gduma

Join Date 07/2015

Pleasure Domes

Pleasure Domes in the current meta-
Currently Pleasure Domes are relatively cheap to produce, cost only power as upkeep, and give a fixed income in return.

Recently a player known as DeathTacitus has been crushing games with an "early patent lab->virtual reality tech->Pleasure Domes". This strategy sacrifices early game HQ upgrades and a lot of money to secure a crucial patent and a set up for a strong mid to late game. I have yet to see him lose playing this strategy, and I have not lost when using it myself.

My concern is the counter-play and response actions an opposing player can take. Whoever obtains the patent for virtual reality can get insane income from a pleasure dome or two. (If you want to see a good example, go look at Zultar's youtube change for the OTC video "domed"). In this video and in many games I have played both against and with this strategy, the Pleasure Domes make upwards of $1000 a second(when boosted), and with a goon squad can not be shut down. This production is better than an Offworld Market shipping 60k value goods off every minute, and those goods costing only $1 on world. Simply put, that is insane.

Now Black Market attacks can keep this play at bay for a time, but with EMPs and Power Surges not clearing the goon squads on a building that is not directly hit, you are basically giving the opponent a free black market item if you want to hit the pleasure dome, and they can simply re-goon it. With Dynamites and Mutinies not always being available on the black market, shutting down the Pleasure Domes can be nearly impossible.

But beyond just wasting all of your black markets on ever increasing cost and less effective attacks, there are simply no counter play options once this strategy has begun. The player usually invests in power, keeping their stock price high, and powers price low, making them hard to buy while also making their pleasure domes more efficient. If another player tries to drive power prices up to make the Domes less efficient then they are sacrificing their own debt to do it, making them very easy to buy with the heavily punishing debt scaling these days. Additionally, this just allows the Pleasure Dome player to make even more off of the power production they already have down.

An opposing player could invest in Pleasure Domes himself, as I believe the equation for computing Pleasure Dome returns is based on the number of Pleasure Domes on the map, but this also feels very unrewarding. Because your opponent already has the virtual reality patent, your Pleasure Domes will never make as much money as theirs, and you are almost forced into taking a loss on those otherwise equivalent tiles for the entire game. This is simply not viable and will only prolong the inevitable defeat.

Finally, the Pleasure Dome is boring. It does not effect the market beyond its marginal and easily coverable power cost, and has no other impact on the game besides producing insane monetary returns for the player who patents and builds them.

In conclusion, Pleasure Domes bring the efficiency of an Offworld Market to a level 3 HQ, has little to no counter play, keeps a players stock price too high to be easily punished for their early game gambit, and is a boring building to exist in the game regardless.

Solutions-
Pleasure Domes are the only advanced building that can be affected by adrenaline boost, this seems strange and allows for insane returns in a very short time. When combined with a goon squad it will produce enough money in 60 seconds to almost buy out a player at level 3.

Pleasure Domes only effect one resource. Add in a continuous electronics cost to maintain the Pleasure Dome. While I do not think this is a good solution, at least it would apply more market pressure and keep them in check a bit more.

Have pleasure domes lose value over time. People get worn out of partying after a while. Have pleasure Domes start at the same value, increasing with each upgrade, but have that value decrease as the pleasure domes exist on the map. It would basically act as another, somewhat hidden resource on the map. If players build pleasure domes the price will go down, and if the pleasure domes are removed the price will go up. Virtual reality could be changed as a patent so instead of giving 100% boost to pleasure dome production, that players pleasure domes no longer receive this degrading penalty. Virtual reality can keep the people entertained permanently.

When do people go to bars and parties? At night! The Pleasure Domes should receive a 25% penalty (number can be fit to balance) during the day, and a 25% boost during the night. This small change adds a lot to the pleasure domes play and counter play. First, as day is longer than night, pleasure domes will receive a small income nerf as it is. The penalty and bonus amounts could be changed, so that their is a 50% boost at night to circumvent this. However, beyond any apparent surface nerfs or buffs based on those percent numbers, it adds counter play. At night, power costs typically rise due to solar panels not working. This will somewhat counterbalance the increased returns. Most importantly, just as solar panels are always hit with black market affects in the morning, pleasure domes would be targeted come evening, just as night time drops. This increases the efficiency of attacks and makes the pleasure dome more of a dynamic building that has unique features to it.

