On February 06 2024 19:03 Vindicare605 wrote: Try as I might, this game just doesn't appeal to me like even a little bit right now. The gameplay is similar enough to starcraft 2 but lacking the polish and smoothness in gameplay, the aesthetic feels VERY bland and uninteresting, the economy feels overly simplified to the Point of pointlessness, and the two factions just don't seeM very interesting either.
Maps are small and boring, and the Co Op feels similar enough to SC2's co Op (except it's 3 player Which is Nice) that again it makes me wonder why am I playing this instead of just booting up SC2?
It doesn't heLp that my PC doesn't run this anywhere NeaR as well as it runs SC2 and I hate its UI currently. Reminds me Way too much of League of Legends in a Bad Way.
Might be that it's just too early to tell, and the game will improve a ton as it receives additional development TIME, but for what it is right now, I just don't have any enjoyment when playing it. Every game I play of it makes me think I'd be better off booting up SC2 and playing that instead.
For me it's a similar feeling but for completely different reasons: Somehow I can't be bother to learn the New controls, units, abilities and strategies. Maybe I'M just getting old and lazy. The game needs to give me a ReasoN to do all that and rather Start a game of SG than booting up SC2.
I think about it in this Way: For me to spend TIME learning a New thing, there Has to be a payoff. Something that motivates you to to learn and improve.
I watched some streams in the last beta, and even though I had a beta key, I simply couldn't be bothered to actually play the game. There was just nothing in it that made it interesting for me. Micro appears incredibly boring. In many fights I watched, there would be a big FighT but almost no micro. Players would simply just stare at the battle and have no Clue How to use their APM.
Why should I spend TIME learning this type of game when it appears there is no payoff that interests me?
I'M right there with you on this. This game just doesn't have a hook that makes me WanT to learn it. The units and maps don't look COol, the battles don't look COol, the gameplay is VERY familiar since it feels almost identical to starcraft 2 except with very minor differences.
The economy is dumbed down and boring, the maps are boring, the idea of there being neutral creeps is COMPLETELY underused especially when compared to Warcraft 3.
The factions don't seeM COol or interesting especially when there's ZerO Lore or anything in the game that makes me WanT to care about Which faction I WanT to play. They might as well just be different colored versions of the same race for all I care.
Sure it plays like an RTS, but so what? There's nothing Here that makes me WanT to play this RTS instead of Another round of SC2, or even booting up an older RTS like AoE2 Which offers a different experience that doesn't feel exactly like starcraft.
There's no selling Point Here for me except for WhO is making the game. If this wasn't FrostGiant I would have ZerO ReasoN to give this game even a second glance in the steam store. It just doesn't offer anything that makes me WanT to play it in its current State, and it feels like it Has a LONG LOOONG Way to go before it does.
I would argue it looks like you take starcraft 2 slowed down by 30-50% + a few more melee units relative to RaNgeD units than most sc2 fights have.
Sure, it may have some small QoL improvements but that doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme.
In sc2 I Believe the pace of the game functions as a bit of a bandaid for there not being enough micro to do in some engagements. (at least this was TRUE pre LOTV). So by forcing players to do more stuff faster, it created a relatively high skill expression cap.
But when you give players excessive amount of TIME to do very basic thing/not reward players to do interesting, it becomes very dull. Getting the micro feeling right is the most imortant part about an RTS. Slowing down the game is fine, however, then you need to ensure there are enough New and fun micro interactions relative to Sc2.
Exactly. just moving a unit around should feel interesting. No more of this smooth gliding stuff. Why do Magnadons look like they're sliding over the ground? Make them feel heavy and stomp around. Why do Fiends glide over the ground? Make them feel like they're crawling around with their arms, lurching forward unevenly. I get the feeling the designers don't understand that you can add so much character to units just by How different they feel to control. It feels so weird to see bloated Brutes glide gracefully over the ground like a group of panthers.
edit: This is not just an animation problem. I WanT to see Fiends throw their arms out to lurch forward and have to slow down in between to alternate arms. These kinds of things require fundamental changes to the movement code.
edit2: And I do think this is a fundamental misunderstanding by the designers. Evidence is BW Zerglings actually hop around, they don't go from Point A to Point B in a smooth line. They felt like a pack of predators. But in SC2 they move at constant Speed, sliding and gliding around. They feel like an amoeba. These are the same designers responsible for that change.
Variable TurN rates Alone goes a Hell of a Way, ofc animations too although the latter feel an area that’s noted as being very incomplete so there will be a lot of improvement there, hopefully, but I’ll be Less Critical of at this juncture.
I’ve yet to actually play, some limited stream viewing but it’s not quite the same, running out of TIME!
But even just watching a game or two from afar, I got this Strange ViBE that something was a bit off, and you and Hider articulate it well.
ArT design is one piece of the Puzzle, units moving in different ways at a fundamental level also adds a lot more character to a unit, as well as subtly different forms of micro.
To take one unit, an Archer in WC3. Slow, pretty squishy, packs a punch.
One thing they can’t do is instantly TurN on a Dime. You can’t ’stutter step’ at a moment’s notice, it’s more of a slightly pre-emptive measure before some beefy grunts or other melee units are in range. Or alternatively you actively block paths with other units.
So with your archers you almost perform a staggered fighting retreat with small groups, pull a few back enough for them to get a shot off, pull the next group back, etc.
This isn’t necessarily ‘better’ than Bio’s ’kite and fire basically infinitely if you’re good enough’ kind of micro, but it is certainly different. And back to your earlier Point, critically it makes the Nelf Archer feel like an actual Archer.
Some units should be difficult to micro, or merely different for a very micro-based game to be interesting. Your big punchy SieGe engine should take a while to rotate to target, WC3 ones did that and it adds a bit of believability. Heavy, big units get that bit of weight. It adds small, small windows where an opponent can do something, even if it’s just disengaging.
This doesn’t Mean wrestling with a wonky UI, or Bad pathing or any of that fun stuff ofc!
These comments about 'feel' are spot on imo, and something I hope the devs spend a *lot* of TIME on. Because the units animations and pathing generally feel identical besides the box size and speed -- which is just clearly bad design.
That said, I'm not super worried about these things yet, and there is a danger of judging this as a finished product. These types of changes would almost certainly come after they finish up the third race and tier 3. Also, these devs have made/worked on all the games we're comparing them to... if anyone understands the importance for differentiating unit 'feel' and interesting micro, it should be them.
Also, unlike SC2/WC3, they're creating this world pretty much from scratch, so there is a lot more 'from scratch' conceptual work going into this than those sequels. Nothing we've seen thus far is bad imo, it's just not polished.... which is kinda the point of a very early beta.
P.S. to people saying kickstarter was a cynical cash grab... c'mon. 2 million is not *that* much money (this talented of a team could find well remunerated employment and funding in sooo many companies) and there is no evidence anyone is working in bad faith.
