. I find that id prefer to sit down and play a 1, 1 hour game, rather then 1 game spread of 10 hours.

cons: faster game play means that u cant micromanage some of the more important things. Also alot of things are going on in the universe, so its hard to control all of that.

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I'm actually amused about how my "user action" is usually 5x - 10x more than that of other players. (You can check it after a game, it's basically the amount of clicks you make.)
Perhaps it's not entirely

Maybe people just need to play it faster?

If you manage multiple things at the same time (thus making more clicks), you'll probably find yourself progressing faster into the game and games might take less long! It's probably less important in Sins than in other 'RTS' games. But I still believe it can give you the edge when you can multi-manage.

On top of that, I also think Sins does have a lot of turtle players and due to the large amounts of defenses you can easily throw up, even the biggest turtler can keep himself in the game for multiple hours.

So with all that in mind, I really think the game will get a little more faster paced when people have more experience. They might also dare to take an occasional risk and get into early fights more often.

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please don't change the game... sure give the pure rts fans, who have bought the wrong game, a speed button that is go fasta red.

but leave it at single player, so we don't have to start dodging click fest multiplayer games.

i spent 5 hours on my first easy game, with about 16 planets. But that was due to 1 fight where i spent over an hour trying to take down a pirate base... of 400+´pirates...

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I dont see where the cons are, in having a slider that increases game speed to more then what it is now.

The old options will still be there.

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I suspect some of the pushback, ccarlton, against the idea of increasing the available speed settings is a matter of proprietary pride.

Having such an option might indeed turn the game into a clickfest, where the person who can rapidly build up a rush of frigates will overwhelm their opponents. And the idea of that is jarring against the slower sweep of the game as it is.

To use an example from a board game, I know a few chess players who *abhor* Blitz Chess, where the players have only a few minutes to make all of their moves, or they will lose. They consider it a perversion and distortion of the original game.

Eh, this analogy isn't really the best.

How about this: Wanting to turn Sins into a faster paced game is akin to demanding that every restaurant include a cheap hamburger on its menu instead of simply picking a restaurant that serves them.

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i would prefer faster phase travel but the game length is just fine

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lordkosc

Join Date 12/2006

+6

I am all for a faster paced game, but not the entire game, just certain aspects of it. I like the pew-pew battles, but waiting for ships to slowly putter across a gravity well is not fun.

I will be planning a MOD to make this game the game I want it, the DEVs have been nice enough to give us just about everything we need, all we are waiting for is the mod tools.

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I dont see where the cons are, in having a slider that increases game speed to more then what it is now.

The old options will still be there.

Exactly. No one is suggesting changing the NORMAL speed of the game. Just adding some ADDITIONAL speed Options for people that want to play a little faster.

How does this hurt the people that think the speeds are fine?

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My .02 cents is that your strategy and how you play game may draw out the game. I can attest to xboxerdude's gameplay. my ICO login is caboaddict.

The game was about an hour or so in when xboxerdude came at me with 4 capital ships and very few frigates. I won't embarass him too much with what the outcome was of our battles.

needless to say the amount of resources spent on research and building of the 5+ capital ships could have gotten you a much larger force a lot sooner in which you could have made your attack and probably have finished the game a lot sooner.

The game can be as fast or as slow as you want it to go. You want a quick game, build up a force early (using frigates) and have at it. Don't research anything civic or outside of getting more ships. playing small maps with military dominance as my main focus you could probably finish the game in 30 minutes to an hour. If that is your cup of tea....

Personally, I like building up my empire from all aspects (e.g. economic, technologically, and militarily). I bought a 4x game (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) not a 1x (exterminate) game.

If I want a 1x game I will go play Warcraft 3, Starcraft, and the such since that is the main focus or play a console.

Sins wasn't made to be "a click fest." It is like playing chess against kasparov vs a monkey. Either way you are playing chess, but the skill needed to play and win are vastly different.

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The good thing with Sins is that it's not an MMO - the rules are not universal. Why would anyone mind the implementation of a faster game speed - in addition to the ones already there? The community would self-moderate its usage and only the ones who prefered it would use it. Could even filter games in the server browser by game speed if it's a big problem to those who prefer it slower.

All the more power to the individual, I say.

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No one is suggesting changing the NORMAL speed of the game. Just adding some ADDITIONAL speed Options for people that want to play a little faster.

How does this hurt the people that think the speeds are fine?