If you have your own ideas, comments, or changes post below.

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zenon49
Hydroponos

I believe I have seen DT lose with that strategy, so it really isn't overpowered, though it is strong. Besides, it's not always viable, especially in 4-man games. I don't have as big a problem with PD as some people and in fact I'm kinda glad even that an element of the game is no longer completely ignored. Maybe PD could use some changes but the main thing I want to point out is this:

Zultar is wrong.

You CAN use adrenaline boost on EVERY building in the game, including Patent Labs, Engineering Labs, Hacker Arrays and Offworld Markets. I honestly haven't seen many people doing that so I maybe am giving out my main trump but boosting, say, the EngiLab does not double the research speed (which is why people think it doesn't work I assume?) but instead lets you research 2 things simultaneously using a single lab. Same goes with Patents and offworlds (2 shipments at once, so long as you queue 2) and probably the Hacker Array though I have never tested that one.

As for the Dome - I really don't think it's that OP, so long as people challenge it with PDs of their own. It's just a little annoying that you ave to devote a tile to slowing another player down when you don't want to do it, just to keep him from running away.

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I had no idea about the double research and shipments. I will have to check if that is documented anywhere, but that sounds very interesting.

Regardless, I mentioned in my post that one of the only counters was to build your own, less efficient PD, but that cant be the best game mechanic they can come up with. You are essentially taking a loss on a tile for the entire game, and STILL nothing is gained in terms of fun interactive gameplay. The point of the post was not to say that PDs where OP, I dont think I use that phrase a single time in my post.

My concern is the counter-play and response actions an opposing player can take.

Finally, the Pleasure Dome is boring. It does not effect the market beyond its marginal and easily coverable power cost, and has no other impact on the game

As you can see, I do not claim the PD to be OP, I just say it needs more counterplay and interactive elements to deserve a spot as a special building in the game. I post 4 "solutions" to the issue of boring gameplay, although the first one appears to be a moot point if what you say about adrenaline boosts is true. Even still, the other 3 options provide more choices, counterplay, and make sense thematically.

First, as day is longer than night, pleasure domes will receive a small income nerf as it is. The penalty and bonus amounts could be changed, so that their is a 50% boost at night to circumvent this.

To further iterate that I do not find them OP, just in need of a change, I showed that buffs that highlight weaknesses and strengths would be better than just a simple, "here you go, make money" building. They could just adjust the numbers on PDs to make them more "balanced" in 6-8 person games, which I am in favor of, but that does not add anything fun or new to the game. I say they leave them strong if you are able to find the funds to get a patent lab and secure that patent, but give more counterplay and fun mechanics to the building.

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I absolutly agree that the pleasure dome is boring and offers little coutner play. The main reason why I feel it needs changing is that for all other buildings both the input and output of a building is doubled when you boost it. Even when you boost special buildings, to send 2 shipments you need to spend the resources to send 2 shipments. To research 2 thigns you ened to spend the cost to research 2 things. It is consistent accross the board, except with the pelasure dome. Teh reaosn why the pleasure dome is inconsistent ofcourse is because the power cost is the only input, and 1 power is a very large input at that. If when the pleasure dome was boosted it costed double the pwoer as well I could see it being a lot more balanced. If the pleasure dome starts costing 2 you can either nanovirus it, making it cost 4 instead of 2, or just shut down his power, which would be more effective than it is now.

Honestly, I'd like adrenaline boost to double the power cost of all buildings, then my crazy OP combo of nanovirus adrenaline boost would be even better!.... seriously nanovirus needs nerfing

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The fact that you say you have not seen Death Tacticus lose with that strat, I thought, implies you mean it's OP but that's besides the point. While I do build PDs now (just to prevent others from making money on them though) my general attitude towards them hasn't changed since I started playing a couple of months ago: I just don't care about them. Which I guess is a problem and proves your point and something should be done about them. I do like the day/night boost you're suggesting, at least thematically.

As for input, again - thematically - it maybe would make sense for PD to consume Life Support. At least water/food. I mean, you can't have a party without snacks, right?

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In the infamous 1000$ Pleasure dome game with Zultar no counter domes were made which meant tacticus enjoyed 100% of the dome income pool. There were 6 players in game, all of whom were exp/scav which immensely boosts the pleasure dome. I agree that the stimpack should double power income as well, but also that it should double power consumption of any structured affected by it. i think domes are fine as they are. You can somewhat counter goonsquad spam by buying a lot yourself so they're too expensive to use by other parties.

