A lot has been said about the gameplay issues of Steel Division - many of which are untrue or at best subjective - but comparatively little effort has been made by the community to understand the game from an experiential perspective rather than a mechanical one.
And what I mean by that statement is this: Games are not just a collection of mechanics (e.g. veterancy, armor penetration, etc). Games, especially real-time ones, are experiences where you can in fact observe and track a player's engagement and enjoyment over the course of a match. The emotional highs and lows of gameplay over the course of a match is often referred to as a game's pacing, and the failure to study this aspect for Steel Division (and Wargame, which has almost the same pacing issues) is a big reason why the game "feels off" for many players particularly for its multiplayer matches.
To serve as a baseline, let me elaborate on the general pacing structure of a Starcraft match - which has a pacing structure very similar to most traditional RTS games. Each Starcraft match begins with a player only having a handful of workers. They will spend the first few minutes trying to build up, and perhaps engage in a few (often critical) skirmishes - ones that are often timed to occur where one player has an advantage over the other. At some point, a major engagement will occur that will decisively shift the balance of the match to one player or another. The game then typically ends at this point in favor of the victor of the engagement, as the loser typically surrenders. If the loser doesn't surrender, what results is often just a few minutes of clean-up/mopping up by the victor where the final outcome is never in doubt.
Hence, the pacing of a typical Stacraft match is a build-up to a climax. It starts off relatively simple and unexciting (a couple of workers, no combat) before building up to skirmishes and then possibly to huge full-scale battles at full population. After the "climax" engagement, the game typically ends due to a surrender as what follows is just boring clean-up.
By contrast, Steel Division and Wargame do not follow this pacing structure.
Instead, SD and WG matches both tend to start very strong - because each player is generally given a large pool of actual combat units to start with. This potentially leads to large skirmishes or even full-scale battles being fought within minutes of the start of the match.
The problem is that the match very often becomes downhill from an emotional/experiential perspective from there.
After the initial engagements are fought and the majority of the starting units are lost, one or both sides are now forced to wait for reinforcements to arrive. The problem is that these reinforcements only arrive as a trickle and at a constant rate, forcing players to endure long periods of camping to build up, or to commit their forces piecemeal. Players are thus forced to wait and hope they could regain the "magic" of the first few minutes where they fought substantial battles - and in many cases could end up disappointed because they aren't really able to mass up to that level again.
Compare and contrast this to the middle of a Starcraft match, especially between experienced players. The rate of reinforcement at the mid-game doesn't remain a tiny trickle. Indeed, the reinforcement rate tends to accelerate mid-match as early game economy investments boom and produce a huge surplus of resources to allow the mass deployment of units.
To be fair, Steel Division tries to resolve this via the Phase system. In theory, the difference in income rates would allow specific Divisions to dominate at particular periods along with their equipment pool.
In practice however, the "trickle" of reinforcements throttles most of this potential. Even Divisions with very high income can only deploy one major unit every minute (e.g. a tank), and there's generally limited value to spamming less valuable units (Do you really need to deploy 12 Ersatztruppen instead of 9?).
Moreover, having Phases change at the same time for every Division removes the potential for timing attacks.
In Starcraft, each build has specific "windows" where they have an advantage over the opposition. For instance, a Zerg player might plan to attack a Terran player 12 minutes into the match because he knows that's when the Terran player is vulnerable based on the most popular build, and that failing to defeat the Terran at this point would result in the Terran player building a huge economy that would inevitably crush the Zerg. The Terran player by contrast might decide to forgo the usual build - anticipating the 12-minute attack by the Zerg - and instead go for an all-or-nothing bunker rush at the start of the match. It's this constant play vs counterplay of various builds based on timing attacks that has kept Starcraft fresh despite being a 20 year old game.
Steel Division unfortunately falls very short of this, largely because "timing" advantages due to the phases are negated by the opposition getting their new toys at the exact same time. 12th SS getting a Tiger E in Phase B has a lot less impact if the Scots also start deploying their 17 pounders. Indeed, it's notable that the "super units" with the most impact - like the 12th SS Firefly - are the ones that exist in Phase A where their "counter" units may not be available yet; which again frontloads most of the excitement in the game.
Finally, the imposition of a game timer puts pressure on players to refrain from quitting until the end of the match. The problem here is that it also tends to prolong the agony of a match that's clearly already lost. In SC by contrast going "GG" is acceptable for a simple reason - you don't want players to feel beat down after a match. You want them to be ready to play another round - either because they want to win again or they want to avenge a loss.
In summary, RTS games typically have a pacing structure that builds to a climax. The game starts a little slow but builds up to a very exciting climax that involves a big battle. The game then typically ends very quickly after the big battle as there's no point to playing the rest of the match which turns into a mop-up operation.
Steel Division and RD by contrast frontloads all of the excitement at the start. You get a big battle immediately that often involves some super units that are hard to counter. It then all goes downhill as the match turns into turtling to build up or piecemeal deployment of units. Worse the matches are encouraged to "go the distance" even if one side or another is already clearly winning. This is the very opposite of the typical RTS model where a match ends on a climax.
