What did Stormgate do wrong?

[Mathroy]

So I'm asking genuinely, where did Stormgate fail so hard that made its extremely hyped community die down entirely?

I had a lot of fun playing Coop but I have not had too much time with it so my insight is very limited.

[Diavkha]

Originally posted by Mathroy:

So I'm asking genuinely, where did Stormgate fail so hard that made its extremely hyped community die down entirely?

I had a lot of fun playing Coop but I have not had too much time with it so my insight is very limited.

To me the game just feels TOO close to StarCraft 2, the whole vibe of it. It's like a knock off version of the Terrans, Zerg and Protoss.

All the units, buildings and modes of play feel too "samey".

It was fun but having played SC2 for years, it really didn't impress me or kept me playing for long. Nothing new in terms of innovations or new mechanics brought to advance or at least change the genre a little.

I don't want to play SC2 14 years later again, I want something really new.

[リアンダ]

Imo there are three mayor issues.

The first one is visuals. While I do think that the game's visuals are mostly readable and clean they lack the necessary grime and grit that the target audience and setting demand. There's nothing wrong with stylized visuals. But the sterile, save and childish design makes the game less appealing to an aging audience of mostly Millenials and Gen X.

Secondly, I think that the devs chose an overly resource intense workflow when working on their game. Strategy games aren't FPS games. They don't necesseraly need complex models with tons of polygons, normal and spec maps, etc. Games like Northguard, Godsworn or Fabledom have clearly shown that you can still get away with oldschool visual if the artdirection is done well. Lowpoly models, where handpainted textures and maybe some normalmaps do most of the heavy lifitng are a lot quicker (and cheaper) to make than some overly detailed, highpoly model that requires days just to retopologize, do the UVs, bake the maps, etc...

Thirdly, I think the game should have focussed on story instead of multiplayer. This would have lowered the barrier of entry for many players who were afraid the game would become worthless, the moment the playerbase dies (I was one of them). With a good singleplayer campaign a game remains replayable forever and attracts a wider audience than just the hardcore multiplayer crowd. Especially since the RTS target adience is aging. Again I feel the need to mention Northguard. The campaign drw people in who then stayed for the multiplayer.

[Hawksbri]

First off, they made overblown statements about their former-Blizzard staff.
Second, they made this a poorly mixed version of Warcraft and Starcraft.
Third, they tried to make a poorly written story, which hasn't panned out, at all.
Forth, they've not been doing much QoL and making things equal between the factions and commanders.
Fifth, they've continuously lied and tried to hide their actions and activities to make themselves seem more competent than they really are. We're not our grandfathers, we're in the Age of Information Technology, and we've seen better lies and coverups from the Clintons.

[Magpie]

Originally posted by Bowser:

I think Rts games in general just failed to evolve like other genres. Even Starcraft is declining. They continue to listen to the same hardcore niche audience instead of taking complexity out of the game and making it accessible. For example why can't you use the buddy ai in PvP. And why is the main game mode still a 1vs1 kill everything until someone exits the game. Where is the 10 vs 10 game modes with map objectives like shooter games. They could have capture points or push the bomb cart to win instead of simple base annihilation.
The old 1vs1 formula just puts too much pressure on players so most don't even care for rts games anymore. Being part of a team of 10 would take that pressure away because 9 other players could pick up the slack for a newbie allowing him to familiarize himself with the game without him getting trashed every time.
So i don't think Stormgate failed, rather there is no more market for the old rts formula of the late 90's

So basically you don't even want a RTS game. You want a MOBA where there is AI to play for you because you find it stressful playing a competitive video game. Sheesh. Maybe leave teh RTS game forums and never come back? You clearly do not enjoy or want more RTS games! I am still playing Red Alert 2 online after 25 years because it's that good. Maybe just accept this genre is not to your liking.

Also, stormgate is garbage and dead on arrival.

[Breeding Medicine]

1. Art
2. Lore
3. Lack of innovations in RTS gameplay

[Nightsbane]

$ greedy and overpriced micro transactions - the short / incomplete campaigns and the hero costs

Gameplay

Ugly characters

[KingOfFriedChicken]

IMO they only did a few things wrong that made me go from ready to play to uninterested.

-First is the campaign
They are selling it In chapter's, gross! I would gladly have payed $40 or even $60 for a good campaign, I did for starcraft 2 after all lol 3 or more campaigns, 1 per faction not bad over the years I could go for that!!!

I will never buy the chapters individually, I'm not a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wallet and I'm not trying to be nickel and dime'd for a sub par camapin lol or make them more reasonable in price.

- Hero price
My main draw was coop, it is why I loved SC2 and its coop mode! Plus a customizable up to 3 player but not required coop is awesome! I can play solo or with just 1 friend or 2 and that's awesome.