I don't at this point think that domes need fixing.

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Cubit, you and YerAnd (at first at least) seem to think this is a post entirely about balance issues with the PD, when its more about what position the building fills in the current meta. The domes definitely require fixing, from the tool tip not telling the proper amount it is making, to the lack of double power consumption when boosted, to showing increased value when frozen, the domes are plenty buggy even without balance or gameplay changes.

But that's not really the point of this post.

The dome is just a boring building. Build it, and watch your debt shrink. Thats it. If someone else builds one, build one yourself and watch them make more money than you.

How is that fun and interactive gameplay? I just know the game developers can come up with something more. I was hoping this thread would become a place for people to propose ideas on how to make the building more interactive, while potentially adding more counterplay.

YerAnd had a good idea that mimicked my own, add a resource onto the pleasure dome besides power. Add a life support cost that grows as the building makes more money. Heck, have the pleasure dome make more money if you offer life support to the people who go there. For example, make a new pleasure dome tab at the top of the screen, like the other special buildings, that when opened up allows the player to choose food, water, or potentially other resources to "give" at a constant rate to the customers of the dome.

Example: Pleasure dome makes $200 a second normally. But, if a player opens the pleasure dome's tab and clicks on a small "food" toggle option, then they pay 1 food per second to increase the return on the pleasure dome to $300 a second. If they click the "water" toggle option then they lose 1 water per second, yet the return on the pleasure dome is increased to $400 a second. Players who take advantage of low food and water costs can make their pleasure dome even more profitable, but if a player does not pay attention and food or water becomes too expensive then they can make as much.

This applies market pressure and changes how it interacts with the game. Then, for example, once virtual reality is researched, double the money pleasure domes make, but add a continuous electronics cost too. Or replace the life support cost with the electronics cost. Combine these features with the day night cycle, or some other idea and you suddenly have a fun, interactive building that can provide just as much, if not more money to a player, yet do it in a much more rewarding and competitive way.

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Obviously the dome needs some bug fixing and clarifying. As it stands a dome seems to make 30 to 50% more than is indicated before building it, depending on its distance to the colony. I think a decent fix would be to show the potential income on the tile over which you hover its blueprint, just like we have for all the other production structures.

I'm fine with the pleasure dome consuming some life support though I personally don't think it is necessary. I don't see the dome as a boring building, when you place it you are at risk of other people reducing your income by making their own and it is an obvious target for BM and network virus. The dome just generates a resource (funds) like any other and draws it from the maps population pool on the map instead of a resource pip like a quarry pump or mine. Funds are more versatile than other resources because you can never have too many funds. The investment in a dome as strategy usually needs investment in a tech lab which all in all means you have to devote 1 or 2 tiles. It is a tactical consideration. I don't see in all this how the dome is any less exciting than other structures.

ps. I think in Zultars game somewhere it was alleged that domes on the edge of the map might get more income than other ones but I've checked in 1 game vs AI and it does not appear to be the case.

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FWIW I also think the pleasure dome is quite dull, mechanically speaking.

The day/night thing sounds pretty good, the solar panels already do a day/night thing, so maybe there's some potential for interaction there?

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Day/night cycles and resource usage are less stable, but they change strategy only superficially. It would have to interact in a more interesting way.

For example, it could get bonuses from connected tiles, divided by the number of pleasure domes connected to those buildings. This would lead you to place them near clusters of opponents' buildings, maybe adjacent to a few buildings so he can't disrupt your dome by removing a single building. This would then give him increased vulnerability to BM, and would make adjacent founds more risky. Such a power move would require the pleasure dome to be both super expensive and super profitable.

Or another way, gaining adjacency bonuses from single buildings, or reducing the costs of adjacent single buildings. You'd have to evaluate whether your buildings were profitable in groups with adjacency bonuses, or whether you should turn them into a mishmash of different buildings. And then you'd have to evaluate which buildings were most at risk to variable resource costs, in order to decide where best to place the PD.

Or another way, PDs working as banks, letting you lend to other players. If so, maybe you could even use the pleasure domes to mess with their finances by forcing loans onto them at their current rate, giving them X dollars immediately that are disallowed from being paid back.

