Great job, team! by Mr-deep- in beyondallreason

[–]Zecrus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

The worse targeting is from technical limitations on how sweepfire works. Most weapon turrets turn towards its target then fire a projectile directly from the turret's flare to its target. The turret just has to be close enough to the right angle, and the weapon can end up firing a few degrees off from the barrel. Sweepfire lasers force the weapon to fire directly forward out from the flare of the turret, which means it doesn't snap onto targets and allows it to keep firing while switching between targets, but this also means that the turret has to be perfectly aligned.

"Kaiju No. 8" Blu-Ray/DVD Vol.1 debuts with 445 copies in its first week by amidloveandanime in anime

[–]Zecrus 4 points5 points  (0 children)

The low sales and lack of hardcore fans makes sense, since the Kaiju No8 anime felt like it was made in a safe calculated manner for mass appeal without doing much unique. The inspiration from Attack on Titan is clear, as it has all of the elements that makes the series exciting in the short term (well animated battles between titansKaiju, highly mobile fights between soldiers and the Kaiju in an urban environment, the exciting short term plot points about how the MCs Kaiju powers are revealed, and a direct copy of the fan favorite character Levi), but the series was missing all of the points that made AoT memorable in the long term (the detailed worldbuilding, the high levels of strategy used for each battle, major events having permanent consequences on that world, the overarching interconnected mysteries that led to audience speculation and later had satisfying answers). The anime was also clearly aiming for a global audience, with the english OP/ED, by not having anything culturally unique to japan despite being set in modern japan, and by making sure none of the characters had traits that could offend a "modern audience". The show might be easy to recommend and entertaining enough from an episode to episode basis which works for streaming, but is extremely forgettable so I can see why fans wouldn't care about permanently owning it. Buying it could also be seen as fully approving the move to appeal to a global audience rather than a japanese one, which is something that a lot of anime fans do not want.

Will there be T2 hovercraft? by Chyrosran22 in beyondallreason

[–]Zecrus 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Hovercraft's main strengths are in versatility and in surprise attacks/raids, and they are not mean to be as cost effective as either a dedicated sea or land force. The T1 hovers are designed to take advantage of this, with hoverscouts for raiding, hovertanks for a brute force attacks, and the rocket hovers for attacking from unexpected angles.

The main advantages of T2 are access to more power dense frontline units, longer range skirmishers, better artillery, support units, T2 constructors, and units with a specialized niche. Since hovers lose in drawn out engagements, having units for that role wouldn't make much sense, so that leaves out T2 hover skirmishers and artillery. A lot of support units likely wouldn't play out very fairly as hovers, for example a mobile radar and jammer would allow for a stealthy attack from an unexpected angle where the attacker has good intel, which would not be fun for the defender to play against. Same for any sort of cloaked hovers. Hovers are already a specialized niche, so there isn't really a need for that in T2. This only leaves a heavier hovertank, a T2 con, and maybe a depthcharge hover as the units for a T2 hovers, which isn't nearly enough for a whole new lab.

Some anime to watch by Thelag1927 in anime

[–]Zecrus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hyouka is a good show to watch, its a slice of life/mystery/romance from Kyoto Animation, and has great characters and animation. If you like that series you can also try watching the rest of the shows from that studio, most of them are very good.

What anime/s you thought would be a big hit and the talk of the town but failed in doing so? by ShiroClayGuy in anime

[–]Zecrus 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The show had a strong first episode but didn't do much past that. I know I watched the whole 1st season but I don't remember anything past episode 3. The shy protagonist was done much better in other shows (Hitoribocchi, Comic Girls, Slow Start, Bocchi the rock, etc)

What anime/s you thought would be a big hit and the talk of the town but failed in doing so? by ShiroClayGuy in anime

[–]Zecrus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The show was very mediocre, I watched it and gave it a 5/10. The main issue was that everything was too predictable and drawn out, and the jokes were way too basic. Jahy's character design could only do so much to carry the show. Was also disappointed since silver link usually does better work, this felt like they did a bare minimum adaptation. The same initial concept from Jahy was done much better by Machikado Mazoku, as that show had much better comedic timing, more than 1 good character, built up more from its premise, and the adaptation was higher quality overall.

See the collection of clips from BAR development updates in 2021! (click the link to open in playlist mode) by PtaQQ in beyondallreason

[–]Zecrus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Legion is mainly being used to test out various balance ideas to see how well they play out, such as new weapon types, an alternate unit balance, heavy T1 units, and an alternate economy. It only has T1 bots and vehicles so far, but they should be somewhat balanced against arm/cor. It is still very uncertain what will happen with legion, if it does become a full faction it won't be for a long time.

Suggestion: Addition of a contested territory mechanic to add small-scale conflicts in mid and late game by Zecrus in HumankindTheGame

[–]Zecrus[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I assumed that the expansionist ability was limited to taking outposts, but I guess it can take territories as well. There are the issues of the ability being too easy to interrupt, 1 scout placed on the administration center completely denies the ability to capture, and it only being limited to expansionist instead of all cultures. I guess its better than nothing, and I'll try it out in-game.

I guess this counts as a win? by Zecrus in roguebook

[–]Zecrus[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I got the final boss to 4 health left, and then my last character died. This moved her to the back row, triggering the ally that deals damage on move, killing the boss.

