Stormgate Is Now Open To Everyone. Has It Improved Enough?

[@uThermal]

Rate Stormgate on a scale of 1-10 :)

[@EgorPomidor-r7l]

3

[@BananJumper]

5, would buy for 2.99$ on steam sale

[@aXDroptimus]

5

[@aXDroptimus]

5

[@wedgeantilles8575]

It depends on what part of the game. The campaign is 2 / 10, at most 3 / 10. It is like Warcraft 3 - just way worse. Which is sad, because I enjoy (good) campaigns a lot. And that people who backed the game with 350 Dollars find stuff at the ingame shop they don't own on DAY 1! just seems incredible shady and greedy too. The game doesn't look great - and the devs have nothing better to do than put stuff in their people who funded with HUNDREDS of Dollars don't own? Pathetic. I am extremly disappointed in the game.

[@Quin.Bioinformatics]

Stormgate has 3 races now! the three races are diablo, warcraft and starcraft. thanks pseudo-blizzard

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

_LMFAO_

[@madmantheepic7278]

My opinion still stand that if they leaned onto Diablo’s art direction and go full balls the walls with it, it’d would have been recieved muuuuch better. Could you imagine? And i havent even played Diablo

[@wdf70]

One word I can give this game: Rough. If theyre hoping to revive the RTS genre and this is their best foot forward, they have a loooong way to go. People played Warcraft and Starcraft because of it's story, music, and sound effects and tight controls. Everything felt satisfying to click on and to give orders to your units This just looks like they're trying to emulate Starcraft 2 without any of the charm and polish. I hope I'm proven wrong when they release it, but if this is it then...whoof...

[@premiumfruits3528]

The RTS genre is already being revived by several other much better games. Godsworn, Tempest Rising, ZeroSpace, Dust Front...Stormgate is a fart in the wind.

[@Deltalancer1]

I feel more people should look into Tempest Rising, even if they didn't play Command and Conquer all that much.

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

​@@premiumfruits3528...And that is exactly why my conscience remains clear when cheering on SG's trainwreck. This was visible from the first screenshots, and from the first posters in June 2022. - Adûnâi

[@ToTheNines87368]

It’s way too slow to be sc2, but I get what you’re saying.

[@31codyskater]

resembles warcraft more than starcraft in gameplay honestly

[@tenj00]

Watching this game made me realize how amazing SC2 really is. Hundreds of small details are just working perfectly together. It is and will be for the the foreseeable future the best RTS we have.

[@deepvoid2871]

yeah this game is like making us appreciate the beauty of starcraft lmao

[@catbert7]

Planetary Annihilation is the best RTS to me, but SC2 is definitely the best micro-RTS.

[@dpend]

Agreed. The game is not fun at all to watch compared to SC2. Just being honest

[@StrigWilson]

I still think brood war is better gameplay wise, even tho I hate playing it. Brood war skill ceiling is just infinite which is awesome, but I agree with you completely.

[@phaneros]

Not only. Trying the campaign made me want to play the wc3 campaign again lol. Story beats were a direct analog, the first villain has exactly the same voice as Thrall, some reused mission ideas, SG mission 1 is just a worse version of Human mission 1.

[@UpATree]

I saw the promotional trailer for the celestials and immediately knew it was going to be proxy void ray battery for eternity. Sucks to see it pan out to be even worse than that lol.

[@Ht9ehtoom]

They really had the perfect chance to avoid (ray) the problems sc2 had and missed it every time

[@Valok]

its hard for me to care about any of this. the main reason why i started WC or SC was because the races were cool. i wanted to learn more about them. the game was exuding atmosphere from everywhere. music, art style, even the way they designed the trees so iconically ... 1) if you compare it to the starting screen here (thats supposed to be finished product?) .... just absolutely boring bland. pause at 0:42 and tell me this doesnt look like some alpha (or beta at best !) testing map ? huge surface over all the screen, with patches of agressive green and brown flat nothing. and 2 resources with a UI bar hovering over them. thats negative atmosphere that kicks me out of the game feeling instantly, and the match hasnt even begun properly. Even if they added something that looks like hills, this would already look way more natural. 2) who are the vanguard, infernals or celestials ? the only trailer we got (or i could find) was more of a d.va / tomb raider crossover and didnt convey any story whatsoever. im not saying they should make trailers as epic as blizzard ... but ... with all the choices that i have, from other IPs im already invested in lorewise. other than basic curiosity, there is nothing that draws me to play, or test it out. 3) to me ... the graphic look/feel cheap. which kills my curiosity almost entirely. the buildings look like plastic, and units like out of play dough. the design. well. i dont see anything bad inherently about it. its just ... basic. bland. forgettable. there are also some things they did before release that i personally didnt like for reasons. but the design choices alone make it hard for me to care for the game even after i spent some time looking into it.

[@maciekkotunowicz2510]

EXACTLY. 3 generic rts races fighting each other. All look kinda samey, I don't want to learn what they do.

[@LittleRainGames]

Well said my friend

[@FlavioAugustoVieira]

exactly

[@wolftracker]

we hear ya

[@FidelisRaven]

Right on the money man, it's like you're reading my mind. I've been playing both SC and SC2 since they came out and this... this is just not it.

[@Reegareth]

Bruh what... Why does this game look like it was made before SC2...

[@briantoplessbar4685]

5/10 The unit and sound design give the game zero weight. Fights are unsatisfying. In StarCraft, microing 8 marines and a tank vs zealots is more satisfying than end game battles in SG

[@BeardRubEnjoyer]

Well said. Blizzard was on another level for game feel.

[@SilentdragonDe]

Yeah, sadly I'm still not really feeling it. The game just doesn't appear to have any character, which is why I can't see many casual players picking it up.

