The Stormgate Situation is Crazy

[@JuggernautJason]

So I wanted to clarify one point here instead of edit the video because I'm not sure a lot of you are being fair about this. To be clear. Vison and creep camps do NOT scale at all on respawn. Health and energy camps do NOT scale BUT the GLOBAL REGEN does increase slightly on respawn??? Also luminate and therium camps DO scale with levels but it's such a small buff I didn't notice. My problem is none of this is written in the game at all and doesn't really change the fact that creep camps are just bad design.

[@wimmywozzle778]

I don't think creep camps are bad design but the tooltips are atrocious and it would be such an easy fix for FG to be clear in their tooltips

[@jasper1883]

I think they're just trying new things it's still in EA. I really want Stormgate to work as for Activision Blizzard... look Blizzard is dead people need to move on already. Stormgate is a new game built from the ground up, give it sometime and keep giving feedback like you're doing.

[@joshstacey5407]

​@@jasper1883Another "its EarLy ACeSs" guy that uses it to explain away everything that is fundamentally wrong with the game

[@madmantheepic7278]

@@jasper1883 You can take the devs out of blizzard but you can't take the blizzard out of devs, the game looks mediocre, i hope it improves honestly but i'm not gonna bet on it, i'll look forward to shattered sun instead.

[@wimmywozzle778]

@@madmantheepic7278 what is even the point of this comment? Are you saying Blizzard makes mediocre games? Lol. Moron

[@smnvalex]

Regarding the supply, in a lot of the interviews they did they mentioned something I was EXTREMELY excited for. Factions with more units than Zerg and factions with less units than protoss. I was really excited to see some armies twice the size of the maxed ling bane muta and some super tech 15 unit armies in other races. Very disappointed as they all feel quite similar in numbers.

[@jdmichal]

That's extremely hard to balance without having damage dealt be proportional to unit damage state. Otherwise, that large unit with one HP is still dishing out full damage. Meanwhile, every time one of those small swarm units dies, the total damage output drops.

[@arsonne]

Yeaah.. Infernal doesn't give me that Zerg feeling like I was hoping they would.

[@smnvalex]

​@@jdmichalyeah it would be hard to balance but that's what it needs to be a "next generation" rts

[@smnvalex]

​@@jdmichalalso balance is less important than fun. Right now the balance is atrocious and also just not fun.

[@pc2555]

​@@smnvalex I've played competitive games for quite a long time and I've determined balance is crucial to them being fun and surviving in the long run. In the short term its not as important. In MOBAs where Hots and League are my 2 of choice (until HotS died) I enjoy experimenting with different picks, items, comps etc. If the game balance is bad which its been as bad as ever in league the last 2 years, the fun starts to disappear. Because the meta picks become so powerful you can't even try anything different without being useless or at a huge disadvantage. And for games like smash bros or starcraft, once the unbalanced units or characters are discovered thats 80% of what you'll be playing against. In the past for Brawl tournaments, meta knight being by far the best character is the only character you see in the finals and just because hes so strong it makes it unviable to pick most mid tiers or low tiers and have a chance at all. Basically if you have poor balance, the variety of the game competitively dwindles to like 1/10th of what the game actually allows you to use. So for example, hypothetically you might as well have the 3 races in stormgate only have 4 buildings and 5 units cause the rest aren't usable. In fighting games you might as well have 6 characters instead of 30. In MOBAs there might as well only be 30 champs instead of 150 and only 15 items. And if you try to use anything other than those you're in for a miserable experience either by unfair disadvantage or frustration. I don't think anyone finds lack of variety fun. If you latch onto one of them for a time, you could have fun playing only that 1 or 2 meta picks until you get bored. Then what? Its not long term; good balance is essential to a fun game.

[@smnvalex]

They could have very easily made creep camps be stormgates from which invading creatures and aliens come and are either building bases, gathering resources they need, or creating watchtowers as outposts from which they are invading as factions outside of the infernals or celestials.

[@LemonGingerHoney]

That's a cool idea! Maybe they will implement it.

[@CraftyF0X]

There, you solved it much better than they did!

[@nukeofficial1103]

you do realize that Infernals are the invading creatures and aliens coming out of stormgates, right?

[@Figgy20000]

@@LemonGingerHoney Hahahahaha they still haven't implemented Hotkeys which was a day1 Request and the easiest thing to implement of all time. Devs do an interview once a month to pretend like they are listening, they don't care at all.

[@scrapbotcommander]

The sad thing is they already have the 4th mini-faction that would work, both in theme and in lore. In the campaign, there's a rogue faction of humans known as the raiders. They're mostly just a post-apocalyptic gang of misfits who have decided everything has gone to hell anyways, so they might as well pillage what little is left of it rather than trying to help humanity fight back or rebuild. Arguably corrupted by the infernals, but stubbornly hot headed enough to not really be considered a formal ally with them. Organized enough to band together for skirmishing parties, but not organized enough to unite under one army for a full assault. The luminite camp already has them, except for some reason they decided to make the bruiser look less like a human and more like a warcraft 3 ogre. They could have easily thought for 5 seconds and decided "hey, that guy shouldn't be that big, if we want a large hitbox maybe we should have him pilot a junkyard mech suit". Had they gone with that style instead of the "warcraft 3 reskinned" asthetic they tried to force here and applied it consistently to all the camps, it could have actually fit thematically. It even explains the respawn mechanic - the raiders want their land back, so they sent another ragtag team to retake it.

