Hello,What's up ?
finally i played the game and i have to say its not what i expected(not in a good way) ,the only thing that this game achieved is the scale level and its not wasting the cpu or gpu power .
before i go on i have to make some point clear:-
1.most of the things that i dont mention are not mentioned because they are normal 2. when i use a game as a refrence its not because i want ashes to be a copy of that game its just that the that game did something right .
the first thing is the factions, which are not really factions they are basicly a mirror ,each unit got a mirror for it in the other side,while the factions are not the same even in ideology ,which makes the factions themeless ,look at SupCom:FA there is a theme for each faction and you can tell by the unit design how that faction think while in Ashes thats not the case even in high end units which should not be the same ,another example is Grey Goo ,each faction got its own style its own units and its own theme ,while in ashes this does not exist the only purpose factions serve in ashes is the sence of conflict,that there is 2 sides fighting thats all, while it should be more than that.
controls are just awful,the main feature of Ashes is the scale and the UI and controls should take that in consideration,since the maps are big the players need to go from a front to another front without suffering which now is not the case,again you the zoom in Supcom ,Pa helped alot in both games (yes i metioned PA but like hell i want to see a game like that again),but devs are just against the idea of taking any thing even nice and usefull features from FA, and i dont get why.if its something useful and can be a nice addon to the game why not add it !?
the tech levelsthe other day i saw a post from FrogBoy in which he said they do not want repetitive units ie same unit but better,i dont agree with that, ashes is a game bigger than the biggest RTS has been even made ,so its a stage RTS there are some levels to the conflict and the war keeps going on and on, and so the needs change, stronger units for example ,better range.there is a tech tree but that does not cover everything,the needs to build unit differs from front to front ,in one i need strong units,while in another i need only units to exist , in the RTS aspect i need a group of units to do a mission and for that i dont need something expensive i just need something to work,but the game force me to same units over and over agian.and sometimes the unit might be for the same abstract goal ,but they are not the same and here i mean Anti air,there is Flak and sams which are not the same and are for different purpose but both are anti-air, but for the not repetitive approach we only got one.
for the factories why all are from the same one ?!,i know it makes things easier but Air and land are not the same if you want reallity in here it does not make sence ,if you want to consider the game it does not make sence too. the player needs to make decision of what to build and why,but the factory now is just a bundle factory you get all for the cost of one factory.
and for the animations they are nice, but again i saw a post from FrogBoy in which he said it does not if a unit is a hover or not its just the animation, How come ?!,they are not the same,they work in a different ways for the hover it should be easier to navigate on terrain ,but harder to maintin its balance,and for none-hover units it should be harder to navigate and easier to balance since its standing on the land ,and with that many things change ie turn rate ,that point tatsu brought in same post, but most of who replied to him including FrogBoy accused him of trying to hijack the post and the game and creating SupCom 3 while his points were valid but no one bothered to answer them, i can understand that there might not be enough money ,but justifying that is something else.
overall,i think the game is going the right way scale wise, but in core features its not,factions are useless,themeless,they got no soul,the units design is so close its like they took same design and just made minor changes to suit the unit weapons.the game controls are not suitable for the game size, i mean comeon you are making a huge scale and you use Sc2 as a refrence!!!, i am not sure that you can even call SC2 RTS, when its depends on how fast you can click and can know the outcome of the fight before even trying or strategy to take place.i know its a beta but core things wont change like factions.
and please stop accusing anyone who use another game as a refrence of trying to hijack the game,i see that much for supcom players,and in case you forgot there is no new game in same style as SupCom so its something new and some people liked that ,and for that very reason i am sure they want something new,not another SupCom , after all, all RTS fans wants it(RTS) to evolve,instead of mixing many RTS type games together.
Sadly, in some points i have to agree.
Frogboy requested supcom veterans to give feedback on Ashes, when those players gave it, he ignored most or said: we want a diffrent game and Ashes is something else. Kinda saying thank you but we are making this game as we want to make it.
I know Frogboy as a person is a good CEO, but he is very conservative and ill minded as to feedback from people that really matter. Vets and pros did try to give some ideas that could work, Stardock responded we dont want sup com 3, and thats that.
