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Post by Drath on Apr 6, 2016 7:12:10 GMT -8
Finished DAO a long time ago and yes it was a great game. Certainly one of the best I've played in terms of storytelling. Played a good deal of DAI as well. Finished NWN1 and 2 so long back ago I can't really even remember the specifics anymore. KOTOR1 yea, finished it more than a decade ago and yes very memorable game. Played it for days at a stretch just to get to the end. Divinity Original Sin, again one of the best turn based titles in recent history. Anyway yes all these are very nice games, AAA quality but I think they are also mentioned so much that many people already know about them.
The 2 games I mentioned aren't favorite/best games by any stretch of the imagination, but they are what I'm currently playing (thread title includes day of gaming) and I think it's worth getting the word out there for smaller/indie titles to other people who might be interested in turn based games. I've done the same in other forums/places for Sunrider.
I also think early access is a good time to give feedback and mould the game into a better product. Not asking people to get it now, but maybe to consider having a look at the finished product when it's launched.
And yes I've read and played enough of Battle Brothers to say they have an interesting system going on. Rather you stop assuming things and jump to conclusions if you have nothing to say. I have no interest in starting arguments on forums, so this will be my last reply to you if you can't remain civil.
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Post by Drath on Apr 6, 2016 0:38:50 GMT -8
I'm still making my way through Storm Guard. They don't have the end boss yet (the dragon) so it's a bit difficult to tell where things stand but I'm finding character level progression a little truncated. Characters progress from L1 to L5 (with corresponding rise in trained skills) within about 14 days of in-game time, doing 1 dungeon/mission per day. After you hit L5, there doesn't seem to be anything more, apart from upgrading armor, which is a little disappointing. Combat is fun though, especially when facing a tough mix of opponents early on, so I still recommend it for turn based enthusiasts. Also got myself Battle Brothers recently which appears pretty interesting and is rated pretty highly by a good many players. The quality of discussion on their Steam forums actually looks pleasantly high and largely gameplay focussed, so I expect it to be a game of considerable depth.
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Post by Drath on Apr 1, 2016 6:18:54 GMT -8
1. Heavy destroyer Role: Destruction. Due to lack of complementary weapons often supported by Ryder squads. Stats: HP: 3500 Energy: 100 Armor: 25 Flak: 0 Evasion: -10 Weapons: Primary: Plasma cannon En: 100 Secondary: none Description: - slowly moves forward towards player. - plasma gun has 4 hax range and damages every Unit within its range. - damage regresses: Field in front of destroyer 2000 dmg, next field 1400, then 800, then 200, then 0 5. Disruptor No specifics - just an idea. This enemy blocks communication between Captain and one specific allied unit of its choice, causing your unit to do random stuff without your approval. (Most annoying unit ever ) New mission types: - Defend perimeter: Enemies focus on advancing towards specific zones from where they can leave the map. It’s your task to intercept as many as possible. - Collect, activate (insert plot device): Player has to reach different areas of the map, to do whatever the plot requires them to do and then leave. In general: - Include more map/environment in mission design. - In addition to the “big battles” add smaller missions where you only have access to fractions of your squad. Good example: Three missions: Attack a, defend b, collect c. Let the game by default decide who Kayto choses as leader of the respective squads. In this case I’d say Asaga: a, Kryska: b, Icari: c makes sense. So if interaction between Kayto and a Squad is required, you can simply let one of those three speak. Then let the player freely decide who he wants to assign to which mission (rest crew + mercs). Just have a briefing where Ava explains which threats/general conditions the player is likely to face on every single mission. And there you go. Easy to implement, interesting, and tactical meaningful player decision. Tons of good ideas here! Thanks for making the thread Blackhead. I will address a specific few first that I feel strongly for. I like the hps of the Heavy Destroyer as I've always felt that combat proceeds too fast. Having heavier, hard to kill units slows the pace down and necessitates some defensive measures instead of relying on offense all the time. I also like the plasma gun having graded damage from distance, which hopefully should serve as an effective deterrent for closing in on it. The numbers of course can be tweaked later. Concepts first. I particularly liked the Disruptor! Any enemy unit that can turn your strength against you throws a wrench into the works and makes you reevaluate your moves. Would make this a Prototype unit as they are already known for mind control and even controlling enemy ships. There can be at least 3 forms of this ability/control. First form would be the "break communications" ability, which places said friendly unit under computer AI for a turn, low energy to cast (hence multiple breaks possible), friendly unit is still friendly though and will probably shoot at the enemy. Make it likely as well that it will break formation and expose itself. Second form would be somewhat of a "induce berzerk" ability, which places said friendly unit under computer AI for a few turns, medium energy to cast. Friendly unit now attacks the nearest unit to it randomly. Third form would be somewhat of a "mind control" ability, which turns the friendly unit hostile for several turns, high energy to cast. Mind controlled units are fully under hostile AI until the effect fades or the effect is dispelled. Make Restore have a range of 3 hexes only so that positioning matters. If you overextend a unit and it gets controlled, it's likely to be controlled for the full complement of turns. New mission objectives would add much needed spice and color to the missions. Hopefully we can implement some of these as well in some form.