[@BuddyWudzyn]

I can forgive almost everything negative thing about this game due to it being early (even though criticisms are more valid than ever in EA to give feedback), but the fact there is just no cohesive vision. If I close my eyes and imagine everything running perfectly and perfectly balanced, im still not super excited about it. I dont even think its most of the workers fault, the funding and finance operators probably enforced just copying things that worked from other games and mashing them all together in the in-vogue fortnight cartoon realism style. Its like cooking a meal where you bought the finest fish, beef, vegtables, and fruits and then just blended them into a smoothie, then everyone sits around discussing "that the ingredients will get higher quality over time" and "It just needs to be blended longer for a better consistency" when really It needs to start back over to square 1: What is the game trying to achieve, and 2: mapping out a framework of cohesive design. And it doesnt matter if the vision to have no lore and just be fun to play like battle aces, thats fine, but you cant have all the elements of every games design and expect them to work together. I played about 30 games of stormgate and it wasnt a bad game, especially for early access, but I dont see any path to it becoming a great or even good game at its final release when the public and critics will be much harsher

[@korana6308]

Exactly my thoughts as well. They literally need to redesign the whole thing from the ground up - make a new game in order for it to be good. Though you can see that they'd slightly improved it's graphics. And if they polish everything to look and feel as crisp as sc2, I still don't see the excitement of playing it. As day9 had put it... There are no "spikes" it's just slowly ball of units chipping away at your ball of units, and I don't know whether that is that exciting to watch or play. In SC2 in comparison. You have siege tanks. You need to siege them at the right time - and you get your spike at both times - satisfaction that you caught tanks out of position, and satisfaction in obliterating everything with tanks... Then if they get flier units and you don't, they can obliterate your tanks - there's a spike again. Something dramatic and exciting happens. Also big units like thors, like blink stalkers etc etc. so many interesting and exciting plays. Nothing of sorts seems to be in Stormgate. Except for tier 3 units those angels with it's ultimate and carrier like tier 3 units. But for the most part it's gameplay is pretty bland and stale... Compare it with SC2 pre release trailers (they are still on youtube). They show you interesting gameplay mechanics from the get go ( some mechanics had changed over the years), but the goal of making it interesting and exciting with "spikes" is clearly there. Unlike with stormgate.

[@Ht9ehtoom]

Very well put

[@planetary-rendez-vous]

Is early access early? It's further than beta or alpha. I don't know how much more things can change.

[@everythingsgonnabealright8888]

I had this impression of there being no cohesive creative vision from the first things they teased and dropped. I’m still being flamed in my acquaintance circles for being negative for this game, but some people outright came out and said that I was entirely right. And I felt it from the get go. It’s a weird feeling.

[@XspeakerXforXmarsX]

i miss battle aces :(

[@MrDreyven]

I love the creep comparison. It made "some" sense in WC3 and the things felt like they would be there. Sure there's a healing fountain and a shop in the woods. It would make some sense in like a shooty army game where you kill militia and take their homes to loot and sleep in. But who are these random slimes and shadow demons guarding weirdly specific technology in the middle of nowhere you need to kill?

[@ibfreely8952]

In WC3 we had an amazing campaign which set up a world and storyline for the players to explore, and then in multiplayer it made sense to play or watch. In stormgate it's just random stuff they put in for game design purposes, and there's no reason to care for it since the world building and lore are an afterthought.

[@autosaka1264]

@@ibfreely8952I agree, it’s the lore that draws us in.

[@korana6308]

Alot of thing don't make sense in stormgate. 1) Why make a dog as a staple unit? They need to change the design to it being a robot ( The one like boston dynamics, or the "predator" from sc2). 2) BOB name signifies that it has literally no depth in design, and they couldn't think through a proper backstory for it. 3) A Marine with a sword doesn't make sense when there's a rifle. It made sense in WC3 as a swordsman/sniper meta, because of the medieval setting. Makes no sense in the future. etc etc

[@HighLanderPonyYT]

@@korana6308 3) The entirety of WH40k disagrees.

[@korana6308]

@@HighLanderPonyYT I was speaking about SC and WC. Blizzard (old Blizzard) fan here.

[@naturalhacksmusic1559]

as someone who plays on the australian server I want to give some historical context, when WoL came out, there was a south east asia server that we were forced to play on, located in singapore, due to the routing, everyone in NZ and AUS had over 350 ping to this server, despite only having 150 ms to west, most players bought another copy of the game to play on NA, blizzard refused to allow us to play on NA for over a year and wouldnt listen about the routing problems, eventually they gave our accounts access to NA aswell, then they added an australian server, and merged the SEA and NA servers and allowed server selection (which is located in f10 options, language and region) all they need to do to fix it now, is to allow us to select multiple servers with a checkbox system, but no, you can either choose 1 server or "best match", eg i would choose Australia and West, and americans would probably choose, East, Central, West. and the singapore server still feels like garbage despite the ping sayings its lower in the server list

[@You-ul8qw]

Ye, the rollbacks though have been great, though the game is still a bit barebones eventually having the option to choose servers would be great.

[@IOverlord]

Pay up buddy - Blizz

[@doppelrutsch9540]

The whole unit number thing is so insane when you remember that there have been RTS games *with no supply cap* for decades now. Planetary Annihilation ran with thousands of units without issue on my eleven year old PC. Supreme Commander came out in... 2007? And it could handle thousands of units. Even selling "it can handle more units than Starcraft 2 in the late game" as a feature is ridiculous even if it were true.

[@PureMatteo]

To be absolutely fair the pathing of SC2 is way more comprehensive than those RTS games. They aren't run the same way.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

In SC2 my computer which I built in 2012 struggles a bit in the late games in 4v4s, so with 200 supply per player thats 1600 supply of units on the map. But in 1v1 never. The reason for the supply cap isnt performance, its to put a limit on how big a player can snowball just with pure numbers, which allows for more comeback potential. And also to make microing units more worthwhile. Its a gameplay thing, not a technical performance thing.

[@pupper5580]

Total Annihilation, game from 1997, could effortlessly run a game with let's say 400 unique units - on a computer from that era (1997). Perhaps there could be some lag, but it would still be playable. If you play Total Annihilation with a computer from year 2002, you can have 1000 unique units and the game will run perfectly with zero issues. This game has 3-dimensional maps and laser beams and whatever - and it runs perfectly.