Accusitions is only a sign this community idea is going rockbottom. It really is.
I mean I remember there was a huge discussion argument about Zoom feature and yet frogboy didnt budge. So Ashes now is what it is currently and Stardock have pissed a lot of sup com and Pa fanbase by not listening to them. Its a sad turnevent. I fear when the game is finished it wont get the love it deserves just for the principal.
Op is right. There wont be another game like supcom for a Long Long time. Ashes got scale but it lacks love and soul. You do need both.
Yes i also agreed with all August7 say.
I have stop try give Fa ideas to this game when i start see walls from dev , the only that still try its tat from ower faf community.
But like they say its their game ....Its just we could have help put this game epic since they ask FA players feedback , and for that you dont need much money.
Look what we done without money...Awsome chat client ,new units and new Faction ,diferent game styles to all, unike vault system, new visuals, great map editor, etc and since we start faf now we have more then 1k players most times and its a 2007 game.
In general I have to agree with you, except for this one sentence:
but that's a whole different discussion, so let's leave it aside!
I Think a third faction, radically different from the first two would bring a lot more visual diversity into the game. And tbh 3 factions should be minimum in RTS games.
Jupp, controls are a big construction site! e.g. like every 8-10 seconds I catch myself trying to zoom out more than max... -.-
The dev feedback in general is barely perceivable. I was game designer and community manager for a small startup once and I was discussing with users for like 3-4h per day.
Thanks for the feedback. I can't say I agree with your views.
The Substrate and the PHC look pretty visually different and work on fairly different mechanics. I always found the SupCom factions to be essentially the same with just some art differences but that's just me.
As for turning Ashes into SupCom:FA, that decision was made long ago. While I like SupCom, we are not interested in Ashes being a remake of it. In particular, the "same as this but better" unit concept and playing the game as a screen full of icons.
As for "love". I can assure you, we love Ashes of the Singularity. I'm glad you love SupCom: FA. I think you're better off sticking with FAF, which has done an amazing job keeping a strong community together.
i find it amusing that you only mentioned the points where SupCom was mentioned
i did not mean by mirror is that they have same art, what i meant and said factions are themeless,feels like same inside but not same outside shell ,you cant tell anything about the faction from its unit and what it goes for, even if they were the same being they would have 2 approaches ,take US and Russia as an example,and again you keep repeating this idea that players want to turn ashes into SupCom, but as i see it they want ashes to be good,and most if not all the features those players requested or brought up are good for Ashes, but with everything someone says you say the same thing,"we don't want a remake for SupCom",No one asked you to , strategic zoom is needed, and my guess is , because its a thing from SupCom, you are making the best to go around it.
and its not as simple as saying "same as this but better" better units comes with a cost, in some cases i don't need the firepower and the range in some i do , and the investment should differ ,why to force the strategy of players that much. cheap units are good in the first phase of the war then they are not because the tech goes on.
in that logic can you tell me what dreadnoughts offers while no other unit offers or a group of units.
as for SupCom's factions, i have to say, the best unit design was in that game,you can see the faction in its units, the design is not that much repetitive even though it got what you call "same but better".
the last sentence you said sums things up pretty much
"As for "love". I can assure you, we love Ashes of the Singularity. I'm glad you love SupCom: FA. I think you're better off sticking with FAF, which has done an amazing job keeping a strong community together."
its basicly saying don't like this go away,and you assume that (not liking the game) because people don't agree with your vision.
Tough crowd. I liked FA. While I loved the complexity, it was too complex and click-intensive for my buddies to get into, so we didn't play it much. I also like Ashes. I think my buddies would enjoy it more because it's easier to understand the game state, accomplish your goals, and establish objectives. Seeing as how the lifecycle of this game is supposed to be at least 3 to 5 years, my guess is most of you all will be able to come back to this game at some point and find more of what you're looking for.
