Steel Ocean - 3 weeks impressions

[burebista]

First of all I'm not a sailor. Basically it's my first game with boats.

Second. I was a hardcore player of WoT (45k battles before I sold my account 2 years ago), War Thunder (16k battles almost all RB but now I've stopped playing for a year or so) and Armored Warfare (5k PvE battle and a couple of hundred PvP, now on hold too).

Third. 3 weeks ago I've meet Steel Ocean and since then I cannot let it go.

What I like.
- no aim assist help whatsoever. No auto-aim. Shooting is a pure skill (unfortunately I don't have it but I'm working on it)
- I like the idea of commanders. Each one with it's skills. Picking the right one for right spot is a nice boost in ship stats. But leveling them it's a life job it seems.
- I also like the fact that every ship has it's role in a battle. Usually best scouts win the battle.
- different game modes. Normal battles, event battles. Nice.
- premium for a number of battles. Brilliant idea for those who are not able to play all day long.

What looks the same as others.
- grind
- garage slots
- economy

What I dislike
- performance. I have some inexplicable FPS drops in some maps on certain areas.
- ping. Playing from Europe to US server is not exactly ping heaven but it's not not that bad either.
- graphics. Not very fancy but not like 90's either. Let's say that graphics are bearable.

Overall I like the game for an arcade game. My big grief is population but we can't do anything for this. When the match is (almost) full MM is very nice. Otherwise are ups and downs.

My big thumbs up for SO. I guess I'll stay here for a while.

[Elder_Lee]

burebista,

First; welcome to Steel Ocean, I am glad to have you join our growing community.

Thanks for your review and feedback, this is great and I will past it on too the team.

As for your issues:
-Sorry for your connection limitation due to us just having the NA server. Have you tried the proxy server, it has helped some.

-Have you set your graphics to the highest setting? Once you do or even increase it to a higher setting, over the default; you will see the game in its full richness.

Once more welcome and on behalf of the development team thank you for playing Steel Ocean.

[burebista]

Thanks Elder for your reply.

About connection. Yes I've tried that proxy and it seems the same. 170-180 ping. Which is not that bad but compared with 50-60 in WoT/WT/AW looks like on the high side.
Usually I'm playing fine but from time to time my ship seems to not obey to my keyboard input. I'm pressing WASD keys and no input from ship. But in a second or two input is back to normal.

About graphics. I'm running them on Ultra with 4xAA. Usually I'm in 50-60 FPS but on some areas on some maps I've have drops to mid 20's. Sandy Bridge 2500K with GTX 760. It should be enough for those games (in fact it's fine with WoT/WT/AW).
Again, not a big deal because usually I'm in crosshair view or hawkeye view but from time to time I like to watch scenery/ships.

But I have another question which bothers me. For the love of God I cannot map left/right arrows instead A/D keys. Up/Down works but not Left/Right arrows.
I'm not a WASD player I prefer arrows. I'm missing something?

[Elder_Lee]

burebista,

I am not in game at the moment and am not sure off the top of my head but if you goto the settings and select controls you can set your keyboard short cuts.

I am not sure if you can set or reset those but worth taking a look.

But ya I can understand the challenge of adjusting to the WASD control vs your current set up. But with a small amount of time it gets better and more normal.

[burebista]

Yep, I've tried that Elder.

Up and down arrows works fine but left and right arrows doesn't work.
After I change them and hit Apply I have a message about some keys not assigned despite that in Controls window I have arrows keys selected.
Not a game breaking problem but I'll be more comfortable if I'll have my arrows. :D

BTW, I can change other controls fine. Hawkeye is on my middle mouse button, dive/surface on my mouse 4-5 button and so on. Only left/right arrows won't work instead A/D keys.

Thanks again for your time man. Appreciate that.

[76561198066676103]

Glad you are enjoying the game! Steel Ocean's small for now, but with these patches that've been hitting, numbers have been up! Here's hoping for that trend to continue!

By the way,
You can use R/F for cruise control each press adding 25% speed or double tap for 100%. Q/E for port and starboard.
Then the normal w/s or a/d to reset cruise control quickly.

As for the economy, I would say this game is better for silver and xp gains than WoWS or War Thunder. You can play in higher tiers without bleeding credits like you do in warships.
But that'd be something you might not have seen at 3 weeks in so no biggie!

And regarding port slots:
If you are lucky on the daily log ins you can get a varying amount of gold per week (50-850ish, depending how many/which days you get gold) and there are monthly "spend gold" events which you could consider as "buy two port slots, get one free each month)

Or 5v5 Arenas with the seasonal gold reward every 3 months(At the moment even one win gets about $17 of gold I believe.)

So you, with a bit of patience could get quite a few port slots. Or if you do well in the Arenas, enough for a premium ship

[burebista]

Thanks a lot man.

Frankly I'm using R/F for cruise control especially in DD's or CL's.

5 vs.5 or Fleet battles are far away from me. I just reached Tier 5 and I have only a T6 CA.

I have patience instead. Also I've spend 7 euros for some gold. Some slots and Premium time worth the small investment.

I got all daily login bonus and also those 8 win battles every day.

I'm fine for now and I really like SO.

[kimmodi]

If you really enjoy the game and have some money to spend the growth plan is a very good deal. With it you could also buy some ship slots. Good luck and welcome to my favourite game.

[MajorDisaster]

Glad to have you aboard!