[@Donnerbalken28]

It even fundamentally misunderstands that unit caps aren't a feature, they're a design decision. SC2 can portray thousands of units at your screen if it wants to without slowing down (although it will certainly cause your CPU to choke if it's really too many). Command and Conquer never had a definitive unit cap *by design*, because the devs of the original game wanted to make a classic wargame centered around attrition and map control more than anything.

[@andrewgreeb916]

The modern remake BAR intentionally allows you to make thousands of units, issue is people do make thousands of units and this causes issues when multiple people in an 8v8 game are making thousands of units and people start to lag out. Issue is thousands of units aren't necessarily good, using those resources to make higher tier units alongside the low tier spam makes for a much more effective push. A unit cap may be necessary to stop the laggy mass unit spam.

[@zilliq-qz5uw]

The slime to shadowy monster to robot to minotaur was very strange indeed !

[@drditup]

Beyond All Reason is the RTS I didn't know I longed for. It's a little wonky but has tons of quality features and is absolutely super fun to play

[@pcol2915]

Jason, it's taken too long for you to be a creator like this. Absolutely love it man. Your old pal - P2theAnatrate.

[@Yojimbo252]

I really appreciate the honesty in this video. I’ve only been watching Jason very recently and am just an average scrub RTS player but I’ve learnt a lot about what’s important in an RTS from a high level player perspective, which is very insightful and interesting. I will be following your streams Jason I’m an AoE4 player who has dabbled in both Stormgate and Battle Aces but am likely to return to AoE4 fairly soon until some of the Stormgate issues that you rightly highlight are resolved, particularly as AoE4 have just rolled out a major update patch. You’re encouraging backseating during your foray into AoE4, be careful what you wish for!

[@Notivarg]

'300 supply cap is next gen' Boy do I have an RTS sub-genre for you! Supreme Commander FAF/Beyond All Reason/Planetary Annihilation (spiritual successors to Total Annihilation) all have per-player unit cap above 1000 (unit cap, not that silly supply cap thing where units can take more than 1 spot), and there's the spiritual successor to SupCom on the horizon named Sanctuary: Shattered Sun.

[@Xix2g]

You are absolutely right '300 supply cap is next gen' is so SUS. Sounds like an old gen Engine to me BAR engine is so much advanced compared to this ... Plus BAR ensigne cannot be cheated, so thats that

[@catbert7]

Not to mention those games have a hundred more innovative advantages. But they can zoom out too far for classic RTS fans 🤷‍♂

[@SomethingEls]

Adding cossacks to the list

[@trassage]

@@SomethingEls I was looking for this title in this comment thread)

[@andrewgreeb916]

No supply cap, but please don't make a thousand units, half of the players are lagging. Personally I think they should implement a soft cap to encourage less spam and more quality.

[@Sin00b]

I was referred to this video by a friend since I keep talking about how flawed stormgate is, and I’m really impressed with how you eloquently described what I was thinking and much much more in a very informative and well edited video. Thank you for doing this!

[@heavenstarcraft]

Respect for being honest, I don't think many content creators are being honest about the state of the game.

[@mh1593]

To be fair, it took years to make SC2 as good as it is now; I played SC2 when it first came out ("WoL") and hated it. But now (from 2016) it's been hard set in my games rota. Stormgate won't start great; it will , hopefully, grow and develop great.... but.... I don't see that ... yet....

[@stefanfrank7426]

Everyone shits on the game, nothing brave about this

[@coolzoky]

@@stefanfrank7426 Not everyone. Tons of content creators think the game is trash but give politician style answers or duck the game completely after they hyped it as the savior of RTS.

[@krogan3760]

@@coolzoky by political style answers do you mean that they recognize that it needs a lot of work but is a game in alpha? As someone who played with 1 supply roaches it's hard to be angry about dogs or morphcores.

[@coolzoky]

@@krogan3760 You can’t hate 80% of a game and then claim it’s only 20% done. That’s just wishful thinking. No one really knows how close it is to being finished, but calling it alpha after burning through 95% of a $40M budget is some serious copium. Be careful not to OD.

[@SnowboardPlata]

I feel bad for the dev team cause they obviously gave it their all but the deadline they set makes absolutely no sense. This game is basically in the alpha stage where the mechanics haven't been fully fleshed out, there's no intrinsic strategy and openers that make every game feel new and refreshing. The creep camps are bland and uninspiring. The celestials feel like it was forced into the small puzzle piece they created by the other two races, clearly not designing them in parallel. Which leads me to believe they didn't have a design in the first place, it was just to fulfill the requirements that they set from the beginning and no more.

[@andrewferguson6901]

It really feels like an engine proof of concept but the GAME dev is as bare bones storyboard as it gets

[@dman29495]

they're not done making it chill bruh

[@YuYuYuna_]

@@dman29495 ?????? They literally just launched it on Steam bro. dafuq you mean "they're not done making it." Sure they can update it post launch but release dates are called release dates for a reason. That is when you are saying "our base game is complete" can they add more units or maps or updates later on? Absolutely, but don't sip the koolaid and tell yourself this isn't what the game is. They released it, this IS Stormgate. You're not getting some massive visual update that will make the game look like it didn't came out in 2003. You're not getting massive rebalancing and entire unit reworks and new better looking models put into the game. You're not getting entire race restructuring and redesigns. THIS IS STORMGATE.

[@psianide91]

⁠​⁠@@YuYuYuna_Released steam games do I fact get huge graphical and game play redesigns after release. Especially when they are early access. StarCraft itself has had massive rebalancing and design changes through the years. Will stormgate? Who knows, but it’s disingenuous to say it never happens.

[@madmantheepic7278]

@@YuYuYuna_ Dont argue with these EA slop eaters, they can't tell right from left.

[@gigamaxextra]

The biggest issue is the framing of the product. As soon As you can spend money in a game it's the release client, they have a alpha client of the game with a shop in it where you can spend money. It boggles my mind how game designers are so bad at understanding human psychology which is your core job.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

no their core job is writing code

[@adrianbeschea]

I switched from sc2 to chess and never looked back. Agreed, white is kinda imba but otherwise it's a great game.

