This is really disappointing.

[BrutalGlory]

I've been looking forward to this for years now, and i can honestly say this is the first RTS I've been genuinely disappointed by in about a decade. It seems to have kept the core of the old C&C games, but it's also taken all the wrong lessons while discarding the good ones as well.

Granted I've only played the (GDF i believe it was called? it's GDI for all intents and purposes) but the tech tree is an absolute mess. The UI is also messy; ratios for abilities and seeing what units are selected don't match the rest of what's being displayed and reading the abilities is a literal headache.

There's no range indicators for base defenses (at least while building them at a minimum, maybe there is while selecting them but i'm not entirely sure) and we're using the C&C RA3 wall building system here which is painfully tedious (but not the range indicators from RA3 for some unknown reason)

I don't know what the devs were thinking with every units having abilities by the dozen either; sometimes less micro is more. The game can't seem to decide if it wants to be the pre- Tib 3 & RA3 where it was large-scale skirmishes and the micro was in moving and focus fire or Tib 3 & RA3 onwards where it's a more slow and methodical experience and the micro is based on abilities and sieges. The game seems to have a serious identity crisis by trying to cram everything possible into it.

Building garrisons are functionally useless with the upgrade that enables units to deal damage to units inside the structure. Watching 6 basic anti-tank units get slaughtered by 3 basic vehicles while garrisoned is *not* the C&C experience, i don't understand the decision making here. The whole point of infantry in a C&C game is that it's supposed to be cost effective when fighting from cover.

The repair bays are an outdated mechanic from the late 90s. I don't want to be asked to build half a dozen bays and then manually tell vehicles to repair themselves after a fight like i'm playing Generals. It's one thing to ask someone to micro, but this is absurd. In no universe should we be going back to 90's mechanics that we scrapped and require more micro/macro than playing already APM intensive games like AOE 2, AOE 4, WC3, or SC2 to name a few.

As for MCVs they're the worst offenders. The build radius is absolutely *horrible*, they're slow, for some reason packing and unpacking has a cooldown that's much too long, they require tech to build (Seriously, what the hell is this? Just make it default from the vehicle factory!). (I actually edited this part because upon reloading the game queing multiple buildings of the same type worked, it didn't initially don't ask why.)

The eco is an absolute MESS. Resources run out on each node *far* too quickly, and it doesn't seem like there's any justification for having more than one harvester per node. The base storage of 6000 without silos is also absurdly low, if i can keep a factory, 2 mcvs, a barracks, and an airfield all pumping off of 5 nodes and *still* need to be spamming silos just to keep up then there's a serious problem here. Just do away with the storage limit altogether; pick an identity, is this supposed to be a slower RTS or a faster one? I can crank out 5 factories and keep them going if that's what the devs choose, but don't expect me to make 30 silos in the process while trying to tech and do everything else. At some point i'd like to actually take fights instead of staring at my base.

I'm sure there's more but I think I've made my point. This game is a hot mess, I get the devs want it to be C&C but they've crammed all the worst aspects of C&C games into one and created a monster. The last few times there were demos available i couldn't get the game stable enough to try it, maybe it was better a year ago before they decided to rehaul everything, and if so they really need to revert some of the changes they may have made.

(Edit: Mistake of thinking multiple tech buildings needed to get all tech pods removed. Both icons would simply appear blacked out after building one on further testing - goes to UI complaint.)

[puppet74]

i think ur expecting something its not. this is not a cnc clone, its a 90s style rts design, campaign / mp , cool music, with fast and fun gameplay like cnc.

There so many things you say, that are jsut wrong, like for example resources. Maybe play more in the mp demo before saying the eco system is broken.

[BrutalGlory]

Originally posted by puppet74:

i think ur expecting something its not. this is not a cnc clone, its a 90s style rts design, campaign / mp , cool music, with fast and fun gameplay like cnc.

There so many things you say, that are jsut wrong, like for example resources. Maybe play more in the mp demo before saying the eco system is broken.

My dude I've played basically every RTS since the early 90s RELIGIOUSLY. And this game is a serious offender of practically every rule for good design of an RTS. "Cool" doesn't equate to fun or a cohesive design. The old C&C games were cool but also cohesive, and this just isn't as it stands right now.

But let's add a few more things to the list while i'm testing it some more to prove a point:

1: You can't set rallies for buildings that are under construction. There's no excuse for this.

2: Upon furthter review of the UI the tooltips are lacking critical information, again, there's no excuse for this. Silos don't say how much extra they allow to be held, and icons like repair don't show the hotkey associated with them. Units in the build menu don't show any stats to speak of; not range, damage type, or even armor type.

Come on man, one or two mistakes or choices is fine. But to botch everything this badly is a sin.

