Insane Suggestions You Should Probably Ignore

[Satan's Robot]

Just want to start out by telling everyone who's worked on this game: thanks. I have PTSD and playing games where I can pause the action is really helpful, and you've made one that not only does that, but is Up There in the Best Games of All Time List. You're glorious. Don't stop.

Anyways, I had a few suggestions for the game. I know you have a roadmap planned for DLC3 and 4 (now that it's been split) already for the next year, so I feel unreasonable making a request for a DLC5, but I figure it can't hurt to make a suggestion, gauge the community's response to it, that sort of thing.

1. More Lore! I love the lore of the Arcenverse, was real sad to hear about Stars Beyond Reach not making it to launch and explaining some questions I had, and I wish there was more lore, and that more of it was written in an "in-universe" style, like AI War 1, or the two DLCs are. It honestly just feels better when you feel like you're being told by an officer "in the game" with a personal touch about what's going on, rather than something that feels like a tutorial. And I want you to perhaps get a little crazy with it--you're dropping hints at Big Things outside the galaxy, for instance, and a force controlling the Dark Spire / Zenith, and I'd love to see more of that in future DLCs. And I wanna read all about the Neinzul when they show up; their lifecycle is really unique.

2. Now that you've got the Arcenverse involved with the Scourge, do you think you could do more in a future DLC with the Last Federation races? I figure since they're canon now, but the Scourge ins't really a proper introduction to them, corrupted as they are, something related to them could show up. My idea is this: maybe have recoverable Last Federation flagships made by the Federation races as something existing between Arks and transports. That is, something with a bit of firepower so that it can defend itself or bring something unique to the battlefield, but come with one (and only one) set of strike craft. I feel like transports are kinda boring, in a game that is basically about "which Goodies do I grab," and this might be a good way way to spice up the game. Lore-wise, to explain why these ships are so powerful, maybe you could say that it's an abandoned hulk left by the Last Hydral when he/she/they (? not sure how to handle a four-headed creature) upgraded to a new ship during their long lifespan.

More pie-in-the-sky thinking would be Last Federation Outguards; it'd be a lot of work, but being able to call in a strike force of mercenary Peltians or perpetually angrier Boarines would be pretty cool. Or, whole huge DLC level: have the Last Federation as a minor faction. I feel like metal either accumulates to full or you're close to nothing because you're actively building something, with nothing really in-between other than constructions from the Zenith Trader, so maybe you could spend exorbitant costs of metal for help from the Last Federation, either in ship lines (with an associated small AI Progress cost) or limited attacks against the AI. Being able to "purchase" ship lines from the Federation would also solve some people's complaints that you don't get enough player choice in what you "invest" in, and rather react to the map.

3. The Nanocaust is terrifying, and I totally get that's the point, but it's often got exponential growth on even level 1, and I feel like a future DLC could address the extent of that threat. First, maybe do what you do with the difficulty level of the AI and have it scale such that lower is lower and higher is much higher. As it is, I either have to stomp it out before it can grow, like a fire, or if it's in the right position, let it take out the AI for me, because it's such a game-changer either way. And I'd like the AI to respond differently to the Nanocaust. I know the AI reacts to foreign factions, but it doesn't seem to "know" what the Nanocaust is capable of. Perhaps, even, get a message from the AI about a temporary truce if the Nanocaust starts to overtake the AI's worlds. It feels weird to "win" a game where the Nanocaust, if the game continued, would continue to overtake the galaxy and overwhelm my fleet and defenses. I'd like an option to have the AI realize that you're "less annoying" than the Nanocaust is and ignore you on planets you're attempting to take it out on, and concentrate exogalactic forces against it. Or even simply add an option in the game settings that the Nanocaust must be defeated if not allied to the player, on the idea that humanity being able to settle down etc. isn't going to happen if the Nanocaust is Still A Thing.

4. Does the Spire know how to "win the game"? In my Spire playthrough, they collected around the AI homeworld, but forgot to take down the Dire Guardian posts, and didn't seem to follow the roving AI command center, so I was left to do the work myself after about half an hour of waiting for them to get to the point. It's not particularly difficult at that stage, but it seems sort of silly to have thousands of power of Spire ships sitting on the AI Homeworld waiting around.

5. Really rarely, have the Zenith Trader's arrival actually be accompanied by the sound of an ice cream truck, and don't tell anyone about it or put it in the patch notes.

[Strategic Sage]

1. I agree, but ultimately this takes time away from features most players more worthwhile. AI War 1 was made at a time when Arcen was more successful and therefore there was more time to add lore such as this. right now it would take away from more pressing issues with the game. There is more coming about the Big Things outside the galaxy already in one of the announced DLCs though. That's naturally classified in the details at this stage. It's also worth noting that the tutorial stuff is there because new players regularly give feedback that they don't understand how to do things.

2. The metal thing depends highly on your playstyle. I don't use the Trader, and I'm rarely either full or out. We already have something between Arks and transports; the new cruisers. Something that costs exorbitant amounts of metal would also need to be of Golem quality or it won't get used. I'm not sure what role TLF ships would fit?

