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Just played the beta for the first time, it seems pretty damn fun actually (I didn't think I would have enjoyed it with everything being so automated lol).
I just have to play more to understand the units and the decks but other than that it does seem pretty fun, but I still don't think I could get more into it than BW / SC2, I am about to try Tempest Rising though also and see how that goes.
Overall this looks like it will be a great and fun game, I will give it more time soon and can't wait for its release.
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United States12235 Posts
On April 22 2025 09:20 Waxangel wrote: I have to wonder if Guardian Shield and similar abilities are a 'newbie trap' for the developers themselves, where they're tricking themselves into thinking there's a large casual audience that's waiting to be tapped.
I feel like any kind of real-time 1v1 game is just inherently very sweaty/tryhard no matter how much you mess around with the mechanics, and you're just pushing something from being a 99th percentile tryhard game to a 98th percentile tryhard game at best.
I think you might be better off trying to make the best competitive game possible, and draw in the people who are already playing other genres of difficult and stressful 1v1 games (fighting games, card games, whatever).
On a somewhat related note, can anyone tell me the general view on how modern controls worked out for Street Fighter 6?
The perception for Modern controls in SF6 is basically a pendulum. Before the game launched, Modern was a blight because one-button specials and supers! At launch, it was the newbie thing that didn't matter because no top players used it. Before Evo, it was decried again because a couple of high-profile players committed to trying it and they were crushing online. At Evo, sentiments cooled again because those players didn't win the tournament. Things have basically continued on like this ever since. One thing that everyone seems to agree on, though, is that Modern controls are a solid onboaridng tool for new players, as we've seen across numerous pro-am collaboration events.
I also think the take that 1v1 games are inherently tryhard and sweaty is a bit misguided. When BW launched, lots of people played 1v1 even though they sucked, because it was fun. It didn't get that "sweaty" reputation until some years later, mainly because those casual players moved on. When SC2 launched it was the same story, but it had even more casual engagement because the matchmaker was so effective. And, just like BW, SC2's "sweaty" perception evolved as a consequence of age (though this was specifically a combination of inevitable casual burnout and game direction, with each expansion skewing ever more hardcore). So I don't think there's anything intrinsically flawed about accessible design.
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Tried this a little bit and I think it doesn't work. One of the big issues is while it tries to significantly reduce the entrance barriers, it's still stressful. The tutorial is great and all but constantly having to build units is stressful - MOBA's in contrast are not stressful. I can't imagine lots of new (non-RTS) players going through the tutorial and wanting to play more.
If I had to guess, retention is quite bad and interest appear very low as well. The Guardian Shiled unit was likely introduced to solve this issue, but I don't think its the correct fix.
As I see, if you want to cater to a larger audience, new players should not be forced to think of unit-production while having to micro units. It's like if a MOBA player has to build items every 10 second while microing their hero.
However, then we run into the issue that Battle Aces has a focus on unit-counters and switching back and forth based on what the opponent is doing. And if macro is automated, it's clear that you would need another way for the player to switch back and forth between units. And regardless of how you enable this, it would probably also be stressful.
And that leads me to believe that you cannot how a game that is focussed so heavily on unit-counters. If however you reduced the counter-aspect and made most unit compositions "work" reasonably well + automated unit production, then adjusting unit compositions could be something new players wouldn't have to worry about. And instead they could focus purely on unit micro.
(As a side point, but unit micro is quite boring in this game due to how simple most units are - simple units is not the way to get reach a larger playerbase. You need exciting units for that while making everything else super easy so players can focus on microing the fun units)
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There is micro? I thought there is only "I have swarmy units, I need too surround" vs "opponent has swarmy units, I need to not get surrounded" + the occasional "send squad to enemy expansion while triggering a main fight"
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United States33316 Posts
On April 23 2025 03:15 Hider wrote: Tried this a little bit and I think it doesn't work. One of the big issues is while it tries to significantly reduce the entrance barriers, it's still stressful. The tutorial is great and all but constantly having to build units is stressful - MOBA's in contrast are not stressful. I can't imagine lots of new (non-RTS) players going through the tutorial and wanting to play more.
