Even with all it's faults, I still think Steel Division is the best RTS, equal with Wargame EE

[Karlburg]

Disagree. The game is not easy to pick up nor is it made to fill a place in the casual section of your steam library. Not every game has to be redesigned because the learning curve is too steep for some people.

I'm not asking for this game to fit in the casual section of the steam library.

I don't know if it needs too terribly substantial changes at a basic design level but an MP-centric game needs a sizable population to work, and part of that is making sure people actually want to take the time to learn the game. I know a lot of people who bounced off of this game. I like the design for the most part, but there's obviously something off-putting about it. You can learn to play and learn to get good, but there has to be something there to make that process seem appealing, and a cliff isn't it for most people.

I think a lot of the problem is that the game's bad at teaching you how to play it- a lot of wargame skills carry over, but it's different enough from wargame that the wargame crowd didn't jump over, so you have to teach brand new people how to play it. I don't think the SP campaign does a great job, though the tutorial is very good at teaching the very basics. The problem is, the game doesn't give you the kind of experiences where you put the basics together at a level where you can see how everything interacts- you go straight from small-scale tutorial to 'battle with 4 places where things are happening at the same time', and that's in SP. If you jump into MP, you'll either get on the wrong side of a stomp, play a much better ranked opponent, or see the game's balance in 10v10.

Also, SD should really find a better way to present the roles of units and the effect of vet, rather than leaving players to have to read a forum or look at game files to figure out that the Stuart is an extremely powerful point blank opponent because of stabilizers or that vet has a massive effect on almost every kind of unit.

 

[Person012345]

Vulcan is super helpful and I generally recommend his channel to anyone I try to get into the game, you can pick up a lot of tactics and tips from his videos that can really help out in just generally playing the game better and getting over the learning curve. Even I've picked things up watching him.

 

[LegioX]

Vulcan is super helpful and I generally recommend his channel to anyone I try to get into the game, you can pick up a lot of tactics and tips from his videos that can really help out in just generally playing the game better and getting over the learning curve. Even I've picked things up watching him.

Yep, by watching him I have learned to fear IGA teams

 

[Rojan]

I'm not asking for this game to fit in the casual section of the steam library.

I don't know if it needs too terribly substantial changes at a basic design level but an MP-centric game needs a sizable population to work, and part of that is making sure people actually want to take the time to learn the game. I know a lot of people who bounced off of this game. I like the design for the most part, but there's obviously something off-putting about it. You can learn to play and learn to get good, but there has to be something there to make that process seem appealing, and a cliff isn't it for most people.

I think a lot of the problem is that the game's bad at teaching you how to play it- a lot of wargame skills carry over, but it's different enough from wargame that the wargame crowd didn't jump over, so you have to teach brand new people how to play it. I don't think the SP campaign does a great job, though the tutorial is very good at teaching the very basics. The problem is, the game doesn't give you the kind of experiences where you put the basics together at a level where you can see how everything interacts- you go straight from small-scale tutorial to 'battle with 4 places where things are happening at the same time', and that's in SP. If you jump into MP, you'll either get on the wrong side of a stomp, play a much better ranked opponent, or see the game's balance in 10v10.

Also, SD should really find a better way to present the roles of units and the effect of vet, rather than leaving players to have to read a forum or look at game files to figure out that the Stuart is an extremely powerful point blank opponent because of stabilizers or that vet has a massive effect on almost every kind of unit.

I see. I agree that the game doesn't do the best job teaching people but I think it is impossible because of a changing meta, added content, etc. It should be the communities job to do that. From what I have seen it looks like they do do that as well.

 

[Karlburg]

I see. I agree that the game doesn't do the best job teaching people but I think it is impossible because of a changing meta, added content, etc. It should be the communities job to do that. From what I have seen it looks like they do do that as well.

Personally, if a game isn't accessible and people are bouncing off of it like this, I think that's on the dev- the devs should be the ones teaching you how to play. I shouldn't have to go read patch notes to learn about stabilizers or turret traverse speed.

 

[Rojan]

Personally, if a game isn't accessible and people are bouncing off of it like this, I think that's on the dev- the devs should be the ones teaching you how to play. I shouldn't have to go read patch notes to learn about stabilizers or turret traverse speed.

Why couldn't a community wikipedia encyclopedia type thing do the same thing?

 

[jammiebadger]

Why couldn't a community wikipedia encyclopedia type thing do the same thing?

You mean something like this? https://steeldivision.gamepedia.com/Steel_Division:_Normandy_44_Wiki

 

[Rojan]

You mean something like this? https://steeldivision.gamepedia.com/Steel_Division:_Normandy_44_Wiki

Yeah, but no one updates it though. Hell, it could even be a joint thing done with developers and top tier players. The problem I have with just dumping it on development is that they actually have to have someone that is good at the game writing their stuff. I don't know if there are any good players on the development team.

