Hello there!
I just had a few important points to make regarding Halo Wars 2 from what I gathered from playing the beta. This topic will not be long, but I did want to express some things that were important to me and may improve the game before release. I hope the developers will see this constructive criticism as a positive asset!
Pros:
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Halo Wars 2 is a very captivating RTS for console gamers. Coming from Starcraft 2, Warcraft and all the other Blizzard games, this one is the closest I’ve been and even surpasses in some ways the excitement this style of gameplay provides. Graphics are up-to-date with other modern games. I realize this game cannot necessarily surpass other games due to the nature of gameplay and frame-rate targets, but continued improvement to shadows, lighting and overall resolution is always nice to have.
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Controls are spot-on. The developers did an amazing job designing the game to play fluidly and without issue even though most expected having some trouble micro-managing units with a controller and not a mouse. Having shortcuts to switch views from friendly bases, units, etc. is another useful aspect of this game. I hope the developers will continue to improve on this system. One suggestion I would bring to the table is that of increasing “scroll” speed. I use the D-Pad on my Xbox controller to skip around but sometimes I want to just locate an area that either isn’t in my field of vision or we lack establishments in the area. The scroll speed can be pretty slow if I want to jump around the map, so I would suggest having a toggle button we can use to increase this speed for some short time (such as holding down the left thumbstick to increase the speed until panning stops)
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Audio tends to be overlooked, but when we think of quality audio, I certainly think of Blizzard. Really no other developer has the reputation and resources available to produce high quality audio than Blizzard entertainment. If you research some of the audio from Starcraft 2 and even Warcraft, we notice without such detail overall gameplay wouldn’t be half as rewarding. Audio in Halo Wars 2 is good. I enjoy the missile and other projectile audio, units are clear when speaking and the narrator/announcer is crisp. I would recommend adding even more audio to the game if possible at this stage. When it comes to RTS games, the more variety the better. The narrator did have some trouble juggling who’s base was under attack and when heroic abilities were ready, but this is a gameplay issue not an audio issue.
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Champion unit was nice to have, even though usefulness was unclear in larger skirmishes.
Cons
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We know this is definitely a work in progress, and I appreciate having the opportunity to voice concerns while the game is still modifiable. The beta has many bugs, but I’ll only list the most important ones I found since you guys will ultimately find every one of them.
a. There is a bug where projectiles, missiles, gunfire, mortars, etc. will not display properly during some battles I encountered. Particularly when fighting near my base I had these issues. Half of the time the game would properly display projectiles and the other half only the sound would be presented. (This includes heroic abilities such as the laser beam)
b. There are some problems issuing commands to certain units such as tanks and aerial units. -
Unit variety is good but not great. There seems to be plenty of different types of units to choose from, but I’m feeling there could be much more. Infantry categories seem to be lacking in usefulness (especially against heavy artillery and air units) so some more specialized units may need to be introduced. The hero champions could have more active abilities to choose from. From what I saw there was only one active ability.
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Population limits, this one seemed to bug me the most. I wanted to add even more units to my army but I was stuck with an 80 unit population limit. I really hope in the final version we see these population limits dramatically increased. If not for every game mode, I hope to see one specific game mode where population limits are increased.
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Map variety, I only was able to test one map (veteran) but I’m guessing there will be many more to choose from in the final game. I hope to see smaller maps and larger maps. I hope to see 2v2 smaller maps and 6v6 or even 8v8 larger maps to really get this heated.
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Game length, my first game went on for about 3 hours. I’m not sure if this is happening to many other players or I just happened to be matched with a perfectly similar-skilled enemy. I doubt I was matched perfectly; after about hour 2 it was obvious the constant build and be destroyed was getting us nowhere. I hope in the final game there will be certain systems in place to prevent matches from going over a certain length. Maybe proportionally increase attack damage against structures as the game progresses so winning a skirmish feels more meaningful. Even at hour 3 neither one of us was able to significantly destroy the other’s operations enough where units could not be created as we moved along the map.
I hope these suggestions and commentary was useful. I might add more as I go along, but please add any suggestions or concerns you have to this post. I would love to hear your opinions!