[@danieln6700]

It lacks identity imo

[@xmrmeow]

They said themselves in early interviews that a huge amount of RTS fans only come to play the campaign and literally have never won a single 1v1 match. For bringing in bigger numbers of regular ladder players and just general fans who know what's going on to enjoy watching pro play, a really solid campaign is absolutely essential. I personally learned SC2 by playing 4v4 and the campaign, and most of my few thousand hours in SC2 were in 4v4 and custom games. The division of responsibility in large player count modes like FFA and 4v4 make it much more casually enjoyable. Without those modes I probably wouldn't have ever learned the game and thus wouldn't understand enough to be able to enjoy watching pros like you, and I'm sure the same goes for many RTS fans. While the face of the RTS community are the pros and hardcore players, the vast majority of what gives it enough popularity to survive and continue getting development and viewership to support tournaments with big prize pools are the casual players who don't care much for 1v1 themselves.

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

You "learned" playing 4v4 customs? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Are you like platinum or something? 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@RFGSwiss]

Metagon?

[@EngieMak]

Really, did they even look at Red alert, Generals? Those old game are fondly remembered and not a single esport/competitive word was uttered.

[@EvilMagnitude]

@@HenriqueRJchiki Classic PvP elitist who thinks that they are the most important part of the playerbase when they're actually a minority lol

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

@@EvilMagnitude Cry cope and seethe harder, get good at the video game.

[@stysner4580]

When I played the beta it just left me with this empty, depressed feeling. Every time I see it again I immediately get that same feeling. It's just lackluster in everything it does. It looks bland, it sounds bland, performance is horrible, the net code they bragged about doesn't come through at all; it looks laggy all the time. It felt even worse in the beta (but I assume they worked on it?)... It's just not it. Especially when you consider the budget and who's supposed to be working there. It's so subpar it's actually embarrassing.

[@mrcookies409]

Holy shit I was thinking the same. Why do I get depressed while watching/playing this game? It gets even more depressing with all the shady things going on the financial side.

[@stysner4580]

@mrcookies409 yeah you're right, I didn't even mention how they completely disrespect their backers by having day 1 dlc and asking people to invest even more because they don't have enough... Even though they destroyed their kickstarter goals.

[@mrcookies409]

​@@stysner4580And that is just the tip of the iceberg(finances wise). I was much more vested in the game before, now I just try to be as detached as possible while watching it's developments. 😛

[@TheHUEZOX]

from what I've heard, 40M is not that high of a budget to pull off the game they are trying to make, but f*ck if I know about appropriate game budgets

[@stysner4580]

@@TheHUEZOX It is though. Especially if you discount the campaign, which is not free to play. 40 million is nothing for a game of the scope of SC2, I don't know if you've seen the campaign missions for this game, but there's absolutely no comparison. Not to mention there's no company footing the bill; it's consumers/donations. Also, SC2 was started pretty much from scratch, engine, tools, everything. Stormgate runs on Unreal Engine. And even though there's a lot for RTS games that doesn't come out of the box with game engines, it does a LOT for you. Source: in the middle of creating an RTS solo from scratch.

[@eugeneponomarov7429]

It still not clear how much it takes to kill the unit: sometimes it feels like it's just not dying and sometimes it dies instantly. In SC2 it's pretty obvious that unit has taken heavy damage and is about to fall or it's much stronger, but here it's a guess game every time.

[@dicksonZero]

immortal shield is very pronounced and has distinct sound effect. i heard that one reason for units not dying, is because they have strong shield activated from top bar (or simply because this unit has thick armor)

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

Eh, SC2's time to kill is too low, things die from an angry glare, that's kind of the only positive thing I can say about Stormgate is that... they don't do this as much.

[@alienonmars470]

I think this game in it's current state needs a really strong set of campaign missions to capture the hearts of players because the presentation of the multiplayer doesn't seem enough to get the average casual player invested

[@unrighteous8745]

Fully agree, but the campaign is embarrassing right now. It's not even a matter of needing more time, they'd have to scrap what they have and restart. It's a complete failure.

[@darkalley8595]

@@unrighteous8745 How so?

[@MidniteCathedral]

Agreed, even the decent missions could use a little bit of tuning-up. Missions 1 and maybe 5 need to be replaced entirely, they're a pale imitation of better missions from Warcraft III and Starcraft II.

[@unrighteous8745]

@@darkalley8595 Obviously a matter of opinion, but... ugly models, bad voice acting, boring mission design, boring characters, boring story, etc...

[@angamaitesangahyando685]

​@@unrighteous8745I called it the tier 3 Undead melee unit back in June 2022 and got banned for it. The FGS seem to be utterly clueless when it comes to any aesthetics, or coolness, or narrative. - Adûnâi

[@thedestroyerofhats]

I watched Grant play the campaign missions and I was debating if I didn't want to due to fear of spoilers. After the first mission I was no longer concerned about spoilers. Mission 3 was the only one that was up to the standards these same people set in the games they made for blizzard. Plus they are planning to add so few missions in the roadmap. So either the missions are going to be way too long or its going to be a short campaign. And I foresee the future where they never actually add any more missions after the ones on the current road map. It just has that vibe about it where nothing will end up mattering. Which I guess could be fine but bodes so poorly for any kind of custom games and those are what kept me playing the blizzard RTS games for as long as I did. Plus the unit sets and factions don't really seem like a great set of assets for custom games anyway. There are a lot of games with this angles vs daemon + random humans who inexplicably drive the whole plot. Like it was a tired plot all the way back in the 90s. ominous / 10

[@ImmaterialDigression]

Campaign needs some serious work. I can see they've improved the gameplay and that's good. They said in lots of their videos they know how many people are single player/campaign mode players so they _should_ be looking at story + campaign (fingers crossed).

[@XMysticHerox]

It's going to fail for the same reason numerous similar projects have. "Competetive players" like Thermal are not a significant audience. And you need an actual audience for a competetive scene to develop in that audience.

[@skipperg4436]

This strategy worked for Skullgirls which is a 2D fighting game which have even smaller audience. But. It was the visuals and insane amount of new cool features that captured people attention.

[@davidbodor1762]

As much hate there is out there, the game seems to be doing good numbers even in its closed form. I am curious how many players there'll be once it opens up to the public. It's free to play so I expect quite a lot of people to jump in for at least a little bit.