 

[Nebelwerfer 42]

Disagree. The game is not easy to pick up nor is it made to fill a place in the casual section of your steam library. Not every game has to be redesigned because the learning curve is too steep for some people.

Then the game has completely failed at whatever it was designed to do, we cannot even hit above 200 players at night, I've stopped playing currently because of playing against the same guys time after time. We know this game will never be COH2 popular, it simply isn't that genre or design, but there's something wrong when the game can hardly stay afloat a mere month or two after release.

I've gone back to Wargame Red Dragon and can say that it easily averages about twice the players that SD44 has.

 

[Zinegata]

Why couldn't a community wikipedia encyclopedia type thing do the same thing?

Because manuals and written guides are not in the vogue with the new gamer generation. Folks who grew up reading Gamefaqs value written guides very much, but most younger players are more used to streams. Problem is those streams take time to make and watch, and a 40 minute play session (like the ones Vulcan are still soldiering on with) are simply a bit too long especially when only a couple of lessons can be condensed per match and there is a lot of "my unit died because I wasn't paying attention".

I think WoT have shown that a 15 minute match is really the upper limit for a multiplayer play session. its siblings with slightly longer match times tended to do a lot worse.

 

[Claremont Waltz]

I think a better question to ask is, who actually though Imperial Dane would fully embrace a new game? Him and a few others from the COH 2 community have made their name playing that game series, switching to a new game from a smaller developer ( compared to SEGA ) with a smaller community ( less views and less money ) is a bad decision for them. Without the same visual immersion that COH 2 has that SD gives up, for more strategic and historical immersion, they would lose large numbers of their viewers who want just watch - not pay attention.

Streamers who aren't ESPROUTS switch games all the time, and CoH 2 is hardly a big name game that people make more than beer money playing. It's just more popular than Eugen's games. Heck, for a while Dane was playing more Total War (hiss) than CoH2.

Looking to these streamers to promote a new game isn't the way to approach expanding the series. IMO this game needs to promote it's own experts and dedicated players who care as much about this game as he cares about COH 2 and it's voice acting.

Eugen wants to broaden appeal of game. Getting people who didn't play their franchise before too play it is how they do that. Steamers in adjacent games are a big way to do that. Some of the CoH2 guys switched to Goo and Kharak before those collpsed, so it isn't unheard of. And, again, as someone who played a shit load of CoH and CoH2 and was springboarded into WRD franchise after a terrible intro to first EE and then ALB by some friends, it isn't a big stretch for people to go CoH2 to WRD or SD. It's the most accessible active adjacent game. Relic does this with DoW. Some people play both DoW and CoH (hi) but many have a thematic preference for one or the other.

The biggest drain on this game is the community of players who came from Wargame and didn't embrace Steel Division. Instead of just accepting that they dislike the game, they continue to come here and bash it in public, endlessly. Giving new customers or players to this series game type a bad initial impression and a head start looking in the other direction because of the negativity and elitism. Between the reviews, forum posts and the random "general chat room question: is the game dead? - while sitting in the game lobby asking the question" it really has to stop.

Most people didn't come from WRD, or at least other games were a better predictor. I agree that grabbing more WRD people would have been nice from a me getting to play SD more perspective, but from a Eugen business perspective and my own interest in continuing to also play WRD at the same time as SD, new people with only some player base overlap would be best.

I think you have causality backwards with the dead game stuff (which does also piss me off even though I sometimes get frustrated and join in). People weren't yelling it until numbers started collapsing after launch. Only thing that'll shut it up is successful action by eugen to turn things around.

Steel Division needs a few things. Maps, some balance, some tweaks and some extra content - all over time. This game is what I assume to be the first of an entire series that will encompass a few theaters and time periods. I'm going to be patient and see where this goes and enjoy the game in the mean time.

Presumably AoA was supposed to have a sequel too. I personally think audio cues and other situational player assist features should be a neat term priority.

 

[Archonsod]

Presumably AoA was supposed to have a sequel too. I personally think audio cues and other situational player assist features should be a neat term priority.

Yep. If there's one thing CoH does well it's the audio feedback. SD on the other hand is terrible. I've lost count of the times I've heard a unit shout "Medic!" or the like when it spots a new unit. I could understand if said unit was shooting at them, but this isn't the case (in fact I'm pretty sure it's a bug, seems once a unit gets stressed it sticks with the stressed barks even when it's no longer stressed).

