I'm glad Day9 is willing to say it. As much as they tried to make this game "easy to play" it is one of the most unintuitive weirdass RTS I've ever begun to try and play. It's really rough.
The "easy to play" solutions are only weird and unintuitive if you actively think about their inner workings, and you look at them through the lens of your past experiences with the genre. Day9 is prone to doing both (for 6 whole hours), but most new RTS players don't do either of those things. They have other things to worry about when learning a new game in a new genre.
@@eduardoserpa1682 This is an argument completely devoid of actual content. Is that how you THINK new players approach the game or is that based on any testing or new player experiences? I guarantee you it's the first. Even for a new player interlacing 2 seperate systems that are similar but have different hotkeys is very confusing. Having a unit that doesn't build anything have a build hotkey and then the building magically appears also isn't intuitive. Neither is the fact that your smart building actually doesn't set the rally point for new buildings, so you manually have to reset that everytime you build which would require actual RTS knowledge. Long story short: The devs did what they THINK new players want, without actually having an idea what new players want. I have not heard a single player say "oh this feels nice and intuitive".
@@renzuki5830 Some of my friends are currently new to RTS, I was new to RTS a couple years ago, and I'm occasionally new to other game genres. The experience of a new player in any game is rarely diving straight into that kind of thing. It's just piecing together the most straightforward strategy, and executing it. In the case of Stormgate, you press W to make units every now and then. If you have too many resources, you press Q to make a building. After you have a bunch of units, you select all army, and A-move to the opponent's base. Any refinement beyond that comes over time, after you're used to how the basic gameplay loop feels. It's exactly what I did when I got into SC2 a few years ago, I was just making Thors and A-moving when maxed out all the way to Platinum.
I think I see how the warp-core thing happened... Though I imagine I"m not the first to suggest this. 1) They decided on grid layout 2) They decided on S for stop for units 3) They decided on S for workers 4) They have regrets.
It's basically the double whammy of having a building that moves and also letting it produce two different types of workers. But, I suspect that simply having a building that moves is actually its own can of worms. It's probably not worth it, unless it's a transformation of some sort (hang on, don't Terran's buildings transform into moving forms that have no abilities?? I wonder if that could be related to this design issue. =p)
An interesting issue a moving building has is the rally point issue day9 ran into. Expected behavior when right-clicking with a moving character selected is that the character will move to that location. If they don't, it means their path is impeded in some way, such as you trying to move to an island. Workers work this way, military units work this way, everything works this way. So, when you click on a mineral patch, and your building doesn't move, you may, for a split second, think "Wait, can it not get there?" Or, maybe you want to rally things from a building to something that isn't a mineral patch. But, you can't use the usual input (right click) to do that, you have to V-click. Another reason why moving buildings is this weird can of worms and the design runs into issues with them.
Of all the different ideas for mechanics and factions they really went with 'humans with guns and weapons', 'monsters with a spreading area mechanic' and 'futuristic alien tech'. I dont know how anyone expects this game to do well when its just going to be mehcraft 0.5
its astonishing to me how little this game tells you you have the power mechanic, which is literally the CORE mechanic for an entire faction that everything is built off, and it tells you nothing about how it works, just a vague "affects buildings" line 5 hours of day9 learning the basics, and at least 3 and a half of it is just trying to figure out what things actually do because it doesnt tell you how...how was this allowed to go out? even as an "early access" HOW did someone not look at a tooltip and think "maybe we should write something usefull there" it doesnt even require dev time, they already have the tooltips, just change the text in the text box....... its insane
@@PhoonBucgeneMY It is more difficult to do what they did than it is to do the correct thing. They went out of their way to give players a vague idea of what an ability does maybe instead of taking the easy route and just telling players exactly what the ability does. It's ridiculous that they decided to do this and it's even more ridiculous that they then actually did it and never once in the entirety of its closed beta and early access period did they ever decide that they should change the tooltips to be more informative so that players don't have to open a wiki to see what abilities actually do for real.
