Complaint about ship-stats
 

I got online this morning and took a look at the shipstats after a small break from PAs last round.

i instantly felt..ANGRY!

From i signed up many years ago for my first Planetarion planet i was instantly hooked. All my classmates played the game and we would talk about it between classes. I remember i first learned how to initiate roids by asking a friend when our class was on a field-trip and the first thing i did when i came home was to navigate through the space with the right research/construction to gain Asteroid Scans!
From there my skills expanded every month and every year and before the 4 races Terran, Cathaar, Xandathrii and Zikonian was implemented i was a living planetarion Manual and i loved this game and its possibilities.

My favorite moments from before these new stats were implemented i, was the Battleship/spectre, roidscans, red and green galstatus looking like christmastrees!, the life on irc with people everywhere! huge alliances with the mysterious people called HCs who had OP in the channels but never said anything!! the huge blocks making the game fun for 70% of the players every round! SPINNER! , worldcup! , private galaxies and the combat for becoming the GC in a galaxy to gain 10% miningbonus!

i could go on forever because this game has been a part of my life for almost 8 years or so. Ive had long and short breaks from it but i never left the community. Even though i was studying, working or for some reason was busy with real life i would always stop by the planetarion irc, later called netgamers irc to check out on friends of mine and how they were doing in this game because i always knew i would come back once my life would allow it.

NO NEED TO SAY I HAVE FEELINGS FOR THIS GAME!

when the 4 main races was implemented it was a great adjustment to the game and we started pressing these stats to our chest and we learned about the different races.

Cath was the most advanced race in the universe and therefore they managed to put use to EMP technology into their weaponsystem so they would not harm their targets when they took the asteroids to make sure their species survived.

Xan was like the old swordmen, who sacrificed armor to be able to use both their hands on the sword and increased movementspeed. Their damage was greatly increased for this sacrifice of armor.

Terran was the race we can compare to knights with superior armor which made it possible to run over their enemy with minor losses. They were heavy and slow but were incredibly hard to stop

Zikonian was a race i didnt insantly get any relation to or could compare to anything. They were stealing other races ships to use them for their own good. a pretty advanced race with huge possibilities which i learned to love, and ive played it many rounds later.


WHAT IM TRYING TO SAY HERE!

terran with FAST SHIPS? and NO battleships?
xan with SLOW SHIPS?
cath with no fast ships!!?? and this is the most advanced race in universe?
Zikonian looks fun but really they have no defence whatsoever against anything else then CO and CR. and CO is pretty much not present in the game

whoever made these stats are changing PA-culture here and how the stats represent their homeplanets. Change the game sure and i will learn to love it but do not change the FOUNDATION! of a race!


I WILL NOT PAY TO PLAY THIS GAME AS I NO LONGER LIKE IT!
im not even reading the rest of the manual!

sorry for the minor typos. i make them when im angry and write fast...

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

oh and get rid of the incredibly shitty race ETD and realise it was a failure to implement from the very beginning. stop trying to adjust it to make "balance"

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

these stats (in my opinion) are aweful! Xans having Cr, ter not having BA, and cat not having a co/fi fleet? Ludicrous!

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

totally true, i hate them! Ive always played Xan coz their fast, and u can have alot of tactics with them, now their slow and straightforward too.

sort it out PA Team

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

remove ETD and covert ops and give the races back their identity. I dont like these stats at all either. I wont go into such emotion fuelled detail as u tho :)

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

the game changes and as races are part of the game they change too

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

yes somehow the cathaar race chose to become LESS advanced.
go figure that one out.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

funny that ETD co are an identical clone of cat co of last 2 rds (well almost a clone) :/

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

i agree these stats are awfull and its about time the PA community was listened to and not just a hand full of people who have successfully made an abortion of the stats this round

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

hey man how's nou camp?

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I think they did take wrong turn whit shipstats now.
Its realy disturbing that those shipstats wont follow race overviews at all.

And like Hanzi sayed Cathaar is most advanced race in universe and somehow they managed to unevolve a lot compared to other races. The lack of faster ships on cath aint bothering me but the unefficiency of their emp ships compared to etd what is hybrid race.

And terrans their initiative is damn fast but they still have the high armor value.

