Author Topic: Space Pirates and Zombies 2  (Read 18506 times)

Offline Draco18s

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #15 on: May 17, 2016, 10:57:14 am »

Offline tombik

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Offline Draco18s

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #17 on: May 17, 2016, 11:08:32 am »
Nope. :) Monday + 1 month.

Dates >..>
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Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #18 on: May 17, 2016, 03:58:04 pm »
This has not been a good month. 9 weeks out of town for a course at work, three new must haves released. C'mon life!
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Offline Misery

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #19 on: May 18, 2016, 06:23:17 am »
Well, I spent some time with this.

Honestly, in the game's current state, I cant really recommend it.

Unless you LOVE grinding.  Like, absolutely freaking love the concept and want to bloody MARRY it.   If grinding just makes your whole day, whole year, whole century into a wonderful special time, then yes.  You want this game SO badly.   It's been awhile since I've played something this blasted grindy; I've already put the game aside and probably wont come back for quite awhile, provided I remember that I own it later on.

I'm also going to copy-paste something I posted in the Steam forums, which is feedback I already gave, just in case this is useful somehow to anyone:

So, bought the game, spent a little time with it... not all that much... but as I think first-impression feedback can be very important (it sure helps if the game gives a good impression QUICKLY, particularly with people having to make decisions based on the 2 hours Steam gives you, if they're concerned about possible refunding) I thought I'd just say some stuff about it. And then all of you can agree or disagree, or.... whatever, if you bother to read this.



Firstly: The game feels a bit like Mount & Blade in space. I'm going to make a whole bunch of comparisons to that game in here, thusly... For some people, those similarities absolutely fine. I personally quite enjoy Mount & Blade. The overall starmap (or whatever it's called) is a big part of this feeling, because that's pretty much EXACTLY like M&B's world map, just minus the mountains and such that you couldnt travel through. A large variety of locations belonging to different factions all doing their own things, tons of different characters roaming the map, doing whatever, and what seems like a variety of things to do. Even the combat, or what I've seen of it anyway, is a bit like that; in M&B, once you have an actual mount, the combat in some ways can get a little mindless (lance, lance, lance, lance, oh hey, time for more lancing) but at the same time positioning and such is extremely important and a huge part of each battle; I get that same feeling here too. So it really does feel like that game, at least to me. But I can see where that might be a major turnoff for some; not everyone likes the M&B formula. But still, I think there's alot of potential here.

BUT. The game seems to just take too bloody long to show you this.

I'm still in the very early part of the game. And it's too grindy! I've barely done any combat because I pretty much cant; even attacking a bandit whose threat level was HALF of mine got me obliterated, simply because he had 10 squillion strike ships, and I had.... 2. I get the way the resource system works.... but it seems like you either just dont get enough resources for harvesting, or prices on things are just WAY too high, as it simply seems to take much too long to get enough to buy new stuff and actually advance your ship. This bad pacing IS going to ruin the game for some players, because how can they see all that much of it within the two-hours-to-decide limit that Steam gives you? It's taking me FOREVER just to get past the "get better" part of the tutorial.

And yes, perhaps there's better ways of approaching even that... there very well could be. But for the totally new player, it's still a major issue. I, for one, have no idea of wether or not there's a better way at this point. Too early.

I do recognize though that this sort of thing is a balance issue and can be resolved as time goes on, and am hoping that's the case.

Overall, there's some things I'd like to see:

1. More combat UI stuffs! I cant even tell how much range my weapons have. THAT is really, really irritating. I'd also like to see how much damage I"m doing with my attacks. I feel like I'm just not being given enough information.

2. More strike units and such, and more options for commanding them. Right now it seems the ONLY way to command strike units is to say "EVERYONE all at once, go attack/defend/whatever this object". I cant, say, have one guy go after one thing, another go after something else.... stuff like that. Something I"d love would be if I could, like, pause the game, and take a moment to give orders to each of my strike ships or whatever. The current system just doesnt cut it. And having only 2 strike units to start out with is kinda silly.

