Larian Studios Forums Dragon Commander Dragon Commander - Beta Feedback and Impressions

Greetings. I'm a vet turn-base strat player and a fairly hardcore RTSer (competative SC2). I would like to provide feedback on some important areas that should be addressed or fixed. I realize this is beta, and not all features may be currently implemented. I will largely address multilayer campaign.

Menus:
Various Options menus are cut off and cannot be scrolled down tot he bottom, namely Graphics, Combat Phase controls, Dragon combat controls.



Dragon Controls:
Having spacebar and right click both keyed to jetpack is redundant, and I found myself struggling with the instinct of hitting spacebar to fly vertically up. I found no control to move straight up, and having to look up to gain altitude was irksome over time.

Freelook for Dragon.
I would personally like to have a way to enable freelook when using the dragon. This has no practical application, but I really, really want to be able to actually see myself from more than just his hindquarters. I want to enjoy how awesome I look, because i assume the front of the dragon is rendered, but I've never seen it! Something like keybind ctrl or alt to freelook. while holding it, the mouse will pan an orbit camera around the dragon avatar, and whent he freelook key is released, the camera returns to the current behind and mouselook controls.
The top of every webpage here shows that beautiful concept art profile of the dragon... yet I've never once even seem his face, let alone be able to look around or zoom in to admire him!

Reticules pass through dragon.
I would like to see perhaps a gameplay/graphics option box to disallow the reticule boxes around units from showing through the dragon avatar. The mass of armies all having boxes criss cross over the dragon totally destroys the little immersion that there is from playing the dragon. The dragon model should sit on top of every graphics except the skillbar.

Macro Control.
As a strong SC2 player, I can barely manage to keep up the unit production in the RTS mode here. and it's very hard to micro and macro at the same time. This may be intentional to an extent: If you use your super powerful dragon avatar, you are punished by losing all macro production ability whilst you are playing the avatar. I don't like the idea of being punished for using the main feature of Dragon commander! The AI has superb prodction APM, and I'm forced to stay the out-of-combat commander far more than I'd like. I=The RTS here is more stressfull than many other RTSs. I thought it would be far more relaxed and fun. Getting caught up and playing the dragon -which is a lot of fun- really can hurt your win chance. I love the dragon micro capabilities with selecting all/nearby units and ordering them along. But the macro game almost makes it not worth playing the RTS mode.
I'm not entirely sure how to remedy this. Units produce so fast that having a structure automatically keep producing a queue because it will suck up your resources. The only practical solution I can think of is assigning a forge to maintain a unit count. Say set a ratio of 3 trooper:2 grenedier:1 shaman. As units die, it will replace the army population to fill that ratio.

Macro stratification of players.
The difficult macro (difficult meaning its hard to effectively use your recruits while actually commanding or playing the army/Dragon) will stratify players immensely. Casual RTS players, or players attracted from turn-based 4x games, will get stomped by someone who is APM capable (and probably get stomped by the AI). I think Dragon commander wants to (and should!) appeal to players who like turn based strategy, who like to play politics, who like to build infrastructure and plan out their map moves. But these players will get frustrated by the intensity of the RTS portion (specifically macro). I think it's easy to have a hardcore RTSr like me pick up the turn-based game, but I doubt a turn-based player will make an easy adjustment to this RTS system. It feels very hardcore. I doubt I have to be an ace Civilization IV player to master Dragon Commanders turn-based game. But that Civ player coming in better be an ace RTS player. It's a nasty disparity.

No politics in MP Campaign.
This I hope is a limitation of Beta. There is no politics or factions in the MP campaign game, nor random events. Without these things, the campaign mode is just a red herring cover for a purely RTS game.

Wow, I talk a lot about RTS.
I didn't think that Dragon Commander was being marketed as an RTS, let alone a hardcore RTS. Yes it has RTS, but it's not the focus [I thought]. The focus is "the pleyers get to play as a dragon in an RTS mode," and what really counts is the strategy from the overarching trun-based play. Yet the "RTS" verymuch overwhelms the importance and influence of the turn-based and Dragon. Like I said before, this RTS mechanic punishes dragon play, and is so incredibly fasted paced that if you ever stop clicking unit production portraits, you will lose. The dragon can turn the tide of battle, sure, but unit production is so darned time consuming. Units pop out so Insanely fast that you can't even rely on a production queue to actually play the game! Max out a trooper queue, you'll get about 25 seconds of dragon play before you have to morph out and start clicking again. Do that times how many shipyards, forges, factories.... kiss your dragon playtime goodbye.

