Although I have been mostly enjoying console FPS games, my gaming roots go down to RTS games. I have not played the first Halo Wars, but I would nonetheless like to give my feedback/suggestions on what this game needs based on my love for the RTS genre and my experience playing countless games within the genre.
Gameplay
I personally suggest these improvements/additions:
- It is obvious to everyone that the speed of Starcraft or the perfectly-planned flanking maneuvers of Total War cannot be achieved on consoles. There are just too little buttons to press. For this reason, the pacing of engagements need to be long enough for players to have the room to produce more units during the battle. I could do it, but I have to shuffle through so may bases dedicated to resource gathering as opposed to being able to skip straight to production bases. 343 is wise to have battles last longer than, say, Starcraft. However, as it stands right now, it’s too slow in my opinion.
Since the battle length is too fast, I find myself in a match lasting longer than 40 mins, given that my opponents and my partner are all equally good (or bad?) as I am. As the battle goes on, all of us have plenty of time to micro and macro. I can order 3 Scorpions to focus down a wraith during a big battle and shuffle through my bases to compensate my lost units. Before the wraith is destroyed, voila, I am population capped again.
A competetive RTS game which incorporates a ranking system, in my opinion, should not last longer than 25 minutes average. Overall, It is to my opinion that battle length should be adjusted by shifting damage/hp numbers of units.
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Atriox’s ultimate (the focusing laser thing) is ovepowered. Compared to what Captain Cutter (close air support) can do, it is definitely overpowered. I used one straight on a base and it is gone.
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I’m sure that the development team is competent to add this element. But there should be a commander(s) that has the ability to scout by scanning a certain area (or the whole map depending on the balance issue), either by direct visual or red blips on the radar.
Game Development
I read that, in a season pass, new commanders and new units will be added. As long as story missions are ample in number, I’m cool with the $20 addition to the ultimate edition. Starcraft II expansions have done it worse. But, to keep the player base at its maximum capacity, and to keep the gameplay balanced, the “new units” part becomes problematic for three reasons.
- The game can potentially be unbalanced by having some players having inherent advantage of having more variety of units.
- If the development team wants to maintain balance, they might have to split between dlc players and non-dlc players, lessening the playerbase.
- The development team might accidentally dive into a whirlpool of balancing patches.
To solve this, you can either take three alternate routs.
- Reserve new units simply for new commander abilities (a special type of unit being orbital dropped, etc.)
- Just give the new units to all players, dlc or no. The advantage of this route is that the players who quitted might come back to play again.
- Just nix the idea of “new units”.