Gameplay Feedback thread

[Super Bullet Will]

Staring a thread for users to submit feedback for their experience with gameplay. This is NOT for bugs, glitches, crashes, etc. This is for topics like game balancing, UI readability, experience with control schemes, in-game terminology, etc.

[FaeWilds]

I think the biggest issue is the UI - I had the mission with the Desert Tower and when it started targeting my characters I had no idea what was going to be hit now, or be hit later, it was nearly impossible to easily read. And second that special abilities need to tell you if they use an action or not.

[ksen]

Yet to get to demo due to lack of time, but it feels like it's another case of game being made by people who didn't really played SRPG that much, judging by this thread.
I'll see for myself on weekend, but overall expectations got quite low now.

[MedVeD']

First of all. This is a genius idea to make tactic game in this universe. The announce made me hype. I played alot of MetalSlug on my PS1.

I bit Demo twice (both difficulties). Here is my feedback.

Graphics

Kinda sad to start with it. MS have a very destinct pixel visuals. Wich, partialy, was due to limitationg of gen 1 consoles. It was great when, it is not now.
People have big screens now, those giant squares makes the game look cheaper then mobile. I have 2.5k monitor and I can't differentiate characters models/faces!! The small "redo movement" section is basicaly a yellow square, wich actualy hurts readability.
Why do this? You have beautiful characters pics, so it is not a resource limitation. Wich means it is a design decision. Dont go that way, we are not in 2005 anymore. You'll do more justice by updating the picture instead of repeating it.
Take a look and Song of Conquest. It has good, modern, pixel art. Sireously, pls x4 your pixels.

Fidelity

There is a lack of things, that I'm accustomed to see in the MS game:

• Announcer. Where did he go? I mean, he is a part of the iconic identity of the game. Make he comment on every thing. Killed more then 1 guy. let him talk. Destroyed a tank or and objective, he should announce it. The guy should be present as an invisible part of the squad.
  
• Humor. There is alot of humour in the MS. And I mean Fat mode, Zombie mode, killing guys on a toilet. Where is it? Let me have it, it will create great gameplay alteration.
  
• Pick ups HAEVY MACHINGUN doko? We are Metal Slug or not? Let the captured guys drop it (instead of 5 exp LOL), let it be strong and let it behave as a tank: limited ammo/energy, cannot swap, explode in the end. It will make missions way more fun, while keeping the spirit of the game.
  
• Slugs The game have it. Cool design. My only wish is to have vehicle level and vehicle boss. THis is a stable of all MS games. You start mission, every single enemy is in a tank, and you have slugs ready at the arm reach.
  
• High octane action Ya, that will be difficult. MS is intence, but light at the same time. This is hard to reproduce in the tactical form, but we can try.

Gameplay

As a game MST tries to comebine roque-like elements into X-Com formula. It works, majorly:

• Rogue-like weapon upgrades in addition to the level up rewards is a W. Whery cool idea.
  
• Short missions and short campaign. Also a W. Short, sweet fun.
  
• Limited lifes and secondary ammo. Cool adoptation and nice mechanic.
  
• Balance is really good. Game felt fair to me on both succesfull runs. Enemies doesn't oneshot you
  
• Compaign map randomness requiere some tweaking. I'm talking about making weighted random for the first 3 avaliable missions. I had 2 runs, that died on 1 and 2 missions. At the start if you have access to the Survive and Escort missions only it is a gameover. Those maps are way harder then any other type of encounter and shouldn't block the start of the run. Like, have maximum 1 of them at the beginning. If you want to take the risk, you take it, if not then you still have alternative.
  
• Action economy. This is the core of the problem, imo. By changing this we can achive lightness and octane action. Right now the game is so good at balance that it feels frustratingly rigid:
  
  1. Every thing is a cross shaped. True aoe is super rare (Tarma and Fio are the only ones that have circle shaped target selections). It is, probaly, needed to be this way for all assist mechanics to work, but man it is noticeble. There is no diagonal targeting in the game, there is no arc targeting (shotgun is 1 tile range and doesn't count). If you'll add a firethrower to the game it has to have acone shape targeting. In the end of things this point is not important.
     
  2. Special actions cancel the movement. I get why I lose movement after the attack, but why I lose it after ability, that doesn't do dmg is beyond me. Marko's Salvo and Eri Trampoline is the primal examples. Just why? If I cannot put trampoline and use it at the same time, I'm never using this ability. Way to strict for no reason. "Free" movement is one of the ways to make game feels fast.
     
