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Post by zero11 on Apr 1, 2016 20:03:00 GMT -5
Hi,
I just wanted to share my criticisms of the game (I hope it's alright). I thought to do it as a review on Steam, but I don't want to really leave it as a review yet because I'm not sure if I will finish the game yet or not, and I really really don't want to leave a negative review, because I am impressed by the devotion of the developers, but I'd have a hard time recommending the game right now.
The most notable negative things to me:
- The "swap templar" system, and lack of ability to use the party composition that you want
In my opinion this is the single biggest tragedy of this game. I've owned the game for a while now, so I know people were talking about this when the game first came out, and the swap Templar option was added in response to it, but in my opinion, that was like putting a band-aid on a severed limb. I'm not sure if it's for balance reasons, or something else that the devs decided to not just let you use any members of your party, but it makes the game lack diversity, replayability, and essentially punishes the player for focusing too much on the wrong requisitions. I don't want to use scouts most of the time, simply because they're not very interesting to me, but the game seems obsessed with them, often giving me two, so not leveling up scouts in the requisition tree is a bad move. The same with engineers, which I'll elaborate on in my next point. In my opinion (unless I'm missing the reason for doing this), party deployment should take the form of: any characters that are REQUIRED to beat the level (for instance, if the objective is capturing a tactical point, then you have an engineer that you can't remove -- but a lot of levels' tactical points are more "bonus / optional" rather than mandatory, so in those levels it should just tell you "This level contains TPs" and let you decide), but the rest is up to your discretion (the game could maybe even have a "recommended party" if they want to help the player decide). I rushed towards Paladins in the requisition tree, and I wasn't able to use one until the NPC paladin joins your party. What is the point of allowing a player to unlock a class that quickly and not be able to use it? I gave up the ability to level up other things for classes I already had, shouldn't I be rewarded with being able to deploy a paladin? I have a feeling this is due to balance issues, however, because I think a party of soldiers + paladins would walk through the game easily.
- Tactical points are (at least on normal) next to useless, and the game is misleading about it
The game builds Tactical points up as these important strategic resources that are critical to success, but I consider this to be very misleading. Every time I stopped to defend a tactical point, or left characters to defend one, it seemed like a huge hindrance. Tactical points are essentially "recruit one character if you're under max party cap and move on" points, because that was the majority of the use I got out of them. The game seems to be pretty specifically geared towards more run-and-gun sorts of tactics, even having goal turns for completion with bonus experience. I know you can slow down and get secondary objectives, but this seems to be (again, in my opinion) the more difficult way to play the game. The game gives you mandatory engineers in a lot of levels, and this, to me, often feels like a wasted character space. The character I recruit with the tactical point could've just as easily started in my party in lieu of the engineer I used to capture it. It's not that engineers are useless (no character really is, as long as they can shoot), but their main skill seems to be turrets, which at best in a run-and-gun style game, I drop as distractions -- I'd much rather have my choice of another class 99% of the time. Tactical points feel like the game trying to diversify from just a run-and-gun game, but they seem contrary most of the time to how the game is effectively played.
- There's very little in the way of a sense of progression or diversity in the game
Very little of what you level up, or equip, feels like it has a big impact in the game. Stats, levels, equipment, skills. I honestly feel like I've been doing the same strategy over and over for a majority of the game, regardless of what kind of enemies I come across. I think this ties into the way the game forces parties onto you, and a real lack of needing diverse tactics against different enemies. I could try different tactics with different party compositions, but there's no point in specializing one soldier in grenades and one in overwatch if overwatch is the more universally useful skill, and I don't know if I'm going to get only one soldier or both, so I'll just level both of them up in gunnery + strength + overwatch. A majority of the equipment is just a linear stat upgrade. If you watched me play the second level of the game, versus the 25th level of the game, it'll probably look very similar -- and I think that's a shame. Different enemies, skills, equipment, and classes (which should theoretically all be part of the game's progression), should lead to different tactics and ability use. Maybe this changes on higher difficulty levels, but on normal, this is definitely how I feel -- and unfortunately, it ultimately leads to a sense of boredom with the game and a waning interest in wanting to see it through to the end. I don't know what the sales numbers are on steam versus off steam, but only 1.4% of the players have the achievement of beating the game on normal (less for other difficulties) -- so I can't be alone in feeling this.
