Does game really need major balance??

Cuz it's not fun playing against overpowered stuff with underpowered stuff for the majority of people.

If you played online, you would not have to ask this question.  Yes, balance is needed.  When 80 percent of the online population(which isn't many) plays vasari and spams the same 2 things(skirantra and assailants) then something is wrong.  It is difficult for the rest to keep up, especially advent.  The AI is stupid and predictable.  It does not take advantage of imbalance the way human players do.  Play online a few times and I guarantee you will be singing a different tune.  Lore is fine and dandy but the general idea with RTS games is that each side/race should be different but not be overwhelming different in overall power.  It isn't fun if the races you may like to play has figuratively 1 hand tied behind its back when fighting.  You want the battle to be decided by skill/cleverness rather than an innate advantage or disadvantage that comes with a race you pick.

[_]-Greyfox

Perfect balance:

- All units, abilities and technologies are really useful (at least in some situations)

- There is counters system promoting mixed forces AND mixed stuff > spam (unless you spam direct counters against opponent spamming unit countered by this direct counter)

- If two (or more) players have same skills, each factions is able to win against any other faction, no matter of map

- There is no overpowered units/combos not possible to counter by any fleet composition of same cost

- None faction have huge advantage over any other faction at any stage of the game, all factions can win at every stage of game

NONE of these points work correctly by now, there are a lot of minor/major/critical balance problems at every area.

I would append that while factions should not have huge advantages in a given stage, I find nothing wrong with moderate advantages in given stage.

I'm not sure what the first post is supposed to mean- are you suggesting that it is not necessary for an RTS to be balanced as long as the backstory reflects that lack of balance?  Or is your meaning that the factions do not have to be directly balanced across ship and technology types?  No-one wants the factions to be made similar.

However some of your comments seem poorly considered.  If the TEC were to be unprepared for war, then logically they should be relatively weak at first, and stronger in the late game, not the other way round.  One issue I've always had with TEC ships is that the lore implies that they have to rely on converted ships at the start of the game and yet the two military ships, the Sova and Kol, are available at start.  Perhaps the intention was to have the Kol ineffective unless preceded by a Dunov, yet the Sova is not hindered in like manner, and it would be curious for military ships to be so reliant on converted civilian ships.  None of the frigates are converted ships, however..?

Again, what you have said about Advent is accurate, but where from that is the notion that Advent should only field a long-range frigate significantly later than other factions?  The long-range frigate is meant to be used in conjunction with the advanced Advent shielding, yet in practice Advent have to rely on Disciples early, which gain the least advantage from shielding and are a more or less Zerg-style low-tech unit...?

Having phase missiles on everything is absurd, because the specific purpose of the phase missile is to bypass shields.  As strikecraft do not have shields, why should units intended to engage them like flak and fighters use phase missiles?  Also, what is a phase missile?  When used by a long range frigate it appears in the game as something like a homing torpedo, but they wouldn't be fast enough to engage strikecraft?   The flak and fighters have to be using a substantially different weapon, so why isn't this reflected in the game?

The Sins lore is odd, the backstory doesn't work very well.  It is far from clear why each faction would have a single terran planet in a system they otherwise know nothing of, for instance.  The Vasari should start from space, the Advent from a desert, the rest should be TEC, according to the lore.  Have the Vasari encountered other factions since they have been on the run?   What happened when the Advent encountered the Vasari?  People rave about it but it is full of holes, and I'd urge the developers to dump it before making a new game.

On advantages in different phases of the game, I agree with Arthanis, the game should not have structural imbalances in the later phases of the game, all you would be creating would be a game where there would be only one winner on a bigger map.  Another peculiarity of Sins is that one of the preferred online styles is a 5v5 rush map, where the distances between players are much shorter than in 1v1 and 2v2.  If you balance for rush games and disadvantage a faction in the later game, then that faction will be unusable in 1v1 and 2v2.  I dislike 5s, no-one played 5s when I started and I associate them very much with the decline of the game.