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Post by Drath on Apr 1, 2016 5:49:17 GMT -8
I opened with a non upgraded Vanguard Cannon for mission 7 so I probably had it a bit easier and could afford to move units across the battlefield in subsequent turns. It's possible to do FF/AG and try to soak damage, but I opted to spend some CP early on to reduce incoming damage. Unlike beta 12.4a, there is no longer any Alliance Carrier or Alliance Infantry, enemy reinforcements arrive earlier and Blackjack's hps are now doubled, so things are quite a bit tougher for this mission. As Liberty is tied up with Disrupt duties, damage avoidance is more important than ever. I'm curious as to how you found enemy Blackjack's AI. It didn't seem terribly focussed for me, either staying put at its spawning location or just moving without firing anything. It's always good to see more people doing playthroughs on higher difficulties. Hopefully this shows others that some investment in knowing the mechanics well, having sound upgrades and perseverence makes the game quite playable even at higher difficulties, so Captain should not be as tough as some make it to be. I appreciate the move by move details, though IMHO an underlying scheme (aiming to destroy these units, prioritizing certain units, etc) or train of thought in terms of upgrade selection is good too if you find posting move by move too laborious.
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Post by Drath on Apr 1, 2016 4:40:34 GMT -8
By nature of the RNG code in Sunrider, taking shots below 50% accuracy for single shot attacks at Hard or Space Whale is significantly less likely to hit than the described % on paper (basically what was hinted at by Vaendryl) and is something I generally never do in any Sunrider game. I will say though I have been tempted to reload if a shot misses at 90+%. Conversely, you would be pretty unlucky to miss at 90+% accuracy for Captain difficulty and below as the RNG cheats in your favor when making single shot attacks above 50%.
I think luck works both ways though so it would skew game balance if only missed shots were reloaded. I have also gotten a string of hits at 55-65% which is again not something dependable or even to be expected. If I were to reload 90% misses to get hits, I would also need to reload some 55% hits to get misses to be fair and that would be just tiresome.
I do however reload misclicks and unintentional moves.
This might also have subconsciously encouraged my decision to shift to Pulse rather than depend on Sunrider kinetics (I generally feel they're fairly equal in Lib Day) as multishot attacks are generally more reliable and not subject to RNG accuracy tweaks for difficulty mentioned above.
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Post by Drath on Apr 1, 2016 4:16:37 GMT -8
Sorry for the late post. Been really badly tied up in work last week. I guess you could say RL caught up with me somewhat. Anyway it's good to see lots of sound advice here, Xechran , Ardanis , Marx-93 It's great to see more people offering their views on gameplay! I think the upgrades have already been very nicely discussed so I'm just going to chime in on why players decide the way we do on certain choices. On reactor energy and energy cost reduction upgrades: The general goal here is to have a rough idea on what the costs are for the next shot via optimizing reactor energy and energy cost reduction upgrades. A Seraphim which can do 1.9 shots per turn is functionally similar to a Seraphim which can do 1 shot, so it's somewhat of an all or nothing affair. Yes with a little more reactor energy and energy cost reduction you might be able to get an extra hex of movement out of Seraphim while making that 1 shot per turn, but is it really worth the funds spent in doing so. Seraphim should generally not have accuracy troubles if properly placed in turn 1. Upgrading from base values, a double kinetic Seraphim costs roughly 10.9k but is still fairly good bang for the buck towards the endgame and makes dealing with PACT Supports a good deal easier. This applies to other units as well when making such upgrades, so you would explore the costs of getting say the next Pulse or the next Kinetic for Sunrider, damage gained per turn and decide accordingly whether affordable/worth it. On defensive upgrades: Honestly I'm not a big fan of these. Generally these only come into play when said unit is attacked as opposed to offensive upgrades which are useful every single turn as long as you're using said attack. Knowing which unit tends to be attacked (which depend largely on the damage said unit puts out and how well protected it is) should limit the number of defensive upgrades you need to dole out. No doubt these will be important for units which need to expose themselves to deal damage (ie Phoenix). Generally things are weighted a little better for offense so do consider improving offense to limit incoming damage instead of improving passive defensive stats such as Hull and Armor. On missile/rocket upgrades: I note that you have put no upgrades into any of these on any unit and would urge that you consider getting some. A little surprised that Marx didn't strongly lobby for it Missiles and rockets are great for burst damage and therefore reducing incoming turn 1 damage, but their use needs to be coupled well with use of Flak Off/Disable to achieve the desired effect. Open with kinetics first to reduce armor on units with high armor. Every missile gets armor deducted from its damage. Use missiles with higher damage first to reduce total enemy armor mitigation. I am unable to check your store purchases but will just generally say that in both MoA and Lib Day, mercenary ships are worth every bit in terms of bang for the buck both offensively and defensively and should be automatic purchases.
