Hey Folks, Thought I would give my updated impressions.

After giving ashes a little bit of time to get to know itself I thought I would make a brief post regarding some of my thoughts at thus point in time.

 

     Firstly, the movement speed feels greatly improved compared to the early builds.  I still feel as if the units are a bit too "floaty" (even for hovercraft ) however and I don't feel as if I really have enough fine detailed control over their movement.  Usually this is fine and I wouldn't want to micro all the time in a game of this scale. However, it is the little things that help create a skill gap and differentiate between good players and great players.  Once example that comes to mind is microing my air superiority fighters in Supcom or TA.  Although they were competent on their own when given a target a skilled player with some time to spare could micro them to give a slight advantage.  Although the slowdown in battle is interesting I would like to see it evolved more to where you can choose to put your units in maneuver mode and have them stop firing/slow their firing while increasing their movement speed to base values. 

     Secondly the scale.  Although there is no denying that Ashes is massive, it really doesn't "feel" that way to me.  I believe I mentioned this is a post early on in development as well but the scale of buildings/units compared to their surrounding terrain just seems off to me.  I know that the units are supposed to be massive tools of war however they still just seem way too large.  The dreadnoughts I think could be 50% of their size and still be damn impressive with the remainder of the units dropping down to 10%ish of their current scale.  The buildings especially just seem way too large.  In Supcom/TA I could fit a gigantic metropolis of factories/resource units/defenses into my starting area where in ashes I struggle to fit more than my starting command center, a few factories, and a couple turrets.  I just feel that right now the size of even the starting units are closer to navy battleships in size instead of large tanks (which is IMO where they should be scale wise) without the accompanying feeling of power/weight.  This also makes the terrain look rather odd as if someone used a reverse shrink ray and blew everything besides the terrain up which makes the mountains/valleys/choke points just look rather unimpressive.  

     A quick side note, I feel as though aircraft suffer greatly from the scale issue.  They are simply so large that at their current flight speed they look lethargic, and very unlike the quick strike units they are.  With their current flight speed and a reduction in model size coupled with an increase in maneuverability/microability I believe they would feel much nicer.

     Third, the point control aspect. Although I personally am not a fan of this kind of "dev made objective" type gameplay I don't think that it will be going anywhere as it has been a core part of the game since the beginning.  I think that a less is more mentality should be adopted regarding the capture points.  Maybe make it so there are 4-5 strategic capture zones which can be held as free quanta generators.  I personally strongly dislike the current reliance on these capture points as a method of gathering core resources.  Just having metal extraction points would be enough incentive to hold the areas IMO.  This would mean that a fast expanding player would have free quanta without having to build generators while also allowing a turtle player to gain quanta by expending extra resources to build generators.  This allows for more variation in strategy.

 

I know I am being quite critical and if you made it through my wall of text THANK YOU, I love RTS games (specifically the TA esque sub-genre) and just want Ashes to be the best it can be.  Forgive me for all my comparisons to TA/Supcom however there is a reason they draw me back frequently even after all of this time.

Oh and everyone on the dev team even if you ignore my ideas (I'm no game dev I just hate critiquing without at least trying to help solve the problem), you are still pretty freaking awesome and I am still stoked that I decided to be a founder!  Especially you Frogboy, keep up the interaction!

Anyways, just my $0.02

Sarge 

 

P.S. running on no sleep for going on 30 hours, forgive the lack of great formatting please!  If I have time I will try to make it more readable after some sleep.

P.P.S, I know its probably already in the works but more UI enhancements such and dragging building to create multiple in a row ala SupCom (along with the ability to align things closer and more neatly) or the metal extractor area build command from PA would help alot.  Also since this appealing to much of the same audience, I feel that the default keyboard commands should be kept the same as those games as well.  Such as ctrl-z selects all of the same type of unit, ctrl-a selects all units, etc.  I won't go on for too long on this as I'm sure the UI is still very much a WIP.

I have to agree on the size thing. If it was scaled differently the mountains would feel more epic, the trees would be a relate-able size and more interesting for it. The feeling of large scale would be that much greater. When navy comes in, either they will be a similar size to current land units, which is not fun for creating a cool comparison between land and mighty ships, or if the ships are much bigger like in real life the bodies of water are going to have to be huge which may not be practical. In making the units huge relative to the land around them I think they lost the sense of large scale that they were looking for.

Thank you, this is exactly what I was talking about!  I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this as I haven't really seen many discuss the scaling. 