3. The option to have a larger Starmap. It does feel a bit small, even though there's a good number of locations and such. It means less exploration, and it also feels a little cramped, at least to me. As if there almost isnt quite enough room for the 2 squillion captains in the game because the map needs to be a bit bigger.

4. More things to do with my ship. I get that simply clicking on resources and such is easier/faster, but it's not interesting. And when you spend so much time doing it, well... the game has this huge focus on the ships that you get to pilot and build, but you dont spend much TIME with them, or at least that's how it seems so far. And heck, the initial tutorial makes it SEEM like that's going to be the case, when it's showing you the crates fulla stuff to grab, I was thinking "okay, it's going to drop me into this mode occaisionally to do non-combat stuff". Which would be a good idea, it breaks up the flow nicely. But it isnt happening. I only go into that flying-the-ship mode when combat happens. Heck, if I'm making alot of comparisons to M&B, that game got this part right: You didn't JUST sit either on the map, or in combat; you took your character into towns and castles and such, giving you more of a connection to the character. You could interact with stuff in ways that werent JUST stabbing. Yes, they could have done it by shoving EVERYTHING into menus instead; it would have been faster than having to go into the castle to talk to the king and such. But it would have also been alot more uninteresting.

Honestly, giving me more stuff to do with my ship would be a huge thing here. I rather like the starmap, but too much time on it is a major problem. Give me some non-combat things to do outside of the map.

5. Somehow make the ships look a little less jumbled. Normally I have very little focus on a game's graphics. They usually just arent important to me... what's important to me is the actual gameplay. But every now and then, they get in the way of something. In this game, it makes it kinda hard to tell just what I'm looking at when I look at another ship. What kinds of parts is it made of? If I use direct targeting when their shields are down, it might be nice to be able to drill at certain parts that I know are being troublesome. But... I cant tell what, or even where they are! Yes, I could go into the top-down view, and maybe that might help, but I kinda suspect it wouldnt. I'm not sure how the heck this issue could be resolved, but it'd indeed be better if the ships didn't look like... well... blobs, half the time. Though, as I just started, it's possible that I might get used to what I'm looking at over time, and this will stop being an issue. Hard to say.

6. Reduce the grind! At least early on (perhaps this changes later) the game feels VERY grindy. I'm not someone that likes grinding in.... anything, so this is definitely an issue to me.




And that's the feedback there that I gave on the forums.

As stated, I haven't had all that much time with it.  But typically, if a game cant grab my attention fast enough, well.... that's about all I need to know.   The game seems to have a lot of potential, but it's like playing Mount & Blade without doing any fighting.

Oh, and that's assuming that NOBODY IS ATTACKING YOU.  If you've played M&B, there are a lot of moments where you go into towns or castles or whatever to do things, such as resting, where time will pass while you're in them.   That works well in that game; enemy forces cannot just jump on your head while you're doing this, you just have to be careful of when exactly you pop back out.   In THIS game, you do the same thing with all resource nodes.... but you can be attacked while time is moving lightning fast.  In other words, you cannot react to it.  If some other captain is gunning for you... and in my game, one was.... they can chase you all over the place, and no matter what you do, can get at you ANY time you go after a node.   If that captain's threat level is too high, he may as well be invulnerable, because you are *not* winning that fight.  You *will* die, unless you do the damn retreating thing, which causes you to dump a bunch of resources.  The only other way out is to pay the jerks a monstrous amount of money (like, nearly every damn thing you have).    So all of that grinding can literally go BACKWARDS if the game decides that someone has a grudge on you.  You also cannot tell if said captain is nearby without CONSTANTLY stopping and mousing over every single one of the 8000 or so other ships that are nearby.   

So the grinding basically turned into ultra-grinding, and.... yeah, my patience with the game snapped.   There's too much imbalance and too much of things not bloody happening.  Being attacked by Godzilla over and over again does not count as "things happening", I should point out.

It's possible that the game gets less grindy later.... I have no idea.  Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't.  I can only explain what I've experienced so far.   For the time being, I'm really not interested anymore.   The game has potential, but like I said.... holy grind, Batman.  But I'm going to watch for updates, and see what happens.  Or maybe if any of you guys try it out and find some particularly important tips or something, maybe that'd help, but... honestly, if there was a way around the grind, I sure as hell didn't find it.