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Post by Drath on Mar 22, 2016 22:36:22 GMT -8
To be honest, that's actually as someone can expect from the context of the game. It's a game made by a developer called "Love in Space" with famous VN publisher "Sekai project" and advertising anime art style and Japanese voiceover (despite being originally English). I mean, imagine for example Dark Souls but with a group of schoolgirls, skimpy outfits instead of armours, a brighter palette, and made by Compile Heart. I can't imagine it would have sold well either... The way the game had basically 0 advertising beyond "having waifus" didn't help; none of the trailers had even a speck of gameplay, and as someone who tends to follow up to dozens of currents JRPGs, I can assure you most of us have this as a pretty big "not good" prospect. It has been quite a while since MoA too, so most people have probably already forgot about it, specially if they had 0 interest in Academy. Yea, I quite agree with that. It's not really something the regular forumers can relate to so easily though. Some of us have been following the series for a good while, posting on and off and we're mostly fairly in touch with game direction and recent developments. The majority of players probably don't follow the game that closely though and on hindsight, it'd be hardly surprising to find that they have a good many questions and/or are confused by the way the game is shown and tagged on Steam. To be fair, Samu-kun did describe it as the "continuation of MoA, hardcore turn based tactics with heavy story elements", but well I already know that not everyone reads the wiki... so it's not really surprising that there are some people who don't read store descriptions either. And the price doesn't help either. I mean, for example, Drath , if you had found the original MoA for 20$ would you have paid it? Specially with the mixed reviews this is having? Well I didn't really want to touch on price very much for a few reasons: 1)It's fairly subjective. What's expensive or not, largely depends on your financial standing and how you perceive the worth of a certain piece of software. A corporate executive earning a good salary every month would probably not bat an eye if that's truly something he's interested in. His time is more important than trying to nickel and dime things. A postgrad student fresh out of college still struggling to repay old loans might decide to wait for a sale. I don't think there's a definite right or wrong really and everyone is entitled to their opinion. 2)It appears to be pretty dependent on regional pricing. I believe the actual price is 25 USD as per Steamspy. However on my Steam store page it's currently 47 in local currency for me or about 12 USD going by current exchange rate. From chatting with Magpie, I know it's very substantially pricier in terms of pound sterling for him, roughly twice (assuming we both converted our local prices to USD). Of course this is all just price discussion per se as we both got our Steam codes via Patreon. But since you've brought it up, my answer would be I do think it's worth $10 as in 10 USD for beta testing benefits, the full game on release and the Sunrider: Veniczar novel. In other words, the Patreon package. That being said, I have been labelled as "rather cheap" by people I know. I'm not really going to defend the $25 price tag. If people are happy paying that, well sure, don't let me (or Marx or anyone else for that matter) deter you from doing so. Supporting the devs is certainly good in my book. But here are prices for comparison for some other turn based/real time with pause titles I've bought off Steam (these are not initial prices, but the actual price I paid in USD): Divinity: Original Sin - 39.99 XCOM: Enemy Unknown - 29.99 Pillars of Eternity - 21.25 The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky - 16.99 Avadon2 - 9.99 Avernum: Escape from the Pit - 9.99 Valkyria Chronicles - 8.55 Shadowrun: Dragonfall - 7.75 Warhammer Quest - 6.20 Blackguards + Blackguards2 + DLC - 6.19 (best purchase EVER!) Aarklash Legacy - 5.00 Shadowrun: Hong Kong - 4.75 (and the devs provided FREE extended content later on) Lords of Xulima - 4.75 (best purchase EVER!) Expeditions: Conquistador - 2.38 Avadon - 1.99 You'll note that with the exception of the first 4 which are more or less AAA titles with many hours of gameplay, the rest were bought cheaper than Lib Day. All are IMHO pretty good games which have their own charm. That being said it's also possible Sam prefers to price higher now as he anticipates doing heavy sales in future. Sunrider Academy was at 80% off at one point, so who is to say something similar will never happen to Lib Day. Academy had very big results due to a combination of factors including numerous sales, a lot of people remembering MoA and buying it because of that (wanting to support the devs) and even luck. I was telling Mags the other day, that Sunrider Academy remains the ONLY dating sim on my list of Steam games, the vast majority of which are TBS or RPG titles. I did like the humor and writing in Sunrider Academy, but if I had not come across First Arrival, the chances that I would have bought it would be miniscule. I mean, I myself though that the combat part of the game was being shafted in the early development, and I was a beta tester! True. In beta 8 and 9, all we had was mostly story and just 1 battle. I don't think anybody could tell that things would turn out to be short on the VN side back then. The testers saw lots of text, a few choices (sparing Cosette, preserving Havoc, branching paths for Ava's response, etc) and truth be told, I felt things were more or less fine then on the VN side. It wasn't until beta 10 where we had a revamped Intel/Funds system, and suddenly had a stretch of an additional 4 battles with 3 being back to back. Beta 11 saw a meager 2 pages of feedback and everyone was too caught up throttling bugs and testing new features (ie achievements) by beta 12. Hmm, I actually play the game offline even though I bought it on Steam. I'm not sure if the achievements can sync to the Steam Cloud, or if that's possible with this game. Judging by the numbers on the low-hanging achievements though, it probably wouldn't change much even if it did sync stuff earned offline. Yea, that might be an important consideration that I failed to mention. I had the impression previously that some games tend to sync with Steam, so achievements earned offline do get updated when you go online again but now I'm not so sure. Maybe the devs can clarify matters. I can only speak for myself but gameplay was the main reason why I kept playing Sunrider in the first place. Depending on how much the game forfeits in that department it could very well be enough so that I'd have to say "I respect the direction the devs chose to take, but here's where we part ways." Let's be proactive, brainstorm some ideas on what we want to see for new units, new abilities, new mechanics, new battle objectives, etc. And then see if we can code it ourselves. The modding section is still sadly quite empty (apart from Histidine 's Arcade mod) and while bigfoot has done quite a bit already, pity feedback on his previous efforts isn't as much as it could be. Contributing to feedback is part and parcel of fine tuning the modding process and is certainly NOT trivial. In the end I'm hoping it might help the devs a bit and save them a little time if they had something to start with. Not claiming we can actually do it but better to have tried and failed than to not have tried at all. As for Academy, I honestly felt it was pretty funny even if the management parts could feel a little slow... hmm should I chat about Politics or Weather xD ... but then again I'm not a semi-pro real time strategist used to rapid play lol.
