SC2Mapster

I played the map on the Arcade.

It is a really cool idea, but not really my type of game. I have never liked Xcom type games, but I wanted to give it a try anyways!

Things I noticed:

1. ) I think a normal map instead of dynamic terrain would be better. You could add new terrain and change it slightly as your game gets more attention.
2. ) A story or set-up is always a big draw for types like me!
3. ) A simple skippable tutorial would help newbs in the beginning of the game
4. ) I noticed that nothing is hotkeyed. Why not keep the hotkeys?
5. ) Perhaps a cooler spawning building then the Barracks
6. ) The dying sound is weird whenever I attack a unit
7. ) Maybe the first objective is just to capture a point and then attack the enemy or shoot some rocks...you know scaffold it because I lost my guys really fast every time.
8. ) Use those wall blockers that Blizzard has set to some of their maps so you can't see the edge of the map.

Okay good luck!!

Well then, I must say that single player vs multiplayer experience left vastly different impression on me.

SINGLE PLAYER

For singleplayer I played it through all 3 length settings till the end to check progression. All were played on easiest (normal) difficulty. And it left me troubled.

-There was this weird dissonance concerning unrestrained movement - why is it that I and my enemy are playing by different rulesets? It also felt unfair when the objective was to kill a structure and you could go into corner and make all enemies move toward you, then when they're on the other side of the map - go to objective and nuke it. Overall - an entire layer of depth thrown out with seemingly nothing to replace it.

-Enemies overkill like mad. It feels jarring to see enemy AI in a turn based game to just A-move and do this entirely unintelligent stuff.

-Scaling is annoying. Just as I upped my damage enough for sniper to 1-hit Infested I get to learn that they now have 3 more health. I appreciate reliability and consistency of data. Would rather prefer to have additional more deadlier monster type than this "oh you upgraded? Well enjoy your upgrades being meaningless cause everything just got scaled up because reasons..".

-Missions felt empty. Get your setup and do the usual monotone thing on indistinguishable featureless terrain. I would have loved to have a mini-campaign where you get to pick different mission types with different objectives to receive mission-unique rewards or face mission-unique challenges. Maybe if it had some cool stuff/setup I would have more desire to replay those unique missions with perhaps different approaches.

MULTIPLAYER

Then, feeling shallow and depressed I tried multiplayer (two 5-round games, 2nd and 3rd difficulties). Aaand it was a whole different experience.

-Unrestrained movement now made complete sense cause you were able to adapt and support your allies. There was no dead time. Everyone were moving and doing things and I was free to either do my own thing or help somebody across the map. It felt nice.

-Enemy predictability concerning overkill now felt justified cause I could much easily anticipate who would live and die by start of next turn.

-People were like "ooh this is fun!", chatting and giving each other instructions. Not having a coherent structure to missions didn't bother me at all at this time, tho it probably would have been even more fun to decide with everyone whether to do mission A for reward X or mission B for reward Y (if mission choosing was a thing).

I did hate 2 mechanics tho:
1) Sometimes you need to sacrifice your unit for allies to win. But by being a team player you put yourself in disadvantage by not getting minerals for surviving units (cause you sacrificed for greater good) :(
2) I stole all minerals that dropped from my ally kills. At the end of the round I had 18 spare minerals. I felt dirty. I bet if my allies knew what I did they'd be furious too.

Oh, and the dialog that shows turns progression after all your units have made their action was obnoxious because it was right in the center of screen blocking vision. Would prefer to have it on top of the screen instead.

I thought i would add my two cents aswell.

I played it first singleplayer, and then a few times in multiplayer before collecting my thoughts.

Caveat: My english is poor, if it seems i mean any offence, i dont, its just poor wording.

I enjoyed single player more. It was often clearer what needed to be done (eg using the explosives to kill enemies and stuff, neat!). But... I didnt realise untill far to late that the infested terran onehit kills everything. It felt like it could have been telegraphed more clearly. Then again i didnt click them and check their damage... so... my bad hah! I found that they deal 500 damage. So no amount of upgrades would help. Maybe having an aura of some sort? Maybe a model to show that theyre reaaally dangerous?

