Don't buy in this state

[Frog Actual]

I don't care if you're starved for a tank game, go play steel beast, the game went from promising to a scam made to siphon patreon bucks. They're focusing on helicopters before infantry and other ground system ffs, vote with your wallet.

[deees]

What part of "Early Access" don't you understand?

The developers are working on this game as fast as they can. If you really want to speed development, sent them enough money hire/contract more coding capacity.

[GeekFurious]

Originally posted by Frog Actual:

I don't care if you're starved for a tank game, go play steel beast, the game went from promising to a scam made to siphon patreon bucks. They're focusing on helicopters before infantry and other ground system ffs, vote with your wallet.

Seriously, are you five years old? Scam? Grow up.

[Sundor 💪💪🇺🇦💪💪]

Originally posted by deees:

What part of "Early Access" don't you understand?

The developers are working on this game as fast as they can. If you really want to speed development, sent them enough money hire/contract more coding capacity.

IDK man, all I've seen them work on this year are aircraft when in the past they were adding more playable vehicles which is the main draw. The T-62 and the others in the test range have had what appear to be completed 3d models for about a full year now. At the same time the game has become less and less stable with every build which isn't a great sign.

It seems hypocritical when they don't want to add things that expand the scope of the game like the M551 Sheridan because it wasn't deployed in theater. However they keep adding CAS, especially the planes that add nothing to gameplay.

And if not tanks make the interactions with the environment better, you still clip through fences and trees are brick walls.

[VegetaTheSaiyan]

Originally posted by deees:

What part of "Early Access" don't you understand?

The developers are working on this game as fast as they can. If you really want to speed development, sent them enough money hire/contract more coding capacity.

The game has clearly entered the Patreon milking phase, my dude
"""Early access""" That's nearly synonymous with scam cash grab these days too

Imagine getting into a tank game only to have actual ground stuff sidelined for CAS and other crap like that.
Having watched OP and others play it, it just seems extremely barebones with the roadmap barely even adhered to, much less on a reasonable timeframe
gtfo here with "muh early access"

This was also directed at the second guy too

[BobobVanBlob]

From seeing how the sausage is made it seems like you are overreacting, but feeling concerned about how long it takes is valid, gamedev is harduous and time consuming. If we take Battlebit we can see that it took 7 years for their team of three people to reach a "complete early access product" state, Heat Signature took close to four years, these things, they take time.

Now let's get back to GHPC, their team is now made up of four main devs with different specialties (3D artist, research, mission maker, coder, design, bug hunting). Then you get some additional contractors working on specific things, on the top of my head they have one for VFX, one for everything that flies, one for an upcoming feature that's usually being talked about a lot, one for the soundtrack, etc.

So no, CAS is not detracting too much from the main game dev time since it's someone else that is mostly working on it, just like VFX and it's still a core feature of the game. And it's also on the roadmap, literally the second item so it makes sense to work on it now. It's also a visible feature contrary to half of the patch notes' content.

Now let's take the claim that they are too lazy/greedy to work on vehicles. I'm going to take the PT-76 as an example:
- first teaser of a 3D model was published in December 2022
- became playable in August 2023
From how they make vehicles it means they first needed to find and 3D scan an actual one, then there is one guy working on making the 3D model plus all the interactive stuff (optics, guns, armour, internals that can be destroyed) with all the research needed (finding primary sources then making guesses from secondary ones if primary sources don't exist), verifying it, then there is implementing all the code associated with it, testing it, making a mission with it, testing it, tweaking it, making sure the AI can use the damn thing, testing it. So yes you can have a full model in december of a certain year but then you end up with it releasing in August of the following year, same thing happened with the BMP-2 we had a model in the game pre-early access release but it was made available to play in April 2023 because they could also use the first iteration of the German voice acting in it.

Now take the Soviet exclusive vehicles and repeat that process while also needing to dedicate time to voice acting auditions, making research on the voice lines, researching the FCS, creating a new system for russian voicelines, creating that new FCS, making sure the AI can use it, etc. Suddenly that T-62 doesn't look that easy to plop into the game anymore.

Would they be releasing vehicles faster right now if you threw more money and people at the problem? No. If you have two couples you won't get a baby delivered in 4,5 months, but you might get two in 9 months if you are lucky. Same thing, some work is incompressible, it's the joys of project management and gamedev seems to be project management turned up to eleven from my window.

For the last claim that they are using Patreon to milk people dry, you can literally check on graphtreon and you will see that early access has made their patreon go down in terms of revenue which was their plan, you'd barely be able to pay half of their team with that.

Anyway sorry for the wall of text but that's usually how it is.

[harry]

wrong about this thing being a scam, but totally correct that you should go play steel beasts. It's a cool game and if it suits you better than our game does, that's ok.

[MagneticJerk]

Yeah I mean this just sounds like OP does not like what GHPC is shooting for. I for one like it specifically because it's trying to not just be a tank sandbox. Things like CAS, helis, fire support, massively improved VFX and the countless improvements to mission design possibilities (along with the missions themselves) that have been made lately are a lot more exciting to me than just getting a dripfeed of playable vehicles which we still got some of anyways, see BMP-2 and now PT-76

And it's not like the fact that these systems are part of the core vision and were likely to arrive before new factions wasn't communicated clearly either.

