Story vs Lore

[Saukuy]

Will this game have a functional campaign/story mode?

I say this because it's all nice and well to have lore, but the biggest take home from the demo for me so far has been a lack of actual drive to play again. The setting is genuinely really cool and there can be a lot done to draw people into this new IP. It's honestly interesting enough to spin out into other games too! However, if it's all just lore, then there isn't much impetus to dive into it that way. A strong story would make an otherwise cool setting into a memorable experience.

[dexgattaca]

Originally posted by Saukuy:

Will this game have a functional campaign/story mode?

I say this because it's all nice and well to have lore, but the biggest take home from the demo for me so far has been a lack of actual drive to play again. The setting is genuinely really cool and there can be a lot done to draw people into this new IP. It's honestly interesting enough to spin out into other games too! However, if it's all just lore, then there isn't much impetus to dive into it that way. A strong story would make an otherwise cool setting into a memorable experience.

I believe there will be a campaign for each leader on release.

The other reason to play again is the same as in Civ or AoW or other 4x games: to try a different leader and use a different strategy.

[Saukuy]

Originally posted by dexgattaca:

I believe there will be a campaign for each leader on release.

The other reason to play again is the same as in Civ or AoW or other 4x games: to try a different leader and use a different strategy.

Good to hear about campaigns. The setting in this is definitely worth expanding on.

As for trying other leaders and different strategy... eeeeh. I'm unconvinced as yet to the differences between the factions being overt enough to warrant long play time. There's some hint in the increasing tech levels towards more diversification of factions, but at the moment it's iffy. Demo reminded me a lot of Civ BE, which was (quite rightly) panned for having really samey factions and quite homogenous play. The tech tree in that game was a bit more "exciting" than here too.

None of that is to say it won't work out by release. Just that there seems to be a rocky start.

[dexgattaca]

Originally posted by Saukuy:

Originally posted by dexgattaca:

I believe there will be a campaign for each leader on release.

The other reason to play again is the same as in Civ or AoW or other 4x games: to try a different leader and use a different strategy.

Good to hear about campaigns. The setting in this is definitely worth expanding on.

As for trying other leaders and different strategy... eeeeh. I'm unconvinced as yet to the differences between the factions being overt enough to warrant long play time. There's some hint in the increasing tech levels towards more diversification of factions, but at the moment it's iffy. Demo reminded me a lot of Civ BE, which was (quite rightly) panned for having really samey factions and quite homogenous play. The tech tree in that game was a bit more "exciting" than here too.

None of that is to say it won't work out by release. Just that there seems to be a rocky start.

In Civ the difference between leaders is a tech, a slightly different unit and a resource and it still effects one's playthrough.

In Zephon try playing Undying Soldier and Honorable Aristocrat and tell me their Human gameplay feels exactly the same. Now play Tribubal and Emulated Mind and tell me they there isn't a difference between voice and cyber.

I just have no idea where you are coming from.

[Saukuy]

Originally posted by dexgattaca:

Originally posted by Saukuy:

Good to hear about campaigns. The setting in this is definitely worth expanding on.

As for trying other leaders and different strategy... eeeeh. I'm unconvinced as yet to the differences between the factions being overt enough to warrant long play time. There's some hint in the increasing tech levels towards more diversification of factions, but at the moment it's iffy. Demo reminded me a lot of Civ BE, which was (quite rightly) panned for having really samey factions and quite homogenous play. The tech tree in that game was a bit more "exciting" than here too.

None of that is to say it won't work out by release. Just that there seems to be a rocky start.

In Civ the difference between leaders is a tech, a slightly different unit and a resource and it still effects one's playthrough.

In Zephon try playing Undying Soldier and Honorable Aristocrat and tell me their Human gameplay feels exactly the same. Now play Tribubal and Emulated Mind and tell me they there isn't a difference between voice and cyber.

I just have no idea where you are coming from.

Civ has the benefit of being set on Earth and being "historic" which lends it a lot of leeway with "similar factions". Despite that, factional bonuses massively dictate how you will play out a game and what you will focus on. Saying the difference between factions is a "leader, a tech, a unit and a resource" does nothing other than says you've never played a Civ game. Despite this, Civ had multiple paths to victory, through science, culture, faith, war etc.

Zephon has... war. Sure you could go the alliance route, but it has war as the primary tool. Civ would also be boring if that was the only string to its bow. Each play in Zephon so far will see you build up a sufficient economy (slight variation in how it's done, but still largely similar concept) and then build up an army and attack the enemy. The set dressing is different, the concept is the same. You're not deeply altering an entire play style. You're playing chess each time with different combination of pieces, rather than one faction being chess, while another has checkers. Obviously the factions aren't identical, but they're not entirely dissimilar either. Like I said - it's closest comparison in my head is Civ BE... and that game was very much panned for having samey factions. I'd say that that game had a more diverse faction system than Zephon so far. There's still room in the later tech tiers to make it all different... but at the early game is not as different as you make it out to be.