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Post by Drath on Mar 22, 2016 19:52:27 GMT -8
Yea this is one of the trickier MoA battles. Nicely discussed already by Ardanis and Marx-93 , so I don't really have too much to add. Personally I used Vanguard Cannon in turn 1 on the Battleships and got Bianca to reposition the Elites into the path of the beam. If you don't have enough damage from your other units to follow up and kill off most enemy units in turn 1, this can prove really risky though. Generally speaking, optimizing offensive output via improving reactor energy and cost reduction for that attack type is one of key considerations when tackling the game at Captain difficulty or higher. All the mercenary ships (both Alliance Cruisers and the 4 Mining Union Frigates) are good bang for the buck and it is nice to have all of them with you at this stage of the game. I do think a double kinetic Seraphim and a triple kinetic Paladin both have their merits. Seraphim's advantage mostly lies in its high accuracy and in taking out priority targets placed to the back of the enemy's formation which may be consequently quite hard to hit. These include units like Pirate Ironhogs, which do vastly disproportionate rocket damage relative to the amount of hps it has, and PACT supports which can wreck your defenses if allowed to free cast. Paladin's triple kinetic is probably a bit ahead in terms of bang of the buck (raw damage gained per funds invested), but is less flexible in terms of choosing potential targets. As for the Laser/Pulse vs Kinetic argument, if you're playing on v7.2, it might surprise you how strong energy weapons can be when well upgraded in terms of damage and cost reduction. There's a reason why these were significantly nerfed in Lib Day. If you haven't updated the game and are still on v7.1 for MoA, then I would probably favor Ardanis's stand on prioritizing kinetics. Also consider heavy missile and rocket tactics on turn 1 (Marx and Graph will probably elaborate further) as effective burst damage. If you're not disabling one of the Assault Carriers/Battleships, one option is using 3 FlakOffs if you have Liberty at 120EN and focussing heavily on missile damage. As usual, if you can reduce enemy flak coverage by utilizing kinetics first and destroying enemy units that boast heavy flak values, that will make it easier to use missiles as follow up.
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Post by Drath on Mar 22, 2016 10:44:32 GMT -8
TechercizerI'm not saying the plot isn't important. I've mentioned in previous/other threads that I do like the writing and the characters as well but felt Lib Day felt a little short in that regard. What I'm trying to convey here is that turn based component is likely to be under appreciated based on the data from reviews, achievements, sales.
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Post by Drath on Mar 22, 2016 10:39:57 GMT -8
Turn based and Turn based strategy are up as tags. Thank you!
Simulation is yet to go... keep pushing.
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Post by Drath on Mar 22, 2016 10:12:31 GMT -8
Bumping this thread for some careful considerations about Liberation day (sorry for the double post) now that there has been some time and data. Let's look at the Steamspy page here. First, it counts around 2500 sales. However, that number is not likely very accurate; Steamspy numbers only get really accurate once you pass the threshold of 30.000, and before 5.000 sales it's only a very ballpark number. The big fluctuations also point to this. Liberation Day could have sold from 2000 to 3000 copies (and of course this also counts the KS backers and people from patreon; you have to take out around 1700 in the worst case). I didn't bump this mostly because as we all know sales were not encouraging and I didn't want to be a downer. The other issue being that values tend to be inaccurate in the first few weeks. But since you've brought it up, let's go through it together. On sales, I'm worried that the fluctuations may also be due to players returning the game after purchase. Quoting Steam: You will be issued a full refund of your purchase within a week of approval. Hence the drop off and fluctuation in owners, a week after launch. Samu-kun mentioned that the vast majority of people rushed through the game on day 1 on Waifu mode. Some were saying if you skipped all the battles in Fire Emblem and just read the story, it would probably suck too. As Blackhead stated, we don't really have enough public data to verify this, which is a pity, but everyone can plainly see % completion on Captain is disappointing enough that this is quite possibly the case and as you've mentioned, the median playtime doesn't point strongly to players doing Lib Day on recommended difficulty or higher. We can thus affirm that, unlike what everyone started believing just after the release, that the average player of Sunrider plays on Ensign mode. While the chunk playing on Captain or higher is unknown for me, I suppose Samu-kun has the stats for the "Captain" achievement and thus knows the true number. In all cases, all points to it being a remarkably high percentage of the players. Blackhead has already mentioned the raw global achievement figures. My interpretation based on global Steam achievements and Steamspy figures: I define players as 'people who finished the prologue', which should take less than 30 mins on Captain. If you didn't, I consider you an owner. Player/Owner% = 73.6% These conclusions are somewhat supported by Steamspy figures which show: Players total: 1,572 ± 925 (64.71%) with Owners: 2,429 ± 1,150 Yea as usual there are a good number of people who buy the game but don't really play it. All percentages below are based on players, NOT owners. If you finish on a higher difficulty, you count towards achievements for lower difficulties as well. Therefore % players (over total players) who finished on: Captain = 11.1/73.6 = 15.1% Admiral = 0.6/73.6 = 0.8% Space Whale = 1.8/73.6 = 2.4% These figures ignore possible use of Steam achievement managers as hacks. And of course figures from Denpa sales which don't activate Steam overlays are not available. It also assumes that if you bought the game at launch, 17 days (or 2.5 weeks) of play is enough time to finish the game for interested players. All of this is very significant, because it points towards a very high degree of bias on the initial reception: the first players only interested in the VN part made a very quick playthrough and thus reviewed the game first, clearly dominating over the one who played for the gameplay, that took their sweet time finishing (and thus took more time to make the review) Even the scores reflect this; even with 2.00 the change on ratings (and even the "most helpful" reviews) is pretty astounding. Thus, the initially very bad impression is more due to a bias in the type of players than the game's intrinsic worth. Agreed! The wrong community tags didn't help matters either. Apparently ppl thought it was a dating sim. When I was promoting the game on the turn based strategy group on facebook, I ran into the same issue. The turn based fans there thought this one was similar to Sunrider Academy (since that was the last game) and so didn't hype it as a turn based game. Not having enough correct marketing before launch didn't help. Of course I've corrected that misconception for said TBS group before the game was launched but it'd be a chore to keep doing that for separate communities. So yes once again, get those tags fixed for starters so that anyone on the Steam store page can plainly see what it is. It's good to promote the new art but having only 2 late screens on battlefield and the rest of the Steam vids and pics being focussed on the girls wasn't ideal either. TLDR: The thought that this game's audience is mostly people who rushes through battles in waifu mode is pure bullshit. The earlier impression is due to a bias in the time they took to finish the game I agree with your observations/conclusion. I regret to say that from a purely financial perspective if I were a dev, I'd be more than a little miffed too if I spent a year of development trying to cater to TBS folks to get this as a result. If gameplay reception and % completion on Captain does not improve, I don't see why I shouldn't screw the turn based players over and focus on romance, simulation, nudity and mindless clicking. I guess there's a reason why the Sakura games do so well. Lowest common denominator wins... sorry folks... I think we should give more support/encourage the modding community if we would like to see works that cater to specific needs. The devs have financial considerations to think about and as stated above, it currently doesn't look good at all for turn based fans.