Game industry at that time was a lot more pro-physics or pro-simulation, which is probably why there are more movement details in BW than in StarCraft 2. StarCraft during development even had Total Annihilation or Homeworld like fighter maneuvers (https://youtu.be/CHPktkqxp8Y?t=65). Later game developers realized physics isn't very cost effective as an investment compare to graphics etc, and prefer more abstract or streamlined game design.
On February 06 2024 19:03 Vindicare605 wrote: Try as I might, this game just doesn't appeal to me like even a little bit right now. The gameplay is similar enough to Starcraft 2 but lacking the polish and smoothness in gameplay, the aesthetic feels VERY bland and uninteresting, the economy feels overly simplified to the point of pointlessness, and the two factions just don't seem very interesting either.
Maps are small and boring, and the Co Op feels similar enough to SC2's co Op (except it's 3 player which is nice) that again it makes me wonder why am I playing this instead of just booting up SC2?
It doesn't help that my PC doesn't run this anywhere near as well as it runs SC2 and I hate its UI currently. Reminds me way too much of League of Legends in a bad way.
Might be that it's just too early to tell, and the game will improve a ton as it receives additional development time, but for what it is right now, I just don't have any enjoyment when playing it. Every game I play of it makes me think I'd be better off booting up SC2 and playing that instead.
For me it's a similar feeling but for completely different reasons: Somehow I can't be bother to learn the new controls, units, abilities and strategies. Maybe I'm just getting old and lazy. The game needs to give me a reason to do all that and rather start a game of SG than booting up SC2.
I think about it in this way: For me to spend time learning a new thing, there has to be a payoff. Something that motivates you to to learn and improve.
I watched some streams in the last beta, and even though I had a beta key, I simply couldn't be bothered to actually play the game. There was just nothing in it that made it interesting for me. Micro appears incredibly boring. In many fights I watched, there would be a big fight but almost no micro. Players would simply just stare at the battle and have no clue how to use their APM.
Why should I spend time learning this type of game when it appears there is no payoff that interests me?
I'm right there with you on this. This game just doesn't have a hook that makes me WANT to learn it. The units and maps don't look cool, the battles don't look cool, the gameplay is VERY familiar since it feels almost identical to Starcraft 2 except with very minor differences.
The economy is dumbed down and boring, the maps are boring, the idea of there being neutral creeps is COMPLETELY underused especially when compared to Warcraft 3.
The factions don't seem cool or interesting especially when there's zero lore or anything in the game that makes me want to care about which faction I want to play. They might as well just be different colored versions of the same race for all I care.
Sure it plays like an RTS, but so what? There's nothing here that makes me want to play this RTS instead of another round of SC2, or even booting up an older RTS like AoE2 which offers a different experience that doesn't feel exactly like Starcraft.
There's no selling point here for me except for who is making the game. If this wasn't FrostGiant I would have zero reason to give this game even a second glance in the steam store. It just doesn't offer anything that makes me want to play it in its current state, and it feels like it has a LONG LOOONG way to go before it does.
I would argue it looks like you take Starcraft 2 slowed down by 30-50% + a few more melee units relative to ranged units than most sc2 fights have.
Sure, it may have some small QoL improvements but that doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme.
In sc2 I believe the pace of the game functions as a bit of a bandaid for there not being enough micro to do in some engagements. (at least this was true pre LOTV). So by forcing players to do more stuff faster, it created a relatively high skill expression cap.
But when you give players excessive amount of time to do very basic thing/not reward players to do interesting, it becomes very dull. Getting the micro feeling right is the most imortant part about an RTS. Slowing down the game is fine, however, then you need to ensure there are enough new and fun micro interactions relative to Sc2.
Exactly. Just moving a unit around should feel interesting. No more of this smooth gliding stuff. Why do Magnadons look like they're sliding over the ground? Make them feel heavy and stomp around. Why do Fiends glide over the ground? Make them feel like they're crawling around with their arms, lurching forward unevenly. I get the feeling the designers don't understand that you can add so much character to units just by how different they feel to control. It feels so weird to see bloated Brutes glide gracefully over the ground like a group of panthers.
edit: This is not just an animation problem. I want to see Fiends throw their arms out to lurch forward and have to slow down in between to alternate arms. These kinds of things require fundamental changes to the movement code.
edit2: And I do think this is a fundamental misunderstanding by the designers. Evidence is BW Zerglings actually hop around, they don't go from point A to point B in a smooth line. They felt like a pack of predators. But in SC2 they move at constant speed, sliding and gliding around. They feel like an amoeba. These are the same designers responsible for that change.
Variable turn rates alone goes a hell of a way, ofc animations too although the latter feel an area that’s noted as being very incomplete so there will be a lot of improvement there, hopefully, but I’ll be less critical of at this juncture.
I’ve yet to actually play, some limited stream viewing but it’s not quite the same, running out of time!
But even just watching a game or two from afar, I got this strange vibe that something was a bit off, and you and Hider articulate it well.
Art design is one piece of the puzzle, units moving in different ways at a fundamental level also adds a lot more character to a unit, as well as subtly different forms of micro.
To take one unit, an archer in WC3. Slow, pretty squishy, packs a punch.
One thing they can’t do is instantly turn on a dime. You can’t ’stutter step’ at a moment’s notice, it’s more of a slightly pre-emptive measure before some beefy grunts or other melee units are in range. Or alternatively you actively block paths with other units.
So with your archers you almost perform a staggered fighting retreat with small groups, pull a few back enough for them to get a shot off, pull the next group back, etc.
This isn’t necessarily ‘better’ than bio’s ’kite and fire basically infinitely if you’re good enough’ kind of micro, but it is certainly different. And back to your earlier point, critically it makes the Nelf archer feel like an actual archer.
Some units should be difficult to micro, or merely different for a very micro-based game to be interesting. Your big punchy siege engine should take a while to rotate to target, WC3 ones did that and it adds a bit of believability. Heavy, big units get that bit of weight. It adds small, small windows where an opponent can do something, even if it’s just disengaging.
This doesn’t mean wrestling with a wonky UI, or bad pathing or any of that fun stuff ofc!
This guy gets it. Basically what I feel like this game will turn out to be something that could be a mod like starbow.
Also, the art style is very weird and "mobile games like", still this game runs worse than I expected it. It is way too early to doom the whole project but there is lots of work to be done. This is not an attack on the games or on anyone enjoying it, there are plenty of nice things happening but so far, it feels a bit bland.
I mean, I don't want to be rude but ... this game is nothing new. Nothing outstanding and dull. No idea how can you call it "fun" where both WC3 and SC:BW/SC2 were WAY more entertaning than this.
On February 09 2024 04:37 739 wrote: I mean, I don't want to be rude but ... this game is nothing new. Nothing outstanding and dull. No idea how can you call it "fun" where both WC3 and SC:BW/SC2 were WAY more entertaning than this.
