Played through a couple of games now, thought I should provide a bit of feedback to Uber. 1) Aspects of the UI are really quite confusing. For example, I joined one game. I couldn't control anything, I couldn't see any bots or buildings or anything at all. No one on chat was able to help me, and I had to alt+f4 and rejoin the game. What was the issue? I was looking at the wrong planet, because my 3 alphabetical starting locations were for some reason on a different planet to everyone else, including the spawn location of my commander. For me personally, there are 2 sub-issues to do with UI (i) When you hit a short-cut to find a unit, it needs to swap views to the units location. (ii) While I understand that Uber wants to do something "a little different" with the minimap, in my opinion such a feature is pretty necessary for orientation and so on in what promises to be a complex combat environment. A simple empire view (like that present in Sins of a Solar Empire) won't really work in a game which is primarily territory related. A projected image of each globe would be truly excellent. 2) Multiplayer Game Modes - It would be nice to have a comp-stomp/human-defeat game with one player against 3 or 4 allies NPCs as a singleplayer game. 3) Multiplayer armies - I strongly believe that you should maintain control of your own commander, even if you are using the same army. I set my commander to build power generators (we were negative 75,000) , and my team members decided it would be a really good idea to get him to move and do nothing. 3) The AI - The AI needs adjustable settings, pure and simple. I played a few games where I tried to set it up so I could planet crash. My plan was to rush orbital platform and escape from the homeworld as soon as I could. The AI rushed me in strength and I had to devote everything to staying alive. The next time they were less aggressive, and my original base was only destroyed when I dropped a planet on top of it. I guess the point here is that in games when I want a challenge, I'm not actually getting it because the AI seems to be the turtle AI, not the rush AI... I'm also finding the AI hopelessly ineffective at doing stuff. For example, I set up my base literally right next door to the enemy. I had no resources near my base, so made my commander trek across the map to a high metal concentration, which was exactly where the enemy base was. I threw up 2 metal extractors, 2 energy, one bot factory and a handful of turrets. 20 minutes later of destruction later, the AI made his commanders (plural - 4 enemy commanders in one army against me) replace an Advanced Vehicle Factory right next door to my base. My defences (missiles and bots) destroyed one, and the resulting explosion destroyed most of the CPU base and all of my defences. The remaining commanders stayed close to the action and were promptly annihilated. I never expanded over 8 tier one Metal Extractors. (I generally play strategy games against the cpu out of choice)
If you can't see units try home and then end to refresh the view using the chronocam. You can double tap a hotkey or press t to find a unit selected. For 2) you can setup simply through creating a skirmish game. Team alliances will be added later. The AI isn't close to finished, just like the rest of the game. Welcome to beta, it isn't finished yet.
With all due respect, you need to play games against a human opponent to get a better experience, as the devs have not devoted a huge amount of time to the AI yet. However, I agree with you on the point about the single player controlled commander.
Correct. I'm not new to RTS. Double tapping hotkeys/pressing t wasn't working, because the UI didn't make it clear to me that I wasn't on the same planet that my commander had spawned on.(If you go to another planet, and hit c, t; it gives you the coordinates that your commander is at, but on the wrong planet) Full release is only December. You can... But it's technically a multiplayer game, so occasionally you'll find players crashing your parade (I want 2 or 3 AI's allied against me) This is true hypothetically, but I played a multiplayer 5v5 game where my team screwed everything up due to a lack of cooperative micromanagement. To be honest my concerns are more to do with the UI than with the AI.
Yes, multi-planet doesn't work well in many areas. It's barely implemented yet. You can create AI-only games in the lobby so no-one can crash your parade. Team armies doesn't work well because no-one is any good and they never work together. Try joining a clan: http://pamatches.com/clans The UI is barely there, it still has a lot of work to be done.