[dexgattaca]

Originally posted by Saukuy:

Civ has the benefit of being set on Earth and being "historic" which lends it a lot of leeway with "similar factions". Despite that, factional bonuses massively dictate how you will play out a game and what you will focus on. Saying the difference between factions is a "leader, a tech, a unit and a resource" does nothing other than says you've never played a Civ game. Despite this, Civ had multiple paths to victory, through science, culture, faith, war etc.

Zephon has... war. Sure you could go the alliance route, but it has war as the primary tool. Civ would also be boring if that was the only string to its bow. Each play in Zephon so far will see you build up a sufficient economy (slight variation in how it's done, but still largely similar concept) and then build up an army and attack the enemy. The set dressing is different, the concept is the same. You're not deeply altering an entire play style. You're playing chess each time with different combination of pieces, rather than one faction being chess, while another has checkers. Obviously the factions aren't identical, but they're not entirely dissimilar either. Like I said - it's closest comparison in my head is Civ BE... and that game was very much panned for having samey factions. I'd say that that game had a more diverse faction system than Zephon so far. There's still room in the later tech tiers to make it all different... but at the early game is not as different as you make it out to be.

Fair enough. What do you think is too "samey" in this game.

[Saukuy]

Originally posted by dexgattaca:

Fair enough. What do you think is too "samey" in this game.

From my limited time with the demo... it's hard to say anything more than "all of it". There's variation in as much as there is when you play the same faction in civ, but in on a different map and going for a different victory type. Biggest difference I found from pure play style was the single city faction (though even then it was a very minor difference, as the other factions didn't necessitate rapid expansion like you'd see in some other games). It's not a huge gripe, games like this will always have a level of sameyness, but each "round" felt quite similar in feel. Visually similar, tactically relatively similar, similar goals, similar ways to get to those goals.
Like I said before - victory is only ever going to come from winning a war or allying with everyone. That means at any time during the game you're only considering "do I have enough resource to crank out more troops". If the answer is yes, you keep the factory line of fodder going. If no, you stop the mills and wait till you can put out more troops. Other games of this kinda will have mechanics that would let you bypass a full frontal war approach and maybe let you play tall and defensive, not aiming for domination. They might make the considerations of whether to build economy or science over military the question. It kinda never came up here. Here your goal is to fight better. Everything you do goes towards that. All the research you do goes off what is around you and how it can better feed into the military machine. It makes repeated play throughs similar in spite of surface level differences.

[Bill]

I agree with the sentiment of it feeling more "samey" at least, I played Gladius and each faction had its unique tech trees and units, although to be fair most of them were literally DLC content (Games Workshop contract shenanigans, probably), but even the 4 factions the game started with (Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Necrons and Orks) had really different playstyles and approaches to the game on top of all the unique units, different resource demands and tech trees (although there were less technologies for each that they could research).

I think ZEPHON could lean more into the unique faction elements to compensate for the mostly-shared tech trees and units. From what I've seen so far there's only one unique tech per tree and I didn't notice any special units exclusive to their faction. The Emulated Mind is probably the most unique among the factions due to the single-city limitation that Space Marines had in Gladius, the other factions mostly get a few unique modifiers or an action they can pull off, and I've played through Civilization: Beyond Earth to know that people really want unique and interesting factions if most of what they're producing is going to depend on an affinity system. And expressive leaders too, Beyond Earth was compared to Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and it really fell short in that regard because Beyond Earth leaders were mostly just a face you'd see for a few seconds after they sent another diplomatic agreement request, whereas SMAC's leaders had unique personalities, were regularly fictionally quoted in a lot of the tech that was researched, and had significantly different approaches to the game that was mostly tied to their bonuses and limitations, and that was a 90s game.

ZEPHON is already better in that regard than Beyond Earth but the developers should really put some more focus into making the factions unique. Give 'em unique units, give 'em more unique tech, let them do more things that other factions can't, put the leaders into more quotes, that sorta thing. I already expect the factions to have unique main quests like they did in Gladius which is a big step-up too.

[Final Cipher]

Originally posted by dexgattaca:

In Civ the difference between leaders is a tech, a slightly different unit and a resource and it still effects one's playthrough.

In Zephon try playing Undying Soldier and Honorable Aristocrat and tell me their Human gameplay feels exactly the same. Now play Tribubal and Emulated Mind and tell me they there isn't a difference between voice and cyber.

I just have no idea where you are coming from.

Not just difference between those leaders, but a difference in how those leaders combine with affinity stuff. Recently I tried a game where as Aristocrat I used the Voice 'vehicle' building instead of getting Human tanks. Yeah they unlocked later, but my production buildings were making precious food, my vehicles were consuming food, I only ever needed to worry about food. It was such a different take on the Aristocrat than a Human city, and I can already see a Cyber path for them where Lifestyle Implants mitigates the food penalty but creates a hunger for minerals.
I can equally imagine games where the Tribune uses human or cyber production buildings to get more research without penalties, or the Emulated Mind uses a Human barracks to increase the size of her megacity without sacrificing production speed. Very different playthroughs just by mixing up 2 elements that are already varied