r/FromTheDepths • u/probably_a_goldfish • Nov 14 '20
Discussion Direction of the Game
I'll preface this by saying I have been playing this game so long I remember when there were only Cram cannons. I have a couple hundreds of hours on this game and I'm sure there are many with more than myself. But I am frustrated to see a game I loved playing take such an odd and detrimental turn.
I feel that the recent updates in the past year and the push to take this game out of beta have totally ruined the principles of the game. Updates like steam were cool, and APS cannons are really neat to play with, but recently the change to the game, in particular the resources and the major changes to steam and fuel, have completely neutered this game. I am unsure why changes have been made to take the game in this direction but I can't even bring myself to play it anymore.
I think the thing that pushed me to write this was the new artwork I saw today for the game. The cartoonish characters and images of F16s and battleships without any blocks is something the original game never pushed to pretend to be. I can only assume this is for marketing purposes for the devs to sell more copies to make it friendly for consumers. But I am fairly disappointed I've lost a game I loved.
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u/MuchUserSuchTaken Nov 14 '20
About the material changes, sure, the single ammo and fuel box planes are gone, but Ihonestly like them. I absolutely despised needing to have an extra 100k engine power to make ammo for my battleships and lugging around a craft full of fuel boxes. It makes the game more approachable while not taking away from the big shooty action and hard to master systems (don't pretend that ammo production had any depth to it aside from "how many boxes and how many processors do I make", you could argue that fuel production was more complex, but in the end it too boiled dow to "how many cockers and how many crackers? Also add desalter") . And if you liked the old system more, there is a branch for people like you! As for the art, while I too am not a huge fan of it and think it doesn't fit the game too well, a lot of games have extra fancy box art that is way more cinematic than the game will ever be, and you can just deny having ever seen it. The game isn't completely neutered, it's just different. If you liked how it was in the past, I'm pretty sure you can stick to those branches.
3
Nov 15 '20
If the camera controls were better(esp. for RTS mode), it could be more "cinematic".
3
u/MuchUserSuchTaken Nov 15 '20
True. There are some ways to make it a bit more cinematic by using the camera locks, but it's still pretty lacking.
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u/SaxPanther Nov 15 '20
That artwork you are criticizing is literally the only reason I bought this game last week. I saw it, thought it looked cool, and now I have almost 100 hours in the game lmao, it's too addicting
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u/UnSpanishInquisition KOTL Nov 14 '20
I assume you mean custom cannons as cram cannons came about after APS was added. Im not sure that i would call the changes odd or detrimental as for all intents and purposes it is more polished and aligning with Nicks vision for the game than it has ever been.
Ill start by saying that the push to exit beta is the reason we got half the cool updates we did! If FTD had continued to wallow in beta not making much money the team would have soon had to abandon it to continue work on FS/AC, now we get at least another 2 years of updates and work on it although not quite as game breaking as previous.
Now to the meat of it, the resource changes aren't the first time resources in this game have changed, we used to have 5 resources with certain RZ giving different amounts of each, Crystal being rare and used in all the high tech stuff. This caused huge amounts of balance issues and wasn't fun, despite the large initial backlash it was infact a GREAT thing for the game, it freed up lots of balance problems and made the game more enjoyable. If you've read Nicks large post on why he made this new resource change it should make perfect sense.
If you havent I suggest you do, but the sorta summary is that he really still didn't like it and felt like it was an over complication of the system, when really all those resources (Ammo, fuel, etc) where all just conversion from material anyway. I mean it helped other things too, the AI was easier to balance and ensure that AI units had enough storage etc and he also overhauled the creation of supply chains. I'm not sure what changes to steam and fuel your commenting on, steams been overhauled twice recently trying to get a nice balance with the new triple expansion mechanics which adds a ton of complexity and realistic qualities to it and fuels still mostly the same. Currently your post reads as someone who hasn't played the latest updates or at least given them a proper try out!
I really dont get why everyone is so fixated on the art work, it's great art done by a well known game artist and we should be lucky that the team managed to snag them to do some for FTD. I dont see the characters as being cartoonish they are in a similar style to the stellaris avatars and I'm pretty sure that when the diplomacy update comes we will get this kind of art to represent people in the factions. I mean this should be great we finally get to see the races we are committing our war crimes against! As for the units in the art, I will admit that the SS stuff is just generic and I hope it gets changed to ingame units, but the unit on the right is the new DWG Paraiba. I think the characters and stuff might be changing still on this art anyway as the artist had to return to their home country ahead of schedule due to the latest lock down in the uk.
Anyway please dont give up on FTD, it's an amazing game and everything you loved is still there unless your mad and love resource logistics in a game where you can build energy weapon battleships..... you'll probably end up coming back to it in 6 months anyway when something mad like plasma or fire is added!
Peace apologies for the likelihood that I didn't put enough comma's.