[puppet74]

well i disagree, this is the most 90s rts vibe game i've played since i can remember, beats most rts i've played in years. I've played rts since dune, im sure many many people who have played rts since they started as well.
I started with dune 2 on msdos. i put around 50 hours in the closed beta, there is a lot of fun to be had here. sorry you find it soo repulsive. But as you said you have played every rts ever so go play them again

[BrutalGlory]

Originally posted by puppet74:

well i disagree, this is the most 90s rts vibe game i've played since i can remember, beats most rts i've played in years. I've played rts since dune, im sure many many people who have played rts since they started as well.
I started with dune 2 on msdos. i put around 50 hours in the closed beta, there is a lot of fun to be had here. sorry you find it soo repulsive. But as you said you have played every rts ever so go play them again

I could do that. Or i could leave my feedback here in the forums and see what other people think and hope it causes improvement. I'm glad you enjoy it, but a game doesn't need to use outdated, broken, and tedious systems from the 90s to give the 90s vibe. The core of this is very 90s, but that doesn't mean it needs to be as janky or insufferable (by modern standards) as a game from the 90s.

[puppet74]

well i dunno if you took part in the closed testing, but that would have been the place to leave feedback. Its probably pretty late now to change any major things you find insufferable so close to release.

[Cryptic]

yeah this demo is a disaster honestly. none of the qol improvements or feedback made it in and they want $40 for this? really? on top of that: microtransactions and skins.


f this

[BrutalGlory]

Originally posted by Cryptic:

yeah this demo is a disaster honestly. none of the qol improvements or feedback made it in and they want $40 for this? really? on top of that: microtransactions and skins.


f this

Eh, judging by the 2 jesters I've already gotten the white knights will buy it. Which also means if the QOL you mentioned wasn't implemented it's not going to be.

It's a shame though, this has a lot of promise. And to see such basic features be bungled doesn't bode well.

Oh, and one more thing I've noticed: when queing multiple buildings you have to press the key to select the building again after placing one. Shift can't be held to place multiple (though funnily enough they did include shift to que 5 units). It's like the devs haven't even played their own game to notice these things are missing.

[Cryptic]

the graphics are beautiful but the gameplay is a joke.

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by BrutalGlory:

Originally posted by Cryptic:

yeah this demo is a disaster honestly. none of the qol improvements or feedback made it in and they want $40 for this? really? on top of that: microtransactions and skins.


f this

Eh, judging by the 2 jesters I've already gotten the white knights will buy it. Which also means if the QOL you mentioned wasn't implemented it's not going to be.

It's a shame though, this has a lot of promise. And to see such basic features be bungled doesn't bode well.

Oh, and one more thing I've noticed: when queing multiple buildings you have to press the key to select the building again after placing one. Shift can't be held to place multiple (though funnily enough they did include shift to que 5 units). It's like the devs haven't even played their own game to notice these things are missing.

I think it’s due to the fact the genre doesn’t get that many releases. So any new game is something. Just waiting for the compilation of bugs and glitches when the game releases.

[SpookyPancakes]

Originally posted by BrutalGlory:

Eh, judging by the 2 jesters I've already gotten the white knights will buy it. Which also means if the QOL you mentioned wasn't implemented it's not going to be.

Actually a great point if the fanatics keep shouting people down and doing the stupid clown emoji on anything they disagree with the game will become an echo chamber and a lot of people won't give it the time of day, or hell it gets tuned by all the no life "pros" so that all the fun stuff is removed (like most RTS or comp shooters). (this goes for any game)

[Bankai9212]

Originally posted by SpookyPancakes:

Originally posted by BrutalGlory:

Eh, judging by the 2 jesters I've already gotten the white knights will buy it. Which also means if the QOL you mentioned wasn't implemented it's not going to be.

Actually a great point if the fanatics keep shouting people down and doing the stupid clown emoji on anything they disagree with the game will become an echo chamber and a lot of people won't give it the time of day, or hell it gets tuned by all the no life "pros" so that all the fun stuff is removed (like most RTS or comp shooters). (this goes for any game)

After graven I doubt the mp with be long supported or stable.

[marionettethree]

You can set unit target priority in option but not sure how different will it make.

[Cryptic]

I get that the game is meant to be skill-based and everybody will just say get good and such, but what people fail to understand is back then when command and conquer was originally created and released, there were technical limitations that didn't allow a whole lot of stuff for the unit intelligence. Now in 2025, we should have that kind of stuff.

I'm watching my guys run after enemies that are now in the shroud off screen in the fog of war when there are enemies still pelting them because they are too stupid to switch manually to the next target so I have to do that for each individual ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ guy when there are literally dozens of them on the screen at once.

Stuff like this is why we can't have nice things

[Cryptic]

Originally posted by marionettethree:

You can set unit target priority in option but not sure how different will it make.

Tried this. Really didn't make much of a difference. Ironically, that setting seems bugged because I tried it both ways and my guys would just stand next to enemy buildings and do nothing and it really didn't make much of a difference in combat whatsoever

[Cryptic]

Originally posted by puppet74:

i think ur expecting something its not. this is not a cnc clone, its a 90s style rts design, campaign / mp , cool music, with fast and fun gameplay like cnc.

There so many things you say, that are jsut wrong, like for example resources. Maybe play more in the mp demo before saying the eco system is broken.

No, I agree with the op. And his opinion is not wrong. It's just subjective just like yours. You should look up the definition.

Resources do run out too quickly. Even for a CNC clone or just a '90s RTS design like you say