Slitherine

I've been playing this game for a while now and started delving into multiplayer. It's much more competitive than playing the "AI" of course, but I feel it could be improved in 3 MAJOR ways.

1) Make it possible for both players to play the same turn at the same time! This will reduce the time to complete each game by A LOT as long as both players are online at the same time. Keep the current system for those who prefer it as it also has advantages.

2) Make it so that being first to the major milestones actually matter! You can claim the same prestige even though you are a quarter or two behind. Adding this would force the player who is behind to either skip some mission configs and do riskier launches or try and collect the prestige some other way in order to get the max budget next season.

3) Add Hard and Buzz-Hard difficulty levels to multiplayer.

Anyways, great game guys. I've been enjoying it a lot since it's release.

Hello SomeoneYouKNow,

Thanks for the feedback. Point one is quite unlikely, since the whole idea behind PBEM is that players take turns. The upside of this is that it allows you to be involved in several matches simultaneously (similar to a Chess tournament with several tables) and doesn't require your opponent to be online at the same. We could adopt a hybrid solution and allow concurrent turns, but that would require lots of changes in the PBEM server itself (it would no longer be a PBEM server, really! ) and the game code.

Points 2 and 3 will be added to the backlog, yes. I'm planning to add a few more multiplayer options and game mechanics in a future patch.

Cheers,

Hello,

I have similar sentiments to the OP, so I thought I would add my input.

This is a great game with a lot of potential, but I would also second the proposals mentioned above. I find point 2 (rewards for being first to a milestone) to be of vital importance, but I think multiplayer could also be a lot more streamlined if we could have concurrent turns. The current system does have advantages as mentioned, but it can often make the whole thing a little tedious and time consuming. A hybrid solution would be indeed best.
I know it would take a lot of resources, but I think it is certainly worth some consideration, particularly if you plan on supporting this game well into the future.

This game is a fantastic break from the mainstream, and though I have run into some frustrating bugs... I appreciate the responsiveness from tech support and have little doubt that the significant bugs will be fixed in time.

Concurrent turns are really a must. The turned based aspect to the game is such a time consumer that I am rapidly losing interest in multiplayer. Which leaves single player, without prestige goals being tied to an AI adversary... there are only so many paths that can be taken to maximize prestige.

I fear that without either a viable AI competing towards prestige or concurrent multiplayer competing towards prestige, this game will never gain broad market appeal. As for current players, I'm not sure how else to keep people playing for months rather than weeks without some better aspect to competition.

I do understand that real-life budgets drive game development, but the investment could really ensure some longevity for the game.

I am also running into a bug on the discounts for components previously owned being not applied when I think it should. For example, Voshkod information seems to say you get a discount for having Vostok, so it costs 0 to open Voshkod. However, I cant open unless I have the full 5000 megabucks or so. I am not sure if 5000 gets deducted if I have 5000 banked if I open Voshkod, but I believe it does.

In summary, discount for components already owned does not seem to be applying properly.