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Northern Ireland23371 Posts
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.
Bravo!
Some of the Celestial music especially is fucking sick. There’s some really good work there
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i feel like with player count where its at now they are going to need to drastic things to get people back. They are going to have make huge sweeping changes.
I think maybe even go dark for awhile and almost make a new unveiling to somehow build the hype back up.
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On August 29 2024 05:35 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +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.
Bravo! Some of the Celestial music especially is fucking sick. There’s some really good work there
Isn't there just 1 track for each race? The Celestial one is probably the best I'd agree.
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you know what i wanna see most of all? a survey.
frost giant send out a survey to everyone who has tried the game to gather feedback in an organized systematic way. i feel like it would be really helpful. blizzard does this sort of thing all the time.
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Poll: Do you enjoy Stormgate in its current state?You must be logged in to vote in this poll. ☐ Yes ☐ No
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On August 29 2024 12:47 iamperfection wrote: i feel like with player count where its at now they are going to need to drastic things to get people back. They are going to have make huge sweeping changes.
I think maybe even go dark for awhile and almost make a new unveiling to somehow build the hype back up. none of their paid content is worth the money, I doubt many players coming back would do much, and their peak is not even that high They probably need to switch the entire marketing strategy to be around a new 3v3 battle arena battlerite-ish mode. at least that would capture more new players outside RTS crowd.
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On August 29 2024 17:14 kAra wrote:Poll: Do you enjoy Stormgate in its current state?You must be logged in to vote in this poll. ☐ Yes ☐ No
I voted yes to this only because I play random (which I would highly recommend everyone do)
If I was maining vanguard playing dogs every game, I wouldn't enjoy it. The same goes for every other annoying part of the game for every other race.
My win rates are hilariously lopsided. As Infernal, I never beat Vanguard. As Vanguard, I never beat Celestial, as Celestial, I never beat Infernal.
But since I rotate through them, it feels much better than just always losing to the same race/players.
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I think "yes/no" do you enjoy Stormgate is somewhat useful as a general base line, but while for me, "yes" I enjoy Stormgate, I still want them to improve basically every aspect of the game.
They need more specific feedback on where to improve and when, which they seem to have addressed last week... with focusing on 3v3 and art/sound. The past few days have been big on "creeping sucks" and the 1v1 balance leading to some less interesting games also.
I hit level 12 on Blockade - the gear past level 10 is interesting, but I want more gear slots! And i guess it was put together pretty hastily - I equipped the "all biological units cost 30% less" and noticed all my units still cost the same. I asked the Discord and apparently if an Exo costs 50, it will still cost 50, but upon purchase will immediately refund 30% (15 luminute) back to you. As I said, probably programmed quickly last minute.
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I think 9 Bit Armies is a decent "spiritual successor" to C&C. Stormgate has failed as a spiritual successor to Blizzard RTS.
The PvE 9Bit Armies experience is far better than the PvE Stormgate experience. The 9 Bit Armies AI is more interesting than the SC2 and Stormgate AI.
9Bit Armies is $15. It was an easy decision for me.
A machine learning, improving AI should be an easy win for modern RTS games. Hell SCBots is 3 volunteers working in their spare time. The SCBots infrastructure is pretty cool. These orgs should be able to pull off something similar or better. FG and Petroglyph should be able to create an ecosystem that grows really cool AI opponents.
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On August 28 2024 15:52 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2024 14:59 Hider wrote: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 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. [/i]
I am slightly cautious around making active abilities too APM-intensive. What I generally desire is rewarding movement of units. In Sc2, I think spamable abilities like Snipe or even Ravager-corrosive-bile are not ideal game-design. (Genereally though I think Sc2 has moved in the correct design of abilities since WOL release though.)
I like abilities when they are very simple and easy to use, feels rewarding to use well and rewards the opponent for good movement based micro, e.g. Psi Storm.
For your suggested long siege unit to work with an active ability, it imo must be very expensive and the active ability should have a reasonable cooldown. Otherwise if it becomes too spamable you spend more time clicking on abilities than moving units around.
But yes, I generally do like this type of skillshot-thing, and perhaps it could work if tweaked correctly.
Besides skillshots, I have a bunch of crazy ideas myself. Not sure they work, but the way they play out in my head it feels awesome.
So here is one:
Imagine you are controlling an army of:
* Defensive Melee unit with some type of shield protecting them (imagine Footmen from Wc3 but futuristic lasershield instead). * Fragile ranged units behind them w/ high dps
On the other side, the opponent has a bunch of fast zergling-alike units. They want to attack the fragile ranged units but struggle to get past the Footmen-alike melee units.
But you give these zergline-alike units a forward-jump-ability that makes it possible for them to jump over the footmen if they time it just correctly and fall down right into the ranged fragile units that they can start attacking.
As a counterplay the footmen-like units another counter-play action: They can do a vertical jump with their swords facing straight upwards. If they time it just correctly as a (predicted) response to the zergling-.like units jumping forwards they will one-shot kill them.