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Post by Drath on Mar 22, 2016 8:00:29 GMT -8
If we insist on having simulation as a tag, we're going to have more players coming up saying that it's a fixed romance with no real routes. I'm fine with Sunrider Academy being classified as a slice of life, dating sim but not Liberation Day. Still not seeing turn based or turn based combat or turn based tactics or turn based strategy as up there as a tag. Checking Steamspy for Lib Day reveals: Tags: Strategy (31), Indie (25), RPG (24), Anime (23), Visual Novel (20), Simulation (19), Nudity (14), Mechs (9) I don't know how many votes it takes to get a tag up there, but if it's not more than 9, I don't see why it hasn't been done. There are 87 views on this thread. Action please, people. Every day we delay with the wrong tags still up there equates to more potential fans lost, smaller community, more needless disgruntlement from the wrong audience. P/S - I could use a "Yes, sir" in this thread Nemjen
PP/S - oh and Mags, you're still young and all, is it wise to lose 90% of potential RL waifus by quoting that meme?
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Post by Drath on Mar 21, 2016 21:35:39 GMT -8
My only complaint might be that for the most part a lot of battles were just starting in the frontlines and smashing every enemy before they can get a turn. They were very few missions like the defense mission where you can't use missiles and can't use Liberty for a few turns that could have made the battles much more interesting. Yea that's a pretty valid complaint which I think has been mentioned before. It doesn't matter how strong an enemy's AoE rockets are if said unit can be taken out fairly easily in turn 1. Suggested solutions include attack restrictions/unit restrictions as you've mentioned, having a good deal more units than can be taken out in a turn, having cloaked enemy units which cannot be attacked and starting out being ambushed/surprised resulting in enemy forces getting to move first. Different mechanics/units/mission objectives are always welcome IMHO but depending on what is requested, it may or may not be difficult to implement in Renpy. The more productive line of thought would probably be if I wanted to see something, I'd work on modding it in myself to check for feasibility. I also still think we're getting it too easy in Lib Day by having 2x the amount of resources in MoA, multiple orders per turn and an overpowered Drawfire (largely because of excessive hate), amongst other buffs we received on transitioning from beta to release, but it's more or less flogging a dead horse at this point. Music:Astonishingly good. I don't know who made the music but I am very surprised a kickstarter indie game managed to get such good scores. The style of the songs were very fitting for space epic wars. MoA tunes were mostly from Jamendo artists, which include Arnaud Conde, Marc Teichert, Celestial Aeon Project, Epic Soul Factory, etc innomenpro.com/forums/index.php?topic=404.msg6544#msg6544I believe a few of the Lib Day tunes were done in house (not completely certain on this), though quite a good number are still from the above artists. Lore:Absolutely fantastic. While the lore on worlds, the Alliance, Pact, and neutral worlds was pretty good, I have to give praise to the depth of details on the space battles. Big capital battleships, cruisers, ryders, gunboats, kinetic weaponry, laser weapons, shields, nukes, jamming... There was so much detail on the part of the science fiction that I adored. I love reading about the units most of all. How Alliance infantry ships are fitted with kinetics to battle PACT battleships while PACT infantry are mainly focused on melee combat and lasers since Alliance lack shields. How Alliance battleships have railgun cannons and to counteract this Pact uses medium assault cruisers with kinetics to combat the behemoths. Frankly I just wish there was a book or something detailing all the units the forces in the game use so I can just get deeper in the lore of space warfare. On additional lore, you can find a bit more in the wiki ( Sunrider gamepedia), including things like the origins of humanity, the Alliance-Imperial War, etc. From time to time you'll also see various lore questions answered by Samu-kun on his twitter and on the old Hyperspace forums.If you are a Patreon subscriber, $5 gets you the Sunrider: Veniczar novel which fills in details from PACT's viewpoint and expands on new characters like Alice and Kuushana. Oh and welcome to the forums. It's always good to see new people around
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Post by Drath on Mar 21, 2016 9:37:11 GMT -8
Quoting wiki:
A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such as training, analysis, or prediction. Usually there are no strictly defined goals in the game, with players instead allowed to freely control a character
Examples of simulation games:
Business/construction: Railroad Tycoon, Simcity
Social: The Sims
Sport: Championship Manager, Madden NFL series
Flight: IL-2 Sturmovik
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Post by Drath on Mar 21, 2016 9:25:45 GMT -8
I would like to request anyone reading this to help correct the tags for Liberation Day. This is currently what it looks like. 1)Liberation Day is NOT a simulation. Sims don't have one fixed romance with no choices. Please report this tag to get it cancelled as it is misleading. 2)Liberation Day is a turn based game. Please apply 'turn based' and 'turn based tactics' as tags. Like thisTags are how I came across First Arrival a few years ago and it is silly to find that users have misdefined what Liberation Day is. It is little wonder that % of completion on Captain (as lowest difficulty) for players is currently disappointing. You're not going to get fresh turn based fans with wrong tags. Wrong tags means wrong audience which results in more messed up reviews, more bad word of mouth and even less sales. It's pretty sad that there are so few serious and vocal turn based players currently. If we allow mislabelling to run rampant, we have only ourselves to blame if the devs reduce/abolish the turn based component. I hope this can be rectified over the next few days.