What specifically would you like done?

By that I mean it seems like if we made the T1 and T2 units smaller, it would cause a lot of players to be unhappy and think the units move too slowly. Moreover, it would increase the demand that when zooming out that we turn the map into an abstract view of icons from which players can play from (Which we won't be doing).

Now that the ground visuals have been improved, it might b doable to shrink the units a bit.  But we don't have the available time/budget to introduce burned out cities or other elements that might convey scale more.

Hey frogboy thanks for the reply, I'm not 100% sure what the proper way to handle this would be.  Maybe make the terrain features such as rolling hills (as well as little pieces such as trees) and such a little larger in comparison to the units themselves?    Wouldn't decreasing the unit scale make the movement speed feel faster (if it stayed the same) or am I thinking backwards? 

I understand the dilema of making units smaller means they will be harder to see on the battlefield without using icons.  This is a tough one as I know that the icon sea is exactly what is trying to be avoided.

Possibly increase the size of the trees and other small already made tidbits? I'm including a link to picture of the kind of scaling things I'm looking at comparing the scale of supcom to ashes.  The T2 tank in supcom is approx the size of 1-2 trees while it seems the units (especially the engineer in a vertical sense) in Ashes are incredibly massive compared to the surrounding trees. The buildings also seem pretty large too although the factories probably are pretty close to where I would like them (maybe like 65-70% their current size?) The other small buildings like mexes and t1 missile defense turrets seem much too large compared to trees. Where I would like to see a mex about the size of a tree or two they are currently about 5-10 trees in size.

The more variation in unit size, the better we can distinguish them as well, not all units would need to be scaled the same amount.  Maybe scale the scout alot more than the other t1 units?   

Also maybe make the small terrain features like small rolling hills less frequent but slightly larger?  There are many small hills which look like you could build a house on them but are about the size of 1 t1-t2 unit.  The large scale features like mountains and plateaus seem appropriately sized for the most part however.  When looking at the map zoomed in in some areas it seems like I'm still getting a fairly birds eye view of a relatively expansive hilly area but then the units on that same area seem like I'm looking at them from my bedroom window. (I don't know if this makes sense, I will try to think of a better way to state this better later)

I think a combo of increasing the size of trees, decreasing unit size,making a bigger distinction in sizes between factories/small defensive structures/ and units, and messing a little with the terrain scale would help.  

A side suggestion would also be to have the lines connecting the various territory control buildings toggleable or only visible when holding a button.  As it is they seem to be a little visually cluttering.  Also is it 100% set in stone that certain units will be constructed in groups and unable to be separated from said group? 

As far as terrain features such as destroyed cities, etc I don't think that is the proper way to handle it anyways.  I'm not a huge fan of having much tech/civilization on the planets themselves besides the players units/buildings.  (this is also part of the reason why I'm not a humongous fan of the current dawn of war style capture points.)

http://imgur.com/a/nRf2j  (this is from images from google)

http://imgur.com/a/lYC7j.  (I took these myself)

Thanks for reading, I'll try to keep thinking of ideas as I know this is a pretty hard issue to tackle.

I hope what I'm trying to say makes sense and comes across in the right way (just trying to be constructive and provide some sort of idea as to how to solve the issues I'm personally experiencing.

I would not think you would need to shrink the units per say, making the mountains and trees bigger does that through relativity without making the units any harder to see and distinguish. Well, that's how it would seem to work in my head anyway.

The mountains just don't look that big. I know you could argue it is because the units are just that huge but it just doesn't seem to work. And to be honest even going by the scale of the tiny trees the mountains are not big. As a side note, apart from mountains needing to be bigger, a variety in their height would be great. At the moment there seem to be about two different heights, ground floor and mountain top, all uniform and no advancement from any other RTS. It's quite unnatural and visually un-interesting. I know that sounds harsh but please trust me when I say this comes from a place of hoping the game looks and plays great. 

Though I would like it too I don't actually expect any of this to change at this point to be honest. But in the future if/when you add new alien world biomes perhaps you could add it then. Alien world :- you can make the mountains and trees as big as you like  Mountain tops so high their peeks are perpetually covered by a mist would be cool, even if units can't climb it. 

Ouch. After reading this thread I actually noticed that the scale of the game is completely off.

I thought the mountains were supposed to be hills and I never saw any trees. Turns out the trees are the small shrubs on the ground. I honestly thought that the current maps were just rather flat instead of thinking about that the scale might be off.

