How do you think BERT is doing?

[Roxlimn]

Ryika:

Why exactly are you now asking for a 100% victorious player? A difficulty that poses a proper challenge is one that will make you lose some games from time to time, that's part of the beauty. If you win 100% of your games, then you're not playing on a setting that is difficult for you.

Let me put it another way. Winning all the games I start IS part of the difficulty in how I play. You could say that I don't employ things like Legendary Start because I like coming out from under a rock and winning it all. When the start is horrible and exploits are banned, and you're putting arbitrary restrictions on top, well that's how I like it. And I like winning.

For you personally, because you don't care about high difficulty anyway. People obviously disagree with this statement. And making the AI play better would of course be optimal, but if that's not feasible then most people who care about difficulty will want to have an AI that has enough bonuses to pose a challenge.

If you really wanted a challenge, you could just put restrictions on yourself to make it so. It doesn't actually need to be coded into the game. I mean, you could put a code in the game that makes you auto-lose every time you dip below -10 Health if you want, or you could just play so that that never happens. One of those things is easier.

I suppose some people actually want higher bonuses on the AI? Most everyone I hear thinks that it's not good.

 

[Acken]

It's not nonsense. I don't think the game is missing anything if it doesn't have levels where you have to use the AI's even higher bonuses against it. I'm pretty against the entire "give bonuses to AI" approach to difficulty to begin with, so having more of that for the player to leverage doesn't feel like it adds anything to the game.

But the difficulty still rises regardless between emperor and deity. Not using exploits is also up to the player. Especially when you have such a broad definition of it. Either way, exploit free emperor is a piece of cake for some players and so they'll seek challenge on Immortal or Deity or maybe Exploit free Deity.

To me your entire argument is similar to one I could make with Settler to Prince difficulties as being too easy and uninteresting and could be removed without loss. I don't do it because I know some players are using those levels.

We're all against bonuses for the AI if it could be replaced by a better system. We're stuck with the current system for now. I'm also against going too far, you could indeed create 50 levels where at level 50 the AI wins on turn 10... that wouldn't be very interesting.

Also like I said CivBE isn't really missing the higher levels anyway. Apollo is similar to Deity in term of bonuses. It's more a problem of AI performance and balance as far as CivBE is concerned (and Civ5 on a smaller scale).

 

[Ryika]

Let me put it another way. Winning all the games I start IS part of the difficulty in how I play. You could say that I don't employ things like Legendary Start because I like coming out from under a rock and winning it all. When the start is horrible and exploits are banned, and you're putting arbitrary restrictions on top, well that's how I like it. And I like winning.

You're playing on a difficulty setting and with restrictions that put the difficulty below what you would be able to beat at your level of skill, there's no way around it. If you can win with the most horrible start in human history, then it is obvious that a decent start will always be relatively easy to win in comparison. Again, there's nothing wrong with it, but why the hell all these word games just to avoid admitting to yourself that yes, you are in fact playing to have an easy time with the game.

If you really wanted a challenge, you could just put restrictions on yourself to make it so. It doesn't actually need to be coded into the game. I mean, you could put a code in the game that makes you auto-lose every time you dip below -10 Health if you want, or you could just play so that that never happens. One of those things is easier.

Yes, OR I just play on a higher difficulty. What the hell are you even arguing for? Just because YOU don't run into an issue because you're circumventing it with a number of restrictions that will make the game less enjoyable for other players does not mean that this is any argument against people who complain about the lack of a challenging AI. How egocentric can you be?

 

[Roxlimn]

AI, sure. The AI in CivBE right now is Civ4 Original bad. Like, really, really bad. I suspect that people's instincts are correct in that the Trade Routes contribute to it, but not in the manner they suppose. TRs depend on Tile Improvements to be lucrative. That's why +1 Food Farms are so strong. The bonus is mediocre in itself, but it's available immediately and the differential means it spreads to as many cities as you can found, each of which is then free to use alternative Tile Improvements. The AI doesn't improve its land to any acceptable degree, so its Trade Routes will be horrid.

Ryika:

Yes, OR I just play on a higher difficulty. What the hell are you even arguing for? Just because YOU don't run into an issue because you're circumventing it with a number of restrictions that will make the game less enjoyable for other players does not mean that this is any argument against people who complain about the lack of a challenging AI. How egocentric can you be?

