Negative Review Draft - Please change my mind!

[constantinople]

Hello folks.

Ive been thinking about the game a bunch and have drafted a review, which I had to make a "not recommended". But that sucks and annoys me because I had hoped for much more after I researched the game before buying and people were so gushing. So please, tell me if Im overlooking something crucial here that makes the struggle worth it.

And, please, give at least some consideration to where Im coming from as a buyer and consumer. If the fact that a game takes more than 12 hours to get going is just not a factor to you then our perspectives are so fundamentally different that I ask to refrain from calling me a filthy casual for not willing to invest 30, 50 or a hundred hours before acquiring the right to make a judgement in your eyes. My review is made from a specific, individual perspective that does not necessarily apply to others and I make that very clear.



Depth for Depth's Sake Only


Let me preface with an author's byline: I have a lot of experience with many 4X games, but little to no experience with hex-wargaming. I have, however, long been looking for a title to act as a gateway for me to get into the latter, because I am super interested in the basic premise of complex, deep combat that only those games seem to offer.

Since Shadow Empire (SE) does have fairly complex hex-warfare and additionally the promise of emergent gameplay (instead of the setpiece scenarios of many other wargames, which I dont like because, to me, they resemble puzzle-games too much, in which the solution to the problem is at least to a degree preconceived) it sounded like the perfect candidate. It was additionally heralded as an "instant classic", a "game that only happens once in a generation" and further impressive slogans.

I am 12 hours deep into this game now, not counting many more hours spent reading the manual, watching tutorials and looking for answers online. Many will say that is not enough time to do anything but scratch the surface of this game's depth - and I think they are correct.

But, as many others, and coming from the perspective of someone looking for an entry into hex-wargaming, I have to make the crucial point determining why I do "not recommend" SE: I do not have the time for games that take upwards of 12 hours to present me with anything at all that motivates me to keep wrestling the steep learning curve.
I need SOME carrot dangling in front of my face while I cluelessly search for answers in ugly screens filled with tiny, barely legible rows and rows of numbers I can barely, if at all, interpret - and sadly this game does not offer any. It is very ugly, very clunky and incredibly unwelcoming and obscure and after ten or so hours I began to wonder: What is there to make me think "Ill just deal with it so I can get to the good part"? Instead, I couldnt see any "good part" to look forward to. There is no interesting goal past dominating the map, which is filled with other powers, locations and terrain with no character whatsoever. There is no real exploration or discovery, because assets to find are never more exciting than "gain 10 Metal" or some other boring effect.
The logistics system, which many praise as a core element of the game and also its complexity incorporates my problem with SE perfectly: It is indeed complex - and I completely fail to see how it presents me with anything but painstaking busywork. Complex systems are fine if they drive components of a game that are exciting. Detailed administration, to me, is fun if there is something to generate some sense of payoff. But SE just drags on, making you engage with its complexity for... no reason but to engage with its complexity.

That might be fun for some folks, that is perfectly legitimate. But I, for one, needed SOMETHING to keep me going against the learning curve, against the terrible aesthetics, against the unbelievable clunkiness, against the impenetrability of one obscure system layered onto the next, even obscurer, system. I would have needed something to compensate, some charm, maybe, be it in the visuals, the writing, some world building, some more fluent, pleasant "game-feel", anything at all.
But, as it stands, my time with the game was just frustrating and, ultimately and much worse, very boring.

Im aware it is the product of a single developer, making having to give a negative recommendation somewhat tragic, but: As a willing beginner, looking for exactly what this game seemed to promise before I bought it, I can only advise others in a similar position: Do not buy.