Xandarthii race that has lots cheap small ships now has cr fleet and last time i checked cr wasnt so small...

I have seen many games ruined by overbalancing please dont do the same mistake here and try following the themes of each race.

Sincerely Sneaky

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

LOL, tis great ofc! Wish i lived there HEHE. its nice n large :)

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

perhaps some of you should have gotten involved in the r27 and r28 shipstats threads where you could have voiced opposition instead of waiting until this late stage to make your opposition known.

I have to agree that there are some oddities about the stats, particularly that you could quite easily swap the xan cr and the ter fi giving xan fi and ter cr as attacking fleets and both would end out quite nicely.

on the other hand I dont think we should be too fixated on keeping the races completely within their 'normal' race ideas as it is probably too restrictive.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

its BASIC!

you take the BASIC and evolve AROUND it!

you dont change the BASICS!

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I think that in some ways the basics are still kept too

terran init is still the highest of the races apart from zik... tho I admit there is probably a problem with the peg and harpy, I would probably put their init up to 6 and boost their armor yet further.

the xan all has good initiative, particularly for cr, I dont see why fast has to mean fast in terms of how long they take to get to the target. They still have 3 of their main race characteristics relatively light armor, cloak and are hard hitting.

cathaar again I dont see any problem with them being slower, I dont see why speed should be seen as a basic for an advanced race. cat in r24 and r25 was cr and fr so I dont see the difference.

and zik certainly have a lot of stealers...

etd well... as you say they dont really have any characteristics which is rather a shame, tho I do like the cloak/emp combination tbh, tho I dont like both their attack fleets being primarily emp fleets with no need for the cloaked ships.

(I think we should make rather greater use of the range of avaliable initiatives, there seems to have been an attempt to squeeze inmitiatives down and have a lot of ships firing at once, why dont we see initiative 10-19?)

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I'm not a huge fan of gate's ship stats myself but no offence seeing as these complaints are basically I DON'T LIKE IT WAAAA you should consider going and ****ing yourself.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

CHANGE is good, get over it.

Instead of whining either come up with suggestions or make or own set.
These stats are a hell of a lot better than using the same stats for the third round in a row.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Subtle as ever. Posting in total agreement. If what keeps you hooked to this game is the Terran BS fleet, you should consider going and ****ing yourself.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

For a new player, this game has now taken another step towards being totally impossible to understand and enjoy

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

stats are awfull, agreed

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

The paradigms just got narrower making it easier to understand if anything. Terran have high armour, xan have high damage and cloak, cath emp, zik steal, etd emp and are cloaked.


Edit: You basically get the same shit every round about stats. The bottom line usually is they're not as bad as you think they are.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

For those who use normal words to express your opinions in a less "shit" way then JBG, paradigms in his post means pattern of gameplay.

and no it does not make it easier to understand, because to play this game you need friends who are willing to team up with you, and make an effort for you to succeed. if you lack this you will simply give up

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Which in turn has nothing whatsoever to do with the stats. Can we move on now, please.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

What the hell does that have to do with anything. Are you insane?

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

The Stats Have Everything To Do With The Need To Team Up With Other Races!

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

How is this set of stats going to be significantly different to last round's in that respect?

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

if they are interesting and stick with the basics it will create a better environment for new players.

a new player will also have an easier round if it was more like the changes i proposed in the suggestionthread

you should start to realise i dont want changes for personal reasons like you always say JBG but i want them to make it easier for new players to learn this game and STAY!

you are too busy making peoples life hard on this forum to pop out of your bubble and see your own contribution to making this game die instead of evolving

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

what? how does a new player qualify stats as interesting or not? where does he compare them?

what the **** do the stats have to do with learning the game? seriously. if you are afraid of teamups maybe suggest removing multitargeting then which in this case is much more of a reason for that than the stats itself.

you are just finding shit reasons to back up not liking the "basics", as you call it, change.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

agreed=)

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I dont see how the stats will make much difference to a new player unless they get more complex, these stats are no more complex to understand that previous stats were. I suspect a new player coming to the game would find it much easier to accept a xan cr and a ter fi if they have not known it any other way than old players will.

