DEVs, don't cut corners, give us a proper BSG Experience.
Posted: Sun Jul 16, 2017 1:34 pm
Battlestar Galactica Deadlock Developers,
I watched your gameplay video recently and saw a lot of great potential to do a BSG game right. But given that it was the only video seen thus far I'm hoping you improve upon this game and don't make the same huge mistakes that a previous company made with their Online version of the BSG universe. You see some of the players still playing that 'cookie cutter clone' are now making assessments that the game you are making is nothing more than a recycled and reskinned clone of another game you released about 2 or so years ago. I find is very funny that they are choosing to be so critical given that they and the developers failed across the board with the other game for about 6 years or so straight. The problem was that they didn't follow through and make the game even remotely Battlestar Galactica outside of the assets being skinned as BSG. All they did was reskin a previous game they had created and they didn't bother to complete the conversion. So now the only people still playing it are the people who clearly don't have much respect for themselves as they keep complaining yet keep playing.
In looking at what you have put together for your recent gameplay video I can tell you exactly what will make your game standout among the rest, and what will make your game better than even the fan made flight sim that was created years ago. What is truly needed is something that most games lack and that is depth. Here is what you need to get there.
1. Let the players be the fleet commanders but let them chose only one ship as their flagship. It is okay having them commanding the fleet, but allow the ship commanders to deal with their own internal issues such as damage control, intruders on board, or engagement tactics to be used against the enemy when needed. They are commanders after all. When not being ordered to attack a certain target by the player they should be able to show they know how to operate, maintain, and fight the enemy with the ships under their command. Also consider giving ships personnel as part of subsystem and fighter repair times. Because crews matter. If during combat crew members are injured or dead that should be a play a factor in the fight as well as affect the player performance score.
2. Program AI Commanders with good tactics and maybe create some seen in BSG. Like I said, it’s about the feel and experience so give that to your players to keep them playing.
3. Squadron Leaders for Viper and Raider squadrons. When these types of units engage each other they should behave as squadrons in combat would splitting of into 2-ship and 4-ship squads during engagements with pilots gaining experience. If a Squad Leader or senior Flight officer is killed someone is promoted into that slot. Simple flocking type behavior is unacceptable and is so 1990s. It also does not create a proper BSG combat environment and feel. Concerning control of a Viper/Raider Wing, as a squadron is 18 or 20 craft, if they finish their player given task, they should default back under the control of their Baseship and that ships should choose the priority.
4. If available a Raptor should be assigned to every 9 or 10 ship squad and when assigned give a coordination performance bonus to the squad there are assigned to which would be proper for BSG.
5. Hero or Command (Captain/Major) level Raider/Viper pilots should have the flexibility to change the priority if there is a higher threat within range. (i.e. If they see a nuke inbound to a base ship or if they notice that a mission critical ship or their own base ship is in serious trouble, they may chose to intercept that threat or direct a flight to intercept a threat.
6. Making ships have proper designations and that they loaded out to those designations and roles respectively. Frigates are typically anti-fighter escort ships and should be loaded as such. Cruisers and Destroyers should have their own proper loadouts that fill out their roles in the fleet. One of the problems that the other BSG multiplayer game had was that the developers never properly loaded out ships to fill tasks and roles to deal properly with threats. The same weapon systems used for attacking large or medium classed warships were also used for attacking small fighters and missiles when they should have been preset with flak cannons and point defense batteries to handle the smaller threats. Also ships didn’t have proper ranges so instead of their being epic looking fleet battles you had every player controlled ship stacked on top of each other so close they could spit on each other. There was literally no real tactical level combat. It was basically the American Revolutionary War in space combat wise and none of the battles looked like a BSG battle.
7. DO NOT USE COOKIE CUTTER SHIP LAYOUTS! Diversify based on race, Human vs Cylon. Each with their own respective strengths and weaknesses. There is nothing worse than having the same ships on both sides only with different skins. If it starts to feel like that BSG game I mentioned you will fail like they did! You have the potential to be superior here. Don’t play yourselves.
8. Don’t hide behind the support of Fanbois, and think you can sit on your asses and do nothing because they are talking down angry players. When the players of that other BSG game were asking for real work to be done to improve their game the developers hid behind their Fanbois who kept using the same tired excuse year after year that improvements would take too much time and money. And when I say it happened every year I mean it happened every freakin’ year. After over 6 years they accomplished nothing and the game is an utter failure. DON’T DO IT! So again you have a great opportunity here and some serious potential to get this program done right. But the only way you are going to truly be successful is if you give the best Battlestar Galactica experience gamers have ever seen.
