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On June 27 2024 01:42 Pursuit_ wrote:
Played ~9 hours and hit 6.5k, had a blast. The game has a pretty addictive gameplay loop and manages to avoid a lot of the "feel bad" pitfalls in other RTS. For example, I played against trigger doing the same all-in 5 games in a row, but each game only took like a minute so it didn't really feel bad to play against. Comparatively, in the early days of SC2 getting cheesed 5 games in a row would feel pretty bad. I think the game has a lot more strategic depth in terms of unit movement than people give it credit for too, especially with new maps it has a lot of potential I think. It's not as rock-paper-scissors as I expected, what units you make matter but as long as you make a well rounded composition not as much as controlling them well (with a couple notable exceptions). It's also cool getting to kit out your units the way you want, for example a lot of people were running 2 tier 1 anti-ground units and putting on a lot of early pressure, but having to tech to counter air, things like that were pretty cool to see.
The limited number of units you start with and the long time to unlock (especially for a beta with progress resetting) makes it pretty frustrating, especially at higher MMRs against players who have everything unlocked day 1. Hitting Clem / Parting consistently was fun and ego-boosting, and I doubt I would have faired any better against them if I had everything unlocked, but getting beat by compositions I have had no way to try out afterwards was admittedly a bit frustrating. I think you start with 8 units unlocked from the tutorial, after that you get ~14 points a win, and it costs 300/500/700+ (for tier 1/2/3) to unlock, so even with my pretty high winrate over 9 hours I was only able to unlock a few units. A few units felt really overtuned, the Raider and Dragonfly come to mind, but overall a fun experience.
I dunno, this game a lot of games I feel like I outmicro for about 2 minutes getting a lot of harass in, then they make a unit that I don't have a counter for an autolose. To me, that's been the "feel bad" ptifall. I felt like i played better than my opponent and still lose. The deck feels just a little small to me. To me it's like having a popsicle with poop inside of it. The moment I tasted the poop, I didn't like the popsicle.
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In my personal opinion 1v1 deck sizes should be 10 and 2v2 deck sizes are fine with 8.
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Northern Ireland26040 Posts
On June 27 2024 04:08 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2024 04:05 WombaT wrote:
Call me a big whinge but I don’t really get why prominent streamers apparently have boatloads of beta keys to give out, as a marketing strategy and not just because I’m salty :p
Surely the advantage of streamers is to publicise your game, not determine access to a beta?
I am aware of a few who’ve done those streams, because I already know those folks from SC2 and a few other games and follow them already. Which funnily enough means I’d be aware of this game already just through regular watching, or by virtue of generally following RTS
On the flipside I think it makes total sense to expose non-RTS gamers to it through streamers who don’t tend to dwell in that space. giving them keys means more people tuning in to their stream in order to win said key, which means more publicity.
I mean I can certainly see how it benefits the streamers, so perhaps incentivises them to stick around covering it a little longer I guess.
But equally if I’m interested in tuning in to something to get a chance at a beta key, I’m kinda by default already someone who knows about the game by virtue of trying to get that beta key.
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some of the bots are so goofy and light hearted, then they'll encounter stuff like the Mortars which both sound like a modern military weapon and vaporize things as they would — it gives a startling contrast effect
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From watching some more streams; It looks to me that the core gameplay works. I don't know if this will get tiring/repetitive over a 100+ hours but at least initially the way the game flows and the skillset rewarded seems good.
My biggest worry atm is that David Kim doesn't think spellcasters/more complex/high-skillcap units are too important for now. He thinks it's more important to have easy-to-use units to lure new players in.
I think it's the other way around. The way you lure new players in is to show them highlight/clips of amazing gameplay. Provide them a reason to play the game. And seeing a cool unit do some amazing shit will motivate your average MOBA player to give it a chance as well.
Right now, the game doesn't show off well, and I think it will struggle to get players to try it out.
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On June 27 2024 17:34 Hider wrote:
From watching some more streams; It looks to me that the core gameplay works. I don't know if this will get tiring/repetitive over a 100+ hours but at least initially the way the game flows and the skillset rewarded seems good.
My biggest worry atm is that David Kim doesn't think spellcasters/more complex/high-skillcap units are too important for now. He thinks it's more important to have easy-to-use units to lure new players in.
I think it's the other way around. The way you lure new players in is to show them highlight/clips of amazing gameplay. Provide them a reason to play the game. And seeing a cool unit do some amazing shit will motivate your average MOBA player to give it a chance as well.
Right now, the game doesn't show off well, and I think it will struggle to get players to try it out.