Or maybe I'm just old and nostalgic, meh.
No it's not just you. And even if it was just because of nostalgia that you like those other games better, that's still something that Stormgate is going to have to deal with if it wants to be successful. There are other RTS games out there right now that have online communities already built and thriving, what does Stormgate offer that makes me want to play it instead of any of those others? Right now, it just doesn't have anything going for it that makes me want to play it.
On February 06 2024 19:03 Vindicare605 wrote: Try as I might, this game just doesn't appeal to me like even a little bit right now. The gameplay is similar enough to Starcraft 2 but lacking the polish and smoothness in gameplay, the aesthetic feels VERY bland and uninteresting, the economy feels overly simplified to the point of pointlessness, and the two factions just don't seem very interesting either.
Maps are small and boring, and the Co Op feels similar enough to SC2's co Op (except it's 3 player which is nice) that again it makes me wonder why am I playing this instead of just booting up SC2?
It doesn't help that my PC doesn't run this anywhere near as well as it runs SC2 and I hate its UI currently. Reminds me way too much of League of Legends in a bad way.
Might be that it's just too early to tell, and the game will improve a ton as it receives additional development time, but for what it is right now, I just don't have any enjoyment when playing it. Every game I play of it makes me think I'd be better off booting up SC2 and playing that instead.
For me it's a similar feeling but for completely different reasons: Somehow I can't be bother to learn the new controls, units, abilities and strategies. Maybe I'm just getting old and lazy. The game needs to give me a reason to do all that and rather start a game of SG than booting up SC2.
I think about it in this way: For me to spend time learning a new thing, there has to be a payoff. Something that motivates you to to learn and improve.
I watched some streams in the last beta, and even though I had a beta key, I simply couldn't be bothered to actually play the game. There was just nothing in it that made it interesting for me. Micro appears incredibly boring. In many fights I watched, there would be a big fight but almost no micro. Players would simply just stare at the battle and have no clue how to use their APM.
Why should I spend time learning this type of game when it appears there is no payoff that interests me?
I'm right there with you on this. This game just doesn't have a hook that makes me WANT to learn it. The units and maps don't look cool, the battles don't look cool, the gameplay is VERY familiar since it feels almost identical to Starcraft 2 except with very minor differences.
The economy is dumbed down and boring, the maps are boring, the idea of there being neutral creeps is COMPLETELY underused especially when compared to Warcraft 3.
The factions don't seem cool or interesting especially when there's zero lore or anything in the game that makes me want to care about which faction I want to play. They might as well just be different colored versions of the same race for all I care.
Sure it plays like an RTS, but so what? There's nothing here that makes me want to play this RTS instead of another round of SC2, or even booting up an older RTS like AoE2 which offers a different experience that doesn't feel exactly like Starcraft.
There's no selling point here for me except for who is making the game. If this wasn't FrostGiant I would have zero reason to give this game even a second glance in the steam store. It just doesn't offer anything that makes me want to play it in its current state, and it feels like it has a LONG LOOONG way to go before it does.
I would argue it looks like you take Starcraft 2 slowed down by 30-50% + a few more melee units relative to ranged units than most sc2 fights have.
Sure, it may have some small QoL improvements but that doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme.
In sc2 I believe the pace of the game functions as a bit of a bandaid for there not being enough micro to do in some engagements. (at least this was true pre LOTV). So by forcing players to do more stuff faster, it created a relatively high skill expression cap.
But when you give players excessive amount of time to do very basic thing/not reward players to do interesting, it becomes very dull. Getting the micro feeling right is the most imortant part about an RTS. Slowing down the game is fine, however, then you need to ensure there are enough new and fun micro interactions relative to Sc2.
Exactly. Just moving a unit around should feel interesting. No more of this smooth gliding stuff. Why do Magnadons look like they're sliding over the ground? Make them feel heavy and stomp around. Why do Fiends glide over the ground? Make them feel like they're crawling around with their arms, lurching forward unevenly. I get the feeling the designers don't understand that you can add so much character to units just by how different they feel to control. It feels so weird to see bloated Brutes glide gracefully over the ground like a group of panthers.
edit: This is not just an animation problem. I want to see Fiends throw their arms out to lurch forward and have to slow down in between to alternate arms. These kinds of things require fundamental changes to the movement code.
edit2: And I do think this is a fundamental misunderstanding by the designers. Evidence is BW Zerglings actually hop around, they don't go from point A to point B in a smooth line. They felt like a pack of predators. But in SC2 they move at constant speed, sliding and gliding around. They feel like an amoeba. These are the same designers responsible for that change.
Variable turn rates alone goes a hell of a way, ofc animations too although the latter feel an area that’s noted as being very incomplete so there will be a lot of improvement there, hopefully, but I’ll be less critical of at this juncture.
I’ve yet to actually play, some limited stream viewing but it’s not quite the same, running out of time!
But even just watching a game or two from afar, I got this strange vibe that something was a bit off, and you and Hider articulate it well.
Art design is one piece of the puzzle, units moving in different ways at a fundamental level also adds a lot more character to a unit, as well as subtly different forms of micro.
To take one unit, an archer in WC3. Slow, pretty squishy, packs a punch.
One thing they can’t do is instantly turn on a dime. You can’t ’stutter step’ at a moment’s notice, it’s more of a slightly pre-emptive measure before some beefy grunts or other melee units are in range. Or alternatively you actively block paths with other units.
So with your archers you almost perform a staggered fighting retreat with small groups, pull a few back enough for them to get a shot off, pull the next group back, etc.
This isn’t necessarily ‘better’ than bio’s ’kite and fire basically infinitely if you’re good enough’ kind of micro, but it is certainly different. And back to your earlier point, critically it makes the Nelf archer feel like an actual archer.
Some units should be difficult to micro, or merely different for a very micro-based game to be interesting. Your big punchy siege engine should take a while to rotate to target, WC3 ones did that and it adds a bit of believability. Heavy, big units get that bit of weight. It adds small, small windows where an opponent can do something, even if it’s just disengaging.
This doesn’t mean wrestling with a wonky UI, or bad pathing or any of that fun stuff ofc!
This guy gets it. Basically what I feel like this game will turn out to be something that could be a mod like starbow.
Also, the art style is very weird and "mobile games like", still this game runs worse than I expected it. It is way too early to doom the whole project but there is lots of work to be done. This is not an attack on the games or on anyone enjoying it, there are plenty of nice things happening but so far, it feels a bit bland.
Game does not play like a SC2 mod. It's also beautiful. It's just that some assets are unfinished or not yet textured. Have you seen the Vulcan? The Atlas? The swarmy Gaunts and Fiends with those giant, cool freaking Weavers stomping around? There's a lot of personality to this game and a lot more to come.
It really takes getting your hands dirty with the game and watching some really good players to fully grasp the goodness.
