41 replies to this topic

[cbrausen]

After playing MoO for a few hours, I must say that I am very disappointed with the tactical combat.

In MOO2 tactical combat was a must! For example using Mass drivers at extreme range with a hit and run tactic was very successful.

And by the way why is there no retreat button?

To me this tactical combat is like a cinematic cut scene. You can't really influence it and it is a huge waste of time.

If you have to press the pause button all the time to change things, why not do it turn based from the start?

 

The average player in real time battle games can do 20-30 decisions per minute. Good average players are going up to 40-50.

In professional E-sport leagues they are doing 200-300 per minute in peaks even 400. But that is a young men's game. No successful player is over 26.

For a casual player like me who played Moo2 during Uni times and now has a family I want to relax when playing, not added stress. For me turn based is king!

 

I saw the Moo2 tactical combat as a simple battle chess. If you do it in 3D you exponentially increase the possibilities and as we humans have evolved on land and not flying through the air we are mentally not really really equipped to deal with that properly... Remember 20-30 decisions per minute for the average player! Now add 3D movement in space to a real time battle and you will get either very frustated players or they keep pressing the pause button. (By the way how do want to handle pause buttons in multiplayer?)

 

Regards,

CB

 

 

[NLxAROSA]

So far, I've treated the combat as a cutscene. I'm wondering if this is really all there is to it, or if there's more coming up in the next phases of EA.

[___Canaris___]

yeah the tactical game needs some serious work, no skill involved. only part of the game I felt let down by so far

[Flayerr]

Yeah i have been trying to micro my ships but it all feels like there is no point. Haven't found any real strategy from this tactical combat so far.

[MoominT]

Looks stunning but not as enjoyable as the original MOO combat. I am hoping for a turn based option.

[Vanyel_]

Without turn-based tactical combat this game can achieve at most a 75% rating from me. I've already alerted all of my friends, after my early access experience, and they've all decided to not purchase the game. Strange, it seems that not only I myself but all of my friends who played moo2 also *all* belong to the 10% who thinks tactical turn-based combat is a major feature....

[Roo_Stercogburn]

No reason to do anything except simulation so far. Tactical  is very unwieldy and mostly unplayable in any meaningful way. If it goes to full release with this it will likely be slated in reviews.

 

The intro where you see your fleet popping out of hyperspace would be more impressive if it didn't miss out big chunks of your fleet most of the time.

 

...And at the end of Tactical battle the game goes through the simulation anyway

 

I would prefer turn-based fleet combat but I recognize that many do not want that. Tactical needs a lot of work to get it so you're not watching a glorified cutscene. I remember a crappy tactical type spaceship combat back in a Star Trek game from years ago and it was so meh it degraded the rest of the game-play experience. Potentially a similar situation could occur here.

[Piotr_Misiuda]

Tactical comabat is a crap. No tactics at all just run forward and shot to bigest one. Early acess looks like fancy boxed trash.

[Addicus]

Lets be honest. Right now there is no tactical combat. There's just a button that lets you watch the results of the 'simulated' combat.

[NLxAROSA]

Addicus, on 29 February 2016 - 07:45 PM, said:

Lets be honest. Right now there is no tactical combat. There's just a button that lets you watch the results of the 'simulated' combat.

 

Well, it's possible to turn off the AI, but not sure wether that's an improvement or not. :P

[MrConway]

Please bear in mind that the tactical combat is still in early stages and will definitely be refined in coming early access phases!

 

As a MoO2 fan myself, you can be sure that I will forward your feedback on this!

[Gamling_JB]

Battles looks great but I agree its hard to tell what is going on and what is best to do. As far as I can tell the only thing you can try to control now is to try to have all your ships to get in range at the same time while you at the same time try to spread out the enemies. This works very well mostly because the ships die very fast.

 

But once you get the dauntless guiding system you just have to fill your ships with missiles and watch them kill off everything before they enemies have time to react.

[ottonl]

Are there any plans to implement this enhanced tactical system to ground combat as well ?

