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Highguard |OT| Mount up and raid with me (Is this the Apex of hero shooters?)

Just played a match there. Guy on Xbox "socky toppy" unreal. Like 23 kills in a Match. Not see that before.
I had a similar run today :)

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Had a good 5v5 match earlier where a teammate quit early on which was a bit demotivating, but we still had an intense back and forth and eventually managed to clutch a W. There's no chance that would have happened if it was a 3v3.

Some of the warden abilities might need to be rebalanced for this mode though. Was playing Mara and she seemed a bit OP, especially how you can not only buff all your teammates' armor but set up a spawn point for them anywhere, including right in the generator rooms.
 
This new 5v5 mode got me into the "just one more round" mood while playing this game which is good
I played a lot of 5v5 today and the amount of terrible teammates was insufferable. I legit quit out on 2 teams because I didn't want to waste my time and brain cells.

One game my team was just still looting while the SB is spawned not even going for it. Same game they just sit in base waiting for SB to come not even trying to stop the enemies on their approach.

Second game I bailed out was just the same shit I typed above where homies are in base doing nothing to prevent planting a SB…

Went back to a few 3s to wind down and was far less stressed. I can make up for one bad team mate but 2-3 in a game of 5v5 makes me rage lol.

Threw the devs dollars and got the orc skin bundle for redmane. Kind of want the long hair one for shade. Also the greeen skin of scarlet reminds me of wind ranger from Dota so much.

I hope it keeps on improving and bringing people in/back.
 
I played a lot of 5v5 today and the amount of terrible teammates was insufferable. I legit quit out on 2 teams because I didn't want to waste my time and brain cells.

One game my team was just still looting while the SB is spawned not even going for it. Same game they just sit in base waiting for SB to come not even trying to stop the enemies on their approach.

Second game I bailed out was just the same shit I typed above where homies are in base doing nothing to prevent planting a SB…

Went back to a few 3s to wind down and was far less stressed. I can make up for one bad team mate but 2-3 in a game of 5v5 makes me rage lol.

Threw the devs dollars and got the orc skin bundle for redmane. Kind of want the long hair one for shade. Also the greeen skin of scarlet reminds me of wind ranger from Dota so much.

I hope it keeps on improving and bringing people in/back.
I only have good experience with the 5v5.
 
The 5 v 5 makes this better but still only really enjoyable with friends, playing solo makes me want to jab a pen in my eye

Just not for me, back to World of Tanks :)
 
He's still hyping. Got your apology ready?




The poor guy is getting delusional.
Best thing to do to get rid of salesmen is just ignore them. Their entire career and existence depends on hype, attention and promoting anything to make a buck. No different than walking into a store where there's always some where a sales associate will right away latch onto you. Ignore the jackass and he'll get the hint to leave you alone.

You ignore them enough, they'll hit the unemployment line.
 
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Does this have no mmr? I cannot keep playing this if I'm expected to carry hard two Mongrels every game. It's exhausting.
 
I hit the sickest snipe of my life. I was on a zip line, the enemy was chasing my homie very far away on Mount, I lost track of him in a tree line and pull the trigger on a ranger shot an BOOM headshot dead!

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5v5 is good enough to be my Marathon waiting room
Same.

Clutching out a win in the game feel good. Gunplay and outplays feel great. I've got two characters I like to play.

There's a lot to do here like:
-The countdown clock when bomb is planted should stop if someone is defusing it. Allows for that 1 second clutch.
-Very hard to understand why the recommended base is ideal. Most bases feel bad except one IMO forget the name. It's much easier to defend.
-Maps need a lot more on them. Some can feel barren to find loot. Forces your team to a "main building" fighting over gear. This is only an issue on 5v5 where there just isn't enough.
-I think a 1-2 increase in initial reinforcement is ideal. On 3s you don't have enough and it's easier to bust open doors/walls.
-I think forcing only one type of gun per loadout is probably better. Running a dynasty and vanguard combo is OP AF more often than not.
-Nerf hip fire on AR. SMGs should only be this accurate without ADS.
-Rejoin match options. Add AI if someone leaves option. Join a match in progress option.
 
-Rejoin match options. Add AI if someone leaves option. Join a match in progress option.
This will be the biggest turn off for some. I'm surprised it doesnt get brought up more except occasional posts.

Doesnt matter if it's a casual gamer or a hardcore gamer sticking to the end of every match. Makes no difference why a gamer drops off.... frustration, bad connection, got to head out for dinner etc.... a 3 vs 3 game with zero AI bots or join in progress gamers to rebalance the teams is the dumbest move ever.

Who the hell wants to play 3 vs 3? Not that many to begin with. Now who wants to get stuck in a match that become 3 vs 2, 2 vs 1 or..... 1 vs 1 for a big map objective game? Those streamed matches of games down to two solo dudes must be barnburners. lol. Who the heck would want to play that or watch that on stream?

With 5 vs 5 it's not as bad since a game could still work 5 vs 4 or 4 vs 4 as there's more room for people dropping off.

In games like small team COD S&D it's not so bad for gamers to wait for the current round to end and join in progress next round because a full game is multiple rounds and each round is fast and can end quick. You dont even have to plant the bomb to win a match. Just kill every enemy wins too.
 
