Small but crucial features

All very good points. Factory Pause and ability to see range when placing things are a big must.

I was expecting the orbital strike to be a nuke. But at the moment it is just a few blue lines which hit things with pinpoint accuracy, really lacking in epic ooomph. I'll have to try again to check but I think they might be the same for both factions. The pinpoint accuracy one kinda fits the Substrate but a huge nuke like bomb would have fit the PHC. Obviously you need to have some kind of huge explosion for when the Nexus goes up for that feel good factor. I have seen several people mention the lack of something like that. I'd view it as pretty critical.

Tons of work needs to be done on the Army/meta unit. One of mine went backwards yesterday when the enemy was right in front of them and I had to break up the army to get them fighting. That is an old bug. Also it doesn't work well with a lot of units. Select a big group and it faffs about for ages getting them into a very neat very looong line/queue. It takes way too long and is not necessary when not in very tight passages. Nothing wrong with travelling in a bunch, or perhaps allowing some forming up along the way. Attack move sometimes gets them more bunched up in a more useful fashion.

Invisible area around nodes is still huge so you can't tell units to go there.

I think units still don't go to a node if you click on it and it is already captured. Would need to check as have become accustomed to working around this.

Don't get a selection ring when selecting the Substrate Nexus

When buildings get completed they sometimes get the blow up explosion visuals and sound effects. Building still intact though.

Units not always shooting what is right in front of them. Brutes seem the most guilty of this. Perhaps there is a mechanism at play between the 6 units we are not aware of.

The weapon of the Brute and the substrate point defence don't always appear to be coming from the muzzle

Upgrade system on T3 needs a lot of work to be clearer to the player. I won't go into this as I'm sure you are aware.

Sometimes can't use orbital abilities when i cant see nullifiers anywhere. Perhaps they are also blocked by Turinium generators? Will have to test that.

Quite a few of the maps I have done have had a resource with no yellow line connecting them to anything. I don't know if that means you aren't getting that resourceor, or if the lack of the yellow line doesn't effect anything as it is just a cosmetic thing.

Really need a Ctrl Z feature, the ability to select everything on the screen that already matches what you have selected, be it one unit type or more. Especially useful for when you want to grab all the fighters. Double clicking on them is a real fiddle as they are small and often moving around fast while mixed in with bombers or over other land units.

Would be nice to be able to hit a button and jump to see where the computer said it had sighted a Dreadnought.

Clicking and dragging would be great for building placement like Quanta Arrays. I know it has been mentioned a lot but the Area command for putting down metal extractors in PA is very good and reduces repetitive micro in a good way.

Bombers of Substrate very effective.

Orbital ability of dropping down swarm (Substrate) can be very powerful too I feel.

I hope the Substrate shield charger effect , pink, and the PHC shield remover effect, same but blue, get a little love. They look very basic compared to the things around them.

When moving from A to B it would be nice/better if the substrate drone swarms were able to compensate enough to stay closer to their base ship.

Improvements to earth and dessert terrain really good. A lot warmer/richer/solid looking.

Still crashing in MP.

How about a little AA ability on the PHC scout?

The Substrate's Anti-Dreadnought Dreadnought needs its blue central attack visually beefed up. Even if the colours were a bit darker. They are not obvious in battle at all and just visually pale in comparison to the Prometheus's main strike.

Rank play is odd as I get thrown in with very low level AI. Got a human once so it does work when someone is there I guess.

Need more large maps. (well would welcome more of all types really )

I think I had a lot more to say but too tired. Need to play a lot more with Substrate to give much feedback on them. Quite the visual treat when in battle!

Lots of good stuff in the Beta, looking forward to what is still to come.

Cheers.

 Edit: Oh and engineers need to be able to assist properly and players need to be able to queue up units before factory is complete. Pretty sure Devs are well aware of those two issues though.

I used an Orbital Strike to blow away the remaining structures around an enemy's nexus. The graphics were underwhelming, but the result was pretty powerful. I was able to march right up,because only the nexus was left.