Oh, and one other thing:  If you're a fan of the original Spaz, expect this to play almost nothing like it.  There's a reason I keep comparing this to a totally DIFFERENT game....   that's fine by me, but some players are not too happy with the huge difference between this and the previous game.   I definitely suggest watching some videos before deciding on wether or not to pick this one up.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #20 on: May 18, 2016, 07:50:27 am »
Thanks for the write up. Confirms some things I've been pondering.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #21 on: May 18, 2016, 08:49:04 am »
Yep.

Though, don't forget, it's early days yet, for this one.   And it's really JUST the grinding that's killing it for me.   I probably didn't make the combat sound very appealing, but that bit really can be fun when it happens; it's just that the combat ends up being about your positioning, orientation, and choice of targets rather than actually shooting things.   It's worth noting that by default, the game will actually handle the shooting for you (but you clicking to fire instantly overrides this, if you don't like it's current choice of target).  It might sound like that bit dumbs it down too much, but I was quite fine with it.

And there is the whole bit about starting and managing a faction of your own, or joining one of the other factions (yet another thing I can compare to Mount & Blade).  That might change up some of the grindy bits.... I'm not sure.  The grind happened too much before I got there.

And of course, I didn't see how it got when the zombies arrive.


It's also possible that the campaign... which is what I was playing... has potentially different pacing than in the sandbox mode (which for most players is probably where the real meat of the game will be);  the sandbox mode was what I watched in the videos, and I could swear the guy in the video was going through things muuuuuuch faster.  Hell, the game only gave him like, a 30-40 minute time limit before the zombies appear (time which only moves when he does, like the rest of the map). He had joined a faction, left it, and then made his own within that time.  I may actually try out the sandbox bit later and see if there's a difference.   If I do that I may post some more thoughts on it.

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #22 on: May 18, 2016, 11:10:21 am »
Considering that these guys are about as open and passionate as Arcen, I think they'll do their best to listen to feedback.
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Offline Mick

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #23 on: May 18, 2016, 12:56:11 pm »
Well, I spent some time with this.

Honestly, in the game's current state, I cant really recommend it.

Unless you LOVE grinding.  Like, absolutely freaking love the concept and want to bloody MARRY it.   

Grinding was my main issue with the first one too. Disappointing. :(

Offline madcow

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #24 on: May 18, 2016, 01:23:38 pm »
I own but haven't played the first one. It's been on my list for awhile but just never get around to it!

Offline Mánagarmr

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #25 on: May 18, 2016, 01:54:03 pm »
I don't remember the first one being all that grindy, but it's very many years since I played it. I also played it enough to actually wipe the zombies out. So perhaps I didn't mind the grind if it was there.
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Offline crazyroosterman

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #26 on: May 18, 2016, 02:34:50 pm »
funny thing about this is that I initially ignored because for some bizarre reason I thought it was a plants vs zombies game......yea I don't get it either 0_0
btw to get back on point the idea of a mount and blade in space sounds pretty sick although not being able to use hub locations as places of safety sounds like it would make getting through the early game infuriating especially if there's wandering creatures that want to kick the crap out of you like in mount and blade all over the place(guys like forest rangers and looters for instance) although I have to wonder if they are a thing then is there the run away mechanic like in mount and blade? I'm referring to the mechanic that makes them run away when you get big enough because if not then I may not buy it
there was a roamer type in a mod I used to play all the time (up to the point were it replaced vanilla for me completely) which didn't do this which meant I had to fight a 101 battles evreytime I wanted to go some were it was the most infuriating shit in the entire world and made me stop playing the game completely.
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Offline Misery

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #27 on: May 18, 2016, 06:46:52 pm »
Considering that these guys are about as open and passionate as Arcen, I think they'll do their best to listen to feedback.

Well, that's looking to be the case.   They seem to actually read the forums.