Character, faction differentiation, controls, tech, I'm sure given adequate budget these things could have been really amped up. But that is not how Stardock operates. They maintain a relatively modest staff that move from project to project so they don't have to lay people off. The budgets for their games are 1/10th of the big titles. But they commit to supporting those titles for a long time. You might find this information boring, but it is vital in setting your expectations. By the time this game is truly awesome, meeting many of your expectations, it will have been released for years. In the meantime, just try to have fun with it.
Thats because they were and so are the factions in Ashes. Shields, energy, minor nuances within unit rosters, cruisers/air built from the same factory as frigates and different set of orbitals dont constitute "fairly different mechanics".
Its interesting you can see this in Supcom, but are incapable to see the same with your own game.
The best way we can put it its like this .
Usual RTS gamers that dont want too mush complexity play 1 rts game + /-6 months max then move to other game , because normaly multiplayer is dead and they feel the game start be too boring without any motivation ( nothing against that any one got right to play whatever he wants )
The fact is a RTS player from long time nows very well what he wants , and not many dev understand that, because they see and want make a game diferent missing what the players want, but its obvius money always talk here.
Few RTS games manage give the right adrenaline to this players because the complexity and cost to the company such SCFA PA and Starcraft.
Frogboy i dont agreed at all what you say about SupComFA how many times have you play it?
I suppose they invested quite a lot of money into Oxide engine and the overall tech under the hood of the Ashes. No that i dont appreciate they are trying to push technological boundaries and dont aim for another StarCraft clone with battles of "armies" of 20 units... i find it improbable that under these circumstances there was not enough budget to design unique enough factions with depth of character...
As far as i am concerned, Sins:Rebellion remains superior game to Ashes, even if its technologically limited cause of its dreaded 32bit nature, exactly on the basis of having way more character and depth.
Here´s hoping they have some major additions to the game, even if in form of later DLCs, to make it more varied and interesting. i admit that while i loved Sins from its vanilla version, it improved incredibly with Rebellion...so perhaps some fate may meet Ashes.
For what it's worth, I only came around to this realization (Startdock games take years to mature) recently. I followed GalCiv 3 since beta 1 and was completely dismayed at the state of the game at release. Now at 1.5 it is showing signs of maturity, but they are a long way from it. In 12 months, 20 months after release, I think GalCiv 3 will finally be close to the game I was hoping for. I was impatient at first, antagonistic at times, but now that I have this model of their development process in my head, it has made me patient.
In Ashes there are a couple really big glaring issues that I think must be resolved by release or folks are going to think this game is buggy, which could really hurt reviews, IMHO. I and others have been faily vocal about them so hopefully they are working to prioritize those issues. The rest of the stuff outlined by the OP, all having some degree of validity, can wait until after release. I don't understand how this development methodology works for Stardock, but it clearly does so I think we should be patient and let it play out.
Dont think i dont like relax games ...i love Tomb raider play them all
Whoo, just finished reading both posts.
Tough croud indeed.
I liked one guy who said - a Long term rts player knows what he or she wants. Its passion, adrenaline and that wow factor that still amazes you. Only few games today deliver this.
As to frogboy. No, we dont want you to make sup com 3, but we want you to listen. We want Ashes to be good, to be meaningful. Its a bit harsh to say we are better sticking to supcom but are you certain you want to cut off such a huge fanbase. If you think about it, you need us as when the game is done, itll be us who will decide Its fate, Its modding, Its longevity.
What can you really offer More with Ashes? Have you played faf? Do you know those amazing t4 battles there, 12 player onslought, hell arty fire, nuke mayhem or mind blowing action - like the game can change in instant unexpectedly. have you experienced that feeling? If you can achieve that feeling in Ashes, game of the year title is yours and Its legacy preserved. Isnt that what you want?
And thats only scfa. Sins, Pa, starcraft others, they all have this Rush.
In many posts many people here are saying lots of valid points, start to listen. If you wont, someone else will. Who says someone cant take the oportunity and make Ashes 2 with all the feedback here. Not sure whether youll be happy then and it wont matter you have state of the art oxide engine.
Recently Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was launched. They took the same approach in New colors, it worked.
Like Americans say - customer is always right. Happy customers no problems, smooth sailing all the way.