  3. 2 action combat. This is the heart of evil. This is the source of feelings like slow and rigid. It was put on a map by X-Com, but later Firaxis them selfs moved from this set up towards 2.5 action system in x-com2. 2.5 is when you have dedicated movement, dedicated attack and hidden/fluid point. Basicaly every character in that game had an option to cheat 1 point, and it made the game much more dinamic. As it turns out, when you dont need to spend full action on reload, or short jump, you are much more engaged. They also had a spesific unit type that can redistribute action points btwn squad, for extra degeneracy in the endgame. Wich on the other hand allow them to drop boss units in every third mission.
     Later 3point system appeared. I think, Lamplighter League used it. Basicaly you have 3 actions and there is no limitation - do what ever you want in any order. Game design for tactical games moved forward, use thier experience. 2 points is not good enough anymore. This is the most crucial aspect, pls think about it. As long as you enlarge point economy, you can drop what ever enemies and pick up weapons on a player. Every thing can be fit. Let it have a bit of chaos. You are constanly swarmed by enemies in MS. Let them come, just give the options.

Charactes

• Marko. Basic turret with extra steps. As I understand the proper order - is that you attack with him, give every body bonus dmg, and then you assist to reduce the ability cost. You know what is needed for this type of gameplay? A lot of movement! Do you know what Marco lack? Free movement and option to get it! He is half of a unit without Swift weapon mod.
  
• Eri. Assist queen. Marco wishes he was as good in assisting as Eri. I dont like her character, but she was in my both teams. One with default loadout and second with alternative. Inbuild free movement and aoe. She only lacks dmg. You just need to land 1 good mod/passive to get extra oomph and you are golden. I'm pretty sure Eri did most dmg in both campaigns. Realy good unit.
  
• Tarma. No Giant Knuckle - no win. A melee unit in my range game? What can go wrong? Tarma starts worse then Marco, but finishes better then him. He also need movement, but has more options to get it. With Guerilla or Swift, he became a complite unit. And with Giant Knuckle he became a monster. This ability is op. You can clear 4 guys in one turn. He has full dodge build, but you dont need to dodge if you just kill every thing. GK is so good, that you dont need any other abilities or mods. Also this is his only offensive +1 action ability. Like, common. You now the unit is weak when you have to give him a win button.
  
• Fio. My girl. First I was dissapointed, that Fio suck in this game. But then I took Accupuncture and the whole world changed. Fio is the worst character in the game, that becomes the best character in the game. She has alot of way to get +1 action and free movement. You just need to survive long enough to get it. You need Eagle to transform her from 0.3 of a unit into 1.3 of a unit. And you need Acupuncture to make her a God. Free action + free movement + dmg invul. You can tank Tower and Ship for days.

As you may notice the character tier list position is solely depends on the access to free movement and free actions. Point economy is everything.

Minor things

• Pls allow to switch loadout btwn missions. If you cannot switch it that means the whole loadout mechanic - is nothing burger. As soon as you figure out the best one, yu will never pick other one. Yet loadout is not always an upgrate. Eri loadout changes her from back line to front line fighter, wich is good for one type of map and for the other. Also, imagine, you bought a loadout and forgot to put it.. couldn't be me XD
  
• What about squad expantion? There is no way all game we will have only 3 units??? You have 8 character slots, 60% of the cast will never be played.
  
• Tower mechanic is not fair. You cannot do autotarget and salvo after death at the same time. If it does dmg after death, then I should be able to dodge it, b/c it was fired at my last position. If it is tracking me, then that means if I kill the tower there is no one to shoot. In demo build, I'm basicaly getting punished for doing the right thing.
  
• Boss fight is cool. It pushes you ahead, but leaves oportunities to unload the dmg.

P.S. thank you for making this game fingers crossed that you will listen to the feedback and make the game better. I will play it any way, but it better be good next time XD

[Remy]

I found this game to be very hard. I'm sure I just suck but I guess when I select "Recruit Difficulty" and die on the 3rd mission, something feels off to me.

[人修羅]

I wish your characters can shoot through each other. If that would be too overpowered, at least allow them to walk past each other.

I also want the winning announcement to be “mission complete” instead of “victory”.