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Post by Drath on Mar 20, 2016 2:49:48 GMT -8
having Cosette in mission 10 really helps out a ton, but that does require she's alive at that point, and that the Havoc is in fighting shape. that negative net gain though Oh yea Cosette, I totally forgot about her. I guess that shows how much I care about her But yea a few more rockets and missiles would be great. I actually think it might be nice to have occasional side missions in future where the expected Funds gain is negative. Could be for a good cause, or for a favor. Not every mission needs to be profitable... besides even if you lose some Funds, you still gain Intel (assuming the current system is maintained in future releases). I really don't know how I would have done that mission without the MIRVS (well, I know how I would have done it, but it really would have required me sweating a lot and praying to the RNG). And yeah, the boss was cool on Beta 12.4, but on here it's even more of a monster; quite fitting as the final boss. Still, it really counterattacks with melee? I remember Drath talking about he surrounded with Gunboats in 12.4, is that now not possible? On doing it without rockets, I'd stick with the plan on keeping some distance and hopefully get into a position where you can take on whatever is nearest piecemeal. I don't really know how feasible it is, but if I get some time off during the weekend I might give it a go. On surrounding the boss with Gunboats, I pulled it into melee range of the Gunboats using the Union Battleship, NOT by moving units into its melee range. That definitely triggers a melee counterattack even back in beta 12.4a and will most likely get said unit obliterated. So no change there. Of course in the actual release, it reacts a little better when surrounded and actually tries to cut its way out in some cases, whereas in beta 12.4a, there was a turn or two where it just sat there and missed the whole turn.
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Post by Drath on Mar 20, 2016 0:06:59 GMT -8
Graph On store purchases: Ongessite Injection Rods and Liquid Ongessite Fuel requires that you cover up the truth at Ongess, which generally avail you of speedier movement. Phoenix gets a cloaking device (buyable via store) that upgrades her basic Stealth if Icari's affection score is high enough. I'm not aware of a splash damage upgrade to MIRV (splash damage being currently 50%) unless it's a very recent addition.
The way I understand it, Alliance Carrier kinetics are essentially split into 4 shots, with each shot dealing about 400 dmg. So it isn't an all or nothing affair like other kinetics. Even if the accuracy is low, it can probably still hit with 1 or 2 shots just like pulse or assault, which is what makes it quite troublesome to deal with. I agree with sniping it from afar and that mission 10 doesn't really have a particularly deadly "GET OUT" wave. With enough upgrades into energy damage and cost reduction, I fancy Sunrider's pulse has a fair chance of outpacing it in damage as Alliance units don't really usually have thick armor, unlike their PACT counterparts.
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Post by Drath on Mar 19, 2016 23:33:10 GMT -8
TL;DR: the romance with chigara seemed shit because it was. I would like to focus on the positives and what I liked, so once again I'll say I liked the old Ava-Kayto childhood arc and found that thoroughly romantic. I also liked how Maray constantly teases Kayto mercilessly in Sunrider Academy, but that's another story xD I'd probably do a scene where Ava is alone in her room, looking at her old personal belongings and sees something Kayto shared with her during their childhood, which she's kept till now, ramble a little on her feelings, the people she has lost (why does Kayto get to be featured as the only one majorly traumatized anyway), etc. I'll have to be honest, I didn't really like Sola in First Arrival. She seemed flat and not terribly responsive. But I've warmed to her quite a bit in MoA and in Lib Day. I think the beach scene explains a bit on why she is the way she is and Liberation Day reveals that she is quite insightful and observant even if she doesn't speak very much. Even if she isn't my favorite, I wouldn't mind seeing some scenes between her and Kayto. Doesn't need to involve physical intimacy that much. Awkward flirting and/or unintentional exposure is fine for me as a start. Then again romance/love is a very personal thing. Not expecting anyone to agree. But well I have a "story input quota" to fulfil, so I guess I might as well give my misguided 2 cents on it. P/S - It's ok if it's worth less than 2 cents after adjusted for inflation, at least it's out there PP/S - Claude's scenes on the other hand should involve lots of skin, rubbing herself against Kayto whenever she can (if you've got them, flaunt them ), and saying silly stuff like "You want them bigger, Captain? I can make them bigger! I really can!" Ok I think I'll shut up now... ._.