[@dpend]

Ever checked out "Go?" Also known as Baduk, etc. As a chess player I find this another extremely rewarding ancient strategy game

[@TheKiim11]

Devs gave up on chess. No patches since 1881, queen is too strong and stalemate still not fixed

[@Broformist]

This cannot be complete without this magnificent Chess review video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZoOrfaeubtdlgqM

[@archyology]

If you look at the process of SC2 development it was actually quite painstaking. There was a LOT of builds and hard work that went in for years prior to, even its announcement. This was a game which was highly anticipated for years. The point I’m making is that I’m not surprised that Stormgate is not coming out the blocks and being better in every respect because there’s a lot to consider when developing these games. So, I agree they’re not going to be able to hit their target time and deliver a similar quality game.

[@eNoqfOu]

While true, they've had 15 years of SC2 history to learn from its mistakes.. ..and then they come out with the worst RTS map ever made, how do you manage to fuck up this hard?

[@archyology]

@@eNoqfOu What I'm saying is that even prior to the release of SC2 in 2011 there were years of development and testing, literally thousands of builds. Not disagreeing that recently SC2 got fucked up.

[@jackadam9348]

@@eNoqfOu until you run your own business, you'll never know.

[@eduardoserpa1682]

​@@eNoqfOu They also had a decade or more to learn from SC1 when SC2 released. And SC2 is far more similar to SC1 than Stormgate is to SC2. The obvious answer: it's a different game with different constraints and different design goals.

[@kojii6159]

@@eNoqfOu when the meta is still undeveloped, its really hard to see what a bad map is. I would even go as far as to not even touch the map (unless there is a game breaking bug, like unit being stuck), until the balance/meta solidifies

[@haze6277]

I'm waiting for DORF RTS. Looks freaking cool.

[@guyfromdubai]

For me its tempest rising

[@awagnow]

For me it's The Touhou Empires

[@MetaL556]

Also waiting for Dust Front. And Ablight(which looks to be Stormgate, but already looks miles better). And Tempest Rising. There's a lot of RTS games on the horizon.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

I already play the dorf rts. Its called dorf fortress.

[@Oj_Stimson]

As a beta tester for battle aces I highly recommend it. It was so much fun but I agree about stormgate. I was so hyped for this game and once I finally got the chance to play it I was so let down.

[@ReturnOfHeresy]

Yeah the battle aces beta was really good.

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

isn't that the rts with 0 macro? no, thanks lmao.

[@Oj_Stimson]

@@HenriqueRJchiki it's actually really good and there is macro. it's replaced sc2 as my main game.

[@Oj_Stimson]

@@HenriqueRJchiki and the game is so fast paced that the macro you do have to do feels like a lot of work. you should give it a try when next beta comes around because I thought the same thing about the macro but had a blast playing it.

[@awagnow]

@@Oj_Stimson The macro you do in battle aces is pressing one button

[@Mudkip_Trader]

Really enjoying this style of video, you should do it more often!

[@GEE_BLACCK]

You should check out Immortal too, its another good new RTS game. Its has great similarities with Starcraft.

[@francis9523]

Thanks to Immortal Gates of Pyre, i won't have to put up with this

[@4everdex]

Imagine literally advertising your game with "We are the old blizzard employees you loved and miss" and then being new blizzard in pretty much every aspect, even when in comes to micro transactions and scamming your early supporters... Dead game pretty sure. To be a competitor on the highest level, they need to swap everyone involved.

[@guest273]

Jason, I can't put my finger on it, but for some reason it was entertaining to just listen to you talking about your experience. The way you laid it out gave this video an 'amateur, but not bad' feel to it. I subscribed! :)

[@JuggernautJason]

I appreciate that!

[@felipecci]

As someone who used to be a low level diamond scrub on SC2, my main concern with Stormgate is: i don't see much reason to play it. Since stormgate does not bring anything really new to the table, why should i bother with a low budget SC2/WC3 rip off? As much as Blizzard tries to destroy their own IPs, SC2 and WC3 still very solid and polished games. I can't see stormgate coming even near to them.

[@DieBieneFranz]

The creep camp example was actually very good. Just compare it to Wc3: The creeps in Wc3 fit into the environment of the respective map you play on. They fit to the backstory and the biome. They are consistent and believable and the creep mechanic is actually very advanced. They all have different weaknesses and strength and even sophisticated abilities you have to play around and micro. Beating them gives you XP, Gold and the access to buildings that scale in value over time of the game and are a way of skillexpression, because you lose less HP f.e. if you have good micro and can anticipate how many units you need to effectively creep them. Here in stormgate you have completely random weird monsters that don't fit into the environment at all with simple, nearly not existent mechanics. The reward you get b killing them feels underwhealming because you dont get XP, it's easy and the buffs don't scale. Also the sounddesign is bad. This makes it super underwhelming and boring to fight them. And I don't get it. It's like man.... your own game 20 years ago did this aspect 100x better. What's going on in your team? This just seems as if they wasted such big opportunities, alone in the aspect of the creep camps alone

[@Mori-ey8wj]

My biggest Issue with thus game is it's presentation. There is a very good Video "why the next big RTS will fail" by giant grants games" and a major point he raises is that RTS need spectacle. Stormgate Was called the next gen RTS and SC2 still looks so much better. You may be one if those guys whobdon't care about the look and Sound, even turn it all to low setting for better Performance but the casual players who play these games for the campaign, coop and occasional multiplayer matches. Players like this make up the vadt majority of the pool and need to be sold on your game and sex sells

[@alexholker1309]

I'd define it more as a spectrum between quality and quantity. Blizzard-style RTS games like Stormgate are more towards the quality side with finite resources and a meaningful unit cap but iconic grunts like Starcraft's Marines and Zerglings, while there are other RTS games like Total Annihilation and its children that lean much more on the spectacle of scale.