[Fnord]

Początkowo opublikowane przez constantinople:

I honestly dont know how you got the impression there were a fair amount of hostile comments around since there were like two or three throughout the entire discussion, they were mildly salty at best and 90% has been super interesting discussion.
Since you didnt read it, its also no surprise you somehow mistook this for the place to drop beginners advice, which it wasnt and isnt. Theres a ton of other places for that.
As for the wargaming "community", my impression and experience kinda aligns with yours.

edit: Sorry for being a bit salty myself there earlier. Im kinda frustrated by how quickly and easily threads on here get derailed. But you clearly meant well, so, sorry.

The thread started off with the anti-paradox stuff that sadly seem to be the norm for any thread that involves more complex strategy/wargames. And they so often devolve into just that. It's a factionalism that kind of reminds of the old Nintendo vs. SEGA stuff on the schoolyards from when I was a kid. You need to take a side, either Paradox or Slitherine.

The advice was not really there to teach you the basics of the game, but more to get you to a point where you can judge the game for its mechanics and what it is in general. Sadly this game kind of needs something like that for someone going in blind with little prior experience with the wargaming side. And that's one of its failings. If you're used to some of the wargaming conventions it's not "that" hard to get into, but going in without that prior knowledge and it's a bit of a mess. It will still take you a good 5-6h to get comfortable with it, but that's par for the course with more complex games like this (with a more user friendly interface they could probably get that time down to like 3-4h).

[constantinople]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Fnord:

Początkowo opublikowane przez constantinople:

I honestly dont know how you got the impression there were a fair amount of hostile comments around since there were like two or three throughout the entire discussion, they were mildly salty at best and 90% has been super interesting discussion.
Since you didnt read it, its also no surprise you somehow mistook this for the place to drop beginners advice, which it wasnt and isnt. Theres a ton of other places for that.
As for the wargaming "community", my impression and experience kinda aligns with yours.

edit: Sorry for being a bit salty myself there earlier. Im kinda frustrated by how quickly and easily threads on here get derailed. But you clearly meant well, so, sorry.

The thread started off with the anti-paradox stuff that sadly seem to be the norm for any thread that involves more complex strategy/wargames. And they so often devolve into just that. It's a factionalism that kind of reminds of the old Nintendo vs. SEGA stuff on the schoolyards from when I was a kid. You need to take a side, either Paradox or Slitherine.

The advice was not really there to teach you the basics of the game, but more to get you to a point where you can judge the game for its mechanics and what it is in general. Sadly this game kind of needs something like that for someone going in blind with little prior experience with the wargaming side. And that's one of its failings. If you're used to some of the wargaming conventions it's not "that" hard to get into, but going in without that prior knowledge and it's a bit of a mess. It will still take you a good 5-6h to get comfortable with it, but that's par for the course with more complex games like this (with a more user friendly interface they could probably get that time down to like 3-4h).

I think your calculations are a bit off there. Im now 19 hours in in playtime only, and that isnt counting that Ive watched most of DasTactic's video series youve mentioned and the time Ive spent looking stuff up in the manual or forums. And I still feel lost and, more prominently, still every time I realize I should be changing some thing or other and my brain goes through the sequence of clunky menus and sliders Ill have to maneuver through to do it - I just feel like turning the game off.

But yeah, Im repeating myself. This discussion was enlightening though, some interesting perspectives. Ill give the game yet more time to capture me and make even more explicit in my review that my issues with the game wont apply to a more hardcore crowd, I suppose...

[Edmon]

@Nyx,

You are welcome to have your opinion, but your relentless toxicity about the game and the developer is reaching beyond respectful critique. Every person that tries to explain to you what they like about the game, gets a response filled with a wall of text about why this game apparently is, according to you, totally awful in every aspect and does not deserve any of the praise it gets.

Consider this your first official warning.

It is absolutely ok to be critical of aspects of the game. It is not ok to make "this is why you are wrong and the developer is X, Y or Z*" posts in every thread you can find. You don't have to be a "Hardcore fanboy" to like Shadow Empire, stop applying negative labels to everyone who disagrees with you.