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Post by Drath on Mar 19, 2016 22:45:51 GMT -8
Graph On mission 10: This was the one mission where I felt the All Power to Engines order would have made a huge difference, but yea it would have trivialized the battle had it been allowed. And no it isn't available even if you have made the relevant store purchase. In my actual playthrough, I did more or less the same, was also rushing through, spending most of Sunrider's EN on moves rather than attacks and it was a little hairy towards the end. The difficulty in this one is quite dependent on how many upgrades you put into Paladin, Phoenix and if you had gotten Ryuvian Falcons earlier. Not really something predictable on a first playthrough but I take it in stride, just as how escort missions were in MoA. The initial position is not ideal for offensive measures via kinetics and Paladin tends to lag behind. I used Suppressive Fire a good bit to improve my chances of hitting. Yes you can get an initial burst with missiles/rockets but that might not be sufficient to last the whole battle. I reserved a rocket for the Carrier though it's really quite a tossup with all those overlapping flak fields. Assuming the rocket hits, a Falcon can do clean up with kinetics provided the Carrier is already debuffed with Suppressive Fire. Paladin might be too far off to do damage. I'm pondering if it might actually be a little less risky perhaps to turtle a bit halfway through with All Guard, and getting all ships into range (especially Paladin) rather than rushing forward continuously. I didn't use all my Repair Drones or CP at the end of my playthrough so there's probably some slack to be had there. It's mostly burst damage that kills. On mission 9: The AI for the boss seemed a little better this time round, compared to beta 12.4a, where I found her freezing up (not shooting, not moving) when surrounded. This time round she did use her uber boss rockets and lasers which can be pretty deadly when they connect. There are still instances though where she moved around as if trying to get around the crowd of units. On mission 7: With the Alliance Carrier and the 2 Alliance Infantry removed, this mission is now tougher than the beta 12.4a version. Enemy Blackjack's hps are doubled to 1600 and enemy reinforcement waves arrive earlier than they did in beta 12.4a. I still think AI for said spoiler enemy above needs some tweaking though. There were turns where it just froze in place where it spawned and turns where it merely moved without firing anything. To be fair, I had Bianca clumped up with Liberty for about 70% shields and they were quite far from the right edge of the map, but still, I think improving pathing and necessitating that shots be fired every turn should be considered.
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Post by Drath on Mar 12, 2016 6:21:34 GMT -8
LOL indeed. Well he changed his stance but I'm not changing mine. Still best review, now updated...
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Post by Drath on Mar 12, 2016 6:19:01 GMT -8
At Magpie's behest, I tried to trigger "With One Ryder Tied Behind My Back" and "What Are You Implying?". Played 1st battle on v2.02 on VNmode. Took 2 turns, Phoenix never moved or acted and Paladin never moved either (was beside Phoenix all the while). Neither achievement triggered.
P/S - What I did notice were the English voices seem to be even better this time round? Seemed crisper or maybe it's my imagination but I swear there weren't spoken lines for Full Forward in MoA and units seem to get another line triggered on enemy destruction. Yea I know nothing to do with chivos... just saying I like the English voices still xD
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 20:42:19 GMT -8
Marx-93 thfphen110Lore and background of the setting is something which I've always felt Samu-kun does really well and brings the universe to life. If you look at his twitter, there are a good number of answers on social and political aspects of different worlds and even some elaboration on the economic and education system, and I'm pretty sure if there were questions on the legal systems of these planets, he could probably talk your head off xD So yea I very much agree having more of that inserted into various dialogues and demonstrate how/why things are as they are because of this. As for crew interaction, there should be a breather after Paradox Core was taken down and at some point, Sunrider was taken for drydock repairs. Pretty sure during the days after this where he's slacking around (and having his ToDo list of documents on his table pile up), there's ample time to talk to crew. Icari and Kryska got some light chat time early on, which was a nice touch. Claude got some air time too, though it was mostly about business, discussing about the prototypes and the like. So uhm, where's the flirting? Since that episode in FA where she got ass canned by Ava, she hasn't really made much of an advance. Have a look at her affection score and maybe have several more lines of personal questions/interaction after the prototype discussion is done. Of course don't actually tell the players who she is... but maybe slip a few hints as to what she did in the past (if her affection score is high enough) if Kayto presses the issue. Have tea with her maybe? Why do Ava and Chiggles get to be the only ones anyway. She's popular enough on recent polls that a bit more detail here would probably be good. Some people like mysterious, ditzy, busty women... <shrugs> On the illusion of choice, yes that's good too, but it still won't be pretty when things turn out somewhat the same. IMHO, it's time to provide some hard branching narrative based on existing parameters. Example: Remember those slavers you might have captured way back then in the Astral Expanse (or jammed their rescue signal and spaced them for good)... let's see the impact of that now. Write something on it.
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 10:21:53 GMT -8
Noting a LOT of players on Steam and Steam reviews STILL having lag during combat in Lib Day, despite the short animations. It's always been fine on my side and I believe most of the other testers as well so I don't know what the cause could be. If anyone on this forum is having lag, could you please post your computer specs and contact Vaen with it? Also state when does the lag occur... as in during enemy turns or your turn or say upon use of a specific weapon.
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 10:07:24 GMT -8
Replying to Drath: At least that's getting me through casual. I still don't understand how people do this on Captain, but it's pleasing to know that removing upgrades seems to return the full cash value now. So failing all else, at least you can't bankrupt yourself on the screen if you have a moment and press lots of buttons to hear the beeping. I am glad that I was able to help a little. Those who are doing it on Captain or higher difficulties should: 1)Read the manual (wiki), especially this page. Make sure you have understood everything clearly. We used to have Skirmish mode on MoA to test things which is unfortunately gone. 2)Plan out what you want to do with that cash first, based on info from wiki on what is effective against various units. Having a good upgrade setup with necessary store purchases is half the battle won. I don't want to go into too much detail here though. This thread is for feedback. Not battle advice. If you still need help, make a separate thread and be specific as to what you are having issues with or PM me. The person you should thank for 100% return on cash on downgrades is Samu-kun. My old stand was and still is to use the old scheme 80% return on cash on downgrades to prevent people from suddenly changing specs/priorities. In other words you should have ONE setup more or less and that setup should be expected to be flexible enough to handle all fights. Might sound harsh, but as someone who's played since First Arrival days, I don't really like to encourage switching upgrades around with impunity.