I'm all for better AI. I don't think adding more levels with more bonuses for people to exploit will meet anyone's expectations, though.

By the by, the restrictions I use don't all make it "less enjoyable" for players. For instance, I have a restriction in CivBE that disallows me from going into more than -10 Health, even when that meant basically nothing. Was it enjoyable for people to have Health be meaningless? Feedback both before and after the Health patch was strongly that it was necessary. I felt that it was necessary as well, but I didn't wait for it. I just played the game as if the patch were already active. So clearly, that particular restriction was something most people enjoyed but didn't apply.

You're playing on a difficulty setting and with restrictions that put the difficulty below what you would be able to beat at your level of skill, there's no way around it. If you can win with the most horrible start in human history, then it is obvious that a decent start will always be relatively easy to win in comparison. Again, there's nothing wrong with it, but why the hell all these word games just to avoid admitting to yourself that yes, you are in fact playing to have an easy time with the game.

I don't avoid admitting that to myself at all! Haven't I repeatedly said that I liked winning?

 

[PhilBowles]

Eh. At the higher levels, the key to winning the game is exploiting the AI's deficiencies, not really a focused strategic approach.

On Deity, it's possible this is necessary - as I say, I haven't won on Deity, and I refuse to use easy AI exploits (I'll trade gold for luxuries if I have a specific need for gold at that point, but doing so occasionally rather than routinely every 25 turns isn't really an exploit). It's certainly not required at any level below that, while strategic play is.

The fact that that's absent here is sort of a flaw in that nothing is taken away by adding awful game modes, but it's not much of a loss, IMO.

Removing any necessity for strategy is not much of a loss? Even if you accept that exploits are required, rather than simply optimal, at higher difficulties in older Civ games, there's a whole area to be exploited between random-walk your way to victory as in BE and exploit the AI to victory in Civ V Deity. Quite simply, it is possible to play badly on King+ in Civ V and actually lose the game - arguably it's even possible on Prince. I'm unsure that it's even possible in BE.

You're listing a whole suite of different strategic approaches in BE and pointing out that you can win with any of them. Perhaps you simply haven't tried playing without any specific strategy going in, as I did simply by virtue of not knowing the system, but the point is that you can also win doing that. I don't find it very fulfilling sandboxing different strategies when I know going in that I'm not going to experience any difference in the challenge - that I can take my pick of any of the available options and win with no difficulty at all.

 

[Hail]

so how is BERT doing?

judging by steamcharts, BERT's "workday mins" player numbers are back to the pre-BERT values.

the game is doing great. I wish Will & Dave the best of luck with the second expansion.

 

[Gort]

Yeah, it seems like the patches and expansions provide a temporary spike as people try out the new stuff, but the lack of replayability the game has prevents it ever approaching Civ 5's numbers.

 

[Roxlimn]

Not sure if that's relevant. Did even the legendary SMAC have Civ-like numbers? BE is strictly an off-Civ with a scifi theme.

 

[Gorbles]

Yeah, it seems like the patches and expansions provide a temporary spike as people try out the new stuff, but the lack of replayability the game has prevents it ever approaching Civ 5's numbers.

I've highlighted the logical leap and, thus, the arguable point in your logic.

 

[Westwall]

I already stopped playing. The AI is simply atrocious but on the bright side I've fallen in love with Civ 5 all over again.

So much more polished than the mess we're seeing with BERT. I wonder if the devs have even fixed the Gene Vault bug yet.

Pitiful.

 

[poom3619]

Not sure if that's relevant. Did even the legendary SMAC have Civ-like numbers? BE is strictly an off-Civ with a scifi theme.

Well, since we didn't really have a way how to track peak number of SMAC player, it cannot be proved nor disproved.

Only thing I can say for sure, because it is my opinion, that I doubt CivBE would be Civ series' yardstick or anything Civ7 players will compare or reminiscence favorably with.

 

[TheRoadrunner]

Not sure if that's relevant. Did even the legendary SMAC have Civ-like numbers? BE is strictly an off-Civ with a scifi theme.

There is no way to accurately measure that. No data exists. I bought original SMAC second hand and never even went online when playing it.

