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Northern Ireland25270 Posts
On June 30 2024 05:46 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2024 23:14 WombaT wrote:On June 29 2024 23:03 CicadaSC wrote:https://steamcharts.com/app/2820350 finally this information is out. a bit small, no? i cant imagine how they are going to turn a profit on this game. I mean it is a closed beta. I woulda booted it up and give it a crack last week if I’d got on the first wave, alas I wasn’t One positive scanning there is that there hasn’t been a big drop off of activity, which would indicate to me that players aren’t dropping it after a day or two but are continuing to play it a bit. I think you’d really worry if day 1 of beta had way more players than day 7, as it’d indicate people gave it a go and dropped it quickly. As with all these in-development RTS games they’re mostly being playtested by RTS vets and big RTS fans almost exclusively. The big question is can they expand beyond that when they actually launch I don't like this argument. The team has been very liberal with keys and I think basically anyone who wanted to play, has played by now. I've seen posts all over stating as such. Just take a look at their subreddit or the discord it's a shared sentiment. People are like "omg I got a key, and so did my brother and my sister and everyone I know, I was a bit shocked."
Most of their initial publicity, word of mouth etc has largely been on forums like this, RTS-centric content creators etc
They may be liberal with keys but it seems at least currently that the folks aware it even exists tend to dwell in those kind of places.
Tbh I think it’ll be a challenge to reach those new audiences, same with Zero Space and Stormgate
‘Wanted to play’ being a key phrase, I think at this stage for all these games largely the interest is from RTS fiends
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On June 30 2024 06:20 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2024 05:46 CicadaSC wrote:On June 29 2024 23:14 WombaT wrote:On June 29 2024 23:03 CicadaSC wrote:https://steamcharts.com/app/2820350 finally this information is out. a bit small, no? i cant imagine how they are going to turn a profit on this game. I mean it is a closed beta. I woulda booted it up and give it a crack last week if I’d got on the first wave, alas I wasn’t One positive scanning there is that there hasn’t been a big drop off of activity, which would indicate to me that players aren’t dropping it after a day or two but are continuing to play it a bit. I think you’d really worry if day 1 of beta had way more players than day 7, as it’d indicate people gave it a go and dropped it quickly. As with all these in-development RTS games they’re mostly being playtested by RTS vets and big RTS fans almost exclusively. The big question is can they expand beyond that when they actually launch I don't like this argument. The team has been very liberal with keys and I think basically anyone who wanted to play, has played by now. I've seen posts all over stating as such. Just take a look at their subreddit or the discord it's a shared sentiment. People are like "omg I got a key, and so did my brother and my sister and everyone I know, I was a bit shocked." Most of their initial publicity, word of mouth etc has largely been on forums like this, RTS-centric content creators etc They may be liberal with keys but it seems at least currently that the folks aware it even exists tend to dwell in those kind of places. Tbh I think it’ll be a challenge to reach those new audiences, same with Zero Space and Stormgate ‘Wanted to play’ being a key phrase, I think at this stage for all these games largely the interest is from RTS fiends
I agree, but i also think its important to remember, they did already have a gameshow appearance which premiered the game infront of a much broader audience, 100s of thousands of people and yet they seem to have made very little headway into the non 'core' rts audience. I am skeptical it will ever be able to breach that.
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On June 29 2024 02:31 WombaT 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. 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.
Why overtime? Why not ASAP? How can you market this game without being able to demonstrate awesome micro opportunities?
I think david kim is wrong when he thinks new players don't want to play "higher skillcap units". Many terrible moba player wants to play the high-skill cap heroes that can make big outplays over boring simple heroes - even if they are not capable of playing it well.
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On June 30 2024 06:40 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On June 29 2024 02:31 WombaT wrote: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. Why overtime? Why not ASAP? How can you market this game without being able to demonstrate awesome micro opportunities? I think david kim is wrong when he thinks new players don't want to play "higher skillcap units". Many terrible moba player wants to play the high-skill cap heroes that can make big outplays over boring simple heroes - even if they are not capable of playing it well.
Are you in the beta?
I personally don't think a spell caster would ever work in this game.