 

[Flayerr]

Gamling_JB, on 01 March 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

Battles looks great but I agree its hard to tell what is going on and what is best to do. As far as I can tell the only thing you can try to control now is to try to have all your ships to get in range at the same time while you at the same time try to spread out the enemies. This works very well mostly because the ships die very fast.

 

But once you get the dauntless guiding system you just have to fill your ships with missiles and watch them kill off everything before they enemies have time to react.

 

On dauntless comment i have made that same conclusion. Missiles = high range and with dauntless u just shoot 576457632 missiles before enemy ships are in range of fire and just watch how that endless swarm of missiles guide them self to each opponent ship and win the battle.

[Asghaad]

all i can say is that i totally agree with what is being sayd - real time combat in otherwise turn based game just throws a wrench into is uniformity - and MOO is the turn based game foremost, meaning that players that HATE real time strategies are forced into something they hate and why they are playing the turn based game in the first place.

 

Devs are repeating that they want to bring MOO back with its soul and fell intact, yet the gutted second most important part of the game...

 

In the dev diary 2 video its clearly sayd the devs had already implemented running version of turn based combat - but rejected it on base of battle length ( which shouldnt matter, on the conmtrary it would improve longevity of the game AND it can be easily bypassed by "simulate battle" button any time player doesnt want to invest time in a skirmish battle) - what we are getting instead is "pretty cutscene" instead where result of trying to manage the ships leads most often to WORSE results than simulating the battle result ...

 

 

to this i have to ask - cant you do BOTH ? if there already was working alpha version of TB combat, finishing it shouldnt be undoable. As curtrent RT combat seems to be universally jusged as THE WORST part of the game right now, woulndt it make more sense to implement that TB combat, let us test it out, then give the feedback of what is preferred (i assure you any MOO fan would be EXTATIC with joy with 5-15 minute long turn based space battles ... ). If devs think the RT mode is "the stuff" it shoulndt be hard to keep BOTH modes in the final game, giving players 3 options for space combat instead of basically ONE we have right now. I personally think this approach would greatly benefit the game (at the cost of developing two semi-separate combat systems ), satysfying both old-school MOO2 die-hard fans as well as more casual strategy playes all the while achieving the one thing devs are promissing left and right - keeping the MOO2 heart and soul intact, because right now the soul is there, but heart was ripped out ...

[BangMadsen]

I beg to differ on the tactical combat feedback. Granted, you could do a lot more, but I am already trying a few basic strategies to make the most of my fleet in tactical combat.

 

Attacking a planet that has a few big defensive structures along with several ships to defend it? I tend to go around, and just poke an attack at the nearest ship, to lure them away from the rest, and thereby dividing the defensive forces in two: Ships and building. Easier to take down.

 

And another few moves that may help, is putting forward one of your shielded units, to let it take the first enemy hits. Make it turn around and flee, to save it from destruction, and let the brunt of your forces move in. Has helped me come out of numerous battles without any casualties.

 

The UI isn't good at informing you about it, but the classic CTRL-NUMBER combo works to create groups, that you can select later on by the press of a keyboard key.

 

And for the adrenaline-reluctant players, you may opt to simply reduce the speed whenever you get to the real action. (I count myself among one of them. I love turn based games for the same reason.)

 

As I said, the tactical combat seems somewhat basic, but it is there, and I don't think it is that bad. Actually, simple can be good. Just a few more options like "Hold your ground"/"Stay in place" command or have your entire selection of ships move at the same pace would be nice additions.

 

Just my 2 cents...

[Asghaad]

BangMadsen, on 01 March 2016 - 04:07 PM, said:

I beg to differ on the tactical combat feedback. Granted, you could do a lot more, but I am already trying a few basic strategies to make the most of my fleet in tactical combat.

 

Attacking a planet that has a few big defensive structures along with several ships to defend it? I tend to go around, and just poke an attack at the nearest ship, to lure them away from the rest, and thereby dividing the defensive forces in two: Ships and building. Easier to take down.

