Is this still so broken and buggy?

[ONDIER]

I've been waiting for this game since the concept was announced. I was so excited.

Then I played the beta. Not so excited.

Then came the price tag; a AAA price tag for a game by a small studio? Fair enough, work is work and we all have to eat. But, the hot mess that was up during the beta wasn't on AAA standard, and doesn't deserve a AAA price tag.

Okay, enough complaining.

1. Are the unit movements (particularly the mechs) fixed? It was really difficult to watch units interact during the beta overall, let alone watch them moving.

2. Now that I think about it; have the animations been polished, like, to AAA level? Because they were on D- when I played the beta. Everything in the game that wasn't static just looked terrible, period.

3. Have they expanded the roster? The unit selection was third-world during the beta, straight famine through-and-through. I suppose there wasn't a lot a soldier could do other than carry a rifle, but this is alternate history and we have giant mechs, so that excuse is right out.

4. The elephant; performance. I'm running a relatively modest rig, but this game had some serious performance issues during the beta, and I mean SERIOUS. I have no trouble running unoptimised games on their highest settings, a la ARK, ARMA 3, et cet., but the beta was just stuttering no matter the preset.

Ultimately, the beta is what stopped me from buying this at the AAA price tag; just NOTHING about this was worth that price, let alone justified relative to actual AAA RTS games.

Now it's 50% off, great. I still think back to the beta and just hate myself for even considering to buy it at even 50% off. Multiplayer died before it was a thing, so all that's left is AI skirmishes and the campaign - and that's not worth the price.

In all honesty, waiting years for this and then being so disappointed by what it offered just killed the game for me. Please give me some sincere input, share your thoughts and consider answering one of the numbered questions so I can get a feel for where the game is now.

[Pickle-Down Rickonomics]

Nope it's the same as it was. In every aspect

[ONDIER]

Originally posted by Synth:

Nope it's the same as it was. In every aspect

Damn. That's such a pity.

[Cloneornot]

The price tag.
The price tag is not really a AAA, yes its expensive but the campain has around 30h of gameplay that already is more or less worth the money. Still if it is worth for you depends on you and what you want from a game.

Also all things I say below are compared to the Beta version short before release.

1.
Yes there were some fixes to pathfinding especially for biiger units. Still there are still some smaller pathfinding problems, but those dont accure that often.

2.
Its still not a AAA look, manly becuase the dev team is not a AAA team but instead a smaller indie studio. It got here and there better but there were no insame increases in the graphics and animations (manly bugfixes regarding that).

3.
Depends from when you looked last in the game. Overall since release there were no new units added. There will be new stuff coming with the DLC (also for free for other factions). But atm there is nothing new.

4.
There were some improvments to it. Not like we went from 10FPS to 200 but more some smaller improvements making the FPS more stabel...
for me it went from 35-10 to 40-20

Multiplayer died before it was a thing
Yep it had a bad start with hard dropping player numbers... atm, even after the free weekend we are at around 2k players (on steam only)

[ONDIER]

Originally posted by Cloneornot:

The price tag.
The price tag is not really a AAA, yes its expensive but the campain has around 30h of gameplay that already is more or less worth the money. Still if it is worth for you depends on you and what you want from a game.

Also all things I say below are compared to the Beta version short before release.

1.
Yes there were some fixes to pathfinding especially for biiger units. Still there are still some smaller pathfinding problems, but those dont accure that often.

2.
Its still not a AAA look, manly becuase the dev team is not a AAA team but instead a smaller indie studio. It got here and there better but there were no insame increases in the graphics and animations (manly bugfixes regarding that).

3.
Depends from when you looked last in the game. Overall since release there were no new units added. There will be new stuff coming with the DLC (also for free for other factions). But atm there is nothing new.

4.
There were some improvments to it. Not like we went from 10FPS to 200 but more some smaller improvements making the FPS more stabel...
for me it went from 35-10 to 40-20

Multiplayer died before it was a thing
Yep it had a bad start with hard dropping player numbers... atm, even after the free weekend we are at around 2k players (on steam only)

Thanks for the input man, I really appreciate it. Honest input from folks helps put things into perspective.

