Hi,
I recently found this game and have been intrigued by it. But seeing that a lot of changes in almost every aspect of the game are on their way, I have stopped playing the game for now. From what I have read here, I am a little concerned that I will like the game less after the changes, so I decided to take this opportunity to share, what positives and negatives I personally find in the state the game currently is in and may possibly be after the changes. After all, feedback is highly welcome, from what I have read.
A point I see most important to always consider from a developers' position is to be clear about the target group of players your game aims at. Keeping that in mind and knowing your target group well (maybe through surveys or similar ways) may already give important implications on what game mechanics may work well with the (desired) player base or less so.
In terms of mechanics, I also find it important to differentiate between the two levels of "marketing and selling the game" and "playing the game". Ideally those two levels in design complement and not contradict each other.
I will be frank in saying that this game is quite unique, for I don't find many other games in the online turn based tactic games genre though I would not mind being contradicted here.
I am a fan of strategic board games, but don't have the opportunity to play all to often with friends face-to-face. If I had more time doing so, I'd probably be more into tabletop games like Warhammer 40k or similar games. As regarding the target group of the game, that is an important point, I want to make: I don't have much time (and - as full time student - not too much money, but that's another point).
I like my strategy (/tactic) games fair. Which means that I find every player should have the same possibilities (strategic choices) before going into the match (i. e. which troops with which abilities to chose to complete his army). In this sense chess is perfectly balanced, but offers no choice at all. With tabletop games, as far as I know, it is common to purchase single units, adding them to the arsenal. I can see how this would be appealing in a sense of cosumization. Giving your army a personal touch based on its composition. In this sense the really balanced point, where every player has got the same strategic possibilities, would be before spending any money. Even though this is not as ideal as chess, I could live with this strategic choice of spending my money. Buying the game (in its parts and pieces) would then become the first layer of strategic choice.
How expansive a full playable army then should be, of course, is debatable, and economists might draw fancy curves there on how much money how many people would be willing to pay for what that lets you calculate the best price.
For more data in this regard, I will tell you, what I would be willing to pay:
I can see myself paying around 15 to 30€ for my first fully built and functional army. As closer it gets to the 30€ range, the more I would like to see slight changes I could do within my unit composition to adjust my playstyle within certain limits set by the units I bought (maybe changing units' skills within a skilltree or similar or having spare units to play around with army composition).
From this starting point on I would fancy smaller payments (maybe around 5-10€/month) for buing new units that would provide me more strategic possibilities within the same faction. If I would want to change faction, I would have to start building a new army from scratch, of course.
What I would hate to see, is having to play the game a lot to unlock certain strategic possibilities: the so-called "xp-based progression system". I don't have much time to play. Implement this kind of marketing based mechanic (, which in my opinion contradics the level of in-game mechanics, as strategy games should not favor one player over the other, before the game has even started) too deeply into the game, and you will certainly lose me as one of your customers. If you really want to implement a xp-based progression system, and I could see, why you would (as it makes players feel more invested into the game), I would suggest something like leveling up your account. Or improving your rank. Make players, who spend a lot of time with the game (more time than I ever could spend), unlock nice visual customization options for their units or their accounts or I don't know what. I personally would not mind any of those things as long as it does not fiddle with the gameplay itself.
But under the line: Make the players play the game by making them wanting to "play" the game, not by making them want to "progress" by contesting who has the most free time to spare. By designing an online tabletop like tactic game, you're probably selling to a certain niche market. After all those games are a bit complicated to learn and demand the player to actively think. Please do not substitute that for "having spend more time and therefore more strategic choices for abusing by just playing the cookie-cutter-build/army composition" only availiable to players at lvl 15 or so.
That sums op my most concerning point.
From here on, a few more "little" things, I would like to give feedback for:
The game, for an open beta of a free2play game, feels unfinished and overall unpolished in its presentation. By seeing for every faction only one of obviously three intended armies electable, the impression is nurtured that a lot of intended content has not yet been implemented. Nowadays, an open beta for a free2play game seems to be often seen as its official release by many people. Going into the game with this mind set, I could see myself being driven off again soon, too. Easy solution there would be to just optically hide the other two army options for each faction until they are actually being implemented into the game.
Other presentation things that make it feel unfinished and unpolished to me would be a missing developer's and/or poblishers logo/animation at the game start. As I generally see those as time wasters, and I personally appreciate them not being there, it even gives me the feeling of "something missing". I guess that is how used I have become to that silly marketing practice over the years of gaming.
While I have not noticed anything negative about the sound and music design in this game otherwise (, which is a compliment in a way,) you maybe want to recosider the music in the game/army/shop etc. menu (right after logging in). I have found that one somewhat unnerving. A bit more pleasant music after starting the game may just making starting the game all more pleasant.
In general, I like the presentation of the game, and those points mentioned above are really all visual/auditive aspects I can think of that may make the game feel more complete just by its presentation.
Game mechanics-wise, the balancing of AP-costs felt unfinished, and some skilltree choices felt a bit weird just by reading the tool tips (as I don't have too much experience in testing them in game), but that is something I find to be expected in a "beta".
I am glad that the much debated injury system will be gone, for that really made playing the game feel punishing.
I personally wish you would not divide the units into heroes and non-heores, but that is just personal preference, and having those hero-units in the game, would not prevent me from playing it if implemented well and interestingly.
As some people before me in this thread, I would want to advise against multiple win conditions within the same (and only and main) game mode of it may lead to the opposing players not interacting with each other anymore or less. Take a look at Magic the Gathering with its multiple win conditions leading to many matches where each player just plays his deck by himself, comboing and drawing cards with the one who draws his combo (or other win condition first) winning.
For game modes I like killing all units of the enemy army best as it forces a high degree of unit interaction. Capturing points may just draw units away from each other, reducing the interaction. The VIP thing seems unnecessary, but I could see it working, albeit really difficult to balance. (I would be playing a back row supoprt hero for sure, who is not completely exposed to the enemy army's meele force all the time if killing the hero was a win condition and meele heroes not just too strong to not play.)
Well, I think that sums it up. I hope my feedback will be somewhat useful for you, and I hope that I will still be wanting to play the game after all the changes have been implemented, for so far, I mostly liked what I saw.
If you implement too much in-game relevant xp-based progression, I may have to resort to playing chess online.
I do not maintain being representative of your player base and/or target group in any way (I don't have any statistical numbers to support such a claim), but please keep in mind that, with a turn based tabletop like tactic game you are tailoring to a niche market, and your target group, in tendency, might not like the grindy progression system made to have the run-of-the-mill casual players become addicted to andriod-app-games. At least I would hope so.
I apologize for this lengthy post. At this time of the day I am just too tired to elegantly wrap up the text, so one or two unnecessary repetitions might have slipped in.
I thank all who have read through this wall of text and whish everyone a good night.
- Silverblade