Now after looking at it again I have to concur with the other people in this thread in saying: Please fix the scale.

For the sea of icons thing can you at least make it so that this can be modded in? Some people actually like that a lot at least while zoomed out (as has been discussed countless times)

Thanks for the replies guys, maybe someone who is better at photoshop than me could do a mockup of the kind of scaling changes that could be implemented?  

And remember lets keep this feedback civil and constructive with detailed feedback as to the changes we want. (not that most of you aren't being constructive and civil)

Oh and Frogboy I forgot to thank you for replying on Xmas eve... that shows some real dedication

My pleasure.  The screenshot was helpful.

Let me post some new screenshots in a sec.

So here is a modified scale version.

Here's another one with a T2.

Here's SupCom: FA:

Those two pictures definitely look a lot better. Hope something like that gets in the game proper.

Wow, a huge improvement!! I like that so much better!

If I could suggest another small tweak to the scaling, I would suggest making the t2 units a tad smaller.  Not much maybe 80%?  That way they are still appropriately larger but not 4x the size.  Also is there a chance we could see a lineup of  buildings, units (especially interested in engineers), resource points, and trees all together so we have a good way to compare everything in one screenshot? 

yep

It's still huge.  They're supposed to be like star destroyers on land.

On the dreads, I'm in agreement with frogboy that they should stay gigantic.  They fill that over the top ridiculous death machine part of the game and they should stay that way imo (a small change would be okay I think)  with the other scaling changes I think they will be even more impressive to see on the battlefield even if they are slightly smaller compared to trees after the changes to scale. The only reason I can think to change them much would be if it helps pathfinding /playability. They should be a massive investment with a massive look/feel/armament in return for that investment. 

Here is a video I did with updated scale and other changes.

Fury size increase very welcome, it's a good looking unit too.

The engineers are indeed now huge, towering over T1. I am guessing this is to make them easier to find and less likely to blend into the buildings. Perhaps you could make them a little smaller again but have them emit a light around or beneath them which gives off a decent amount of light or reflects off the ground well. A similar idea to the T1 healing unit light but a different colour/graphic and/or location. That should make them much easier to find amongst everything else.

I like it for the most part, I believe a few more tweaks could be helpful still but nevertheless a big step in the right direction.

My list personally for scaling changes would be

1) engineers scaled down about 50%

2) scale trees up a tad bit more, maybe like 15-20% smaller  larger

3)make the zone capture points a little smaller smaller, approx 20% again 

4) make the mex points smaller as well, 25-30%

5) make some of those impassible mountains even higher

6) not sure if this belongs with scaling but the formations that units naturally fall into seem a little too spread out

Other changes after watching your whole match.

1) as someone watching this game the lines between mexes are just really intrusive to my immersion.  I've mentioned this before but I would like this to be a toggle-able option.  Maybe make the actual territory outlines be faint lines on the terrain and have the individual mex connections be a toggle, I believe this would look alot cleaner.

- on a side note to this same thing, are the outlines around buildings you build necessary as well?  I'm not sure if I'm alone in disliking this or not.

2) The early game, I am not a huge fan of.  I think that unit build speed should be slowed down a bit, requiring more factories before you start to mass spam.  I really don't like that in the beginning I feel as though I need to rush from point to point as fast as possible until I have 50% of the map and so does my opponent.  Then the real game starts and the real strategy begins.  

I know you talked about this a little in your video but I think if a human player had had the land advantage that the AI had in that moment they would have had a very good chance of winning.

You did some harassing which theoretically is what would would want to do in that situation but honestly it didn't seem all that effective and it didn't seem like it really took much for the AI to keep his land early on. 

3)It doesn't really seem that units are responsive enough to commands especially t1/t2 units (dreads I understand, they are large and unwieldy)  I won't go into this very much as I already talked about it above.

Anyways, I could go on for days but I don't want to beat a dead horse and I'm sure 90% of what I want to say you have already thought of haha.

Thanks,

Sarg

edit: made an error 

I like the idea of being able to toggle the node connection lines on and off.

They yellow bases were very evident on the buildings in this build. It might be because the buildings have been scaled down a touch but the base hasn't been yet. I also hope they change though to be honest.

I don't mind if unit construction slows down, would play more like TA then but it is also OK now too. Slowing production down is not a quick decision as it would have a knock on effect on how the whole game played.

