"It's just a beta" is intellectually dishonest. Cut it out.

[MFdinosaur]

Please stop with this toxic-positivity. The community is not nit-picking, it's giving important feedback. Let Frost Giant take the feedback that we still think they're passionate and talented, but there are a lot of ways in which they are just straight-up are not on the right track here, and it has nothing to do with development timeline.

The claim that it's bad because it's barebones is just not reasonable, because the ideas that are present in this game are WAY too developed for that to make sense. You can feel the design philosophy in this, and you can feel that FG thinks there's a LOT more depth and substance of gameplay here than there actually is. They can't just ADD to that and make it good. They need to try again.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of toxic negativity here too (seriously guys, shut up about the art style) but the critiques of gameplay are really valid, and they are nigh-overwhelming. Unless FG VERY forwardly tells the community "We put it out there, and overall, you didn't like it, so we're going back to the drawing board," then this game is unfortunately dead-before-arrival, and I DON'T want to see that. Let them accept the feedback please.

[Const]

factions are quite literally unfinished, tonnes of placeholders everywhere, sounds are incomplete. T3 is not even available. so yes, it's fair to say it's a beta moreso than other 'open betas' by other companies which are basically the finished product.


artstyle is set in stone though, so tough luck on people who can't stand it

[Cartermatic]

I have over 100 ranked matches and can effectively say I think this game has great gameplay. Pathing needs some work but the overall mechanics of the game differ enough from StarCraft that I am quite pleased. My first ten matches or so I had a polarizing opposite experience and thought it was garbage. But that’s cuz I straight up was still bad at the game. The more you play it, the more you discover about the nuances and actual depth to the game there is. I’m a firm believer that people who claim the game has no depth, lack a true understanding or have very little gametime

[UTmastuh]

As a lover of WC2, WC3, Yuri's revenge, and Generals I expected this game to be something new and innovative. This looks worse than a decade old RTS in how it looks and plays. I suddenly lost interest in this game and no longer believe in the hype of these old school WC and SC devs. I just don't understand how something as simple as an RTS could still look and feel awful to play in 2024. It needs to look and feel polished if it's already at open beta stage. This feels like pre-alpha stage still.
My hope is now on outpost infinity siege. If it delivers on its promise of an amazing RTS + FPS then that's where I'll shift my RTS focus.

[Soji]

Sure demo and basically completed products used to generate hype before release are marketed as 'betas' all the time, but in this games case FG has said before factions are incomplete so what other response is there to even give besides 'its in beta still' to the barebones claim? FG knows that, maybe some people dont so they're told its a beta. It's not meant to excuse criticisms or feedback, its literally just stating fact of the matter.

[MFdinosaur]

Originally posted by Soji:

Sure demo and basically completed products used to generate hype before release are marketed as 'betas' all the time, but in this games case FG has said before factions are incomplete so what other response is there to even give besides 'its in beta still' to the barebones claim? FG knows that, maybe some people dont so they're told its a beta. It's not meant to excuse criticisms or feedback, its literally just stating fact of the matter.

Nonono. I'm not suggesting FrostGiant is dishonest at all. I don't think they are at all. I think they're incredibly earnest and passionate, and should genuinely be respected for their approach. They just aren't making a game that will be well-received right now. That's it.

I'm specifically talking to folks trying to excuse the design failings of this game being pointed out by claiming they are only present because of how far along the game is. The core gameplay is NOT barebones, it's pretty far along. Its mechanics are deeply integrated. The problem is that they aren't well-designed or interesting. For this game to be successful, a lot will need to be scrapped. That's the point.

[HighLanderPony]

This always happens and will keep happening. Some people are apologists to the bitter end.

If you complain during alpha the excuse is "it's just alpha bro wait for the beta".
If you complain during beta the excuse is "it's just beta bro, wait for release".

This keeps going on till the day-1 patch, the 1-month patch, the big-big patch, the first expansion, and so on.

[dinosaur]

"It's just a beta"...these are famous last words.

So many games forget to actually make the necessary improvements before release, legit like every other early access game dies super quickly because of this. Even AAA titles have been suffering from poor betas leading into poor releases lately. People have learned to spot slop from a mile away, I think that's why there is so much negative feedback.

[Araon]

Originally posted by HighLanderPony:

This always happens and will keep happening. Some people are apologists to the bitter end.

If you complain during alpha the excuse is "it's just alpha bro wait for the beta".
If you complain during beta the excuse is "it's just beta bro, wait for release".

This keeps going on till the day-1 patch, the 1-month patch, the big-big patch, the first expansion, and so on.

I seriously fail to see the issue here - it's not released yet, they are still working on it, ergo: it can improve.
Day 0/1 patches and past that I agree, it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ horrendous that nearly every game is released in a near-unplayable state nowadays, but before release it's just redundant to make, especially long-term, definitive predictions about the game future.
That being said, it's also incredibly scetchy to ask for money before the product is finished and delivered, which is why nobody should ever preorder anything, but that's a separate issue.