I am in agreement with much of what Ticktoc said. I'm not sure they'd be able to deal with much of that before release, which would be a shame because I think some of those things will negatively impact reviews. Still holding out hope though.

Just watched a video and was reminded of a few other things:

Bombers are currently able to stop and turn on a dime, looks very odd and probably not good for game play too as I think turning circles are good for planes. Not sure if happens with fighters. I think the Pan can get away with it though.

At the moment when you start zooming out the rocket weapon effects disappear long before the laser/plasma effects. It looks like the artillery units/Smarties aren't firing so I find myself often zooming into double check they are. It would nice if the effects faded out at the same point. Preferably by extending how far up you can see the rockets rather than the opposite. Would look very cool too, being able to pan back and see more of the fighting.

Finally two super small things, really late polish stuff.

Better Skybox for nice screen shots

And linked to that, to sit the gameplay map in a better setting. Very jarring just to have white at the knife sharp corners and edges of the map. The mountains in the ring around the map work quite well as distant mountains when you flatten the angle of the camera. Perhaps something between them and the map might help alleviate the striking contrast between map-edge and white space.

Everything you guys said its true, many things are still missing.

Well Beta 1 just came out, so i am sure many things will get added to the game in the next few patches,
Guys do not forget that Stardock and Oxide do read our posts all the time.
Still i haven't had the time to Play Beta 1  :'( I hope to give it a try later today.

What I will love from Stardock, is to let us have more than 1 dreadnought in a Meta unit working together and to make a meta unit to have unlimited units in it.

This is a feedback thread, ASADDF.  We expect our posts to be at laast read by the devs.

One thing I find frustrating is that dreadnaughts seem to go from 3000 or so health to zero in an instant. Like the damage and health are out of sync with each other. It makes trying to level and preserve dreads near impossible when you can't judge when to actually pull it out.

Great list of issues, Ticktoc!

May I put in my two cents?

@ Army/Meta units:

Totally agree. As long as a non-army group of units moves and fights more efficient than an army group, micro will greatly boost your battle results. Which brings me to the point that control group handling is still quite tough (missing features like "add to control group" and stuff).

By the way: control groups nable you to control several dreads with an army... ^^

Furthermore I am still waiting for rebindable hotkeys 

@Dreadnaught sighting:

I think it would be cool if a marker or so appeared on the tactical screen after a sighting. This would make the screen way more useful.

@ stop/pause command for factories:

YES please!

One more thing I'd like to add:

The eco bars for metal and rsds are not accurate representation of your actual income.  I've been down to -44 metal/tick and still have over 500 metal in storage.  When looking at the expenses/income tab, it also comes out to -44.  Something is missing here.  It also only happens later in the game.

Some feedback on the beta. The changes overall are great so I'll only touch on the points I think need improvement - 

 - What happened to the army management interface on the left of the screen? It's currently showing up only for numbered meta-units and does not show anything else. The old interface was so much better and useful as it allowed me to see all the units , factories and metaunits at once and select as required. For those who do not number each metaunit, the old interface made it possible to select those metaunits too, unlike the current one which only shows numbered metaunits. Please bring the old one back or at least an option to bring it up when required. [EDIT: I'm looking at the PC Gamer beta preview video and the old interface is still there. Is there a hotkey to turn it on or some bug on my version?]

 - Metaunits are behaving worse than before when it comes to adding in new units. Earlier, if a new unit was added to a meta unit, the meta unit would generally stay at its location or keep following its current direction. If a dreadnought was added, then the metaunit would retreat back to form around the dreadnought. Now though, even if a single T2 unit is added to a metaunits with multiple other T2s, the entire metaunit retreats back to form "meet" that new T2. The old metaunit behavior was much better in this sense.

 - Bigger extractors would be better - its currently hard to see which deposits have extractors built on them.

 - Substrate AI seems a bit weaker than PHC AI or maybe its the units. I can beat a normal PHC AI but only after some effort on my part and it always puts up a good fight. I beat the Substrate AI on normal the first time with it hardly putting up much of a fight.

soooo true

I must admit, Deserts of Kharak has a pretty nice "auto formation". just send your units somewhere and they will be in an appealing formation when being there.