*(Where X, Y and Z are things like "Can't program", "stuck in the 90's" and the frankly outlandish idea that Vic made this game for shady business reasons. This is the very definition of a passion project and I think that is pretty obvious to anyone.)

Thanks.

[jwarrenw13]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Nyx:

Początkowo opublikowane przez jwarrenw13:

If a developer has "an army of fans that tell him it's okay" to do something, then maybe the developer isn't "stuck in the 90s." Maybe the developer knows his target audience in 2020. Just a thought.

Depends on your perspective. From a business stance it certainly makes sense - the less effort you spend and the higher price you set the better, as long as people still buy it. My criticism is from the perspective of someone who loves gaming, and 4X games in particular, someone who would love for the genre to grow and for the games to be the best they can be. Sometimes that means criticising.

Besides, having bad UX is not opening yourself to a target audience - it's just the only people who even buy the game are the ones who buy it after looking at the screenshots and thinking that it's acceptable in 2020 for $40. So of course from that pool of people the majority will be the ones who don't care about UX. What you don't see are all the people who closed the store tab after looking at the game.

In other words, if you ignore those who disagree with you, of course stagnation follows.

But that is true of virtually every game. There are no games that appeal to everyone. Likewise, I would just disagree on "bad UX." That's just individual perspective.

[Nyx]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Edmon:

@Nyx,

You are welcome to have your opinion, but your relentless toxicity about the game and the developer is reaching beyond respectful critique. Every person that tries to explain to you what they like about the game, gets a response filled with a wall of text about why this game apparently is, according to you, totally awful in every aspect and does not deserve any of the praise it gets.

Consider this your first official warning.

It is absolutely ok to be critical of aspects of the game. It is not ok to make "this is why you are wrong and the developer is X, Y or Z*" posts in every thread you can find. You don't have to be a "Hardcore fanboy" to like Shadow Empire, stop applying negative labels to everyone who disagrees with you.

*(Where X, Y and Z are things like "Can't program", "stuck in the 90's" and the frankly outlandish idea that Vic made this game for shady business reasons. This is the very definition of a passion project and I think that is pretty obvious to anyone.)

Thanks.

Excuse me, so what's your official recommendation again? Should I post less, explain myself in fewer words or change my opinion about the game?

Not only that, but I posted in I believe only 4 threads, in 2 of which I only left 1-2 responses, third got locked and the fourth is this one. The poster of this thread seems to have found my comments constructive and useful as far as I can tell.

Naturally you are in a position to ban me if you wish, so I suppose I'll stop any further activity to avoid losing access to the forums altogether. Have a good day everyone.

[Edmon]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Nyx:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Edmon:

@Nyx,

You are welcome to have your opinion, but your relentless toxicity about the game and the developer is reaching beyond respectful critique. Every person that tries to explain to you what they like about the game, gets a response filled with a wall of text about why this game apparently is, according to you, totally awful in every aspect and does not deserve any of the praise it gets.

Consider this your first official warning.

It is absolutely ok to be critical of aspects of the game. It is not ok to make "this is why you are wrong and the developer is X, Y or Z*" posts in every thread you can find. You don't have to be a "Hardcore fanboy" to like Shadow Empire, stop applying negative labels to everyone who disagrees with you.

*(Where X, Y and Z are things like "Can't program", "stuck in the 90's" and the frankly outlandish idea that Vic made this game for shady business reasons. This is the very definition of a passion project and I think that is pretty obvious to anyone.)

Thanks.

Excuse me, so what's your official recommendation again? Should I post less, explain myself in fewer words or change my opinion about the game?

Not only that, but I posted in I believe only 4 threads, in 2 of which I only left 1-2 responses, third got locked and the fourth is this one. The poster of this thread seems to have found my comments constructive and useful as far as I can tell.

Naturally you are in a position to ban me if you wish, so I suppose I'll stop any further activity to avoid losing access to the forums altogether. Have a good day everyone.