Give it a shot. Tune into the EGC tournament coming up! Competitive play is already really delivering for Stormgate imo.
EDIT: For the people with a lot of negative criticism, I'm curious how many games you've played and time you've spent with the game in general.
I played roughly 50 games in ladder game itself has some good stuff as RTS. But a really sad reality is I ran into 1 confirmed hack in day2 of my game play. And I had a game where I suspected someone was hacking. On the storm gate official discord bunch of emotionally attached fan boy giving dev excuses such as that’s not a top priority and that there are other important things to care about.
My take is that this is total bullshit. If you are not taking anti hack and cheat as your first priority. You might as well turn this game into a coop fun kind of game only. The hack seems to be client side memory injection. If the design has no anti cheat and hack in mind in this day and age. You might as well throw the whole project away. I mean competitive game wise. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a public beta. Not something behind a wall.
On February 09 2024 07:22 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote: I played roughly 50 games in ladder game itself has some good stuff as RTS. But a really sad reality is I ran into 1 confirmed hack in day2 of my game play. And I had a game where I suspected someone was hacking. On the storm gate official discord bunch of emotionally attached fan boy giving dev excuses such as that’s not a top priority and that there are other important things to care about.
My take is that this is total bullshit. If you are not taking anti hack and cheat as your first priority. You might as well turn this game into a coop fun kind of game only. The hack seems to be client side memory injection. If the design has no anti cheat and hack in mind in this day and age. You might as well throw the whole project away. I mean competitive game wise. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a public beta. Not something behind a wall.
Who the fuck is sad enough to hack in a beta build of the game? Christ…
Yeah that seems worth raising, absolutely. Shame you got a bit of pushback. I’ve heard that the official Discord is a bit full of defensive fanboys who aren’t too receptive to even constructive criticism, while if anything TL is a bit of a swing towards the negative
On February 09 2024 07:22 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote: I played roughly 50 games in ladder game itself has some good stuff as RTS. But a really sad reality is I ran into 1 confirmed hack in day2 of my game play. And I had a game where I suspected someone was hacking. On the storm gate official discord bunch of emotionally attached fan boy giving dev excuses such as that’s not a top priority and that there are other important things to care about.
My take is that this is total bullshit. If you are not taking anti hack and cheat as your first priority. You might as well turn this game into a coop fun kind of game only. The hack seems to be client side memory injection. If the design has no anti cheat and hack in mind in this day and age. You might as well throw the whole project away. I mean competitive game wise. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a public beta. Not something behind a wall.
Who the fuck is sad enough to hack in a beta build of the game? Christ…
Yeah that seems worth raising, absolutely. Shame you got a bit of pushback. I’ve heard that the official Discord is a bit full of defensive fanboys who aren’t too receptive to even constructive criticism, while if anything TL is a bit of a swing towards the negative
The real sad reality is that I think, by some speculation the game was hacked in directly changing numbers in the memory like people did back in 1998. Back in those days, you can modify all the numbers you want in a game...because you just modify the game's memory... with different numbers :D I still recall back in China in those days in net cafe, a lot of machine have these "hack tools" where you can easily change things, one of them famous one is called "speed up" basically in brood war, you can instantly build stuff as if you put in "operational cwal" or w/e that cheat code to speed things up, lol. So yeah, that's how ancient the hacking method seems. And this is really concerning, it shows the game's architecture has no effort into integrity checking.
On February 06 2024 19:03 Vindicare605 wrote: Try as I might, this game just doesn't appeal to me like even a little bit right now. The gameplay is similar enough to Starcraft 2 but lacking the polish and smoothness in gameplay, the aesthetic feels VERY bland and uninteresting, the economy feels overly simplified to the point of pointlessness, and the two factions just don't seem very interesting either.
Maps are small and boring, and the Co Op feels similar enough to SC2's co Op (except it's 3 player which is nice) that again it makes me wonder why am I playing this instead of just booting up SC2?
It doesn't help that my PC doesn't run this anywhere near as well as it runs SC2 and I hate its UI currently. Reminds me way too much of League of Legends in a bad way.
Might be that it's just too early to tell, and the game will improve a ton as it receives additional development time, but for what it is right now, I just don't have any enjoyment when playing it. Every game I play of it makes me think I'd be better off booting up SC2 and playing that instead.
For me it's a similar feeling but for completely different reasons: Somehow I can't be bother to learn the new controls, units, abilities and strategies. Maybe I'm just getting old and lazy. The game needs to give me a reason to do all that and rather start a game of SG than booting up SC2.
I think about it in this way: For me to spend time learning a new thing, there has to be a payoff. Something that motivates you to to learn and improve.
I watched some streams in the last beta, and even though I had a beta key, I simply couldn't be bothered to actually play the game. There was just nothing in it that made it interesting for me. Micro appears incredibly boring. In many fights I watched, there would be a big fight but almost no micro. Players would simply just stare at the battle and have no clue how to use their APM.
Why should I spend time learning this type of game when it appears there is no payoff that interests me?
I'm right there with you on this. This game just doesn't have a hook that makes me WANT to learn it. The units and maps don't look cool, the battles don't look cool, the gameplay is VERY familiar since it feels almost identical to Starcraft 2 except with very minor differences.
The economy is dumbed down and boring, the maps are boring, the idea of there being neutral creeps is COMPLETELY underused especially when compared to Warcraft 3.
The factions don't seem cool or interesting especially when there's zero lore or anything in the game that makes me want to care about which faction I want to play. They might as well just be different colored versions of the same race for all I care.
Sure it plays like an RTS, but so what? There's nothing here that makes me want to play this RTS instead of another round of SC2, or even booting up an older RTS like AoE2 which offers a different experience that doesn't feel exactly like Starcraft.
There's no selling point here for me except for who is making the game. If this wasn't FrostGiant I would have zero reason to give this game even a second glance in the steam store. It just doesn't offer anything that makes me want to play it in its current state, and it feels like it has a LONG LOOONG way to go before it does.
I would argue it looks like you take Starcraft 2 slowed down by 30-50% + a few more melee units relative to ranged units than most sc2 fights have.
Sure, it may have some small QoL improvements but that doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme.
In sc2 I believe the pace of the game functions as a bit of a bandaid for there not being enough micro to do in some engagements. (at least this was true pre LOTV). So by forcing players to do more stuff faster, it created a relatively high skill expression cap.
But when you give players excessive amount of time to do very basic thing/not reward players to do interesting, it becomes very dull. Getting the micro feeling right is the most imortant part about an RTS. Slowing down the game is fine, however, then you need to ensure there are enough new and fun micro interactions relative to Sc2.