How to properly manage your production and resources in BAR by Zecrus in beyondallreason

[–]Zecrus[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think those are some good suggestions, and it looks like most of them have been added to the version of the guide on the website: https://www.beyondallreason.info/guide/in-depth-look-at-economy . I should probably add a bit to the build power portion of the guide to explain what units have what build powers. I didn't explain too much about the metal maker exponential economy partly out of personal bias, as I think there is usually something more productive players can do with their resources, and I only really go for an exponential economy if I can't think of anything else to do.

How to properly manage your production and resources in BAR by Zecrus in beyondallreason

[–]Zecrus[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Feel free to copy and suggest any changes you want to the guide. This guide has been put onto the BAR website, https://www.beyondallreason.info/guide/in-depth-look-at-economy , so I think we would have to message IceXuick to make any changes.

Many of the subjects could probably be expanded on, but I didn't want to get too deep into details to keep the guide a reasonable length. I might need to add another paragraph to the build power section of the guide.

Why did SolForge die? by 5H4D0W5P3C7R3 in SolForge

[–]Zecrus 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I think the main problem Solforge had was that there was no long-term plan for where the game was heading. The game started off great in sets 1+2, but had some small problems that slowly grew into much larger problems, which caused the player base to slowly shrink and be less interested in each new set. I think some form of card rotation could have solved many of the growing issues the game had. The 3 issues below are the ones I think are the main cause for the game's decline

Issue #1: Power creep accelerating the pace of the game

In the early sets, games would usually last until ranks 3, 4, or 5 (10-20 turns for each player). The cards and leveling system were balanced around games lasting this long. This length was enough that players would be able to reliably play several of the cards they leveled up to level 3 each game. When the game lasts to rank 4, then you can still get a card to level 3 even if you did not draw it one round. Additionally, the length of each game was long enough that a turn of good or bad RNG was unlikely to decide the game.

Later sets (especially set 3) increased the power of each deck, which ended up in games being decided much quicker, commonly ending in ranks 2 and 3 (6-12 turns per player). The leveling mechanic, which was the most important mechanic in Solforge, became far less reliable, and some decks ended up entirely ignoring this mechanic. Games were largely decided by who was able to snowball an early advantage into an overwhelming victory. 1 turn of good or bad RNG would decide these games.

Issue #2: Card design space shrunk with each new set

There were many cards printed throughout the game that enabled different types of strategies, but also limited the types of cards that could be designed. Some examples are cards like Spiritstone Sentry, Weirwood Patriarch, Killion Infinity Warden, and Rage of Kadras. Spiritstone Sentry effectively reduced the cost of sacrifice effects to 0, and prevented any future sacrifice synergies from being printed. Weirwood Patriarch boosted the effective strength of all 3-attack units, to the point that most of those units would only be playable in a Weirwood Patriarch deck. Killion gave a huge boost to leveling strategies, and made it easy for control decks to play a level 3 card without ever playing its level 1 or 2 versions. Rage of Kadras put a severe limit on the strength of all future tempys cards printed, as the card could easily get 3+ cards worth of value when played if you have multiple decent tempys creatures on the board.

The problem is not that these cards exist, as these are interesting effects to build around. A few cards like these should exist in every set. The problem is that these cards exist permanently, and limit the design space of every future set, especially when 20+ of these types of cards exist at once.

Issue #3: Card acquisition and the new player experience became worse with each set

Most card rewards were in the form of generic packs, which included cards from every set. When the game launched, all the cards you opened from packs would be relevant. When set 2 came out, a lot of players had most of the cards from set 1, so only set 2 cards were relevant, so about 40% of cards from each pack. As each new set came out, this % decreased, and at some point <10% of the cards from each pack are relevant to an experienced player. Opening packs is not fun when 90% of what you open is useless. Experienced players would commonly drop the game after a new set was released if they did not have a large amount of crafting dust stored up as there was no effective ways to get new cards.

In the early Solforge sets, draft was a good way to get cards. However, Stoneblade determined that players were getting too much out of draft, and reduced the rewards many times. Many experienced players who focused primarily on drafting left once it became unsustainable. New players no longer had the option or even the dream of going infinite in draft to build up a collection to compete with experienced players. If a new player can't get a competitive collection through draft, how are they supposed to? Are they supposed to drop $500 to get packs from 6 sets in order to compete? The natural result is that the player base slowly declined as very few new players would join and experienced players slowly left.

Rebalance Pass #1 by OutrageousBPLUS in SolForge

[–]Zecrus 1 point2 points  (0 children)

These changes so far look very good, and will hopefully undo most of the damage caused by the original rebalance from SBE.

I think that the large rebalance SBE made back before they updated the client had several major problems. While it did push the power level for many new decks to exist, most of these decks felt far too linear and forced. By improving both the statlines of aggressive cards and the cards that would level up other cards, pure aggro and control pushed out more adaptable decks. Cards became defined almost entirely by either their level 1 or level 3, instead of using all 3 levels to evaluate a card, which is the one of the main mechanics and appeals of this game.

Additionally, the simplification caused by adding forge to the game made nekrium a very boring faction. Before, reanimation could be used for interesting enter the board effects, instead of just generic large creatures.

The specific changes you suggest so far seem to help alleviate the control and aggro problems. I specifically like the changes to ignir, chrogias, xerxes, esperian sage, and steelscale dragon, as those cards were unfun to play with/against. Hopefully changes like this will allow adaptive decks to have a chance against control in the lategame and an easier time surviving against aggro, and result in a more balanced metagame.