I explained to you in great detail what is wrong, both here and privately. It is actually possible to have a constructive opinion that doesn't insult anyone. I don't mind if you attack the game, that is fine. Attacking the developer and the fans of the game is not.

Also, this is constructive:
"I think the game is ugly, because it has a 90's look in my opinion. Prehaps you could include a high resolution U.I. modpack with the game."

This is overly negative:
"The game is clunky, outdated, ugly, has a ton of pointless busywork. There's just a niche of players that enjoy that busywork and ignore the ugliness and perhaps they find something more underneath all that as well. And that's okay. "

I think you understand how you label and catagorize anyone who disagrees with you. Sometimes more gently with words like "Niche of players" and sometimes not so nicely with things like "hardcore fanboys". Either way, it's not welcome here.

Thanks.

[Brysky]

This is a very interesting thread. My experience with SE is similar to the OP. I'm about 30 hours in now, and have been able to enjoy conquering the first minor regime. However, I'm not enjoying the game that much now. And that is both surprising and frustrating.

It seems to me that I AM the target audience for this game. I have played 4x games going back to the original civ, though I haven't enjoyed civ 5 and civ 6 very much. I feel like I want more depth and complexity. I also have around 100 hrs in EU4. It has depth and complexity, but I eventually tired of the micromanaging of things I didn't want to micromanage (trade spreadsheets!) I tried CK3 but I did not enjoy managing the people.

And in the past year, I have been playing the lighter weight hex-games like Unity of Command 2 and Order of Battle. They are fun but leave me wanting more empire management to go with the battles.

So SE would seem to be exactly what I'm looking for. And players like me and OP are the target audience, at least if SE hopes to appeal beyond a small niche. I believe it is entirely incorrect to write off my criticism as "this just isn't the game for you." It is the game for me, it just is not delivering yet.

I have invested the time to learn how to survive. The UI is cumbersome in some areas but I can overlook that. The problem is that I really want this to be great, and I want it to be fun, but I am not finding it to be fun. (I think @Leon referred to: "All the finicky bits in SE - budget allocations, leader stats, tax rates, stratagem investments") Yes, exactly - I'm having to spend way too much time pursuing details and making decisions I find uninteresting.

I still hope to enjoy learning to better manage the logistics and army composition and nuances of combat, but the other finicky bits are turning me off so much that I'm not sure whether to continue playing. So, sorry for this verbose post, but the OP thoughts really resonated with me:
I want to like the game, and want it to live up to the high praise it is receiving, but IMO it is delivering the complexity without the rewards, satisfaction and fun.

[easytarget]

Wading into this discussion publicly is not a great look and has no upside Edmon.

Better off not wading in at all and just locking threads you don't like with no explanation rather than lecturing people about the style of their feedback.

And feel free to ban me as well if you don't like my feedback.

[jwarrenw13]

Początkowo opublikowane przez easytarget:

Wading into this discussion publicly is not a great look and has no upside Edmon.

Better off not wading in at all and just locking threads you don't like with no explanation rather than lecturing people about the style of their feedback.

And feel free to ban me as well if you don't like my feedback.

He is apparently not familiar with the casual rudeness of the Steam forums.

[licker34]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Brysky:

This is a very interesting thread. My experience with SE is similar to the OP. I'm about 30 hours in now, and have been able to enjoy conquering the first minor regime. However, I'm not enjoying the game that much now. And that is both surprising and frustrating.

It seems to me that I AM the target audience for this game. I have played 4x games going back to the original civ, though I haven't enjoyed civ 5 and civ 6 very much. I feel like I want more depth and complexity. I also have around 100 hrs in EU4. It has depth and complexity, but I eventually tired of the micromanaging of things I didn't want to micromanage (trade spreadsheets!) I tried CK3 but I did not enjoy managing the people.

And in the past year, I have been playing the lighter weight hex-games like Unity of Command 2 and Order of Battle. They are fun but leave me wanting more empire management to go with the battles.