Unfortunately for the game, all units rush there in their own speed which makes this feature useless.

Quoting Mered4, reply 5

This is a feedback thread, ASADDF.  We expect our posts to be at laast read by the devs.

End of Mered4's quote

I guess you are a bit confused?

ASADDF belongs to our elite  Founders team he's been here since the beginning of everything.
Your posts like all other posts should be read and discussed by all.

Some of the ideas that the Founders members had are in the game or were used with many improvements from Ashes team.

But ty for the feedback dont stop keep it, all help is good to the game.

Gentlemen -

 

Here's a few things that myself and a few other regular RTS players have found grating with the interface and unit handling.

First, its really difficult to tell the range of defensive structures while placing them.  Could we get an overlay as to their range (similar to PA or SupCom) that is both accurate and adjusts to terrain?  A similar overlay for radar would be nice too.

Factories need a stop and pause command desperately.  Please don't exclude either of those.  If my eco tanks because of a raiding party, I'd rather not cancel all my build orders just to pause the factory.  Also, can you let factory rally points take queued commands, just like units?  Pathfinding isn't bad, but sometimes I wish I could tell my units to go over this hill rather than around it when coming out of a factory.

There's no set 'max' size for armies on the ui, but I run into this max size all the time, especially when a dread is leading the army.  At around a thousand units i cant add any more to the army. Speaking of which, can we remove the completely arbitrary 'one dread per army' stuff?  Late game I have tons of dreadnoughts, and sometimes I need two in the same spot.  Sometimes (Proxima, I'm looking at you) I need four or five dreads in one spot.  It would be nice if they would work together.

Lastly, what's the end game?  There is, of course, the victory point system, but no explosive or awe-inspiring way to obliterate your opponent.  After a certain point, players and AIs become so entrenched that assaulting them is a daunting prospect.  It usually devolves into one side throwing themselves against the others primary defenses and just getting slaughtéred again and again, even with more control of the map.

End of quote

Greetings.

Re range of buildings when placing them.  Totally agree. They're on the list.   We want it to work basically the same as Supcom.

Re factories. Absolutely. Also on the list.  

Re annihlation.  The plan is when you destroy their seed to get a Death Star style explosion.  That effect is just taking a long time to finish since it's so labor intensive to create.   I tend to use either Orbital Strike or Detonate to nuke turtlers if I have an overwhelming lead.

-brad

Quoting Frogboy, reply 15

Quoting ,

quoting post

Gentlemen -

 

Here's a few things that myself and a few other regular RTS players have found grating with the interface and unit handling.

First, its really difficult to tell the range of defensive structures while placing them.  Could we get an overlay as to their range (similar to PA or SupCom) that is both accurate and adjusts to terrain?  A similar overlay for radar would be nice too.

Factories need a stop and pause command desperately.  Please don't exclude either of those.  If my eco tanks because of a raiding party, I'd rather not cancel all my build orders just to pause the factory.  Also, can you let factory rally points take queued commands, just like units?  Pathfinding isn't bad, but sometimes I wish I could tell my units to go over this hill rather than around it when coming out of a factory.

There's no set 'max' size for armies on the ui, but I run into this max size all the time, especially when a dread is leading the army.  At around a thousand units i cant add any more to the army. Speaking of which, can we remove the completely arbitrary 'one dread per army' stuff?  Late game I have tons of dreadnoughts, and sometimes I need two in the same spot.  Sometimes (Proxima, I'm looking at you) I need four or five dreads in one spot.  It would be nice if they would work together.

Lastly, what's the end game?  There is, of course, the victory point system, but no explosive or awe-inspiring way to obliterate your opponent.  After a certain point, players and AIs become so entrenched that assaulting them is a daunting prospect.  It usually devolves into one side throwing themselves against the others primary defenses and just getting slaughtéred again and again, even with more control of the map.

 

Greetings.

 

Re range of buildings when placing them.  Totally agree. They're on the list.   We want it to work basically the same as Supcom.

 

Re factories. Absolutely. Also on the list.  

