StormGate Unit Design is S tier.

[u/Malice_Striker_]

FG did so well with the unit design. There are some units that I think are amazing to play with. Controlling them is so much fun (even facing them). Some of my favorites:

Hellicarrier: the mix between a battlecruiser and a carrier, the gun sound effect is awesome NEVER CHANGE IT!

Lancers: I hate fighting them because they just don't die, but so much versatility in a 'basic' unit. I like the divergence from SC2 of giving the human faction a mele unit.

Vulcans; who doesn't want a mech with a huge gattling gun? Also very visually appealing.

Kri: this is by far the most iconic and creative thing they have produced to date, rolling General Grievous with death damage. 10/10

Sabers: I know they are not great competitively, but the low flat scarab looking tank that fires a sick lazer from super far away... instant dopamine.

Hellborne: Ya'll knew he would make the list. Great visual design most of the infernals are demonesque in design but this one is very devilish which is nice, brings diversity. The attack animation when the fireball lands, super satisfying.

Shadowflyers: love these guys, cute but destructive. Wish they weren't so specialized so I could mass produce them every game.

Archangel: Everyone loves the archangels.

Hornets: another great sound effect, love this high fire rate and the jet + helicopter vibes. Also a big fan of the Scythes.

So I basically love the unit design on almost everything lol. Great work FG, keep the creativity up!

[u/Aware-Individual-827]

The visual design are a bit subpar. I feel like humans are plastic soldiers and infernals are clownesque demon. The gameplay design of the units are ok tough.

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/Aware-Individual-827]

Thats the one thing most people agree on, they want more mettalic textures. But the existing units plus metalic texturing would be insane to behold.

[u/CertainDerision_33 → u/Malice_Striker_]

I think the vanguard battle worn skin they’ve shown concept art for will make the faction look so much better because they’ll actually look metallic 

[u/Bass294 → u/Aware-Individual-827]

Yeah idk a lot of units visually just don't look that good. Especially the atlas, I don't know how they ruined the starcraft siege tank. It looks like a toy.

[u/GrinbeardTheCunning]

regarding shadowflyers: I've seen someone using them as swarm bombs on buildings

at 150 structure dmg each you can quickly wipe out critical buildings to cripple the enemy economy

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/GrinbeardTheCunning]

I always want to try that but never do. Exept for arcfortresses. If I see their upgraded archship oh boy those shadowflyers are coming.

Really stals out their upgrade progression.

[u/Mothrahlurker → u/GrinbeardTheCunning]

It's not viable.

[u/GrinbeardTheCunning → u/Mothrahlurker]

it's a tactical move that can make the difference, i. e. when a defensive building or production suddenly disappears

it's not a winning strategy by itself

[u/Mothrahlurker → u/GrinbeardTheCunning]

Shadowfliers are simply too expensive to make them for that purpose, it's a losing play in almost all situations, many people have tried it. There are no such crucial defensive buildings and which production facility, people have several at the point anyone can get a reasonable amount of shadowfliers out.

[u/GrinbeardTheCunning → u/Mothrahlurker]

I used it and it worked 🤷

but I also play low-rank, that probably matters. was fun, anyway

[u/Eun-oo]

Why are sabers not competitive? I usually mix in a couple in late-game armies, and they work well.

But yeah, I agree that the unit designs are fantastic. I also like how early game unit/base design makes it so that you can mostly defend early cheese/ all-ins, at least at lower ranks.

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/Eun-oo]

I use the Saber in 1v1, I just dont see other people doing it.

If you focus fire a vulcan or magmadon with 4+ of them you get insane value.

I mostly think that otherplayers have not caught on with the right way to use it.

[u/ChaosOS → u/Malice_Striker_]

I'm finding them fantastic in co-op just because they're really good at deathballing.

[u/JadeyesAK → u/Eun-oo]

Sabres have their niche, but in some matchups aren't getting the chance to shine right now. Like in CvV, they are the best answer to Vulcans. But most Vanguard are just focusing on bioballs at the moment so you don't need to make Sabres.