[@justanothercommenterwithan9089]

@@skipperg4436 the fighting game community is all about competitive, tourneys ect ppl don't get into street fighter, tekken ect for the single player experience the closes i can think of is mortal combat. a very large amount of rts players come for the campaign, lore and co-op and all the most successful rts have tapped into that audience. skull girls knew what its audience wanted a solide competitive experience with lots of charm and personality to set it apart that focused on some of the most iconic parts of the genre with long combo's and lots of player freedom and expression through how it uses assists and team size. is what the rts community craving is another solely esport focused rts? skull girls oozes charm and polish with its handrawn artstyle and unique designs ppl want to play as and get good at the character who plays a fully accurate trumpet as part of his combo's a character who throws their head onto the battle field as a form of stage control. 2d fighting games have unique characters and personalities where rts has lore, world building and campaigns. if skull girls looked like yomi hustle it wouln't have the audience that it does.

[@bhaalgorn]

​@@davidbodor1762closed forum? It costs $30. I wouldn't personally call that closed

[@Fogwell94]

I don't really see the hate you are talking about. So far I haven't seen almost any "dumb hater" writing how the game sucks, almost everyone gives a valid reason for why they are not liking it

[@dn6113]

36:46 So some of the faction units don't have animations yet but that random pink Pikachu NPC can do aerial flips and bounce all over. Priorities.

[@Sketchy--]

Since I can get steady 1v1 and 2v2 ladder games in SC2. There is literally, not a single reason I would play this. As someone who purchased the Kickstarter and whatnot, I have been super disappointed with the outcome of the game. Boring game design, completely imbalanced, and frankly, kind of ugly graphically. I won't stop supporting new companies to try and revamp the RTS genre, but this just isn't it.

[@Jugalow68]

Looks like a walmart version of SC2.

[@sfgdragoon]

we have SC2 at home

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

Great Value StarCraft 2

[@Andy07777]

Sc2 from temu

[@JohnnyImprove4]

You have no Idea

[@ryandietz7878]

K-mart

[@davidbodor1762]

MedTechs are my absolute favorite unit in this game. They are so versatile, I love how cool nanoswarm in particular is. Heal your mech, damage enemy mech, it's very useful. You can place it like parasitic bomb onto enemy hit&run units to put them on a timer, it's really cool.

[@sashamakeev7547]

Blue healthbars are pretty hard to see. Gotta understand now that starcraft health bars are so incredible.

[@davidbodor1762]

You can use different colour options. I think the regular ones are better than the team colored ones.

[@dicksonZero]

i guess the true problem is the contrast with the empty bar. blue if correctly contracted is not that terrible

[@martinkrauser4029]

There's a toggle to have them behave the way they do in other RTS games in the settings. Team healthbar colors are a terrible design decision and should not have been the default

[@davidbodor1762]

@@martinkrauser4029 Pretty sure it isn't the default.

[@martinkrauser4029]

@@davidbodor1762 a couple of casters had it and had no idea why it sucks. Bless em

[@GáborOrosz-y1l]

ugh how is this game 8 years younger than starcraft 2 but looks 5 times worse... it looks like a bad mobile game.... and it has no soul its realy bad.... the art style is horrible, everything looks wonky out of proportion and goofy..... The realy nailed what people hated about starcraft 2, and made sure to leave out everything that made it good...

[@rahvin37]

Big pro: They're releasing an awesome new editor which looks sick and will hopefully increase game longevity. Big con: Campaign seems like an afterthought, and it'll be hard for new players to become invested in the world and lore without one. Biggest con: This doesn't look like a 2024 game - it looks the same age as StarCraft II. 5/10.

[@davidbodor1762]

Does it look like SC2? I think it looks better honestly. Vulcans are such a cool unit model, weavers too, the new EXO looks fire, MedTechs are my favorite. I dunno what specifically looks bad? Units models? Terrain? Textures? Map? The portrait on the UI?

[@welfh3854]

@@davidbodor1762 the ape like proportions of most human models and 90% of the attack animations

[@VasiliyOgniov]

​​@@welfh3854 although I agree that game looks... Not great, but my main issue with graphics is not a "cartoony" style in of itself (it worked for Warcraft 3, for example - which on fundamental level looks exactly like you described with over the top muscules/armor/body shapes) but how it was realised. I can clearly tell buildings apart in WC3/SC2. Moreover, in WC3 which leans much more into this artstyle, you can even tell what building, probably, does after the one glance at it - in a weird hut possibly lives some sort of shaman, building with tower sticking out of it is probably a town hall and a creepy altar might be meant for sacrifices. Its not perfect and Night Elf buildings still just a bunch of trees, however they are very distinct in their designs and color palette, so after first time looking which one is which its easy to remember them moving forward. The only issue is, maybe, Undead buildings, yet they still have vastly different designs which helps you remember them. However I can't for the love of God tell which building is which in Stormgate. They are so, so "samey". This exact issue is also present in units designs. Mechs and other big units are somewhat possible to differenciate because they are so large and tower above the crowd. However most of this "crowd" just turns into one solid blob in the middle of the fight. So while artstyle issue is arguable and depends on personal preference, what is pretty valid critiscism is that units design makes them hard to tell apart

[@whensonzhou4174]

​@@davidbodor1762 The art rendering engine is better in every technical sense, but the artistic choice is always what put people off. Basically the unit model and unit animation art style, attack often looks too soft and not impactful. Also, building and units model doesn't always convey their roles in the army well enough. Cartoony is basically a degree of how the model is out of proportion in terms of highlighting its core feature, but they are there for recognizability. You don't want a bunch of similar looking infantry units where their only differences is the tiny weapon they hold in their hand. But you also don't want a bunch infantry that carries outsize unrealistic weapon that looks too cute to fight in a war, it destroys the immersion that you are controlling an army. It's very hard to strike a balance here. I think SC2 and WC3 are great in terms of unit recognizability vs immersive feeling, AOE4 units are less recognizable, RA3 units are too cartoony. Right now I am unconvinced by the art style, but I am quite interested in the game engine.

