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United Kingdom20285 Posts
As I've played more I've realised that by any metric, the game is in alpha.
Beta means feature complete, and half of the features (many of the most important ones) are not present in any form. It's misleading to advertise the game's current form as Beta, let alone having graduated beyond it.
Worst of all it gives the impression that those features aren't coming and aren't important. That will make it really difficult to claw players back if and when they are actually implemented because many of those players will be long gone and not even know to take another look at the game.
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Northern Ireland25283 Posts
On August 28 2024 14:59 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2024 14:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On August 28 2024 13:57 CicadaSC wrote:
well... stormgate player count has dipped into the 400s... i guess the play is to just wait until 1.0 huh? its very worrying to me it hasn't stabilized yet. https://old.reddit.com/r/Stormgate/comments/1f30uvz/stormgate_is_boring/Units slowly gnaw away at health bars until one side has more and the other has fewer. That's it. I'm not asking for SC2 speed, but I definitely don't want to play Command and Conquer: Spreadsheets. This is hilarious. A common complaint is that SC2 combat was too fast and cut throat. Now Stormgate has longer TTK and everyone thinks that is boring. This is nasty. This isn't surprising. As I wrote over 2 years ago, if they make the game slower, they need to compensate by having more impactful abilites in the game. And wasn't this clear to most of us after early gameplay was revealed? The gameplay was meh? If there is any learning to come from this (and the future failures of the other RTS that is following a similar formula) - don't take Sc2 and make it slower. If you want a slower game, fine, but then you need to rethink completely how micro is supposed to work. Game-designers need to start with micro, make micro feel awesome and rewarding. If you can't nail that your game is DOA.
Variety of micro is pretty crucial as well.
You could have the tastiest, best-feeling kiting/splitting mechanics going, if it’s basically all the micro you do I think it can be a bit monotonous.
The good news is I think at least some of that is fixable without big engine overhauls
I think you’ve suggested similar things, add more ‘skillshot’ moves, make some of the siege units hit harder, but need manually aimed, players can dodge or split. Hell you’d potentially enable cool plays like deliberately baiting shots and then pouncing as they reload.
So say, the Atlas now does that.
For one of my other (terrible) unit ideas, whatever the Celestial long range siege unit is, change its attack to an active ability where it charges up and its potential damage increases over time. If you get to full charge, it hits [/i]hard[i]. Allow the player to manually discharge it early if they want. I think this could introduce some cool dynamics, the defender can attempt to disengage out of its range if they see it charging, attacker has to gauge the risk/reward between getting a guaranteed shot off versus maximising damage.
Here’s another one, a rare original one to my knowlege, although perhaps not! Make a ranged unit that does increased damage the closer it is to its target.
I’m so sick of endless, endless kiting. I’m sure some of the denizens of this thread are sick of me complaining about it :p But there’s rarely a good reason not to do it. I think you could introduce some interesting tactical decisions by making it a trade-off between getting up close and personal and in harm’s way, but hitting harder versus playing it safe.
I’d love to see some experimentation with units that synergise via shared active abilities, be it multiple of the same unit or even units of different types. I posted up the thread about my ‘ball unit’, I guess inspired by armadillos somewhat, that could effectively make a barrier/forcefield between them they would reposition as you moved them around.
Imagine the sick plays you could see and combos if you gave a tool like that to a pro who could micro like 4 of them at once. You could have a merry dance with attempts to trap or block, avoid or snipe them to break the chain. There was a time, slightly lesser with repetition where fantastic force fields were impressive, hyped moments. Imagine how impressive that would be if a player’s doing similar segmentation via multiple units they’re repositioning to do it.
Are these ideas atrocious? Well sure let me know via postcard! But they are at least, well, ideas.
To not end on too Debbie Downer a note, I don’t think the current roster is completely lacking in new ideas or interesting tweaks, but overall they’ve played it a bit safe and familiar.