So basically this needs "hero" units? I'd be down for that.
With the easy macro there should be ample of APM left over to do some nice hero shenanigans and highlight reels
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On June 27 2024 17:54 Harris1st wrote:Show nested quote +On June 27 2024 17:34 Hider wrote:
From watching some more streams; It looks to me that the core gameplay works. I don't know if this will get tiring/repetitive over a 100+ hours but at least initially the way the game flows and the skillset rewarded seems good.
My biggest worry atm is that David Kim doesn't think spellcasters/more complex/high-skillcap units are too important for now. He thinks it's more important to have easy-to-use units to lure new players in.
I think it's the other way around. The way you lure new players in is to show them highlight/clips of amazing gameplay. Provide them a reason to play the game. And seeing a cool unit do some amazing shit will motivate your average MOBA player to give it a chance as well.
Right now, the game doesn't show off well, and I think it will struggle to get players to try it out. So basically this needs "hero" units? I'd be down for that. With the easy macro there should be ample of APM left over to do some nice hero shenanigans and highlight reels
To start with I am thinking more that we need some skillshots. Some AOE abilities that rewards dodging/splitting.
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8751 Posts
The game pretty much is what I thought it was. I don’t really feel the need to cast judgment on it except to say it’s not for me. If it continues to be developed for a while and people are saying good things, I could see myself revisiting it. But I don’t particularly want to beta test it.
If I were to tweak the concept, I’d have lower unit counts with more abilities. And more units in a deck. And also a bit more complexity to the macro. I miss choosing between expanding vs saturating a base with workers. If you could upgrade a base to increase its income, that’d be an interesting option. And it’s weird to me how many units cost equal minerals and gas. And teching costs the same as expanding.
Anyway once you implemented all that you’d have a very different feeling game. It’ll be interesting to see what changes they’re willing to make as they iterate.
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8751 Posts
it took 2 days for people to spend their hard-earned currency on a unit only to have that sinking feeling that it's gonna get nerfed
i take back my suggestions on having a value pack or more free units unlocked initially or whatever. imo they're just asking for constant headaches and issues if they don't copy smite, a game where you pay $30 to permanently unlock every character (current ones and any future ones). of course they should keep tweaking the free-to-play system for all the people who will engage in that, but honestly it should be designed mostly to lead people toward paying the $30 after initially trying the game for free
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I think this issue is overstated.
It isn't new, pretty much same as league.
The longer the game runs, the more deck size you and your opponent have.
You will be facing vastly different unit comp and precise balance don't matter nearly as much.
Give it a year and I think this will just go away
The progression system will feel much better once you have more things to unlock.
A simple fix for where it is now, is have more free rotation units. That pretty much expand the match up dynamics by the multiples.
And I doubt for most players, they are just unlocking as many units as possible right at the start, it's to build a deck that suits their playstyle.
Even if they are giving up on every single free units at the start, it doesn't really take THAT long to grind out imo.
And once they got the first deck, the rest of the grind is additional.
Same way if I play league, all I really need is 3 champions in the role I want and another 2 champions for secondary role.
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On June 28 2024 05:02 NonY wrote:
it took 2 days for people to spend their hard-earned currency on a unit only to have that sinking feeling that it's gonna get nerfed
i take back my suggestions on having a value pack or more free units unlocked initially or whatever. imo they're just asking for constant headaches and issues if they don't copy smite, a game where you pay $30 to permanently unlock every character (current ones and any future ones). of course they should keep tweaking the free-to-play system for all the people who will engage in that, but honestly it should be designed mostly to lead people toward paying the $30 after initially trying the game for free
Well, it's a closed beta. Nerfs and buffs are to be expected, as well as general balancing updates. Can't really be angry about that.
EDIT: There is gonna be a meta deck (or 2-3) sooner rather than later. So basically for every patch/ update you realistically only need to unlock 8 units to be somewhat competitive
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United States33487 Posts
Anyone got a feel for if this is clicking with people outside the hardcore 1v1 sphere?
During the closed test I thought hardcore SC2 ppl would enjoy it, but was rolling my eyes at their spiel about a more accessible RTS. I guess the initial group of testers is skewed because it will naturally attract the hardcore RTS fans (and also since they leaned heavily into SC2 influencers to market it).
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Northern Ireland26040 Posts
On June 29 2024 01:52 Waxangel wrote:
Anyone got a feel for if this is clicking with people outside the hardcore 1v1 sphere?