@@sheepfly Huh? Isn't it a bad thing when the game is not tested enough and did not get enough feedbacks from a more diverse audience? I think Stormgate did a bad job? Why do you label me as a simp suddenly?
I appreciate the effort Sean puts into streaming, always did. And he explains it pretty well... Be interesting every 10 seconds 😅 The reason I usually HATE watching streams is because most streamers will sit quietly for 10 or 20 seconds silently reading the chat throughout their stream, and it's actively boring. I can sit around staring at the Twitch chat too, that's shouldn't be the streamer's contribution to what's going on. Sean is pretty good at making his interaction with chat seem conversational, like he's literally talking to the chat window and usually not waiting for long answers or reading random stuff that's not relevant.
Day9 is on point Day9 is on point with "easy to play" solutions being very difficult. I was very curious and jumped with a friend to the open beta in january I believe and what I discover, being a bad RTS player since Dune 2 on a big diskette that I have no idea what I'm doing wrong with the workers. In SC, WC3 or SC2 I knew I play badly and I knew what I mess up - here things seemed happening out of my control
This really feels like they had some excellent ideas that are getting bogged down by endless "if then, but" statements. I hate to compair it to StarCraft, but they're obviously thinking about Starcraft with this, and none of the unit interactions are ambiguous. But I'll also say... I don't remember my early days in Starcraft (I was like 12). Maybe everything just makes sense because we grew up with it 🤷♂️ I feel like if they can make how things interact with each other really clear, this could be really fun to watch.
Day9, I was wondering if you ever played Dawn of War 2? I feel like it sort of went below peoples radar when it comes to the multiplayer versus portion of it. I keep looking back at it, and VODS of 1v1s where it still feels like a really good option for people who don't want to micromanage large armies and stressful economies. DoW2 fixes the problem with army micro by sectioning off units into squads, and lets you change the gear on said units to respond to different threats. The control of the units is less "responsive" on purpose where you are rewarded for good positioning and unit choice rather than APM. The economy is based off nodes you flip out on the map, same with gaining victory points so you can't turtle at home and you need to spread out your army a lot to flip nodes / defend nodes. It's completely different from most RTS'es where everything devolves into a deathball army and you steamroll someones base. I feel like DoW2 is the beginner friendly RTS people have been looking for, but have completely missed since over 10 years ago.
Honestly when celestial first released i fucked with it for like 30 minutes and i was so fucking confused by how it functioned. Like it plays nothing at all like the other races in terms of its macro mechanics and it was so overwhelming xd The power system and the fact that you have to FIGURE OUT that a morph core and the quick build function both activate separate prices on shit is like WHAT???
What is there to figure out? You already spent 100 upfront, everything else is 100 cheaper from the core, for the same total price. It's the same price, it won't matter.
What? You can stay at home with your Arcship and play Celestials exactly the same way you'd do the other factions. Just with Power Banks instead of Supply buildings. There's obviously potential for more interesting plays, but the baseline is the exactly the same.
@@Leonhart_93 It's the same price overall, but not at the time of building. It's very easy to understand how somebody in an active game might get the two prices confused, and make incorrect decisions based upon that. I don't think it's necessarily a bad mechanic, but it's still confusing and requires more practice to get right
The Celestials' visual theming totally missed the mark. They're supposed to be a race with unfathomable technology, right? You'd think they had a ton of automation, and be very hands-off (which also fits the symbolic theme of angels). When Day9 started with them, it really looked that way: prisms instead of workers, auto-mining building, and the Celestials locked away in their Ivory Tower of a Arcship. The designs for the Morph Core and the Cabal are awesome. But then they also have... ground warriors that shoot stuff with guns, piloted spacecraft and, like... primal-looking predators and weird tree cat things? There's a huuuuge thematic and aesthetic dissonance going on here. They could have been so cool.