Having upgrades that are not usefull felt frustrating. Maybe giving just flat bonuses instead of %. It was really hard to work around the infested terrans, especially since there was often so many of them. We played a full lobby and it felt like a sea of enemies. It was not always clear which units the enemy would attack, and one time i thought i was safe but it moved against me instead of my ally and killed. I noticed the abilities units had was changed during the game, i felt i wanted a reason for it. Gaining new abilities feel okay, or if you change them and tell the player (During this mission, snipers have this ability). But removing abilities without telling the player? Im going to use cloak this level... Its gone. Lastly i feel like punishing a player for being a team player (dying instead of another), feel hard. When players are also rewarded for playing safe (given more minerals and even a shoutout) it felt rough to have my super armored unit just die in one shot.

I agree that some story or options for levels could have been nice.

I really like the ideas though. Having diffrent units to solve problems, abilities, and teamwork. I like the idea with co-op turn based strategy. It feels like this is gonna be very cool once its done!

Hope my feedback helps.

I'm writen for the next one I diddent feel like my feedback was needed on this one because lol there's nothing left to say.

Nice! I planned on making a solo vid for feedback on Monday, so I can try the version

I played on single player.

Things I liked

-The enemies have unqiue ablities -It is simple -Each unit has different strengths -Different Tasks -Bunkers were helpful but when i first saw it i didn't know what it would do

Things I didn't like

-Sometimes its just really hard with three units and i can't beat the level [maybe because i am just bad at it] -Archons seems really op -Single player and multiplayer didn't seem that much of a difference [from what i seen] -I pressed the wrong button and got the wrong unit [Undo button would be great or i just didn't see it]

Feelings

-Its hard to judge how far a enemy can move -Enemies should have different tactics / range / weakness -Snipers seemed to be the best choice together with medic -Firebats deal too low damage [ I didn't upgrade them] -Some new units would be great in the future -Some buildings might have a little too much health so if we kill all the units in a "Kill all buildings" quest, it would help if we would win. -Enemies should have a certain pattern because its quite hard to one hit or its impossible to not get hit when attacking] -Gain control automatically when we enter the stage instead of walking up to a bunker would be better

Glitches/Bugs

-I saw a vulture attacking a auto-turret [which i think i was supposed to walk to it to gain control]

[These are my opinions]

I am pleased to see this first thread worked as intended! I also have a video coming today of Blitz Fire for my own feedback submission that I'll post.

Re: incentivizing for the future, I certainly need to acknowledge all the folks who have participated in a thank you video, while pointing out how well this has worked. You had a wasteland of a feedback thread - by no fault of your own, the map is quite fun - and now you have a plethora of responses.

A map night would be fun, though we sort of created the BWTT because map nights are so hard to organize (time zones, schedules) and this is a good start to have some sort of community activity.

Here you are, hope it helps:

So I played this solo and co-op with Jayborino about a week ago (before you made the changes seen in Jay's video above), but I think these videos can still be of help.

Single Player

Co-op

Some comments:

• There was a bug at the end of the co-op video that didn't allow us to retry the level. Basically when we selected the barracks neither of had the command card show up. I never had this issue playing single player.
• I would have a tooltip explaining the psi points. I had no idea that they didn't reset each level when I first played. Having a simple tooltip explaining this would be helpful.
• Similar to the above comment, you could explain the upgrade choices a little better, like which ones carry over to the next level, which ones are one use items, etc. For example, the stimpack could have a description saying something like one-time use ability - must be purchased again each level. Also, if you buy the stimpack and don't use it, does it carry over? Things answering questions like these would be helpful.
• I do like that you make the player discover how to interact with the environment and don't straight up tell them how things work like the turrets, health packs, bunkers, etc. work.
• If you stand right next to the health carton things (sorry I don't remember the exact name for them) and attack it, your unit picks up the health pack the same turn. I don't know if you meant for this to be possible, since otherwise you have to break open the carton one turn and pick the pack up another turn. I kind of like it the way it is now though since it gives the player more options.
• It seems like the enemy units will attack turrets and bunkers without them activated or without them ever having been activated. Maybe have it so they won't attack them until they have been activated at least once (i.e. turret has shot at least once and your units have entered the bunker).
• It would be cool to see more lighting/weather effects. This would help add to the replayability factor.

That's all I can think of for now, but please feel free to ask me questions about anything I've just mentioned or that I said in the videos. I had a lot of fun playing this and I can definitely see myself playing this in the future from time to time.