It is my opinion that this thread has gotten off topic and my constructive criticism is that the black market is now and was before not realistic nor balanced and should have a limit and recharge for that limit, this would prevent the current state of affairs, but of course there'd have to be a max they can buy as well otherwise it would be just as unbalancing since the vsari gather metal and crystal so fast and realistic, but perhaps at random intervals the max could increase, and when the pirate base is destroyed it should decrease.I apologize for any miss spelling or bad grammar, and with the way this thread has been would like to state this is not directed in a personal manner or meant to be offensive or insulting to anyone(names from medieval total war 2 took along time to get someone the title Lord of Terror)

They fixed the crystal rush but the cure is worse than the disease. the 1.03 market effectively discounts resources by 1000s of credits for heavy early buyers. Hello TEC and goodbye game balance!TBH... didn't TEC need it?Now that Javelin's are essentially flying paper airplanes, they really don't bring much to the table anymore past their humongous credit-printing capabilities.

Dear god, enough. This happens with every game, balancing issues. Rome wasn't made in a day. There games out there that are 5 years old that still have balancing issue's, to insinuate a game a month or so old should be perfect is madness. Give it time problems/balancing will be fixed and this wont be the first time a patch will be released fixing X but creating Y.Sadly this is the reaction you get from teenagers with there extensive years of experience and wisdom

Look at MP RTS games which are synonyms of success -Starcraft, Dawn of War etc. They are what they are because developers understood that MP makes or breaks the RTS.

I know many carebears (e.g those who shun competetive MP because they hate losing ) have no capacity to understand it. So I am not preaching to them. I am preaching to devs - in MP RTS games balance and dynamics is everything. You guys are really close to make spectacular failure out of SoaSe and makes people really stay away from your games in future.Look at MP RTS games which are synonyms of success -Starcraft, Dawn of War etc. They are what they are because developers understood that MP makes or breaks the RTS.I know this is very hard to believe, since you're the center of the universe and all, but it's not necessarily true that ANYONE CARES, and that includes the devs.See, if I make a puzzle game, I don't really care if sports fans hate it.If I make a football game, I don't really care if flight sim fans hate it.If I make a Barbie(tm) pony game, I don't really care if wargame fans hate it.You see where I'm going with this?Maybe, just MAYBE, since Sins isn't exactly like Starcraft and Dawn of War, it's NOT THE SAME TYPE OF GAME.Maybe, just maybe, since you're a classic RTS fan, you should go play- oh, I don't know- a classic RTS?"Competitive", or "hardcore" MP gamers always think they're the only people worthy of being called gamers, and are the only ones with valid opinions, because they're the only ones who play the game "seriously". Well, decades of playing games and years of working in the industry have made me think, quite to the contrary, that "competitive" gamers are the worst opinions to listen to, for most games.See, they don't care about the game being fun. They only care about it being "fair", so they can win. They play to win. They enjoy the after-effect of victory, not the process of playing.Sure, this is a (semi) valid viewpoint, but it certainly isn't the only viewpoint, and it's not always the best, or most trustworthy one, by a longshot.They aren't even that good as references for balance, since they do things, and play the game, in ways that no less "competitive" player would even dream of, so balancing to fit their playstyle is not necessarily balancing to fit your target audience's needs or wants.Oh, and if you think DoW is "synonymous with success", your standards for balance in an RTS are pretty low.As a closing note, I'm so glad that someone was finally enough of a jackass to use the term "carebare".EDIT: The Monk seems to have already said a lot of this. The thread wasn't loading well for me, so I couldn't read previous posts. My apologies for reiterating.

@ Limz!

Please stop misreading my posts.

I said "...the devs kept looking to the ultra-competitive element for suggestions about game balance, which screwed the game more (ladder or no ladder, I know many people who never looked/cared what the ladder said) than anything else..."

I didn't say or imply that the act of competitive-gaming kills a game. I did imply that devs listening to the competitive-community over their own ideals for their game is a game-killing choice. A choice all too many devs have been making of late.


By the way, I never said anything about Dawn of War etc....where is all that stuff coming from?


the Monk

Maybe, just MAYBE, since Sins isn't exactly like Starcraft and Dawn of War, it's NOT THE SAME TYPE OF GAME.

II'm so sick of hearing this said.Me and my clanmates play for the challenge, sure we like winning, but only if the game was actually tough and there's some sense of accomplishment. None of us enjoy stomping some n00b we want to play good players and get better, for this to be any fun it helps A LOT if there's balance and variety rather than us being forced to play a single tactic if we want to win. I don't mind losing but when i'm being asked to choose between doing exactly the same thing every game or a massively uphill battle I just think that's boring.Yes, yes. Maybe I wasn't clear, but you did just validate my viewpoint, you know.You only talk about the end of the game as the reason you play.Sure, you don't want an easy win, but I never said competitive players want to be handed a win. I only said they care only about winning.Let me reword that... They only care about the outcome.Win or lose, it's all about the outcome.Did you win a fair game, against a challenging opponent, did you lose to a superior opponent, or did you stop some sad noob (which nobody enjoys.)What happened before that point, i.e. DURING the game, really doesn't matter much, unless it was horribly unfair and effected the outcome.It's not about the journey, it's about the goal.As unbelievable as it might seem, there are some (like, lots and lots) of people that play games for the actual experience of playing the game, regardless of the outcome, or even if there's no end to the game whatsoever.That's why "competitive RPG" players hate this game taking days to play. Since the only payoff is at the end, the shorter the game, the more payoff you get for your time.Having said all that, of course there needs to be balance to avoid there being only one valid way to play the game... but there never will be.There will ALWAYS be things that work better than other things, and hardcore competitive players will always find those, latch on to them, and do nothing but those things, because to do otherwise would be to play a "massively uphill battle".Constantly working to insure that this doesn't happen in your game means either changing the game on a regular basis, like Guild Wars does, or flailing miserably trying to grasp the holy grail of perfect balance, which just leads a game further and further from its pure roots and toward an inevitable mess.And the thing is, only a TINY fraction of your playerbase, in a game like Sins, actually even cares. They're the ones, however, that think they have the most "cred", so they're pretty vocal.

After reading the vast majority of these 5 pages (I'll admit to skimming a few posts here and there), it really just sounds like some Vasari players (a few boldly proclaiming how they are better gamers than the TEC players they were beating in 1.02) have found that their favorite side and strategy are tougher to play in 1.03 . . . just like TEC was tougher to play in 1.02 . . . and now proclaim the game is broken, completely unbalanced, etc.. Now, whether this unbalances the game in favor of the TEC or simply restores balance I'll leave to others to work out. But, prior to 1.02, the Vasari had the upper hand. Now the TEC does. If the game was not broken in 1.02, it is not broken now. What's "good for the goose is good for the gander," as it were.[P. S. While not definative, it should be noted that, according to the back story in the manual and the games opening, it is implied that at the time the game takes place the TEC believes it has achieved the upperhand against the Vasari and views the Advent as the more serious threat, forcing the mobilization of reserves and veterans. This in turn leads me to believe that the TEC perhaps should, since perfect balance is practically impossible to achieve, be the slightly easier race to play relative to the Vasari.]

[...]Shutup, and let the people who give a hoot say their piece. Since you don't care, and you're obviously not a competitor.Step aside, kid.

The fact of the matter is... the majority of online gaming is in the competitive bracket. Starcraft's amazing success in Korea for example.. pure competition. Halo.. competition.