Exactly. Just moving a unit around should feel interesting. No more of this smooth gliding stuff. Why do Magnadons look like they're sliding over the ground? Make them feel heavy and stomp around. Why do Fiends glide over the ground? Make them feel like they're crawling around with their arms, lurching forward unevenly. I get the feeling the designers don't understand that you can add so much character to units just by how different they feel to control. It feels so weird to see bloated Brutes glide gracefully over the ground like a group of panthers.
edit: This is not just an animation problem. I want to see Fiends throw their arms out to lurch forward and have to slow down in between to alternate arms. These kinds of things require fundamental changes to the movement code.
edit2: And I do think this is a fundamental misunderstanding by the designers. Evidence is BW Zerglings actually hop around, they don't go from point A to point B in a smooth line. They felt like a pack of predators. But in SC2 they move at constant speed, sliding and gliding around. They feel like an amoeba. These are the same designers responsible for that change.
Variable turn rates alone goes a hell of a way, ofc animations too although the latter feel an area that’s noted as being very incomplete so there will be a lot of improvement there, hopefully, but I’ll be less critical of at this juncture.
I’ve yet to actually play, some limited stream viewing but it’s not quite the same, running out of time!
But even just watching a game or two from afar, I got this strange vibe that something was a bit off, and you and Hider articulate it well.
Art design is one piece of the puzzle, units moving in different ways at a fundamental level also adds a lot more character to a unit, as well as subtly different forms of micro.
To take one unit, an archer in WC3. Slow, pretty squishy, packs a punch.
One thing they can’t do is instantly turn on a dime. You can’t ’stutter step’ at a moment’s notice, it’s more of a slightly pre-emptive measure before some beefy grunts or other melee units are in range. Or alternatively you actively block paths with other units.
So with your archers you almost perform a staggered fighting retreat with small groups, pull a few back enough for them to get a shot off, pull the next group back, etc.
This isn’t necessarily ‘better’ than bio’s ’kite and fire basically infinitely if you’re good enough’ kind of micro, but it is certainly different. And back to your earlier point, critically it makes the Nelf archer feel like an actual archer.
Some units should be difficult to micro, or merely different for a very micro-based game to be interesting. Your big punchy siege engine should take a while to rotate to target, WC3 ones did that and it adds a bit of believability. Heavy, big units get that bit of weight. It adds small, small windows where an opponent can do something, even if it’s just disengaging.
This doesn’t mean wrestling with a wonky UI, or bad pathing or any of that fun stuff ofc!
This guy gets it. Basically what I feel like this game will turn out to be something that could be a mod like starbow.
Also, the art style is very weird and "mobile games like", still this game runs worse than I expected it. It is way too early to doom the whole project but there is lots of work to be done. This is not an attack on the games or on anyone enjoying it, there are plenty of nice things happening but so far, it feels a bit bland.
Game does not play like a SC2 mod. It's also beautiful. It's just that some assets are unfinished or not yet textured. Have you seen the Vulcan? The Atlas? The swarmy Gaunts and Fiends with those giant, cool freaking Weavers stomping around? There's a lot of personality to this game and a lot more to come.
It really takes getting your hands dirty with the game and watching some really good players to fully grasp the goodness.
Give it a shot. Tune into the EGC tournament coming up! Competitive play is already really delivering for Stormgate imo.
EDIT: For the people with a lot of negative criticism, I'm curious how many games you've played and time you've spent with the game in general.
I have played about 5 hours of stormgate but it doesnt feel fresh or fun. I am happy you like it and it might be better once it gets more polish but I dont have the same "wow" feeling like I had playing the RTS it tries to be similar with.
On February 09 2024 07:22 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote: I played roughly 50 games in ladder game itself has some good stuff as RTS. But a really sad reality is I ran into 1 confirmed hack in day2 of my game play. And I had a game where I suspected someone was hacking. On the storm gate official discord bunch of emotionally attached fan boy giving dev excuses such as that’s not a top priority and that there are other important things to care about.
My take is that this is total bullshit. If you are not taking anti hack and cheat as your first priority. You might as well turn this game into a coop fun kind of game only. The hack seems to be client side memory injection. If the design has no anti cheat and hack in mind in this day and age. You might as well throw the whole project away. I mean competitive game wise. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a public beta. Not something behind a wall.
Who the fuck is sad enough to hack in a beta build of the game? Christ…
Yeah that seems worth raising, absolutely. Shame you got a bit of pushback. I’ve heard that the official Discord is a bit full of defensive fanboys who aren’t too receptive to even constructive criticism, while if anything TL is a bit of a swing towards the negative
The discord isn't full of fanboys, but it does have a lot of players hoping to compete and wishing that the game does well.
Constructive criticism flows like water, trust me.
On February 08 2024 12:05 WombaT wrote: Some units should be difficult to micro, or merely different for a very micro-based game to be interesting. Your big punchy siege engine should take a while to rotate to target, WC3 ones did that and it adds a bit of believability. Heavy, big units get that bit of weight. It adds small, small windows where an opponent can do something, even if it’s just disengaging.
Well, be careful with that. In BW tank rotation is instant, which is a good thing in this case because you won't have the advantage/disadvantage coming from a certain angle like you do in SC2 for example.
On February 09 2024 05:15 RogerChillingworth wrote: EDIT: For the people with a lot of negative criticism, I'm curious how many games you've played and time you've spent with the game in general.
To be honest, I think you don't need to spend a lot of time with a game to decide whether you like it or not. Disclaimer: boomer story incoming... I never really played BW except once a year on LAN party with friends for the longest time. We didn't play competitively, just 4 vs 4AI on Octopus on normal speed. Took us a while to figure out a way to keep everyone alive in the early game. Then games would take around 2-3 hours. Years later I heard of korean leagues and I looked at youtube to find a Jaedong vs Bisu game on Destination. That game literally blew my mind and led me to start BW "competitively". I was never good in BW and it took me a long time to improve to a level where I wouldn't get manhandled by D players on ICCup (I played on a private newbie server for the first few months before trying ICCup). I was writing news for instarcraft for quite a while, too, and really developed a passion for BW at the time. But long story short: BW was fun, both in an extremely casual sense but also in a very competitive sense. It didn't take a lot of hours for either catch me. Now, when I look at Stormgate, I fail to see how it could be fun competitively or on a casual level. I just don't see anything that excites me when I think about friends asking me to play it with them. And I think that's one of the more concerning feelings for me because most of the times, even mediocre games are fun with friends. I will still give this game a shot. Would have played some games already if I wasn't sick and didn't feel like doing something remotely taxing. But yeah, I'm not confident playing it will change my mind much. You can deduce a lot from watching a game. WoW and LoL are perfect examples for me. They didn't look fun to me at all, I tried them multiple times because of friends and they never became more fun.
On January 20 2024 02:09 _Spartak_ wrote: A lot of mechanics haven't been implemented yet. There will be high-ground advantage in some form in the final game.
It's odd they haven't shown, or probably decided, on how they're doing this.