- Turn timers seem longer than necessary
This is a more minor criticism, but often times the turn timer seems to take quite long when (it seems) there are almost no enemies.
- The music gets really repetitive
Another minor criticism, and I know it's a small budget title. The music that is in the game is great, but it seems really short and looped too much. I had to turn it off, after some hours, when it was clear it wasn't going to change.
This ended up sounding a lot more negative than I intended -- I apologize for that. I'm only criticizing because I am a big fan of the genre, I want to see the game do well and encourage more games of this style, and it seems the devs are devoted to improving it. Please don't take my criticisms as anything personal. I wouldn't have spent the time or effort to formulate my thoughts and type them up on a forum if I thought the devs wouldn't even bother to read it -- so I hope the feedback is in at least one sense useful. Anyhow, those are my two cents.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 1, 2016 20:51:46 GMT -5
zero11I'm sure others will jump on here soon, but after reading your post I was wondering if you could share some of the things you love about this genre? Also, how far along in the game are you? Thanks for taking chunk of time and putting your thoughts to screen here for the community.
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Post by Cory Trese on Apr 1, 2016 21:03:12 GMT -5
Thanks a lot for the feedback. We're always working on trying to improve and both of the people who work on this game (my brother and I) will review your post. It is pretty long so it will take us some time, but we do take user feedback version seriously.
Thanks for giving us a chance to improve.
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Post by fallen on Apr 1, 2016 21:21:55 GMT -5
zero11 - thanks for the post! Really interesting feedback. We appreciate you posting it here and instead of posting a negative review. We hope you'll continue to look deeper at the game, and I hope you come to enjoy it over time. 1. Swap - interesting feedback! Swap is setup from a balancing perspective to help create the feeling and composition of a battleforce. I personally don't find it limiting, but everyone has a different take on how they want to play the game. An army is generally built up of core units and a smaller, more focused set of specialists, and we've designed the Swap system to facilitate that. If you take a look at the extremely fun community challenge that is currently being put on by contributor, you can see that people are getting 27+ Neptunes or Hydra's onto the field over a 10 level period. There is a lot of flexibility to bring out a wide variety of Templars. I understand if you are not using TPs that you won't get this flexibility, but that is a strategic choice you're making. startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/13411/hydra-neptune-community-challenge?page=12. TPs - this one is confusing. How far are you into the game? TPs are a critical part of so many levels. I've just played a solid amount of time on Team Neptune, and in a large number of the levels I've gone through, holding, defending, and capturing additional TPs is critical part of the level. I agree, there are levels where a TP is more an optional decision. Or, take it and move on. Use it quickly, and abandon it. Or it is far enough back in the field that it can be mostly ignored. As one of the level designers, we've worked that variety into the game on purpose. If every TP was "take and hold" That would really limit the types of tactical challenges we could deploy to the field. 3. Sense of Progression - my suggestion would be to branch out and try them. If you aren't seeing the value without trying them, that doesn't mean the value isn't there. Cory and I were testing the final levels of the new Stratos campaign today and must have spent 30 minutes just talking about our latest combos of builds. Using Shredding Fire with non-plasma rifles -- unexpected but awesome. A trio of Scouts hammering with Piercing Fire, followed by Crippling Shot finished with Head Shot (the Sisters of Death). Which Buffs and Crippling Orders to put on your Captain when he is paired with Berserks. The might of the two Berserker shield wall with a Arc Fire Captain behind them. I hope you find the variety in the game if you keep playing! All of the different squad members have great strengths, but maybe the tactic is more about how they combine together well than many other games that focus on individual shining without need of a team strategy. We appreciate the feedback and do sincerely hope you'll give the game another look. Sometimes it takes two!
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Post by contributor on Apr 2, 2016 2:11:45 GMT -5
Yeah thanks to the OP for the post. These devs definitely are committed listening to their players and improving. I really get what you're saying about the swap feature. I think an original screen where you get to handpick your squad before deploy would be a really great feature, though I don't know if it's possible now. Most of the time the swap feature works, but there are times where we are forced to use certain troops and it is annoying.
One thing I would encourage you to do up your difficulty level. It's true that, with halfway decent tactics, any build is probably going to be pretty effective on normal. In my opinion, this game is really best on brutal-ironman, where you have to have tighter builds and synergy.