I got this earlier from one of them:

"Hi Misery,

Thanks very much for the detailed first impressions!  We will be reviewing this in detail at our next meeting trying to figure out ways to get people over that early hump.  We have known for a while that the game really opens up at about the 5 hour mark, but the problem is getting people there.  We really appreciate the work and thought that went into this post. "



So..... yeah, didn't expect that bit.  But you're right, they actually seem to give a damn.  Spotting messages from them in a variety of topics here.

That's good to see... the game has a lot of potential, I'd hate to see it run by another Vlambeer, posting on the forums once every blue moon on Friday the 13th while the planets are aligned, and ignoring even the most repeated complaints (yes, that all still annoys me).  Which is what I'd originally worried might be the case.   But it looks like it isn't.

I'm not sure what happens around the 5 hour mark though. 

Offline Mick

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #28 on: May 19, 2016, 08:15:05 am »
I think as a rule you shouldn't have to play a game for any number of hours before starting to enjoy it. Have a separate tutorial for learning if you must, but in the actual game get me to the meat right away!

Offline Misery

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Re: Space Pirates and Zombies 2
« Reply #29 on: May 19, 2016, 08:54:40 am »
I think as a rule you shouldn't have to play a game for any number of hours before starting to enjoy it. Have a separate tutorial for learning if you must, but in the actual game get me to the meat right away!

Well, one issue is that I'm sorta still in the tutorial... but at the same time, sorta not.

The campaign mode slowly instructs you on things to do, BUT, it doesn't STRUCTURE the surrounding areas or events to work with this like a normal tutorial would.

For example, that last problem I was having... I'm still in a section where I'm following instructions (slowly) and am in a very weak ship, but other Captains absolutely are allowed to gank me like crazy.  In most games, those characters would hold off.  And even if the tutorial wasn't active at this point in the game though, having much higher level characters rampaging around when the player hasn't hit a point of being able to do much about getting resources seems a bit obnoxious.  I mean, it's one thing to have crazed wackos after you once you've gotten into a faction, or started your own, or something like that... even Mount & Blade doesn't send armies of 150 dudes at you when you just started and have a whole 10 yourself;  the big guys in that game will not give the slightest crap about you for a long while no matter what you do.  In this though, other captains can start to take notice of you IMMEDIATELY depending on what you do.  When playing the sandbox mode for a challenge, this probably works out very well, and that's where the real meat of the game will lie.   But in the campaign mode it's out of place.

I'm pretty sure now that this particular captain that was chasing me is aggravated because I stopped a couple of raids by the red faction; though, it seems a bit unbalanced in a way.  A "raid" in this game is actually just an event where a few Strike Ships (the little ones that motherships, like the one you control, can summon) by themselves are just out causing trouble in a different faction's territory; they're very easy XP for the early game as strike ships just by themselves are very weak.  And they have no Captains at all since there's no motherships with them.  You'd think that just popping a few of those very minor things wouldn't cause a murderous rage in a Captain so quickly (It's not like I"ve had time to do ALOT of them).  Now, some other actions, I could see causing it... on the Steam forums someone thought that I must have been stealing resources from nodes that are in a faction's territory (you can do that, and you will also see other Captains do this, everyone is greedy as hell), which irritates the hell out of the station owner in that sector.  And you will sometimes see someone from that faction go out and blow the crap out of some other Captain that stole from them a couple of times (and I have to say, being able to watch these things happen on their own is pretty cool).  That one makes more sense, getting irritated over that, as opposed to getting into a murderous rage because you effectively swatted flies, particularly after the tutorial told you to do so (and it does, it tells you at one point to go after raids or pirates for XP).   I didn't steal anything though, so it HAS to be the raids.


But anyway, I agree with you, a game should grab the player RIGHT AWAY, not take hours doing so.  THat's a big trend and problem with a lot of AAA games to me... where they start off with a million years of cutscenes or very slow building up before you get to DO anything at all.  I hate it when I randomly encounter that hyper-slow build up (or cutscenes) in a smaller game like this.   Usually devs like this understand that issue.  But in THIS case, I think it's just a balance thing, and it seems the devs are quite aware of it and know they should fix it, so that's good.

 

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