Don Maddox
23 Feb 08, 00:55
Hmmm, after playing several large games and taking some time to contemplate Sins of a Solar Empire, I'm reluctantly forced to conclude this game has some fairly serious balance issues. I should point out that I'm one of those rare gamers that doesn't generally get too wound up about unit balance. The way I see it, all games have some sort of balance issue--the gamer just needs to understand that and learn to adjust. Unfortunately, Sins seems to have deeper problems.
For starters, the capital ships are scarcely worth all the effort and resources that goes into building them. Although they look impressive on paper, the reality is that they simply aren't much of an improvement over much smaller vessels. In fact, in terms of sheer "bang for the buck," capital ships are generally not worth the money that goes into them. The smaller ships can be built more quickly, more cheaply, and almost always achieve better results over the long run. This should not be. Capital ships should be powerful, easily capable of dealing with small fleets of lesser ships, and worth the large investment. Sins' capital ships feel expensive and bloated, yet strangely ineffective.
Phasing needs a major overhaul. As the game currently stands, it's essentially impossible to create any type of meaningful defense strategy. Enemies simply jump right into your base of operations and fly right through your defenses because there is no way to destroy even medium-sized ships quickly enough to repel an attack. So opponents fly in, lay waste to your planet, and then move on to your next base. Rinse, repeat.
Siege frigates are not well implemented in their current form. Even the largest and most heavily armed capital ships cannot deal with them quickly enough to keep an assult force of siege frigates from destroying your planets one by one. Even when the firepower of three or four capital ships is massed on a single siege frigate, it soaks up the firepower for quite a while. In short, Sins' offensive weaponry is wholly inadequate to the task of defending against these types of run and gun tactics. That may be by design, but it does not result in fun gameplay.
Cannot shape the battlefield. One of the most serious problems with the game's current design is that commanders are almost powerless to effectively shape the battlefield. As the game advances, battles tend to get progressively more chaotic and soon there is very little tactics involved at all. In just ends up being a massive Stalingrad-like war of attrition. Instead of rewarding smart planning and sound tactics, Sins' battles start to feel like the early days of the RTS genre, when the player simply selected "everything" and hurled it at the enemy.
Another problem I see is the inability to actually force a fight. The game rewards terrorist hit and run tactics far more than it does intelligent planning. These "drive by shooting" tactics are fun for the first few hours, but once you realize there really isn't any way to stop it and no effective defense, the shine starts to wear off. The enemy jumps in with a huge fleet and you move your own huge fleet to meet it. Although there's a lot of flak and pretty special effects flying around, none of it is effective enough to really do significant damage because the first fleet is simply there to blow the planet to shreds and then jump back out. Yes, there are phase inhibitors, but they are tech 4. Tech 4!
Defensive structures are very nearly worthless. They are incapable of stopping even a small attack. Although they may destroy a few frigates, they are worthless for halting siege frigates engaged in planetary bombardment.
Fighters and bombers serve little or no purpose. Unlike Homeworld 2, where the player needed to fight the "small" battles (fighter vs. fighter) as well as "large" battles (ship vs. ship), the fighters in Sins are little more than a nuisance to frigates, and wholly ineffective against capital ships. In fact, they don't seem to serve much purpose at all.
Sins is a very interesting game, but in its current form I feel it has medium-severe balance issues that virtually ensure every match played on a big map will end up resembling WWI trench warfare.
Judging from the huge amount of feedback from players on the official forums, I'm wondering if reviewers didn't jump the gun just a tiny bit in praising Sins of the Solar Empire so highly. Right now I'm trying to decide whether these problems are simply balance issues that can be easily corrected with some intelligent tweaks, or whether the issues run deeper and are rooted in the game design.
For starters, the capital ships are scarcely worth all the effort and resources that goes into building them. Although they look impressive on paper, the reality is that they simply aren't much of an improvement over much smaller vessels. In fact, in terms of sheer "bang for the buck," capital ships are generally not worth the money that goes into them. The smaller ships can be built more quickly, more cheaply, and almost always achieve better results over the long run. This should not be. Capital ships should be powerful, easily capable of dealing with small fleets of lesser ships, and worth the large investment. Sins' capital ships feel expensive and bloated, yet strangely ineffective.
Phasing needs a major overhaul. As the game currently stands, it's essentially impossible to create any type of meaningful defense strategy. Enemies simply jump right into your base of operations and fly right through your defenses because there is no way to destroy even medium-sized ships quickly enough to repel an attack. So opponents fly in, lay waste to your planet, and then move on to your next base. Rinse, repeat.
Siege frigates are not well implemented in their current form. Even the largest and most heavily armed capital ships cannot deal with them quickly enough to keep an assult force of siege frigates from destroying your planets one by one. Even when the firepower of three or four capital ships is massed on a single siege frigate, it soaks up the firepower for quite a while. In short, Sins' offensive weaponry is wholly inadequate to the task of defending against these types of run and gun tactics. That may be by design, but it does not result in fun gameplay.
Cannot shape the battlefield. One of the most serious problems with the game's current design is that commanders are almost powerless to effectively shape the battlefield. As the game advances, battles tend to get progressively more chaotic and soon there is very little tactics involved at all. In just ends up being a massive Stalingrad-like war of attrition. Instead of rewarding smart planning and sound tactics, Sins' battles start to feel like the early days of the RTS genre, when the player simply selected "everything" and hurled it at the enemy.
Another problem I see is the inability to actually force a fight. The game rewards terrorist hit and run tactics far more than it does intelligent planning. These "drive by shooting" tactics are fun for the first few hours, but once you realize there really isn't any way to stop it and no effective defense, the shine starts to wear off. The enemy jumps in with a huge fleet and you move your own huge fleet to meet it. Although there's a lot of flak and pretty special effects flying around, none of it is effective enough to really do significant damage because the first fleet is simply there to blow the planet to shreds and then jump back out. Yes, there are phase inhibitors, but they are tech 4. Tech 4!
Defensive structures are very nearly worthless. They are incapable of stopping even a small attack. Although they may destroy a few frigates, they are worthless for halting siege frigates engaged in planetary bombardment.
Fighters and bombers serve little or no purpose. Unlike Homeworld 2, where the player needed to fight the "small" battles (fighter vs. fighter) as well as "large" battles (ship vs. ship), the fighters in Sins are little more than a nuisance to frigates, and wholly ineffective against capital ships. In fact, they don't seem to serve much purpose at all.
Sins is a very interesting game, but in its current form I feel it has medium-severe balance issues that virtually ensure every match played on a big map will end up resembling WWI trench warfare.
Judging from the huge amount of feedback from players on the official forums, I'm wondering if reviewers didn't jump the gun just a tiny bit in praising Sins of the Solar Empire so highly. Right now I'm trying to decide whether these problems are simply balance issues that can be easily corrected with some intelligent tweaks, or whether the issues run deeper and are rooted in the game design.