So SE would seem to be exactly what I'm looking for. And players like me and OP are the target audience, at least if SE hopes to appeal beyond a small niche. I believe it is entirely incorrect to write off my criticism as "this just isn't the game for you." It is the game for me, it just is not delivering yet.

I have invested the time to learn how to survive. The UI is cumbersome in some areas but I can overlook that. The problem is that I really want this to be great, and I want it to be fun, but I am not finding it to be fun. (I think @Leon referred to: "All the finicky bits in SE - budget allocations, leader stats, tax rates, stratagem investments") Yes, exactly - I'm having to spend way too much time pursuing details and making decisions I find uninteresting.

I still hope to enjoy learning to better manage the logistics and army composition and nuances of combat, but the other finicky bits are turning me off so much that I'm not sure whether to continue playing. So, sorry for this verbose post, but the OP thoughts really resonated with me:
I want to like the game, and want it to live up to the high praise it is receiving, but IMO it is delivering the complexity without the rewards, satisfaction and fun.

I'm not disagreeing with you exactly, however, I think part of the issue many people may be having is that they assume the finicky bits are necessary to be able to succeed in the game. in other words, you may be suffering from an optimization issue when it's not actually necessary to optimize every last bit and still be able to progress with the game.

I've spent a fair amount of time in other games burning myself out because the only way to get to 100% was to min/max the hell out of everything.

This game provides that option, but, I'm just not sure there is as much value in it in terms of the in game benefits. Of course, much of that is down to an individuals taste, and there are improvements in opacity and UI which could help with some (if not much) of these issues. However, if you look at the changes to logistics from earlier builds (I noticed this waching Das Tactics videos from 6 months ago) you will notice that the devs have done some work to take out pieces which are just annoying to deal with.

[Nyx]

Oops. Forgot to turn off notifications.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Edmon:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Nyx:

Excuse me, so what's your official recommendation again? Should I post less, explain myself in fewer words or change my opinion about the game?

Not only that, but I posted in I believe only 4 threads, in 2 of which I only left 1-2 responses, third got locked and the fourth is this one. The poster of this thread seems to have found my comments constructive and useful as far as I can tell.

Naturally you are in a position to ban me if you wish, so I suppose I'll stop any further activity to avoid losing access to the forums altogether. Have a good day everyone.

I explained to you in great detail what is wrong, both here and privately. It is actually possible to have a constructive opinion that doesn't insult anyone. I don't mind if you attack the game, that is fine. Attacking the developer and the fans of the game is not.

Also, this is constructive:
"I think the game is ugly, because it has a 90's look in my opinion. Prehaps you could include a high resolution U.I. modpack with the game."

This is overly negative:
"The game is clunky, outdated, ugly, has a ton of pointless busywork. There's just a niche of players that enjoy that busywork and ignore the ugliness and perhaps they find something more underneath all that as well. And that's okay. "

I think you understand how you label and catagorize anyone who disagrees with you. Sometimes more gently with words like "Niche of players" and sometimes not so nicely with things like "hardcore fanboys". Either way, it's not welcome here.

Thanks.

Saying that a game is niche or has a dedicated hardcore fanbase is toxic? Sure, then I'm toxic as hell. Even though in that same quote I say that it's completely fine to be a fan of a niche game, I actually love many niche clunky games with flaws. It's just not many of them cost $40 to boot. Wait, that's considered an attack on a developer, if I point out that he's selling a product, thus the expectations are higher? Sorry.

I'd just like to ask you, when you read reviews of games, do you think they are written more in the "constructive" style or "overly negative" from the two that you provided?

Finally, I can find plenty of examples where fans of the game "label and categorize", but I'll just leave one that stood out to me here, anonymously:
"Just think of it as a 'board game' option for...intelligent people. :)"

I'll leave you to ponder the impliations. I promise I didn't leave out context that radically changes the meaning.

Ciao.