I can see vision like in sc2 being an issue because they don't have many air units, and have said they want air units to be weaker. In sc2 all races get air units fairly quick so high ground vision isn't too powerful.
Maybe a flat damage reduction? or a range reduction?
In BW there is a chance to miss uphill. For the longest time I was in favour of a flat damage reduction, like you mentioned, instead because I dislike luck-based mechanics in competitive games. However, I have somewhat changed my mind on that in recent years. The advantage of a "x% chance of missing" over "x% damage reduction" is that it is less calculable. This will make players play more conservatively when attacking from low ground which strengthens high ground beyond raw numbers. Now, I'm not entirely opposed to damage reduction but I prefer chance to miss in this instance.
The luck based low to highground interaction of BW was absolutely horrible. One bunker could hold the highground vs a ridiculous amount of low attacks speed units like Dragoons
Very late reply to this one but I still had it on my mind... I generally agree that luck-based stuff shouldn't be in a competitive game (or as little as possible). However, in this case I think it's actually a good idea in how it plays out in the end. There is a lot of skill involved because you have to judge your odds or find workarounds. With a simple "-50% damage" the decision making is fairly easy: My army is >2 times stronger so I can attack. I think this is fairly boring, although better than "you got vision? there is no high ground advantage...". I don't think BW was necessarily perfect here, either. You can still think about how high the rate of failure should be, what ways to circumvent highground advantage you want to have in the game etc. The thing is, I would rather have situations like you described in the game, which are caused by strong highground advantage, than what we got in SC2 for example. Reason being, that a strong highground advantage (or in general defenders advantage) against brute force attacks will lead to a lot more small skirmishes because you don't need your entire army to defend any sort of attack.
I put the recording of the hacker's replay on youtube for anyone interested to see, it is blatantly stupid this can happen..... I don't know what to say about it. If this isn't their core priority, then this game is pretty dead on arrival for any of you care to play it as a competitive game. Might as well stop wasting time on the game design part, no amount of Kevin Dong, no monk can save your life.
On February 09 2024 07:22 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote: I played roughly 50 games in ladder game itself has some good stuff as RTS. But a really sad reality is I ran into 1 confirmed hack in day2 of my game play. And I had a game where I suspected someone was hacking. On the storm gate official discord bunch of emotionally attached fan boy giving dev excuses such as that’s not a top priority and that there are other important things to care about.
My take is that this is total bullshit. If you are not taking anti hack and cheat as your first priority. You might as well turn this game into a coop fun kind of game only. The hack seems to be client side memory injection. If the design has no anti cheat and hack in mind in this day and age. You might as well throw the whole project away. I mean competitive game wise. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a public beta. Not something behind a wall.
Who the fuck is sad enough to hack in a beta build of the game? Christ…
Yeah that seems worth raising, absolutely. Shame you got a bit of pushback. I’ve heard that the official Discord is a bit full of defensive fanboys who aren’t too receptive to even constructive criticism, while if anything TL is a bit of a swing towards the negative
The discord isn't full of fanboys, but it does have a lot of players hoping to compete and wishing that the game does well.
Constructive criticism flows like water, trust me.
That’s good to hear and I shall sir, you’ve earned a certain degree of trust as a solid poster!
Going off what a (very limited) group of folks breaking the NDA with me while back, but that’s a tiny sample.
Funny enough the stuff I saw about a guy getting dogpiled for pointing out has been a pretty prominent crit now beta has opened up a bit more, including in this thread
On February 08 2024 12:05 WombaT wrote: Some units should be difficult to micro, or merely different for a very micro-based game to be interesting. Your big punchy siege engine should take a while to rotate to target, WC3 ones did that and it adds a bit of believability. Heavy, big units get that bit of weight. It adds small, small windows where an opponent can do something, even if it’s just disengaging.
Well, be careful with that. In BW tank rotation is instant, which is a good thing in this case because you won't have the advantage/disadvantage coming from a certain angle like you do in SC2 for example.
On February 09 2024 05:15 RogerChillingworth wrote: EDIT: For the people with a lot of negative criticism, I'm curious how many games you've played and time you've spent with the game in general.
To be honest, I think you don't need to spend a lot of time with a game to decide whether you like it or not. Disclaimer: boomer story incoming... I never really played BW except once a year on LAN party with friends for the longest time. We didn't play competitively, just 4 vs 4AI on Octopus on normal speed. Took us a while to figure out a way to keep everyone alive in the early game. Then games would take around 2-3 hours. Years later I heard of korean leagues and I looked at youtube to find a Jaedong vs Bisu game on Destination. That game literally blew my mind and led me to start BW "competitively". I was never good in BW and it took me a long time to improve to a level where I wouldn't get manhandled by D players on ICCup (I played on a private newbie server for the first few months before trying ICCup). I was writing news for instarcraft for quite a while, too, and really developed a passion for BW at the time. But long story short: BW was fun, both in an extremely casual sense but also in a very competitive sense. It didn't take a lot of hours for either catch me. Now, when I look at Stormgate, I fail to see how it could be fun competitively or on a casual level. I just don't see anything that excites me when I think about friends asking me to play it with them. And I think that's one of the more concerning feelings for me because most of the times, even mediocre games are fun with friends. I will still give this game a shot. Would have played some games already if I wasn't sick and didn't feel like doing something remotely taxing. But yeah, I'm not confident playing it will change my mind much. You can deduce a lot from watching a game. WoW and LoL are perfect examples for me. They didn't look fun to me at all, I tried them multiple times because of friends and they never became more fun.
On January 20 2024 02:09 _Spartak_ wrote: A lot of mechanics haven't been implemented yet. There will be high-ground advantage in some form in the final game.
It's odd they haven't shown, or probably decided, on how they're doing this.
I can see vision like in sc2 being an issue because they don't have many air units, and have said they want air units to be weaker. In sc2 all races get air units fairly quick so high ground vision isn't too powerful.
Maybe a flat damage reduction? or a range reduction?
In BW there is a chance to miss uphill. For the longest time I was in favour of a flat damage reduction, like you mentioned, instead because I dislike luck-based mechanics in competitive games. However, I have somewhat changed my mind on that in recent years. The advantage of a "x% chance of missing" over "x% damage reduction" is that it is less calculable. This will make players play more conservatively when attacking from low ground which strengthens high ground beyond raw numbers. Now, I'm not entirely opposed to damage reduction but I prefer chance to miss in this instance.
The luck based low to highground interaction of BW was absolutely horrible. One bunker could hold the highground vs a ridiculous amount of low attacks speed units like Dragoons
Very late reply to this one but I still had it on my mind... I generally agree that luck-based stuff shouldn't be in a competitive game (or as little as possible). However, in this case I think it's actually a good idea in how it plays out in the end. There is a lot of skill involved because you have to judge your odds or find workarounds. With a simple "-50% damage" the decision making is fairly easy: My army is >2 times stronger so I can attack. I think this is fairly boring, although better than "you got vision? there is no high ground advantage...". I don't think BW was necessarily perfect here, either. You can still think about how high the rate of failure should be, what ways to circumvent highground advantage you want to have in the game etc. The thing is, I would rather have situations like you described in the game, which are caused by strong highground advantage, than what we got in SC2 for example. Reason being, that a strong highground advantage (or in general defenders advantage) against brute force attacks will lead to a lot more small skirmishes because you don't need your entire army to defend any sort of attack.
