Opinions and Comments from the Alpha (long)

[Almouse]

I thought I'd leave some comments on the gameplay from my experience - I come from a community spawned from one of the WC3 maps that Red Solstice draws influence from, and together we invested a reasonable amount of time playing over the beta weekend. I played a little bit of the first Red Solstice, although I was plagued quite hard by some of the usability features early in the release (crashes, lag ghosting, awkward interactions with multiple monitors), so I think I missed out on some of the later additions to the game. I'm really excited to see how the game has developed and all the polish added in this version.

I suspect that some of my thoughts might represent significant differences in design opinions -- the game I'm from has pretty fundamentally different ways of handling certain problems in the genre (and we could certainly learn from Red Solstice for some of them), but perhaps you will find them interesting.

The Good

- Windows. I'm not sure this should be the top of the list, but I absolutely adore the window system. A common problem with big buildings is that the flow of enemies becomes extremely predictable, and such a simple idea does a really good job of resolving this. It would be nice to see more big buildings to capitalise on this (as well as more reasons to be in buildings in the mid-lategame).

- The loadout system. I think this does a really good job of allowing variety in characters. I don't have too much to say other than I wish there was more variety in the costs of some traits. Often it ends up in situations where you have 10-15 energy spare, and I'd rather say:

"Well, I didn't really want X, but I can't quite afford Y so it will have to do"
than
"Well, I guess I'll just float these energy points"

- Reduced lethality and friendlier revive system. RS1 had quite a few mechanics that essentially resulted in insta-death for a player if they made a mistake. I really like enemies like the frog, that don't kill you but seriously hurt your effectiveness. Similarly, the 30 second timer on revives feels really nice. A few times it was clear that we lost a game because of someone dying and having to wait to revive, but it feels much more satisfying to die having a last stand as you wait for timer rather than accepting that you can't possibly win without them and drifting until the inevitable death.

- Variety in early/midgame enemies. I'm quite happy to see the variety in enemies like the frogs, summoner and corrupted marines. It's also nice to see slightly stronger variants of most enemies appear as the game goes on.

The Bad

- Very limited (or nonexistent?) playercount-based scaling. I want to play this game with just my friends. Sometimes there's only two or three of us. I really hate that this essentially isn't an option (or, at the least, it increases the difficulty by a absurd margin).

- Lack of variety in lategame enemies (bosses). The first bosses you see in the game are quite possibly the most satisfying bossfight, from my experience. Their damage is significant (but tankable), and they're a little to tough to feasibly kill by just shooting, meaning they represent a persistent, terrifying threat. You can run away from them, but you'll have to deal with them eventually. Even the 3x spawn in the later wave is quite interesting if they come from multiple directions. Every other boss right now is essentially a bigger, faster, more armoured dog than the last. Most of the time this means that either you have an answer prepared and you kill them without issue, or they slaughter the team and there's no hope to recover. I think the Specimen is a great example of a boss that really doesn't need to be fast in order to be a real threat. Eventually you are going to have to hold ground for the final objective (in theory...), so why does the boss have to be able to outrun you? TRS1 had somewhat more variety in bosses, but I'm worried that this will result in the same problem because of...

- Pre-defined waves for enemies. After a couple of games with a spreadsheet open you can predict the appearance of every special enemy and boss. Often a major part of the strategy of games like this is knowing how you will handle each possible event. This involves group strategies (do we reposition, do we need to spread out or stay together...) as well as individual strategies (I need to shred the armour, I need to be ready to take a hit...). Knowing the timing of enemies means that everyone can always be in the correct frame at the right time. I presume that the intended solution to this problem is the idea of multiple bosses for each "Tier"... More on this later.

- Explosives. There are some obvious usability issues with explosives: it's very frustrating to be a new player and kill yourself because you clicked on a satchel one too many times (I wish there was a toggleable setting to just never willingly detonate explosive items on a teammate). More significantly, there are serious dangers when a 50 damage gun has to coexist with a 10,000 damage item. I get the impression that it's intended as a gameplay feature that certain enemies shouldn't be feasibly killable without the damage from explosives. This often results in situations where the game can hinge on whether or not a single player succeeds a clutch (timing explosives as fast enemies run through them), because if the explosives fail then the team can't realiably stabilise.

