Hi everyone,
given my experiences with eugen systems games, heres a small list of some points that always bothered me a bit and which i think can be improved and, most of all, avoided when it comes to steel division
Honest gameplay trailers:
The Focus trailers for the wargame titles were misleading, they showed a lot of "action" gameplay which was not the core element of the wargame series. Wargame is more about tactical and strategic decisions and a great varity of units to choose from, not about hollywood like action sequences. I think that a honest gameplay/ launch trailer would have been much better.
(Heres the Red Dragon Trailer as an exemple)
Usefull tutorials and starter decks:
Well, the eugen systems gameplay tutorials are about as good and helpfull as the starter decks (small hint, they are not). The community did a very good job with various tutorials that are truly helpfull and some very nice players provide the noobs with assistance and starter decks, but that should be the job of the developer, not of the community. If a new player starts to play wargame, plays the tutorial and then goes into multiplayer with a starter deck he can not win. Even worse, he will be outright banned by most hosts for using a starter deck, since they are so extremly bad. This is extremly toxic and frustrating for new players, since you really have to invest some effort and research by yourself to be even remotly comepetitive.
Community management:
Was a bit terrible with Act of Agression from my point of view. There were lots of posts and threads about issues that bothered parts of the playerbase (inital level of zoom, unit balancing, lack of new features, etc.) Eugen did adress these points, they even did a survey to find out if they were truly bothersome, but it was albeit a little too late and not consequential enough to save Act of Agression from failing.
During the years, a "core" wargame playerbase and community has developed that seems to be switching to steel division, consisting of vew, but very active and involved players (razzmann, raven and the like). Most of the discussions on the wargame forums are being dominated by users with well over 1.000,00 posts, leading to a relativly loud minority. This must not be a bad thing at all, but it is dangerous, since it can lead to a wrong perception of what "the overall playerbase" wants.
Ranked:
Barely no one plays ranked. Ranked is great to find out unit imbalances, since most cheesy tactics are encountered in ranked gameplay, but centering balance around ranked can be misleading, since most people tend to play regular destruction or conquest or 10vs10 games.
Campaign:
From my personal experience the R.U.S.E. and W:EE campaigns were enyoiable, the W:AB and W:RD ones not so much. The idea behind the flexible campaign is great, but it was not implented well enough (probably due to a lack of ressources, but i dont know) to be a lot of fun. A static campaing may be only fun for one time, but if the game is centered about the Multiplayer anyways, its not so much of big deal. Also, static images are not very expensive and do a great job when it comes to immersion and atmosphere (Battlefleet gothic:Armada did a very good job with this).
This list is not complete (i have to go to work now sadly) and its certainly biased
given my experiences with eugen systems games, heres a small list of some points that always bothered me a bit and which i think can be improved and, most of all, avoided when it comes to steel division
Honest gameplay trailers:
The Focus trailers for the wargame titles were misleading, they showed a lot of "action" gameplay which was not the core element of the wargame series. Wargame is more about tactical and strategic decisions and a great varity of units to choose from, not about hollywood like action sequences. I think that a honest gameplay/ launch trailer would have been much better.
(Heres the Red Dragon Trailer as an exemple)
Usefull tutorials and starter decks:
Well, the eugen systems gameplay tutorials are about as good and helpfull as the starter decks (small hint, they are not). The community did a very good job with various tutorials that are truly helpfull and some very nice players provide the noobs with assistance and starter decks, but that should be the job of the developer, not of the community. If a new player starts to play wargame, plays the tutorial and then goes into multiplayer with a starter deck he can not win. Even worse, he will be outright banned by most hosts for using a starter deck, since they are so extremly bad. This is extremly toxic and frustrating for new players, since you really have to invest some effort and research by yourself to be even remotly comepetitive.
Community management:
Was a bit terrible with Act of Agression from my point of view. There were lots of posts and threads about issues that bothered parts of the playerbase (inital level of zoom, unit balancing, lack of new features, etc.) Eugen did adress these points, they even did a survey to find out if they were truly bothersome, but it was albeit a little too late and not consequential enough to save Act of Agression from failing.
During the years, a "core" wargame playerbase and community has developed that seems to be switching to steel division, consisting of vew, but very active and involved players (razzmann, raven and the like). Most of the discussions on the wargame forums are being dominated by users with well over 1.000,00 posts, leading to a relativly loud minority. This must not be a bad thing at all, but it is dangerous, since it can lead to a wrong perception of what "the overall playerbase" wants.
Ranked:
Barely no one plays ranked. Ranked is great to find out unit imbalances, since most cheesy tactics are encountered in ranked gameplay, but centering balance around ranked can be misleading, since most people tend to play regular destruction or conquest or 10vs10 games.
Campaign:
From my personal experience the R.U.S.E. and W:EE campaigns were enyoiable, the W:AB and W:RD ones not so much. The idea behind the flexible campaign is great, but it was not implented well enough (probably due to a lack of ressources, but i dont know) to be a lot of fun. A static campaing may be only fun for one time, but if the game is centered about the Multiplayer anyways, its not so much of big deal. Also, static images are not very expensive and do a great job when it comes to immersion and atmosphere (Battlefleet gothic:Armada did a very good job with this).
This list is not complete (i have to go to work now sadly) and its certainly biased