[@rsk-1337]

Super well presented. You’re a great content creator. I used to be an upper gm NA zerg back in the day, quit about halfway through HOTS, and it’s crazy that we still don’t have an actually good modern rts on the market

[@905JimRaynor]

Starcraft1 and Starcraft2 are amazing. So is Northgard, C&C, CoH,CoH2, AoE2, AoE 4.

[@andrewgreeb916]

Daw and aom are also great, the latter got a remake. Everyone seems to pass up supcom, although I'm partial to it's successor BAR.

[@darkranger116]

When i first saw the game, i thought to myself.. "why is this Terran vs Burning Legion?" Its like everything shouldn't exist in the same game with each other.

[@Pico141]

Uhhh... different lore where this is explained?

[@Pico141]

It's pretty much the Doom 3 situation where they accidentally open portals to Hell while trying to figure out teleportation

[@sheepfly]

​@@Pico141 even then it was mix of demons and machine, in stormgate it's like the infernals came from a medieval fantasy game.

[@PureMatteo]

I agree; they keep on believing space W40k but with modern gen Z graphics mixed with WoW kind of units would be cool. I'm really not so sure where they are headed at.

[@PureMatteo]

@@Pico141 but in Doom3 everything is coherent and you meet proper demonic stuff that fit a horror game. I get it's what happened; but the making of this and the art design feels off.

[@slisenko]

yo what up with your Dexter kill room?

[@antonioangeloviii4748]

🤣🤣 serial killer detected

[@TheBogle255]

I loved this review, it seemed like you really gave it a shot and had legitimate reasons to be frustrated. Scout spam meta is like a rocket that blows up on the launch pad.

[@Fanaro]

There are so many criticisms you made that are so simple and easy to spot, why is it so hard for them?

[@crazycarl703]

The “jump cut” joke had me actually laughing out loud.

[@EmpressRTS]

the first jump cut made me laugh out loud 😂 amazing!

[@lukasmajerik6439]

Thank you for the summary. It helped me to get good overview of the state of the game.

[@project_swift]

The creep camps DO improve each time you capture them. I'm surprised you didn't know this after 400 games. You do get increased healing from healing camps. It's 0.5 per second at lvl 1, to 1 > 1.5 > 2 > 2.5 hps. It functions the same for the speed camp, energy camp, luminite camp and Therium camps.

[@ZombieApocalypse09]

I'm with you that Stormgate has a lot of work ahead of it and I can't imagine the 3v3 running smoothly when the co-op is already a nightmare once you reach high supply. But the creep camps being a variety of weird things is just standard creep camp stuff. I believe they said the creep camps will eventually be more themed around the map they are on like in WC3. But that's how WC3 was too. One camp is some fish dudes called murlocs, ones a hodge podge of a rock golem and some trolls, etc. And they were also sworn to protect their spots some of which guarded nothing at all, just a pocket in the woods. I love creep camps. The mechanic is a lot of fun and adds some more to do on the map. Yes, if you try to think about it logically in universe it makes no sense. But that's what games are. IMO Stormgate should've gone full WC3 and tried to evolve that version of RTS not trying to marry SC2 with WC3. Now we've got a Cronenberg RTS like Jeff Goldblum in the Fly.

[@ClearAlera]

No, the creatures for the creep camps in WC3 made sense. Each map had a tile set that defined its aesthetics (Barrens, Ashenvale forest, Cityscape, Icecrown, etc.). Only monsters that would live in that environment were put in those maps. For example, you would never find a frost revenant in a desert map, or a satyr camp in a cityscape or ice map.

[@marcneumann5928]

Yes thats exactly my opinion. I like the overall art style Stormgate goes for and i also like the creeps on the map. Creep camps is a good way to ensure that staying on the map is a good thing and you will get punished for staying behin your walls. What ia dont like at the moment is the fact that the Creeps and the tilesets look so boring and do not really match. In generel they have to do huge work on campaign, on tile and theme sets of the maps and in generel on the layout of the maps.

[@ZombieApocalypse09]

@@ClearAlera The creeps in WC3 eventually made sense if you paid attention to lore snippets and especially retroactively after the release of WoW. But to a new player a Dragon with some hodgepodge of monsters underneath it guarding a regeneration well is just as random as the green slimes guarding the healing node in Stormgate. Further, I believe it is FGs intention that Stormgate will follow this same path once they have enough creep models. They want to theme each map set around creeps that make sense in lore to be there. But for now they were just trying to replace the chickens and deer of the Beta tests with something that's at least within the ballpark of where they want to go.

[@DivinesiaTV]

Good video, well thought and articulated. The fact they didnt directly nerf the dog deserves this kind of reaction not gonna lie.

[@Mochido89]

AoE IV is in a very good state right now. It just got its latest patch, which will definitely shake the current meta for many civs, so everyone is still figuring things out. Graphics and sound are very good, and it is less punishing than SC2. It puts the focus in decision making more than micro and fast paced action. It is truly an strategy game.

[@joshstacey5407]

AoE 2 DE is better.

[@Mochido89]

@@joshstacey5407 Not really, it's just different. Same with AoE III and AoM. Lots of overlaps, but very different games. Obviously, every fanbase will think their game is better, and that's okay.

[@GetterRay]

Yeah but SC players will NEVER play anything that's not SC or based on it.

[@LordoftheBoard]

@@GetterRaythat’s not true! Beastqt switched from sc2

[@LordoftheBoard]

I loved this reflection. You are very honest and your comments and cadence were extremely enjoyable. I def recommend checking out age 4! But also AOM I see you are checking out but that is my favorite RTS rn.

[@Moldybeard]

BAR's pretty solid right now

[@Corusame]

Cracks me up watching all the content creators that sang SG's praises and said its going to be the next big thing, the denial is crazy 😂 Respect for keeping it real.

[@Mr.JamaisVu]

Lol, "Truly the epitome of enjoyment."

[@FarmManOfficial]

DUDE! come over to Aoe4! we would absolutely love to have you in the community as a streamer!!