Do a search before posting and understand that this game is not finished. UI is being improved. You can already set up games like that. That game mode will be added. AI will be improved and have options. The AI is VERY under developed right now, 'cause you know, we're in beta and the game isn't complete.
this is good. you tried it, now of course since it is beta, alliance gameplay isn't in yet. Team armies is particular, but very interesting, and absolutely necessary for the splitting of ressouces (and by ressources of course, I'm talking about human means and effort). For example : (3v3v3) at the start, one will only touch the army, while one will focus on the construction of factories while one will do all the eco. as soon as they get to other planets each player gets his own planet and must manage it entirely on his own, and asks for the others to stop consumption when the team's players can agree that a planet diserves eco in priority. To achive this using a voice chat is essential. the amount of comunication necessery to keep this endeavor on track is phenomenal, and must not be neglected, it is a key part of the effort.
All he is giving is his feedback in a snap shot of the game. I'm sure he is relatively new to the forums to understand all the issues discussed and was concerned more of getting all his thoughts down. I would like the idea of CPU vs human COMP stomp. It would be nice to be able to have a computer change their strategy on the fly... Like as an options menu under their commander.
A search is critical, even for new forum posters. It's part of the forum rules and keeps duplicate posts from popping up. And as previously stated, the AI is way under developed. It will gain intelligence and difficulty settings.
it's broken though. no use telling people to search if you can't. all I ever find is thanks to google and because I have very good personal memory of the thread. The search function on the Uber forums is very near useless because it limits it's results in multiple exotic ways. it's excruciatingly annoying.
Just a definition of Beta for everyone, from wikipedia. Emphases are my own. Just bearing in mind that final release is supposed to be December, two months away, and the latest Beta build is October the 18th... The AI only games comment was because I wanted to play a game where the AI was allied against me personally, so that I could get a feel for the game. Cheers for the links! Yeah. A lot of work to be done in general I guess This is a game which is very promising in concept, but is only two months away from final release; and missing a user-friendly execution of the large scale concept which has been talked about. The excuse "this is Beta" is fine, but release is only two months away. @brianpurkiss - A search on UI returns an error, a search on UI improvements gives no results found. A search on AI improvements gives a bunch of non-relevant threads, so I don't have any confidence in the search function. My other questions I've asked in other threads haven't been found on Google, or appear to be bugs for my game.
The ai started out as spawning with no ability to build and preplaced turrets. He then started to build air factory and spam air. Just recently he got bots. He is not set to judge good build placement, just valid build placement. He isn't even programmed yet to attempt to build orbital. He just got nukes, so now if you turtle intentionally against 4 enemies, you may actually have a challenge to nuke them before they do you.
The ESTIMATED release is in december and its a early estimate (wasent it made while they still did the kickstarter?), they may delay it (i would even say "i find it likely that they will delay it").
I find it unlikely they will delay it. Missing the huge sales boom in xmas would be pretty disastrous for sales. Also they need money to delay the release and continue developing the game. Yes they have had sales since kickstarter but the entire game is being run on a shoestring budget already.
True, but it will be kinda hard to finish and polish the game in the time left. (Im not saying that its impossible, just hard.) Off course they could allways release it barebone and "polish" the game after launch (since they will continue to add content anyway). But to buy something barebone usally upsets customers quite a bit (Commonly refeared to as "a unfinished game"). So they should (in my humble opinion) do a bit of polishing before release, even if they have to delay it a month or two (Since a game is kinda judged most at release, even if its perfected later). Ohh well, lets see what the future brings (Maybe they will have it done and polished to perfection tomorrow, for all i know).
Ah, see there's your problem. Typical rookie mistake. you never eat metal extractors together with power plants. It really messes up your stomach.
ooooh they should absolutely delay it 12 months to ensure that release is absolutely flawless. Barebone releases aren't good at all - imagine how many people there would be moaning about unfinished betas being released...
Do they have enough revenue coming in to even make that feasible? That's the question. December release is reasonable scene what they can do. If they decide that they have to push it back so be it.
Maybe... but if they release half a game, the reception will be poor, and the community will be split between people who got what they expected, and people who didn't. Plus the reviews will be as if it was the finished game.