Thats because they were and so are the factions in Ashes. Shields, energy, minor nuances within unit rosters, cruisers/air built from the same factory as frigates and different set of orbitals dont constitute "fairly different mechanics".Its interesting you can see this in Supcom, but are incapable to see the same with your own game.
That is a bit of a strawman. I have made no statements at all on the relative distinctiveness of Substrate vs. PHC. I was responding to the assertion that SupCom's factions, UNLIKE Ashes, were distinct. I would rate the PHC and Substrate as being somewhere between Arm vs. Core (TA) and Americans vs. Germans (CoH)
I also don't like being in this position where I'm being cast as somehow being anti-SupCom. Stardock came very close to publishing SupCom 2 (lost to Squar) and our SupCom 2 would have been SupCom: FA with further refinement.
What many people either don't understand or aren't aware of is that SupCom:FA didn't spring out of nowhere. SupCom 1 came out first and I have to wonder if any of you actually ever played SupCom when it first shipped. It's resemblance to FA is..fleeting.
With Ashes, we are taking inspiration from many games including SupCom. Total Annihilation remains probably our single biggest inspiration since this project did start out as the dream of being able to make TA and add global abilities and a territory concept to allow for much bigger maps with multiple fronts.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with someone wanting a feature that we'e not willing to put in. But at the end of the day, we are going to make the game we want to make within the budget we have available to us.
I can assure you that we do read the posts and listen to the feedback. Moreover, we take notes and set them aside for future updates.
However, Ashes ships this Spring. The time for basic game design changes is long long gone. Beta 1 is, in effect, nearly feature complete. Throw in the Ascendancy Wars single player campaign, balance, bug fixing, optimization, and a lot of UI improvements and you have Ashes 1.0.
So even if I agreed with the assessment of the OP, and I don't, there's not much that could be done at this stage to make him happy.
I spend more time than I care to admit on the Starcraft forums and it's much the same thing there. Players passionately angry that Blizzard did X or Y instead of Z. That will be the same here.
One thing I do want to point out: It would be a mistake to think that passionate, hard core FAF absolutists are representative of the SupCom fan base. Everyone on the Ashes team is a SupCom fan. Many of my friends still play either FA games at LAN parties or FAF itself. They like Ashes. Ashes will appeal to most SupCom fans for the things it has in common: Massive scale, sophisticated economics, lots of units, map diversity.
Perhaps. But Sins Rebellion is Sins of a Solar Empire with 5 years of non-stop post-release development, DLC, expansions.
We (Stardock/Ironclad) made Sins on $800k, that's less than 1/20th the budget SupCom 1.0 had (let alone FA). At this stage in Sins development, it had a total of 9 ships per faction (including the capital ships). No starbases. No diplomacy. The metal and crystal (Which I stole from TA as a half-streaming economy with two resources plus money) could actually be consumed (as in, the asteroids and such would run out).
People (most people) already like Ashes right now at 0.80. In a year, it'll be vastly superior over what we have today. In another year after that, it'll be further transformed. That's how we make games. That's the advantage of owning and publishing your own titles. We can continue to improve on them for years.
Exactly.
If we don't fix bugs like units sometimes not seeming to follow orders or attack-move acting weird or the UI stuff or the destination cursor stuff we'll take a pounding.
I wouldn't be surprised if some reviewer finds this or that unit or faction "soulless". The same things were said about SupCom and TA before it. It's tough to make non-organics have a lot of character.
But I think, by and large, people will like what we ship with. Look at the difference between 0.70 and 0.80. That was less than a month.
Perhaps. But Sins Rebellion is Sins of a Solar Empire with 5 years of non-stop post-release development, DLC, expansions.We (Stardock/Ironclad) made Sins on $800k, that's less than 1/20th the budget SupCom 1.0 had (let alone FA). At this stage in Sins development, it had a total of 9 ships per faction (including the capital ships). No starbases. No diplomacy. The metal and crystal (Which I stole from TA as a half-streaming economy with two resources plus money) could actually be consumed (as in, the asteroids and such would run out).People (most people) already like Ashes right now at 0.80. In a year, it'll be vastly superior over what we have today. In another year after that, it'll be further transformed. That's how we make games. That's the advantage of owning and publishing your own titles. We can continue to improve on them for years.