During the closed test I thought hardcore SC2 ppl would enjoy it, but was rolling my eyes at their spiel about a more accessible RTS. I guess the initial group of testers is skewed because it will naturally attract the hardcore RTS fans (and also since they leaned heavily into SC2 influencers to market it).
Proof will be in that pudding I guess when more hardcore RTS folks aren’t the ones primarily playing it I suppose?
Certainly be interested to know, amongst folks I know who did get the beta I didn’t, who are big SC2 fans they seem to enjoy it, but as a side game. When they wanna get an RTS fix but the thought of an SC2 session is a bit daunting
Which intuitively is kinda how I feel about the game and its niche, although I haven’t got to play.
I wonder if we’ll get a Quake Champions scenario where effectively too many die-hard Quake fans kinda made it hard for new players off the bat. I think gamers today would absolutely love an arena FPS in terms of a gameplay loop
You may end up with an actual game that is really accessible and less hardcore by design, and succeed in that. However, if the playerbase is largely hardcore and you struggle as a newcomer to find games with other newcomers, getting stomped by RTS vets is still going to be off-putting
But yeah I’d love to not be theorising and actually hear from folks who are getting that feedback first or second-hand
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8751 Posts
is the game more fun or less fun when you engage in this progression system versus when everything is unlocked? i thought it was clear from the feedback they got from people who played with everything unlocked versus the feedback they got from people engaging in the progression system that it's more fun to have it unlocked. so what else is there to think about? shouldn't that be the end of it?
there are two things i can think of:
(1) can they iterate on the progression system so it's actually the preferred option and make it more fun than having everything unlocked? games can definitely do this but it's more difficult when they're competitive. if it's a competitive multiplayer game then progression systems are more like work you have to do to earn the right to compete on an even playing field, or to have an advantage against newer players. on the other hand if there were a co-op game mode, or this were a single player game, i think it's more acceptable to have your full arsenal gated by how many games you've played. having an option to pay $30 to unlock max level of every hero would actually take a lot of the fun out of it and you'd get fewer hours of enjoyment from the game that way
(2) maybe the progression system is necessary because of their revenue model. but in that case im just saying there should be three categories of players: (a) someone who plays the game 30+ hours every week and can unlock everything for free, (b) someone who pays $30 and has everything unlocked forever or (c) someone who does neither and just doesnt mind playing in a limited way. i think MOST long term players would fall into the "pay $30" category. it's not a bad thing to say "copy smite" because smite is a successful game
in my opinion, the "pay $30 to unlock everything forever" does make this a complete non-issue that doesn't need to be discussed anymore. the question is whether or not they're going to do it. like i said there are myriad issues that they'll be contending with if they're perpetually dealing with a lot of players who have everything unlocked and a lot of players who don't. by having the $30 option, the community will not have any sympathy for people who complain about issues stemming from not having everything unlocked. the community can be united in playing the game and giving feedback on the game in the context of having everything unlocked, and that's how uncapped games can balance the game and update the game, without having to care about the experience of players who dont have everything unlocked
Well, it's a closed beta. Nerfs and buffs are to be expected, as well as general balancing updates. Can't really be angry about that.
Not talking about anger. Talking about any negative feeling -- sadness, regret. Anything NOT fun. You're entitled to fun when you play a video game. If any part of it feels "not fun" then that should be closely examined to see if it can be minimized or eliminated.
There is gonna be a meta deck (or 2-3) sooner rather than later. So basically for every patch/ update you realistically only need to unlock 8 units to be somewhat competitive
There better be at least 3 or else they should've just made 3-4 unique factions. If there aren't 5+ then the whole concept is confusing to me. What I think the game could really use is a draft but I don't know how it could be implemented. If it's a slow draft like 15 seconds per choice, then you're spending as much time drafting as you are playing the match. And if it's a fast draft like 5 seconds per choice, a lot of people would make mistakes in the draft and then not even want to play the match (but I think 5 seconds would be ample time for experienced players).
Even if they make different maps where different decks are good, you're still playing mirror matchups. Like in starcraft when a map favors a certain race, like PvZ is 55% win and PvT is 50% win, everyone would pick protoss every game if they were equally good with all races, so it's just a PvP map at that point. Actually we saw this sometimes in Proleague where certain maps were notorious for mirror matchups.
On June 28 2024 11:24 KingzTig wrote:
You will be facing vastly different unit comp and precise balance don't matter nearly as much.