Also, just for reference, I mostly play Sci-fi games if I play games. Besides Pirates and FFT my favorites are all sci-fi games (alpha centauri, xcom, X3, FTL)

 

[Gorbles]

There being no way to measure that data doesn't mean that Roxlimn doesn't have a point. It just means that the data can go either way.

 

[nimling]

BERT didn't address the real core problems with BE, but added lots of stuff that doesn't really work on top of a broken base. I'm not interested in buying it unless it goes on a massive discount, and I'm not holding out for a mod.

Hopefully, when Firaxis does Civ6, they get over this 1UPT thing and start making a real civ game. Ideally, they can structure the game in a way that makes multiplayer a worthwhile experience, instead of the jumbled mess that it is now. Simultaneous turn resolution would go a long way towards that end.

No more broken ranged units please. Ranged combat is a big stumbling block for Civ5/BE combat, one that was necessitated by the really bad 1UPT limitation.

 

[Gort]

I've highlighted the logical leap and, thus, the arguable point in your logic.

Maybe next time you'll actually try to make an argument instead.

 

[Gorbles]

I pointed out what was wrong with your post in a polite way. I'm not sure why you always tend to be aggressive.

Your post was wrong, because your logic is predicated on the bolded part. There are many reasons why BE doesn't have the numbers CiV has, just like there are many reasons why CiV was more popular on paper than Civ 4 was (even without Steam data). That is my argument, I don't need anything more than that. You're wrong, plain and simple.

 

[Gort]

Your argument is pretty weak if that's all you've got to back it up. Beyond Earth HAD a load of players at launch, it's just that most of them don't want to play it much.

(Beyond Earth in green)

 

[Gorbles]

The same goes for every game. If your graph went back to 2010 you'd see the huge spike from initial Civilisation 5 sales.

I'm not disputing that BE had more players at launch. Please stop moving the goalposts of the debate. Your mistaken statement was that there are less players now because of replayability, when in fact there are a multitude of reasons for concurrent player count diminishing over time.

It comes down to, in part, an active and welcoming community, and Beyond Earth simply never got that by comparison. We have people actively defending the state of CiV on launch, we have people recommending (actively) the use of mods to fix commonly-perceived flaws in that game, and so on, and so forth. We have very little of that here, and the people who like previous Civ. games are, um, less than welcoming of the few people that do look to excuse the state of BE.

This site itself never expanded the community documentation areas (Info Centre, etc) to support BE despite my repeated requests, and I get the feeling that there wasn't enough interest to justify the expense (so, to clarify, not blaming the site here - cost / effectiveness is a large part in managing something this large).

There are other reasons too. Similarity with CiV. Lack of enthusiasm for a sci-fi setting (given Civilisation's historical attraction). Comparisons with SMAC despite repeated developer statements on the subject. Subjective dislike of UI and art palette. Subjective this, subjective that. Balance. A ton of reasons.

Replayability is merely one drop in a large pond. To state otherwise, is to be factually wrong, in absolute terms.

 

[Gort]

The idea that people weren't interested in Beyond Earth conceptually is pretty flawed. That's why the player numbers were high in the first place - people bought and played the game in large numbers but stopped playing it very quickly. Guess why? Because it's not very replayable.

The reason we have a disappointed, small and inactive community is because few people are still playing it, not because of some conspiracy.

We have about 25 times the Civ 5 players than we do BE players because Civ 5 is a very replayable game, and BE is not, not because nobody wanted a sci-fi civ game. If I didn't want that, I wouldn't have bought the thing in the first place, and the same goes for many of the other players who no longer play.

Replayability is merely one drop in a large pond.

I'm glad you agree with me that BE is not very replayable, shame that didn't come across in your original post. Maybe be more constructive in future?

 

[Gorbles]

See, you're being disingenuous. I never said BE wasn't replayable, because replayability is subjective.

I find BE very replayable. You obviously don't. These are both valid opinions to hold, because we all play different games for different lengths of time for different reasons.

There would've been people not interested in BE. I know people who gave this exact reason. Which is why I asked you to extend your graph to include the launch figures for CiV (which you haven't done). Every game is bought in larger numbers (by several orders of magnitude) than the numbers still playing it three months down the line (nevermind one year and three months down the line).

But it's fine, I've shown your how logic is flat-out wrong. You don't want to accept this, or learn from it. There's nothing else I can say, really.