- The Recon Class. I'm assuming that this class currently feels particularly out of place because other classes (e.g. Demolitions) haven't been added yet. However, right now this class fills most of the niche roles singlehandedly. Compared to the Assault, who has abilities that deal 1,500 damage, the Recon can deal 15,000. With the most item slots they have the most versatility to solve smaller problems, and with the most mobility options they are best suited to traverse the map. Having one (or two) recons seems to increase the chance of success by significantly more than any other class. This is majorly influenced by...

The Ugly

- Soloable objectives. Literally all the objectives in the game except **maybe** the very last can be trivially soloed. Similar to explosives, this results in a situation where a significant proportion of your win chance can be determined by 1-2 "alpha" players, rather than factors like team cohesion. You could have an excellent team that's well organised and can cross the map safely, or you could have a single excellent recon player who can do it alone and complete the objective there. I think it's important to add mechanics that prevent this: obvious examples include ensuring that enemies actually attend "defend" objectives, objectives that require the team to expend resources (mana, bullets), or objectives that require performing disabling actions (carrying "heavy" items like barrels).

- Extreme difficulty scaling over the course of the game. Because of the types of enemies that spawn, in the first 5-6 waves it's essentially impossible for any player to die alone. In the next few waves, soloing is extremely dangerous to anyone other than a dedicated solo build, but the team is in no real danger. Finally, in the last few waves, fighting anywhere other than a barricade can easily lead to a teamwipe. Ultimately this results in a situation where the first 10-12 waves can often be tediously boring, and the last few waves come down to a few clutch moments. I think the game is meant to feel like a race against time, but it can never really be a race because of...

- Wave-based objective timers. I honestly don't understand this as a mechanic at all. The first time we played we struggled to keep up with the early objectives. Soon, we completed the objectives but biomass was out of control. Then, we managed to keep both in check. Eventually, we were killing biomass the moment it spawned and had players waiting at the spawn points of objectives before they triggered. However, the majority of the time it was fairly irrelevant: once you pass a certain threshold of success at the early- and mid-games, you are no longer able to effectively increase your chancesof victory when the final set of objectives come.

For me these last few points lead to a gameplay loop where improvement becomes a matter of playing out the same script dozens of times, having to sit through the boring parts in order to have another attempt at learning the ending. When I play more I don't feel like I'm becoming a better **player**, just that I'm learning more of the script. We ended in a situation where we didn't want to increase the difficulty (because we hadn't beaten the current level yet), but the level we were playing on felt far too easy the vast majority of the time.

Suggestions

I realise that some of these ideas are probably counter to some of the design principles in mind, but perhaps you will find them interesting:

- Remove wave-restrictions on objectives. Gate objectives with components that require active engagement (spawning bosses, requiring team presence, sacrificing resources) so that more of the team has to participate. Teams should be rewarded for being able to complete objectives quickly and efficiently, while the job of soloers should be demoted to sub-objectives and resource gathering.

- Allow the team to win without having to sit through all the waves. A moderately coordinated group of friends playing for the first time should be able to get a "victory" screen of some variety within a couple of nights of playing and without reading guides or relying on others. I realise that a common theme of this genre for a long time has been punishing gameplay and rare wins, but I don't think this goes with the times. It's very common to end with a system where most players will only ever touch the "normal" difficulty (let alone beat it...), and only a small handful of players actually get to witness the high end content.

- Increase the amount of mid-high priority enemies early on, such that mass-scouting is less feasible (and less desirable, because the objectives are also present). From what I understand, a favoured setting with many experienced players is to enable an optional setting that achieves something like this (but more extreme). If necessary, the wave numbers at which such enemies appear could be determined by difficulty.

- Increase the impact of optional objectives (power plant, comm array). Outside the Helipad, most of these feel like things you do with your extra time rather than things you are actively excited to achieve.

- Increase the impact of explosives for things like armour shredding (i.e. by having more enemies with higher stacks of armour), but decrease their overall damage. The intent is that wasteful use of resources (ammo in this case) will lead to problems in the long run, rather than resulting in immediate loss.