I suppose it's all down to the "every slider to the right" phenomenon. You know, give a user a set options in the form of sliders and his first inclination is to move every single one to the right.

By giving people the option to make the game really fast paced could result in reducing the number of slower-paced, epic games available to players who want those, you know, the kind of player who this game was specifically designed for.

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That's a stretch. Adding some additional speed options does NOT challenge the existing playerbase. It has the possibility of adding to it.

TBH I still haven't heard any real arguments on how it would hurt/destroy the game.

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Why doesn't Ironclad just add a "fastest" speed? Seems like that would serve a lot of people with a nominal amount of work.

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First time I played a game through to completion (my third try while learning the basic gameplay) was a two-player easy on the smallest random map. It took a little over 3 hours.

This is not the type of game you sit down and play in one session, but it's more like WoW or some other MMO, where you play for a few hours at a time.

But to the OP, there are ways to speed it up. I don't know if custom maps enable you to change the extraction rate of asteroids, but you can speed the basic gameplay up while choosing the map to play.

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No one is suggesting changing the NORMAL speed of the game. Just adding some ADDITIONAL speed Options for people that want to play a little faster.

How does this hurt the people that think the speeds are fine?

I suppose it's all down to the "every slider to the right" phenomenon. You know, give a user a set options in the form of sliders and his first inclination is to move every single one to the right.

By giving people the option to make the game really fast paced could result in reducing the number of slower-paced, epic games available to players who want those, you know, the kind of player who this game was specifically designed for.

what

How does giving some people the option to play a fast or slow game force other people to play the same way?

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Why doesn't Ironclad just add a "fastest" speed? Seems like that would serve a lot of people with a nominal amount of work.

Yep, thats what many people are asking for. Additional "faster" speeds. They are not asking to change how Normal works, or anything else.. So it's difficult to understand why some people are so viciously against it, saying that it will "Change the game and make it dumb".

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With a name like xboxxer, I'm surprised he stuck it out for 6 hours

Seriously though, as so many others have pointed out, this is a real time 4x game, not a tank rush arcade experience. For those that enjoy the 4x genre, taking hours, even days to build the perfect empire is key - it's like tackling a 100,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. It's supposed to take a long time.

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The problem that people are feeling is not that game can take a long time to finish. It's that the game can't take a short time to finish. All I hear is that a 4X game HAS to take a long time to finish to be a proper 4X. That's not true. This game scales very well from slow to fast but the fastest mode tends to leave some downtime that can be cut out. This will allow players to finish certain play sessions in less than an hour. Over 10-12 planets the game would still need to last over an hour to flow properly.

From my few games and the people I've chatted with I have not found 6 minutes per planet to be a fair guideline. Something closer to 10 minutes per planet. Obviously I nor most of the people I speak to have had as much experience as someone involved in the development of the game. So all I can offer is my own perception.

The main point is that this game is good on any setting and retains the 4X theme very well. It's just that real world gets in the way and a "faster" option would allow players to get their 4X fix in a manageable amount of time. Then when they want an epic game they can either set aside an entire day or arrange to save it at certain intervals to return to later.

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Seriously though, as so many others have pointed out, this is a real time 4x game, not a tank rush arcade experience. For those that enjoy the 4x genre, taking hours, even days to build the perfect empire is key - it's like tackling a 100,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. It's supposed to take a long time.

Then we should eliminate the smaller maps, and require that you have more than 1 opponent. Right now, even on fast, against one decent AI, on a small random map, you can queue up everything. Research, Exploration, Construction, Movement, can all be queued. There are times when right now on FAST, SMALL RANDOM, 1 OPPONENT, there can be significant downtime, where you just sit and watch the game play. To tell me that if I don't like some downtime in my 4x, that I shouldn't use the order queue, or shouldn't play certain map sizes, or 1vs1 is silly.

Think of it this way:
In a NORMAL 4X game, I hit the turn button a little faster, and multiple turns go by as I
wait a short amount of time.

If you have played Galciv or Civ before, what if I suggest REMOVING the "end turn" button. Instead, I will give you a slider. That slider will represent how long turns take. You have 3 choices (fast) 1 minute, (normal) 2 minutes and (slow) 3 minutes. That's what's happening here. But what if you finish your turn faster than 1 minute? Well....Wait, for your next turn.

Some people have been playing 4x games constantly for the last 10 years. They understand how to queue things, they understand how to think ahead about choke points, and large scale empire strategy.

