03-07-2013, 01:45 PM
Biggest problem with fantasy, IMO, is the graphics. That's what makes spaceships so attractive. Sooo much less to worry about with animations (not to mention terrain). Fantasy will add oodles of overhead in graphics design, level design and animation.
I don't think player balance with fleets is necessarily worse than any other form of balancing. Adding ships to your fleet isn't necessarily different than having one ship with upgrades.
Any player progression is going to have to solve the balance problem. If anything, I like the fleet idea because you can create limits like "30 ships per battle" so that the guy with 3000 ships doesn't have such a huge advantage over the guy with 300 ships. Finding ways to do the same thing with a level 80 vs a level 3 or a Type VI Phaser vs Type I Phaser seems harder.
I do like the "Natural Selection" type systems where I'm controlling a fleet but really some or all of my fleet is controlled by players. That seems like an extra level of technical difficulty, though, basically supporting two completely different views and control systems into the game world.
Of course it could be more like Starcraft co-op. It's all my fleet but I can dole out control of parts of it to other players. In that case the fleet isn't really "me"; it's "The Purge".
I don't think player balance with fleets is necessarily worse than any other form of balancing. Adding ships to your fleet isn't necessarily different than having one ship with upgrades.
Any player progression is going to have to solve the balance problem. If anything, I like the fleet idea because you can create limits like "30 ships per battle" so that the guy with 3000 ships doesn't have such a huge advantage over the guy with 300 ships. Finding ways to do the same thing with a level 80 vs a level 3 or a Type VI Phaser vs Type I Phaser seems harder.
I do like the "Natural Selection" type systems where I'm controlling a fleet but really some or all of my fleet is controlled by players. That seems like an extra level of technical difficulty, though, basically supporting two completely different views and control systems into the game world.
Of course it could be more like Starcraft co-op. It's all my fleet but I can dole out control of parts of it to other players. In that case the fleet isn't really "me"; it's "The Purge".