[@sheepfly]

​@@davidbodor1762this looks worse than SC2 in every way

[@ryqarst4690]

Came out 15 years after sc2 and looks like it was released 15 years before. Amazing.

[@doorkum]

What game looks like this 30 years ago?

[@ohno2943]

@@doorkum way to miss the point

[@vrooks4979]

Lol even wc2 has a better art

[@firstLast-jw7bm]

@@doorkum pov: you're an uzbek sheep herder who can't conceive of thinking outside of the literal

[@varoonb6593]

Totally agree with the not enough lumanite sound. I heard it in lowko's video and it was as jaring as phone alarms

[@stysner4580]

The "our units are in BATTLE" from Infernals is also complete dogwater.

[@irm613]

My main problem with this game, that it doesn't innovate enough. It just seems like starcraft lite. As a new RTS in 2024 unrestricted by corporate politics it should bring something new to the table.

[@ibfreely8952]

The game won't be successful because its single player campaign seems to be an afterthought. I've seen a bunch of stormgate videos and worldbuilding and lore is never ever mentioned. Theyre falling into the same trap they were trying to avoid.

[@lordlopikong6940]

True, they are making a MP game. It completely destroys thier vision of making storm gate a more accesable rts. They focus on 1v1 and not teams and coop. How blind are these people?

[@stysner4580]

I've seen people play through the missions and oh my is it bad. Even AoE4's campaign is more fun and that's a snoozefest as well.

[@EvilMagnitude]

Yup, interesting world/story is so important for getting people involved. That's what made WC3 and SCBW the hits they were. Hopefully FG takes the feedback to heart and radically overhauls the campaign

[@premiumfruits3528]

"Theyre falling into the same trap they were trying to avoid." They never tried to avoid anything, lmao. The game was built and marketed as an esport from the ground up. They were having tourneys before they even implemented the third race. This dreck was doomed to fail from its inception. It's like Blizzard devs have some weird mental illness that makes them think the esports bag needs to be chased at all costs and nothing else matters at all. There are at least half a dozen other RTS games coming out very soon or already in early access that make this look like an amateur indie project. It's dead on arrival.

[@hoofhearted4]

damn, the only reason i backed was the campaign and coop. I dont care about PvP. I have thousands of hours in SC2 and I've never once played a PvP match. Honestly, probably another RTS i buy and never play if thats the case.

[@Smelly13]

I think hedgehogs should be a sort of hover craft, hovering above ground with sways for turns etc.

[@FredrikBarrdahl]

I agree, the 360 wheels look stupid and make little sense. Overall a very ugly unit.

[@buzzlightyearpfp7641]

that first celestial game killed me with how stupid it all was

[@davidbodor1762]

I love how inventive people are with celestials, there's like 15 different cheeses people already made up with and against them. Some of them are ridiculous some are utterly absurd, some are just plain funny, some are super creative and there's even some bait&switch tactics now. Some of the pro players legit didn't even mine the 2nd resource in most of the tournaments they played in, it was such a cheese-fest.

[@discursion]

The reason why it isn't good from the get go is that it essentially tries to emulate SC2 without innovating at all. The game just has no personality, takes zero risks, and just mish-mashes SC2 and WC3 with some MOBA features.

[@breki173]

I absolutely love how you give constructive criticism to the delevopers and how you tell what is on your mind. I truly believe you are one of the best RTS lovers out there :)

[@miza6]

That celstails game was tough to watch

[@kamixxae1567]

I would say for early access this is around a 6/10 for me. I don't really mind the art style (except the main female character model in the story) and I really like the different race designs, I actually really like how a lot of the buildings and units look especially the infernals. A lot of stuff still needs balancing though but that is to be expected and will probably get a lot better after a few patches. The campaign could be made a bit better although it's a decent introduction to the mechanics of the game, I would really like a harder difficulty for it since it's quite easy currently even on hard. I think map design could be a lot better, though we'll probably get a lot more good maps once we get a map editor. I would say only buy the game if you want to support the development currently but wait until a few patches or the main release otherwise.

[@power2084]

Stormgate: don't bother.

[@trumpwonBIGLY]

^ 2-11 bronze player

[@mrcookies409]

Scamgate

[@iraniansuperhacker4382]

the dog needs to be in a mech suit. I am honestly thinking about going down to their studio and telling them the dog obviously needs to be a mech dog.

[@bluevalentineproductions]

I've been laughing about this comment all day. It's so fucking true

[@lukex1337]

The fact they approved all these sound effects for their big early access launch shows how out of touch these devs are.

[@tommyc4641]

Thanks for making this video. It's helpful to hear your explanation on how things work in the game. As someone who has early access but doesn't have much time to play at the moment, this is helpful to keep up to speed on things.

[@locomotivo4644]

I simply do not understand their hyperfixation on making Stormgate "competitive" and prioritizing it over other important aspects such as intriguing artstyle and establishing their identity first, because to me it feels like such a backwards way to think. "Competitive game" is the result of first having a game, THEN that game is fun enough that people consider theorycrafting on ways to play the game better. In other words, the game naturally becomes and will become "competitive" if the game has enough depth and clear identity for people to consider testing their skills to the limit - even in pve games. (Take Monster Hunter for example, people are often willing to compete with TTK of endgame monsters despite the game having no clear bonus reward for killing them quicker) Unfortunately at current state Stormgate doesn't have the depth nor fun that it desperately needs. At best it's a shallow imitation of Sc2 and Wc3 with severe identity crisis, and it suffers from the question of "Why play this game when you have a similar game that does what this game does far better?" Sure there will be a group of loyal players that will play it once it comes out, but in order to attract major audience it'll first have to change its priority.