You can prove the critics wrong and make this game great. Do not make this a rehashed, re-skinned clone of your previous game.
I watched your gameplay video recently and saw a lot of great potential to do a BSG game right. But given that it was the only video seen thus far I'm hoping you improve upon this game and don't make the same huge mistakes that a previous company made with their Online version of the BSG universe. You see some of the players still playing that 'cookie cutter clone' are now making assessments that the game you are making is nothing more than a recycled and reskinned clone of another game you released about 2 or so years ago. I find is very funny that they are choosing to be so critical given that they and the developers failed across the board with the other game for about 6 years or so straight. The problem was that they didn't follow through and make the game even remotely Battlestar Galactica outside of the assets being skinned as BSG. All they did was reskin a previous game they had created and they didn't bother to complete the conversion. So now the only people still playing it are the people who clearly don't have much respect for themselves as they keep complaining yet keep playing.
In looking at what you have put together for your recent gameplay video I can tell you exactly what will make your game standout among the rest, and what will make your game better than even the fan made flight sim that was created years ago. What is truly needed is something that most games lack and that is depth. Here is what you need to get there.
1. Let the players be the fleet commanders but let them chose only one ship as their flagship. It is okay having them commanding the fleet, but allow the ship commanders to deal with their own internal issues such as damage control, intruders on board, or engagement tactics to be used against the enemy when needed. They are commanders after all. When not being ordered to attack a certain target by the player they should be able to show they know how to operate, maintain, and fight the enemy with the ships under their command. Also consider giving ships personnel as part of subsystem and fighter repair times. Because crews matter. If during combat crew members are injured or dead that should be a play a factor in the fight as well as affect the player performance score.
2. Program AI Commanders with good tactics and maybe create some seen in BSG. Like I said, it’s about the feel and experience so give that to your players to keep them playing.
3. Squadron Leaders for Viper and Raider squadrons. When these types of units engage each other they should behave as squadrons in combat would splitting of into 2-ship and 4-ship squads during engagements with pilots gaining experience. If a Squad Leader or senior Flight officer is killed someone is promoted into that slot. Simple flocking type behavior is unacceptable and is so 1990s. It also does not create a proper BSG combat environment and feel. Concerning control of a Viper/Raider Wing, as a squadron is 18 or 20 craft, if they finish their player given task, they should default back under the control of their Baseship and that ships should choose the priority.
4. If available a Raptor should be assigned to every 9 or 10 ship squad and when assigned give a coordination performance bonus to the squad there are assigned to which would be proper for BSG.
5. Hero or Command (Captain/Major) level Raider/Viper pilots should have the flexibility to change the priority if there is a higher threat within range. (i.e. If they see a nuke inbound to a base ship or if they notice that a mission critical ship or their own base ship is in serious trouble, they may chose to intercept that threat or direct a flight to intercept a threat.
6. Making ships have proper designations and that they loaded out to those designations and roles respectively. Frigates are typically anti-fighter escort ships and should be loaded as such. Cruisers and Destroyers should have their own proper loadouts that fill out their roles in the fleet. One of the problems that the other BSG multiplayer game had was that the developers never properly loaded out ships to fill tasks and roles to deal properly with threats. The same weapon systems used for attacking large or medium classed warships were also used for attacking small fighters and missiles when they should have been preset with flak cannons and point defense batteries to handle the smaller threats. Also ships didn’t have proper ranges so instead of their being epic looking fleet battles you had every player controlled ship stacked on top of each other so close they could spit on each other. There was literally no real tactical level combat. It was basically the American Revolutionary War in space combat wise and none of the battles looked like a BSG battle.
7. DO NOT USE COOKIE CUTTER SHIP LAYOUTS! Diversify based on race, Human vs Cylon. Each with their own respective strengths and weaknesses. There is nothing worse than having the same ships on both sides only with different skins. If it starts to feel like that BSG game I mentioned you will fail like they did! You have the potential to be superior here. Don’t play yourselves.
8. Don’t hide behind the support of Fanbois, and think you can sit on your asses and do nothing because they are talking down angry players. When the players of that other BSG game were asking for real work to be done to improve their game the developers hid behind their Fanbois who kept using the same tired excuse year after year that improvements would take too much time and money. And when I say it happened every year I mean it happened every freakin’ year. After over 6 years they accomplished nothing and the game is an utter failure. DON’T DO IT! So again you have a great opportunity here and some serious potential to get this program done right. But the only way you are going to truly be successful is if you give the best Battlestar Galactica experience gamers have ever seen.
You can prove the critics wrong and make this game great. Do not make this a rehashed, re-skinned clone of your previous game.