As for AAA price, I do mean AAA price. Stuff like Horizon Zero Dawn - Complete Edition is cheaper than the full price of Iron Harvest, unfortunately.

[Cloneornot]

yeah if you compare it to other AAA titels its kinda exprensive. But atleast there are more sales then I can count. So I guess its somewhat ok.

[ONDIER]

Originally posted by Cloneornot:

yeah if you compare it to other AAA titels its kinda exprensive. But atleast there are more sales then I can count. So I guess its somewhat ok.

Agree. Thanks again!

[Foosball]

Originally posted by Cloneornot:

The price tag.
The price tag is not really a AAA, yes its expensive but the campain has around 30h of gameplay that already is more or less worth the money. Still if it is worth for you depends on you and what you want from a game.)

it's 70$. It is triple AAA, irrespective of what the game offers.

[Cloneornot]

Originally posted by Foosball:

Originally posted by Cloneornot:

The price tag.
The price tag is not really a AAA, yes its expensive but the campain has around 30h of gameplay that already is more or less worth the money. Still if it is worth for you depends on you and what you want from a game.)

it's 70$. It is triple AAA, irrespective of what the game offers.

please read everything. I corrected myself afterwards a bit... but ok would be to hard to do that... understandable

[Foosball]

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

1. Are the unit movements (particularly the mechs) fixed? It was really difficult to watch units interact during the beta overall, let alone watch them moving.

I found pathfinding to be pretty bad. I'd have two mechs move together and then they'd hit a bottleneck in a road and just be unable to cross it. Instead of one unit letting another pass, they'd both try.

Another fail for me was the fact that the TERRAIN completely nerfed the mech pathfinding. One map had winding roads (I forget the name) and some of the roads were so narrow that mechs could barely traverse them. Mechs should be able to climb atop or sidestep pathways (think Protoss walkers).

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

2. Now that I think about it; have the animations been polished, like, to AAA level? Because they were on D- when I played the beta. Everything in the game that wasn't static just looked terrible, period.

I found the game very visually appealing. The art styles were very well done.

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

3. Have they expanded the roster? The unit selection was third-world during the beta, straight famine through-and-through. I suppose there wasn't a lot a soldier could do other than carry a rifle, but this is alternate history and we have giant mechs, so that excuse is right out.

In terms of actual unit diversity, especially for a 70$ game, I found the rosters for each faction lacking. Way cheaper games in the past like Red Alert, etc offered you entirely different units for each faction. In my opinion, for that price, it isn't fair to expect completely different units for each faction. And some things were strange: why make base building dependent on population? Does building a bunker really require one more person? Odd.

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

4. The elephant; performance. I'm running a relatively modest rig, but this game had some serious performance issues during the beta, and I mean SERIOUS. I have no trouble running unoptimised games on their highest settings, a la ARK, ARMA 3, et cet., but the beta was just stuttering no matter the preset.

I ran it maxed out, 2080, i-9900k, 32 gigs ram, no issues,

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

Ultimately, the beta is what stopped me from buying this at the AAA price tag; just NOTHING about this was worth that price, let alone justified relative to actual AAA RTS games.

I'd have to agree. I like deep gameplay, tactics, etc in my RTS games. The base building options were lacking. The specialized mercs were great and the overall steampunk design is novel. But the game IMHO doesn't allow for tactics. It's basically a zerg rush with limited resources and population cap.

The game feels like a demo. It has great potential, but the price tag merits way more content (you don't release it later, you release when the game comes out of EA) and greater depth in gameplay mechanics. There are an array of other games in this genre that offer way more depth and core gameplay mechanics for 30% less. With the way the game was initially released out of EA, it gives the impression it's being run by amateurs (over inflated sticker price, lack of previously advertised game features, now the mad rush to add content).

[Foosball]

Originally posted by Cloneornot:

yeah if you compare it to other AAA titels its kinda exprensive. But atleast there are more sales then I can count. So I guess its somewhat ok.

Lol. Please. don't be dense. "kinda" is not the word used for a 70$ game.

70$ for an RTS game is very rare and is expensive. In other countries, the price is often jacked up due to currency differences, etc.
70$ for an RTS game that was released without the features devs said it would have is tantamount to false advertising. At the very least, the game was incomplete.