I have a bunch of these new types of micro-interactions or other types of interactions planned out in my head. And very well not all might work - but it's still so dissapointing to see all the RTS games playing out so uncreatively. We need to implement new type of micro interactions - it can't just be kiting and pulling away injured units.
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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.
Yes, and it's also why I am not too optimistic around Battle Aces becoming more than a niche side game. What is there to improvise? Trying a new composition? Besides that I fear that the game very quickly will get into a stable rhytm.
Ideally we have a game where you can try out experimental builds, be creative with how you place structures, how you use units, how you move them around the map - and without fearing that you instantly are gonna lose to some unforeseen timing attack/all-in that you hadn't prepped for.
In the game I envision, I would remove most structures -like Battle Aces - but I add a lot of new types of static defenses, that players can play around with. Figuring out how to optimize walls to secure positions, I think it can be kinda fun. And then ofc we give the opponent tools to break those defenses.
As long as these static defenses are played throughout the map and spread over multiple points on the map - it means it's always possible for the opponent to attack one position and trade cost ineffectively but still have it be overall efficient due to gaining territory . And that's ultimately what imagine - a battle of territory that keeps going back and fourth across the map.
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Northern Ireland23371 Posts
On August 30 2024 05:25 Hider wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2024 15:52 WombaT wrote:On August 28 2024 14:59 Hider wrote: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 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. I am slightly cautious around making active abilities too APM-intensive. What I generally desire is rewarding movement of units. In Sc2, I think spamable abilities like Snipe or even Ravager-corrosive-bile are not ideal game-design. (Genereally though I think Sc2 has moved in the correct design of abilities since WOL release though.) I like abilities when they are very simple and easy to use, feels rewarding to use well and rewards the opponent for good movement based micro, e.g. Psi Storm. For your suggested long siege unit to work with an active ability, it imo must be very expensive and the active ability should have a reasonable cooldown. Otherwise if it becomes too spamable you spend more time clicking on abilities than moving units around. But yes, I generally do like this type of skillshot-thing, and perhaps it could work if tweaked correctly. Besides skillshots, I have a bunch of crazy ideas myself. Not sure they work, but the way they play out in my head it feels awesome. So here is one: Imagine you are controlling an army of: * Defensive Melee unit with some type of shield protecting them (imagine Footmen from Wc3 but futuristic lasershield instead). * Fragile ranged units behind them w/ high dps On the other side, the opponent has a bunch of fast zergling-alike units. They want to attack the fragile ranged units but struggle to get past the Footmen-alike melee units. But you give these zergline-alike units a forward-jump-ability that makes it possible for them to jump over the footmen if they time it just correctly and fall down right into the ranged fragile units that they can start attacking. As a counterplay the footmen-like units another counter-play action: They can do a vertical jump with their swords facing straight upwards. If they time it just correctly as a (predicted) response to the zergling-.like units jumping forwards they will one-shot kill them. I have a bunch of these new types of micro-interactions or other types of interactions planned out in my head. And very well not all might work - but it's still so dissapointing to see all the RTS games playing out so uncreatively. We need to implement new type of micro interactions - it can't just be kiting and pulling away injured units. [/i] Super agreed on the bolded! I posted basically the same thread on the Stormgate Reddit and folks had a bunch of ideas that sound cool.
Hope springs eternal with RTS. It’s not like we’ve effectively explored all there is to potentially try. There’s loads of interesting ideas even from random players, so it’s perhaps just a matter of being a little more bold at the developer end.
I think the only crazy part of your idea m is vertical jump/1 kill mechanic, I like the core interaction! Either it’s impractical to reliably time, and very volatile, or if it’s too reliable it becomes suicidal to even attempt the jump (Anakin I have the high ground!)
Perhaps the footmen could have a stance where they extend their lasers above them, at the expensive of either movement speed or total immobility, or an ability to attack while active. Either to damage or outright block an attempt to leap over the forward lines. Do you cut your meat shield’s offensive potential to protect the back lines? Maybe the attacker observes you’re set up almost entirely to defend against leaps and just runs around the flanks.
I think this dovetails well with terrain as well, I like your idea a lot. How to setup and control your army could really change depending on if you’re in an open field or a choke-friendly zone.
Here’s a cool one I’ve lifted from Bungie’s Myth series. Dwarves are slow, throw some pretty punchy Molotov cocktails. They can also lay down things called satchel charges which are inert mines essentially. But you can manually throw a cocktail at them to detonate them for some gigantic and very viscerally satisfying.
I’m not even sure if the community have modded the game to be playable in the modern day, I did a bit of searching and I think it’s abandonware that is playable. If so I think it’s definitely one of the hidden gems from back in the day, but more an a RTT than an RTS. Really drips with a lot of aesthetic and audio character, and decent lore presentation too. Granted it was from a period where you could literally just lift most of it wholesale from a fantasy series and nobody really cared, but it’s good!