- Add more impetus for the team to move during gameplay. This would be resolved by more dynamic objectives, but also with more mid-priority enemies who have "bunker-busting" abilities. Right now, with more enemies that can outrun players than enemies who can't, you are rarely motivated to try and outmaneuver enemies, rather than making sure you're always "in position". This would help break the gameplay loop of camping at the start of each wave and moving when you run out of enemies.

I'm really excited that you've been able to have success with the Red Solstice franchise, and I'm really looking forwards to seeing how this one turns out. Maybe you will find some of these ideas interesting!

[Datau]

I too had lots of fun with the demo, my only gripes are about balance. Specifically, about how hard it is to deal with Armor and Biomass without the proper tools.

The main problem with Armor is that removing it reliably is difficult. You can't just rely on RNG for a chance to find explosives, you'll need skills. Your best bet for this task would be the Kinetic Spear from the Assault marine, basically a thrown satchel charge that removes up to two Armor at max level.

This Module is so effective to the point of being almost mandatory, given how widespread Armor is among the final waves. The other alternatives either use limited resources, that you may not always have, or are too ammo inefficient. In this sense, I think we could really use a dedicated anti-armor weapon. Maybe we could buff one of the shotguns? They don't seem particularly effective as they are.

Biomass is incredibly deadly if not properly contained, and I am OK with this. It could probably spread a bit slower on the lowest difficulties, but as it is it offers a fair challenge. The only thing I dislike about Biomass is that each blob has just. So. Much. HP. That without explosives or Artillery it is basically impossible to destroy. And since Artillery is the perfect Module for a static enemy, you'll always want at least one Recon on your team. It can't be any other way, you wouldn't have the ammunition or the firepower to deal with all the Biomass, otherwise.

Now, we have yet to see what the Hellfire can do. *In theory*, this class should be ideal for cleaning Biomass blobs, since fire can already burn the Biomass tissue on the ground. In practice, Hellfire may have to contend with Recon for that spot. I guess we'll see.

[Davor - Ironward]

We hear you. Most of these complaints should be addressed in the near future.

[Almouse]

@Davor: That's good to hear! I'm interested to hear the directions you go in.

--

@Datau

> The main problem with Armor is that removing it reliably is difficult.

I would strongly disagree with this -- I would say that the problem is that removing it is **necessary**. A majority of the armoured enemies are basically unkillable without shredding (or bypassing) their armour. I think a strong theme that we need to be working on in this genre is increasing inclusiveness by making mistakes be punishing but not game-ending. There are obvious examples which RS2 is already doing very well, as I mentioned:

- Reviving is significantly easier, but maintains a punishing cost
- "Snatching" enemies (froggy and one of the dogs) will eventually let you go without killing you, but you'll often need your team to save you.

By comparison, against pretty much every lategame boss, it's nigh-essential that at the bare minimum explosives are used to shred armour (and let's be honest, you're probably hoping to use explosives to kill the boss as well). This is compounded by the fact that most of these bosses can outrun the average character, which means you only have limited chances to do it right. From what I recall, I also believe that a lot of the lategame enemies have pretty significant health regen, which makes grinding them down hard.

As such, I'd recommend a system where armour is less directly impactful, and explosives did less damage overall: so that you *can* kill bosses by treating them as giant bullet sponges. However, a team which recklessly does this will be later punished, because they'll run out of resources in the lategame. This is an example of a mechanic where it's much easier for the team to adapt to the gameplay:

"Well, we lost because we ran out of bullets in wave 12"
"Okay, but you burned a lot of ammo shooting those bosses in wave 8, could we have killed them without using all that ammo?"
"Maybe if we had used our spare explosives then, we would have wasted less ammo, and we'd have more for the later waves"

As opposed to:

"Well, we lost because we couldn't kill the bosses in wave 12"
"They had so much hit points! I couldn't hurt them at all!"
"I guess we needed to have a player clutch and have a pile of explosives already set down in preparation for when they would run towards us"

> The only thing I dislike about Biomass is that each blob has just. So. Much. HP.

I'll agree with you here. I'll go further and say that the biomass mechanic became much less fun as we ranked up, because we unlocked a lot of the hard-counters. When we started, the most viable solution was getting up close and dropping incendiary mines, and this was **really fun**. Entering the biomass is high risk, you've got extra pressure on you, and the best solution you have to hand is getting up close and dealing with it. Or, you can ignore it, and deal with the consequences later.