[Sundor 💪💪🇺🇦💪💪]

Okay that's all a nice sentiment and slightly alleviates my concerns about the content itself but, the base of the game needs work and adding new features isn't going to make that stability greater when there are clearly other unresolved problems. Problems that if not addressed when there isn't much going on in the game, can only be exacerbated by infantry and coop in the future. The game you claim not to be like has some massive spaghetti code issues so I rather that not be a core issue here.

In recent months I've wanted to be able to play the game at all but, its performance issues have just been getting worse and worse since the steam release.

I get the thought process is "if we add this new feature early enough then it will be easier to implement in the long run" so you could argue that this is a part of the base of the game but, it feels off to me when the game has core stability and optimization issues to fix.

[harry]

we're aware of the optimisation problems, we're the ones working on the game. Simpler features (like jets) are ready sooner than complex features (like engine upgrades and rewrites necessary for optimisation passes, new fire control systems and damage models) - If it's not the product you want it to be yet, you can refund and try again later.

pretty common part of the life cycle of a small title.

[Sunscreen]

Ive got an old i5 with a 6gb 1060 graphics card, the rig being about 6 years old. It runs fine and my graphics card doesnt run hot, this with most settings on high etc. I have no idea why this is, but I offer it in the spirit of information sharing.

Ive noticed Im getting stuttering after the most recent update but the general direction is forwards.

Storm in a teacup from where Im sitting, which I appreciate doesnt help if youre the one getting wet.

[Melonfish]

I bought this game at the weekend, I've been having an absolute riot, the June live stream addresses optimisation and infantry etc, Early access means In Development, I guess if you're not happy to buy at that point don't? otherwise, buy and have some turret flipping fun. Also, the revealed new armour looks amazing, i can't wait to play them.

[Randy Lahey]

$30 for a game and some idiot is saying go buy the 1998 game (sorry, 2006 ) for $115. I paid $70 for M1 Tank Platoon 2 in 1998, and it looks and plays almost as good as Steel Beasts . Also, make you own missions while you're at it. Seems about right for $115 🙄

[VegetaTheSaiyan]

Originally posted by Randy Lahey:

$30 for a game and some idiot is saying go buy the 1998 game (sorry, 2006 ) for $115. I paid $70 for M1 Tank Platoon 2 in 1998, and it looks and plays almost as good as Steel Beasts . Also, make you own missions while you're at it. Seems about right for $115 🙄

"115$" You can sub for a month for $10 and then not touch it again until you want to
Making your own missions is great because there's hundreds if not thousands out there to grab and play too from other users

Also I just realized GHPC is double dipping with (((early access))) and Patreon
Lmfao ♥♥♥♥ off

[Randy Lahey]

Originally posted by ☭✡ VegetaTheSaiyan ✡☭:

"115$" You can sub for a month for $10 and then not touch it again until you want to
Making your own missions is great because there's hundreds if not thousands out there to grab and play too from other users

Also I just realized GHPC is double dipping with (((early access))) and Patreon
Lmfao ♥♥♥♥ off

I've tried SB Pro already. $13.50 CAD per month, $160CAD for the full version, AND you need to pay again every time they 'upgrade' the game. They've clearly said they could care less about SB Pro as a 'game'. Take it or leave it is their attitude, as is the attitude of most of the old-boomer 'community' over on their forums.

GHPC is $32 CAD when on (frequent) sale. In roughly 2.5 months of SB Pro, I've paid for GHPC. I still have the original Steel Beasts on CD. I could never get the mouse to work right, even with different mice, kind of important for targeting...so I ended up shelving it. SSnake made a feeble attempt to help, but basically said there was nothing they could do to fix it. $55 USD paperweight. I figured SB Pro must have fixed it by now, right? Wrong. I still (5 or 6 PC's later) had issues with the mouse, and it doesn't support fullscreen 1440p Seriously? In 2023?! The fix was to just go back to 1080p on my 32" monitor...

If you want to pay to make your own missions and play on a 'Panzer-Elite' looking/performing graphics engine for $160...ok. Maybe support the guys making an actual PC game instead?

Also, what is everyone talking about with Patreon? If you don't want to do it, don't do it. I don't recall being forced to sign up? Are there that many intellectually-enfeebled individuals out there that can't figure that out?

[remnar]

I never got the appeal of GHPC. For a much lower price, you can get everything in this game and more in War Thunder! While GHPC is currently diverting dev time to helicopters, War Thunder already has helicopters, but also fully fledged aircraft, naval gameplay, many more tanks and combat cars, an amazing and detailed damage model, fully functional multiplayer. Instead of waiting for this, I think War Thunder is a much better investment of one's time and there's no patreon, there's no early access, there's no diverting of dev resources because the Gaijin Entertainment team is large and highly efficient.