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Post by fallen on Apr 2, 2016 11:26:48 GMT -5
Yeah thanks to the OP for the post. These devs definitely are committed listening to their players and improving. I really get what you're saying about the swap feature. I think an original screen where you get to handpick your squad before deploy would be a really great feature, though I don't know if it's possible now. Most of the time the swap feature works, but there are times where we are forced to use certain troops and it is annoying. We specifically put that ability to pick and choose into the game map, so that you can pick exactly where you Templars go. If you pre-picked, then we'd have to place your Templars without your input. |
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Post by zero11 on Apr 2, 2016 12:46:30 GMT -5
Hi @rearick , Cory Trese , fallen , contributor , thanks for the replies. I'm sure others will jump on here soon, but after reading your post I was wondering if you could share some of the things you love about this genre? I like that turn based tactical RPGs require you to think your way out of a situation -- you can't just use twitch muscle memory player skill to achieve great feats (although I enjoy those types of games as well). What might be certain death if you just rush forward blindly without thinking, and can seem impossible, becomes possible when you slow down and utilize all of your resources, and pay attention to details. So, overcoming the challenge by using tactics, I would say. I (and this is personal preference) like too when there's a variety of ways to go about overcoming the challenge. If a friend and I both play the game, I might see one path, they might see another, and we are both able to succeed at some level, if our tactics/strategies are well thought out. As for the RPG aspect in particular, I enjoy a sense of progression and evolving of both my team and the challenges that I face, and the ability to choose my character progression and how I want to play (the "role playing" part of RPG). Those are the first things that came to mind. Also, how far along in the game are you? My current mission is "Drop Shaft." Thanks a lot for the feedback. We're always working on trying to improve and both of the people who work on this game (my brother and I) will review your post. It is pretty long so it will take us some time, but we do take user feedback version seriously. Thanks for giving us a chance to improve. Thank you again for creating games of this genre and continuing to support and improve them. Regardless of what I've said here, I'll continue to watch your future projects with interest. zero11 - thanks for the post! Really interesting feedback. We appreciate you posting it here and instead of posting a negative review. We hope you'll continue to look deeper at the game, and I hope you come to enjoy it over time. If I were to review it right now I would more rather rate it "neutral" than "negative" -- if such a rating was possible. I don't hate the game, but out of all my criticisms, the most poignant is that I have gotten bored with it, and am unsure if I want to finish it. 1. Swap - interesting feedback! Swap is setup from a balancing perspective to help create the feeling and composition of a battleforce. I personally don't find it limiting, but everyone has a different take on how they want to play the game. An army is generally built up of core units and a smaller, more focused set of specialists, and we've designed the Swap system to facilitate that. If you take a look at the extremely fun community challenge that is currently being put on by contributor , you can see that people are getting 27+ Neptunes or Hydra's onto the field over a 10 level period. There is a lot of flexibility to bring out a wide variety of Templars. I understand if you are not using TPs that you won't get this flexibility, but that is a strategic choice you're making. startradersrpg.proboards.com/thread/13411/hydra-neptune-community-challenge?page=1For the swap system being meant to create the feeling and composition of a battleforce -- this is never explained in the game. The expectation, before first deploying, and looking at the requisition tree for the first time, is that you'll be able to unlock classes of your choice to use, and you'll get to choose which paths to take and which classes to focus on and level up. The game never says "Most of the time you'll have scouts, an engineer, and soldiers, so prioritize leveling them up." The captain is the only one with any sort of indication, his class telling you it's "Deployed on every mission." As far as the community challenge, with how slowly tactical points gain points, I could only imagine how long it would take to do that recruiting, and how ineffective it would be: It was grueling, and I didn't even rush through it-- we finished in 44 turns, used up every single charge/buff/grenade doing so. It's a wonder we even made it. yes, this second Kaldun is brutal. Lost another Neptune and another Scout. I have it on the ropes now, but I am not done. Turn limit massively exceeded ... so brutal. I did make it through. The second level of Kaldun took me a blistering 62 Turns (once I was over the limit, I played very careful to keep my casualty count at 2 ... but still!). Owwwwww. Being able to shutdown spawners would help a lot. I can't believe you don't miss OW immensely. My point is not that it's