Impressions

[MarkY]

On a lark, I bought this game, and I've been quite pleased with it generally. I do have a handful of complaints -- or we can call them suggestions -- some of which have been raised already, but are worth seconding.

1) Large ships need to automatically stop at optimal firing range when they are targetting an enemy ship. This would avoid the goofy "turn away" glitch that makes close fighting so frustrating. The current system is incredibly annoying in part because often my ships move so slowly that I'm inclined to use the fast-forward option, which about 25% of the time winds up causing me to lose because of turning away.

2) The races seem a little too similar right now. Particularly, the Muktians and the Zorg seem to function identically: both warn you off, attack if you advance, and befriend you if you have one of their pilots or the cloak of Babulon. Likewise, the Tan Rau, Urluquai, and Tchorak function essentially identically, although there seem to be some modest differences in how you can pacify them (the Urluquai have gone passive on me for no apparent reason, the Tchorak [or was it the Tan Rau?] when I had the Crystal Fish). These aren't as bad as the Muktian / Zorg thing, though, because the Tchorak are conceptually so different (always one ship) and the pacifying items / conditions are distinct. Also, does the Mantle pacify the Garthans as well? (I seem to recall that it may have.)

A simple option would be to make the Muktians pacifiable through something other than the cloak -- for example, through having enough of the galaxy explored, since they are explorers at heart. I dunno. The other races feel nicely delineated, but these two just don't work for me as is.

3) There is a (modest) glitch involving the mirror that I found: if you mirror the enemy fleet away from its homeworld, you get a message about how, after a big battle, they agreed to a truce. First off, there was no battle. Second -- and I don't know if this glitch is confined to mirroring -- there is no apparent truce. When I mirrored the Urluquai from their homeworld, there was an announced truce, but when I then went to a different Urluquai fleet, they attacked (and killed!) me. I know you can weave a storyline excuse for why this is so, but it was a jarring and unpleasant gameplay experience, and I see no reason why it's not a glitch and shouldn't be fixed.

4) As others have mentioned, the wish interface probably should be retooled. My first time, I wished for "wealth" and got a fish. The second time, realizing it was an item granting tool, I wished for "hyperdrive" and got a different fish. Only after reading the board did I find out the situation with the unique items. In any event, the current mechanism seems flawed for two reasons, both pertaining to player experience. First, there is no feedback there to give an inexperienced player any idea what he did wrong (if anything). Second, it seems unbalanced that an experienced player can get a vastly better item than in inexperienced player, simply by knowing the naming rules and what items are unique and aren't.

I can anticipate the rejoinder -- "Learning to play is part of the fun!" But I'm not sure that's so in this case. Coffee break games are fun because they have static rules and thus test skill over a constant challenge. Making the *rules* of the game effectively get easier the more you play seems contrary to this system. It's one thing for a savvy player to be able to realize that, given a fixed and constantly known set of options, one is more useful in the given situation than another. It's something else to have a guessing game that requires insider knowledge.

The solution I would propose is to have him offer three or four different wishes: (1) "a journey to wherever you wish"; (2) "a fine item from my vault"; (3) "a rare creature from my bestiary"; and (4) "victory over one of your foes." #2 and #3 would be randomly generated, #1 would be a free hyperdrive jump to wherever you want (we know he can teleport!), and #4 would let you pick a fleet to destroy.

5) The player's fleet should start closer to the derelict ships. I am aware that part of the point of the distance is to build tension, but given how slow fleets tend to travel (unless you have a fighter with you), the tension shifts to boredom, even on fast forward, especially if you encounter a ship early in the game. Usually what I do in that situation is send my guy to board, turn off my monitor, and go get a drink of water. Surely that's an indicator that something isn't working the way it should.

6) The rules on retreating aren't totally clear, and I feel like I've been "cheated" a couple of times (i.e., I said to retreat, my ships didn't retreat, and I got killed). I can't really pinpoint what's going on here, other than the fact that sometimes I seem to leave the system much faster. I gather you can't retreat when an enemy's within X distance, but there seems to be more going on (for example, why my ships insist on turning, so, so slowly, to random angles before I get to leave).

7) Ripcord O'Reilly is an inside joke, I gather, but right now the only thing he seems able to do is fly quickly to derelict ships. Why can't I upgrade his gear, at least? No doubt people think he's funny as is, but since there are relatively few ships in the game that you get as companions, it's a little lame that he's so useless.