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Northern Ireland25283 Posts
On August 28 2024 15:13 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2024 15:02 JimmyJRaynor wrote:On August 28 2024 14:59 Hider wrote: Game-designers need to start with micro, make micro feel awesome and rewarding. If you can't nail that your game is DOA.
ya, true. and this does not just apply to RTS but most other game genres. Basic second-to-second combat has to be good. Yes ,but in other genres, I think game-designers genereally tend to get that (?) I feel in RTS, game-devs focusses on the wrong things and doesn't get what really matters. I look at Immortals Gates of Pyre, the graphics start to look good, the sound and they appear to focus a lot on lore and how to further expand it to more races.. But then you watch battles and they bore you to death. Zerospace is trying to be a bit more creative - but battles still seem boring there. Battleaces is fast so like Sc2 so the game still kinda works without more complex micro-interactions, but I am still reasonably confident players will get semi-bored after a while. Personally, I would be okay with a modern take on Wc3. Although what I prefer is a faster-pace game (close to Sc2-speed), but with a much larger natural defenders advantage, significant easier macro and more fighting over territories. No races but you can choose between different units prior to the game. Imagine Battle Aces but if it wasn't a micro-arena and with more creativity/micro-potential in terms of unit-design + static defenses and larger defenders advantage.
Bolded I think is massively, massively neglected in discussions on what makes a satisfying RTS.
And as an RTS player I’m not even the creative type, at all. I’m a copy something decent and rely on my micro and mechanics kind of player.
While micro is, absolutely huge I think part of the general malaise is absolutely 100% that a lot of players would like to experiment, to improvise. To outwit an opponent with something they cooked up on the fly, rather than a build they’ve developed, or via clever tactical movement.
It’s an area current Stormgate really suffers with for a variety of reasons. It’s spiritually descended from some of most figured-out, optimised games of all time. Perhaps [/i]the[/i] most figured out games of all time, outside of popular speed run titles. It also doesn’t deviate much from those games in combination. The final kicker is that the game was in the hands of some of the best RTS players on the planet, that came from those games before us mere mortals. So what novel, cool stuff there was to figure out, was already somewhat fleshed out already.
Making an RTS that enables more creativity, but that doesn’t become a frustrating, unpredictable clusterfuck, well it’s one hell of a puzzle to crack but I think players would absolutely love a game that pulled it off successfully.
Creativity enabling is for me a really, really oft-neglected explanation for why Fortnite blew up to become the phenomenon it is today. The building mechanic is a really phenomenal tool, and one of the few real genuine innovations shooters have implemented, and implemented well for quite some time. At least in a mainstream game.
It gives you options to improvise, to traverse terrain you couldn’t otherwise do, to build protection for yourself in firefights etc and its resource-limited as well, so there’s a risk-reward to these decisions as you can’t do it without cost.
Terrain manipulation isn’t some new facet to the RTS genre by any means but perhaps some of these new titles could try to implement a bit more of it.
Imagine a unit that could freeze water, creating a new, more direct path for your forces to traverse over. But, oh no your opponent has some artillery pieces in position and they’re punching holes in the ice! A bunch of your units drown falling into them.
Maybe the game has meaningful weather that impacts how units behave, and players perhaps can manipulate it via abilities to try and create emergent tactical advantages.
Again, not any new, re-inventing the wheel kinda idea, games have experimented with such things.
But it feels within RTS over time, more than most genres devs, at least of games with mainstream ambitions and budgets have experimented less, rather than more over time.
Hell, it’s a good formula. The ‘big 3’ of SC1/2 and WC3 all sit in my top 5 games of all time for a very good reason. But take that ball and run with it a bit, evolve it a bit! Keep the tried-and-tested core but iterate on it and add to it, otherwise you kinda get this ever-diminishing returns loop
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On August 28 2024 14:22 CicadaSC wrote:
I hope if frost giant makes another game one day they are more receptive to negative feedback. I feel like they were too stringent on their vision and not willing to deviate from that enough. there were many complaints on their art style SINCE IT WAS ANNOUNCED. Dating back years. yet they were intent this was their vision. sure there were, are, and will continue to be improvements on polish, textures, and details, but the overall art style/vision is not what gamers want. it looks washed. basic. people have said it looks like ur playing with toy soldiers or 3d printed models and that is unfortunately far too accurate to how i view it. instead of getting something stylized we got a bland mess. reminiscent of the current Concord situation. I really am having fun with the core 1v1 elements, but its overshadowed by so much 'meh.'
but who knows. maybe they will have a FF14 moment. FF14's initial launch was a disaster and they completely revitalized it. they scrapped everything and started fresh basically. If frost giant sees this... i recommend you give this video a watch. watch from 8:00 if you are nitpicky and only want to see the most important part.
Fixing games costs money, do you think this EA release has made them enough money to keep the lights on while they fix the many flaws?
That is the issue and why the initial reporting that they were not funded until the full release was such a big deal. Almost anything can be fixed, but only if you have the time and money to do.