They really need to change the audio mix on the unit acknowledgments and notifications. Right now they’re very abrasive and I think that was done with a reasonable thought process, ie that it increases the intelligibility of words. It’s definitely not the case in WC3 and Sc2. It seems like they probably cut it down if anything. That’s a far better approach when you’re gonna be hearing them constantly and once you understand what the line conveys, it really makes no difference if you can make out every word. Celestial’s non-verbal units are particularly grating
32:30 - Because players were complaining that there were no build buttons on the worker units, and they didnt know how to build stuff with the quick build menu.
If I was Stormgate I would stop free to play early access and inform the community. "Sorry - we discovered early access is more harming us then it helps. We will give this product a complete makeover and see you in 1 year" All founders will be rewarded later.
The game is only released in "early access" because they ran out of money lmao. The fact that this is what they have to show for all the millions of dollars they got is very funny
@@renzuki5830 tbh, if this is what they can put out, they deserve to shut down the most basic things like tooltips actually having information are missing
Do early access games need to be in a release ready state? If they act on the feedback they are getting and fix all the issues raised before release isn't that the best use case for EA?
the proactive plan for vanguards is to ACTIVELY gain experience for their units. Yeah, there's reactive parts to that, like making sure they don't die, but creeping and combat are DOUBLY important for Vanguard. I think it's actually SUPER interesting, personally. the thing that vanguards are trying to do is get a bunch of t3 exos so they can faceroll you with stutter step. that's their goal that they actively work toward by gaining XP
@@Leonhart_93You can have something special without having something extremely confusing, counter-intuitive, and clunky. Just give them weapon and armor upgrades, seems like that does the same thing but more intuitively.
@@brofist1959 Unintuitive? So I get that you haven't touched a C&C game in your life? Those always had the veterancy. The units got really strong at lvl 3, like faster attack rate and self healing. If Red Alert 2, Tiberium Wars and Generals worked well, this will as well. Actually in Beyond All Reason as well.
There's also the time-honored tactic of grinding the opponent down by sieging a bunch of tanks for containment and/or dropping units everywhere to farm veterancy. In addition to clearing camps and arguably having the most mobile ranged army in the game. There's definitely a lot to strive for in Vanguard when playing them proactively.
I hope they have some impressive back end tech because it's not great to look at. I don't think has enough Wow factor to be a real hit, to set itself apart.
@@La0bouchere nope, just strait up unintuitive, compare it to ANY other rts, and this STILL falls short. The UX design is atrocious, tooltips does fuck all, the game is actively trying to get you to not play the game, and obscure any and all information
Its a moveable unit and by default for units S is stop, so it's surprising that it instead builds a unit. I guess since it's technically a structure as well it doesn't follow that same logic, but it's certainly jarring
I think it's also because most everything else has a consistent application of the grid hotkeys and it's a unit that is an exception and is so prominently the main celestial unit at the start. Sacrifices were made to accommodate the grid hotkeys in other parts of the game, but they were relaxed for this core building on the celestials and that inconsistency set him off
1:44:54 I didn't realize it wasn't the sc2 logo until he said that. I just assumed it was the sc2 logo, and didn't question it. The only thing that seemed unusual about it was that it wasn't yellow like the abilities.
Can you imagine if the morph core attacked and did proper damage. Did you watch the tournament your brother cast? It was so abusive they patched it right afterwards 😂
The game is released too early, even for EA. Should have scratched the third faction and release 2 near complete factions and better client. They don't even have reconnect apparently so if you lose connection for a few seconds and you're out of the game.
definitely not, the 1v1/comp mode is completely playable, regardless of how long sometimes takes to learn the game. Thats why theres showmatchs with pro players,
I disagree the client needs work before EA, I will agree that releasing without the 3v3 mode was extremely disappointing. As much as I enjoy 1v1, my friends don't.
Can take a Blizzard dev out of Blizzard but can't take the Blizzard out of the dev. It truly feels like these guys worked on Warcraft reforged and then were on the WoW retail team. The focus of the teams effort seems to be on making cliche easter egg references, cinematics and art and then dropping the ball on UI, mechanics and just about everything else that should be the core foundation of an rts game. I tried the game myself and it feels like how the Chinese clone products, they just copy elements without understanding the purpose and reason for why they exist. This leaves you with a twisted simulacrum of the original.