[@sirdragdord701]

Ultra based

[@DjZephy]

This is exactly how I felt. When I first logged in to play the beta, I was met with a 1v1 matchmaking button and nothing else... I was thinking "what the fuck... ? Why would I want to play a competitive 1v1 match in an RTS I've never played before?" I was hoping there would be a few campaign levels or something. Maybe if there was a cool cinematic, too, that could help. I like how in the warcraft and startcraft games, the first few levels are just moving a few units around the map, killing a few enemies, maybe making a few buildings etc... With this it's just PLAY RANKED 1v1. Also, I haven't heard ANYONE mention this, but the entire art style is simply WC and SC combined, with ZERO imagination. Not just the graphics but even the voice acting of the units. It's like the developers have no imagination whatsoever. I don't mind video game clones too much, it doesn't really bother me, but when the graphic style is also identical... it's just ridiculous.

[@michelcadieux1596]

Kinda crazy that they fucked up the angle of the camera, making the game almost flat.

[@MartinAaberge]

it feels like every unit has 65 million HP. Are all units super weak or do they have an extreme amount of HP?

[@uThermal]

Everything has a lot of HP so that's probably why, workers have 130 HP for example which caught me offguard xD

[@Leonhart_93]

They did say that they want to avoid specifically what happened in SC2 where the time to kill is insanely high which requires a lot of attention all the time, making it less accessible to beginners.

[@davidbodor1762]

It's not actually that much hp, it's nowhere near Warcraft 3 levels. It's higher than SC2 - which is good - but far closer to SC than WC.

[@unrighteous8745]

​@@Leonhart_93 What's funny is I think they completely failed in this regard. The high time to kill makes early fast harassment units a complete nightmare to deal with. Your late game death ball can get wiped out if you take one bad fight (retreating is really tough in this game). I find the game to be super unforgiving, and you can straight up kill lesser skilled opponents with good micro and one or two units in the early game.

[@user-if1gj2wh5c]

Damage and health are relative to eachother so it's not either one. You can say the health is too high relative to the damage or the damage is too low relative to the health. It's just phrasing.

[@Smelly13]

They should add a bigger ‘punch’ when projectiles hit. Blood stains from energy balls, scorch marks, smoke in impact etc

[@dacjames]

I think stormgate hasn’t done enough to differentiate itself from StarCraft 2. People might cut it some slack on the graphics if they brought more fresh gameplay to the table. As a spiritual sequel they have to beat their predecessor on everything and they don’t.

[@StreamerBS]

Nothing will ever beat the AOE4 town center ringing it's bell every time you selected it.

[@VeryBadPlayerTV]

Heres my take on why stormgate isn't hitting the mark in one word. "Thematic". In sc2, the races and the feel of the game just makes sense. Your terran the humans, you got marines, medical crew, tanks, ships etc. The typical merican army guns clappin whole lot of action. Zergs swarmin, protoss teching up etc. Stormgate just feels like..... which race is relatable in any way. Which class has some kind of clearly defined them that keeps you interested? Wheres the music that fits the theme of my race each individual track per race. These very little details HARD carry games sometimes. Games that shouldn't be that good become pretty decent by just having the right themes and sound sfx/ bgms. Stormgates "Theme" to me just feels like a super pathetic attempt to make it like the "Fortnite" of RTS games where its super accessible to all, cartoony graphics etc. I think if they personally laid into more mature themes, maybe had gore, catered to their true target audience more. This could have been so much bigger.

[@lordlopikong6940]

I agree, just look at the other successful and still striving rts. We have coh2, aoe2, aoe4, broodear, wc3 and etc all these games have very distinct and memorable fractions

[@slothsarecool]

Feels too derivative to me, it’s always disappointing to see studios basically clone precious works (Back for Blood for example)

[@malekiththeeternityking5433]

Stormgate is mid. SC2 and Brood War are still way better

[@yashiwawa9395]

They also have financial AAA company support.

[@RaihotDoW2]

You expect it to match the 15 years of development in SC2 while it's in early access?

[@malekiththeeternityking5433]

@@RaihotDoW2 I expect it to not look terrible, and thus far it looks terrible

[@Pistallion1]

​@@RaihotDoW2do you think "early acess" means anytbing when the game is coming out in like a week?

[@RaihotDoW2]

@@Pistallion1 it's still going to be early access in a week, they just gave people the chance to buy in to play a couple weeks earlier

[@jeremycollins4566]

I’m actually very happy with the early access. My one complaint is the early game. But after the 5 minute mark, this is an excellent RTS 👍

[@marcolee2875]

This looks like a ftp mobile trash game. Holy hell does it look bad and cheap. How much do they pay you to play this abomination?

[@hypers829]

There are so many paid shills and grifters trying to gaslight people into thinking it's good, and that it will improve greatly. Frankly I'm surprised people don't know how to make up their own mind.

[@Pyromaniac77777]

Not with that campaign, it won't Multiplayer: 6/10 Campaign (so far): 3/10

[@LeMoez]

no hate but that looks 15 years too old

[@catbert7]

Don't the Vulcans do more damage the longer they fire-in-place? And Thermy is moving them roughly once per millisecond... Micro-counter ;p 25:10: Thermy: "Enemy has no anti-air. LOL" **15 seconds later** "Wait, I have no anti-ground. Crap!" Celestials is the only really unique thing in this game; kinda like the Goo in Grey Goo. But it feels like it doesn't fit with the other two races. 31:40: This is ridiculous xD 38:00: Thermy: "These Bunkers are unbeatable!" Also Thermy: **Has not made more than 1 unit type** 36:33: This is rage-bait 49:00: That's a lot of army dying for nothing while they could be killing eco I agree. Stormgate has been disappointing from the very start. It feels soulless. There's nothing unique, aside from the Celestial's building mechanics. They just stole SO much from Warcraft and Starcraft it's unreal. Like, taking good ideas is fine but ADAPT them to make something different. This is just a mash-up with nothing being better than the parts. I miss truly creative RTS, like TA/SupCom/PA, C&C, Age of Mythology, Majesty, Stronghold, Grey Goo, Homeworld, Castle Story... These were all innovative and awesome. This... is garbage. Sorry.

