'We should have been more audacious' - A Civilization: Beyond Earth retrospective

[Acken]

This is a panel at the GDC.
And reported by a website.

They won't go into very game specific details in that context.

 

[TLHeart]

so the developers admit they missed the mark with BE, and they think it is the back story and wonders....

they shoot and miss again...

Miassma, static pain early game, only benefit is to military, can be removed easily with no repercussions. AC had the local floral grow and wipe out your farms. As the game progressed, so did the planets reactions to you being there. You could also benefit from the local flora, if you choose too. Miassma is just a static item that needs developed.

aliens, static again, strong to first level military, squish after that... again the aliens should change as the game progresses, by how much damage you are doing to the planet.

Stations mechanic is totally broken. The AI can kill any station, and you can not even denounce them for it. AI kills a station that you have a quest for, you get the bonus for the quest.

Quests not working after first 100 turns.

Trade routes, could be a dynamic part of the game, but instead is an intrusive, pain to deal with.

 

[Velasti]

The team designed fictional wonders for Beyond Earth and simply borrowed the same underlying mechanic for them as seen in Civilization V: Brave New World. "We figured it would more or less work," said Miller. "But players complained that they were not wonderful and failed to provide a sense of awe. We'd had a perfect opportunity to bring out the sci-fi and flavor of the game that people could integrate into their own story. But we completely missed it. Here was an opportunity to allow players to do things that you could never do in a traditional Civ; but we just held ourselves back because we were too afraid."

Uh... This concerns me.

The "underlying mechanic" for wonders in Civ V is that they are worth the production you spend on them. You don't build the Pyramids because of "sentimental value". You build the pyramids because it gives you a massive worker bonus which improves the development of your Civ.

You build the Spy Agency in Civ BE because it's actually a good wonder.

If anything, Virtues are the new wonders.

 

[ToothedBomb]

I am pessimistic for the the future of BE. I dont think they can do enough in future expansions to make it great. There is too much to do and some of the mechanics need to be drastically reinvented. Happy to be proven wrong on this point. But any expansions are a definite wait for me on full priced dlc. I think id only consider it on a 75% discount having been so disappointed with the full priced original.

I agree. I think the foundation isn't stable or good enough to build upon via expansions or DLC. So much would have to be changed and/or improved, and I'm not sure that's even worth the effort.

I see Beyond Earth as an experiment. One that didn't go too well. But the developers can learn from the mistakes made here, and start fresh with a new idea, and a new game. That's what I'd like to see anyway. Honestly I'd be surprised if there was ever an expansion announced for BE. I can't see it happening.

 

[reddishrecue]

The developers made a good job of making BE, i saw a screenshot today and it looked neat. What really caused BE to suffer was the lack of energy that people had byte the end of civilization 5. Once bnw came out, most people were out of energy to be able to continue with the expansion. Now that starships is coming out you can start to notice these things.

 

[iam2509]

It probably has been said a million times before but one or two "good" Civilization players "playtesting" BE for a couple hours before release would have discovered BE's problems and given them time to remedy the situation.

Why they felt that unnecessary is "beyond" me...

 

[liv]

It probably has been said a million times before but one or two "good" Civilization players "playtesting" BE for a couple hours before release would have discovered BE's problems and given them time to remedy the situation.

Why they felt that unnecessary is "beyond" me...

A couple of hours. Not sure what you are saying. You would not delay your release at that point Also I thought some civ players were part of beta testing? Is that not true?

Also, could it be likely that the team thought that since most Civ players are actually not "good" players but merely play a military game on low difficulty levels so consequently they over focussed on design and cool units?
As it turned out it was not enough to keep the masses happy and obviously good strategy players are not going to find this game very challenging.

As a "story player" myself I can find good things to the game so I hope they will continue to tweak it

 

[Chaleb]

The part they really messed up in my mind is hiding away all the game's lore in the Civopedia. In Civ V the leaders are historical so you know from prior information about who they are, so you don't need it presented to you. In BE, all the lore is fictional, which is fine but it's never presented to you. Not once does it even mention to Civopedia which I think a vast amount of people playing the game never even looked into. I know they wanted players to make up part of their own story, which is also fine, but in the end this only justified players not having any context or foundation to who those leaders were.