I think you're spot on with the "Blizzard dev" part, but for a different reason. Blizzard, home of Blizzard Time, Soon(TM), and Release When It's Done. They don't know how to work under any sort of time pressure. Stormgate is what happens when they have less than 10 years to make a workable product.
It's genuinely incredible how Sean can go from an incredibly insightful and analytical RTS mind, to the most unnecessarily obtuse boomer at the flip of a switch...like I get that the game isn't in a good shape...they still need to do an unbelievable amount of work before final release, but I feel like he's confusing himself on purpose.
@brofist1959 when you see it as devs retiring tk make Mario party and a custom game engine with their life's work of careers, reskinmed and reimagined for IP purposes and legal conflict.... I dig it
@@brofist1959 except they are worse. May be it's bias or I got out of touch with the modern gaming trends, but to me both the WC3 and WC2 feel better than this game.
I think the some of the issues with UI are simply because of how much and how fast things are changing. In the beta you could land the arc ship for instance, and the morph cores could only be made into collection arrays
The Infernals and Celestials are distonct enough, but the Vanguard and general presentation screams budget Starcraft 2. It's pretty hard to reconcile "next big RTS" with what they have so far. I'm sure it's fun to play but there are a couple RTSs that have fun, inspiration, and depth that I don't see here.
you need a morph core to build the main mining structure. So when you want to expand you need to use the core. Also the core has an auto attack which can be used to kill trees like the other workers. I can be used for early defence as it flies. Also if you build something with the morph core it builds faster. So for example when you start the game, you instantly have the choice of flying the morph core and build and expand or fly it over and build some attacking structures with it. Also in Celest vs Celest currently you have a morphcore vs morphcore meta for example
I’m so sad this game isn’t getting love. I really like it, but I totally understand why people don’t. I was really hoping this was the new RTS, but my hopes are low…..
34:16 - it was designed to confuse you and only you! So that clippers have more material to make funny vireos with you xD Congratulations! You discovered a new conspiracy! xD
Maybe it took forever because you didnt just play the game and maybe it would figure itself out? Imagine if you had this much heat for dark souls? Ngl, this game looks like it has problems, but sometimes Sean proper sweats the most basic things, first mission in the campaign, first enemy, the game is like "shoot it, it dies" and Sean is like "WHAT DO I DO, WHATS THE TACTIC, HOW DO YOU MICRO THESE UNITS?" its like, dude! Its the first few enemies in the campaign, let the gameplay happen.
Totally agree. Not defending Stormgate as I think it has some big problems, but Day9's intellectual approach to games sometimes gets in the way of him actually understanding them. Practice vs theory, sometimes you just have to do the thing.
hes a competative RTS player playing a new RTS, he wants to know what things do before he goes into a game, thats completly fair and the game is NOT making it easy for him to learn what things do
@@92Thom This. I love his analysis, but him treating everything as a black box and never making assumptions makes him miss a lot of things. Sometimes it's best to make assumptions and vibe with things before trying to get a perfect mechanical understanding of them.
40:40 - would it make more sense if Prism was A and Core was C? Or in other words: would it make more sense to separate the production buttons for these two economic units? I don't think so. But for some reason not being able to stop an Arcship with S is game-breaking and mind-blowing for you 🙄
Because you have prematurely sent one somewhere in preparation for eventually building something. SC professionals do this all the time, it's a very common tactic throughout.
46:30 - only because you're overthinking everything and try to figure everything out before you even start playing. Please check if you're not turning into a gaming jurnalist.
Title it took me 100 hours to learn SG Me which playing sc2 as a casual just learned it under 10 games 😂 Its a click bait title and video are you bored or something?
For someone who also has never played this game and wants to hear his thought process as we learn together, I wish there were even MORE videos like this