Thanks for the response. As i said, i realize there were 4 years between initial Sins version and Rebellion, which to me was infinitely better. So even though i am not completely satisfied now, this may change down the road.
That said, i would consider even vanilla Sins somewhat deeper game than Ashes is forming out to be so far. Or at least the factions were better fleshed out, its not just about the unit roster/number of units available. Sins factions were just well defined from the beginning, TEC focusing on economy, Advent on culture/mind controlling stuff and Vasari on mobility and warfare, with the hint of advanced resource extraction techniques fitting their lore of fleeing faction consuming everything along the way... i am just not getting same vibe from Ashes factions so far, they lack this kind of character, i even read that background story/lore somewhere about how Haalee came to existence etc... and still cant say what exactly makes Substrate faction different from PHC. The shields/energy is pretty much the only global ability/trait, which achieves that.
I can assure you that we do read the posts and listen to the feedback. Moreover, we take notes and set them aside for future updates.However, Ashes ships this Spring. The time for basic game design changes is long long gone. Beta 1 is, in effect, nearly feature complete. Throw in the Ascendancy Wars single player campaign, balance, bug fixing, optimization, and a lot of UI improvements and you have Ashes 1.0.So even if I agreed with the assessment of the OP, and I don't, there's not much that could be done at this stage to make him happy. I spend more time than I care to admit on the Starcraft forums and it's much the same thing there. Players passionately angry that Blizzard did X or Y instead of Z. That will be the same here.One thing I do want to point out: It would be a mistake to think that passionate, hard core FAF absolutists are representative of the SupCom fan base. Everyone on the Ashes team is a SupCom fan. Many of my friends still play either FA games at LAN parties or FAF itself. They like Ashes. Ashes will appeal to most SupCom fans for the things it has in common: Massive scale, sophisticated economics, lots of units, map diversity.
if you really did listen to feedback you would have known the ui is bad and people said why its bad ,and that factions are not done right and some other things,even if you happen to see them(factions) so different in strategy in which they are not, the art is so for faction units.we know there is no time for basic game design changes,and that what i said the game is not going in the right direction, i am so sure that founders gave feedback when it did matter, and you basicly told them the same thing you are saying here "we know what we are doing and we dont need your feedback but thanks for it anway".
what i see in the forums is that there is always talking about opinions but not really looking at why people say what they say,its some kind of denial.
and you said it the there are many things in common between ashes and Supcom and you could have used Supcom for refrence in many things that are done wrong now, and when people bring this up you tell them we dont want to make SupCom 3.
too bad,i had big expectations for Ashes, I well check back in 4 years or so ,I hope you do hear what people say by then.
There is much in Supreme Commander to take inspiration from. There is also much in Supreme Commander to be wary of as well. Supreme Commander was not a commercial success. Both it and FA lost money. Chris Taylor and I discussed this at great length over why this was. It was no single feature but rather the consequence of many features that ultimately made the game a niche.
When someone wishes that every metal extractor, for instance, could have multiple tiers of upgrades or that factories could be upgraded to every higher tiers or encouraging players to play the game via zooming out and zooming back in through a strategic map, they're not wrong to like those features. But those are features that we believe will not be conducive to Ashes being the game we want to make.
We want to make a game in which people can sit down with their friends and quickly pick up and play. That is our litmus test. I could do that with Total Annihilation. I can do that with CoH. I can do that with Starcraft. I couldn't do that with SupCom.
In the meantime, by all means, check back in 4 years.
Still i do think that AOTS have a long way to go, the good part is that the Nitrous Engine will get so much better each month and that will help a lot in AOTS.
I have Played RTS games since Dune, and played so many of them and i think most of them (C&C, Warcraft, Starcaft, TA, COH. SupCom, Sins, Homeworld.) just to name a few, I HATE Turn based strategy games, I don't even mention them.
For me every RTS game is different, some of them a better than others for my taste of course, there is no Developer out there who make games to make everyone happy. I mean they try but no one can. So every game have something good and something bad, there is no Perfect game out them, Every game gets old and people will move on to the next one.