[@JuggernautJason]

Starting aoe4 grind tomorrow! Can't wait :)

[@PureMatteo]

@@JuggernautJason Not gonna lie; Aoe4 becomes repetitive quickly. Not sure at high level; but as much as I love the series; I quit after a few month because there's not many difference strategies to play. Also; water battles are incredibly frustrating and boring and I'm surprised they haven't understood since Ao2 no one liked them and they still exist.

[@skoub3466]

Sanctuary

[@wesleyw7908]

​@@PureMatteoAOE3 still has the best naval battles. Small groups of stronger ships, with hard limits, really work great.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@PureMatteo Just play aoe2 instead

[@PhaxtolgiaLegacy]

Try Beyond All Reason. It's a game made by volunteers that emphasizes on big real-scale battles. I've also grown tired of RTS games where your starting base has no defenses against cheeses/rush. They're just not fun to play against, and are INFURIATING for new players/casuals.

[@hkl2007]

BAR 1v1 has much more vulnerability to harass early, no chokes to wall off like in sc2 :p

[@PhaxtolgiaLegacy]

@@hkl2007 That's fine. The game acknowledges this and starts you off with a commander that can fend off small attacks early, and both your commander and your T1 builders can build a basic defense against them.

[@AdmiralVortex]

Have you tried BAR? It has: -Great gameplay, both fun and deep -A dev team that cares -More features than Stormgate despite still being in alpha -A Winter announcer pack -100% Free

[@DasHobble]

You're welcome in the Beyond All Reason community!

[@Xix2g]

I was looking for this BAR is the GOAT RTS

[@TheSuperappelflap]

I remember getting a 120hz screen in 2010 or so and being like, daym this is the future, we are future gaming now. Having to do anything on a 60hz screen literally turned into a slideshow. I can see the frames. I can see the screen flicker. It gives me headaches. 60fps is unplayable in any game. I upgraded eventually to an Iiyama CRT that could hit 160hz on 1024*768 for counter strike, and eventually to a 240hz screen. Tried 144 too but I could still see the choppiness, at 160 and above its smooth as butter for me. Apparently air force pilots can see the difference up to and above 200hz. 60hz is a crime against humanity. Nobody should be made to suffer that in current year.

[@lastburning]

No way you can "see the screen flicker" unless your monitor is actually broken lol. Even lower than 60 fps is fine and standard for films and TV shows. This sounds like audiophiles claiming to hear the difference between bitrates when they totally can't when being tested.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

@@lastburning I can, though. I can see fluorescent lights flicker too, even if they are new and working properly. Thankfully most modern office buildings have LEDs now. Even though tvs display as 50 or 60hz, most of them have hardware interpolation and refresh at a much higher rate internally. My tv from 2015 has a 100hz screen, 400 and 500hz interpolation is quite common now. So the screen doesnt flicker. Because of motion blur and interpolation, low framerate doesnt look like a slideshow. Watching any 24, 25 or 30fps content on a LED tv without these hardware tricks to make it look better does look like a slideshow. Its especially noticable when the camera pans up or down if you disable all those options. It just depends on the person how well you notice these things, trained fighter pilots and professional athletes can notice differences up to insane numbers like 480hz. In fact athletes these days train with glasses that flicker at very high rates to help them train visual processing for things like predicting the path of a ball and catching it while only being able to see it for a few milliseconds. The bitrate on audio depends heavily on the quality of the speakers. With cheap earphones I can easily hear the difference between 320kbps mp3 and flac, especially on tracks with a lot of depth complexity. With a good amp and speaker set I cant hear it. It has to do with how well the hardware transforms the functions that low bitrate audio is encoded in into actual sound.

[@zilliq-qz5uw]

I've never watched your videos but I'm intrigued by a bronze to GM AOE4 series

[@juliuspringles2239]

Best review ever seen, thanks you ma broda

[@stonecoat_art]

lookin forward to the aoe2 arc

[@OliviD22]

j'ai regardé le vidéo au complet, je n'ai jamais eu autant le goût de ne pas installer un jeux que ça. Par contre ça été très bien expliqué, bravo à l'animateur.

[@primzyyyyy]

The textures and performance of this game.. man there is no hope..

[@brunob1765]

As much as I can understand frustration when you really get into the game, all of the points you raise sound like things that can be eventually fixed . After looking at what some part of the community says also I guess it’s just a matter of whether you choose to support the project no matter what. Personally I believe that the stake is although much higher than just balancing a game that just came out. Everyone leaving starcraft2 or being left without a job or a game to love is looking forward to something that can bring everything back to how things were and I believe that’s what stormgate is trying to do. Also they’re not Microsoft-activision-blizzard so that’s good enough for me I’ll personally choose to buy the game and support the project. Even though I’ve already been disappointed by studios and projects (star citizen ahem) which don’t give me good vibes but I believe in this team. GO FG

[@Kenhraim]

Last nail in the coffin. What is funny is that JJ is staying civil and honest throughout.

[@kyleg5141]

It is pretty rough and they have wasted all their funds, time is running out. I do really hope they produce something great.

[@nightmareTomek]

You should try Beyond all Reason as well!

[@TGMS77]

1:55 that had to be on purpose, right? xD

[@queldron]

Age of Mythology Retold beckons to you 😉

[@WhatTFisReality]

Sry it didn't work out bro, thanks for the update, Good luck. Hope you find a game you can call home.

[@CatKingCole82]

I was their biggest defender. Played 100hrs, defended them in every single comment section I saw. But I just feel meh now. Don't feel the desire to play more than 1 game every few days.

[@kAzinGaming]

22:55 that's the exact moment I uninstalled stormgate, when 5 of these things came in before I had a lancer (which doesn't attack up).

[@maxgrant5400]

Me when I'm looking at a creep camp for the first time but im stupid

[@JuanPablo-ev2kn]

I haven't seen much of stormgate but I'm kind of sad to see all these bugs you pointed out 😢 hope the devs make some changes next year 🙏🏻

[@omgwat]

Thank you for suffering through this so no one else has to.

