Negative review bombs on Steam

[Straph]

After playing 16 hours of Surviving Mars, I like many others have posted negative reviews on Steam. Surviving mars went from 85% very positive to 68% mixed in a single day after release. I would hope that this is a red flag for the developer/publisher that they dropped the ball on this game's development. It needs major work to be playable without being frustrated with the lack of controls, and or game mechanics that don't work I.E. colonists don't hold jobs in their field even though there are available openings.

I'm curious as to what is being done to salvage the game in it's current state? Should I ask for a refund, or wait in hopes that the developer/publish promises to fix issues revolving around this game?

 

[Fragasaur]

I feel exactly the same.

I've also played about 16 hours and enjoyed many aspects of the game but there are several serious problems. The interface appears to be written for consoles with only a simple mapping for use on the PCs. In my opinion, the PC interface needs a nearly complete overhaul so that it takes advantage of the capabilities of the PC. For example, right-clicking is largely wasted when it could be exposing context-specific options for the object you clicked on. There is a lot of wonderful complexity to this game but having to laboriously fight through this interface is taking a lot of the fun out of it.

The real showstopper at the moment is the broken mechanics. For example, the lack of control of inventory management via your drones. By mid-game, this isn't playable if your domes are spread out across the map. The mechanic is just too simple and just doesn't work.

I'm extremely disappointed because there is so much potential in Surviving Mars. So many aspects of the game are great. It is visually beautiful! The underlying framework with the rockets, RC vehicles, domes, interior & exterior buildings, and all of the interconnecting infrastructure is well thought out, complex, and challenging.

I'll probably wait a day or two to see if Paradox makes any statements about these issues. If not I'll try getting a refund from Steam. I suspect there will be a lot of us asking for one.

 

[Straph]

Yeah I am enjoying the game a lot, but I'm also getting increasingly frustrated with the mechanics not working. The colonists won't stay in their own field much less a job they just move around like morons. If we were to actually go to Mars we would have people specifically don't a job and that is their role for the mission. So if we ask an engineer to go to Mars we don't want him bagging groceries, or working in the gardens. At least not for his main job, if he likes growing tomatoes on the side no big deal.

That's just the tip of the ice berg, and there are so many other issues that make the game shallow. Simple things that would be included in an RTS from the 90's. Something as simple as you can't click and draw to select all drones that came off the rocket to assign them to the drone depot. Like really? Single click 20 drones and assign them? Then there is the epic slow pace of the game. A Sol = 1 year, but then there are daily outputs for the buildings but they don't put out a years worth during the Sol. So it's really hard to keep up with the demands of units needed for maintenance if you spread out. Then the super small control area of drones, and domes. You pretty much need 20 domes to get at all the goodies around the land. This is almost impossible since each dome has to have the same cookie cutter derp layout in order to maintain itself over time. After you build your first small dome that is the last one you'll build so you can make sure you can get all the items you need to sustain your dome.

Again so main issues that it's hard to even come up with a solid list without dragging on about it. I'm hoping Paradox say something tomorrow, or I'll ask for a refund and wait until it's on sale in 6 months when it actually gets fixed. I think I've asked for 1 refund from steam, and it was really bad. I didn't even ask for a refund for Sim City when EA broke it, or I didn't get one. Though that was the start of EA getting black listed.

 

[corny.1234]

I couldn't agree more.

The game feels like an early acces.

GUI obviously "optimised" for consoles. Sometimes an actions requires a right click, sometimes a left click, and no queue order option? This is 2018...
No mini map, you have to zoom out to not see your rovers...

Then there are the mechanics.

• No list of the colonist (just a statistic of how many have what attribute)
• No automatic transfer of workers between the domes
• No building shared between the domes - How many mars universities do I need?
• Assigning a worker to a new done is a nighmare, first you have to search the one you want to assign, then assign him to his new work, but does he search a new home in the dome? Nope, he prefers to be homeless. So you have to assign him to a new home.
• No automation of the ressources. Only viable way to transport ressources automaticaly across your base is to spread out a fine mesh of all ressource depots. You dont have any controll over transport routes. You cant preoritize depots.

I thought if paradox was the publisher, there would be some sort of quality controle or supervising.

 

[Straph]

What's worse though is that none of the tech upgrades change the appearance of any of the units. You couldn't tell the difference between a regular bot, and a fully upgraded one. At least not that I noticed. There are so many aspects of the game that scream early access. Paradox is the publisher, but that just means they're holding the developer hostage, and call all the shots. So if a game turns out bad it's on the publisher, the developer usually does what they're told. A lot of smaller studios go to big publishers to get funding for projects if they don't have the funds to do so.

 

[harishrajan96]

I too feel the same, i am just thinking if i should take a refund and use the money for the possible EU IV dlc discount when rule Britannia drops. But I still have trust that paradox as a publisher will do something, (like stellaris 2.0)

 

[Straph]

Well so far not a peep from Paradox. Normally with this kind of negative spike on the game developer/publishers make a statement. It's already sitting at 64%, only a few more percentage and it start going negative instead of mixed. Granted if they don't the rating will just continue to drop until it's a negative reviewed game. No turning back from that.