I think it's funny that anybody brings up MOBA as an example of a low-barrier to entry game. The burden of information (characters, skills, items, etc) to just start playing is fucking insane, and trying to rawdog it without a friend to help you through it is pretty miserable. Unless you're really committed to STUDYING (for a fucking game), you're just gonna walk into a lane and die for a reason you don't know 2039483908 times before you can really start playing. I think it's kind of a miracle that MOBA attained some form of mainstream success, and the only lesson people should take away from MOBA is that teamplay/social elements can make anything a success.
League gets "this is a garbage game you shouldn't play" jokes from its own playerbase all the time, esp with the casual interest from Arcane.
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Northern Ireland24877 Posts
On April 24 2025 08:37 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2025 03:15 Hider wrote: Tried this a little bit and I think it doesn't work. One of the big issues is while it tries to significantly reduce the entrance barriers, it's still stressful. The tutorial is great and all but constantly having to build units is stressful - MOBA's in contrast are not stressful. I can't imagine lots of new (non-RTS) players going through the tutorial and wanting to play more. I think it's funny that anybody brings up MOBA as an example of a low-barrier to entry game. The burden of information (characters, skills, items, etc) to just start playing is fucking insane, and trying to rawdog it without a friend to help you through it is pretty miserable. Unless you're really committed to STUDYING (for a fucking game), you're just gonna walk into a lane and die for a reason you don't know 2039483908 times before you can really start playing. I think it's kind a miracle that MOBA attained some form of mainstream success, and the only lesson people should take away from MOBA is that people like team games  Maybe it's your age showing, but League basically gets all the "this is a garbage game you shouldn't play" jokes from its own playerbase all the time (esp with the casual interest from Arcane). This a thousand times. I guess with such a huge player base there’s always some really, really sucky players to cut your teeth against, but the actual game(s) has a ton to learn.
I don’t really game a huge amount in multiplayer these days, outside of playing with Minibat when he’s over or occasionally remotely.
I pretty consistently find games I’ve heard people (often sneeringly) refer to as casual pursuits actually have a pretty high barrier to entry.
One that’s often knowledge-based rather than mechanical. I can sorta hang in shooters from my many moons playing them over the years, up to a point people know what they’re doing.
I’m quite enjoying Marvel Rivals in our dips in, for example but there’s a fucking load of heroes and abilities there. The second kiddo gets to grips with such a game and his MMR/equivalent pushes up, starts to get fucking tough for ‘plays an hour here or there’ dad, no matter how good my aim is relative to some of the competition.
Broadly my experience with a lot of games the younglings be playing, yeah I could pick them up with a bit of time, but they’re pretty unforgiving for quite a while.
If I did have the time, and based on a few prior experiences I’m pretty confident I’d have more joy in coaching Minibat in the basics of SC2 than my mate would getting me up to speed in DoTA2
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On April 24 2025 08:37 Waxangel wrote:Show nested quote +On April 23 2025 03:15 Hider wrote: Tried this a little bit and I think it doesn't work. One of the big issues is while it tries to significantly reduce the entrance barriers, it's still stressful. The tutorial is great and all but constantly having to build units is stressful - MOBA's in contrast are not stressful. I can't imagine lots of new (non-RTS) players going through the tutorial and wanting to play more. I think it's funny that anybody brings up MOBA as an example of a low-barrier to entry game. The burden of information (characters, skills, items, etc) to just start playing is fucking insane, and trying to rawdog it without a friend to help you through it is pretty miserable. Unless you're really committed to STUDYING (for a fucking game), you're just gonna walk into a lane and die for a reason you don't know 2039483908 times before you can really start playing. I think it's kind of a miracle that MOBA attained some form of mainstream success, and the only lesson people should take away from MOBA is that teamplay/social elements can make anything a success. League gets "this is a garbage game you shouldn't play" jokes from its own playerbase all the time, esp with the casual interest from Arcane.
In Battle Aces you get immediately forced into building units, building bases, controlling your army and how to counter the opponents's composition - at the same time. This is gonna be stressful for every single player that hasn't played an RTS before.
