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Post by Jester on Jul 1, 2010 12:32:19 GMT -5
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 1, 2010 12:55:29 GMT -5
Great review. I pretty much agree with all of it at this point. We are still trying to determine if anything is 'breakable' or not though  |
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Post by Jester on Jul 1, 2010 13:07:08 GMT -5
Hehe...if its breakable, our group will find it. As a matter of fact, one of our guys can simply lay hands on a rule book and then in a trance like state come up with the "ultimate" (aka uber-cheese) list that will make others not want to play the game again  We'll see how it passes that test |
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 1, 2010 13:57:51 GMT -5
Yep, if you werent in GA, I'd say we share the same group of friends. It was scary how horribly they broke Starmada. My concern for CB is less that something will be 'broken', but more that some things might become identified as 'the best'. That's what sort of troubles me with the armor thing...if one way to do is almost always the 'best' way to do it, variety can soon suffer. So far, as I'm designing my fleets I find myself equipping the bulk of the ships with a few batteries of my shield killing weapon (lasers) and then a big battery of my best armor killer (a torp/Mag/Rail). Fill in the rest of the room with Gatling Lasers. Now I haven't had a chance to PLAY many of these so I'm hoping my friends have come up with different ideas. I'm expecting that 'Faction Benefits' will eventually be a cure for anything which ends up 'over-optimized'. If we allows other things to attain the same level of value via a Faction Benefit, there will be more variety restored. But at this point, we are still going with everything 'as is', minus the change in tech are for armor. |
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jul 1, 2010 14:08:46 GMT -5
Well you guys haven't had somebody demonstrate the effectiveness of long range missile bombardment yet. Also if I remember correctly, I haven't heard a whole lot of fighter talk from you yet. I know for a fact both those approaches can be quite lethal, so I'm comfortable you've got plenty of room to grow yet. |
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jul 1, 2010 14:12:31 GMT -5
Hehe...if its breakable, our group will find it. As a matter of fact, one of our guys can simply lay hands on a rule book and then in a trance like state come up with the "ultimate" (aka uber-cheese) list that will make others not want to play the game again We'll see how it passes that test Yeah, f you look on the aknowledgements page you'll find Mike Kriz listed as a playtester. I'm proud of my credentials as a "rule breaker." It's easy for me to figure out ways to break rules simply by skimming through them. It frustrates some of my friends that I'll start proposing "fixes" before ever having played a game. Mike makes me look like an amateur. There were a couple things I added right at the end that he didn't review. . . but 95% of the system has been. I'll be very interested to see if anybody finds something he missed. I'm pretty confident nobody will. |
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Post by Jester on Jul 1, 2010 14:30:37 GMT -5
Yep, if you werent in GA, I'd say we share the same group of friends. It was scary how horribly they broke Starmada. Ok, thats too funny since I was just telling Joe (my main partner in crime) that you could easily have been lifted from any one of us |
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Post by Jester on Jul 1, 2010 14:39:38 GMT -5
Well you guys haven't had somebody demonstrate the effectiveness of long range missile bombardment yet. Also if I remember correctly, I haven't heard a whole lot of fighter talk from you yet. I know for a fact both those approaches can be quite lethal, so I'm comfortable you've got plenty of room to grow yet. Yeah, in our games so far, weve had more luck with missiles launching within 8 inches over our long range salvos. Im sure its just lack of practice and by no means are missiles not powerfull...as a matter of fact, they are pretty frightening to our group so far  As far as fighters go, we havent reallly seen them in action much. Ive had one game where they surrounded a light cruiser and striped it sheidls on one turn and a did a bit of damage. On the next turn, it was going to be in a world of hurt since it wouldnt have been able to regen all of its sheilds and I still had all 6 strike fighters remaining. I hope to get some more fighter action in soon. Also, Im sure it has something to do with my opponent knowing that im a fighter nut and laoding up on PD and Grape shot to counter my carriers. I also try to help him out by lining 4-5 fighters up in a row so that he can hit all of them with 2-3 grape shot templates moving down the same hex line...yep, im nice like that....grrrrrrrr  |
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Post by TheDreadnought on Jul 1, 2010 15:29:29 GMT -5
Thanks for taking the time to post this. I can tell people "Try Colonial Battlefleet!" and tell them about all its cool features until I'm blue in the face. . . but people really want to hear the thoughts of somebody who doesn't know me. Dunno why. . . if I say it's cool, it's cool! |
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unclejoe
Lieutenant Commander
Posts: 199
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Post by unclejoe on Jul 1, 2010 16:12:55 GMT -5
My main 'balance' concerns at this point are (and these are certainly not proven problems by any mean...just things on my 'watch list'):
1) 'Consumables' such as SD Torps, Marines (glad they are optional), and Mines. Anything that doesnt require a 'to-hit' or similar rolls generally draw my suspicion first (although the Mines do in a different way).
2) The already mentioned armor issue. I dont think is a 'problem' at all, just that the creation decisions might not be as robust as they could be. The jury is still out on this and I think proper application of the Tech Levels might be enough of a solution here anyways.
Fighters are usually pretty high on these lists in most systems (or they kill the game with cumbersome mechanics). So far, I haven't had any problems with Fighters though and as I said in another thread, they seem pretty without the Fusion Torps.
The other big 'game killer' for us has been games that let you load up on one type of weapons and win or lose in very short order. Some of these might not even be 'broken', but they easily took the fun out of the system. Of course some of that is the players 'exploiting' the mechanics, but it would be good if we didnt have to police ourselves
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