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Events that you read could be replaced with cut scenes you can watch (and/or skip if you want). More story would certainly have been a great addition tot he game. Each province should have its own cut scene with some uniqueness to it since you have given each province a little backstory and some information.
More 'rewards' for accomplishments as the variety of equipment/upgrades ins't huge and often may not even be necessary or notable. By rewards I mean things that tickle the players dopamine receptors, so it doesn't have to be a new widget to add to your mech (though those are nice) but story, some mecha drama, various cosmetic doodads to make your journey seem more personal, all would have been a welcome addition.
That you find and recruit pilots, that some have backstory, and attitudes, all are wasted in the game. Really the only thing matters is if their health is OK. So having more interaction with your crew, again, more story, cut scenes, drama, something to break up the monotony of the fights because, no matter how cool the combat system is, it is not actually very deep and once you acquire and see the various equipment types, you settle on your favorites and the combat is monotonous.
Just a lot of wasted potential. Hopefully if any dev reads this they'll take it as it was intended. Positive feedback with some suggestions attached to improve.
I have almost 50 hours in it and am maybe halfway through all the provinces, and I also feel a little bummed, because I do love the core game. It does kind of blow my mind how repetitive it is... it introduces almost no new mechanics after the intro. I would have thought there would have been some ramp-up along the way - maybe the introduction of newer, deadlier enemy mechs at some point - anything, really. It really is kind of a "fire and forget" game where you can just figure out an optimal squad and then practically auto-resolve every mission as you go. :(
May put it down for a while and see whether things have grown in a few months...
Its not a looter shooter so not the same level of variety available for parts. Frankly, I wouldn't go that way with the design of the game, instead, maybe focus on allowing the user to tweak their equipment so they can keep it up to date (advance its level) and then tweak its performance more with various tech slots.
This would allow you to advance your mech as a 'character' and add some dopamine satisfaction there. The current level of customization/changes isn't really, in my experience, satisfactory.
Adding lots and lots of equipment and mech designs also wouldn't be a suggestion I would make. It sort of goes against the whole world building and backstory. Frankly, I would likely reduce the variety of weapons available and instead allow the user to tweak their performance, as above, by having more tech slots and the user could add remove parts as desired to make them custom. Really seems like there is no need for three sniper rifle variants, for example, when the key differences is in the damage types, range, rate of fire, etc all stuff you could tweak with techno-slots.
As you reach level milestones, maybe add additional slots to the mech, to allow further tweaking and bad-assery. This again, gives the player a reward for sticking with it and advancing through what is otherwise the exact same gameplay loop every scenario.
Having the capture sequence for each 'landmark' location be more involved then just move in, have a fight on a tile-set, then win may be more interesting. A scenario with phases like the end game, but make them 'story driven' as well. with some sort of cut screen/animation to go with it, so, If I am taking over a farm, for instance, first step would be to draw the enemy out from entrenched positions... away from the civilians, so its a hit and run scenario, destroy some building and then evac, after a success there's a cut scene, then the next step is the combat against defenders, and at the end, another cut scene. Have multiple different phase 1, 2, and 3 type scenarios that are randomized. Maybe have the cot scenes so that they bridge the scenarios so if step 1 random is an evac, and step 2 is an assault the cut scene is different than if Step 1 was a target destruction and step 2 was then an evac. Sure, with as many provinces as there are you're going to end up with similar scenarios in random order and eventually see all the cut scenes, but it would still serve to draw the player into the game more emotionally.
Definitely need more interaction with your crew/pilots. Things like cut screens that trigger after X number of missions with a pilot. Give us a reason to swap our pilots around. Maybe have them drive game direction/desire as well.. Like Pilot 'X' needs to o save his Sister/Wife/Mother/whatever in X province, have a special scenario (extraction, raid, etc.) tied to it.
This has all the foundation for a fun game, but, as is, too extremely shallow/hollow.
Even more mission types would help, but it's essentially the same mission every time with repeated objectives.
Once you've played about 3-4 battles you've pretty much experienced all the game has to offer. Rest is just numbers fluff.