 

[aixenv]

if you've played 16hrs the odds of steam giving you a refund are close to nil, but good luck

i obviously agree with everyone here, i have about 53 hrs played since launch and i can say it's got tremendous potential BUT it is severely broken in a variety of areas

they could rename the game in endgame to "does mars have enough space for all the domes you have to build for your overblown exponentially growing population"

i got my colony up to about 1900 people and i think i'm pretty much resigned to pausing any further playing until i see patch notes/acknowledgements about fixing these fundamental game flaws

i do not want to make people suffer to prevent them from having babies, the in-game logic of the colonist is horrendous and the colony metrics and UI controls need work

still love the game - BUT - it is effectively broken once you get to a certain point (i have all researches, making like 9k research a sol, have like 195,000M money..unlimited resources if need be, but that doesnt mean i want 50 domes...)

 

[Straph]

Steam is awesome and I've never had an issue with refunds. Granted I have only done 1 refund in my 7 years of purchasing from steam. If you abuse the steam refund policy they will stick to their strict policy for returns however, if you don't refund games that often and really dislike a game you can easily get a refund regardless of time spent in game. I don't plan on getting a refund for this game, as I'm optimistic that it will get patches to fix many of the issues it has. I have 36 hours played, and there is a lot to enjoy, but the frustration does happen more often than it needs to. Even though I'm pretty pissed about the poor execution of it's PC release still.

It terms of the broken state of the game, it's broken as soon as you start your first dome. Then you're basically playing catch up the rest of the game trying to support a broken way of life. The should have named the game "send all the idiots to Mars". It would be much more accurate. I think anything designed for use on Mars has to have at least a 10 year life span, with no maintenance. Opportunity was designed to last 90 days, but 13 years later it's still kicking around. The developer clearly didn't have good understanding of how space tech works. Even if you have to maintain the tech on mars you shouldn't have 5 pipe breaks on any given sol. That's just horrible design. How often do pipes break down in your house? Yeah they usually last the lifespan of the house about 30~50 years. Even pipes exposed in earths atmo last for decades without needing repair. They recently found pipe main that was from the 1800's that was still working. They just happened to be replacing something else and thought well while we are here, might as well replace this with a newer version just to be safe.

There are a lot of maintenance issues that really seem to be suck all your resources out early game, without the tools necessary to combat this issue. Don't get me started on back to back crop failures at 100% soil. My whole colony died because I had 5+ crops fail in a row. Like really get your RNG straight. The average crop fail rate in the US is 39%. That takes into account any crop from small farm to industrial scale. On Mars the rate would be closer to 9% because you'd have professionals looking after the crops and mostly hydroponics where you can control 98% of the variables. So when 8 out of 10 crops fail you're looking at a 80% failure rate. You wouldn't send people to Mars if you didn't have a means to feed them reliably either via rockets, or locally sourced food. After 100 sols and all the tech researched you'd think there would be a tech that negates the failure rate.

Though I've already seen modders working hard to address the bad programming of the developer. I'm just waiting for a maintenance mod that decreases pipes, and cable breaking to 10% of it's current value, because pipes and cables rarely break because they don't have moving parts. Increases the time before buildings break down by 50%. Finally crops that have a realistic failure rate starting at 39%, that improves with tech development.

These are all things that the developer should address among many others. Like colonist job allocation if there is an engineer opening they will go for that before an not specialized role.

I agree the game has potential, but it fell flat on it's face.

 

[spannbeton]

Does anyone remember the state Stellaris was in at launch? It was horrible...

 

[aixenv]

same with cities:skylines it was unplayable at a certain point due to traffic logic/issues

not to mention garbage truck AI was horrible, they fixed all that

i have great hope for this game . i WOULD however like to see an acknowledgement from the devs/publisher they understand the negative feedback and are working to correct a lot of the issues that should not have ever been released in the first place

the poor colonist AI is currently game breaking, the lack of birth control is game breaking, the lack of metrics/better data on the colonist makes that feature seem to be thrown in; if you're going to have "sims" you need a LOT of datasets and multiple ways to analyze that data, that's the whole fun/point of a sim manager...NOT to mention the point, a scientist should want to be at the research lab not working in a diner (as others have stated and as I have seen in my own run throughs of the game)

 

[NetSurge]

if you've played 16hrs the odds of steam giving you a refund are close to nil, but good luck

i obviously agree with everyone here, i have about 53 hrs played since launch and i can say it's got tremendous potential BUT it is severely broken in a variety of areas

they could rename the game in endgame to "does mars have enough space for all the domes you have to build for your overblown exponentially growing population"

i got my colony up to about 1900 people and i think i'm pretty much resigned to pausing any further playing until i see patch notes/acknowledgements about fixing these fundamental game flaws

i do not want to make people suffer to prevent them from having babies, the in-game logic of the colonist is horrendous and the colony metrics and UI controls need work

still love the game - BUT - it is effectively broken once you get to a certain point (i have all researches, making like 9k research a sol, have like 195,000M money..unlimited resources if need be, but that doesnt mean i want 50 domes...)

I Agree, I hit a point where I could all of a sudden not build farms / domes fast enough. It came out of nowhere, just BAM, food shortages and homeless everywhere. Thankfully i had enough cash at that point to just start cargoing rocket loads of food to get me through until the farms started producing. But, I kinda found that fun, but it was out of nowhere.

I would consider the end of the current game when you get the random endgame scenario. When that is over, I think you can continue to build, but it will be more fun to start a new game, with higher difficulty and different location. Yes, you can keep playing the current game / colony, But i had a little more fun my second play through with higher difficulty.

 

[Poeta73]

They should change it, hopefully just for the moment, from Surviving Mars to Surviving Bugs

I love the game, played moreless 20 hours nearly forgetting to feed my daughters.. please fix the main problems (jobs, sharing buildings for example university and amenities.. - i'd love to have a dome like Las Vegas.. only casino's..).