Give it a year and I think this will just go away
IMO this is very optimistic and i hope the game ends up like this but it's got a long way to go. I hard disagree that it's comparable to league though. Too many significant differences. Even just the fact that you pre-select your whole loadout in a 1v1, whereas in league you have 5 players vs 5 players doing a draft, that's enough to make them incomparable
Also if/when they do make more maps or spice things up in some other way to incentivize playing a greater variety of decks, that will of course necessitate having more units unlocked to build those various decks. The very loose comparison here would be to heroes of the storm since it has maps that are much better for certain team comps than others, so there are fewer heroes you can one trick
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I would not want to be in the devs shoes figuring out how quickly to do balance patches. I do not think the game will be that fun if there are a lot of mirror matchups. But you also want to give people time to try to break the meta themselves without having to change the rules of the game. Really depends how many will be meta slaves and how many will stubbornly play their own favorite units. The game really needs the kind of player who will continue to play mech no matter what, even when everyone else is playing bio
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Northern Ireland26040 Posts
On June 27 2024 17:34 Hider wrote:
From watching some more streams; It looks to me that the core gameplay works. I don't know if this will get tiring/repetitive over a 100+ hours but at least initially the way the game flows and the skillset rewarded seems good.
My biggest worry atm is that David Kim doesn't think spellcasters/more complex/high-skillcap units are too important for now. He thinks it's more important to have easy-to-use units to lure new players in.
I think it's the other way around. The way you lure new players in is to show them highlight/clips of amazing gameplay. Provide them a reason to play the game. And seeing a cool unit do some amazing shit will motivate your average MOBA player to give it a chance as well.
Right now, the game doesn't show off well, and I think it will struggle to get players to try it out.
I’d like to see that over time, I guess maybe they’re just getting the core mechanics down and that’ll be introduced as we move along.
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Northern Ireland26040 Posts
On June 29 2024 02:27 NonY wrote:is the game more fun or less fun when you engage in this progression system versus when everything is unlocked? i thought it was clear from the feedback they got from people who played with everything unlocked versus the feedback they got from people engaging in the progression system that it's more fun to have it unlocked. so what else is there to think about? shouldn't that be the end of it? there are two things i can think of: (1) can they iterate on the progression system so it's actually the preferred option and make it more fun than having everything unlocked? games can definitely do this but it's more difficult when they're competitive. if it's a competitive multiplayer game then progression systems are more like work you have to do to earn the right to compete on an even playing field, or to have an advantage against newer players. on the other hand if there were a co-op game mode, or this were a single player game, i think it's more acceptable to have your full arsenal gated by how many games you've played. having an option to pay $30 to unlock max level of every hero would actually take a lot of the fun out of it and you'd get fewer hours of enjoyment from the game that way (2) maybe the progression system is necessary because of their revenue model. but in that case im just saying there should be three categories of players: (a) someone who plays the game 30+ hours every week and can unlock everything for free, (b) someone who pays $30 and has everything unlocked forever or (c) someone who does neither and just doesnt mind playing in a limited way. i think MOST long term players would fall into the "pay $30" category. it's not a bad thing to say "copy smite" because smite is a successful game in my opinion, the "pay $30 to unlock everything forever" does make this a complete non-issue that doesn't need to be discussed anymore. the question is whether or not they're going to do it. like i said there are myriad issues that they'll be contending with if they're perpetually dealing with a lot of players who have everything unlocked and a lot of players who don't. by having the $30 option, the community will not have any sympathy for people who complain about issues stemming from not having everything unlocked. the community can be united in playing the game and giving feedback on the game in the context of having everything unlocked, and that's how uncapped games can balance the game and update the game, without having to care about the experience of players who dont have everything unlocked Show nested quote +Well, it's a closed beta. Nerfs and buffs are to be expected, as well as general balancing updates. Can't really be angry about that. Not talking about anger. Talking about any negative feeling -- sadness, regret. Anything NOT fun. You're entitled to fun when you play a video game. If any part of it feels "not fun" then that should be closely examined to see if it can be minimized or eliminated. Show nested quote +There is gonna be a meta deck (or 2-3) sooner rather than later. So basically for every patch/ update you realistically only need to unlock 8 units to be somewhat competitive There better be at least 3 or else they should've just made 3-4 unique factions. If there aren't 5+ then the whole concept is confusing to me. What I think the game could really use is a draft but I don't know how it could be implemented. If it's a slow draft like 15 seconds per choice, then you're spending as much time drafting as you are playing the match. And if it's a fast draft like 5 seconds per choice, a lot of people would make mistakes in the draft and then not even want to play the match (but I think 5 seconds would be ample time for experienced players). Even if they make different maps where different decks are good, you're still playing mirror matchups. Like in starcraft when a map favors a certain race, like PvZ is 55% win and PvT is 50% win, everyone would pick protoss every game if they were equally good with all races, so it's just a PvP map at that point. Actually we saw this sometimes in Proleague where certain maps were notorious for mirror matchups. Show nested quote +On June 28 2024 11:24 KingzTig wrote:
You will be facing vastly different unit comp and precise balance don't matter nearly as much.