But $10 per here is steep, I can buy full indie games for $10 but a single hero? 5-6 would be a better price, and I bought all SC2 heros day 1 cheaper can mean more overall sales!

-Heros don't feel heroic or super unique...
Not the last time I played anyway, they just don't feel like heros amoung the horde of units. If we take Zegara, Kerrigan, Dehaka, Alarak they all had a special gameplay styles that made them different to start, as heros alone not just their units to follow. They stood out, they could all be really strong power houses on the field, and played right even topple difficulties on their own in coop xD

Now I'm not saying they need to be as strong as that always, but they should stand out from basic units for some reason, not just be a mascot.

Idk If some of this has changed since I have played, but I haven't seen a ton of coop updates only new heros and some altered systems like gear.


But if the goal is to get me to spend money, they have failed on every front. To charge a high price they need to make it worth it and they didn't. They should reconsider monetization Honestly.

[GamerMcr]

They did copy a lot from SC I agree that they could have changed that a bit. They could have made some Human with spears like humans are predicted after ww3, at least for the basic units since the game is about post apocalyptic Humans, and then mixed with mech too. As right now I see SCVs, Marines, Zealots (Lancers), Hellions, Battlecruiser-Carrier hybrid and newest unit is a Ghost. War3 was waiting for some properly made fantasy RTS as well. This is why they went with war3-sc mix.

They need to make a 4th race, and a 5th race could be DLC , more symmetrical balance for easier to balance. Why don't we see for once races like greys and reptilians? Not just these 'xenomorph Zerg' and Protoss-like. Maybe add a hero unit but not like war3 where 1 hero at level 3 or 4 becomes so powerful they can take an entire small army (like demon level 6).

If they keep the camps they should make them like war3 and have a hero that can take something from the camps to give more reason to have all of that,

[Nep-Nep]

Originally posted by Bowser:

I think Rts games in general just failed to evolve like other genres. Even Starcraft is declining. They continue to listen to the same hardcore niche audience instead of taking complexity out of the game and making it accessible. For example why can't you use the buddy ai in PvP. And why is the main game mode still a 1vs1 kill everything until someone exits the game. Where is the 10 vs 10 game modes with map objectives like shooter games. They could have capture points or push the bomb cart to win instead of simple base annihilation.
The old 1vs1 formula just puts too much pressure on players so most don't even care for rts games anymore. Being part of a team of 10 would take that pressure away because 9 other players could pick up the slack for a newbie allowing him to familiarize himself with the game without him getting trashed every time.
So i don't think Stormgate failed, rather there is no more market for the old rts formula of the late 90's

When RTS devs try to make some "map objectives" in this genre, people start to whine that they don't need "this crap" in their perfect genre. Look how Dawn of War 3 went down. They tried to experiment with the game, people started ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on it, they made what people wanted, but no one already cared, because only the 1st impression matters. That's just how it is now, sadly.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by Sister Sabathiel:

Originally posted by Bowser:

I think Rts games in general just failed to evolve like other genres. Even Starcraft is declining. They continue to listen to the same hardcore niche audience instead of taking complexity out of the game and making it accessible. For example why can't you use the buddy ai in PvP. And why is the main game mode still a 1vs1 kill everything until someone exits the game. Where is the 10 vs 10 game modes with map objectives like shooter games. They could have capture points or push the bomb cart to win instead of simple base annihilation.
The old 1vs1 formula just puts too much pressure on players so most don't even care for rts games anymore. Being part of a team of 10 would take that pressure away because 9 other players could pick up the slack for a newbie allowing him to familiarize himself with the game without him getting trashed every time.
So i don't think Stormgate failed, rather there is no more market for the old rts formula of the late 90's

When RTS devs try to make some "map objectives" in this genre, people start to whine that they don't need "this crap" in their perfect genre. Look how Dawn of War 3 went down. They tried to experiment with the game, people started ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on it, they made what people wanted, but no one already cared, because only the 1st impression matters. That's just how it is now, sadly.

If I'm being honest, idc if there is fun different game modes. I love RTS games, but I'm not a PvP player lol so no matter what they try I'm not gonna do it. I was interested In coop, but do to their monetization efforts I couldn't justify paying those prices for coop or campaign.

I think a classic 1v1 is important, and the only issue I see with a 1v1 style objectives based system is you have to make it balanced across all, or balance each mission type separately. Ac10 man free for all wouldn't likely gain to much players, it's just to many and would only have an appeal for a little while more likely to just be annoying.

Like let's take sc2 and a push the cart style system, zerg are favored in that type of mission especially early, as they can fodder troops at it. While P and T both try to not lose units on mass. That dance would cause them to lose ground, or hold and lose expensive slower to build units...