Fair point on that one, you are correct! WC3 siege worked a bit different but yeah was just picking a few illustrative examples of a big powerful unit being a bit more unwieldy
I do kind of wonder if it’s just diminishing returns. BW was sick because it was my first proper dig at RTS, and it’s got cool psychic aliens and robots and space bugs. I loved WC3 and SC2, Stormgate seems both decent to me but equally it’s just not scratching that itch, maybe it will given time. Maybe I’m just cursed with my two favourite types of games being arena shooters and 1v1 RTS
And I mean this just happens. I mean people are still making great jazz music today, but it’s cultural impact compared to almost a century is zilch, Joe and Jane average burned out on it and moved onto other things.
Disagree on RNG-based high ground advantage, I feel difficult decisions should be more dictated by your opponent’s choices and for to react, versus the inner calculus of trying to appease the RNG gods, and generally folks will err on the side of caution as you say.
Also I feel part of why it does work well in BW is that it’s difficult to manoeuvre big armies around, and you have some units like tanks, lurkers or reavers/Templar that pack a giant, giant punch, plus just macroing takes up a lot of time. You kind of naturally end up with scenarios where a handful of units hold high grounds, and can actually do so.
Whereas Stormgate, from what I’ve seen you don’t quite have such units, so you lack that ability to hold territory with a relative handful of units. You’ve less posturing for control of the map too, or at least it seems less economically critical.
It may seem arbitrary but a mechanic I feel works in BW may not translate all that well to SG.
From what I’ve observed so far it feels quite hard, even with a big advantage to actually kill your opponent, not as hard as WC3 at times but I definitely feel many games are over way before they’re over. So a big high ground advantage just exacerbates that. I’m probably not articulating it too well but there’s a difference between how it fits in a territorial game where it’s hard to direct your forces, versus a game where you’re at 2/3 bases pretty quick
On February 09 2024 08:08 RogerChillingworth wrote:
On February 09 2024 07:35 WombaT wrote:
On February 09 2024 07:22 PurE)Rabbit-SF wrote: I played roughly 50 games in ladder game itself has some good stuff as RTS. But a really sad reality is I ran into 1 confirmed hack in day2 of my game play. And I had a game where I suspected someone was hacking. On the storm gate official discord bunch of emotionally attached fan boy giving dev excuses such as that’s not a top priority and that there are other important things to care about.
My take is that this is total bullshit. If you are not taking anti hack and cheat as your first priority. You might as well turn this game into a coop fun kind of game only. The hack seems to be client side memory injection. If the design has no anti cheat and hack in mind in this day and age. You might as well throw the whole project away. I mean competitive game wise. It just doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s a public beta. Not something behind a wall.
Who the fuck is sad enough to hack in a beta build of the game? Christ…
Yeah that seems worth raising, absolutely. Shame you got a bit of pushback. I’ve heard that the official Discord is a bit full of defensive fanboys who aren’t too receptive to even constructive criticism, while if anything TL is a bit of a swing towards the negative
The discord isn't full of fanboys, but it does have a lot of players hoping to compete and wishing that the game does well.
Constructive criticism flows like water, trust me.
That’s good to hear and I shall sir, you’ve earned a certain degree of trust as a solid poster!
Going off what a (very limited) group of folks breaking the NDA with me while back, but that’s a tiny sample.
Funny enough the stuff I saw about a guy getting dogpiled for pointing out has been a pretty prominent crit now beta has opened up a bit more, including in this thread
Yo, thanks man! I hope to make even betterer posts in the future ^^.
On February 09 2024 01:07 qwerty4w wrote: Game industry at that time were a lot more pro-physics or pro-simulation, which is probably why there are more movement details in BW than in StarCraft 2. StarCraft during development even had Total Annihilation or Homeworld like fighter maneuvers (https://youtu.be/CHPktkqxp8Y?t=65). Later game developers realized physics isn't very cost effective as an investment compare to graphics etc, and prefer more abstract or streamlined game design.
Interesting to learn BW was developed with a pro-simulation approach and that made the BW units feel unique. I guess limited technology prevented them from getting too far into simulation territory. From that perspective it seems I'm actually saying SG has gone too far into abstraction territory for my liking...
On February 06 2024 19:03 Vindicare605 wrote: Try as I might, this game just doesn't appeal to me like even a little bit right now. The gameplay is similar enough to Starcraft 2 but lacking the polish and smoothness in gameplay, the aesthetic feels VERY bland and uninteresting, the economy feels overly simplified to the point of pointlessness, and the two factions just don't seem very interesting either.
Maps are small and boring, and the Co Op feels similar enough to SC2's co Op (except it's 3 player which is nice) that again it makes me wonder why am I playing this instead of just booting up SC2?
It doesn't help that my PC doesn't run this anywhere near as well as it runs SC2 and I hate its UI currently. Reminds me way too much of League of Legends in a bad way.
Might be that it's just too early to tell, and the game will improve a ton as it receives additional development time, but for what it is right now, I just don't have any enjoyment when playing it. Every game I play of it makes me think I'd be better off booting up SC2 and playing that instead.
For me it's a similar feeling but for completely different reasons: Somehow I can't be bother to learn the new controls, units, abilities and strategies. Maybe I'm just getting old and lazy. The game needs to give me a reason to do all that and rather start a game of SG than booting up SC2.
I think about it in this way: For me to spend time learning a new thing, there has to be a payoff. Something that motivates you to to learn and improve.
I watched some streams in the last beta, and even though I had a beta key, I simply couldn't be bothered to actually play the game. There was just nothing in it that made it interesting for me. Micro appears incredibly boring. In many fights I watched, there would be a big fight but almost no micro. Players would simply just stare at the battle and have no clue how to use their APM.
Why should I spend time learning this type of game when it appears there is no payoff that interests me?
I'm right there with you on this. This game just doesn't have a hook that makes me WANT to learn it. The units and maps don't look cool, the battles don't look cool, the gameplay is VERY familiar since it feels almost identical to Starcraft 2 except with very minor differences.
The economy is dumbed down and boring, the maps are boring, the idea of there being neutral creeps is COMPLETELY underused especially when compared to Warcraft 3.
The factions don't seem cool or interesting especially when there's zero lore or anything in the game that makes me want to care about which faction I want to play. They might as well just be different colored versions of the same race for all I care.
