User Experience Feedback SRGW + SRU

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CertainDeath
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User Experience Feedback SRGW + SRU

Post by CertainDeath »

1.) I like the game / franchise good enough, so that i care to write this text.
So keep that in mind, to not missinterpret it.

Played SR2020 for around 1000 hours? Dont know. Long time ago.
What i liked about the game, is that you have to develope a countries economy with some depht, the long tech tree, the zooming with mouse was great invention (you were one of first strategy games, which made zoom to mouse instead to middle of screen, great feature, which everyone copied)

1-2 years ago bought it on steam too (got rid of all my CDs and DVDs years ago), and played 1-2 short rounds, but could not fall in love again.

recently thought: ok lets try and buy sru + expansion, and lets see how it had developed. BG had a lot of time, to iron out the game.
...
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...
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My gameplay experience:
i am a bit overwhelmed about the patchwork of added fetaures and a UI that manages to be even more unwieldly then the one from SR2020.
Its really not fun to keep overwatch over country when numbers are hiding in different mouse overlays in different menues, which you all have to point to accurately to for gather info, while half of you user interface space shows you clutter like headphone jacks and not aligned table backgrounds and funny bars and strokes, that do not provide me any information but distraction and taken space.

the TGW scenario with austria-hungary i played first was soberning. Mission tree that made no sense, and partly had no functionality or effect.
at least the war decs worked, so it was a ww1, with most of the original participants on the right side, at least in the first try. thats good!
the ai was lacklustering. no russian invasion, only single stacks, and italy was easily beaten back with artillery, only challenge was to take beograd, but with 2 stacks of artillery thats also not a challenge anymore.
i ended first try because i wanted to try to get inflation in check in a new try.

in the second try, which i had to play to get into the changed economics, i managed to get an exit of ww1 after 1 month, which i did not take, cause reasons, and then i encountered that battleship which deleted a stack in a day, and i did not want to play with ehanced spotting and ranges anymore, so i ended the second game
and made posts here with the issues i encountered.

but bg devs have not reacted to any of my posts. i have found out reasons in other posts. they dont wanna dev this game anymore.


i did not start a third try, cause i did not want to set up the state again (running trough all menues, units, buildings etc to set it up as i want it takes an hour, and its all done in that UI 8_ ), and i was dissapointed.
i dont think i will try another nation in 1914, so the 17€ for the addon have been more then a donation then actually getting anything in playable state from it.
the futuristic scenario is more fun and diverse anyway,

so 2020 scenario it is.
As i bought the game i was sure, that you would have reworked some things like unit balances, and feeded the game with actual world data at least once in the last 5 years.
but we still have world data from 2008. Indonesia has grown by over 30mil pop since then, germany has the puma, russia pak50 and t14...
if that would have been the case (and the UI would not have worsened), i would have been satisfied. honestly, even with the 17€ into the donation box.

My conclusio:
The sad truth is: My copy of SR 2020 Gold is the better game then this. In SRU i get worse UI with less clarity and more features in the game which bring more issues, instead of any of old problems solved.


i would love to get into modding to fix things to make it how i want it, but everytime i touch the game, to try / test something, new "features" occur... found out that trade/eco does not work properly. budget is even running crazy, when trading from production to market (try china 2020 with that consumer good trade to market).
With the game i started yesterday and ended today, and this post, i am basically done with this game. To overhaul it, one would basically have to touch everything, thats not worth the effort, its like making a new game, and then it would look like sru, and would have SRU UI |O

Just let you guys know why im done.

When i read about your plans about making a space SR and a SRNG from elements or complete ports of this base game, without the desire to change much, then i just can wonder: who is gonna buy that?
i wont.

Dont get me wrong. I was type of kid, that painted his globe to conquer the world, with his own ruleset, and created own maps on carton to play diplomacy board game in africa etc. i am totally into games like this. Guys like me should be on fire, when you announce new games.
But this sloppy patchwork thing? That was a lesson for me.

i dont expect that you make things perfect. But i expect you to improve your stuff instead of making it worse.
i respect, that you made a effort to make the game modable on a deep level. i alredy have a personally modded stellaris copy on my disc for my liking, so im not new to that.
but to mod this game into a playable state one would have to touch literally everything, including core (AI is really bad, economy does not work well, units are badly balanced and over board, UI is absymal, .... at least the tech tree is mostly fine) , so he could basically develop a game on his own^^

And for the money i donated to you guys without getting a playable game, i just wanna let you know: im fine with that. im giving this to you for reading this.

at least this debacle has a positive side too.
i set up a learning plan for myself to learn c++ and unreal engine, if you guys are not able make the game i always wanted to play, and if your platform is nowhere near useable for modding this to that game, and you do not seem to wanna change much in future,
then i gonna start make it myself :P :D so i guess i can thank and salut you to be the trigger for a new project of mine.
p.s. at this date i already learned enough about c++ and unreal engine, that i know that my idea is crazy. Ill keep going. results in 10 years or so :D At least lerning C++ is more fun than playing SRU :D :P basically everything is more fun.
Rosalis
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Re: User Experience Feedback SRGW + SRU

Post by Rosalis »

I agree with all of it. I feel they cheated the SR2020 players. In the final patch finally some stuff was balanced like units and techs, but 2020 players played a demo for 5 years. Still shattered world isnt fixed. Atleast i managed to mod it more realistic to my liking. China 6k gdp/c, right maybe 25 years ago. I know they cheated economy, but so did the western powers. The new China idea of looking at the world and economy geopolitical in a different way is completely ignored. In relations, in economy, in techs, in diplomacy in everything. And 5 years ago they just silenced 2020 players that nothing was wrong untill 5 years from then.

I have faith tho, they must also seen the huge drop in mods, in AAR's, in youtube videos, in people defending the game, like 5 years ago. You couldnt say anything bad or this army of fanboys was there protecting BG in their quests for more features. All are gone now. I think they tried to meet the needs of negative reviews in SR2020, and now alot of potential might be lost. Learning from negative reviews in SRU will be far more important. Where it was once a geopolitical simulator its now a unit simulator. People telling me they learned something from WW2 playing this game, i just cant stop laughing. I like the colonies, and that will keep me playing SRU, but doing more to them you shouldnt loose the main feature. You colonise and get tons of stuff, thats how it works. I know you cant do concentration camps, torture, or anything like that, but there are ways arround that where everyone knows what it means.

Its mainly US vs Russia in this game, well atleast for the scenarios i like, cw and 2020. Your either with us or against us. That's not how it works. You can ask UK and Germany politicans why they rather ignore Crimea or other things Russia does. Its all about the money. In SR2020 it was more ideology based, room for religious conflicts, or other type of conflicts, resources and such. Oh that 80's ideology i miss you.
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