[Ricardo]

56+ hours of gameplay time behind me. I know the solid basis (manual + forum support), to be able to play and not to be killed in first 20-30 rounds. When I thought earlier I know basis, my veteran units died on far away frontiers because of lack of food. When I though my industry was quit powerful, suddenly I could not produce a single ammo as lack of workforce after I sent all of people into the new, huge army, so my huge army had no ammo to fight...

[constantinople]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Ricardo:

56+ hours of gameplay time behind me. I know the solid basis (manual + forum support), to be able to play and not to be killed in first 20-30 rounds. When I thought earlier I know basis, my veteran units died on far away frontiers because of lack of food. When I though my industry was quit powerful, suddenly I could not produce a single ammo as lack of workforce after I sent all of people into the new, huge army, so my huge army had no ammo to fight...

And is that satisfying progress to you or frustrating lack of progress? Because to me it sounds like the latter, which is in line with my experience.

[constantinople]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Edmon:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Nyx:

Excuse me, so what's your official recommendation again? Should I post less, explain myself in fewer words or change my opinion about the game?

Not only that, but I posted in I believe only 4 threads, in 2 of which I only left 1-2 responses, third got locked and the fourth is this one. The poster of this thread seems to have found my comments constructive and useful as far as I can tell.

Naturally you are in a position to ban me if you wish, so I suppose I'll stop any further activity to avoid losing access to the forums altogether. Have a good day everyone.

I explained to you in great detail what is wrong, both here and privately. It is actually possible to have a constructive opinion that doesn't insult anyone. I don't mind if you attack the game, that is fine. Attacking the developer and the fans of the game is not.

Also, this is constructive:
"I think the game is ugly, because it has a 90's look in my opinion. Prehaps you could include a high resolution U.I. modpack with the game."

This is overly negative:
"The game is clunky, outdated, ugly, has a ton of pointless busywork. There's just a niche of players that enjoy that busywork and ignore the ugliness and perhaps they find something more underneath all that as well. And that's okay. "

I think you understand how you label and catagorize anyone who disagrees with you. Sometimes more gently with words like "Niche of players" and sometimes not so nicely with things like "hardcore fanboys". Either way, it's not welcome here.

Thanks.

Dude, I dont know what star this moderation team lives on, honestly! I mean, no idea what that guy posted on other threads - but holy hell, THAT is "overly negative" to you? He might not be nice about it but "clunky, outdated, ugly, has a ton of pointless busywork" is valid, useful critique. Sorry but it is.

And also, can you stop showing up in threads I open like some sort of moderation-terrorist and interfere just because you dont like what someone says? You gonna shut this one down as well? Three out of three? I consider myself pretty reasonable and despise dumb shouty online echochambers and never thought Id ever be put in this position on a forum. Man. This thread wouldve died down on its own in another day or whatever.

[Edmon]

I do believe it is very important to be transparent in moderation and I actually think this is a good thread with a lot of good discussion in it. I have no intention of locking it at this time.

Yes, I know that a lot of steam forums for various games are unmoderated and the wild west of discussion.

I just want people to understand that if you constantly and persistantly attack other people posting here and the developer then eventually action will be taken. Attacking the game is totally fine, but when the sentence turns to "the game is probably made by someone who...X, Y and Z" and "people who like it are X, Y and Z" then that is not ok.

And yes, I do understand people in the frustration occisionally do that, that's fine. But if your doing that in every other post you write then that's an issue.

No-one wants to moderate, because it just creates work for us to do that isn't work that we could be doing on the game. But I want you guys to be welcome here and have a pleasant forum experience as much as it is possible for us to provide that.

We have some very basic rules and I don't feel I am asking for too much.



I am drawing a line under the discussion of the warning. Posts on the warning will be deleted. Persistant posts on the subject will be warned. This is to ensure this topic can remain open.


Please feel free to continue discussing the original topic.

Thanks guys.