[@davidbodor1762]

Yup they absolutely do. They can't stutter step, they need to be charged in and nanoswarmed to keep them alive then focus fired onto backline targtets to maximize their AoE. Very finnicky unit but super rewarding when you pull it off. I always go for Vulcans vs Vanguard/Infernal

[@skotmongoose]

Anybody should be able to look at a structure and at least have an idea what it's supposed to do. I've been playing RTS for 30 years and I can't tell whats a turret, a shield energizer, a production facility, an energy core or supply building, a central command center that builds workers, nothing looks right! Race design, they tried so hard to make the races feel different and act different, but every army fights the exact same way. There are far better RTS games out there to be wasting time on this unfinished game that is more concerned with siphoning money from loyal fans than they are making a solid game. I hope the game completely fails

[@disinformationworld9378]

A very good critique. I am still trying to figure out why are people excited about this game? Other than the ex-Blizzard employees hype, the hype realization failed. SC2 and SC1 are better than this.

[@darkpain2452]

O.o

[@chaotikkiller1617]

@@disinformationworld9378 My only real hype for this game is if they can make an upgraded/more usable version of the SC2 map editor

[@firstLast-jw7bm]

@@chaotikkiller1617 that would be a very smart pivot by them, it's by far a bigger market than the competitive rts scene anyway create tools for people to be creative with (including uploading their own models, textures, sound, etc) and let them go crazy basically become gmod for rts

[@JosuLopez]

Hey uThermal Yosu here, do you remember the times with TeRRoR, Das, nOva and the team in Starcraft 2 several years ago?? Your first in-person Tournament with Daniel. hahaha is amazing to see your growth! I hope you are well!!! :D

[@Deltalancer1]

When something was made too soft, you just wish it had edge - Stormgate.

[@LV426Survivor]

The graphic style doesn't match the content. Its a demon invasion of earth and the demons are soft as plushies. Everything is just so soft looking. Total mismatch.

[@firstLast-jw7bm]

@@LV426Survivor soft looking is a great description, it's almost like everything is so soft that my eyes don't want to focus on them and it just gives this underlying feeling of ugly like an amateur painting that has no real focal point, your vision just kind of floats around with nothing to rest on

[@Nekoyashiki-san]

Thanks for showcasing! ^^

[@teachmehowtodoge1737]

Quick review for EA version, Campaign - 4/10 1v1 - 9/10 3vE - 6/10

[@morgansteiner5823]

Same

[@robertlemmon7154]

"this is pretty cool" hits tree with worker....

[@pauledwards2052]

Wasn't at all impressed. If you want to take over the scene of a game that already exists, you have to do something better than them.. not everything worse.

[@--Nabe-rius--]

@4:10 I know the pain, back when I was plastic league in SC I made a little program that monitored certain aspects of my economy and would begin playing really annoying sounds when I started making major macro mistakes (Over 1k minerals in the first 5 minutes etc, hard supply block, missing an entire inject cycle etc). I would start getting paranoid and my body was trying to improve my mechanics as a defense to avoid the annoying sounds. Something about instant consequence + it being an auditory que triggered some deep learning mechanisms in my brain. I only needed that program for 2 months. My mechanics CARRIED me to masters after, still a high masters 11 years later and never even thought of turning that program back on. It was torture.

[@LiquidWater91]

Having tried this beta and battleaces, i feel like battleaces is much more unique modern take on rts conpared to stormgate. Of course depending on how BA decides to monitize i can see that game having its own bag of problems.

[@Pappagar]

fights in battle aces feel much more impactful

[@altonito777]

I just got into the Scion custom race SC2 mod and men it really shows how bad stormgate is ^^'

[@not_Medalin]

I simply think because of developer interaction with the community and feedback and their transparency that, at some point in the future, Stormgate will be considered a successful RTS. Will this be on E.A. release? No. In one year? Dunno. It wouldn't be the first game to be considered "bad" and make a steady comeback after being made open to the public. The only thing holding it back, from what I've gathered, is people either want to see Starcraft 3 and Warcraft 4 or something completely new, which means the devs have to balance between familiar but not familiar enough in terms of pretty much everything from gameplay, visuals, story, etc, a position I personally would dread to be in.

[@markobucevic8991]

One of the biggest RTS groups wants games like command and conquer red later 2 or 3 types of games to come back. And not a rehash of starcraft like this one.

[@sanderkiki]

Dude its not gonna survive a year, this company with be erased from history in few months.

[@happyscrub]

crazy how he's playing a new pvp game while having a conversation with us at the same time yet doing both well

[@robertwilliamson9466]

OMG SO AMAZING. its as if his friend decided to back off into a macro game. This game sucks. Its DOA.

[@Amsztel]

It's really hard to believe these are the same devs who made Starcraft and Warcraft series. Warcraft 2 is better than Stormgate in every way and it's been released almost 30 year ago. If that doesn't tell you something I don't know what does. Thanks for the video btw ;) EDIT. I've watched the entirety of this video and to be honest you haven't addressed almost anything except a very narrow topic which is "how this game feels for pro-gamers". 99.99% of players aren't pro-gamers so this video is adequate only for those people who already know everything you've said. This is not what make games good or popular. You haven't mentioned anything about campaign, story and characters (it's crap), anything about graphics and animations (they are non existent), anything about music (it's bad). OK - you did mention sound at least. What about custom maps and tools? What about units themselves? You haven't addressed almost anything unfortunately. Thumb down from me - the game and video.

[@Vertrucio]

The solution for game 3 was Saber, I think. Long range tank. Slow, but you can use it to destroy the turrets from a distance, allowing your units to move in. The Kri switch was partly effective, but they are also hurt by the flak turrets. But, hopefully the devs are willing to fix this stuff sooner than later. But absolutely YES on the sound issues. Not only are the sounds weirdly inconsistent, many of them seem like placeholder.

