Well monstrous boost on the defense works well enough if also combined with well balanced units in interesting combinations so you have to logic out a counter to what's before you. rather than you know ignore what's in front of you and click the 8 eels or 8 hover tanks in your inventory and hit auto-auto. (Also note a need for a carrot of some sort as to why i'm supposed to care about the continent still - an expansion here or there matters less when you've got so much land to begin with - goods boosts are more or less unused)
Or selecting 8 subs, nautillius, turturrets, manta's, octopods, BF's or plasma artil. for that
mater.xd Even with high bonuses like GE, it's still not much diffrent. With the excaption of
8 artil. when something flys, but ok. it's stupid to sending out full artil. vs flying stuff in
general.
More bonus or better combinations for provinces... provinces keep in a ''whatever'' situation,
provinces are still the same walks with slightly more stuff to care off, but with super att. GB's
it hardly makes the diffrent. Since it's still the same formula.
As you pointed out in the
eurlier post, that the old formula at this point is getting a bit... repeating the same stuff in
a reskind way. So higher bonuses, better combinations are pretty much still the same.xd
OF definitely has some pretty steep costs compared to AF, but in comparing the two fully, I think they did learn and improve the experience moving from AF to OF development. The tech tree is a lot more involved, compared to the two- or often even single-lane layout of the AF tree. AF has far fewer buildings (both premium and normal). There was a slight misstep in the OF tree with the 'mandatory avatar research' but they (thankfully) quickly abandoned that approach and went back to attaching them to other researches moving forward. Combat is looking to be a lot more complex with the largest unit selection out of all ages. As a complete package, AF is essentially like the ages before it...but I can tell you, going through it phase by phase was a far worse experience for AF than it has been in OF. Surrogates and Raiders were the only available units at first compared to crabs, subs and eels in the initial OF offering; they were both effectively useless having far worse designs than they do currently. The buildings that were available in part 1 AF also looked more like an extension of the Future than a new age...though this last bit may be a plus or a minus depending on how you look at it.
While the 'phase by phase' release schedule is still pretty contentious, I have to say I found each new OF release much 'meatier' than equivalent AF releases, even with OF also having more parts to it and overall taking longer to release. Not to say AF was a bad age, but between the two I really have to say OF was a drastic improvement in how Inno delivered it to us.
Strongly agreed, the AF TT is a mess, OF TT is more normal like other TT with the exception of AF TT.
OF is indeed a improvment with beeing realy a new age, not a expansion. Something that fit very well
for this type of ages.
At the end AF's begin is a bit twisted. At one point the designe to be a expansion of FE and later evolving
in a own age is claver, yet a bit odd/sad. It's claver when you look to AF as a start up for exploring diffrent
possible futures and their outcomes. With a nice cross over from FE to make it even more clear. It's the only
age with two styles in one. Making it unique, a bit of both good and slightly weaken the AF. Still I think a
resuffle in the AF TT for making polish the TT would be great for the game, if possible.
what do you preffer:
1. a new era/age and wait 8 to 12 months for a new one?
2. a new era/age divided in parts and have a new part (something new to do) every 2-3 months?
divide an era/age in parts let FoE team have a constant activity in all servers. for me the first option is more boring . a lot more than the 2nd option.
Agreed, guass that's why they cut it in episodes.
I definitely prefer 1 where you can see the entirety of what you're moving into - rather than move into a partial age and hope inno doesn't torture you for 6+ months with lackluster phases in an incomplete age with a flailing economy. If I'm going to be in a dead end, at least the dead end of a complete age is better than the dead end of an age you have no idea if it'll get more or less miserable - OF killed off my hope - AF had already killed many of my friends hope so they took it better (I enjoyed AF - but as i mentioned earlier, i wasn't there for the early phases).
Note that with most of the new parts of OF i didn't have something new i wanted to do - rather they just brought lost hope of things getting better. I quit all my alt servers for a while around oceanic phase 3 because i was so unhappy with my main. I have started a new one up a few months back and that's where i have the most fun atm. The dilemma of how I'm going to continue to have fun there once i start getting closer to the end of the tree is still some months out at least.
Also agreed, looking back on it. AF and OF would have been more fun to explore as a antire
age like they are now. Yet the problem of beeing end TT player is, you always have to wait.
So it's a bit difficult to said what to prefure. Getting every few months arround 6-8 new tech.
some provinces, some missions, or waiting 9-12 months for a super large age like OF and
getting +/-55 tech., plenty provinces and many missions.
I think a poll over all services could not be a bad idea. Just to check the general opinion.
I very much agree. I've always preferred an era released all at once rather than in parts, and those 6 parts in OF were just awful.
Here my thoughts:
Buildings:
OF offers the most variety of houses, supply buildings, decos, happy buildings. Good, now the question is who needs so many?? The devs are obviously filling tech tree with junk only to make us waste our fps and resources. (not even commenting on the pricey avatars!). Any era below AF has at most 3 non-premium houses, OF has 6!!. I've seen no one complain about "only" 3.
Let's take the 4hr houses for example. Why on Earth we need 3 different 4hr houses? Why did we have to waste resources on researching floating and houseboats when the bridge house is much better?
Another junk example is the new lifeguard tower deco (2x2)...gives 1115 happiness. Face of the Ancient / Sun God provide 1113 if anyone in OF is that desperate for happiness...
Same with happy, supply buildings....
Military:
When released in parts it's harder to balance out the troops. We've seen a lot of rebalancing in AF, and now it doesn't look any different. Quite annoying. I don't recall any of this happening in any other era except the rail nerf in FE.
Furthermore, I'd rank nautilus and octopods as junk units...so once again devs are out of ideas and forcing us to research something we don't need. Not sure about the 3 new units, I hope they prove me wrong.
Third, exactly because of those "junk" units, it's now harder for someone who just advances to OF to get good troops from GE. Surely one would want eels, subs and turtles when entering OF and chances are now 3/10 vs 3/5 had it been only 5 different units like all other eras. (6 in AF).
Continent map:
I don't mind fighting cmap, but with so many provinces it's become more of a hassle than fun. Most of the tiles can be auto'ed with 8 eels or a turtle-sub combo, so to me it's just another annoying clicking. Not to mention the ridiculous negotiation cost when quests forces us to do so.
Expansions:
Only good thing in releasing an Era in parts was that we got 4 expansions for each.
Strongly agreed, as you pointed out this is exactly the trap the team
felt for in the last two ages. Hopefully they will use your feedback for
the upcoming age.
I'll hope they comingup with one entire age.
With the past improvments compared to AF, I'm hopefull and possitive.
As for the episode motives. At first in AF the motives where, as far I knew from what was told by Inno, was
to releasing faster and building up a age on players' feedback and proceeding with it. I think the needed
knowledge and feedback has been gained over time with AF and OF. In a nutshell:
1.) Own style - it's a new age and every new age had it's own style, unlike AF, was improved in OF
2.) A clear TT - no mess like AF, in OF this was improved
3.) No diamond buildings unlocking with tech. - like AF, improved in OF
4.) Not only avatars unlocking in one tech. - in later OF improved
5.) Please no episodes, since episodes resulting in increase quanity rather quality
I might be overlooking a few points that came out of the past feedback, but I think this where 4 major
points.
I think armed with knowledge of the past it's okay to built up a entire age and releassing it as
a entire age.