A huge missed opportunity because the lore is all there and is pretty solid. It would make people actually care for the wonders and the factions.

 

[rkade8583]

To me, it all goes back to open beta. Firaxis is big enough and well known enough that code-blacking a game once people paid money for access to it would bite them hard. In a perfect world, they'd hear the complaints, do what they could, and release a great game made greater by those who chose to help make it great.

This being the real world, however...

 

[Bandobras Took]

The "underlying mechanic" for wonders in Civ V is that they are worth the production you spend on them. You don't build the Pyramids because of "sentimental value". You build the pyramids because it gives you a massive worker bonus which improves the development of your Civ.

That's probably the wrong example; it took them a really long time to get the Pyramids in Civ 5 to be even close to worth building.

 

[Ashbery76]

I think part of the issue is Sid's influence on the new designers.The guy seem obsessed with streamlining games these days.

 

[Ryika]

I think part of the issue is Sid's influence on the new designers.The guy seem obsessed with streamlining games these days.

Interesting. ^^ Most people I heard rather complained that he didn't have enough influence and instead let the rather inexperienced people do the job.

 

[Acken]

A couple of hours. Not sure what you are saying. You would not delay your release at that point Also I thought some civ players were part of beta testing? Is that not true?

Also, could it be likely that the team thought that since most Civ players are actually not "good" players but merely play a military game on low difficulty levels so consequently they over focussed on design and cool units?
As it turned out it was not enough to keep the masses happy and obviously good strategy players are not going to find this game very challenging.

As a "story player" myself I can find good things to the game so I hope they will continue to tweak it

Some players did some testing.

What level of influence they had is unknown. I would say not much because I can't beleive someone like Madjinn wouldn't report things like bad wonders, poor specialists or too easy apollo difficulty.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

The part they really messed up in my mind is hiding away all the game's lore in the Civopedia. In Civ V the leaders are historical so you know from prior information about who they are, so you don't need it presented to you. In BE, all the lore is fictional, which is fine but it's never presented to you. Not once does it even mention to Civopedia which I think a vast amount of people playing the game never even looked into. I know they wanted players to make up part of their own story, which is also fine, but in the end this only justified players not having any context or foundation to who those leaders were.

A huge missed opportunity because the lore is all there and is pretty solid. It would make people actually care for the wonders and the factions.

Yeah, this game absolutely fails to create any sort of narrative. I understand this was not the case with SMAC though I never played it.

 

[Mutineer]

Yes, just look on quests, insted of action determin consiuences they have 1 click qustion spamm.. Boring

 

[Velasti]

What level of influence they had is unknown. I would say not much because I can't beleive someone like Madjinn wouldn't report things like bad wonders, poor specialists or too easy apollo difficulty.

Madjinn is a really good player, right?

Well if he says that Apollo is too easy, could it not be because he's too good?

That's probably the wrong example; it took them a really long time to get the Pyramids in Civ 5 to be even close to worth building.

Maybe. I've played Rise of Nations, which also has a pyramids wonder, which is also relatively powerful.

I have given Firaxis the benefit of the doubt there, and assumed they introduced a powerful wonder from the outset.

The point stands. They seem to be obsessing about "atmosphere", and ignoring the lessons they should have learned about mechanics.

 

[Acken]

Madjinn is a really good player, right?

Well if he says that Apollo is too easy, could it not be because he's too good?

No. Apollo was too easy.

 

[liv]

And before the first patch Apollo was REALLY easy

 

[Chaleb]

Yes, just look on quests, insted of action determin consiuences they have 1 click qustion spamm.. Boring

I mean, if you want to have a few quests based on buildings, fine. But at least make the choice difficult! Way too many quests have an obvious better choice; I'm sorry but 1 energy isn't equal to 1 production.

 

[Gorbles]

No. Apollo was too easy.

So how hard is Apollo meant to be in quantifiable terms? Does it need to be a challenge for the top three players in the game? The top thirty? The top three hundred?