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.
I just wanted to pop in and say (since there seems to be quite a few high tensions towards Oxide) , no matter what Brad decides to put in / not put in the release of ashes, let it never be said that Oxide hasn't listened to founders. Yes there are a few things that have been brought up and beat to death by us founders that aren't in the game, but that is FINE.
As a founder I spoke with my wallet and wanted to help shape the game I wanted to play, however no matter which features I personally find most appealing at some point a game dev has to take a stance and say thank you for you feedback but that is NOT THE DIRECTION I WANT TO GO! This is absolutely fine. Although it may turn out that it wasn't the right choice a couple years down the line, developers need to make the game they want to make otherwise their hearts and souls won't really be in it.
Besides their core vision of the game however (zoom is part of that), the devs have been pretty open to suggestion and have definitely implemented features that were brought up on the founders forums. I personally didn't like unit sizing and made a post to which Brad himself drafted up a rough version to show us what it would look like while most of the company was on christmas vacation. This is dedication and someone who loves this game and wants it to succeed. They might not implement everything but they definitely take our feedback to heart and definitely try to accommodate as best they can.
Although I am a huge TA/Supcom vanilla/ FA fanboy, I respect that for Ashes (at least right now until launch) they want to try some things their own way. If it turns out post-launch that the rest of the RTS community at large agrees that certain changes are in order post-release then I am sure they will do something to change it. As it sits though most of us here right now are the hardcore RTS vets who have put ungodly hours into these games we love and have a highly nuanced Chris Taylor created niche of the rts genre that we expected Ashes to fit into. But at some point we have to just let the devs have their way and see how it goes, maybe it will turn out better than we could have hoped?
I know for me personally, I think that the UI needs a huge tuning pass, responsiveness needs to be top notch, bugs need to be squashed, pathing and armies need to be smooth and easy to use and overall the presentation needs to be polished up. The core gameplay is there right now and fun even if it is a little barren compared to a mature game like SOASE.
Right now the development is in a state that needs to make this a release ready product that the average RTS player who sees this on launch day on steam will load up and say damn this is a slick AAA game that is intuitive and responsive yet deep with strategy. That is what hooked us on TA/SupCom and is what will bring new players into the fold. If all goes well and this builds the same following as SOASE/TA/SupCom then we have a bright future ahead with the way that Stardock is known to work as a publisher. I'm sure as has been stated in 1/2/5 years Ashes will be beyond what we ever expected. Unfortunately we just can't expect everything on launch as that is just not how Stardock works.
I played SOASE and Supcom when they first launched and damn did they have some issues but the core was fun which is what kept us coming back until eventually they were the amazing games we know and love today. This is what I expect to happen with AOTS but we need to be patient and for now we really need to relax a little bit on requesting changes that aren't related to QOL/Bugs/UI as that is really all we have time for until release.
Once the game releases we will I think have a much better idea of what the community at large wants and as I said earlier if big changes need to happen for Ashes to be what it aspires to be then I have all the confidence in the world that Oxide will make those changes.
Holy wall of text batman, I'm sorry I tend to ramble
Sarge
Nice one Sargeras77 I am with you on what you wrote, SOASE still have around 1.5k Players on all the time after 5 years. its a great game and i do hope the same will happen to AOTS.
Who else burst out laughing seeing Tatsubj write this? Pot calling kettle.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account