[Nameless King]

keeps crashing at boss level even after u reset game

[gromenawer]

İlk olarak gromenawer tarafından gönderildi:

My overall feedback is that the game needs less clicking.

At first glance, there are a lot of clicks that can be eliminated by simply selecting a default option without user interaction.

For example, you need to select your first unit every turn. You can by default have F1 unit selected, rather than making the user click F1 or clicking the unit. Is possible that the player doesn't want the F1, but in average 33% of the time you will save one click.

Same goes for the attacks. You might want to have the main attack selected by default. Still, possible that the user want to use an special, or other weapon or whatever, but also 25% of the time in average you have the correct option.

Adding to this, inserting coins to resurrect a unit can be halved too.

Now: Click coin under portrait -> Look for unit -> Click on unit -> Unit resurrected

Better: Click on coin under portrait -> Unit resurrected


Also, please add an option to skip animations. For example when you do a secondary ability you get a flash of the face of the character.

[gromenawer]

Also, the ESC key bring you the options menu, but pressing ESC again doesn't close that menu. You need to click "Continue".

The expected behavior for pretty much all games is that ESC open and close the option / pause / whatever; not one way only.

[killeur4041]

İlk olarak gromenawer tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak gromenawer tarafından gönderildi:

My overall feedback is that the game needs less clicking.

At first glance, there are a lot of clicks that can be eliminated by simply selecting a default option without user interaction.

For example, you need to select your first unit every turn. You can by default have F1 unit selected, rather than making the user click F1 or clicking the unit. Is possible that the player doesn't want the F1, but in average 33% of the time you will save one click.

Same goes for the attacks. You might want to have the main attack selected by default. Still, possible that the user want to use an special, or other weapon or whatever, but also 25% of the time in average you have the correct option.

Adding to this, inserting coins to resurrect a unit can be halved too.

Now: Click coin under portrait -> Look for unit -> Click on unit -> Unit resurrected

Better: Click on coin under portrait -> Unit resurrected


Also, please add an option to skip animations. For example when you do a secondary ability you get a flash of the face of the character.

Hello, for the resurrection the third click is here because you can choose the tile in range (orange) where you want to place your unit back :)

[Null Winter]

Minor thing, but if a character takes no damage (sufficient dodge+cover or Protection status negating all damage), then don't waste our time playing the full injury animation. The shared "flip, splat, and pick yourself up" animation for being hit by explosives takes quite awhile and that adds up even with animation speed boosted.

[D-.-RAiL]

I can't click on the switch in the demo but its not exclusive to to switch in the Tutorial. One of the many times trying to load and complete the demo I ran into not being able to shoot the stuff blocking my way. I have never been able to click on the switch to activate it.

[С Г エ χ]

Anyone complaining about "only being able to shoot in a straight line" is completely missing the point of the game. Same for not being able to hit things on a different height level. People don't seem to understand that the enemy fights on the same rules and both of these mechanics let you fight the huge amount of enemies without getting overwhelmed. Additionally they reward smart use of repositioning and free movement skills.

[NKO]

I played the demo and really enjoyed it. I'm a long time fan of Metal Slugs (Metal Slug X on PS1 still my favourite) and I think the demo already nailed the look and feel of the series. I'm also a casual fan of strategy games and this simple enough gameplay loop really scratched the itch. SO thanks for great work devs! There are only minor small things I didn't like so much mostly this one thing with the boat boss which the first commenter already said: " I feel like the timing of when chunks of the map will collapse into the water is not clearly communicated nor is which parts of the map will sink into the water either. "

[StaqOverFlow-]

I greatly enjoy it. Found the first boss an issue as I wasn't sure how to damage it, I figured that there would be some map weapon that would become available. It didn't occur to me until I accidentally damaged it with a grenade a I could shoot it.
Maybe adding some sort of initial visual indicator to show you can shoot it?

[Rithrin]

İlk olarak StaqOverFlow- tarafından gönderildi:

I greatly enjoy it. Found the first boss an issue as I wasn't sure how to damage it, I figured that there would be some map weapon that would become available. It didn't occur to me until I accidentally damaged it with a grenade a I could shoot it.
Maybe adding some sort of initial visual indicator to show you can shoot it?

Yeah, they really need to make the squares under vehicles (convoy, tower, boss, etc) glow red like the squares under enemy soldiers when in targeting mode, not grey like the rest of the terrain. One of the many UI issues they need to work out.