I also doubt that many new players look at the descriptions in the manual when deciding what race to go with ;)

for returning players on the other hand finding terran with fi and de would probably be rather disconcerting, particularly if they do what I did in r24 and go for terrans on the assumption that they have 'always' been the best choice for a player who does not fully understand the game which is perhaps not so automatically the case this time... tho I think that the ter de fulfills that role pretty well.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I have a great deal of sympathy with your original complaint, Hanzi - and not just "because the stats have changed again".

One of the most important parts of any game (especially any "strategy" game) is the consistency of its "storyline". Making changes to this "basic" part of the game is very dangerous - especially if there's no way to explain the changes in the context of the game.

We all accept that the stats need to be amended from time to time (for balancing purposes and also to prevent boredom setting in) but those amendments should always be consistent with the internal storyline of the game - or at least be a justifiable development (not contradiction) of that storyline.

My point, in essence, is that the story should be prominently displayed in the advertising material for the game - and in the early stages of the sign-up process for new players. This should then be developed in the manual to give the "basic" characteristics of each race (the parts that Hanzi believes we shouldn't mess with) so that new players can make choices based on information which bears at least some resemblance to the actual gameplay. That way they can at least have a reasonable understanding of what to expect.

The intricacies of the stats themselves can then be studied by more experienced players who can come up with advanced tactics and strategies - but changes to those stats should always be constrained by both the story and the basics.

Just my two-penn'orth. :)

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Dear god there are some thick headed people around.

Yes Terran have high armour, later initiative etc. This does not mean that they HAVE TO HAVE BS class pods. Aslong as their FIs have higher armour and later init than the FIs of other races i honestly dont see the problem.

So what if Terrans have FI, maybe this will mean more capable people choose Terran and we dont end up where we have been for the last few round where there has been about 10% terran in t100?

Xan CR is the same as Xan DE last round, two ticks to gather defence no biggy here seeing as a useful CR fleet surely is better than a semi-shit CO fleet.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I cant see the problem, core race characteristics are still there as stated above: Ter have high armour & e/r, Xan still have cheap ships, Cath still emp.

The fact that pod classes have changed are irrelvent (or will be) because of the changes in race bonuses that will have to be made.

Personally, a Xan CR fleet targetting all that fires against it at Init 5 is VERY appealing, and makes a change to the same old all the time. There's only so many rounds we can have Xan FI or CO pod classes for exmaple, targetting the same mixture of FI/CO/FR/DE.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Personally, I believe that in order to build a house, you need to have a strong foundation. And if at any point in life you want to redecorate your house, you don't do that by tearing down the foundations because anybody with half a brain will know the house will collapse.

Every race has it's own personal theme, and in my opinion, that theme is more than just some abilities like cloak and emp, the theme defines a race and the way the race is played.
Ship stats are a vital point for how a race is meant to be played.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Indeed there are. One of them said this.... "CHANGE is good, get over it."
Change *can* be a good thing - but not for its own sake.
Phantom - init 4
Harpy - init 5
Banshee - init 5
Phoenix - init 7
Lancer - init 8
Thief - init 20

They do have higher armour though. :)
(BTW - I agree that they don't have to have BS class pods).
There's absolutely nothing wrong with Terrans having Fi - they've always had them. And this isn't the first time that Xan have needed to build Cr ships either - although it's the first time Cr has been their main attack fleet.

The question I would ask is what are we hoping to gain from these sweeping changes? For every player who is excited at the thought of having to study an entirely new set of stats and work out the best race and tactics there will be several more who can't be bothered or will just feel overwhelmed.

At the risk of making a statement almost as inane as the one I quoted above...... Most people don't like change. So in my opinion it's better to make small changes than large ones - and it's much better to make them early enough for people to be able to absorb them before they come into effect.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I get parts of what you say but I just cannot see how another round of having Xan FR\DE fleets duke it out versus Zikonian corsair swarms is any fun at all?

I dont see how changes to the stats are such BIG changes though. I mean all that happens is that you change which ships you buy, what races you can attack and the overall dynamic in combat(which fleets are good, which are not). Its not like there is a fundamental change in the game itself(removing prelaunches, three tick attacking, single targetting).

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

god forbid ppl have to look at the stats and get a new game plan :o

as far as i see new stats are alrite ands it a chance from ppl blindly buildiong ter bs all round long. god bless Gate

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

It's actually pretty funny how there was no great outrage at several major changes (multi-targetting, removal of FC limit, to name a few), yet a small change (don't kid yourself, this is nothing serious) like new ship stats gets people on the roofs screaming bloody murder.