Later on, when we unlocked (or started to understand) other solutions, the mechanic became less and less interesting.

"Oh, I have a rocket launcher now, I just need you to protect me for a few seconds while I line up the shot"

"Oh, I have an ability that instantly kills them from a completely safe distance at very little cost"

I'm also a little concerned that one of the roadmap planned enemies is something that punishes you even more for going on the biomass. I would want exactly the opposite! Something that makes the biomass more easy to destroy if you are willing to go on it (maybe when the extra enemies are spawning it "opens up" its rough outer shell, making it more soft and vulnerable. Then you have an interesting choice -- do you want to kill the biomass safely at a distance (but expend more resources because it is more durable?), or do you want to go onto the biomass to fight there (but put your team in danger because of the extra enemies?).

This is also another situation where I don't see why the players are **immediately** punished for using bullets (because the regeneration of biomass is so extreme that pure bullets can't really kill it), rather then being **eventually** punished (because it will lead to running out of resources).

--

Based on the roadmap I'll dump a couple of extra concerns here:

- I really don't like the idea of AI players to balance lower playercounts, compared to improving playercount-based scaling. I've found that lower playercounts in this genre of game can be really exciting because it forces players to be more creative with their team building:

"Do we take a demolitions player to kill the big bosses, or do you think we can take extra inventory slots to all carry some spare explosives?"

"Do we **need** a medic? Maybe we just lose if someone dies, and we have to play with that in mind"

In my mind, requiring AI players is somehow an indication that there's a deeper flaw in the mechanical design: there are so many **required** tasks, and character classes are so unversatile that you simply must take one of everything to stand a reasonable chance.

- New enemies: A lot of these enemies have "ambushes", "grabs", "avoids"... The most dominant strategy for fighting enemies is already to camp and cuddle for as much of the wave as possible, and this sounds like it will enforce this even more, and punish isolated players even more (soloing shouldn't be **effective**, but it also shouldn't be a death sentence). I would much rather see enemies that push gameplay in other direction: ones that encourage the team to move.

Classic examples from the game I work on are:

- An enemy that drops long-lasting toxin clouds (do we have the healing to camp on the barricade if we're all losing health? do we stay here, but not on the barricade? do we reposition to the next barricade?)

- An enemy that buffs nearby enemy's damage reduction on death (are we willing to expend more resources to shoot through this damage reduction, or should we move and wait out the buff?)

- A (**slow moving**) boss that temporarily goes invulnerable (do we have someone who can facetank him during this time? is it possible to kite him through explosives on the ground, or should we use consumable explosives?)

[Kohwalter]

I agree with most, if not all, of those points.

I hate the fact that explosives are MANDATORY to kill anything in this game. This was a bane in the previous game as well. Made it pretty boring.

I hate the fact that biomass has too much HP and you can only kill it with explosives or certain classes. Want to keep its huge hp? Fine, but maybe add more abilities that do extra damage to it, such as the flame abilities. The fire should be more deadly against biomass.

Armor...we need more ways to piece armor. I like the idea of energy ammo bypass armor. I also like the idea that Ammonite gives energy ammo, but you need to reload so much in order to get a single clip that it makes barely noticeable. Maybe make it activatable with a cooldown, similar to the other explosive ammo. That would make it much more reliable and reloading 4 times.

I also agree with the issue of Energy in the loadout system. I remember that spare energy improved something, but it was so minor that I never really noticed the difference. I think it was energy (the bar below health, which would be similar to mana points / magic points in other RPGs) recharge rate.

I like the idea of bunkering inside a building and barricade the windows and doors. However...we never do that. It is pointless. It is always better to keep walking around. We need more incentive to hunker down somewhere. There are one or two objectives that we need to hold a place for 60 seconds. Those are cool, but they are always outdoor.

I liked the old turrets spread in the map in TRS1 that we could activate. Sadly, they are not in this game. Only the item that spawns a single turret (that sometimes did not attack...)

I liked the new abilities that some classes had, such as the mounted shoulder turret. Loved that one, it was so cool to watch it auto attack anything that came close and it did not cost any ammo for the player... I loved playing heavy support because of that turret. Made soldier to feel boring. Ammonite free ammo did not come close to the mounted turret free bullets...

