What's missing from the gameplay on this mod

[Stev]

Firstly, thanks for an awesome mod. Wow.

 

So anyway I've been switching back and forth between Warlords and Homeworld 2 classic and I have a few thoughts on what I feel is missing from Warlords gameplay. I generally play skirmish vs CPU so that might influence my gameplay desires.

 

Anyway, it seems like Warlords is lacking a clearly defined tech tree with individual strengths and weaknesses. If that was defined, then you could introduce research and would be able to build better fleets I think. It would add some depth to the mod which is lacking currently, but present in the original. If you separated the ships into classes and had clearer strengths and weaknesses against other classes (this may mean less 'official', but more playability) I think it would really help.

 

Having carrier-style ships with customisable fighter, corvette, frigate facilities - also like in the original - would help I think.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love the mod. It looks, feels and sounds gorgeous and it's quite possibly one of the best star wars computer game experiences I've had! I guess it just feels like at the moment it's more designed around build huge fleets quickly and have massive star wars battles. Which is fun, but the fun is limited. If you built a more balanced structure like in other RTS, then I think the building the campaign would be much easier too, because missions could be built on the same facility interface but with new elements added, as is done in other RTS games.

 

Well, those are my thoughts anyway. I don't know if these are things that are planning to be addressed, or if others have mentioned them - apologies if so. Just thought I'd drop round and say thanks and give a bit of feedback. Now I'm off to test out 0.60.

Edited May 27, 2007 by Stev

[Evaders99]

Eville has said he's not going to worry about balance so much. This isn't a "X unit is countered by Y unit" game. Rather, it is the most amount of units from the SW world, much like Total Annihilation and its mods. So in this way, you won't see each group has a specific counterpart unit in any other group.

 

Not to discourage you. You are free to work on any elements "like in other RTS" games. There have been projects to do it, but that just makes it like any other RTS...

[EvilleJedi]

There's very little room for VS strong and weak in the game. The reason being that with so many ships there are only a few ships that are truly useful, the Loronar strike cruiser is a great example of this. It is a small ship with the firepower of a dreadnaught, ion cannons and decent star fighter protection. It is fast and cheap for its power, in most cases building other frigates is a waste of time. This is just a fact of how useful the ship is. Star destroyers are the same way, they are just so well rounded because they are.

 

The only major VS built into the game are that bombers and missile ships are good at killing subsystems, interceptors and corvettes are good at killing bombers. Everything beyond that is simply a 'you get what you pay for' in terms of performance. I think the problem is that I'm approaching warlords as a simulator, not as starcraft (which I honestly have no interest in outside of singleplayer because of its retarded over-balancing which is great for Korean competitive play, but not much else)

[shadowlegion421]

I think the issue is that you're approaching this mod in terms of what your experience in the HW2 classic was, and thats just not what this is about. This is all about canon depictions of canon ships, is canon roles. all about accuracy to the star wars universe. The Bacta War in the X-Wing series likely would have gone a lot differently if the Drysso, Commander of the Lusankya, had realized he was outclassed in the starfighter department, sold off some torpedo launchers to build a fighter factory and pumped out 5 squads of TIE Defenders. It's just a tad ridiculous. The best way to look at this mod is as a direct port of the HW2 game engine to an existing star wars game, not a mod of HW2. HW2 lends nothing to this project but the engine, and only because it was the best available at the time the project started. And honestly, id be pissed if EJ decided to start modding EAW or some crap like that instead, because, to date, HW2 is the best game for this sort of project, regardless of what RTS's may be newer. This is a mod for Star Wars fans, not HW2 fans. You're expected to adapt your strategies to those employed in the movies and books to achieve victory. HW2 tactics dont work, because HW2 is balanced, and the Star Wars universe is not. When the Executer, the first Super Star Destroyer, was completed, there was nothing, not one single ship, in existence in the rest of the known galaxy that could counter it. So tactics were devised to take it out, such as abushes, hit and fade attacks designed to wear it down over time, and massed bomber attacks using nothing but starfighters, since the SSD would eat Mon Cal Starcruisers up all day, but was reduced to relying on its own starfighters for small ship defense. It wasnt until around 30 years after the Super Star Destroyer's introduction that the New Republic came up with a ship to counter it 1v1, and by that time, there were bigger, meaner things out there anyway. In this mod, you have to adapt to the side you play. I am almost exclusively and imperial player. I never get beat by the comp as Imp, because i know each ship very well, i know what they are and arent good for, what i can use for high damage and what i can use to protect them. I struggle a lot when i venture in to the Allince build tree. I dont know those ships very well, i dont knoe the strengths and weaknesses of each, and the alliance in not suited to capital ship slugging matches, like the empire is. If you read star wars, and your favorite part of the books are the space battles, this mod is for you. If you saw the movies and thought they were cool, but didnt go beyond that, your likely going to be lost in this mod until you play it for a while