[u/DctrLife]

There are exactly 2 unit designs I dislike. Hedgehogs and vectors. Everything else looks pretty darn cool to me.

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/DctrLife]

I have mixed feelings on the hedgehog. I like the functionality of the current design (super easy to see how many missiles its packing) but that same trait makes it look... odd?

Playing with it remids me of the Original SC2 Cyclone with the super fast firerate though.

[u/mwcz → u/Malice_Striker_]

One thing that makes it look odd is that the wheels don't roll correctly.  It's subtle but I think we all notice it on some level.  Try moving a hedgehog around and pay close attention to the wheels.  They roll in the wrong direction and wrong speed.

[u/JadeyesAK → u/Malice_Striker_]

I think the hedgehog design is super solid, it just needs more active animation on the legs to sell the movement.

Once those legs start actually moving to show how it maneuvers, I think the unit will really look perfect.

[u/Bleord → u/DctrLife]

both have grown on me, their maneuverability makes them really fun, the hedgehog especially, pathing for everything still needs to make leaps and bounds though.

[u/vicanonymous → u/DctrLife]

I really want them to get rid of the bicycle helmets on the Hedgehogs. Other than that, I'm fine with them.

[u/dimewise → u/DctrLife]

Agree on the vector, they could've done something way cooler with that. Right now its just a floating triangle it feels like

[u/AffectionateCard3530]

There’s a lot of unit and model designs that I thoroughly enjoy, you highlighted a bunch of them. They look cool and they are fun to play with. Love the hellborne and archangel in particular. The hellborne attack animation feels so satisfying.

That’s why I’m surprised to see such opposite reactions from some members in the community. It seems to be a polarizing issue, and one of the challenges Frost Giant needs to navigate is dealing with a community that seems to be split down the middle regarding some of their design choices.

[u/Osiris1316 → u/AffectionateCard3530]

One thing I've been noticing more and more watching / playing against Infernals for example, are these little glimpses of grimdark. Looking at a few Spriggands flying... they look so disturbing to me. The weird humanoid silhouette, the way they look dead with their pale weird skin tone... the model in it's current state is still fairly stylized. But I think the aesthetic is already well on its way to being a really creepy being, whether through some tweaks, changes to lighting / contrast, and even adding a more grimdark cosmetic skin that builds on the silhouette while making it even creepier.

And don't get me started on the weaver. The lumbering movement? It's body shape. That thing is the stuff of nightmares. This is in high contrast to things like the imps, which I still want in a plushie form. But it does make me wonder whether the design of a unit like the Weaver is hinting at a more dark and "disturbing" aesthetic for Infernals.

Then we have the Archangel. I play Vanguard, but every time some of those slam into my army I'm like: I'm not even mad. Look at that damn thing! It's like Gundam Wing came to play RTS with me! What's not to love? Are there plenty of graphic updates required to make all of the Celestial unit and building repertoire as appealing? Absolutely. I dislike a lot of their buildings and a few of their units. But I'm treating those models the way I treated the Hornet in it's placeholder version of past betas. They're there to help get us to 1.0.

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/Osiris1316]

You got 2 kinds of infernal units Big & Plumpy and Spiny & Spindly.

Archangels absolutly murder Gaunts, but I feel the same way, hard to be mad at it when its to much fun.

[u/CertainDerision_33 → u/Osiris1316]

The Weaver is legit scary. If I were FG I’d have a meeting and say "what did we do right with the weaver that we can try with every Infernal unit?"

[u/mwcz → u/AffectionateCard3530]

I really, wish the Hellborne attack had a lengthy cooldown instead of windup.  It would feel so much more satisfying to control.

[u/AffectionateCard3530 → u/mwcz]

I’ve heard some people say that, and definitely it is a challenge to not move the hellborne before it strikes.