8) Folding seems very unbalanced as is. It's a pleasant gift when you get it, but it's just so, so powerful I wonder if there oughtn't be some cost involved (like a slight risk of pilot death? or a finite number of uses before he runs out of wax?).

9) The rules for guns seem fairly opaque right now. I'm aware that's part of the point of the current system, but I'm not clear why, since the other subsytems tell you (not so subtly) what the rank order of quality is. My sense is that the particle vortex cannon and the multi-missiles are the best. Otherwise I just go by cost. But cost seems randomly generated, within some parameters, so I've really got no idea.

10) Building off #9, combat in general feels a little wonky right now. It seems like I never am faced with an opponent I can beat until I can beat almost every opponent I would face. There's *some* slush room when you get to the "Garthans are a joke" stage but can still be taken down by Tan Rau or a really big Tchorak. Maybe I'm just not *good* at combat, but it feels like it takes a *long* time to get gear sufficient to beat even the easiest foes you face, and when I turn that corner it seems like I always have gear that lets me avoid battles easily until I can win the all. That is, there's never a point where I feel like I need to fight and can win the fight.

My sense is that if the gun rules were plainer, it might be possible to win fights earlier on. Alternatively, I would consider lowering the difficulty of the "easy" fights.

11) I don't understand why there is a store on Glory. The guns are always redundant with what you've got, you don't have money to splurge on them anyway, and by the time you do, you've got much better weapons. What gives?

If anything, why not make the shop offer items that would be worth ditching something for early on (like trade in your shield and your computer for a cloak, etc.)?

12) Esmerelda is a real headache as is. There's no comparable event in game right now (a purely random, totally sucky occurence), and I would suggesting cutting it or altering it in some way. The problem is that the items that stop Esmerelda are sufficiently rare, and the Esmerelda event is sufficiently rare, that I've only once caught her, despite being robbed maybe ten times.

Esmerelda is different from other instances of bad luck in the game (not meeting the Klakars early on, drawing poor items), because it's something manifestly *bad* happening to the player, which is much, much more striking (and frustrating) than the absence of something *good* happening.

I would be inclined to say that she should just be cut altogether, but cutting back content probably isn't a great idea. The better option, I would think, would be to have something like a message, "Your crew has tracked her to [System X], where she must be holed up." If you go to [System X] with an Esmerelda-catching item, you catch her and get your item back (I would remove the sabotaging). If you go there without a catching item, you get robbed again and she moves again. This would mean that getting caught is an option-creating (rather than value destroying) moment: you can try to get your hands on an E-catching item and track her down, you can avoid her, etc. It's also a low-cost solution in terms of coding / adding material.

13) The scoring system seems too opaque right now. It seems ill-advised to generate a numerical score at the end but not to tell the player the rules under which that score is generated. You give a general sense (swag for smugglers, exploration and animals for scientists, diplomacy for soldiers), but despite having played the game quite a bit, I'm still not sure how that works. Is it just a multiplier that is applied to each of the score categories or what? Is a five coin artifact better than a one coin animal for a scientist? As a soldier am I supposed to kill every hostile on the map (I gather so)? Do I sell my diplomats or keep them on board?

Again, I *know* that opacity is something that you guys seem to want, but I just don't think opacity makes sense when you yield a numerical breakdown at the end. This isn't something that would require huge, mood-breaking messages at the start, either. Just a simple message in tutorial mode would suffice.

The rules also seems maybe too complex now. I'd be inclined to say that scientists should *only* draw benefits from animals, historical artifacts, and weird occurences on planets; soldiers *only* from diplomats, destroyed enemies, etc.; smugglers *only* for the total value of their cargo / ship systems. That would make the three paths feel more distinct. Right now, they all sort of run together, particularly smugglers and soldiers.

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Anyway, I realize this is a universally *****y list, but those were the main snags I've had with what is generally a very good game. I've tried to make suggestions within the spirit of the game (i.e., not asking for more elaborate plot, more complex interface, etc.). Right now, I'd say that the game is very fun but leaves me occasionally very frustrated in a way I haven't been frustrated by a game in a while (the last time was the weird pathfinding glitches in Starcraft that would occasionally cause your dragoons or templars to run back and forth and get creamed; before that, I'd have to go to NES "cheating game" days).

Anyway, at least some of these glitches are very low cost and very high yield, so I do hope you'll consider them.