And what I mean by that statement is this: Games are not just a collection of mechanics (e.g. veterancy, armor penetration, etc). Games, especially real-time ones, are experiences where you can in fact observe and track a player's engagement and enjoyment over the course of a match. The emotional highs and lows of gameplay over the course of a match is often referred to as a game's pacing, and the failure to study this aspect for Steel Division (and Wargame, which has almost the same pacing issues) is a big reason why the game "feels off" for many players particularly for its multiplayer matches.
To serve as a baseline, let me elaborate on the general pacing structure of a Starcraft match - which has a pacing structure very similar to most traditional RTS games. Each Starcraft match begins with a player only having a handful of workers. They will spend the first few minutes trying to build up, and perhaps engage in a few (often critical) skirmishes - ones that are often timed to occur where one player has an advantage over the other. At some point, a major engagement will occur that will decisively shift the balance of the match to one player or another. The game then typically ends at this point in favor of the victor of the engagement, as the loser typically surrenders. If the loser doesn't surrender, what results is often just a few minutes of clean-up/mopping up by the victor where the final outcome is never in doubt.
Hence, the pacing of a typical Stacraft match is a build-up to a climax. It starts off relatively simple and unexciting (a couple of workers, no combat) before building up to skirmishes and then possibly to huge full-scale battles at full population. After the "climax" engagement, the game typically ends due to a surrender as what follows is just boring clean-up.
By contrast, Steel Division and Wargame do not follow this pacing structure.
Instead, SD and WG matches both tend to start very strong - because each player is generally given a large pool of actual combat units to start with. This potentially leads to large skirmishes or even full-scale battles being fought within minutes of the start of the match.
The problem is that the match very often becomes downhill from an emotional/experiential perspective from there.
After the initial engagements are fought and the majority of the starting units are lost, one or both sides are now forced to wait for reinforcements to arrive. The problem is that these reinforcements only arrive as a trickle and at a constant rate, forcing players to endure long periods of camping to build up, or to commit their forces piecemeal. Players are thus forced to wait and hope they could regain the "magic" of the first few minutes where they fought substantial battles - and in many cases could end up disappointed because they aren't really able to mass up to that level again.
Compare and contrast this to the middle of a Starcraft match, especially between experienced players. The rate of reinforcement at the mid-game doesn't remain a tiny trickle. Indeed, the reinforcement rate tends to accelerate mid-match as early game economy investments boom and produce a huge surplus of resources to allow the mass deployment of units.
To be fair, Steel Division tries to resolve this via the Phase system. In theory, the difference in income rates would allow specific Divisions to dominate at particular periods along with their equipment pool.
In practice however, the "trickle" of reinforcements throttles most of this potential. Even Divisions with very high income can only deploy one major unit every minute (e.g. a tank), and there's generally limited value to spamming less valuable units (Do you really need to deploy 12 Ersatztruppen instead of 9?).
Moreover, having Phases change at the same time for every Division removes the potential for timing attacks.
In Starcraft, each build has specific "windows" where they have an advantage over the opposition. For instance, a Zerg player might plan to attack a Terran player 12 minutes into the match because he knows that's when the Terran player is vulnerable based on the most popular build, and that failing to defeat the Terran at this point would result in the Terran player building a huge economy that would inevitably crush the Zerg. The Terran player by contrast might decide to forgo the usual build - anticipating the 12-minute attack by the Zerg - and instead go for an all-or-nothing bunker rush at the start of the match. It's this constant play vs counterplay of various builds based on timing attacks that has kept Starcraft fresh despite being a 20 year old game.
Steel Division unfortunately falls very short of this, largely because "timing" advantages due to the phases are negated by the opposition getting their new toys at the exact same time. 12th SS getting a Tiger E in Phase B has a lot less impact if the Scots also start deploying their 17 pounders. Indeed, it's notable that the "super units" with the most impact - like the 12th SS Firefly - are the ones that exist in Phase A where their "counter" units may not be available yet; which again frontloads most of the excitement in the game.
Finally, the imposition of a game timer puts pressure on players to refrain from quitting until the end of the match. The problem here is that it also tends to prolong the agony of a match that's clearly already lost. In SC by contrast going "GG" is acceptable for a simple reason - you don't want players to feel beat down after a match. You want them to be ready to play another round - either because they want to win again or they want to avenge a loss.
In summary, RTS games typically have a pacing structure that builds to a climax. The game starts a little slow but builds up to a very exciting climax that involves a big battle. The game then typically ends very quickly after the big battle as there's no point to playing the rest of the match which turns into a mop-up operation.
Steel Division and RD by contrast frontloads all of the excitement at the start. You get a big battle immediately that often involves some super units that are hard to counter. It then all goes downhill as the match turns into turtling to build up or piecemeal deployment of units. Worse the matches are encouraged to "go the distance" even if one side or another is already clearly winning. This is the very opposite of the typical RTS model where a match ends on a climax.
, but it's nice when it starts too automate itself so you can focus on your army and defending your settlements and what have you.