Sure it plays like an RTS, but so what? There's nothing here that makes me want to play this RTS instead of another round of SC2, or even booting up an older RTS like AoE2 which offers a different experience that doesn't feel exactly like Starcraft.
There's no selling point here for me except for who is making the game. If this wasn't FrostGiant I would have zero reason to give this game even a second glance in the steam store. It just doesn't offer anything that makes me want to play it in its current state, and it feels like it has a LONG LOOONG way to go before it does.
I would argue it looks like you take Starcraft 2 slowed down by 30-50% + a few more melee units relative to ranged units than most sc2 fights have.
Sure, it may have some small QoL improvements but that doesn't matter too much in the grand scheme.
In sc2 I believe the pace of the game functions as a bit of a bandaid for there not being enough micro to do in some engagements. (at least this was true pre LOTV). So by forcing players to do more stuff faster, it created a relatively high skill expression cap.
But when you give players excessive amount of time to do very basic thing/not reward players to do interesting, it becomes very dull. Getting the micro feeling right is the most imortant part about an RTS. Slowing down the game is fine, however, then you need to ensure there are enough new and fun micro interactions relative to Sc2.
Exactly. Just moving a unit around should feel interesting. No more of this smooth gliding stuff. Why do Magnadons look like they're sliding over the ground? Make them feel heavy and stomp around. Why do Fiends glide over the ground? Make them feel like they're crawling around with their arms, lurching forward unevenly. I get the feeling the designers don't understand that you can add so much character to units just by how different they feel to control. It feels so weird to see bloated Brutes glide gracefully over the ground like a group of panthers.
edit: This is not just an animation problem. I want to see Fiends throw their arms out to lurch forward and have to slow down in between to alternate arms. These kinds of things require fundamental changes to the movement code.
edit2: And I do think this is a fundamental misunderstanding by the designers. Evidence is BW Zerglings actually hop around, they don't go from point A to point B in a smooth line. They felt like a pack of predators. But in SC2 they move at constant speed, sliding and gliding around. They feel like an amoeba. These are the same designers responsible for that change.
Variable turn rates alone goes a hell of a way, ofc animations too although the latter feel an area that’s noted as being very incomplete so there will be a lot of improvement there, hopefully, but I’ll be less critical of at this juncture.
I’ve yet to actually play, some limited stream viewing but it’s not quite the same, running out of time!
But even just watching a game or two from afar, I got this strange vibe that something was a bit off, and you and Hider articulate it well.
Art design is one piece of the puzzle, units moving in different ways at a fundamental level also adds a lot more character to a unit, as well as subtly different forms of micro.
To take one unit, an archer in WC3. Slow, pretty squishy, packs a punch.
One thing they can’t do is instantly turn on a dime. You can’t ’stutter step’ at a moment’s notice, it’s more of a slightly pre-emptive measure before some beefy grunts or other melee units are in range. Or alternatively you actively block paths with other units.
So with your archers you almost perform a staggered fighting retreat with small groups, pull a few back enough for them to get a shot off, pull the next group back, etc.
This isn’t necessarily ‘better’ than bio’s ’kite and fire basically infinitely if you’re good enough’ kind of micro, but it is certainly different. And back to your earlier point, critically it makes the Nelf archer feel like an actual archer.
Some units should be difficult to micro, or merely different for a very micro-based game to be interesting. Your big punchy siege engine should take a while to rotate to target, WC3 ones did that and it adds a bit of believability. Heavy, big units get that bit of weight. It adds small, small windows where an opponent can do something, even if it’s just disengaging.
This doesn’t mean wrestling with a wonky UI, or bad pathing or any of that fun stuff ofc!
This guy gets it. Basically what I feel like this game will turn out to be something that could be a mod like starbow.
Also, the art style is very weird and "mobile games like", still this game runs worse than I expected it. It is way too early to doom the whole project but there is lots of work to be done. This is not an attack on the games or on anyone enjoying it, there are plenty of nice things happening but so far, it feels a bit bland.
Game does not play like a SC2 mod. It's also beautiful. It's just that some assets are unfinished or not yet textured. Have you seen the Vulcan? The Atlas? The swarmy Gaunts and Fiends with those giant, cool freaking Weavers stomping around? There's a lot of personality to this game and a lot more to come.
It really takes getting your hands dirty with the game and watching some really good players to fully grasp the goodness.
Give it a shot. Tune into the EGC tournament coming up! Competitive play is already really delivering for Stormgate imo.
EDIT: For the people with a lot of negative criticism, I'm curious how many games you've played and time you've spent with the game in general.
I agree that Stormgate has a personality, something in it is "beautiful" and i do also agree that high level games played in the current version show potential. But... it lacks, at least for me, something that hooks me in. I have tried it several times, but i do not feel the desire to really go up the route of really learn it. For example, starting SC2 in 2010 i really wanted to play more of it, getting better while Stormgate does not give me this feeling
I like many of the "macro" design decisions of this game. I like no armour and attack upgrades because it makes mid game strategy switches more viable. I like the veterancy mechanic because it motivates the player to keep their units alive. I like the simplified resource gathering model because macro feels like household chores and combat is the most fun. I like the longer battles and the slower time to kill because it allows me to do more cool micro. So much of the best elements of C&C have been brought to this game.
Art/Graphics/Presentation In the world of art it is also hard to identify who is a genius. Samwise Didier is looking more and more like a genius level artist the more I play Stormgate. Part of Didier's genius is that his art always fit within making the game play shine. It is hard to replace a genius.
Frost Giant included so many elements I love about RTS and were lacking or not present in SC2. However, Stormgate does not "grab" me the way other RTS games have since 1998; it does not feel like a big leap in improvement over previous RTS games.
I feel like this game in an "early access" stage is in a situation very similar to Fire Pro Wrestling World was in , in July 2017. Stormgate and Fire Pro Wrestling are niche, distinct, inspired game types sitting within a small niche genre. Both have unremarkable graphics. It has been 10+ years since this distinct niche game type has been iterated upon. Fire Pro Wrestling World had almost no marketing budget. Early Access delivers a fraction of a game. The declining Early Access #s of Fire Pro Wrestling almost exactly mirror Stormgate's declining #s. Fire Pro Wrestling World faced oblivision during early access until it was rescued by a New Japan Pro Wrestling licsensing deal.
And we all lived happily ever after. FPWW turned out to be great because they created a great Sandbox experience. The community created 120,000 wrestlers with 1.4 MILLION unique parts over a 3 year time period.
If Frost Giant creates a great RTS sandbox then Stormgate has a shot at lasting a long time. I think the Mandalorian said it best: "A great sandbox is the way".
Step 1 to a great sandbox. Allow me to put whatever unit skins I want on my units and the enemy units. Allow my opponent to do the same. Sell a bazillion different skins in the cash shop. If certain people view certain skins as "unreadable" those people can dress their enemy units in whatever skins they want.
EPT
