Looks cool but slow gameplay kind've ruins it

[Halfshell]

Basically the title. This looks like it has the potential for a lot of depth, but every mission so far (first few) has been: fly around for 10~20 minutes and if I do what it says, fire at thing for 5~10 minutes. Later this part will likely get more complicated but it takes forever to get anything done. Even if there was a 5x speed option thats still 2-4 minutes of just flying around.

The tutorials are also way too heavily scripted and obscure. For example, you come across an unknown transport ship on mission 2 or 3. Game tells you to target flak, but the only command you have unlocked is target hull and the game refuses to give you all commands without jumping through tutorials or doing specific things (other commands you have is recon, run away, hold position and guard). Then you auto lose the mission for no reason (assumed mission time limit as the transport did not jump away). This is particularly terrible because around 30 minutes of this mission was catching up to the transport, you fire on it for around 2 minutes to advance the dialogue and it gives you at most 2 minutes to unlock the command to target flak. First mission's scripting was even worse, it would tell you to run or go to the safe area, which takes forever, but it takes 10 seconds for them to disable mines once you do what they want no matter how long you spend flying around wasting time.

TLDR: I don't particularly enjoy sitting through 30 minutes of nothing so that I can do a bloody tutorial that I don't want to do in the first place. Just give me all commands and throw me into some combat and I can figure it out through trial and error.

[Rhophius]

Well thats tutorials for you, guess you wont enjoy any current day game, but Nexus TJI had a lot of gameplay and depth after the tutorials especially after you leave the Sol system and get into deep space, give it a chance and you might be surprised.

[Halfshell]

I mean, I played this for well over an hour and 90% of it was flying through space. That 'over an hour of tutorial' "taught me" litereally 3 or 4 of the basic commands.

And yes there are plenty of games where I won't put up with its basic tutorials. There are games with 10-20 minute tutorials that I refuse to go through. Because I have sat through the "move the camera", "move to where we want you to" and "select these units", etcetera, sections dozens upon dozens of times by now. The fact that I sat down with this one for over an hour to learn the most basic of commands (which are really obvious commands imo) shows that I wanted to play the game. But this slow gameplay speed isn't going to change once the tutorials are done. I could grind out the tutorials, just watch a TV show or something while I wait for the game to get to something but I don't see how I'm possibly going to enjoy the main game when 90% of it is going to be flying through space. Slowly.

TLDR: The bad tutorials take forever, but they take forever because of a basic game design choice that isn't going to change once I get out the frontgate. The mainpoint of the OP is to add in a 5x to 10x speed up button. Or maybe a speedup option for out of combat.

[Rhophius]

Originally posted by Fishercat:

TLDR: The bad tutorials take forever, but they take forever because of a basic game design choice that isn't going to change once I get out the frontgate. The mainpoint of the OP is to add in a 5x to 10x speed up button. Or maybe a speedup option for out of combat.

HAHAHAHA

[Halfshell]

Originally posted by Rhophius:

Originally posted by Fishercat:

TLDR: The bad tutorials take forever, but they take forever because of a basic game design choice that isn't going to change once I get out the frontgate. The mainpoint of the OP is to add in a 5x to 10x speed up button. Or maybe a speedup option for out of combat.

HAHAHAHA

My entire point is that I've played this for ~one and a half hours and over an hour of that is watching my ship fly. Thats.. not going to change just because I get past the tutorials.

Edit: I just, can litereally not understand how anyone can think fly for 20 minutes with nothing going on is a good design choice. And this "flying" is litereally just telling the ship to move to selected ship or predetermined point. Actual fights are resolved in 5 minutes 1v1 at this point in the game. Later, this may mean 20 minute fights. Thats still half of the game as just ... watching my ships slowly move before something happens.

I don't actually expect anything to get changed (release date 2004). Mostly just asking leading questions to determine if this game is going to pick up, at all. And hopefully anyone thinking of picking this up will decide to read the Steam forums and think the same as I do. Really not worth 3$.

[Rhophius]

Not worth 3 dollars, jeez you really are a cheapskate, i bet you recycle tea bags, but i guess with your impatience you couldnt be assed to push through the tutorials and actually finish the game, go ahead and prove me wrong!

Bottom line is to ignore this lazy cheapskate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and go ahead and buy this game, this is what games should be about, good game systems, good graphics with interesting and deep developed characters with a rich back story.

[Halfshell]

I mean, its not worth the time to play it so it isn't worth 0$ imo. When its going to take hours of slowly watching my ships fly just to play the game. Yeah, no. Just not doing that, idc how great the gameplay is and how much depth the mechanics have.

And I'm not really complaining about tutorial, sure it sucks in this one. But what I'm really complaining about is the game's tendency to make you wait for forever before the game starts doing anything. Because it takes that long for your ships to get anywhere. That isn't going to change just because I get passed the tutorial.

[Japanese shaman girl]

If you cut up the tutorial to only 20 minutes you lose a lot of the build up in the story. Image the game starting at Shukenja Beta lel

[Halfshell]

But doesn't the game remain slow after the tutorial? I cant stomach waiting 10-20+ minutes doing absolutely nothing every mission.

[GeoModder]

Usuallly you get into the action quite quickly after a mission's initial dialog between the characters on your ship(s). That is, except for the stealth mission at Theta Gate... And the Epsilon Gate mission might be too long for you as well since that involves cloaking around the Gorg forces as well. And not that you mention it, there's quite a discussion between Dr. Veltman and Cpt. Cromwell in the Return to Earth mission.

[Halfshell]

Ok the game is 100% not for me then. Thanks GeoModder.

[sEver]

Damn sneaking mission for sure is the most boring stuff I've ever seen in space game.

[Nico]

@Halfshell cat

I find it a bit sad you can't accomodate for a game's vision and pacing. Of course by 2021 standanrd most things in nexus looks quite dated, so the sight seeing aspect might not do for new players.

That said:
That slow pace of the first few missions is deliberate so you get used to the slow, close future way of exploring space, until you stumble upon your first wormhole and get thrown into a conflict between way more advanced races. The further you progress the more ships and the better drive technologies you get, that offers both speed and manuverability as well as stealth.

But nexus is by no mean a fast paced game, and I personnaly think it is better for it

[Mazryonh]

Yes, this game is slow. But it's all the more epic for it. This isn't a twitch-based RTS game where a very high actions-per-minute rate is essential to victory. You issue commands, and you get to sit back and watch your combat spaceships pound "seven shades of shields" out of the enemy in a glorious and epic display. This game was clearly designed to evoke the epic, slow-moving space battles we used to see on sci-fi TV shows and movies.

[GeoModder]

This topic is already three years old.

[Nico]

Yeah I noticed right after posting, but there's so much activity here that a bit of necro won't hurt =D