One thing I would love to be added is some form of multiclass. Maybe allow to select a single ability from other classes to add greater customization.

[Space_Lettuce_OG]

@-@Davor

Could you tell us which of Almouse's complaints or suggestions are being worked on?
I'm not part of the closed-beta, but I was surprised to hear about some of the complaints(some things sound like steps backwards from RS1, which doesn't instill confidence in us, your potential customers), and a few of the things Almouse mentioned sound like deal-breakers, if they aren't addressed.

I mean, I can just wait a few days after release, and read the reviews, or just ask Almouse directly, about what changed since the closed-beta, but it would be nice if you guys would just be transparent with us about these things right now.

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Space_Lettuce_OG:

@-@Davor

Could you tell us which of Almouse's complaints or suggestions are being worked on?
I'm not part of the closed-beta, but I was surprised to hear about some of the complaints(some things sound like steps backwards from RS1, which doesn't instill confidence in us, your potential customers), and a few of the things Almouse mentioned sound like deal-breakers, if they aren't addressed.

I mean, I can just wait a few days after release, and read the reviews, or just ask Almouse directly, about what changed since the closed-beta, but it would be nice if you guys would just be transparent with us about these things right now.

You can hop on discord for more direct info bits, but from what I know, pretty much all of OPs complaints are because things are not finished yet(bosses, wave variety) or were just a bug/hotkey conflict(satchel issue).

His other issues, like reviving being much faster process also is missing the spot as he disregarded existence and spread of biomass, if you died on the biomass, you're a toast, unless team is strong enough to recover you.

Recon is shining because of lack of demo and terminator class at the moment, but once you level up general rank, recon becomes less mandatory because of access to certain specialist weapons, artillery is very good skill, but its on a very long cooldown and can be used pretty much only against biomass nests and very slow enemies.

He complains about lack of scalability to player number, but ignores that there never was any in the demo in the first place.

In TRS1 you also could solo/duo first 6-8 waves, so nothing changed here, its scouting and gathering period while doing objectives.

You're not supposed to rush through objectives(unless new objectives will be made specifically to allow it), you're supposed to be swarmed at the end, objectives were gated behind waves in TRS1 as well and it worked perfectly fine.

His point about just sitting behind barricade is also completely void, if you stop for longer then 20-30 seconds in late game, you will lose, especially above normal difficulty.

[Space_Lettuce_OG]

Hmmmmm, I suppose it's a little hard for me to know which one of you is right in this case, since I haven't played the game yet. I'd have to see the things you are talking about first. For example, barricading and bio-mass are new things to me. At this point, for the rest of us, it's just one person saying a thing is this way, and another saying it isn't...

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Space_Lettuce_OG:

Hmmmmm, I suppose it's a little hard for me to know which one of you is right in this case, since I haven't played the game yet. I'd have to see the things you are talking about first. For example, barricading and bio-mass are new things to me. At this point, for the rest of us, it's just one person saying a thing is this way, and another saying it isn't...

OP haven't levled enough to try different skills.
I've completed the round with multiple classes and multiple different builds on normal and hard difficulty.

As for the barricades, he didn't mean actual door barricades(but its totally a thing I have not used a single time myself), sitting in cover provides bonuses, so if you NEED to sit in some place for longer time, you are not punished for it with constant ammo drain as cover bonuses gives you something similar to TRS1 campaign buff when stationary.

Oh, you also have a lot of full run vids you can check for now. I'll just say it feels more intense then it looks like on vids.

[Space_Lettuce_OG]

There are videos of playthroughs? I didn't know this, I just assumed there was an NDA, cuz it's a closed-beta. Watching those should help clear up a lot of this for me. Thanks!

[Katitoff]

Originally posted by Space_Lettuce_OG:

There are videos of playthroughs? I didn't know this, I just assumed there was an NDA, cuz it's a closed-beta. Watching those should help clear up a lot of this for me. Thanks!

There was a week of demo and then later short weekend again, it was open for everyone, there is a lot of vids from gameplay now, one is even on news feed for TRS2.