I remember one of the issues I had when I first started playing WG was understanding how a deck should look. There's not really any kind of tutorial or guidance in the game for the deck building aspect. You can select a unit and hover over it's card for a breakdown of the weapon stats, but you're still left to your own devices when considering what it's purpose is and how many you should include (if any). Consider the confusion a new player is likely to feel when presented with a choice between "AB Rifles" and "AB Bren" for example, or any of the German unit designations for a monolingual English speaker. A lot of these issues don't even require a full tutorial to solve - simply having it note somewhere in the unit description ("These guys are good in close assault") would provide a nudge. Even some pop-ups (configurable, veteran players should be able to turn them off) to warn you when you've built a deck with no air cover, or a lack of infantry etc.

I wonder if the lack of even basic pointers when it comes to deck building might be one of the main issues. The combat might be more complex than your average Starcraft clone, but it has a tutorial and is still an RTS at some level, which most gamers are fluent in. The deck building on the other hand isn't something you see that often, and while you can look at the standard deck in the deck builder and try to work out what's there it still largely boils down to trial and error on the field and some of the newbie mistakes can be quite frustrating - the game is perfectly happy to let you build a deck without any supply trucks whatsoever for example, and that's the kind of mistake you're only going to notice half way through an actual match (which if you're anything like me is probably also the first game you happen to be winning. Up until that point ...)

 

[Sigwald]

I think the alert sounds are messed up a bit at the moment. During a whole game yesterday, I heard the english airborne shouting "Retreat !" when they saw an ennemy unit.

As the devs (and I) are french, I know it's healthy to bear a certain level of rivalry towards the perfidious Albion, but this is getting too far.

 

[Claremont Waltz]

Because manuals and written guides are not in the vogue with the new gamer generation. Folks who grew up reading Gamefaqs value written guides very much, but most younger players are more used to streams.

Malarky. Us Olds are just as impatient to simply play a game rather than invest our scarce nerd hours on figuring out what the fuck the buttons do. Most of my friends in the 40s plus range who used to be big on dense RPGs and hex and chit wargames and the like have swapped to quicker experiences because adult life eats your time especially once you've had kids (kids: not even once).Us Olds are also way quicker to demand refunds and less patient with time wasting bullshit and annoying features than young people with tons of time to kill.

I think WoT have shown that a 15 minute match is really the upper limit for a multiplayer play session. its siblings with slightly longer match times tended to do a lot worse.

15m is a good breakpoint, but WoWS has longer matches and still a plenty large community. The important thing isn't to be the biggest game, but to be a big enough game to keep the matchmaker and the devs well fed. 4k+ peak concurrent players seems to be the floor for getting a game quickly at any time, and CoH2 manages that despite MP games that can go on for upwards of an hour (a source of intense frustration for me, because I've got got make commitments to my wife about when we can do things and a CoH2 match running 30m longer than expected makes me look like an ass hole and is a not infrequent cause of drops by me and others). I wouldn't cry if SD managed to find a balanced way to cut the timer down to 30m, but 40m is plenty reasonable as a ceiling.

I maintain that balance issues and design unfriendliness to new players are the big reasons that player retention has been poor. I think KTs in 10v10 probably also played a not insignificant role

 

[xXSunSlayerXx]

I think WoT have shown that a 15 minute match is really the upper limit for a multiplayer play session. its siblings with slightly longer match times tended to do a lot worse.

Yes, you are completely right. I mean, look at Dota 2, which has an average of 40 minutes per match, with the possibility of going several hours. That game is completely dead. Who would play such a thing?

/s

 

[Zinegata]

Yes, you are completely right. I mean, look at Dota 2, which has an average of 40 minutes per match, with the possibility of going several hours. That game is completely dead. Who would play such a thing?

/s

I would argue that the majority of DOTA "players" today actually just watch the matches that they have no hope in competing in. Indeed, just as you are being sarcastic about DOTA the actual developers have started instituting newbie-friendly features (e.g. matchmaking only with newbies and highly rated veterans) because they see that the game is getting too toxic and isn't getting very many new players.

The play time most players are willing to sit through have, in fact, been shrinking year on year. DOTA's one of the few remaining outliers, and one can argue that it's mostly because it has one foot in the present era and one foot in the Warcraft 3 era where 1 hour games were still common.

 

[RoyalColor]

15m is a good breakpoint, but WoWS has longer matches and still a plenty large community. The important thing isn't to be the biggest game, but to be a big enough game to keep the matchmaker and the devs well fed. 4k+ peak concurrent players seems to be the floor for getting a game quickly at any time, and CoH2 manages that despite MP games that can go on for upwards of an hour (a source of intense frustration for me, because I've got got make commitments to my wife about when we can do things and a CoH2 match running 30m longer than expected makes me look like an ass hole and is a not infrequent cause of drops by me and others). I wouldn't cry if SD managed to find a balanced way to cut the timer down to 30m, but 40m is plenty reasonable as a ceiling.