[@astrafaan]

I just can't put my finger on it but for some reason it's not really grabbing me - and (I'm old :P) I find the minimap a little confusing. It doesn't even begin to compare to sc2 atm imo - but I can't really help much on how I'd like to see it for it to be better for me. Maybe more like....starcraft2 - they just did way too good a job with it and honed it really well :P I know I'm not huge of it as I love your videos but I've actually skipped the last few Stormgate ones (I know I know :P) :(

[@Tipples801]

I play sc2 Alot and I play stormgate if you ever need someone to play with lmk we can exchange handles I'm pretty decent with zerg and vanguard

[@mikeshivak]

Beyond All Reason is where RTS is at right now!

[@Hippida]

Please, Unless devs pay you, it's not worth promoting this crap. If you don't need the subs, I'll shut up and leave...

[@ratbaby3107]

Man, that chain repairing looked frustrating as hell. But i guess "his stuff is all a little better than my stuff" is generally an accurate recreation of PvT in starcraft

[@OkraneS]

wc3 released 25 years ago and this game is not even worthy to wash its feet - it looks so bad that I don't even feel like trying it.

[@bobsagget4061]

Game is a lot of fun to play 1v1. Once balance and all the new u it’s and stuff get in game is gonna be a blast. New content streaming in. I love it so far

[@Theinnersearcher]

how is this better than sc2 in ANY way????

[@Ty-bz7zx]

I feel it's doomed. It is a blatant copy/clone of SC... You can line up every unit and say this is the "SC unit" of SG, and you'll know it's abilities and tactics immediately. They just renamed everything... gas...minerals..units.... There's nothing amazing, cool, innovative, unique, or new imho.

[@n00bster83]

Been an RTS player since the original C&C Red Alert and WarCraft 2. Fell in love with Starcraft and Starcraft 2. Stormgate alienates me. Yes, it seems to have solid mechanics from early on but the excessively cartoonish visual art style direction is downright immersion breaking and a major turnoff for me. Feels like a lost opportunity to put RTS back on the map.

[@yongefy]

looks way too bad tbh

[@Ynox54321]

Yeah, it needs to look just the right amount of bad. This just looks *too* bad tbh. Anyways, fascinating analysis.

[@sermerlin1]

Very informative. Outstanding feedback. :D

[@LittleRainGames]

The man may not be a word smith, but it does not mean he is wrong.

[@trumpwonBIGLY]

It’s pretty good , just get out of bronze if you can and you will be fine

[@renardnoir2581]

Looks are nothing in the grand scheme of things. Sure, eye candy is important. But it's the least of their issues atm

[@darrenridley423]

Hi Marc, love your work, regarding sc players understanding top bar abilities, perhaps compare them to the co-op hero abilities. Kinda similar, cheers

[@sermerlin1]

Man... I can't wait to watch them shape this game into the complete and epic product thanks to all the proper feedback people are posting about it.

[@strongerandwiser2023]

How much are they paying you ? 🤣

[@sermerlin1]

@@strongerandwiser2023 what do you mean?

[@laurelkeeper]

@@strongerandwiser2023 ...the commenter was doing a bit based on how unhelpful your ilk are being.

[@nname8100]

Yeah, I never really check comments on KZbin, but I expected the comments to at least be reasonable given how positive uThermal generally is. Oh well

[@BuddyWudzyn]

This. so much. I would probably be a lost less harsh on my critique of stormgate if they havnt been spending so much time and money on marketing, so much slop of content from youtubers/starcraft dead/stormgate best game ever. Combined with the fact that both the devs and fans seem to dismiss any valid criticisms as 'hating' and not good feedback to improve the game. I understand that a lot of people just hate on games and provide no feedback, but honestly I have never seen so many good critical responses to things that need improvement, that is a gift if you are a creator to get thought out feedback and they are just ignoring it which, more than any other reason, makes me have little to no hope that it will be a game I want to play

[@nilsimmond6727]

Naming a race after a RIot Games anti cheat system wasn't the smartest idea, I suppose.

[@singlethreaded]

Right now, I give it a 2/10, but it has potential to be better with simple adjustments. The movement of units is clunky and slow. And everything has too much health or the damage stats are too weak. Which makes the battles not that impressive and harder to follow the consequences of things. Compare that to a siege tank against a clump of zerglings or marines. Or when a banshee does damage to drones. Or a drop of stimmed marines against unsuspecting mineral line. I feel like they need to make everything 2x faster and do way more damage. The pacing is too slow.

[@laurelkeeper]

...their entire mission statement was to NOT do that, because it makes 1v1 really inaccessible to people who aren't enfranchised, competitive RTS players. Don't get me wrong, I don't like the way it currently is. But "it needs to be twice as fast" when "being twice as fast" is what made SC2's 1v1 relatively inaccessible isn't great feedback. And I'll pre-emptively say that there will be PLENTY of room for skill expression-at the top level, SC2 players still can't keep track of everything, all the time, so you can always gain more micro potential by widening the front.

[@lordlopikong6940]

​@@laurelkeeperlmao, aoe2 is slower than both sc2 and storm gate yet people still can't catch up.

[@laurelkeeper]

@@lordlopikong6940 it doesn’t help that AoE is the antithesis of smooth and responsive imo

[@EvilMagnitude]

SC2 pacing is way too fast for anyone besides ultra competitive 1v1 players. Even SCBW has much slower-paced fights than SC2. The real problem with the game right now is the aesthetic presentation + the inadequate PvE

[@davidbodor1762]

Excuse you, how the F is the unit movement clunky and slow? It's the smoothest Fing RTS I played. The units are more responsive than SC2. You click they move instantly, no delays. They're super responsive.

[@Law-gnome]

I am a casual player. I like campaign and co-op missions. If the campaign looks good, I'll be interested in the game. Unfortunately, the campaign looks terrible. This isn't about art style or anything like that, this is about the actual story presented in the campaign. It looks like the Overwatch faction is fighting the Diablo faction through the WC3 campaign. Tracer the Warden is going to find Frostmourne and use it to stop Chris Metzen. This is a deadly serious post-apocalypse where the good guys grump and stomp their way against a bunch of clowns and comic-relief. There does not appear to be any originality in the campaign whatsoever. It currently feels like they are riding entirely on having worked at Blizzard in the past. If there is not a major campaign revamp, I will not be purchasing the game.