 

Re annihlation.  The plan is when you destroy their seed to get a Death Star style explosion.  That effect is just taking a long time to finish since it's so labor intensive to create.   I tend to use either Orbital Strike or Detonate to nuke turtlers if I have an overwhelming lead.

 

-brad

End of Frogboy's quote

Re Annihilation, I was more wondering how you guys plan for us to end the game in the late- SUPER LATE game.  For example, Nukes are really great at clearing defensive lines, but not if they are covered by multiple orbital jammers.  Once someone gets to that point, it's fairly difficult to kill a defensive line.  And when I say fairly difficult, I mean unbreakable except by something close to a 500% resource advantage.  It's a little ridiculous.  Lol.

@mered4

That's why Victory Points (Turinium generators) are a thing. So you can't just sit back and turtle. If you're playing a custom with them off though, then yeah I could see some large, long games becoming unplayable stalemates, at least until they introduce experimental/titan style units at some point down the road.

It just kinda feels like TPs are a gimmick intended to replace game-ending units. Thats just how it feels, imho - not necessarily how others might see it.

Yeah, I don't see TP that way. To me, Turinium nodes are THE primary objective of this game, even more-so than destroying the enemy base. Players should be fighting for control over them above all else. Not only are they the primary victory condition, each one you own gives you an econ boost. If folks start considering them objectives and not just gimmicks, the genre can finally progress beyond the SupCom era.

To....what, exactly?  Most, if not all, strategy games are played with the annihilation objective.  From Checkers to Starcraft, it's the same.  There are variations, of course, but they're usually less main stream and with a much smaller playerbase.  

There's nothing wrong with annihilation, but I am open to other objectives, including TP. I question the motives of anyone willing to outright discount TP as an objective and victory condition, but as long as you have a logical argument that's fine for discussion purposes. I produced logical arguments supporting them. Arguments against them are normally paraphrased to be "they feel dumb". I'd like to know why they are objectively bad, if that argument can be made. Even so you don't have to convince me, you'd have to convince the devs.

MKay, I'll step back now because I fear this could turn ugly if I get too involved in this topic.

I am a supporter of the current victory conditions, more so for ranked games. As far as custom games any player is free to do as they wish so i see no issue here at all. 

~football13tb

Victory points are a staple of both the Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series. Alternate win conditions like that add to the strategy of the game. Annihilation as the only victory option feels kind of limited tbh. It's obviously totally viable to win that way but alternate ways just make the game more interesting - even old games like Age of Empires/Age of Mythology employed alternate win conditions. Especially in MP, they just make it way more interesting - options are great, including the one to turn them off in custom games.

Think of them as a third resource. You have to choose which you want to prioritize, then protect, and which to attack. You could choose to ignore them and focus on radioactives and aim for an early annihilation, or for the VP win by spreading out more and fortifying at those points. Also, the other purpose of them is to get players out onto the map and create more conflict zones with more of a tug of war rather than just sitting at your base area playing sim city and turtling. Most of my games vs people so far in Ashes have ended in annihilation anyway as it doesn't take much to take out the Nexus so I wouldn't be too concerned. 

Okay, lets say it's not a strategic choice whether you go for them...you must. There is strategic choice that exists by their presence, though: win by VP or win by annihilation? Intentionally lose the fight for one VP, so the other player effectively overcommits while you flank and take out their Nexus, a good chunk of their economy, or other Turinium nodes. You say it's pure math, but Sun Tzu would argue with that. You might be able to win 10 out of 10 games using your optimal strategy, but then someone better than you comes along and uses deception, better scouting, better compositions, certain orbitals, and suddenly you lost half your regions because you were focused on your "optimal" playstyle. Sorry man, there is no such thing as equally skilled players in RTSs. In every top-tier competitive RTS match I've watched there is always a winner and a loser, and skilled dissection always revealed what the winner did well and what the loser did not-so-well.

Bah, why bother. This discussion has been around since founders access and nothing has changed.

That's true, at least.  Still need strategic zoom tho.

What map was this on and who against? Were you playing as PHC or Substrate?