impossible to use any given specific character, but that the game makes it very difficult to do so, with you explicitly having to go out of your way and do some ridiculous things to get a party close to what you want. This challenge would be a lot easier to implement if they could simply choose who to deploy. You might even be able to run a near-full-game challenge with a party of ALL hydras or Neptunes (if you rushed to unlock them) in that case. 2. TPs - this one is confusing. How far are you into the game? TPs are a critical part of so many levels. I've just played a solid amount of time on Team Neptune, and in a large number of the levels I've gone through, holding, defending, and capturing additional TPs is critical part of the level. I agree, there are levels where a TP is more an optional decision. Or, take it and move on. Use it quickly, and abandon it. Or it is far enough back in the field that it can be mostly ignored. As one of the level designers, we've worked that variety into the game on purpose. If every TP was "take and hold" That would really limit the types of tactical challenges we could deploy to the field. Absolutely I agree with you that not every TP should be a "take and hold" sort, and even some levels it tells you "we should capture this and use it but keep on the move." My current mission is "Drop Shaft." Maybe it's a difficulty level issue - but the most I seem to get out of TPs is recruiting one character, and essentially nothing else. 3. Sense of Progression - my suggestion would be to branch out and try them. If you aren't seeing the value without trying them, that doesn't mean the value isn't there. Cory and I were testing the final levels of the new Stratos campaign today and must have spent 30 minutes just talking about our latest combos of builds. Using Shredding Fire with non-plasma rifles -- unexpected but awesome. A trio of Scouts hammering with Piercing Fire, followed by Crippling Shot finished with Head Shot (the Sisters of Death). Which Buffs and Crippling Orders to put on your Captain when he is paired with Berserks. The might of the two Berserker shield wall with a Arc Fire Captain behind them. I hope you find the variety in the game if you keep playing! All of the different squad members have great strengths, but maybe the tactic is more about how they combine together well than many other games that focus on individual shining without need of a team strategy. Again, this is something where I feel like you'd have to go out of your way to implement. The game usually gives me at least one soldier - hence, overwatch is almost always going to be a part of my strategy. The game has never given me two Berserkers (not even one at this point, though I have deployed one myself), so to design a strategy around two Berserkers would require me to fight against the game mechanics in order to implement it. I believe you that there are multiple strategies that would probably succeed in the game. One of the problems though, is that I don't feel like I ever NEED a Berserker. There's no specific enemy or scenario where it seems like a Berserker would make it easier to handle. When it comes to picking who to recruit into the mission, if there's a desperate situation and I have an absolute NEED it's usually 1) overwatch, or 2) a healer / front line character to block choke points. Those are the only real situations that seem to pop up. If I don't feel I need either of those two things, it often feels almost negligible who I bring in. Yeah thanks to the OP for the post. These devs definitely are committed listening to their players and improving. I really get what you're saying about the swap feature. I think an original screen where you get to handpick your squad before deploy would be a really great feature, though I don't know if it's possible now. Most of the time the swap feature works, but there are times where we are forced to use certain troops and it is annoying. One thing I would encourage you to do up your difficulty level. It's true that, with halfway decent tactics, any build is probably going to be pretty effective on normal. In my opinion, this game is really best on brutal-ironman, where you have to have tighter builds and synergy. This is something I might try, but it would be a design problem in my eyes if I had to go 3 to 5 difficulty levels above normal (which, to me it's insane that there are so many difficulty levels to begin with) in order to feel a need to create thought-out synergy in my team and pay attention to how I'm leveling my characters. |
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Post by fallen on Apr 2, 2016 13:28:48 GMT -5