3. That's not how the AI works. One of the key fundamentals of the game is that the AI follows certain rules and the players job is to work around those as best they can. I think it breaks the thematic setting for the AI to react differently to them than they do to other factions, and also isn't really justified. The Nanocaust aren't even that scary compared to some other factions; in the long run Dark Spire will do better against the AI, Scourge can kick the Nanocaust's butt, and I wouldn't fancy their odds against Dark Zenith either. The 'eliminate all hostile factions' win condition has been brought up before, but there are some issues with it. One of them is simply the fact that some hostile factions can't *be* eliminated by design; Architrave without using Nomad planets and a sufficiently large Dark Spire infestation being a couple of examples. I like the idea in theory, but practically speaking if you do it for one faction like the Nanocaust you need to do it for all potentially hostile factions, and that would invalidate some current factions and generally invalidate a goodly part of the way the game presently works.

4. This hasn't been seen recently. A save on Mantis would be good for troubleshooting. Last time this was tested/reported it was working fine.

5. LOL.

[smidlee]

There is an AI that uses Nanocaust ships named "The Beast". Also after defeating the AI there is nothing to stop you from continuing the game and beat the Nauocaust. AI War 2 gives you tons of options to play pretty much any way you like. Shark A and B , no wave warnings, Allies can destroy command stations, AI civil war, etc.
You can even ally with the AI against minor factions which would reveal the limitation of minor factions. That is the AIP has no effect on minor factions. Nauocaust doesn't send extra forces to deal with Spire cities build up nor allied Scourge. Thus the minor factions in the game are not design to stand outside the mechanics of the AI.

[Satan's Robot]

Originally posted by Strategic Sage:

(Smart Stuff)

I want to thank you for your reply. Most of what you wrote makes sense, from your perspective as someone working on the game, and it was mighty kind of you to reply to all that. It's not often someone on a dev team can say something to me as a fan and for me to go "that makes sense, I get what they're trying to do." So I won't reply to your reply point by point, because it's not necessary.

I do want to reiterate that I'd like to see The Last Federation races involved in the game somehow in a future DLC other than as corrupted Scourge, simply because I think Arcen Games hit the ball out of the park with their race design. I don't mean in terms of outright originality, like, the Thoraxians on the surface could be so many other ferocious egg-laying bug species, but the interactions between the races in The Last Federation? Darn, it was something else. Dealing with the Thoraxian Queen actually felt different from dealing with, say, the Skylaxians or the Acutians, Not a lot of games can say that; even games that build up their lore heavily are still limited to Plus this modifier, Minus that modifier, and The Last Federation was, frankly, genius at making their personality shine through the actual gameplay.

I don't know how it would be done exactly--I mean, Arcen Games are the geniuses, not me--but I think one of the very few things that AI War 2 lacks right now are ships, outside of a few Golems, that have "personality" outside of their modifiers, and you have well-defined personalities for a bunch of races that are already in the lore of the game, and it makes sense to stick 'em in there somehow. (You're right about Cruisers kinda filling this role; I'm realizing that as I play with 'em more.)

For all I know The Last Federation and Starward Rogue went unappreciated by fans and were financial losses and that's why you don't have the same love for the Last Federation races and the Hydral that I do. My purpose with all this rambling was to say, hey, I'd pay 10bux for a DLC that did this. (I'd probably pay 10bux for a DLC from you guys that did anything, though. Geniuses, I say.)

As for the Spire Campaign issue, it was several revisions ago (do you people sleep?) and is probably fixed if you say it's fixed. I once went to the Discord to report a bug only to discover that Steam had the update already queued that fixed Raid Engine journals. That's customer service :-)

Lastly, again, thanks for working on such a wonderful game! I feel Real Bad about saying You Guys Should Do This when it's obvious you know what you're doing.

[ZeroTheHero]

"

Originally posted by Satan's Robot:

Originally posted by Strategic Sage:

(Smart Stuff)

As for the Spire Campaign issue, it was several revisions ago (do you people sleep?) and is probably fixed if you say it's fixed. I once went to the Discord to report a bug only to discover that Steam had the update already queued that fixed Raid Engine journals. That's customer service :-)

Lastly, again, thanks for working on such a wonderful game! I feel Real Bad about saying You Guys Should Do This when it's obvious you know what you're doing.

No-one sleeps who plays AI War. There is constant discussion on this game in discord and a great community.

[Strategic Sage]

You're welcome. To clarify, I'm not on the dev team, per se - just don't want to claim something that I'm not. I'm somebody who makes videos on the game and has been honored with insider access to provide feedback, and also did the trailer (with significant help from others) for the ZO DLC. That's the extent of what I do vis a vis Arcen.

Don't feel bad either - Arcen can't fix something if they don't know it's broken. I can say TLF did much better than Starward Rogue, but I've never played either so ... you know more about those than I do.

Feedback is good. Conversations are positive. Don't feel any need to shy away from that :)