[@RTSCasts]

I believe in this game. Sure thing it’s still very raw and early access, but I enjoy 1v1 gameplay a lot!

[@Tofa_illo]

yea its really fun

[@FabianMirandaG]

sc2 is a god

[@lusigia]

I dont givena fk about multiplayer, i like the campaings, but those have to be good

[@welfh3854]

the campaign is by far the worst aspect of stormgate

[@lusigia]

@@welfh3854 i want to believe that they will work with the feedback, but until then, im not buying the game, at least i need a solid one race full campaing that doesnt look like an update of the age of mytology cinematics

[@morgansteiner5823]

honestly i'd wait a solid year before cracking it open. Nothing memorable about the campaign in its current state.

[@TheRealXartaX]

The creep tumor is permanent if you place it on shroud. It also gains a huge hp boost so it's difficult to kill.

[@YeahCain2]

20 sec onds in and its trash If this thibg is competing with Starcraft, then its already over

[@jp2135744]

Nothing will come close to the warcraft and starcraft franchises. They had every aspect of a good game perfected.

[@CorruptorPeste]

Celestials are not celestial enough. Infernals are not infernals enough. Vanguard are not that vanguardist. Every unit could be from another race as the game is right now. Is a temathic disaster.

[@DxKShifty]

you should try Age of Mythology Retold, lots of room for crazy plays

[@evasfra]

It just looks like a mobile game. It's amazing how a 14 year old game looks way better than this.And even though graphics is not everything, how are they planning to dethrone SC2 if it looks/plays/feels way worse?

[@Leonhart_93]

Probably by actively maintaining and upgrading the game, which SC2 won't do because it's been abandoned by Blizzard.

[@lordlopikong6940]

It looks bad. The fractions are also not cool and interesting. You look at starcraft2 you think "woah what are those insect things and those cool advance aliens" Warcarft "woah those humans are fighting some undead things and the elves have big moving trees" Aoe2 "woah such amazing pixel art it's like a medieval simulation" Coh2 "tanks so cool I'LL NAZIIIIII. FOR THE MOTHER LAND" All this games have some visual effect and makes players curious and hooked to try the game out. Stormgate has nothing, just looking at the units and graphics, nothing is interesting, the fractions doesn't seem like it has interesting lore, and the first on look on new players is 1v1 multi-player game videos? That's a big turnoff. I may play rts because of multi-player but I'm very sure everyone would like to start off playing campaign and getting hooked in it before even deciding to touch MP. Doesn't matter if Stormgate has the perfect rts system, best patching, best unit control, and etc. If it doesn't look cool? Then it's dead

[@entropiceffect]

SC2 looked bad initially too. It makes sense to invest in gameplay, and ad balance before finalizing unit composition and investing heavily into their art design.

[@Leonhart_93]

@@entropiceffect SC2 actually looked pretty darn good at first, in that first gameplay reveal trailer.

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

@@entropiceffect SC2's original designs before release by and large looked better than the finished product imo. especailly Protoss.

[@KokoChris86]

This just makes me want to play starcraft 2 after a long break :(

[@nezrez4lifekamakazy]

nope, you mentioned Beyond All Reason once. show it once and it will become king

[@gwentarinokripperinolkjdsf683]

No it won't lmao. Ordinary people are not going to put in the effort to play that game

[@Leonhart_93]

@@gwentarinokripperinolkjdsf683 Beyond All Reason is from the same family as Supreme Commander and Total Annihilation, which were big for their time. I wish they had better marketing to attract more players.

[@stysner4580]

It won't. It's another type of game, more akin to Supreme Commander.

[@fishlobs]

thanks 4 ur insights

[@strongerandwiser2023]

Not a chance it becomes the number 1 RTS. Its got like 1500 active players this week.

[@yellowskrub]

Its not free to play yet. Using the games current player count as proof the game won't become number one is heavily flawed. Make better points in future

[@lordlopikong6940]

​@@yellowskrubit's enough to tell you how much people are willing to pay for it. Even if it goes free to play the numbers won't move much. Maybe 25% but I'll be impressed if if even reaches 5k

[@Leonhart_93]

Because it's not really out. It's a F2P game, and it didn't yet gave the access.

[@lolifier7]

@@yellowskrubrelax lol

[@yashiwawa9395]

I agree with yellowskrub. The game hasn't come out for us f2players. It's still early access and will probably be in development for another year until 1.0

[@mikeshivak]

This feels 2/3rds of the way to Sc2/Wc3 Mobile.

[@GHOSTSAREFRIENDS]

Immortal: Gates of Pyre blows this out of the water tbh, in graphics, lore, gameplay originality and sound design. Can't wait to be able to play it again.

[@Ric1994]

Not really, the graphics are shit, the races are boring and the gameplay mechanics are bad. I do like the Immortals.

[@unrighteous8745]

@@Ric1994 If those graphics are shit, what possible substance could you use to describe Stormgate's graphics?

[@Ric1994]

@@unrighteous8745 wine in a barrel

[@unrighteous8745]

@@Ric1994 I think what you've mistaken for wine is actually bloody diarrhea my friend.

[@Ric1994]

@@unrighteous8745 oké then don’t play it, go back to sc2 and blizzard or play a mechanically worse game like immortal

[@brettnorris3140]

Just needs another kickstarter!!

[@ace_sweethell292]

People crying over the fact that a new release isn't instantly fluid, perfect and full of extras like a game that has 15 years + 1 previous title.

[@ChristoFerrus]

im prbablt not the first one to say this, but i really apreciate your ability to talk and act at the same time

[@Frostgaming335]

Not much differences of sc2. But i like sc2 graphics and dynamic more

[@caiofleury3924]

At 1:24 why is there one BOB that appears not to be mining? @uThermal even selects it and clicks the mine. Is it a bug?