I'm not advocating for any of these changes; they're merely an illustration of what might constitute "interesting" gameplay, and the standard of ideas that should be considered. A good mechanic should be something a player should continually think about as he plays, instead of being a generic tool that's different in the same way everything else is.

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No time to read all the post but i just wanna say that you are wrong saying the dome is fixed income. The way it work if players in the game see you make too much profit from it, they can just build their own one and it reduce your revenue from it.

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Also the PD makes choosing a HQ location more interesting by rewarding players for founding close to the colony.

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^not by much, the difference is less than 25% of income depending on where you are.

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Just wanted to say i totally agree with all the complains regarding the pleasure dome, frankly it's just really boring compared to all the other special buidings, hope the devs address this somehow. I think some kind of interection is necessary otherwise its just sitting there making free money with little direct impact on the market.

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Could it just require Electronics to function.

Personally, I feel the resource is under-used. Adding an electronics consumption requirement to Hacker Array and Pleasure dome fits both buildings and will help make for interesting economies. It will allow the additional method of combating them - to profit of their use consumption. For Pleasure Domes, it could even be proportional to income, with 1 electronics per 400 income (and a proportional increase to income).

You have one final-resource in the game with no outlets, and two buildings that are slightly problematic because they don't consume a proportional resource. Seems like a pretty reasonable solution to me.

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I love the pleasure dome, the Pleasure Dome her nuances aren't found in any way except by profound contemplation by those devoted to the sacred arts. If the developers were to remove it, a profound spiritual void would enter into the game that can not be filled by any other structure and would leave the entire community profoundly vulnerable to the darkness that reigns in the worldly realm which is devoid of spherelyness.

The Holy Pleasure Dome is a profound majesty,
She whom brings rounded non-pointyness to 8 pointed form,
Her golden tiles sparkling in the rays of the sun,
Whom shall know the expanse of her radiance?

As a lighthouse calls travelers from a far to safe harbor,
As the waters in the desert invite the weary and despairing,
As the fruit bearing tree appeals to the hungry,
So does the Pleasure Dome nourish it's customers.

I hope everyone who opposes her majesty, the Holy Pleasure Dome realize the folly of their ways before it is too late.

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Pbhead

Join Date 12/2008

+77

What I get out of that is "Cubit is a Cylon"

But that's ok. Ill kill him Wednesday.

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New strategy: Pleasure Domes only. After getting to level 5, scrap every building and replace them all with Pleasure Domes. If some tiles can't be replaced with Pleasure Domes, leave them empty instead, because you wouldn't want to sully your beautiful territory with dirty non-Pleasure Dome buildings. Nanotech and Virtual Reality are nice to have but not required.

Downsides:

You have to build non-Pleasure Domes in the beginning of the game.

Counterplays:

The only counter is someone else building his own Pleasure Domes. But this isn't a true counter, because you have converted him to see the glory of Pleasure Domes.

Advantages:

Pleasure Domes don't have adjacency bonuses. So you can wrap your territory around your opponent's base, like so:

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This is amazing

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In Cubit's latest Daily (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhCu-pPnzNQ), the single PD was making 1.5k. That means that each additional PD for Cubit would make an extra 375 per second. So scrapping every single building for PDs would actually have been the optimal play. It would even have been profitable for him to scrap his Offworld and turn it into a Pleasure Dome (except that Offworlds can no longer be scrapped).

I'm looking forward to the second Offworld FFA tournament, consisting of 40 Pleasure Domes on the map, and one player with Virtual Reality taking it

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except building more pleasure domes in optimal locations wasn't possible. The optimal location is inbetween 6 occupied habitats, and not many of those locations were available. Additionally, everything would become a lot more expensive if i stopped producing it myself.

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Yes, in beta 7 Pleasure Domes are indeed boring,

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In today's daily challenge my PD made 3.4k/s with adrenaline boost. It was next to 3 occupied habitats, my scav HQ was 5, it had virtual reality and adrenaline boost and the AIs couldnt make enough money to keep me from vassalizing them. I could have probably put down a faster time if I had not bought out the first 2-3 AIs instead of vassalizing them.

I replayed it:

10:44 to defeat 5 AIs.

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Where 20 electronics came from at 2:17 (the moment PD construction has started)? I also noticed some random resource shipments in my games. New feature?

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I'm not sure, I think it is a bug.

Other seen bugs:

white robotic hqs
perpetually visible stock mouseover information

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