 

And another few moves that may help, is putting forward one of your shielded units, to let it take the first enemy hits. Make it turn around and flee, to save it from destruction, and let the brunt of your forces move in. Has helped me come out of numerous battles without any casualties.

 

The UI isn't good at informing you about it, but the classic CTRL-NUMBER combo works to create groups, that you can select later on by the press of a keyboard key.

 

And for the adrenaline-reluctant players, you may opt to simply reduce the speed whenever you get to the real action. (I count myself among one of them. I love turn based games for the same reason.)

 

As I said, the tactical combat seems somewhat basic, but it is there, and I don't think it is that bad. Actually, simple can be good. Just a few more options like "Hold your ground"/"Stay in place" command or have your entire selection of ships move at the same pace would be nice additions.

 

Just my 2 cents...

 

1. in MOO2 you could bombard planets and units from afar with missiles, use fighter/bomber carrier fleets or kite the enemies with shorter range weapons around - here it simply doesnt work, because of several factors - too small battlefield, too much clutter getting in the way, larger ships being way WAY too slow (its goddamn space, size doesnt matter if engines/ weight ratio is the same ...) and inability of ships to attack without charging against the enemy.

 

2. big defensive structures are currently useless- its the alpha thing im sure, but missile bases and especially ground batteries could defend against smaller fleets in MOO2, battlestations required pretty strong offense to take down and were mostly taken out at long range or captured by boarding, here even cruisers can take these out relatively easily (mostly comes down to the fact that ground structures defended by planetary shields were incredibly tough)

 

3. meanwhile when you are playing around with that "bait" it would be better just to send it little before your main fleet and then attack full force head on - no need to run, that bait ship isnt fast enough to run away from anything anyway. In turnbased style you could instead use proper maneuvering to avoid being shot much- just scrape the engagement envelope of enemy ships and bait them out while moving fleet into flanking positions - kinda doable in RT mode, except small batlefield size makes these maneuvers pointless

 

4. slowing down isnt the same, unless you are comfortable pausing game every two seconds to issue precise maneuvers to every ship at once ...

simple turn based system in original MOO allowed for far more tactics than RT ever will by simply allowing you to FOCUS on every single ship and what it is doing just as main game allows you to focus on every colony one at a time, not rushing you to do anything on timer ...

 

5. "simple" is good for basic strategies, "simple" will simply NOT DO for game that claims to be revival of the most iconic space 4X game ever that was COMPLEX in this area. That would be dumbing down the original concept that they claim they want to preserve.

[cbrausen]

One of the great strength of Moo2 was you got Infos about everything in any screen. If you were not sure what this tech does - right click on it and the game gave you some infos.

I am missing this greatly. At the moment IF there is a help text, it has got no overview and a lot of it not needed and distracting.

Can I kindly ask the devs if something is still under construction or just quickly setup for the moment and to be changed later  - please TELL US!

It would have been helpful if there is a small hint under the 'tactical' button like  -

'mock up - to be improved soon'

'tell us what you think'

'under construction'

etc

We players know that the game is still alpha, but if you are playing it, you tend to forget that, so a little hint here and there is helpful and shows some respect for your customers

 

regards

CB

 

[WarriorOfSock]

How could anyone in his right sensescall this a "tactical" combat. 

Yes, this is a _huge_ disappointment. Taking away turnbased combat is taking away one key element that made Moo2

 

Also; Where the heck is hotseat mode? I only purchased this game in order to play hotseat with a friend. How are you not implementing HotSeat into a turnbased game?

Edited by WarriorOfSock, 01 March 2016 - 06:33 PM.

[NLxAROSA]

MrConway, on 01 March 2016 - 09:32 AM, said:

Please bear in mind that the tactical combat is still in early stages and will definitely be refined in coming early access phases!

 

As a MoO2 fan myself, you can be sure that I will forward your feedback on this!

 

Great, really looking forward to what you guys will be bringing to the table.