To suggest that I shouldn't be allowed to have an option that allows me to take my turn faster in a single player game is absurd. It's not that I want the game to be more like starcraft or CNC, it's that I know what I'm doing, and for small maps, with few opponents, the game is not able to keep up with me. I do not always want to be forced to play multi-session, 30+ planet maps, or against more than 1 opponent.

Allowing me to say 1 turn = 30 seconds, NOT 1 minute allows me to sometimes take a smaller simple "Get my fix" game without sitting there idly watching the game play.

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Back when I was a Strategy First, Inc forum Administrator the developers called the fast gamers “RMB” meaning “Repeat Mouse Buyers” as it seemed their gaming speed more than likely broke left mouse buttons in a short period of time.

This type of gamer in their mind was the majority of RTS Online gamers, which looked at RTS as sort of a timed chess match.

I referred to this type of gamer as a “RGC.” “Run, Gun, Crush”

I am very impressed so far, being that I don’t prefer the on-line attributes of Sins, however I am very addicted to the “Thinking Gamer” single player design that Sin’s is.

Over time I have a feeling Sins will earn its rightful place in the top five single player desert island games to own.

Ryde…

Strategy First, Inc Forum Admin For O-R-B-Retired
Strategy First, Inc Forum Admin For WWII Online
After CRS Forum Server Crash-Retired
Stratics IRC Operator RCrash-Retired

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Do you play turn based 4x games? Are you all saying that you always take your turn in X minutes, every time?

Can we agree that on smaller maps, with only 1 opponent, that in that turn based game, your turns probably dont take as long as they do with a larger map/more opponents? You hit the turn button a little quicker..

These are pretty much facts, it would be difficult to disagree with them.

Because I like to sometimes play on a small map, with 1 opponent, does NOT make me a TWITCH gamer. I haven't played a fast RTS in years.. It's all GalCiv/CIV/SotS.

For some maps/game types in Sins, even the FAST setting is not fast enough. The answer should not be, "Don't play those maps/Gametypes".

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The rule of thumb is that every planet adds 6 minutes to the game.

So a 10 planet game will last 60 minute. A 20 planet game 2 hours. 100 planets, well you get the idea.

This isn't your typical RTS with map sizes very limited. This is more akin to a game like Civilization where a large map can mean a game that lasts months. But you can still play a small map on fast speed in about an hour.

lol, yeah right ^^.

100 planets should take 10 hours to play?

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I still think the addition of a "very fast" mode would allow more people to have fun, without forcing other people to play it. Why NOT satisfy more people? I've been playing fast, competitive rts since I was 8 or 9, so I want the option of playing it faster. I'm good at these things, and I don't like waiting.

I don't have time for 4 hour games, and it is hard to find somebody online who will rejoin a saved game the next day. I'm taking college-level courses, SAT tests are coming up, my family wants my attention, ect. I don't have time for more than one game of Sins a day AND a life. I just with I could speed it up so I didn't have to make that choice.

To all the people discarding opinions as "halo kiddies" and "looking for generic rts #40125", so what? They are all customers, they all bought the game, they all have different opinions. Nobody told them what Sins would be like when they bought it. Don't let them change the game from what it was created to be, but don't be the typical dogmatic fanboi assholes that plague so many developer forums. If there is an option that makes them happy and doesn't change anything for you, don't oppose it.

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How does giving some people the option to play a fast or slow game force other people to play the same way?

Imagine someone's sitting in the game browser looking for a pick-up game set at "normal" speed. All they see are a list of games set to "adrenaline junkie" speed because.

To put it another way, it has been my impression based on observation that the majority of gamers will always opt for the fastest speed possible in their games with the idea that fast games are more fun and/or they want to play many games in quick succession. I can remember way back when in StarCraft futilely searching for a game set to anything slower than "Fastest" (StarCraft had 5 game speeds, I believe). If Stardock/Ironclad introduced a super fast game speed, I could see that easily becoming the "default" speed for online games at some point in the future.

Now in my case, I don't ever plan on playing online, so this is all just theoretical for me, but those who enjoy this game because of its deliberately relaxed pace, I could definitely see them getting the short of end with this kind of deal.

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Shit it takes me two hours just to ramp up to the point where I feel ready enough to spread my rule into the vast beyond of my home system. Oh well the user name says it all.

same here. i managed to capture and build up 4 planets in 7 hours last night. this is slow mode(the only way i play). that's 4 planets in a game with 4 stars. looks like i got about another week/month or so till i finish this game. and guess what:

I F-NG LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

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