I maintain that balance issues and design unfriendliness to new players are the big reasons that player retention has been poor. I think KTs in 10v10 probably also played a not insignificant role

You forgot to add 30mins you have to spend in the lobby waiting before the round even starts. Then top it up with crashes/disconnects during the match and you get frustrated casual with the feeling of 1.5 hour wasted time. Reconnect feature? Never heard of her.

There are so many frustrating things outside of the actual gameplay (which is hell to learn itself), that no wonder casuals can't be arsed to take it anymore and leave.

 

[Zinegata]

Streamers who aren't ESPROUTS switch games all the time, and CoH 2 is hardly a big name game that people make more than beer money playing. It's just more popular than Eugen's games. Heck, for a while Dane was playing more Total War (hiss) than CoH2.

CoH2 however is an actual AAA title and its basically the third biggest franchise on Steam behind Age of Empires and Total War at this point. And it's important to note that streamers tend to chase eyeballs - meaning they play games they may not necessarily like but are known and owned by a lot of players.

Presumably AoA was supposed to have a sequel too. I personally think audio cues and other situational player assist features should be a neat term priority.

A bit late here - but Dane's point about SD's lack of feedback in comparison to CoH has been an Eugen RTS issue since EE, and it's going to need much more than just audio cues.

Seeing the tanks and infantry doing stuff is what players want. CoH blew a lot of minds when it was released by how tanks would not only shoot at buildings garrisoned by enemy infantry, but actually target specific windows that have soldiers sticking out.

WG and SD... just doesn't have that. It's mostly staring at icons (in SD) or unpronounceable unit names moving around a map.

Note that this isn't to say there are concrete ways that the game can be improved. However, many of the ways will involve radically changing the game like changing the scale and engagement ranges so that you can actually see tanks up close most of the time.

 

[Protosszocker]

A bit late here - but Dane's point about SD's lack of feedback in comparison to CoH has been an Eugen RTS issue since EE, and it's going to need much more than just audio cues.

Seeing the tanks and infantry doing stuff is what players want. CoH blew a lot of minds when it was released by how tanks would not only shoot at buildings garrisoned by enemy infantry, but actually target specific windows that have soldiers sticking out.

WG and SD... just doesn't have that. It's mostly staring at icons (in SD) or unpronounceable unit names moving around a map.

Note that this isn't to say there are concrete ways that the game can be improved. However, many of the ways will involve radically changing the game like changing the scale and engagement ranges so that you can actually see tanks up close most of the time.

1. Why should you play SD if it would just be a copy of Coh
2. The scale if what makes this game so nice and if you have the auto scaling on big yo ustill see your tanks after zooming out. but a wargame stratagy game works like this. I mean in Total war you also mostly just watch your units fight from the far but you zoom in sometimes if you wanna have fun and watch them fight. Same for sd.
3. Coh and Coh2 are more like arcade games while SD wanna grap some authenticity.
4. Since when do units retreat in coh the way you want them to retreat. I dont like the retreat system in SD (even though I like the idea behind it) but the Coh one is even worse.

 

[reef75]

When I first go t the game I hardly touched it, too fast too many points just felt like unit spam. I recently returned to it using Tac Mod and playing on slow. The difference for me is a now have a fantastic skirmish wargame. I've had some incredible nail biting games with one, the AI coming so close to beating me all but a few points, only to have his over extended front rolled up on him. I both lose and win against the AI. I do however have a few deck rules to keep the game how I like it....

All decks are 28 units max.
Phase A aircraft only.
No off board arty as its only a skirmish.
Decks are created with a D Day + # theme. You will not get jagdpanthers on 6th June.
Decks fight decks that fought historically with the above theme adjusting available units.
Same division decks with maybe only one having armour or air support so you never quite know where the AI will hit you hard on the map.
I always play 3v3 or 4v4 with AI. This leads to me diverting troops to help out if the front starts collapsing. Its amazing how one AI might hold his front and another collapse.

Basically I have been playing this none stop for a few weeks and loving it. Glad I gave it another chance. My only gripe is mods not working with each other due to how they set up the system. I'd love Tac Mod, More Divisions, No-Glow to all work together but they all conflict even though not doing the same thing. In other games I have 50+ mods no problems.

With a little effort, even if you don't like the current game, hope the above gives a few some ideas to make it work for them. Its a fantastic game.

Steve.