It's even faster than sc2
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On June 30 2024 06:20 WombaT wrote:
Tbh I think it’ll be a challenge to reach those new audiences, same with Zero Space and Stormgate
Steam is flush with great, super-cheap games. Thus, I agree, it'll be tough to reach new audiences.
All this hype we're hearing about advances in AI and I am not very impressed with any of the new AI coming out of these new games.
I think the SCBots ecosystem ends up creating some fun AI enemies for Starcraft2. It is hilarious that a few volunteers can coble together an AI I find interesting to play against and none of these games with big corpo backers can do the same.
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On June 30 2024 10:52 KingzTig wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2024 06:40 Hider wrote:On June 29 2024 02:31 WombaT wrote: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. Why overtime? Why not ASAP? How can you market this game without being able to demonstrate awesome micro opportunities? I think david kim is wrong when he thinks new players don't want to play "higher skillcap units". Many terrible moba player wants to play the high-skill cap heroes that can make big outplays over boring simple heroes - even if they are not capable of playing it well. Are you in the beta? I personally don't think a spell caster would ever work in this game. It's even faster than sc2
Spellcasters tend to slow down the game, make battles take longer.
Usually the reason a game is fast is when you can very easily attack into an opponent and all your units can auto-attack throughout entire engagement. If in contrast you need to dodgle/play around enemy abilities, it will in most situations extend the length of battles.
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On June 30 2024 23:47 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2024 10:52 KingzTig wrote:On June 30 2024 06:40 Hider wrote:On June 29 2024 02:31 WombaT wrote: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. Why overtime? Why not ASAP? How can you market this game without being able to demonstrate awesome micro opportunities? I think david kim is wrong when he thinks new players don't want to play "higher skillcap units". Many terrible moba player wants to play the high-skill cap heroes that can make big outplays over boring simple heroes - even if they are not capable of playing it well. Are you in the beta? I personally don't think a spell caster would ever work in this game. It's even faster than sc2 Spellcasters tend to slow down the game, make battles take longer. Usually the reason a game is fast is when you can very easily attack into an opponent and all your units can auto-attack throughout entire engagement. If in contrast you need to dodgle/play around enemy abilities, it will in most situations extend the length of battles.
Yeah that's true though same can be done with a power unit. A king crab with some units can hold a ground harass well.
the time to kill is extremely low, spell casters might just make the game even more volatile.
But I definitely agree it needs more fancy looking stuff for viewership. Though playing the game itself is incredibly fun
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Have about 2 hours in the beta so far and I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I am finding losses much more frustrating here than in Starcraft or Warcraft (maybe due to less stuff to do in game with limited macro?) and it's compounded by not having access to all the units so you can't really experiment with strategies or counters very effectively.
I have two young children so I don't have much time to play, so the short match times are appealing, but the need to grind for several hours per unit unlock and the way the game wastes your time with bots in the matchmaking queue is really offputting. Ironically, this game feels like it caters far more to hardcore players over casuals than Starcraft does.
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On July 02 2024 04:56 Miles_Edgeworth wrote:
Have about 2 hours in the beta so far and I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I am finding losses much more frustrating here than in Starcraft or Warcraft (maybe due to less stuff to do in game with limited macro?) and it's compounded by not having access to all the units so you can't really experiment with strategies or counters very effectively.
I have two young children so I don't have much time to play, so the short match times are appealing, but the need to grind for several hours per unit unlock and the way the game wastes your time with bots in the matchmaking queue is really offputting. Ironically, this game feels like it caters far more to hardcore players over casuals than Starcraft does.
Agree wholeheartedly. And it doesn't get much better any time soon. I'm about 20 hours into this test, haven't had enough WC to build even 1 deck I've been wanting to try yet fully.
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On July 02 2024 06:21 CicadaSC wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2024 04:56 Miles_Edgeworth wrote:
Have about 2 hours in the beta so far and I'm not enjoying it as much as I thought I would. I am finding losses much more frustrating here than in Starcraft or Warcraft (maybe due to less stuff to do in game with limited macro?) and it's compounded by not having access to all the units so you can't really experiment with strategies or counters very effectively.