In MOBA's you primarily focus on a single character for a period of time. - this would be comparable to only focussing on a single army in an RTS. There is a little bit of a "need to level of abilities" while you control your hero but generally you can focus only on your hero.
Multitasking should only forced upon you gradually as you get better. Not as a new player.
MOBA's also do a much better job on focussing on allowing players to focus on what they enjoy whereas RTS games force the players into worrying about many other things - and on top of that RTS games have done a terrible job at getting micro right.
Fun and exciting micro is the most important part of any game, and yet Sc2 battles are still more interesting than battles in Battle Aces, StormGate, Immortals Gates of Pyre and ZeroSpace (or any other RTS game released past 15 years).
When Riot releases new champions they highlight all the awesome things you can do with the champion. It inspires players to try them out. In contrast, there is nothing inspiiring about Battle Aces. I think David Kim is 100% off in his vision for a 2.0 RTS game.
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On April 18 2025 07:01 Waxangel wrote: Damn, the new tier-1 base protection ability changes the game A LOT. The lack of early-game interaction and the reduction of mechanics-based outplay really decreases the enjoyment for me, but I can see it being appealing for an entirely different kind of gamer.
Can anyone more tuned in tell me if they said this is more of a extreme test, or actually a direction they want to keep pushing in?
They are just testing it, and have nerfed its damage a few times over beta test. That being said i think the effect it has is pretty overblown, especially after the nerfs. Its main use is just stopping wasp abusers, which was a degenerate strategy anyway. The mechanics based outplaying is still firmly there
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The game works well for me as a concept. It's a lot of units but they aren't exactly complex to remember, and each of them differ in some ways even if they serve in same role. The game is easy to learn and not hard to just queue up another game since it's so short.
What I like is it has the hectic gameplay (or turtle with some builds), and also 80% the strategic side of sc2. And building the unit deck is a balance between lethality and compromise.
My fav part of sc2 is that it has just enough strategy behind it, and the multi tasking, and army movements. And BA captures all of it.
The new tier 1 defensive unit for example are super strong in early game but also mean there's no mobile T1 AA.
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My fav part of sc2 is that it has just enough strategy behind it, and the multi tasking, and army movements. And BA captures all of it.
Yes and that's fair enough. However, I think the multitasking is the last thing I would actively encourage more of if I was trying to reach a larger target group. I think this game only works for RTS-veterans who is used to the multitasking.
I think to reach a larger group I would have promoted and improved unit-micro without players having to worry about anything else than microing a single army. Then over time as they get better an increased amount of multitasking would be gradually incentivized.
Similar, I wouldn't have new players worry about any type of strategic or tactical decisions initially. IMO comparable to new MOBA players being forced to learn matchups and items. When in reality they just wanna have some fun casting abilities, dodging skillshots, kiting, etc.
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I've played a bunch of Battle Aces now and feel like I've gotten to the point of being basically decent at the game, and I'm just not feeling it. I want to like this game, and the basic groundwork is there for it to be really cool, but the units do nothing for me at all. The only unit I'm remotely stoked to build is the King Crab, which has some real personality, but even that has no micro potential.
I played Protoss in BW because Carriers are sick as hell, and I was excited to build a bunch of them and blow shit up. I was pumped to play SC2 the day of release because I couldn't wait to build some Blink Stalkers. The best SC units have real personality and quirky abilities that are exciting to play with. There is no unit in Battle Aces like that; the closest thing is the Blink, which is just recycling an idea from SC2 but executing it less well (the blinking just doesn't feel crisp to me, I can't explain it better than that) on a unit that can't even harass in most games because of the new Guardian Shield.
My take is that they need to go back to the drawing board on their units. Keep all the rest of the gameplay, but give us a collection of units that each has some ridiculous, fun, overpowered-seeming characteristic. Give us some units that are going to make us excited to hit the build button. Give us units that people will bitch about on forums. There's not one unit in Battle Aces that anyone is ever going to point at and say "this game us unplayable because that shit is OP"; half the units in StarCraft inspire that reaction, and that's why we're still playing it decades after it was released.
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I could not play this beta because of the lag. I'm very last sensitive as I like to play a heavy micro style with blinks. Shame. I enjoyed last betas
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The game just didn't have a good way to bw monetized. Makes sense to pull the plug now.
