So, having spent a few hours with the Imperial campaign now, I've got some preliminary thoughts on the campaign. Let's start on a happy note.

The Good

• It's nice to have some customization back, limited though it is.
• The upgrade system for planets is cool.
• The actual map layout is good.
• Tying in to the above, the map movement is smart.
• The upgrades panel is neat.
• I appreciate that ships level up, though I dislike how it's handled.
• It's nice to have Spire back, I'm glad the story allows for that.
• The save is really quick. Not being facetious, I sincerely appreciate how quick it is to make a quicksave.

The Bad

• I dislike how the ship upgrades work. There's no choice or really information given, you just randomly end up with different stats.
• I'm personally not a fan of bundling the three non-Chaos humans together. Would've been nice to have individual campaigns for them down the road.
• Maybe it'll change later on, but I'm not crazy about always fighting Chaos. More variety would be nice.
• I don't care for the timer at all. Let me play on my own pace.
• There's a lot of things that aren't explained until they happen. I made the mistake of thinking I could take on an enemy with a displayed strength of ~300 with my two ~200 strength fleets. Until the battle screen popped up, and it informed their effective strength with turrets would be past 450 strength.
• There's still a lot of typos and missing data. I had to laugh that every sector had sector listed twice (Cadia Sector sector).
• Remove the mandatory completions to do campaigns. I'd already done the Tutorial campaign three times. I've now had to do it a fourth time. And if I don't refund, I can look forward to a fifth time.
• There's still a lot of unlinked XMLs, which is a little concerning this close to release. Admiral Spire has a skill that apparently doesn't do anything as a result. Not sure how this wasn't noticed.
• The amount of currency produced at planets needs a bump. Not a huge one, but even having conqured 75% of my region, the amount of income hasn't moved much.

The Ugly

• WHO IN THE HELL THOUGHT EVERY MATCH SHOULD BE TAKE AND HOLD? Seriously, I realize you've gutted most of the battle-types this time around for bALanCe, but what a horrible way to play.
• Slightly tied in to the above, but platforms & stations can essentially be auto-losses. I've played more than a couple matches where the enemy essentially starts with three zones under their control, meaning your only hope is to hope you can kill them before they win through points.
• I know RNG should be expected to make most maps, but compounding this with the Take and Hold mechanic gets very repetitive after a while. I only played about three hours last night, and by the third hour, I was looking forward to autoresolve opportunities rather than having to play them.
• I know it got mentioned in the Bad list, but again, way too much information is obfuscated. I had several planetary traits that I couldn't get more information on. Prior to turn 7 I had no idea where the Battleplans came from, and what difference it made spending them. I had no idea how much my crews were being replenished. It's a little frustrating to have 938485 things going on in a strategy game, and no data on half of them.
• While I genuinely appreciate the amount of work that must have gone in to the campaign mechanics, this still feels like less game than BFG1. Even with the campaigns, I have less customization, less game types, less races to play with... Just less STUFF. You really, really need a concrete post-release plan if you want my money, because I can't support this as is.

@romeo good summary. My major issue remains with trashcrons being trash, but their are more than a few with campaign as well. You should never start in the negative, and the "faction leader ded=lose" is dumb as it means if you lose once early on you lose period, especially since one of the factions does not have individuals and the other can self resurrect. I would advise posting this in technical to further spread the good word of fuck take and hold, because a) they didn't seem to notice all the discontent overhere about crons and b) I don't want to play a take and hold campaign as necrons because sloooooooooooow. Also, defense platforms need to not being on capture points as that is essentially and auto lose at higher difficulties, that or they need to not be able to capture.

@romeo, with most of what you said, I can only agree. In a smaller part ... I have nothing against SM, IN and AdMech acting together. And timer not critical, there are options for resetting it.

To not the best devs ideas, you can add music in the company screen. The melody is dark and depressing, listening to it for hours is the best option for getting a headache. And it is the same and the Necrons and the Imperials. This, of course, is nonsense, it can be turned off in the menu, which I did after 10 minutes of being on the company's screen.

I completely forgot about the bugs. I wanted to look at the requirements for combat plans and I had to overload my PC. Again. There are stable bugs when loading saving in the company, as they were (and remained) when editing fleets in multiplayer. This is Russian roulette - you come to editing fleet, or you try to continue the company and have a chance to find yourself in a situation that is treated only by hard overload.