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Northern Ireland23371 Posts
On August 30 2024 02:52 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I think 9 Bit Armies is a decent "spiritual successor" to C&C. Stormgate has failed as a spiritual successor to Blizzard RTS.
The PvE 9Bit Armies experience is far better than the PvE Stormgate experience. The 9 Bit Armies AI is more interesting than the SC2 and Stormgate AI.
9Bit Armies is $15. It was an easy decision for me.
A machine learning, improving AI should be an easy win for modern RTS games. Hell SCBots is 3 volunteers working in their spare time. The SCBots infrastructure is pretty cool. These orgs should be able to pull off something similar or better. FG and Petroglyph should be able to create an ecosystem that grows really cool AI opponents. I’m just holding out for DORF myself, shit looks fun man and really drips CnC vibes
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Northern Ireland23371 Posts
On August 29 2024 23:17 SoleSteeler wrote: I think "yes/no" do you enjoy Stormgate is somewhat useful as a general base line, but while for me, "yes" I enjoy Stormgate, I still want them to improve basically every aspect of the game.
They need more specific feedback on where to improve and when, which they seem to have addressed last week... with focusing on 3v3 and art/sound. The past few days have been big on "creeping sucks" and the 1v1 balance leading to some less interesting games also.
I hit level 12 on Blockade - the gear past level 10 is interesting, but I want more gear slots! And i guess it was put together pretty hastily - I equipped the "all biological units cost 30% less" and noticed all my units still cost the same. I asked the Discord and apparently if an Exo costs 50, it will still cost 50, but upon purchase will immediately refund 30% (15 luminute) back to you. As I said, probably programmed quickly last minute. There’s other external factors in terms of perception too I suppose
As far as I’m concerned it’s an EA build, but it’s an alpha build. Within that framework, it’s pretty damn good actually.
Within the other aspects of the framework, that it’s got a decent budget, that perhaps is never fully fleshed out due to funding, well I get more pessimistic. Judging it as the ambitious next big RTS game also adds that layer of expectations.
To take examples from elsewhere, I’m a big fan of arena shooters, possibly even more than RTe. I have very little expectation from various projects, especially as they usually just reskin Quake with the same mechanics.
If somebody got a 40 million budget to do it, to make the saviour of arena FPS and made a point on having a lot of ex UT and Quake devs well I get a loss less forgiving in flaws.
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On August 30 2024 02:52 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I think 9 Bit Armies is a decent "spiritual successor" to C&C. Stormgate has failed as a spiritual successor to Blizzard RTS.
The PvE 9Bit Armies experience is far better than the PvE Stormgate experience. The 9 Bit Armies AI is more interesting than the SC2 and Stormgate AI.
9Bit Armies is $15. It was an easy decision for me.
A machine learning, improving AI should be an easy win for modern RTS games. Hell SCBots is 3 volunteers working in their spare time. The SCBots infrastructure is pretty cool. These orgs should be able to pull off something similar or better. FG and Petroglyph should be able to create an ecosystem that grows really cool AI opponents. Really? A few years ago, I played 8bit for dozens of hours. I thought the AI lacked challenges and PVE was boring, so I gave up on 9bit. Is AI a big improvement over 8bit? If so, I will try 9BIT.
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On August 30 2024 06:22 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 30 2024 02:52 JimmyJRaynor wrote: I think 9 Bit Armies is a decent "spiritual successor" to C&C. Stormgate has failed as a spiritual successor to Blizzard RTS.
The PvE 9Bit Armies experience is far better than the PvE Stormgate experience. The 9 Bit Armies AI is more interesting than the SC2 and Stormgate AI.
9Bit Armies is $15. It was an easy decision for me.
A machine learning, improving AI should be an easy win for modern RTS games. Hell SCBots is 3 volunteers working in their spare time. The SCBots infrastructure is pretty cool. These orgs should be able to pull off something similar or better. FG and Petroglyph should be able to create an ecosystem that grows really cool AI opponents. I’m just holding out for DORF myself, shit looks fun man and really drips CnC vibes bruh that game looks like it rips
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unfortunately, I agree. I thought 3v3 was supposed to be a competitive mode but it sounds like they want it to cater more towards newer players. they are making its focus uninteractive and on creep camps so players 'don't die early.' read for yourself -
"Combat centered around Creep camps, capture points, and expansions, with the destruction of the enemy team’s shared structure acting as the central victory condition. These elements encouraged teamwork and prevented early eliminations, ensuring that players could enjoy the game from start to finish. " - Frost Giant
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I don't think it's that bad? Sounds like a mix of MOBA and RTS, which might be just what a team game needs. A flat "kill the opponent's bases" is not interesting nor innovative.
That said, I am not playing the EA. I generally dislike playing unfinished games, and this is no exception.
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last RTS + MOBA experiment was Dawn of war 3 , check that failure out, it ain't no fun.
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