If you nerf phase missiles you really hit vasari hard. Instead of nerfing them, buff or atleast give advent and tec better late game defence against phase missiles.
Early game vasari rely heavily on them. Take that away like every other early game gimmick they have and they will fail anywhere but economy spots.
I strongly disagree. Phase missiles, like all weapon upgrades are more or less meaningless in the early game. And Vasari have the god damm Orky at Military Tech 2..... which will solve all of your worries of being rushed once and for all... not to mention it is a devastating weapon on the offensive too. The minor nerf to its first weapon upgrade does not solve the problem enough.... you rarely will destroy the starbase in time.
From the medium game on the vasari are easily equal to the other races and in late game they become an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction. Having a superior economy AND a superior military compared to the Advent, they effortlessly mop the floor with an Advent player with comparable skill and empire size.
The biggest part of their military supremancy is coming from the phase missiles... especially those on their bombers.
A Vasari carrier does have 2 bomber wings, like the TEC carrier... it consumes the same ammount of fleet supply... and yet it offerns easily 3 times the firepower. For similar ammounts of money.... the Vasari can have a much more deadly bomber fleet. 50 Vasari carriers equal well over 100 TEC carriers. Add the second best fighters of the game and you begin to realize why Vasari have strike craft supremacy.
Yes... it would help a lot if Advent had an culture INDEPENDENT phase missile block.
For reasonable damage levels, we speak about a phase missile block level above 90 %.
Right now Advent have a lousy 20 % block, limited to total cultural domination. Advent offense vs Vasari in late game? Forget it.... all your capitalships and Titan will die in under a minute.
It was suggested in the past, that every shield research of the Advent should grant a bonus to phase missile block. That way it would be not automatic and require a bit of effort on the Advent side. It also might make other research upgrades instead of phase missiles actually worthy.
Currently, as Vasari... you dont want to bother with any weapon upgrades, but phase missiles. Just research the
CHEAP
TO EARLY in the techtree
MEGA WEAPON UPGRADE OF DOOM
that will make all other weapons upgrade in the entire game look like worthless crap.
Forget Advent maxed plasma with Energy Aura.... Vasari can have far more firepower for maybe half the money and far earlier.
That being said, the question at hand is whether MP guys should buy the DLC...right or wrong, I have a feeling most of them will not buy the DLC, in large part because they won't have to in order to play DLC games...
While certainly being well within their right to do so.... I really have to say that is is more than a bit ungrateful.
The Multiplayer Community of this game is a small minority of players... one that has a lots of demands however. Much work has went into pleasing them.... so sure..... go ahead... give the developer the impression that the MP guys are not a worthy buyer group..... but then dont complain that they some day might not longer care about MP balancing.
On a more light note..... I think that depending on the additional researches offered, many MP players could be convinced to buy it anyway. After all, if you want to have a DLC game going, it rather sucks if you cannot host one yourself. The ability to play the features in other peoples games, might ingnite interest.
IMO I don't see it being draconian to require people to actually have bought the DLC in order to play it...but that's just my opinion...
While not draconian... it would without any doubt lead to a divide in the - already small enough - MP community. People without DLC might not find games anymore and might decide to quit playing MP alltogether, and that is not what anyone here can want.
Quoting ARESIV,
reply 44
Even the MP community needs have been considered and addressed.... what else could you possible want?
All the MP needs that were addressed were done so in the 1.5 update, not the DLC...what SD has done in terms of support is irrelevant: if the DLC offers nothing for the MP community, why should they get it?
I was speaking about the implemention of the DLC, not about the features.
The current implementation will help avoid the community split that for example Supreme Commander 2 had when a DLC was released with the system you were suggesting earlier.
So the MP community does not have to fear a split.
I also speak about all the MP focused balancing changes, you know for the average SP person, the jumping Orky, Maw, Desperation and all the other things were pretty ok.
The planet specialization could add to MP, but there's no guarantee...only time will tell...and even if it does, will it be enough to get most MP guys to buy it especially when they can play it perfectly legally and of minimal inconvenience for free?
Time and possible further balancing patches will tell.
As for minor inconvenience... Steam sucks..... but it is sometimes a bit more convenient than buying elsewhere.... look at its success.... and that although they are offering an inferior product compared to a physical copy. Player base will decline and in time you might need somebody to host a game.... and then it quite sucks if the only capable host is using a non DLC version. Unless you want to wait 1 hour... but we already spoke about inconvenient things above.
The MP players are only a fraction of the Sins player base.... and from this fraction the hardcore MP players are even a smaller fraction. I dont think that they are that important to Stardock from an economical point of view. A bit of "free riding" wont cost SD much and almost certainly will cost them less than a draconian solution that might create an outcry in the community.