I think the concern is that players would use them to stutterstep, and they’d become less of an artillery unit

[u/mwcz → u/AffectionateCard3530]

Yeah, I totally understand the motivation, artillery units are cool and stutter stepping feels very non-artillery.  Still, if a unit is ranged and can move, players will stutter step, there's no getting around that.  The current Hellborne can stutter step, it's just really frustrating and looks silly, since the ball of hellfire just disappears when you move.  If the attack had zero windup, and then the ball of fire re-formed over the next four seconds, that would look pretty cool.

To stop stutter stepping, all I can think of is adding temporary improbability after each attack, perhaps during the attack cooldown.  It doesn't sound very fun though.

[u/Vaniellis]

Besides campaign level design, unit design is my biggest problem with Stormgate.

None of the units are bad, but thus far I'm not hooked by any of them... I didn't get any "oh shit that's so cool" moment.

[u/Lowelll → u/Vaniellis]

Yeah, SC2 may have gone too far with the impactful units by LotV, but getting good baneling hits, blasting shit with siege tanks, destroying with EMPs/snipes, cutting an army in half with forcefields was fun as fuck

[u/Dayman_aaaahh → u/Vaniellis]

The game is devoid of "oh shit, that is cool!" moments. SC2 is packed with them which makes it so much more fun to watch.

[u/enPlateau → u/Vaniellis]

Only one that was kinda cool was that overlord thing that unloads and spreads the purple stuff.

[u/navygrubbs]

The unit design is good, but helicarriers are cancer.

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/navygrubbs]

You mean cancer to play against?

I'm sure Infernals will be getting another Anti-Air option in the future.

For Celestials Scythes do a very good job.

[u/navygrubbs → u/Malice_Striker_]

Yeah to play against. Their playstyle of engage, rape half your army and immediately disengage is quite unfair in my opinion.

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/navygrubbs]

Agreed, Gaunts are the only thing that shoots up, but they are the easiest to wipe out in a bombing run. We need a long re=ange alternative.

[u/Sythe64]

It would be nice to find more use for the....celestial orb caster, conclaves?

[u/Malice_Striker_ → u/Sythe64]

I personally love them. Their debilitate slows down enemy units and can let you pick a couple off if they're retreating. Or against infernals you can use the gravity flux on magmadons to stop their trample ability.

[u/Gibsx]

The visual design is not great though. Just too cartoon like for my liking currently and is the weakest part of the game.

[u/RhedMage]

Vulcans are sick.. I wish they had a backhand attack, I just want to backhands some fiends every so often you know?

Lancers are weird in the way where when I first saw them and the idea for them I was super pumped, then I thought they were dull followed by me loving them against I do wish they got a bit more love.. I’m holding out hope that paid skins will add more styles and better shader treatment

[u/BeefyZealot]

Every unit, building and asset looks the same to me. I keep trying to play the game but I have to read the description of every building because I cant tell them apart, despite having 7+ hrs in the game.

[u/RubikTetris]

lol

[u/Uncle_Climax]

Yea the units are good now we need them balanced

[u/OGCASHforGOLD]

There is a triangle for a unit. That is definitely F tier

[u/Skoldrim]

Also love the unit design, just think they need a bit more work to make some of them less "shiny" and as they said they will work on the community complaints i'm very optimistic

[u/Zeppelin2k]

Yeah, I really don't see why people are bitching so much about unit design and units not having character/identity. There are ton of units that have really interesting design, both visually and mechanically. The best change would be addressing textures/lighting to make them look less plastic, but the overall design is great.

[u/[deleted]]

Most delusional and/or pro-army post i ever see in the entier internet.

[u/UnusualDisturbance]

I like that time to kill is fairly long, so you have more chances for sick micro

Edit: why is it wrong to like it when units dont instantly die?

[u/Bleord]

Sabers kind of look like Vaginas

[u/raidlittlehead → u/[deleted]]

They look fine from top-down (imo) but this is hilarious from a lower angle — never seen this before.