Once they run out and don't have a product good enough to sustain itself that's it, your left with just another unfinished pile of trash in a landfill of EA titles.
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On August 28 2024 14:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Now Stormgate has longer TTK and everyone thinks that is boring.
What the fuck are you even talking about.
TTK is so not the issue in Stormgate.
PLZ just stop. Join MegaBuster in the trash compactor unless you're ready to offer some valuable criticism or insight.
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On August 28 2024 21:46 RogerChillingworth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2024 14:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Now Stormgate has longer TTK and everyone thinks that is boring.
What the fuck are you even talking about. TTK is so not the issue in Stormgate. PLZ just stop. Join MegaBuster in the trash compactor unless you're ready to offer some valuable criticism or insight.
It's definitely an issue.
You see that complaint all the time.
It's such an awkward spot with units like exo killing everything while brute barely does any damage.
Then you have high damage units like atlas that's swing battle just as much as any sc2 key aoe damage dealer like storm.
It's such a mess.
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damn, was gonna edit my comment cuz i don't wanna be an antagonistic twat. oh well, too late. Pre-coffee Roger reporting in.
Anyways, what you're talking about kingzTig is a feeling of inconsistent ttk, which is pretty common. It's not a mess to have coil/nova blowing something up and then a footman slowly whacking stuff. It's just units with different roles. It creates more topography in the game imo, and every game has it. Takes a dragoon 4 shots to kill a marine but a reaver blows up a mineral line; siege engine takes 40 years to kill but nukes your base quickly; archers take 58 years to kill a grunt but get crit down by a Blade; etc. etc.
TTK is definitely not an issue, in my mind. Warcraft III has a relatively long TTK but the fights are the most exciting and skill-intensive that I know of in RTS. Longer TTK just means you, the player, get to control more things and make more decisions. The problem comes in when things are slowed down but those control decisions either aren't really there or don't feel compelling. Currently, Stormgate has a bit of the latter issue. Because the game doesn't have heroes, units probably could use a more interesting attack/movement/micro.
The more we see a unit like the Exo be disrupted in his kiting and move-shooting, the closer to a good game we will be. That's the barometer for me. Currently we have it a little bit with miasma. We need more. Otherwise the unit interactions will always feel lacking, regardless of the TTK.
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On August 28 2024 21:46 RogerChillingworth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2024 14:13 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Now Stormgate has longer TTK and everyone thinks that is boring.
What the fuck are you even talking about. TTK is so not the issue in Stormgate. PLZ just stop. Join MegaBuster in the trash compactor unless you're ready to offer some valuable criticism or insight.
I am talking about what others on reddit are complaining about and up voting. If you think their complaints are wrong ... Head on over there and set them straight.
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On August 28 2024 22:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Head on over there and set them straight.
No ty.
Sorry, my comment was rude as hell. Gonna bounce out of this thread for a while lolllll.
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On August 28 2024 22:33 RogerChillingworth wrote:
damn, was gonna edit my comment cuz i don't wanna be an antagonistic twat. oh well, too late. Pre-coffee Roger reporting in.
Anyways, what you're talking about kingzTig is a feeling of inconsistent ttk, which is pretty common. It's not a mess to have coil/nova blowing something up and then a footman slowly whacking stuff. It's just units with different roles. It creates more topography in the game imo, and every game has it. Takes a dragoon 4 shots to kill a marine but a reaver blows up a mineral line; siege engine takes 40 years to kill but nukes your base quickly; archers take 58 years to kill a grunt but get crit down by a Blade; etc. etc.
TTK is definitely not an issue, in my mind. Warcraft III has a relatively long TTK but the fights are the most exciting and skill-intensive that I know of in RTS. Longer TTK just means you, the player, get to control more things and make more decisions. The problem comes in when things are slowed down but those control decisions either aren't really there or don't feel compelling. Currently, Stormgate has a bit of the latter issue. Because the game doesn't have heroes, units probably could use a more interesting attack/movement/micro.
The more we see a unit like the Exo be disrupted in his kiting and move-shooting, the closer to a good game we will be. That's the barometer for me. Currently we have it a little bit with miasma. We need more. Otherwise the unit interactions will always feel lacking, regardless of the TTK.
It isn't as simple as longer TTK means more room to micro.
Nor is it anything like WC3.
The reason why WC3 micro is intense, is because every units matter, they are all fairly expensive, slow build time and have a distinct role. And experience for hero of course.