Also, a technology tree shouldn't be like a secret code with perils that only experienced players know to avoid- all upgrades should be viable.  With a technology like Pinpoint Bombardment you would expect a vast high-tech boost to Vasari planet attack, but in the game it is absolutely valueless.  All the financial and resource technologies should provide a boost without the player having to work out whether they will get anything out of them at all.  The game-winning technologies should be just that.  The Advent Deliverance Engine does very little at all.  You might claim that having the wonder weapon useless balances the deadly Advent fleet in the late game, but really it just leaves Advent with one path where there should be two.  Ideally, all factions should be playable in several different styles.

Thank you for your response. But i honestly feel as though with each balance would bring about a whole new set of problems. Your right AI is stupid but yet humans will use whatever unit that assures victory instead of a mix fleet. The problem isnt balance but is the people who play it, i.e. you. Spam bombers, sure why not but are you playing to win or playing to have fun. Game is intended to use a variety of different ships and abilities that each respective faction owns.

Very true but whos at fault for spamming ships that are good against enemy ships?? The player or dev?? AI is stupid but yet they mix there fleet up. Thats the way it should be in the first place.

Ok but yet we dont take advantages of what the devs gave us. Tec vs vasari. Enemy spaming assailants or Skirantra. Tec are tough in the early game and have significant support cruiser available at 2 tier. Late game with a good economy you can spam your own ships with research to overwhelm vasari. Vasari cant replace ships as fast as the tec can!

Advent is not bent on conquest thus should not be expect to fight on par with most ships!! Use culture to put pressure on and even better use abilities that require aid of other ships in fleet.

Point blank Vasari is overpowered but not unstoppable. Another not, TEC and advent starbases are dangerous until the vasari build one your gravity well. There is so many possibilties its rediculous.  Each faction you pick should reflect on the player and how he/she intends to play.

The game needs balance, i agree but that wont come around any time soon, IMO. Use what you got and go with it.

Yes i do. I never said that the game is balanced at all. Merely stating that there are direct and indirect counters for whatever your opponenet throw at you. If you cant win with mere power head on, try a different tactic. This is a strategy game after all.

What i mean by that is as far as an impending threat, one would respond by converting commercial frigates to military ships to ward off or stave said danger. But as the game progress why would they be better at it. They were unprepared for it in the first place. If anything they are on the defensive in the late game. It fits perfectly as to why they taper out.

TEC. Trader EMERGENCY coalition. They will do what the can to counter danger at first glance but they havent seen war or have any tactics later on.

Hope it makes sense.

To take your own examples... two equally skilled players in late game TEC vs Vasari. Vasari will win as they can kill stuff far faster than even TEC spam can replace it. As for Advent... the other two factions are bent on conquest. Why would they sit back and let Advent, with a weak military, get culture going? Plus the Advent are bent on revenge more than anything else. Advent must be able to fight or they will simply be brushed aside as they get culture up, and it fits the lore.

You can't play to your strengths if you do not actually have strengths.

Absurd to you but make hell of a lot of sense for a grand empire that ruled countless worlds to implement such technology.

Look at it at this angle....

Vasari has there bases covered by absurdly placing PM on everything in case they meet a foe that uses shielding on SC??

You have to look at it at their point of view. No matter what weapon it is, if its effective but it on everything.

Please Desconner, i would like to here your reponse.

Given that Sins is in an obscure genre and is not a sequel, I think we should judge this game with conservative expectations...while the game may have problems, I still think we should be thankful for what we do have...after all, this is not Halo 3, a game with 2 sequels to build upon and a massive online community...

Many mods have been made that try to bring balance or more diversity...you have graphics mods, balance mods, mods that add new planets, conversion mods for various sci-fi universes, etc...while the original game may have serious problems, people love playing sins with mods...the game engine has immense potential and for a first release of its kind with two mico-expansions, I'd say Ironclad/Stardock did pretty damn good...