[Syrus]

Hello Space, sounds were definitely not finished, and a lot of things was only a 10% of what original game will be, it was just a "small" demo even if it felt as an entire game, but in the end I believe everyone will be more then satisfied, that's our goal :)

[Almouse]

I don't want this to turn into an argument but I'll do my best to discuss some of the responses.

Originally posted by Katitoff:

if you died on the biomass, you're a toast, unless team is strong enough to recover you.

I **like** this feature. It gives players agency in the game. In similar games in the genre it has been the case that if you die there is literally no hope: no/limited respawn mechanic (e.g. triggered revive events that have already passed), so if someone essential died you're done. By adding gated revives, there is always the potential to come back from a hard spot. There's even variety in the type of revives: instant with a long debuff vs delayed with a reduced debuff vs remote through the helipad sidequest. That's amazing! This way you get to have a heroic last stand that might just turn out for the best, or at least leads to a good story.

Originally posted by Katitoff:

but once you level up general rank, recon becomes less mandatory because of access to certain specialist weapons

I mentioned this in my second post, and I think this is definitely a negative thing. Certain mechanics became easier over time because you unlock hard counters. I have things to say about gated content unlocks, but at the very least I would prefer things the other way around: you should **start** with the hard counters available, and should unlock things which are more versatile soft-counters. It's much easier to use the rocket launcher than the mortar, because it's much easier to notice situations where it's the best tool for the job.

Originally posted by Katitoff:

He complains about lack of scalability to player number, but ignores that there never was any in the demo in the first place.

This is why I listed this as a minor concern rather than a major one. As I mentioned, though, I'm troubled that it seems that from the roadmap that one of the primary approaches to fixing this is to add AI players rather than handle scaling directly, as this has larger gameplay implications.

Originally posted by Katitoff:

In TRS1 you also could solo/duo first 6-8 waves, so nothing changed here ...
...You're not supposed to rush through objectives ...
... in TRS1 as well and it worked perfectly fine.

It feels like the measuring stick you're applying to this game is "TRS 1 but a bit better". I think if you took a time machine to the 2000s and asked people "what if we added an on-demand, freely-available revive mechanic to NotD?", some people would immediately respond "we don't have one now and it works perfectly fine". But I would argue that this is an example of some of my favourite areas that TRS has started to improve on. I can also speak from experience as a game developer that I have had instances where someone has questioned a mechanic, and my gut response has been:

"But it's always been like this, I don't see a problem with it",

only to eventually realise (much) later down the line that:

1) If a player is complaining about a mechanic, there's a good chance there are many other players who are being silently warded away from the game for the same reason and so
2) This means that either the mechanic needs to be reconsidered, or it needs to be justified somehow ingame.

Of course there is a balance between keeping the spirit of the game and catering to a larger audience. However, I firmly believe that wave-based objectives and this degree of within-game difficulty scaling are fundamentally unhealthy for the genre. Further, a new game is a great time to be performing overhauls -- the fewer things you are locked in on, the less tweaking is needed later. Here's what I see from the changes I propose:

Removing wave-locked objectives: Players choose when they are ready to handle objectives -- maybe they need to gather resources or level up before handling something particularly difficult (for example, if the objective spawns a boss). There's still time pressure, because the waves are getting harder, but it's no longer the only determining factor. Teams have the option of trying to build "rush" compositions: is it worth reducing the lategame effectiveness of your team if you'll be able to finish the game fast enough that it doesn't matter? Lower difficulties are much more beatable, meaning new players can experience their first win more easily (but the lategame content is still visible to them). "Speedrunning" lower difficulties becomes an option for experienced players to try out for variety.

Rescaling wave difficulties: Early soloers have more enemies chasing them, so slower characters are motivated to group up much earlier. The earlygame poses a significant threat, so players are more inclined to dip some energy/skill choices into optimising for it. The team has more considerations about filling roles: which characters can be short scouts who clear buildings as the team moves (instead of just clearing them all in the first 5 waves...)?

Explosives: Players aren't immediately punished for failing to use explosives by teamwiping -- instead, it leads to exhausted resources late in the game. Reduced health and life regen on boss-level enemies means that extreme damage abilities can be toned down and players can see the impact of their bullets (even if they're being wasteful with them), rather than being completely ineffective.

Originally posted by Space_Lettuce_OG:

For example, barricading and bio-mass are new things to me.