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 8:03:47 GMT -8
oh god, no. You don't tease audience with WAIFUs and you don't let them collect affection points with them (that's what choices in Mask of Arcadius were pretty much about: affection points) only to troll them later with " No, you won't get your waifu. We will decide whom will you get." I don't think people mind linear story. Almost everybody does linear games. But at least give them choices in crew interaction so their relationship can progress. example: In beach episode you could be mean/nice/indifferent to Sola. Or in space battle over Cera you could protest about nukes. Etc. Etc. Etc. Such choices dont affect linear story much, but at least it gives players some choices and they will know it will have some impact later. Also you don't have to rub it in faces of players (" every time a variable/affection score is changed, flash the new score on screen" is lame). Either let some characters react differently after some decisions (few lines here and there) or you could simply show short recap of "important decisions" with "to be continued" and you are guaranteed some hype. In other games, affection points are for opening up personal quests or getting upgrades for them or having better rapport and a bonus when attacking together. Those are valid reasons for having affection points as well, not necessarily having a romance with said character and getting married. But I suppose the expectation for most players for this game would be to have actual routes, which is why I put that first. As for showing feedback, some people do like that so they can track what is going on. I'm suggesting it as an OPTION (which will be turned off by default), not something for everyone. If you hate it so much that you don't think any player would ever consider having scores shown, sure take it out then. Less work for the devs.
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 7:35:14 GMT -8
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who thinks the difficulty needs tuned. Even on Casual (mode above Waifu), I was getting rocked as early as mission two or three. I'll admit it, I'm plagued by short term memory problems so I make mistakes. There are already complainers on Steam saying its too easy for them. It's really hard for the devs to satisfy everyone. I'll give you an upgrade scheme to work on. Upgrade offensively. For mission 2: Triple kinetics per turn for Paladin, via reactor energy and kinetic cost reduction upgrades. Double kinetics per turn for Seraphim, via reactor energy and kinetic cost reduction upgrades. Triple pulse per turn for Blackjack, via reactor energy and energy cost reduction upgrades. Buy both Alliance Cruisers and the 3 Union Frigates. Apply ShieldJam first before using lasers/pulse. Pulse works well only when armor is lowered. Take out both Arcadius and as many Battleships as you can. Disable any left over.
Look at Graph's thread as well for ideas on how to use rockets efficiently.
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 6:37:31 GMT -8
We're now 3.5 days post launch, here are the initial impressions from various sites besides Steam: Reactions from Fuwanovel: Choices don't matter, too linear, rushed. Don't like Japanese VA. Reactions from Spacebattles forums: Quotes: "Future look completely hopeless". "You can't write a story and then end a book on a point where everything feels meaningless, because then nobody will want to buy the next book in the series." "wasn't really worth the 20 euro." "I'm not surprised that it has 49% approval on Steam, that's about what I'd expect out of the target audience being trolled this hard, and that's amazing." "What little I heard of them in the trailer made me swear to never listen to the Japanese VA track, because holy shit, I can't stand that high pitched garbage." "English voices had variety." Reactions from reddit, 2ndthreadCombat is fine (played on Captain). Story isn't. Choices didn't matter, linear, blahblah... RPGcodex has gone completely quiet. It's better that way. That the game doesn't exist to them. If we can't survive even Steam and other sites, we don't have the most remote chance of surviving RPGcodex. Their negative reviews can make even the harshest reviews from other sites look mild. So yea other sites more or less have the same reaction as Steam, nothing we haven't already gone through, with perhaps just a little less vitriol. Anyway make those polls: Story, Turn based gameplay, Voice acting, Art/animation and audience preference for each of these. I will honor my words, sacrificing/reducing turn based gameplay if there are not enough people/ not enough support for it. Just survive through this. EDIT: Final suggestions (todo list) from myself: 1)More story/side quests/crew interaction. Make every single in-game variable/score currently serve a purpose. I will be counting. Have an option to play with "immediate variable feedback". Every time a variable/affection score is changed, flash the new score on screen so that people KNOW something changed. Another 4000 lines of text in script.rpy would put it on par with a regular chapter like FA or MoA, ON TOP of stuff done AFTER final scene. Doesn't matter if there are no voices for the added segments. Fuck the voices. Half the players mute the voices and the other half mostly can't understand it either. Voices = No voices. Yes that will take some time. I am prepared to support you on Patreon until it is released. You have my word. 2)I don't think the railroaded romance can be changed at this point without massively altering the script. Perhaps have some mild flirting on the part of the girls if their affection score is high enough but have Kayto refuse them all in favor of Chigara. Suggest you appease the masses by saying there will be routes for each girl in future games or money back guarantee. If no actual routes are planned or if it's going to be fixed romance from now on, you should go on Steam and publicly declare it to disabuse players of such a notion.
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 4:48:20 GMT -8
She deleted his porn collection. ALL of it. Truly the most heinous of crimes. I can just picture the conversation that occurred upon Crow discovering his porn missing. Crow:"Prepare the time device! We shall hunt her to the edges of time itself and make her restore it!" Crewman: "But sir, don't you think you're overreacting?" Crow: "What did you say to me!?" Crewman: "It's just porn sir!" Crow: "Don't ever question me or my motives!" *shoots crewman dead* *Turns to another crewman* "You! What is your name?" Crewman 2: "I-It's Richards sir!" Crow: "Richards you are now in charge of the time device! Activate it!" Richards: "But sir-" *Crow glares at him* "Y-Y-Yes sir! Right away sir!" Samu-kun, this is what I consider to be "lol this is stupidly entertaining and over the top."
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 1:54:54 GMT -8
Yep he should totally come back and totally say: My name is Kaytomus Maximus Shieridius, joint commander of the liberating allied forces, killer of the Arcadius legions, loyal servant to True Cera, Captain of a destroyed carrier husbando to a murdered waifu. And I will have my vengeance, in this life, or the next or through time travel.
Hold the line! Stay with me! CERA VICTOR!!!!!P/S - Don't get what I'm saying? Can't understand the plot? Maybe people should watch war movies more
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Post by Drath on Mar 8, 2016 1:02:39 GMT -8
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