Who's invading? I dunno, so far as I can tell, it's the Red Team. They seem to be exactly the same as the people they're invading, only they like red color schemes and they have a sprinkling of tanks in with all of the mechs. Is this a plutocratic corrupt republic looking to seize resources? Is this a theocratic autocracy retaking their holy land? Is this the last gasp of a neighboring monarch who needs the momentum of a war to keep their own country pacified? Is this an old rival state looking to commit a genocide? Maybe a dictator who just wants a warm water port? Are they even state actors at all, before the attack? We have no idea. I get that the geopolitical situation is not the point of the game, but giving zero identity to the opposing force makes them bland, and reduces the opportunity to give more factors to weigh in terms of where you act and when. We don't have anything we're trying to counter in terms of active enemy operations, because the enemy isn't trying to do anything except Hold Dirt and Be Evil, which makes the opposing force very passive, and less interesting.
How did they manage the blitzkreig the game opens with? There's a vague reference to disrupted local communications--are they e-war specialists? Did they actively subvert a central command? Do they have a massive advantage in terms of speed of deployment? The crawler base you steal seems to be implied to be a massive force-multiplier, is that what won them the war? Why not reflect how they won that in the campaign to characterize them more and make them threatening? Let us see how the Home Guard is actually hopelessly outmatched, rather than giving us a tutorial in which we kick ass but then we're told we have to Lose the War For Plot Reasons. This is something Fire Emblem, as much as I might not like FE, does well in a lot of its games: you LOSE that first battle for your capital, decisively and unavoidably. They SHOW you being outmatched, to SHOW why you have to be on the run.
Who's narrating in that opening scene of senseless oppression? I dunno, there's no face to associate with the speaker and no identity we've had established with anyone apart from your team's mech pilots. Who are they talking to? I guess one of the mech pilots, since the game seems to be implying you're one of them, but if you're an enlisted soldier who's being given experimental tech, you probably aren't getting in on that idyllic Era of Peace and Love the narrator is wishing for. Without knowing who's speaking, and to whom, it's a lot harder to care about either party.
What happened during the time skip? Apparently nothing other than our unit of mechs pulling a Brave Sir Robin and the rest of the military crumbling like a Nature Valley granola bar. Why? Because the whole map has to start red and we want there to be no possibility for an existing chain of command for the player to have to answer to. There are ways both more interesting and more plausible to produce this result, but it's not even a result that seems desirable. The fighting is supposedly ongoing between the Home Guard and the Red Team--why do they hold absolutely zero ground? What are they doing except waiting for the player?
All of this could tie into the strategic layer the player has to engage with, which could give a lot more value to the choices the player has to make at that layer. Hopefully they enrich it a ways, but I guess we'll see.
its relatively empty but stable and bugfree (well melee needs a new UI), give the modders some time and you will get giant contentpacks.
Studios nowdays just have no idea what makes a good Game, trust the Modders. :)
Battletech has squad mech building stages. You start with lights, than you take mediums, after that heavies, then assaults, and then meta minmaxing. In Phantom Brigade you change legs with 200 hitpoints to legs with 327 hitpoints, that's all squad progression.
Battletech gives biome diversity, characters leveling, decent main campaign, markets, side mini campaigns, various mission types while every mission in Phantom Brigade is to kill enemy units in 3-4 turns. Battletech has better and deeper mech configurating system, a lot more chassis variations.
Everything outside core combat mechanics in Phantom Brigade is mostly mediocre. The whole game feels like early access.
(sigh)
I was surprised I didn't see complaints about the choices in the character creation process, but I was surprised in a pleasant way. Because, lately, it seems like a game can't attempt to appeal to a wider range of people without infuriating someone who prefers society be more narrow-minded.
For the record, your pilots are referenced by pronouns repeatedly during event dialogues. I just have to wonder why this even needs to be an issue for you. Consider simply choosing whatever appeals to you during character creation, and then happily move on to play the video game like everyone else. We should be thrilled when games provide us with more options rather than less.
Comments like "..bend the knee to the woke mob.." get more ridiculous sounding the more often they're misused. You are literally condemning a developer for making an extra effort in character customization because you apparently have an irrational need to drag politics into gaming. It's silly.
Back on topic (because I really don't want to see the conversation derailed), I agree with what many are saying in this thread. I too would have liked to have seen more narrative elements injected into this game, and I think (on top of the enjoyable combat) it could have taken the experience to the next level. I see vivid descriptions of the different territories from the map page and initially wondered if those landscapes would live up visually to the hype, but unfortunately the maps all have the same vibe. If they continue to update this game, I hope these are all areas the developers address.
I am also quite confused about what improvement they wanted to make by making the heads 3d. The 2d drawings they were using in earlier builds looked much better, had more personality, and fullfilled their purpose perfectly, time was wasted in that feature.