As far as the community challenge, with how slowly tactical points gain points, I could only imagine how long it would take to do that recruiting, and how ineffective it would be: It was grueling, and I didn't even rush through it-- we finished in 44 turns, used up every single charge/buff/grenade doing so. It's a wonder we even made it. yes, this second Kaldun is brutal. Lost another Neptune and another Scout. I have it on the ropes now, but I am not done. Turn limit massively exceeded ... so brutal. I did make it through. The second level of Kaldun took me a blistering 62 Turns (once I was over the limit, I played very careful to keep my casualty count at 2 ... but still!). Owwwwww. Being able to shutdown spawners would help a lot. I can't believe you don't miss OW immensely. My point is not that it's impossible to use any given specific character, but that the game makes it very difficult to do so, with you explicitly having to go out of your way and do some ridiculous things to get a party close to what you want. This challenge would be a lot easier to implement if they could simply choose who to deploy. You might even be able to run a near-full-game challenge with a party of ALL hydras or Neptunes (if you rushed to unlock them) in that case. It's notable that all of these quotes are referring to a specific level (Kaldun Scittering Hive 2) that is not in the challenge. From having played through it, this is all commentary on how nasty that optional level is, I am not sure it is really related to the original point. In fact, if you look at the last couple of discussion points about it, its all about how badly one build style (Neptunes) was missing the specialty abilities of another build style (disabling spawners, Hydras). |
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Post by xdesperado on Apr 2, 2016 13:32:40 GMT -5
zero11First welcome to the forums. Secondly all the difficulty levels are there to accommodate various types of players and player moods. Normal is fairly easy and is good for the casual player or those just learning the game to start getting a feel for the game. Nightmare is for the hardcore players looking for major challenge of their strategy and tactics. In between those many of us find a comfort zone where we need to employ some good strategy and tactics without facing the often grueling challenge of Nightmare. I think if you step up a level or two you'll start seeing how simple things you barely noticed in normal have a much bigger impact on the game. The Hydra vs Neptune challenge thread isn't really indicative of normal gameplay especially on Nightmare level. Forum regulars have long had a fun ongoing debate about which class was better. (Debate goes back to Templar Assault game, the predecessor for Battleforce.) For the challenge the players are pushing the limits trying to get as many of their favorite Templars into action and as such are not really focusing on the best strategy or creating well balanced Squads. While it might be fun to field a team of all one type of specialists or whatever the game stays a bit more true to how a real life unit would be made up with majority being your basic soldiers(infantry riflemen) and some scouts/pointmen. Other types of Templars equate to Heavy weapons teams or other specialists who would rarely if ever be seen on a battlefield without those infantry and scouts. Most levels do offer you a chance to swap out one or more of the default Templars for ones of your choosing and thus build up and utilize mainly the Templars you favor. Anyways hope you'll give BF another try, it can be a lot of fun and the campaign is very well put together.
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Post by fallen on Apr 2, 2016 13:35:21 GMT -5
Again, this is something where I feel like you'd have to go out of your way to implement. The game usually gives me at least one soldier - hence, overwatch is almost always going to be a part of my strategy. The game has never given me two Berserkers (not even one at this point, though I have deployed one myself), so to design a strategy around two Berserkers would require me to fight against the game mechanics in order to implement it. I believe you that there are multiple strategies that would probably succeed in the game. One of the problems though, is that I don't feel like I ever NEED a Berserker. There's no specific enemy or scenario where it seems like a Berserker would make it easier to handle. When it comes to picking who to recruit into the mission, if there's a desperate situation and I have an absolute NEED it's usually 1) overwatch, or 2) a healer / front line character to block choke points. Those are the only real situations that seem to pop up. If I don't feel I need either of those two things, it often feels almost negligible who I bring in. I'm sorry that you find the game's progression empty and without choices. It seems like there isn't more than I can add to the discussion at this point. All I can say is really a repeat, so -- Soldiers and Scouts are very capable, and I have played and enjoyed squads that only include them. To force you to NEED a Berserk would remove flexibility from the game. It would devaule other classes, and devalue your choices in the Requision Tree. Suddenly, you'd have made a big mistake in not having spent your RP on Berserk and instead wanted to play a fast and agile squad full of Scouts. It sounds like we made design choices that are different than those you were looking to see, but we wanted to provide a full range of flexibility in the game, including the fact that all squad members can be valuable and fun, and that there is no forced strategy (no NEED in all caps). If you haven't had a Berserk stand toe-to-toe with a Goliath who walks out of the fog, and watch that Berserk block both attacks and then kill the Goliath in two swift counters, then you my have missed the difference. My current run through the game on Nightmare mode includes 2 Berserks. I get them out in almost every level, and I use almost no Overwatch or Soldiers, only Scouts. I haven't touched Hydras / Neptunes / Paladins / Soldiers. As always, thanks for the feedback! We'll continue to try to improve! |
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