Fully fleshed out games comparable to this one are easily 20$ less.

edit: compare this game to COH franchise, Starcraft, even Red Alert decades ago. Tons more content,

The devs can charge whatever price they want, the market I guess will determine success. The digital deluxe edition of Starcraft 2: Campaign Collection is 74.99. In my opinion, with what a game like this offers, it is worth a price like this.

[ONDIER]

Originally posted by Foosball:

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

1. Are the unit movements (particularly the mechs) fixed? It was really difficult to watch units interact during the beta overall, let alone watch them moving.

I found pathfinding to be pretty bad. I'd have two mechs move together and then they'd hit a bottleneck in a road and just be unable to cross it. Instead of one unit letting another pass, they'd both try.

Another fail for me was the fact that the TERRAIN completely nerfed the mech pathfinding. One map had winding roads (I forget the name) and some of the roads were so narrow that mechs could barely traverse them. Mechs should be able to climb atop or sidestep pathways (think Protoss walkers).

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

2. Now that I think about it; have the animations been polished, like, to AAA level? Because they were on D- when I played the beta. Everything in the game that wasn't static just looked terrible, period.

I found the game very visually appealing. The art styles were very well done.

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

3. Have they expanded the roster? The unit selection was third-world during the beta, straight famine through-and-through. I suppose there wasn't a lot a soldier could do other than carry a rifle, but this is alternate history and we have giant mechs, so that excuse is right out.

In terms of actual unit diversity, especially for a 70$ game, I found the rosters for each faction lacking. Way cheaper games in the past like Red Alert, etc offered you entirely different units for each faction. In my opinion, for that price, it isn't fair to expect completely different units for each faction. And some things were strange: why make base building dependent on population? Does building a bunker really require one more person? Odd.

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

4. The elephant; performance. I'm running a relatively modest rig, but this game had some serious performance issues during the beta, and I mean SERIOUS. I have no trouble running unoptimised games on their highest settings, a la ARK, ARMA 3, et cet., but the beta was just stuttering no matter the preset.

I ran it maxed out, 2080, i-9900k, 32 gigs ram, no issues,

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

Ultimately, the beta is what stopped me from buying this at the AAA price tag; just NOTHING about this was worth that price, let alone justified relative to actual AAA RTS games.

I'd have to agree. I like deep gameplay, tactics, etc in my RTS games. The base building options were lacking. The specialized mercs were great and the overall steampunk design is novel. But the game IMHO doesn't allow for tactics. It's basically a zerg rush with limited resources and population cap.

The game feels like a demo. It has great potential, but the price tag merits way more content (you don't release it later, you release when the game comes out of EA) and greater depth in gameplay mechanics. There are an array of other games in this genre that offer way more depth and core gameplay mechanics for 30% less. With the way the game was initially released out of EA, it gives the impression it's being run by amateurs (over inflated sticker price, lack of previously advertised game features, now the mad rush to add content).

Thank you for the honest input. It's the setting and art that got me interested in this about three (four?) years ago, I'm glad to hear that the visual side of things is worthwhile. I'm also glad they've sorted out the optimisation.

The other points, though - it's such a pity. We don't get good RTS games often as of late, hopefully they address the core issues and realise its full potential instead of trying to survive on paid content - and that base price tag.

[Bomjus]

most of the input here has answered your questions, but i just want to say that i personally find the pathfinding pretty good for these giant mechs. this is partly to do with the fact that unit collision seems to be "turned off" if units start to get stuck inside each other. like my friend and i had a moment in a campaign mission where the mobile bunker just phased through the artillery mech we had blocking the bridge. which i consider a huge bonus compared to something like company of heroes where (albeist more realistic i suppose) a single AT gun has blocked off a whole bridge for a column of tanks.

i'm of the same opinion as some others here. i think this is a good game. and i thoroughly enjoyed playing the campaign with my friend in co op (didn't have any issues playing co op btw) over the past weekend. but this is not a $50 game. it's like a $35'er. which is why i bought it when it was half off because i think the devs have something pretty original here and i want to seem them make it into something even cooler.

i'm pretty excited for the upcoming DLC and i think it is VASTLY understated how awesome it is to be able to play a campaign with up to 2 other people.

