The war as a whole has been fun as a whole. It's had a few flaws balance-wise, but overall, great job.
My one big criticism is to do with the way things have been rebalanced, from a narrative perspective. Over the course of the war, several changes have been made to the strength of the thargoids, notably their expansion rates, how many times they spawn alerts, the effort it takes to beat them, and so on.
Unfortunately, many of those changes have not been justified from a narrative standpoint. This makes the entire thing feel unplanned, and made me not really want to participate, because it felt like my efforts were just making things worse. If they're just going to nerf things if they're too hard, then me contributing is just pushing back that inevitable nerf, so the best thing I can do is quit. That's also why I actually came back recently; the war has now been rebalanced to allow us to win, so my effort now has meaning again.
I'm not saying that we should have been able to win all along. Rather, I would just like a strong narrative justification for WHY I should be playing at any given time. Let's take a look at the DCOH record of the war.
As you can clearly see, there have been at least two major balance changes over the war, and several minor rebalances you can see if you look closer. None of these were really justified in-universe, especially the first massive reduction in the number of alerts.
For me personally, between 2022-11-24 and 2023-03-02, there was little reason for me to play, because nothing we did seemed to really matter.
In this timeframe, it would have been the perfect time to have SPECIFIC tactical goals, and an underlying narrative explaining why we're losing and where hope is. Without that, our only REAL hope is out-of-game, that Fdev will rebalance the narrative, but again, that just encourages players NOT to participate. Something like this would have made a big difference:
Desperate Defense in HIP 21856
Federal shipbuilding facilities in HIP 21856 are under heavy Thargoid attack! Federal response to the unprecedented Thargoid attack has been in disarray, as the majority of Federal vessels are not properly outfitted for AX conflict. Shipbuilding facilities in 21856 were undergoing critical redevelopment to outfit the Fleet with AX weapons and utilities before being attacked.
The Federation asks all Pilots Federation Pilots to immediately fly to HIP 28156 to defend the facilities there until they can be fully retooled.
Then you have a series of systems that are 'critical defense systems' for players to defend while the Titans expand their regions of influence. Once the Titans have gotten far enough out, you complete the construction facilities and bring in the Federal Navy wholesale to defend, perfectly justifying why the Thargoids slow their expansion.
Federal Fleet Fully Repels Thargoids from HIP 21856!
The Federal Fleet, newly retooled with AX weapons and utilities, has finally taken the field! Thanks to a heroic effort by Pilots Federation pilots, orbital overhauling facilities are now capable of retooling dozens of ships per hour, finally allowing Federal forces to take the fight to the Thargoids.
"HIP 21856 is only the beginning," Admiral Tanner said, "As soon as facilities there are locked down, we will be expanding our efforts to all Thargoid fronts. We still have a long way to go, but at least now, we have hope."
Heck, you could even slowly plateau the number of alerts, as the fleet is slowly revamped, allowing for the perfect level of balance, and blame any failures on politics.
This sort of justification and redirection of our efforts would be more than enough to make players at least feel like they're making a difference.
---
Anyway, that's my one critique of the war. Take a little more time to direct efforts and make people feel like they matter, and I think the opinions on the war would be much more unanimously positive.
My one big criticism is to do with the way things have been rebalanced, from a narrative perspective. Over the course of the war, several changes have been made to the strength of the thargoids, notably their expansion rates, how many times they spawn alerts, the effort it takes to beat them, and so on.
Unfortunately, many of those changes have not been justified from a narrative standpoint. This makes the entire thing feel unplanned, and made me not really want to participate, because it felt like my efforts were just making things worse. If they're just going to nerf things if they're too hard, then me contributing is just pushing back that inevitable nerf, so the best thing I can do is quit. That's also why I actually came back recently; the war has now been rebalanced to allow us to win, so my effort now has meaning again.
I'm not saying that we should have been able to win all along. Rather, I would just like a strong narrative justification for WHY I should be playing at any given time. Let's take a look at the DCOH record of the war.
As you can clearly see, there have been at least two major balance changes over the war, and several minor rebalances you can see if you look closer. None of these were really justified in-universe, especially the first massive reduction in the number of alerts.
For me personally, between 2022-11-24 and 2023-03-02, there was little reason for me to play, because nothing we did seemed to really matter.
In this timeframe, it would have been the perfect time to have SPECIFIC tactical goals, and an underlying narrative explaining why we're losing and where hope is. Without that, our only REAL hope is out-of-game, that Fdev will rebalance the narrative, but again, that just encourages players NOT to participate. Something like this would have made a big difference:
Desperate Defense in HIP 21856
Federal shipbuilding facilities in HIP 21856 are under heavy Thargoid attack! Federal response to the unprecedented Thargoid attack has been in disarray, as the majority of Federal vessels are not properly outfitted for AX conflict. Shipbuilding facilities in 21856 were undergoing critical redevelopment to outfit the Fleet with AX weapons and utilities before being attacked.
The Federation asks all Pilots Federation Pilots to immediately fly to HIP 28156 to defend the facilities there until they can be fully retooled.
Then you have a series of systems that are 'critical defense systems' for players to defend while the Titans expand their regions of influence. Once the Titans have gotten far enough out, you complete the construction facilities and bring in the Federal Navy wholesale to defend, perfectly justifying why the Thargoids slow their expansion.
Federal Fleet Fully Repels Thargoids from HIP 21856!
The Federal Fleet, newly retooled with AX weapons and utilities, has finally taken the field! Thanks to a heroic effort by Pilots Federation pilots, orbital overhauling facilities are now capable of retooling dozens of ships per hour, finally allowing Federal forces to take the fight to the Thargoids.
"HIP 21856 is only the beginning," Admiral Tanner said, "As soon as facilities there are locked down, we will be expanding our efforts to all Thargoid fronts. We still have a long way to go, but at least now, we have hope."
Heck, you could even slowly plateau the number of alerts, as the fleet is slowly revamped, allowing for the perfect level of balance, and blame any failures on politics.
This sort of justification and redirection of our efforts would be more than enough to make players at least feel like they're making a difference.
---
Anyway, that's my one critique of the war. Take a little more time to direct efforts and make people feel like they matter, and I think the opinions on the war would be much more unanimously positive.
The first week difficulty balance was a mess and did get a few complaints - at a time when interest in the war was possibly at its highest ever, the combined progress made across all systems in a week was <100%, which is very much "okay, we're just spectators in this". Once in week two that had been dialed back slightly so that it was possible to win 3 systems out of 80ish being attacked that week, people got down to "well, how can we make it 4 next time?" and it was fine.