Conclusion:
All in all, I think it's a great start for a beta. I thoroughly enjoy it. But I predict that the RTS portion of the game will utterly overwhelm those whom aren't hardcore RTS fans. So, if it were released as the beta is today, Dragon commander would have a very small market audience to attend to it, and loose out on a lot of casual prospective players because anything that requires such a high APM to play is very unappealing to all but the most loyal RTS players. I want my buddies to get into dragon commander. We play Civ, sins of a solar empire, gal civ, SC2, you name it. We all love 4x and turn based strat. But when they see me mashing the keyboard for unit production, everyone one of them says "I'll pass."


I sincerely hope Dragon commander isn't intended as a true RTS game, because it will never compete with the 'real' RTSs out there like SC2. I definitely don't want to see this title die a premature death, but as it stands, RTS'ers will say "I'd rather be playing SC2." and the Turn based players will say "I'd rahter be playing Civ." DO NOT strive to have a game pace of SC2. you will scare off any non hardcore audience.

Dragon Controls: the right-click for the jetpack is intended for strafing to dodge projectiles (not that it helps much when they home in and there are a zillion coming at you at once), the space bar is for forward flight, although I did notice that using the right-click when not currently moving is the same as the space bar.

It is intentional that you cannot control production while as a Dragon because they don't want you to be able to stay in Dragon mode all the time. However, the production queues are unlimited, so that issue is alleviated if you remember to spam the button to produce units a lot before transforming.

The political management side is only intended for the single-player campaign. It isn't really compatible with multiplayer because one person can wander the ship at your leisure, talk to people an make decisions, meanwhile, there's another guy sitting there on the campaign map who doesn't care about all that waiting who knows how long for you to finish up whatever else you're doing. The campaign map already lets players hang around just thinking about troop movement and research.


A lot of people here have echoed your comments on the RTS mode being too fast - it was even the subject of one of Swen's blog entries.

I think I have to agree. There are all kinds of potential tactics that the game theoretically provides for, but just aren't that reasonable in gameplay because of the speed. You can plant mines, but the cooldown is 20 seconds between plantings, and there's so much terrain you need to cover that it's no good.

Units have all kinds of special abilities, but it's hard to micro them in combat, although I am getting better at that.

Thank you for the detailed feedback. Finding the right balance and pace is exactly the reason we're doing the beta, and well structured input like this is extremely helpful. We are aware that it's a very fine line we're walking in terms of find the right balance between micro and macro, and during the course of the beta you'll see shifts left and right as we try to find the sweet spot that satisfies most players.

I don't see how politics can't fit into the mp campaign. The beta map I noted included portraits of the native race in each territory, and listed your favor there in addition entrenchment (always 50%, though). The cards already introduce an element of the 'politics' with revolts and upsets that cause population decreases, structures dismantling, etc. I can totally see events occurring in territories that could effect economics, research, military power and movement, etc.

It's one of the better elements of most turn-based strategy titles. It keeps a map fresh and interesting. It doesn't need to be as in depth as the SP strategic.

Just an opinion.

Though perhaps, as judging from the webpage's faqs, coop exists as a mode separate from single or multi(as it's listed in addition to sp and mp; Therefore separate mode?). If that's the case, and there's some sort of coop strategic, then leave multiplayer campaign as it stands. Unless they are saying coop in the sense that you play a generic mp game except you can play teams and have AI play, then I'm a little bit sad because true coop campaigns are my favorite genre.


And Ty for the feedback, Lar. I do realize that it's one monster of a tightrope to walk, and I wish you all the best with your choice of how to navigate it. Cheers.

In multi-player you can set the faction of each player and AI, so to play coop you just pick the same faction. Other modes have not been confirmed (there was talk quite awhile ago about a possible coop mode where one player controlled the dragon and the other managed the troops, for example).

I know faction can be changed. I just don't view regulat mp mode just with 'team human vs team with ai" as coop. It's effectively the same as team human vs team human. That's just 'multiplayer' imho. In my ideal little world, coop is an entity unto itself delivering an experience unique from sp or mp modes (or at least leaning toward the depth of sp, as 99.9% of mp modes are very superficial relative to an sp campaign).