Certain terrain locations (mostly roadblocks at major intersections) provide significant stat boosts while you are standing directly adjacent to them. If you are inside a building, you can "close" a window to stop enemies from being able to climb in through it -- players themselves can never travel through windows (although maybe this would be a cooler recon ability than "unlock any door").

Biomass is a static, extremely tanky unit that spawns randomly on the map (usually close to the edge). It leaves marks on the floor like zerg creep in starcraft, and periodically new biomass will spawn, usually close (~15-30 seconds walk) to existing biomass if possible. If you are standing on biomass creep, significantly more enemies will spawn near to it to attack you -- I believe that biomass also contributes to wave spawn sizes if not killed. Usually biomass has to be kept down because if you don't kill it early it will spread increasingly fast, and eventually you will be forced to move through it to get to an objective, which can be lethal late in the game.

Originally posted by Katitoff:

OP haven't levled enough to try different skills.

I unlocked all of the content in the open alpha that this post is commenting on. Our group played on multiple difficulties, including introducing some new players as we went, and I also played individually with a couple of other groups.

I think we have fundamentally different ideas about how the game should look. Honestly, I don't think I'm going to sell many people on my viewpoint, and that's fine. I realise that I'm suggesting things that would involve major reworks of several mechanics. However, I don't appreciate the notion of suggesting "OP didn't enjoy the game because they didn't play/understand it enough". I guess I have the following things to say:

- I care about this genre of game -- I've spent upwards of 2500 hours developing a similar one and I have probably played a similar amount (if not more) of other games in the genre, dating back to WC3. I wouldn't have spent this much time writing my thoughts if this wasn't the case.

- I know that there are people who won't buy this game because of some of the frustrations based in my OP -- because I played with them and we had this discussion. That's a shame, because this is the kind of game that I'd really like to enjoy this game with them. Sadly a reality of game development (especially if it is your job and not a hobby) is that you have to balance the things **you** like with the things that will bring in new players. A developer is very often one of the most knowledgeable players about a game, which means that they naturally want to to work on new, exciting material for players like them, leaving a blindspot for things like the core gameplay loop. The developer has already sunk hundreds of hours learning how to counter every boss -- hell, they probably designed the boss with the counters in mind -- so they want to design even more interesting bosses with even more interesting abilities. I'd settle for another slow-moving chump with a boatload of health rather than a flying swoopadon with laser beam eyes.

- Sticking to the principles of "You have to play this game for hours with an experienced group, read guides, and grind to unlock content before you can appreciate it" is **not healthy**. This isn't a free-to-play mod in a 20 year-old engine, this isn't a AAA competitive FPS. Imagine if you played Left 4 Dead, or Alien Swarm, and at the end of the first level, at the "normal" difficulty, after completing all the objectives perfectly and with time to spare, a boss came that could outrun your entire team, couldn't be hurt with guns, and wasn't even directly related to the main objective. Would that really be a good first impression on you? If you hadn't already played many games in this genre, having experience with this mechanic, would you really want to keep playing?

[Space_Lettuce_OG]

I have to say, I agree with every point that Almouse made. They made good points, they backed it up with evidence, details, and provided viable solutions to most problems they encountered.
I am also a game developer, although in the city-builder genre, but I do still very much like and appreciate tactical squad-based games, it's one of my favorite genres. I am not an expert on design choices for this genre, and I understand that you can't please everyone with design choices you make for your game, but I believe the things Almouse proposed doesn't "water down" the game in any way, and only improves it. I think 98-99%% of the player base would support these ideas, but you'll always have a small, but very vocal minority of players that like to either complain or be the devil's advocate to anyone who raises a complaint.

@Almouse
You raised concern that your post might put some people off from buying the game....
Well I disagree, because it's not your post that would put me or most other off, but rather what the developers decide to do with this information. The devs could turn this into an opportunity to prove how they listen to the community, and how players can play a legitimate role in shaping the game. That doesn't necessarily mean they have to go with your proposed solutions, but at least admit there are some shortcomings currently, which is normal at this stage in development, and show that they are open to discussing with players what they would like to see as a solution to some of the current issues.

