Game balance and content (Less is more)

[dyze]

I realize this game still is in ea, and game balance and content is subject to change, tho i do have a few suggestions.

 

I've sunk about 40h into this game and enjoyed every hour. As i get closer to the center of the galaxy, i do feel that things progresses to rapidly. When you started out, it felt 'big' to go from iron to titanium. Progressing further, it just felt like i hardly had time to finish building my titanium ship, when it was time to upgrade to the next tier.

 

The game is built on procedurally generated content, i think you're a bit too generous at dishing that content out. To the point where you stop caring.

 

Hence less is more in the topic. I think, slowing the pace down a bit would benefit the game. For example the sheer number of factions, make you not really care about any one faction. If you bump into one where your rep is too low, you just warp a few times, and you'll sure met another which you have better reputation with.

I think reducing the number of factions in any given game by 50%, and increasing the average faction territory by 100% would generate a more enjoyable game pacing.

It would also make it feel more meaningful improving your rep with the factions.

 

The same could be said for events and sector features. E.g pirate ambushes, sellable asteroids, scrapyards, turret factories, stashes and so on. If these were more uncommon, it would feel 'bigger' when you did find them.

 

 

[Spacefaring_Guy]

My problem with the progression mechanic is that you can't explain why the outer rim isn't more or less immediately taken over by someone from the interior with a relatively unbeatable ship.

 

I think that limiting hyperdrives by quite a bit and making rim systems more rare, you'd slow down the game and have a reason why people who have moved on to tougher areas don't bother to come back.  And then, you up the difficulty curve as you simultaneously increase the resource availability - sure, there's more titanium than iron, but there are also a lot more people fighting over territory, with nastier weapons.

 

Game balance is an art, and it's likely we'll see a lot of swing back and forth in this game before it's anywhere near 'right' according to the devs (and hopefully a majority of players).

[dyze]

yeah, i relatively early on found several +4-6 jump range ship upgrades, which made it a bit too easy to move around.

maybe limit these upgrades to one per ship? and also make high range upgrades more rare.