My last RTS game that I played is the New Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, and still playing it and its fun, but it has some many Glitches, it need to many optimizations to make it good, more maps, better AI (Ashes AI is hundred times Better) and the game still in Beta1, I do Hope for them to really support the game for at least 2 more years with updates, DLC's, and expansions.
Ashes Of the Singularity is fun to play, i am really having fun with it, I know it does need a lot of work for it to get better but so far the Dev's have done an awesome job and yes they do listen to us, We the Founders did bitch a lot on the forums and still do, we even made mockups images on what we like for the Dev's to fix or do some Design changes. Brad and the rest of the team do read our posts that's for sure and they answer them by saying (there is no way! or we are working on it.) lol but at least they do, what other companies do what Stardock do? NONE!
So far many of us here have seen that the game is getting better and better in each build, I like what they have done and I am a happy customer with AOTS so far. I will keep bitching and keep asking for things for the Dev's to change or add to the game, but what the hell all of us do here. I haven't seen a game that people don't bitch about it.
Ok I wrote a lot in here, Stardock keep your good work with AOTS and Give us Sins 2.
Thank you.
I don't understand this at all. I really don't. I realize that everyone wants the game that they want, and it's frustrating at times when that doesn't happen. But really? The factions don't feel different enough to you in a Beta? You don't like the UI in a Beta? I personally am not a fan of buying Early Access games, and a lot for that reason. You may see something that is not complete yet, and have it turn you off completely from the game. I purchased the early access game of this on sale, solely because of the name Stardock. And to be perfectly honest, this game is fun. I have had a blast playing this game, and trust me it's been awhile since I've enjoyed an RTS game like this one.
I think that so many people think about the things they would like to see in the game, and they allow that to ruin their time spent with the game. I still find myself taking a second to zoom in and be awestruck by some of the larger battles. With that said, are there things I would like to see different in this game? Absolutely. Would I like to see a better UI, and have the faction feel differently? Of course! The difference for me, as it stands now is that even with wanting those things, it doesn't make the game not fun. If the game stayed in its current state forever, I would lose interest and probably never pick up again. But that's the beauty of a company like Stardock. They make great games, and don't stop the second it's released like many others.
I challenge anyone to go through this forum, and find all the things that someone has said they would like to see in the game. Now, try to incorporate all those things so everyone feels like they are "heard" by the developer. Now try to balance around all of that. Any change, drastic or simple can easily create balance problems to the existing game.
The simple fact for me is that I am not making this game. I am not letting the fact that I bought into an early access game confuse me into thinking that I am now a developer and have a say in the game. I see threats to the developers here about certain fans of games are going to be the ones that decide whether this game lives or dies. That's ridiculous. I loved FA, and I am really enjoying Ashes. I want a game that is fun, balanced, and bug free. I think everyone gets too caught in wanting the game to be made for them, that they forget that those three things are the most important aspects of any game. Whether its Sins, or FA or Ashes.
What an interesting thing to say! Perhaps everyone on these forums should keep that in mind
And you think faction design is something developed/designed during beta phase? There may be further additions to them later via various DLCs or expansions to make them better fleshed out, but i guarantee you at this stage there wont be many additions or changes to them between now and 1.0 release. So yeah, if the factions dont feel different to me now, safe to say they sadly wont at the launch.
Yeah, the difference for you.
I suppose if someone wants the game tailor made for him, even if it may be looked upon as selfish or something, he wants it cause he wants the game to be fun for him. So he/she certainly does not forget what is important.
True they do listen and read the forums, and answer.
I do Have PA and PA Titans, played them? i tried but i do really suck and never got into it, i will love to try to get into PA, but back then in Alpha and Beta and after the game got release it sucked so much that I stopped playing it. well anyway I still do think that Uber entertainment kills It's games really fast by not supporting them after a year or so.
Ye Uber entertainment lunch one the best RTS i have saw last years PA its really good.
With Titans its a pleasure play it, my lucky its that i have only try PA when titans come up so i dont have nothing negative to say .
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account