Reposted so I can actually edit the damn thing, did I mention these forums are great?

Hidden changes to patch enrage me.

The balance for competitive play is dying, fast.

Market Exploit: Click it fast enough and you can have almost as many resources as you want, for cheap. The previous way it worked, was as soon as you clicked it, it went up now, now, as soon as you click it, it starts to go up. It's not instant. Meaning the faster you click, the more you get for cheap.

Market sell price: 1/3rd roughly excepting booms I'd imagine? but 1/3rd normally, meaning that Vasari as a rule, who before had to sell resources in order to be able to afford things most of the early/mid game can no longer afford to do so, which ties into my next point.

No slider for resources: First of let me just say... WHAT? Who on earth thought this was a good idea. Okay, 2 per asteroids, 3 per every other planetoid, 1 per neutral grav well. Compared to what almost every other game was (many, 4 for each planetoid regardless) I'll be adding more as I see each change that wasn't posted in change log. As well as explaining why this patch completely ruined any semblance of balance.

One Resource To Rule Them All: Credits, with the way the market system work, are now much more powerful. What race has the easiest time getting this amazing resource? The TEC.

With the way the game works now, the only way to have enough resources for anything mid game is now to buy crystal/metal using credits, TEC have several massive advantages here. From the developement mandate tech to the 2 civics required for trade ports. They simply cannot be matched.

OMG CHANGE RUN FOR YOUR LIFE AHHHHHHHHHHH ITS EATING MY LEG!  

The patch hasn't been out for a full day and your already moaning is my point.

I don't mind change with say, balance in mind, or to improve the game, I have massive issues with bullshit n00b-pleasing changes to make the people who don't understand competitive play happy in their twelve hour compstomps.

This patch buffs sim-city building and nerfed siege frigates, why did it nerf siege? Because the AI builds fleets of siege and kills n00bs.

this is an RTS game

Edit: before anyone bitches anymore at how soon these posts were made - these are predictions based upon play so far. We're not saying "This is how it is" this is just what it appears to be.

Your those two guys that were spamming the ICO online chat earlier today, complaining about noobs and not having enough resources per-planet and what not. I believe there were posts earlier complaining about how the first person to buy crystals won? Since after the first person, everyone else was having to pay a considerably higher amount? Well now, if everyone buys crystal at the same time, everyone pays the same price.

Seems like what people were asking for to me.

No the major difference in the market is that previously anyone heavy on resources could use their excess to sell and buy the resource they need, now you don't make enough money for it to be worth it so credits are more valuable and TEC is the best at making credits.

Norrec - In my experience the majority of people ask for the wrong thing or don't consider the ramifications, when they get what they want they tend to complain more.

They fixed the crystal rush but the cure is worse than the disease. the 1.03 market effectively discounts resources by 1000s of credits for heavy early buyers. Hello TEC and goodbye game balance!

Wow. We was me and Haeso. I guess you didn't get that huh?

It's a merger of both, and this patch completely ruins one aspect of the game, balance.

Regardless if you play huge, or small. Long or short games. This change destroyed balance.

In anything but huge games vasari are now underwhelmingly performing.

If all you want to play is huge games, fine, but don't ruin what the majority of people playing multiplayer care about.

TEC can get trades up way before RA. It's tech 2 vs tech 8. TEC used to have to buy crystal up to 600s then 800s, now its 300s and much greater quantities. Hmm I wonder what does 2x TEC resource income do to the game balance?

That's not a real reason, because last time I checked, the point of an RTS is skill in adapting and countering. Outthinking. Build orders are directly contradictory to this. Because "competitive" players would be completely unable to handle change doesn't mean it's a valid reason.

If build-orders were so god-damn necessary, why not just have the game start with the build order already done?

Or rather, why not just have a bot play for you, since the entire point of a build order is a static, unchanging, thoughtless sequence of events, every game?

Pray tell, oh master of strategy, why not just have a chess board start with the king already 'castled'? Does every competitive chess player open the game the exact same way? No, they don't. There's literally a hundred defined opening moves for a game of chess that all change how the game is played.

Build orders are an atrocity and have no place in a game that claims to be about strategy, and the unthinking retard who uses them has no business thinking themselves a master of it.

Uranium, I couldn't agree more with your post. The reason I don't play starcraft is that memorizing the ONLY way you can build units means it isn't a game, just clicking buttons.