Games that did have that like AoE2 with king of the hill, and wonder race etc... from what I remember we're mostly ignored for your standard conquest skirmish lol the other game options went mostly ignored, at least when I played so long ago xD

[76561198003173941]

Greatest problem i meet is pathfinding. Units stuck and do nothing unti i manually move 1 by 1. Make like sc2 pathfinding and all will be OK

[Hadraziel]

1. campaign wasn't up to quality standards. it's most people's first introduction to the game, so it needed to be rock solid
2. long time to kill / high unit hp with no spells or burst. It's difficult to kill stuff, fighting feels unsatisfying. Remember most players will play campaign or coop vs AI. They like to win, they play on easy, so losing units fast shouldn't have been a concern.
3. The game doesn't run on 90% of rigs. I tried to get friends to play, but the few who tried couldn't run the game. I think it improved since, but that's too late now

[InColius]

Originally posted by Mathroy:

So I'm asking genuinely, where did Stormgate fail so hard that made its extremely hyped community die down entirely?

I had a lot of fun playing Coop but I have not had too much time with it so my insight is very limited.

As someone who is a fan of WarCraft 3 and StarCraft Brood War and SC2 and Red Alert 2, CNC Generals etc... this game should have been right up my alley but yet I played it for an hour and uninstalled it and I'll tell you why;

1) The game is simply too unfinished and unpolished even for Early Access, this in itself would not be a deal breaker if not for the fact they are already heavily monetising the game meaning to experience everything in the Early Access product you need to spend money on microtransactions for a product you have no guarantees it will ever be finished!

2) The entire monetisation of this game is just wrong. StarCraft 2 actually does it right and this should have been inspired by that but instead they opted for a really weird F2P model that I don't think I've ever seen on any other game in existence and the failure of this game is probably a good indicator of why no other game companies use this absurdly complicated F2P model that Stormgate uses. Much less so to such an aggressive degree in an Early Access title.

A good example of the right approach is Marvel Rivals, launched F2P and all the first events and everything were free with 0 ways to spend real money towards the event. It is only now in season 1 that they have added an option to spend real money towards completing timed events faster. And even there it is still timelocked so the free players have the same time to get the same skins for free rather than seeing people pay real money and already using those skins. We will see down the line if they get more lax with this. I expect they will but only time will tell. But the caution here is my point, the devs are clearly being very conservative with monetisation and intentionally so, despite having nearly half a million daily concurrent players on Steam alone they don't want to scare them away with overly aggressive microtransactions. And why should they? This conservative less greedy approach is earning them billions

Stormgate has done the exact opposite of this by releasing right away into Early Access jam packed full of complicated early access game editions, the in-game menus being cluttered by microtransactions left and right. I felt like if I sneezed in the main menu I'd accidentally buy a microtransaction in Stormgate lol! Not quite the user experience you want for an Early Access game that hasn't even had the chance to build a playerbase yet. It was a very off-putting first launch experience as a new player to this new game

And I am not kidding the main menu and after playing 1 campaign mission that killed my entire excitement for this game and I literally uninstalled it after 1 hour of player, I was just so disappointed with everything about the game from the microtransactions and level of greed on display to the horrid state of the game they expected me to dump money into through various game editions and in-game microtransaction purchases

[リアンダ]

Originally posted by InColius:

1) The game is simply too unfinished and unpolished even for Early Access,

Placeholder meshes and sounds, crashes and bugs are all completely normal until weeks before 1.0 but the vast majority of people buying EA has no clue how game developement works. So to them, Early Access means "not feature complete but fully polished". Frostgiant should have know that people don't really want to know how the sausage is made.

Originally posted by InColius:

2) The entire monetisation of this game is just wrong.
A good example of the right approach is Marvel Rivals, launched F2P and all the first events and everything were free with 0 ways to spend real money towards the event.

The situation isn't really comparable though. If you're a huge company you can afford to let a product cook for as long as it takes. A luxury small studios can rarely afford.

[KingOfFriedChicken]

Originally posted by リアンダ:

Originally posted by InColius:

1) The game is simply too unfinished and unpolished even for Early Access,

Placeholder meshes and sounds, crashes and bugs are all completely normal until weeks before 1.0 but the vast majority of people buying EA has no clue how game developement works. So to them, Early Access means "not feature complete but fully polished". Frostgiant should have know that people don't really want to know how the sausage is made.

Idk about others but EA for me is often a "subject to change beta" meaning things are currently in a rorm that is moldable into something good, the name "early access" is probably a bad choice when I really think about it lol

Also the game at base is free so it's one of the few reasons I haven't written it off, but if they don't step it up significantly or change monetization I don't see myself play and just going back to SC2, and it doesn't have to be both. If it's stepped up I may but coop slowly. But I won't buy a chapter split up campaign just sell it at one lump price! $60 or whatever