His harassing would have meant more against a human player as it puts pressure on them and might cause them to slow down their advance. It also takes players longer to re-put down extractors too.

Thanks for the feedback.

The yellow mesh ground substrate I wanted to shrink as well but couldn't figure that out.  I'll keep investigating (we're clossed during the holiday so it's mostly me and my crazy Oxidian friends tweaking right now).

I don't agree about shrinking the engineer.

I do think that the Pan probably should do a bit more damage so that there is more pressure on the player.   That said, I'm not sure it would be a good idea to allow it to attack units. I think having it only attack structures works a bit better.  I think structures shoudl probably have their armor generally removed.

I don't think the treess should be made any bigger.  Their fidelity isn't sufficient to support it and it just returns back to the scale issues. The T1 is supposed to be pretty big.

I would like to introduce more early game options.  But at the same time, I don't want to have options that are just frustrating.  SupCom took one annoying feature of TA (super long-range bombardment) and made it a core design choice which I really didn't enjoy.   I never felt clever bombarding someone and I never enjoyed having to build shields or being subjected to the slow destruction of my base or what have you.

In Starcraft, there are a number of early game pressure options.  I can send over Reapers, I could do an Oracle rush. I could but proxy buildings.   In Ashes, we have the Splinters (the name of the creeps) and they prevent easy early access to the enemy.  I've thought about greatly increasing the HP of the scout so that it's more surviveable or having a tech that makes him hard to hit or something) so that there are more early game options with him.

I'd love to hear m ore thoughts on the video and other visaul or gameplay changes you'd like to see.

Amen to this. In TA we would turn the long range stuff off or perhaps limit everyone to one big bertha so that things wouldn't get stupid. One of the SupCom games also allowed turning off of the big guns, Supcom2 I think. Though it also blocked the construction of one of the heavy PD which was not ideal.

I do like shields though, if they are done well.

Customisable difficulty of the Creeps might be nice. Perhaps the Turinium generators could have a few T2 creeps. 

I watched the video on an IPS panel (Usually can only use TN). Really made the game look that much nicer.

I agree completely on the super long range bombardment aspect, however I did enjoy the tactical missiles as they weren't able to cover an entire map and were fairly easy to defend against but they helped to punish players who pushed out too aggressively.  I also think it would be neat to have the scouts be able to shoot down the tactical missiles by "deploying" if they are implemented, this would make them useful throughout the entire game. If an opponent doesn't bring in the t1 scouts with his dread it would give you another option for defense.

You brought up Starcraft, and I'm glad that you did. I play a bit of it myself and although I prefer the larger scale of TA/SupCom/PA/AOTS I really love the amount of options you have at all stages of the game in Starcraft.  That is something that I feel would be great to try and bring to a larger scale here.  I think that a match should play out like a game of chess moves and counter moves.  If I aggressively expand early on and am really greedy, my opponent should be able to notice that and capitalize on my weaknesses.  

On the visual/gameplay/UI side one thing I find lacking currently is the basic movement/patrol commands.  I would like to see the different way points drag-able as they are in supcom.  Despite any gameplay downsides that it may have had the UI for commanding and controlling armies was sublime.  I loved the ability to quickly drag my patrol point without redoing the entire thing.  (the pick up/drop off rally points were also pretty great IMO)  See Edit

For more options in strategy maybe add in a couple of air transport craft.  The transports in starcraft 2 really allow for some great harassment and capitalization on weak points.  A t1 transport for responsing to pressure/giving early game pressure yourself (maybe hold like 3-4 t1 units) would be great as well as an uppper T2 level transport that is capable of holding 10-15 t1 or 5-7 t2 units.  Then for the late game make it so you can upgrade the capture points with expensive teleporter arrays (you could lock the number of teleporter arrays based on research.) This would allow you to have a quick response option for forward bases while still having to pick and choose which territories get the teleporters.  They could also have a cooldown where you can only send X value of units through in Y amount of time. Make it so dreads have no way to teleport or be transported of course.

 Well I have to go to the store, but I will try and post some other ideas in a bit.  I know that some of them are a little too much/not what you want for AOTS and that is fine by me but I figured I may as well give all the ideas I have and if you want to try some and disregard other thats your call

Sarg

Edit: disregard my comments about dragable patrols, for some reason it wasn't working for me but it is now.. I have no idea why I've tried to do it every time I launched a game however it didn't work until today.  haha now I feel like an idiot