After a bit of thought I may have a simple idea for production pacing. Do it like Red Alert: you can queue up whenever you want regardless of capacity (or funds). I mean that, I select my production structures, I click units in the order i want them produced, but there is literally no cap to how much i can click. Right now, dragon commander forbids a queue beyond maximum unit capacity. Instead, one should be able to continue clicking up their queue in the order they want, and only add to the maximum cap as the units come out instead of in the queue. Once the unit cap is reached, production halts, but the queue remains. So as units die, they free up unit space, and the forge/factory/etc produce the next unit in line to replace it.

This could make it exponentially easier to maintain a production line in a fasted paced game. Any macro rookie can over queue, and would put so much more control into the commanders hands as it drastically reduce macro apm needs. Now the 'penalty' to playing as the dragon would be the inability to directly control the new units (ie send them all to specific location as 'all units attack this point' is not particularly efficient).

Its a simple solution, and simple is generally best. KISS.

That's a great idea.

Since there are a couple dozen of these threads, I'll just dump my thoughts in this one.

Played several RTS skirmishes against AI. Lost a few but won most of them.

I like the unit variety. It's a bit rock-paper-scissors but that's probably unavoidable to a large degree.

Air units seem a little underpowered. Especially when I'm using the Dragon.

Also in the underpowered category are unit special abilities and research. I always feel like my time is better spent Unit spamming and capturing territory ASAP.

Could be a bit map dependent, but so far Juggernauts = auto win. The AI doesn't seem to counter them well at all.

In general it feels a little spammy. It doesn't seem to matter much what I build so long as I build a lot of them and move fast. Possibly would be better with less units on the field and lower HP for buildings and turrets. Basically just scale down everything.

The AI seems to like collecting a lot of units and then attacking as opposed to smaller scale engagements. So this makes counter attacking very effective. Let them wear themselves out against your D and then punch back.

So far I have enjoyed the games, and I like the pace which I guess was changed after the patch today.

Music is excellent, of course.

The individual units behave well. Respond to attacks, do what you tell them to, and don't need babysitting. Path finding on the Shaman seemed a little funky though. It would go the long way around mountains and run in to enemies.

I assume some sort of after victory screen isn't implemented yet.

Anyway, was fun and looking forward to seeing how this game shakes out.

I'll add some bugs and other feedbacks from playing quite a bit more:

Immunity cards don't seem to work.

Allies should be able to give eachother territories.
Sometime me and an AI ally will both send units at the same time to 1 territory, but only one lays claim and it cannot change hands. That could incidentally hinder one of the team members. Likewise if an enemy invades an ally's territory, and I take it back, now I have the territory when I really can't maintain it: say it has a factory on it on my ally's front line. If I control It, I wont be investing in that factory as I'm busy with my own war front, so my ally suffers and we lose that territory. It'd be best to transfer control to my ally.

Map goes 'round-the-horn.
That means the map is emulating a sphere, so if I send a unit west, he can appear on get opposite side of the board on the eastern half. I only accidentally discovered this, and now the map is a whole new ballgame. Every capital is within 3 of each other. So I can constantly send bomber balloons/zeppelins into my opponent's capitol. The dotted lines also cut straight across the map making a bit of a mess when jumping across the edge of the map to the opposite side.
Also, the AI does not utilize it's close proximity to opponents (via jumping across the board). Perhaps the AI is 'unaware' that targets on the opposite side of the map are actually very close via Transports.
I don't know if this feature is good or bad, but it make the map waaay more volatile. Maybe I'm the only one that didn't get the memo that you can warp across the map, but assuming I'm not that daft, players will be able to end a game really fast. Turn 1 build transport. Turn 2 fill it and move 2 to shore outside of enemy capital. Turn 3 invade capital. If I'm decent at RTS, guaranteed Checkmate.
Maybe the 'round world' was overlooked from earlier dev, or was always intentional. Either way we should probably start a discussion as to how it influences a MP campaign and weight the pros and cons.

AI never produces card-producing buildings.
No Parliaments or extra taverns. These can really make a game, and AI doesn't use them. Nor Academies and subterfuge cards. Hopefully these are just currently in development and not yet implemented. I do see my ally pop out factories, but I've never seen the other team build much. And never a gold mine.

AI doesn't use a large variety of units on the board.
AI doesn't produce ironclads, Warlocks, fighters, bombers, zeppelins, juggernauts to my knowledge. With the board being so close with map jumping, There's no reason not to get bombers/fighters really early. Bombers to siege capital to capital every turn, and fighters to defend against bombers.