[@jamesodwyer4181]

Excellent analysis of the issues. I was hyped for Stormgate, then couldn't even get it to stay connected to complete games. Now I'm holding out my RTS hopes for Tempest Rising. Played the demo during Tacticon and was pleasantly surprised

[@Nathanias]

I'm right there with you Jason. I would love nothing more than to grind SC2 but NA has truly become the most populated abandoned game there is. I love the speed of Stormgate and if they can tackle these issues the game can still be good. But things like the dog meta were around in February, which is my primary issue with this being left for so long. Thanks for sharing your thoughts without needlessly disparaging Frost Giant. I do believe they're doing the best they can.

[@bmjoaco2339]

just play whatever is fun for you

[@RaffeRensare]

I dont know about u, but this video was on point! Well done.

[@SportsPlug-cp1eq]

Fascinated by the state of the wall behind you

[@true_xander]

SG feels like SCII units accidentally traveled through WH40k warp that changed them completely, and ended up somehow on the Dota map.

[@Stan_S_Stanman]

Great video! Super respectful, concrete and insightful in your criticisms. I really hope someone from the Frost Giant team sees this and takes note. I'll be there to follow your AOE journey in the near future, as they're very different to Blizzard games and offer a nice change of pace

[@KansaiKaiser]

I am also a higher level North American RTS player coming from Warcraft 3. To maybe clarify why the developers decided for creeps to respawn, this is directly related to a key problem in Warcraft 3's design. Map objectives are determined by creep camps and their rewards. Often times in Warcraft 3, when the entire map is crept and there are no more reasons to engage with game objectives, the best option is to instead wait for gold mines to mine out and try to "mind game" your opponent to stay under upkeep and maximize your economic power. So, in short your best option is to actually do nothing. If creep camps respawned in the context of Warcraft 3, it would fundamentally change the game for the better and require players to actively be on the map far more often. Creep camps are fundamental to Warcraft 3. The rewards are game changingly impactful, with speed auras, mana regen increasing auras, permanent experience gains and also the 0 sum game of denying your opponent these gains. However, Stormgate doesn't have heroes in 1v1 so having creeps respawn just feels like a very odd design choice and doesn't actually drive any decision making in-game with how its currently implemented. It feels as if Stormgate is trying to not be too much like Starcraft, but not too much like Warcraft, without any of the excitement or actual fun that make people engage with Warcraft and Starcraft decades after release.

[@PureMatteo]

the problem is when they respawn their rewards become irrelevant because your economy should be thriving. If it's not you've lost. And the buffs aren't improved so you don't creep them for the buff anymore.

[@Latimotei]

REALLY looking forward to AoE4 streams. Its such an amazing game. Will sure tune in for that :)

[@nigosan8311]

The graphics style is also sub-par.

[@plasmathunderdx]

Putting up some drywall could be some content xD

[@YuYuYuna_]

The part about no central theme or design is really my biggest gripe about Stormgate. A friend of mine the other day was asking me about Stormgate and if I was playing it since they saw it release. I told them mostly likely not because the game just doesn't feel special. Nothing in the game feels like it fits together and none of the races feel compelling or exciting in any way. Every single race in the game is like a knockoff version of SC2's races that you bought on Temu cuz it said it costed $2.30 instead of $30. The infernals are lame as hell visually, just a budget zerg. Vanguards are a budget terran, no fun mechanics or micro. They tried so hard to be "different" that they copied stimpack but replaced it as a movement speed proc after attacks. The Celestials or w/e they're called, once again, are a budget protoss. Like listen, I'm not trying to shit on this game nor the devs because I love that they are big Starcraft fans but this game just aint it. The more I played Stormgate during the open beta the more I realized how important for an RTS it is to have a cohesive and compelling game world and story that fits together and makes you care about the game and find long term enjoyment out of the interactions between units and battles you have in multiplayer. Not saying Starcraft's story is the greatest thing ever but it definitely was a big component that had me hyped for the new expansions but more importantly made me care about the units and the races. I'm not even joking, when I first saw SC2 get announced and saw some of the early alpha Protoss footage I was like "Holy shit... I'm going to main protoss, forcefields look so fun to control space and the mothership is fucking badass!" and I mained Protoss for 8 years until I quit. Stormgate has nothing that makes it feel special or unique in anyway. I feel like they wanted to make a Starcraft-like game and took that too literally but obviously they can't actually 1:1 copy Starcraft otherwise a lawsuit would come knocking so they literally did the meme of "Mom? Can I have this toy? No son, we have that toy at home!" and this is that toy. At this point my RTS "plans" are to wait for ZeroSpace to come out. That game genuinely looks gorgeous and feels like a modern video game. I'm not a graphics snob but good god does Stormgate not have anything going for it. The graphics on max literally look like playing SC2 on low, the gameplay is janky as hell and the races literally feel like they bought Chinese knockoff toys for a major franchise off Wish. I'm sure the devs care but this game just is NOT doing anything well and they just released it so any hype of "oh dont worry this game is still being worked on" is out the window. This is more or less what Stormgate will be.

[@SharkForge29]

All spot on points and exactly how I've felt. The most frustrating thing I've dealt with was the pathfinding. i've had so many units just stuck on nothing. Brutes are infuriating to get to the front lines of big battles. It just doesn't flow or feel good. The overall feel of the game lacks any excitement. There aren't any moments that feel hype or impactful. The battles just feel like a flat line experience with weak sound design and incredibly generic character designs. The balance is abysmal... Hopefully time will fix that. There are design elements of this game that shoehorn you into MUST have units, like the magmadon. They're not an option... they're an absolute must. I understand it's early stages but they really did talk this game up fierce and it is falling short in many ways. i wish it was just in development a little bit more... but hopefully they'll be able to continue working on it. I want this game to succeed but as it sits now I just can't devote any more time to it. Much to my surprise I'm not familiar with Tempest Rising so I know what I'll be researching tonight!

[@Ouvii]

1:20 Wait, Stormgate came out? I must have missed it!