[Creavend]

Now this conversation is right up my alley.

Clone: You know I like the game; I play constantly and will continue to do so for years to come, but I made very similar points in the past.

The price I think is the biggest hurdle and barrier for entry right now. There is, I believe, a slight disconnect between how KA (or most likely deep silver) views this and how players do, maybe because of the fact KA is from Europe. The game has been positioned the be a console release from the beginning and that is clearly reflected in the price too. But that is just not the landscape for PC gaming. For a PC/RTS/semi-indie (I would actually call this AA) game, 50 bucks for the base game… that is a lot of money. You can buy COH2 and basically all its 9 or 11 expansions for that same price.

Coming back to the point about Europe. My guess is that either 1) they are pricing it according to what they value their labor at or basically what they need to in order to keep the lights up and make a profit or 2) Deepsilver got involved in that decision.

Originally posted by KaiserZandrich:

4. The elephant; performance. I'm running a relatively modest rig, but this game had some serious performance issues during the beta, and I mean SERIOUS. I have no trouble running unoptimised games on their highest settings, a la ARK, ARMA 3, et cet., but the beta was just stuttering no matter the preset.

There was an optimization patch sometime in March, it really helped with that, but through some players testimony, I have concluded that this game is much more CPU than GPU bound. Especially if you have an older than 8th gen intel or older than Zen 1 AMD cpu your experience might suffer.

Originally posted by Foosball:

Another fail for me was the fact that the TERRAIN completely nerfed the mech pathfinding. One map had winding roads (I forget the name) and some of the roads were so narrow that mechs could barely traverse them. Mechs should be able to climb atop or sidestep pathways (think Protoss walkers).

This one was inadvertently super interesting to me because in the 1920+ lore, the Isemgrim mech for example was specifically designed to traverse broken and mountainous terrain, so I would totally want that in the game.

Originally posted by Foosball:

But the game IMHO doesn't allow for tactics. It's basically a zerg rush with limited resources and population cap.

I agree that, especially on the highest levels of play, that is more or less the case, but I don’t find that to be the same when playing more casually. I enjoy finding success with very unconventional and non-meta strategies.

Originally posted by Foosball:

The game feels like a demo. It has great potential, but the price tag merits way more content (you don't release it later, you release when the game comes out of EA) and greater depth in gameplay mechanics. There are an array of other games in this genre that offer way more depth and core gameplay mechanics for 30% less. With the way the game was initially released out of EA, it gives the impression it's being run by amateurs (over inflated sticker price, lack of previously advertised game features, now the mad rush to add content).

I wouldn't say it feel like a demo, but there is truth to the fact that the dev is not as experienced and that there might have been some management issues, as testified by an ex-employee.

Also, the devs have publicly stated that this game is part of a leaning experience for them. I believe the clearest example was the situation with the AI, where it was said they didn’t go for a commercially available one because they wanted to learn how to do so in house. I don’t actually have an issue with that, being a game development student myself I totally get the idea of growing your team and experience through, let’s say, trial by fire. But that is when the price comes back to being an issue.

So, the fundamental contradiction is this: The game is not really AAA and comparing it to games developed by massive and well-established studios like relic, blizzard, etc. feels like a mute point. But the game’s price is on that same bracket or even higher, so comparisons are inevitable.

I made I post about this in the past of you want to check it out.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/826630/discussions/0/3095635055517549680/

[Jay Akula]

Originally posted by Foosball:

Another fail for me was the fact that the TERRAIN completely nerfed the mech pathfinding. One map had winding roads (I forget the name) and some of the roads were so narrow that mechs could barely traverse them. Mechs should be able to climb atop or sidestep pathways (think Protoss walkers).

Thank the gods, that I am not the only one who thinks it is stupid that a mech the size of Kaiser struggles to climb up a small step that is less than a 16th of its height.

[Foosball]

Originally posted by Creavend:

So, the fundamental contradiction is this: The game is not really AAA and comparing it to games developed by massive and well-established studios like relic, blizzard, etc. feels like a mute point. But the game’s price is on that same bracket or even higher, so comparisons are inevitable.

I made I post about this in the past of you want to check it out.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/826630/discussions/0/3095635055517549680/

Exactly this. Thanks for adding to the convo!