I have two young children so I don't have much time to play, so the short match times are appealing, but the need to grind for several hours per unit unlock and the way the game wastes your time with bots in the matchmaking queue is really offputting. Ironically, this game feels like it caters far more to hardcore players over casuals than Starcraft does. Agree wholeheartedly. And it doesn't get much better any time soon. I'm about 20 hours into this test, haven't had enough WC to build even 1 deck I've been wanting to try yet fully.
I took the plunge and bought a single unit that I was finally able to afford, that I had been wanting to try out in the deck I was using. 20 minutes later, the free/available units reshuffled and I lost most of the deck I was practicing with. Sigh. I can't even afford a second unit.
I think this game has potential, but gatekeeping so much gameplay/variety for dozens of hours makes no sense to me.
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United States33388 Posts
I wonder if they're planning an all-units available phase at some point in the future.
It makes some sense to have unlocks be like this for like 2~4 weeks so they get a sense of how users will interact with the progression system over a long period of time.
But I feel like this makes it so the priority becomes testing the progression system, not core gameplay as they say it's supposed to be. It's just not a truly robust test of gameplay until people are playing a wide variety of decks, and there's a real risk that too few people will stick it out until they actually unlock a meaningful number of units.
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Seems like they'll be increasing the rate of in-game currency earned during the final week too.
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Northern Ireland25270 Posts
On July 03 2024 14:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Seems like they'll be increasing the rate of in-game currency earned during the final week too.
Feels the wrong way around, but hey better late than never.
Feel they shoulda made it a lot easier to test various toys and the gameplay, and then test progression pace after.
Still haven’t got to play but I’ve a wee slot tonight so I’ll probably give it a crack then, pretty pumped to give it a try
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On July 03 2024 15:43 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2024 14:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Seems like they'll be increasing the rate of in-game currency earned during the final week too. Feels the wrong way around, but hey better late than never. Feel they shoulda made it a lot easier to test various toys and the gameplay, and then test progression pace after. Still haven’t got to play but I’ve a wee slot tonight so I’ll probably give it a crack then, pretty pumped to give it a try
Yeah their data sets and sample sizes will be way less with all these restrictions, not to mention our enjoyment.
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On July 03 2024 14:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Seems like they'll be increasing the rate of in-game currency earned during the final week too.
No, it's the correct way around for them to exploit people's psychology. This way they can start too low on purpose and adjust until they reach a minimum at which people are somewhat ok with what they get (without paying). Once they reach that point they can add the paid model. This way, nobody will complain
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Any word on a replay system? On July 04 2024 04:39 Miragee wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2024 14:11 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Seems like they'll be increasing the rate of in-game currency earned during the final week too. No, it's the correct way around for them to exploit people's psychology. This way they can start too low on purpose and adjust until they reach a minimum at which people are somewhat ok with what they get (without paying). Once they reach that point they can add the paid model. This way, nobody will complain
+1, great points.
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Ideally, shouldn't they want progress to be oppressively slow if you don't pay? My only concern there is that I'm not sure how you hit the sweet spot where playing with what you have access to is fun enough that you want to get more units, while access to the fun units is gated behind enough hours of play that you're willing to pay a few bucks to skip the grind.
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United States12235 Posts
On July 04 2024 07:47 AmericanUmlaut wrote:
Ideally, shouldn't they want progress to be oppressively slow if you don't pay? My only concern there is that I'm not sure how you hit the sweet spot where playing with what you have access to is fun enough that you want to get more units, while access to the fun units is gated behind enough hours of play that you're willing to pay a few bucks to skip the grind.
Grind-to-unlock games are balanced around an expected rate of play, obviously tuned fairly aggressively to make the real money shortcut seem like a realistic alternative. But they have ways of course-correcting if it turns out their initial projections were off.
Let's say they projected that the average highly-engaged player should be able to unlock 1 new unit per week, at a rate of 40 hours worth of games played per week. After the first week, they find that the average highly-engaged player actually only plays 30 hours per week. They can simply introduce "double currency weekends" to compensate.
Note that it's always better for the designers to be too stingy than too generous, because it lets them ease up on the grind pressure which players will see as a necessary relief. If it were the other way around, you could severely damage your monetization effectiveness, your economy, and your player perception as you will need to inevitably nerf the grind rate to staunch the flow.
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EPT