Probably the same fate Stormgate will have.
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Northern Ireland24877 Posts
That’s a pity, it didn’t feel a million miles off releasable either.
Monetisation model for me was a problem they didn’t quite fix, I feel they could have just stuck it out with a retail/unlock everything to recoup some costs and I think some would have had a good time
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Ah damn, was really looking forward to its release.
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On June 08 2024 07:30 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: lol. Im starting to wonder who the fck really made SC2. I cant even believe what i saw in that teaser hell.. It is so weird cuz do u listen to any of those interviews from Devs Frost Giant or Uncapped and you are like yeah this is what im looking for in a new game and shit but then show gameplay or a teaser. And is like well this is not for sure what you were talking about in those interviews. Damn. I hate to be one of those but shit is dead on arrival.
I have to say when i tried the first beta (public) it was fun and intituive but not good enough to bring me to try more playtest after the first one. I dont even think i played more than 5 games either. Will rather play some BW UMS or SC2 Arcade than this.
Atleast in my opinion i didnt find anything that excited me about the game. The graphics were just not 2025. The colors were sad. The micro and the economy of the game was boring.
I mean at some point they said it wasnt even an RTS and they just tried something new.
That said im sorry the game was a failure cuz that means many people will be without a job now. But the product just didnt work out. We learn and keep moving.
Now i wonder if someone like Tencent cut quick this game after some playtest. Is actually Stormgate in danger ? I saw some of the graphics updates they are planing etc and can already tell that is not enough to bring everyone on board. We missing tier 3 and maybe some new units to lower tiers tho. Who knows..
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Northern Ireland24877 Posts
On May 24 2025 08:21 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:Show nested quote +On June 08 2024 07:30 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote: lol. Im starting to wonder who the fck really made SC2. I cant even believe what i saw in that teaser hell.. It is so weird cuz do u listen to any of those interviews from Devs Frost Giant or Uncapped and you are like yeah this is what im looking for in a new game and shit but then show gameplay or a teaser. And is like well this is not for sure what you were talking about in those interviews. Damn. I hate to be one of those but shit is dead on arrival. I have to say when i tried the first beta (public) it was fun and intituive but not good enough to bring me to try more playtest after the first one. I dont even think i played more than 5 games either. Will rather play some BW UMS or SC2 Arcade than this. Atleast in my opinion i didnt find anything that excited me about the game. The graphics were just not 2025. The colors were sad. The micro and the economy of the game was boring. I mean at some point they said it wasnt even an RTS and they just tried something new. That said im sorry the game was a failure cuz that means many people will be without a job now. But the product just didnt work out. We learn and keep moving. Now i wonder if someone like Tencent cut quick this game after some playtest. Is actually Stormgate in danger ? I saw some of the graphics updates they are planing etc and can already tell that is not enough to bring everyone on board. We missing tier 3 and maybe some new units to lower tiers tho. Who knows.. Stormgate aspires to more, Battle Aces tried to do one thing, and I thought did it pretty well.
As someone who’ll happily just grind marine split micro maps for a while, for me Battle Aces had a nice niche. I wanna play short games and micro my arse off, it did that pretty well.
Sometimes I’ll wanna play SC2, or WC3 which are my main RTS loves. But if I just wanna play a stripped-down micro-fest for an hour or two, BA hit that spot for me.
Numbers aside, unlike other products in development, or recently released I could see the niche, I could see the appeal.
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There's been so many Indies and double A that got a massive popularity breakout
RTS is just one of those that don't get one. Expedition 33 has refined good old turn based combat, someone gotta find a way to do the same for RTS genre.
I still think rogue lite elements with RTS is the way to go, hopefully we can see a revival of the genre
On May 24 2025 08:21 [sc1f]eonzerg wrote:
Now i wonder if someone like Tencent cut quick this game after some playtest. Is actually Stormgate in danger ? I saw some of the graphics updates they are planing etc and can already tell that is not enough to bring everyone on board. We missing tier 3 and maybe some new units to lower tiers tho. Who knows.. Stormgate is in way bigger problem with the massive investment and really poor reception and player count
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