SC2 on the other hand has high production rate, meaning it needs a low TTK to keep a very thin balance between death/production rate. It's why it's such a momentum based game.
SG is trying to do both, and why it's so awkward.
Look at infernal early pushes against lancer and exo, there's not much room for interesting micro.
It's all about exo staying alive because that's the only units that will snowball and counter push to win with its sc2 marine like dps.
BW had a fairly short TTK as well, but defender advantage and the meh AI/macro cycle makes production rate a lot more dynamic than a sc2 formula like type of rate.
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Last thing I'll say for now: I don't wanna be rude or mean to anyone. Sometimes the really loud feedback gets me down, because I think it'll make the game worse. I can have a kneejerk reaction to it. Regardless of what people say though, it's always my fault if I end up being a jackass in return. Which I am sometimes. I want a new sweet RTS too badly, I think. It brings up a lot of emotion. So I'm just gonna eff off for a bit. Play some bobstones.
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On August 28 2024 23:18 RogerChillingworth wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2024 22:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote:
Head on over there and set them straight. No ty. Sorry, my comment was rude as hell. Gonna bounce out of this thread for a while lolllll.
meh, don't worry about it man. its only the internet .. its not real life.
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Damn, you guys have more words per post than SG have active players. Anything deeper than the simplest changes (skins or unit stats) imo is off the table anyway.
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Age Of Mythology Retold and 9 Bit Armies have "Very Positive" review ratings right now. Stormgate is facing some decent competition.
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The video that Vibe put out is a good window into what’s really wrong with the game. I just can’t believe in 2024 they couldn’t figure out the resetting attack animations, frost giant somehow made it counter productive and punishing for the player to micro their units. This is a major red flag in my opinion for the future development of the game.
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On August 29 2024 01:19 castleeMg wrote:
The video that Vibe put out is a good window into what’s really wrong with the game. I just can’t believe in 2024 they couldn’t figure out the resetting attack animations, frost giant somehow made it counter productive and punishing for the player to micro their units. This is a major red flag in my opinion for the future development of the game.
There is a timing vs micro thing that can be important to get right as well. Think something like the siege tank, if you don't pre-siege it you are losing the fight. That is anti micro but forces you to make a decision in advance. Having consequences for poor decision making is another angle to take instead of more micro. I think that is a classical discussion between DotA and the later LoL clone, they lowered the weight of a decision by increasing turn rate and lowering ability cooldowns (which increases micro).
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On August 27 2024 01:40 Hider wrote:
I think 3v3 is a hail-mary. They need to say/do something - they can't get players back by focussing on 1v1, campaign or co-op within the last few months of funding they have left.
They will probably change the gameplay quite a lot compared to 1v1 to spice things up. It might play closer to Wc3 but with only 1 hero.
If 3v3 gets any type of positive reviews/traction, they wil llikely use that to apply for further funding.
However, I don't have high hopes. So far they showed they don't have the required skillset to make a great game - and definitely not with such a tight deadline. If they had 2 years of funding - they might have a chance - but even then, I think they just don't get how to make games people enjoy playing.
My guess is that a few months after 3v3 has released they will file for bankruptcy.
I think this comment is bang on. It's a hail mary, and they've gotta do something, but the change of it working out seem extremely low to me. They squandered a pretty incredible opportunity. I'm hoping they can turn it around, but I don't think they can.
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On August 28 2024 15:21 Cyro wrote:Beta means feature complete, and half of the features (many of the most important ones) are not present in any form. It's misleading to advertise the game's current form as Beta, let alone having graduated beyond it. .
Honestly, I'm okay with early access, but the things I have a problem with are:
1. Being dishonest about how much funding they have. (I really cannot overstate how sketchy it was that they said it was "funded to release" when they meant funded to early access IE: funded until they run out of money...
2. Monetizing it in this state in this way. Selling packs of three REALLY shitty missions for $10 is ridiculous. And Day 1 DLC for a co op commander really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
I can handle an incomplete, buggy, imbalanced game. But not when they're trying to use it to suck whatever cash they can out of people from day one.
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“To impress a girl,
show her your reaver micro.”
Kiante wisdom.
What’s cool in stormgate?
Cannon fodder dogs ain’t it.
Music’s aite I guess.
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On August 29 2024 04:14 Trozz wrote:
“To impress a girl,
show her your reaver micro.”
Kiante wisdom.
What’s cool in stormgate?
Cannon fodder dogs ain’t it.
Music’s aite I guess.
LOL
very nice xD
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EPT