I know that sometimes we can get so involved(or obsessed) with developing specific new features of a game, that we totally ignore(or forget about) important features of the game that we moved on from, which we considered functionally complete, but not optimal. So, if that is what happened in some of these cases, perhaps they have planned work on some sub-optimal, but functionally complete features. If so, then most devs would be happy to hear some ideas for solutions to polishing off a feature(Although some devs hate to hear criticism, but I think Ironclad are probably receptive to it).

Gamers can be the most insufferable, and impossible to please people on the planet. Which is why I often ignore most criticism, but when someone proposes criticism like this, I tend to listen, and I wouldn't be surprised if the developers at Ironclad read over what you said very carefully, and had some discussions with each other about it.
As a developer, I for one welcome the kind of criticism you showed here. You pointed out some issues or shortcomings, BUT you also provided solutions for most of them. You weren't mean about it, and you didn't make it sound like your proposed solutions were the only viable solutions. I think your criticism was very constructive, so don't feel bad about it.

[Syrus]

Originally posted by Almouse :

I'm also a little concerned that one of the roadmap planned enemies is something that punishes you even more for going on the biomass. I would want exactly the opposite!

There is a simple way to avoid that, if you move through biomass without running, he will not be able to detect you since it reacts on footsteps, using sprint on biomass is entierly another situation.

Originally posted by Almouse :

I really don't like the idea of AI players to balance lower playercounts

Not sure where did you get this idea but we need to enable people to play campaign in the way they played survival mode in TRS1, and it gives a more "personalized" feel of building your own squad in campaign :)

Something along these lines is planned

Originally posted by Almouse :

An enemy that drops long-lasting toxin clouds
An enemy that buffs nearby enemy's damage reduction on death

These were limited/not available due to demo limitations
- Lack of variety in lategame enemies (bosses)
- Pre-defined waves for enemies.
- Explosives. There are some obvious usability issues with explosives: it's very frustrating to be a new player and kill yourself because you clicked on a satchel one too many times (there was a bug that made u LMB explosive and go boom, oops?)
- Soloable objectives. (certain classes will have it easier)
- Extreme difficulty scaling
- Wave-based objective timers.(due to lack of missions available)

Planned in some way within a context but you will be happy within final result
- Remove wave-restrictions on objectives.
- Increase the amount of mid-high priority enemies early on (this was restricted due to demo, balancing, times...)
- Increase the impact of optional objectives (we have big plans for this just.. demo)
- Add more impetus for the team to move during gameplay(this will depend on map, situation etc.. but.. demo :))

As for the explosives + bullet ineffectivness, it's not something that you can just say do this and it will be alright, in the process you will probably debalance entire game. I know what you are saying but it's not a simple solution as it might sound.

I hope I answered some of your questions and concerns, but all in all I believe much more players will find TRS2 more to be within their style... and you haven't seen exploration and stealth mode yet :)

I'am open for constructive discussion and critism any day, so if you have any questions and ideas feel free to add them to this thread and I'll try to answer as best as I can.

[Kohwalter]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

Recon is shining because of lack of demo and terminator class at the moment, but once you level up general rank, recon becomes less mandatory because of access to certain specialist weapons, artillery is very good skill, but its on a very long cooldown and can be used pretty much only against biomass nests and very slow enemies.
[...]
In TRS1 you also could solo/duo first 6-8 waves, so nothing changed here, its scouting and gathering period while doing objectives.
[...]
His point about just sitting behind barricade is also completely void, if you stop for longer then 20-30 seconds in late game, you will lose, especially above normal difficulty.

Quoting TRS1 as "this was there and it was ok" is actually a bad example. TRS1 was not a success in any way. The game died wayyyyy too fast. Multiplayer lasted what? 3 months top before being a chore to find a game in the lobby?

The sequel should learn from the mistakes made in the first game, not make the same mistakes. Otherwise, this boat is doomed to fail even before it launches and history repeats itself with the game lasting only a couple of months before being dead and forgotten once more.

Almouse raised some concerns that should be addressed to improve the overall experience. Sure, some suggestions might not be relevant or in line with the devs' view for the game, but they should not disregard everything. If someone is questioning a design choice, then it is the dev's job to at least review and investigates the issue in order to improve it.

Otherwise this will be the same failure TSR1 was.