Give it a year and I think this will just go away IMO this is very optimistic and i hope the game ends up like this but it's got a long way to go. I hard disagree that it's comparable to league though. Too many significant differences. Even just the fact that you pre-select your whole loadout in a 1v1, whereas in league you have 5 players vs 5 players doing a draft, that's enough to make them incomparable Also if/when they do make more maps or spice things up in some other way to incentivize playing a greater variety of decks, that will of course necessitate having more units unlocked to build those various decks. The very loose comparison here would be to heroes of the storm since it has maps that are much better for certain team comps than others, so there are fewer heroes you can one trick ---------- I would not want to be in the devs shoes figuring out how quickly to do balance patches. I do not think the game will be that fun if there are a lot of mirror matchups. But you also want to give people time to try to break the meta themselves without having to change the rules of the game. Really depends how many will be meta slaves and how many will stubbornly play their own favorite units. The game really needs the kind of player who will continue to play mech no matter what, even when everyone else is playing bio
Broadly agree,
How does the progression system work anyway is it just grinding with bonuses for wins and whatnot?
Could the progression system itself be made more fun, or accelerate it by performing certain feats?
I know many gamers absolutely love grinding for achievements, personally I only like going for ones that reward a style, or are a real challenge, rather than busy work.
But perhaps you could throw in a bunch of ‘feats’ that either encourage skillful gameplay, or differing ways of playing to give ways for players to engage in having a bit of fun and accelerate unlocks into the mix. Win a game without losing a base, save x amount of units from death, kill x amount of enemy units in a game, etc etc. You could encourage players to go for those challenges and mix up their approaches and make grinding less monotonous
Could they throw in some sweeteners to make it a bit more linked up? Let’s say each player gets a weekly free unlock for example, and that can’t be just repeated on the same unit every time. You could get to try a unit in your deck, see if you like it and if it meshes with your playstyle and then you’ve got incentive to spend your points on it. You can experiment a bit more before having to commit to unlocking something you may not end up liking.
I mean I’m mostly spitballing ways to make the grind a bit more engaging, I ultimately think that broadly speaking an RTS game and an unlock system of this kind fundamentally aren’t easy bedfellows.
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On June 29 2024 02:49 WombaT wrote:
I mean I’m mostly spitballing ways to make the grind a bit more engaging, I ultimately think that broadly speaking an RTS game and an unlock system of this kind fundamentally aren’t easy bedfellows.
F2P is an incongruent revenue generating model for an RTS game.
at the end of this wave of RTS games I think the conclusion will be that Activision was the undisputed world heavyweight champ of monetizing the genre.
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Northern Ireland26040 Posts
On June 29 2024 03:00 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2024 02:49 WombaT wrote:
I mean I’m mostly spitballing ways to make the grind a bit more engaging, I ultimately think that broadly speaking an RTS game and an unlock system of this kind fundamentally aren’t easy bedfellows. F2P is an incongruent revenue generating model for an RTS game. at the end of this wave of RTS games I think the conclusion will be that Activision was the undisputed world heavyweight champ of monetizing the genre.
I mean they did have the luxury of having a Blizzard in their stable with an (at the time) incredible reputation for quality, making a sequel to arguably the GOAT RTS, equally they did do that rather well.
Also the F2P model wasn’t really established then either
Whereas modern RTS devs don’t have that lineage and sequel power to trade off, and a consumer base that has a ton of F2P high quality games to play, or games on various sub services like Microsoft’s Game Pass.
I personally agree that F2P isn’t a particularly good fit for RTS, but equally we’re in an era where you almost have to adopt it to attract new players in. So you almost end up in a Catch 22 scenario that way
There’s a lot of challenges to overcome and I hope at least one studio pulls it off, but it’s gonna be fucking tough IMO
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On June 29 2024 03:13 WombaT wrote:
I personally agree that F2P isn’t a particularly good fit for RTS, but equally we’re in an era where you almost have to adopt it to attract new players in. So you almost end up in a Catch 22 scenario that way
There’s a lot of challenges to overcome and I hope at least one studio pulls it off, but it’s gonna be fucking tough IMO
i hope this game ends up on the Switch.
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EPT