[@stayphrosty]

no it's in alpha testing

[@Ouvii]

@stayphrosty right. Pretty sure my comment was supposed to be sarcastic. It was 2 months ago so I'm not sure, but you are right, Stormgate hasn't come out, I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

[@Uttarayan]

I m fckin sad to lose you from the sc2 lore, like for real, but i loved that video, and i ll check you up on your journey, only love for you JJ, thx for that special chill vibe you r bringing to the rts fam

[@TheRealBoz]

"green shadowy dog-looking..." He does know he's colorblind, right?

[@iheuzio]

fyi for jump cuts, you wanna add a very slight buffer to fade into the next scene so it is not too abrupt.

[@TheSuperappelflap]

I think the biggest benefit of playing online for NA-ians isnt the low ping, its that you can reasonably expect that everyone on the server will speak English. In EU playing games online, half the people speak English, but half of those refuse to speak English and just speak in their own language, and the other 50% is Slavic people who dont speak English.

[@Youbetternowatchthis]

25:00 It's a dog-eat-dog world

[@fritzhanszirkel4185]

Have you tried WC 3? That game is the future, it's really good

[@steel5897]

WC3 is seriously the GOAT And as bad as Reforged was, you can ignore it completely and still enjoy the great balance changes they did and stuff like widescreen support. It's seriously a great game today.

[@HenriqueRJchiki]

warcraft 3? lmao. barely anyone plays that, its full of smurfs and people who been playing for decades, plus its so old the engine is so bad (terrible pathfinding, can only control a little number of max units) no hotkey configuration, its so bad lmao. And before you say it, WC3C is a mod, it's not blizzard endorsed so it doesn't count.

[@awagnow]

@@steel5897 I just want to point out that they added widescreen support and balance changes before reforged

[@korana6308]

WC3 is good and I got a feel to it back in 2004 but theres one downside to it is - upkeep. Its complicated mechanic that punishes macro and amassing armies. I think that removing the upkeep gimmick would actually improve it.

[@Dataraptor-v9l]

@@HenriqueRJchiki @korana6308 I'm willing to assume you guys dont watch nor play WC3

[@humblethinker8493]

Great review and update!

[@macedindu829]

Sad for you bro. I caught one of your streams several months back, and you were just sad as hell about the state of SC2 and looking forward to Stormgate. Sucks that it's even worse for you. I recommend AOE4. Beasty was right where you were with SC2, and he's basically the top streamer in it now, to the point where he's now putting on tournaments. BTW, I also find Battle Aces very entertaining; it'll be interesting to see where that goes.

[@PingWhisper]

Stormgate is a massive flop, I speed refunded that garbage

[@antonioangeloviii4748]

brutal. devs have feelings. too.

[@FeatherP]

There's one funny byproduct of units costing more supply while workers stay at 1 and the 300 supply cap, workers doesn't really limit your army supply so the balance between 'how much army/economy do I want' doesn't really exist No clue that's actually the case, it just sounds like something that could be the case

[@AbsurdShark]

Starcraft (the first), was my favorite game, not just my favorite RTS, for a long time. I loved these types of RTS games, with finite resources. But a few years back, i tried "Supreme Commander" (and now "Beyond all Reason"), and since than, i just can't get into these type of RTS games, so if Stormgate is not what it could be, i am fine with that.

[@CaptainWaffles]

Tempest Rising looks fun as hell, I grew up on Command and Conquer and I'm ready to go back.

[@Xull042]

!Perfectly smoo"*cut* was a very nice joke. Had to mention.

[@KrossFire330]

youve been one of my favorite pro players for a long time. i hope rather its sc2 or whatever other rts becomes the 'big one' I'm excited to see where you go with it

[@mmmnn1324]

I wanted to start with this game to enter the world of RTS games. I'll either wait for another game or try Starcraft 2. The genre is somehow so difficult as a beginner and I had hoped that there would be a new game where it would be a bit easier to get into it than the old games where everyone already has 5000 hours in it

[@ixirion]

I taught 12 y old girl to play SC2. you can manage XD there is also speed slider in the game + casual mode.

[@Broformist]

Lowest leagues of SCII ladder have such bad players that I find it hard to imagine anyone not being able to get into it. I started it myself as somebody who couldn't even finish any RTS campaign above Medium difficulty and ended up going straight to Silver league. So imagine how Bronze must look like.

[@Phershey]

You can block past your max number if you report them for abuse or cheating

[@coreyrachar9694]

2:35 wow this explains so much... Yeah the situation is pretty bad for RTS enjoyers these days.

[@quidestveritas0]

Lol we got a power point!!!

[@Buttersman]

Great critique and feedback. Game needs a lot of work I hope they have the ⌛/💲 As a casual player I have been enjoying Stormgate as the pacing is more relaxed than SC2 as you mentioned. I've played maybe 100 games of 1v1 and a dozen Coop missions. But I haven't had to deal with the FPS or latency issues which look soooo frustrating. And I dont play vanguard so no dog meta woes. In the end I'm just glad we seem to have a huge wave of new RTS coming in. Lots of games to play and try out while they are cooking on this one. For the devs sake hope they can turn it around tho, they seem like nice people.

[@TeeJayLars]

Cool video, very well thought out and interesting perspectives. However, your thoughts on the creep camps are...weird, to say the least. "Woah! There are *different* designs for the creeps!? Where's the cohesion!?" There are different kinds of monsters and additional factions that populate the universe; this is a world where angel aliens and Dungeon Keeper demons coexist, and we're hung up on random mercenary characters being different from one another in the wilderness? Particularly as a Warcraft 3 player, different creep styles make for a healthy variety of camp types, and also let you gauge power level of individuals at a glance. Your thoughts on the overall design of how creep camps operate make sense, but it seemed a pretty strange criticism to be so hung up on the fact that the creeps are modeled differently than one another.

[@Laddeus]

I haven't followed you at all. Got here because I was looking forward to Stormgate. I like your takes. Have you ever played Warcraft 3? Can't see a video on it here. IF you've missed it, it's one of the top rts of all time.