If I were ten years younger, I would have written everything that I am wondering about the developers of this wonderful game. Not the fact that other buyers will be as calm as me. The blue screen of death when you first start is not something that can please the buyer.

@Nemesor Xanxas, good point.

I agree on the 'currency' front, it was only when I found cadian refugees on taking the star system bottom (mid) with the 100 resources for ten turns that I could actually buy things.

The other factions are in single player so it's only the first galaxy that is pure chaos - eldar are definately in the next one and there has been published notes that you get special missions to wipe out a faction completely.

I found it unclear how to move ships between fleets, so spire was stuck with a dauntless and firestorm when I wanted to swap to a cruiser.

I'm not sure what you talking about regarding mandatory mission completions, you can skip the fall of cadia blackstone fortress intro,just by scrolling straight to the imperial campaign.

I like the the campaign mechanics, having to protect your faction leader makes sense, primary example of when to use the warp jump retreat if a battle goes bad.

Also the game auto saves so if you die yoy can just reload the battle.

@mystic_taboo said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

I'm not sure what you talking about regarding mandatory mission completions, you can skip the fall of cadia blackstone fortress intro,just by scrolling straight to the imperial campaign.

When you try to start the Campain (mouse over button) it says you have to have the previous one completed.

Regarding the campain-map (sector/system view) - It would be really nice to have some kind of overview what the level of POI's currently is, which can be upgraded now and which require more resources to do so.

Possibly in the System-Dropdown showing the Names and Icons of POI's.

Couldnt have said it better. This whole ''Capture the Point'' mode SHOULD'VE NEVER BEEN the core gameplay of this game. Whoever made that decision needs to be demoted to mopping the floors instead of making gameplay decisions.

Having it on a few maps would've been fine, but literally 98% of the game is that...what? What made you think that was a good idea? Where are the big battles we were promised? I never wanted to play Cat&Mouse in space.

@bublito said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

Couldnt have said it better. This whole ''Capture the Point'' mode SHOULD'VE NEVER BEEN the core gameplay of this game. Whoever made that decision needs to be demoted to mopping the floors instead of making gameplay decisions.

Having it on a few maps would've been fine, but literally 98% of the game is that...what? What made you think that was a good idea? Where are the big battles we were promised? I never wanted to play Cat&Mouse in space.

Some people like it, other don't but the mechanic per se is not bad. Good luck fighting dark eldars that don't have to cap and can just stealth kite you the whole game :|

@adm_janus that would only be the case in pvp they can augment the ai to not play that way. besides take and hold actually benefits the eldar races more than it hurts them. i.e. forces people to break up their fleets.

@adm_janus said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

@bublito said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

Couldnt have said it better. This whole ''Capture the Point'' mode SHOULD'VE NEVER BEEN the core gameplay of this game. Whoever made that decision needs to be demoted to mopping the floors instead of making gameplay decisions.

Having it on a few maps would've been fine, but literally 98% of the game is that...what? What made you think that was a good idea? Where are the big battles we were promised? I never wanted to play Cat&Mouse in space.

Some people like it, other don't but the mechanic per se is not bad. Good luck fighting dark eldars that don't have to cap and can just stealth kite you the whole game :|

My take is mainly on the campaign being 100% cap and hold. It is simply pathetic and lazy on their end. Not at all what we were promised by the devs. This whole game, the way it was handled from its first announcement to this very day, is Electronic Art & Activision textbook ''How to falsely advertise a game to make sales go up while ruining the gameplay''

On top of the take and hold we should have also scripted missions where we use stuff like the Phalanx, Gloriana etc...

@adm_janus there are scripted missions that dont require take and hold but if we are stuck with take and hold as the general game mode i.e. 90 percent + of the battles in the campaign then scripted missions are not gonna make it all better.

@mystic_taboo said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

I agree on the 'currency' front, it was only when I found cadian refugees on taking the star system bottom (mid) with the 100 resources for ten turns that I could actually buy things.

The other factions are in single player so it's only the first galaxy that is pure chaos - eldar are definately in the next one and there has been published notes that you get special missions to wipe out a faction completely.

I found it unclear how to move ships between fleets, so spire was stuck with a dauntless and firestorm when I wanted to swap to a cruiser.

I'm not sure what you talking about regarding mandatory mission completions, you can skip the fall of cadia blackstone fortress intro,just by scrolling straight to the imperial campaign.