And more to the OP, "this is ♥♥♥♥" or "this is gonna flop" is not important feedback, it's people making deterministic predictions based on not liking the demo of an unreleased game. No, not everything can be excused by "it's just a beta/demo" arguments, but seeing people play a demo of an early-access unfinished product and saying that it's trash because it's unoptimised or some networking systems don't work or are buggy is giving me an aneurism. And while some core designs are not likely to change, I fail to understand why adding more content won't help the game feel more complete (because you know, it'll be actually complete).
Granted, I'm talking from the perspective of someone who likes the game (even as is, I just want more and bugs to be fixes), and I only really care about campaign and coop so I might not be able to understand some of the woes people face in competetive play - but the issue is that combing through the forum, very few people give any constructive, descriptive criticism. It's all just name calling and doomers that need to call the game ♥♥♥♥ or garbage instead of just saying what they didn't like.

In the end, I'd argue that what you call "toxic positivity" is just a reaction to the toxic negativity that is an overreaction to what the demo actually is - if people were reasonable in their criticisms, the beta/demo excuse wouldn't even be needed.

[Machiavelli]

Frost Giant wants good feedback. Not terrible feedback. "IT'S GONNA FLOP", wow dude that's really constructive. I really hope Frost Giant takes that into consideration when releasing the next build.

[HighLanderPony]

Originally posted by Araon:

Originally posted by HighLanderPony:

This always happens and will keep happening. Some people are apologists to the bitter end.

If you complain during alpha the excuse is "it's just alpha bro wait for the beta".
If you complain during beta the excuse is "it's just beta bro, wait for release".

This keeps going on till the day-1 patch, the 1-month patch, the big-big patch, the first expansion, and so on.

I seriously fail to see the issue here - it's not released yet, they are still working on it, ergo: it can improve.
Day 0/1 patches and past that I agree, it's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ horrendous that nearly every game is released in a near-unplayable state nowadays, but before release it's just redundant to make, especially long-term, definitive predictions about the game future.
That being said, it's also incredibly scetchy to ask for money before the product is finished and delivered, which is why nobody should ever preorder anything, but that's a separate issue.

And more to the OP, "this is ♥♥♥♥" or "this is gonna flop" is not important feedback, it's people making deterministic predictions based on not liking the demo of an unreleased game. No, not everything can be excused by "it's just a beta/demo" arguments, but seeing people play a demo of an early-access unfinished product and saying that it's trash because it's unoptimised or some networking systems don't work or are buggy is giving me an aneurism. And while some core designs are not likely to change, I fail to understand why adding more content won't help the game feel more complete (because you know, it'll be actually complete).
Granted, I'm talking from the perspective of someone who likes the game (even as is, I just want more and bugs to be fixes), and I only really care about campaign and coop so I might not be able to understand some of the woes people face in competetive play - but the issue is that combing through the forum, very few people give any constructive, descriptive criticism. It's all just name calling and doomers that need to call the game ♥♥♥♥ or garbage instead of just saying what they didn't like.

In the end, I'd argue that what you call "toxic positivity" is just a reaction to the toxic negativity that is an overreaction to what the demo actually is - if people were reasonable in their criticisms, the beta/demo excuse wouldn't even be needed.

The issue is that when people think "it can improve" they usually expect miracles when in reality, products can change very little from beta to release. So the earlier people harp on issues the better but that's hard to do with the "it's just beta, relax" crowd.

[DEMONVIA]

this game made me realise SC2 is still the gold standard of RTS (currently) just reluctantly installed bnet client and SC2 to scratch the itch that this game failed to provide as hyped over all these months.

[McBourbon]

Originally posted by MFdinosaur:

Please stop with this toxic-positivity. The community is not nit-picking, it's giving important feedback. Let Frost Giant take the feedback that we still think they're passionate and talented, but there are a lot of ways in which they are just straight-up are not on the right track here, and it has nothing to do with development timeline.

The claim that it's bad because it's barebones is just not reasonable, because the ideas that are present in this game are WAY too developed for that to make sense. You can feel the design philosophy in this, and you can feel that FG thinks there's a LOT more depth and substance of gameplay here than there actually is. They can't just ADD to that and make it good. They need to try again.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of toxic negativity here too (seriously guys, shut up about the art style) but the critiques of gameplay are really valid, and they are nigh-overwhelming. Unless FG VERY forwardly tells the community "We put it out there, and overall, you didn't like it, so we're going back to the drawing board," then this game is unfortunately dead-before-arrival, and I DON'T want to see that. Let them accept the feedback please.

so you dont like gameplay gameplay and making statement is non toxic, and saying art style is bad and boring is?

[Polysorbate]

The art style is so bad I'm not wasting my bandwidth on the demo to see if it's fun to play.

[#1 Slime NA]

Judging the depth of the game when we're missing the highest tech tier is kinda pointless. Additionally if early access is in 6 months we're like, a year out from actual release at minimum. They have a lot of time to work on it. So far none of the feedback I've read has been very useful to be honest. Especially "It's too much like SC2" when it's genuinely not very much like SC2 at all, just makes me think the people commenting it have never played any other RTS.

Pacing wise the creep camps and lower reliance on specific tech power spikes and timing attacks makes it a lot closer to WC3, but very importantly it lacks heroes so that's not a solid comparison either. It's doing its own thing, but people expect you to completely throw out all the fundamentals of what makes an RTS or you're just another SC2 clone I guess. Dawn of War 3 already tried that and it was terrible.

[FatalError]

The unfinishedness of this technically makes this an alpha, not a beta, as a beta is supposed to be feature complete, aka all the features planned for the release version are implemented. Now since the third faction hasn't even been revealed, I highly doubt it's close to finished.

Beta doesn't really mean anything anymore these days as companies just use it as a catch all marketing term and neckbeard gamers lap it up without critical thinking.