I believe I pasted something about a bike shed a couple of days ago. It applies rather nicely, search is your friend.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I agree with you that we don't want all rounds to be identical - but we all know that even small changes can lead to a radical change in race/ship selection for the experienced players. So, as long as the stats aren't identical to last round, then there are always new tactics to be developed which should keep them happy.

I also agree with a statement that someone made (in this thread or the other one on the strategy forum) that brand new players don't know any different - so the changes from last round are irrelevant (as long as the manual tells them what they need to know - which, of course, it doesn't). :(

It's the "casual" players (and the returning players) who I feel are most affected by changes to race characteristics.

But the point I'm really trying to get across is this:

We wouldn't play this game at all if we analysed it thoroughly and realised that we're just entering numbers into a database and waiting to see what results we get out of the thing each tick. We play because we're capable of suspending our disbelief - meaning that, at some level, we all think that we really are commanding the industrial and military forces of a planet. Some of us go even further and are also responsible for commanding galaxies and even alliances.

Making changes to what HaNzi refers to as "the basics" makes it more difficult for us to pretend that this imaginary universe exists and thereby reduces our enjoyment. If we could establish a consistent background story, make it an integral part of the game and then stick to it then I (for one) would be much happier. :)

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

You missed the point.
Even out of the pitifully low numbers of people who have played the recent rounds only a small percentage would even look at the stats - let alone know how to develop a new game plan from them.

You also missed the other point - which is that Gate is on record (on these forums) as having said that it would be "more sensible" to only make minor changes to the stats for the coming round.

As for Terran BS - I've never built any.... have you?

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

It's safe to say that changes of that nature are subject to discussions when they happen. In fact you and I have had the occasional exchange of views on some of them. ;)

But, in the context of HaNzi's original post, that sort of change is less significant - in that it doesn't change the story behind the game.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

And how does this have anything to do with the topic at hand?


I hate to repeat myself, but how does this have anything to do with the topic at hand?


The game has no story. And to say the changes I listed are less significant is objectively wrong.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Points one and two have nothing to do with the topic at hand because they were direct answers to points raised which had nothing to do with the topic at hand. You'd really have been better off leaving that reply to Fatrick. And you don't really hate to repeat yourself - do you? ;)

The fact that you can't remember the story behind the game only serves to demonstrate my point.

The changes that you listed are less significant in the context of this thread - a point which I made perfectly clearly. Your disagreement demonstrates a lack of understanding rather than making my statement "objectively wrong".

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

There's one thing annoying with the current set of stats for me, it's having Ter/Xan/Etd with 10 ships, Cath with 11 ships and Zik with 12 ships !

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Truly the end of the world is just around the corner. I just cannot believe that some races manufacture more ships than others.

If you cannot imagine that some xandathrii whatever were sitting around one day and said hey let's build a cruiser class roiding fleet but you can easily believe that ships capable of hitting the smallest enemy classes in combat can't even fire on the most massive ships in the game then I have my doubts about you.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

I cannot believe that the only way to balance the stats is to introduce more ships here and there to fill the gaps... someone is being lazy ?

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

You're going to have to point out a genuine problem with some races having more ships than others (incidentally that's been there the last two rounds at least) before I'm going to even pretend to care.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

it's more about some races having less ships than others, it's just my thoughts and it doesn't matter if you care about it or not.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

The bike shed argument doesn't apply here at all. Firstly, only a small fraction of those complaining actually known anything about reading a full set of stats and guaging them, and secondly the implication that other changes such as "multi targetting" or "removing the finance center limit" are more complex that a set of ship stats is completeley obsurd.

The whole point of the bike shed argument is that people who can argue will argue for the sake of it, whereas put a complicated and detailed suggestion forth and unless it's obviously shit, it'll be met with little resistance.

Given the changes you made, the bikeshed argument doesn't apply here at all, let alone "work quite nicely".

Oh, and the stats are shit.

Re: Complaint about ship-stats
 

Have you actually read what this argument is about? Have targetting, efficiencies or anything even remotely complicated been mentioned once?