Yeah, same here. Once that bonus 100/turn went away, I realized having 3/4 of the system controlled and fully upgraded was only getting me ~100/turn. Hardly anything to write home about.

Ah, okie dokie, glad to hear it.

I think the only way to do it is to destroy the unwanted ships, as best I can tell.

Before I could do the Imperial Campaign, I had to do the Tutorial Campaign yet again, in spite of already having played it three times in the previous Beta. I couldn't elect to play the Necron one until after the Imperial one as well. That's dumb, make them a recommendation at best, not a requirement.

@adm_janus said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

Some people like it, other don't but the mechanic per se is not bad. Good luck fighting dark eldars that don't have to cap and can just stealth kite you the whole game :|

Liking or disliking it isn't even the big issue - I love Assassination from the first game. But if every mission was Assassination it'd get boring quickly. Add in the fact Take and Hold is already an incredibly divisive mission type, and the natural imbalances it brings to single player, and suddenly using it for every mission becomes patently ridiculous.

Hey everyone!

Thanks for the great feedback post @Romeo. We will be releasing a community update later tomorrow (January 18) that addresses feedback since the second Beta launched, and how we plan on responding. Please keep an eye out for that!

@jellyfoosh said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

Hey everyone!

Thanks for the great feedback post @Romeo. We will be releasing a community update later tomorrow (January 18) that addresses feedback since the second Beta launched, and how we plan on responding. Please keep an eye out for that!

Looking forward to it. Do we have patch notes, or is it more of a "you'll notice when you play it" kind of deal?

@romeo We will go through feedback from the community and talk about how we aim to adress it. Can't say much more than that at this time. You won't have to wait long to find out though!

@jellyfoosh said in Campaign First Play: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly:

@romeo We will go through feedback from the community and talk about how we aim to adress it. Can't say much more than that at this time. You won't have to wait long to find out though!

Totally fair, can't ask for more than that. Appreciate you lads and lasses looking at the community feedback.

@jellyfoosh please look at the Necron/tier threads now that you are in general discussion, they are buried a bit under the new posts but they are important and it seems clear no one read them.

@jellyfoosh This really begin to feel like a good game there is still a lot missing though :
The audio feel really cut , a small fluff introduction in each battle would be nice ,more audio interaction to what happen to. Like a taunt , a "The Emperor protect" , a "the shield is down hull is critical we won't hold" ect to make the world less empty .

Differents style of battle , i really like take and hold and don't agree about necron being that slow having the most teleportation option right now BUT if it's good in a replayable "competitive" multiplayer way in a longer campaign style it make the the battle really dull .
In the the first one they were at least some variety of battle type and made them at least somewhat along the ground battle : supply protection , bombardement order ect.
Why not a ground battle (a line that go from one side to the other) and you need to sometimes "bombard" (cut all engine all weapons and channel) to help the front progress . With why not optionnal action that can give you a planet defense online to help you.
The idea of "side quest" would be really nice in the campaign .
Exemple :
A reasearch station is attacked evacuate it to gain 50 renown .
They have capture our orbital defense destroy it siege time is one turn longer.

The assault of a new system should be way harder : with planet defense systems really helping (the 2/3 platform aren't really doing much) and why not force you to use a ship only to help regain control of the ground.

The number of systems in each sector should be bigger , each system should have a "siege" mechanics cause right now the systems really doesn't feel as you are gaining control of it but more as puting a token saying "it's mine" and the ennemy can just come and ruin it (3 lvl only by the way feel a little cheap),
The capture and developement of each systems should be way harder and more rewarding . So you choose wich system to invest in . Right now it's take all and invest all first the one that bring money.

Having this mode in multiplayer and especially in versus with every race available (please don't forget the tau you have so little game were they are playable in "campaign")

Change the ship to be an attribute of the fleet that need to be remove to had another ship to be more a thing in it self . With a "hangar" with all non attributed ship why not .
Cause when you start with a LC ,had some support ship , lvl up in renown you don't want to destroy you LC or your escort but only get the Cruiser in your main fleet .
Destroying a fonctionning ship SHOULD NOT BE NORMAL .

And yeah optimize the game the fleet builder especially but i guess this is already planned.

The game have a really boardgame feeling but that sad cause it's a video game with so much more potential so trying to JUST be a a board won't cut it.

If this is done this would be a good game i could share and promote.