With that being said, however, I do believe that most of your (DesConnor) criticism is well warranted from a single player/campaign perspective...there is definitely a lot of room for improvement, though again I'd stressed that Sins has very little before it to build upon or learn from...

Though some elements of the game could be drastically improved, I do think the game still does have a lot of potential for good, solid MP games...and since those who are least content with the game seem to represent the crowd of multiplayers, I think there's where the focus of future efforts should lie...as far as I am concerned, sins SP is a lost cause, and even if it were improved, you are mostly addressing the SP crowd, the ones who seem most content with the game... 

I think most of your points are worth implementing in, say, Sins 2...it really would be more interesting for Advent to start with desert planets and Vasari start from space (with say, a space egg or something)...also, it really does make more sense for TEC to have a weaker early game since they are allegedly unprepared for war...there are a lot of really good ideas that have been suggested on these forums, but ultimately I don't think we're going to see the vast majority of them in Sins via patches or other expansions...

Giving sins all the features we want to see is just not going to happen, no matter how good our ideas may be...however, we can still foster diversity and create balance with sins as is...this may not be good enough for some people who expect a lot more from a game like sins, but obviously there are still people who like sins despite being fully aware of its balance issues...patches, mods, and expansions that address balance are still very beneficial to the community even if it seems small and dying...

Silverion23, I would say that from a MP perspective, sins is in desperate need of balance...multiplayer is one of the most brutal things for a game designer to try and address because even the slightest imbalance will be exploited massively by human players...for a game to be balanced at the multiplayer level, it needs to be perfect...being close to perfection is okay for SP or for matches against an AI, but it will not suffice for competitive MP...

If you are serious about your balance mod, I'd highly recommend playing on ICO...you don't need to win all the time or be ungodly amazing in order to make a good balance mod, but I think the experience of playing against humans who are very good will help you immensely...

I would also note that diversity and balance are not exclusive...you can have factions that are very different but still very balanced...I really would not be concerned that attempts to balance the game will just make all the factions seem alike...multiple attempts at balance mods have been made, and while you can argue about how well they actually balanced sins, I don't think any of them decreased the diversity in the game...

Thanks for the response but regarding this how so? There starbase with adequete research can build ships faster. And with the actual military or civilian research (i forget which one) to build ships faster should out pace the vasari's responses. On top of that tec are on the defensive in the late game. Instead of sheer force, use numbers to wear away vasari. Vasari repair bay are horrible. You can defeat them with time.

Exactly. What is PM? Devs said it bypass shields and thats it. Its a non issue on how fast they travel.

Again, silverion, you really need to play MP games...it's not only a lot of fun, but it really gives good insight into the game...

Things may work in theory or look good on paper, but when you actually play the game, it doesn't work out how you think....

Industrial Juggernaut and pervasive economy simply don't give the TEC the power they need to overcome their inferior late game fleet...really, it just doesn't work...looking at the tech tree and doing calculations and what not may make it seem like it works, but experience playing the game says otherwise...

So true, but what now?? What can be possibly done to assure players wont exploit advantages? Any change will equate to another problem in spite said change. If you want a TRUE balance make all factions the same across the board.

Each factions is diverse, thats why i like sins. Some ships are stronger than others but yet people on MP abuse that, thus why we bring we are here. Are you playing with a friend that spams bombers? Are both enjoying the game play or is one trying to out right win by any means? Are you even playing for fun? AI is stupid but yet know how to make a somewhat diverse fleet.

Again thanks for the response but a good or a ok example is with races on starcraft.

I consider the tec as the zerg in respects with sheer numbers and the ability to replace quickly. On the other hand vasari is the protoss with a large fleet supply regarding ships and power.

This is just a rough analysis but it all boils down to who do you play with and how are they playing.

TEC cannot do what Zerg can. TEC should keep up in a war of attrition, but they do not.