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3v3 is much more competitive. Every kill and death has meaning. You're able to map much more of the battlefield (allies & enemies) in your head. 5v5 is probably a better casual mode to play when your mom is vacuuming around the Xbox and you're drinking Mt Dew.

The problem is that winning and losing, especially without a ranked mode, has no weight to it. There's no real reason to communicate with teammates because the reward is non existent.
 
Seems the game has stabilised at 10K on Steam with 5V5. Not gonna play it but thankfully it got saved. Not sure 10K is enough to keep it going mega long term maybe?
 
Does anyone else think the pace of this game is why it failed?

It's like PvP Overcooked. Constant pressure...all the time. Hit shots, chase, reposition, open up more chests, fall back.

You can't play a one note, stressful game for very long and the different characters don't change any of that.

Plausible?
 
Does anyone else think the pace of this game is why it failed?

It's like PvP Overcooked. Constant pressure...all the time. Hit shots, chase, reposition, open up more chests, fall back.

You can't play a one note, stressful game for very long and the different characters don't change any of that.

Plausible?

People complained that it was too slow and empty so I doubt it. I think there's enough lulls in the action to break things up, even in 5 v 5. The only major exception is the base raids. I don't those are a bit too chaotic with that many players.

I feel way more stressed playing MOBAs which is part of the reason why I never bothered trying to get into that genre.
 
People complained that it was too slow and empty so I doubt it. I think there's enough lulls in the action to break things up, even in 5 v 5. The only major exception is the base raids. I don't those are a bit too chaotic with that many players.

I feel way more stressed playing MOBAs which is part of the reason why I never bothered trying to get into that genre.
Now that I understand what the game asks of the player, the "too slow" complaints don't check out for me.

You're always incentivized to go as fast as possible in this game. If you stop playing for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, you put yourself at a disadvantage.

In a lot of top multi-player games, you can breath for 30 seconds without throwing. You can't really do that in here.
 
Now that I understand what the game asks of the player, the "too slow" complaints don't check out for me.

You're always incentivized to go as fast as possible in this game. If you stop playing for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, you put yourself at a disadvantage.

In a lot of top multi-player games, you can breath for 30 seconds without throwing. You can't really do that in here.
People are saying too slow as the build up to the end game and lack of shoot outs. Not actually running/horse back speed.

It's like someone saying playing Skyrim is slow paced. But most people are probably sprinting from location to location to avoid dead time walking a snails pace. It's still a slow game to me no matter how much I run around forests or dungeons since monster fights are spaced out.

For the shooter genre, people expect a lot of gunplay not MOBA. Since the studio showed a fast paced shootout trailer and there were no details until launch anyone testing it out wanting objective based big battles will be disappointed. And a big mapped 3 vs 3 makes it even less action packed.

They could had avoided this if they communicated to gamers the past year what this game is with detailed videos or articles or Q&A. But they didnt.
 
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People are saying too slow as the build up to the end game and lack of shoot outs. Not actually running/horse back speed.
It's not pace in terms of player speed. It's pace in terms of having a grocery list of things to do and knowing you have to do it as quickly as possible. It's constant stress.
It's like someone saying playing Skyrim is slow paced. But most people are probably sprinting from location to location to avoid dead time walking a snails pace. It's still a slow game to me no matter how much I run around forests or dungeons since monster fights are spaced out.
Skyrim isn't concerned with pace. You can set the controller down, take a dump, do some gardening, and come back and go tackle a difficult dungeon. The game doesn't incentivize efficiency because time isn't a mechanic in Skyrim.

In Highguard you have to be going as fast as possible at all times to increase your chances of success.
For the shooter genre, people expect a lot of gunplay not MOBA. Since the studio showed a fast paced shootout trailer and there were no details until launch anyone testing it out wanting objective based big battles will be disappointed. And a big mapped 3 vs 3 makes it even less action packed.
I don't think expectations related to the trailer have anything to do with the games poor performance. It has everything to do with player experience.
They could had avoided this if they communicated to gamers the past year what this game is with detailed videos or articles or Q&A. But they didnt.
I agree. They should have been testing this game non stop. I think studios are going to start prioritizing player testing much earlier in a games development.
 
I played one match of 5v5. I had to choose between clear graphics at 40-50fps or really blurry graphics at 60-75fps. I guess I haven't ever tried Apex on this laptop but I have to imagine it would run better than this. And this doesn't really look any better. I bailed after one match in favor of a BF6 invite. If it's still alive next weekend I'll try to put in a full shift on a non-potato device. I'm not usually on a potato. But this game should support potatoes as potatoes are the staple dish of the F2P shooter and without potatoes they starve.

Gameplay itself seemed fine. I like the mount mechanic. I obviously didn't play enough to learn the characters and abilities. There's too much console DNA in this game but that's most shooters nowadays.
 
Had some rough games today with people just idling at start of game. On the one game I just left because I'm not going to do a 1v3 attempt.

Also got around to investing more time on scarlet and man she's good! I like her and red manes kits the most.

I'd like to get a scarlet skin but there's no telling if this game will be around, and even I may not touch it again once marathon drops…
 
Had some rough games today with people just idling at start of game. On the one game I just left because I'm not going to do a 1v3 attempt.
Thats the drawback of small team games. Players drop off, player idling (probably forgot they left the game on and they went to make dinner) or players dont know what they are doing so they might as well be pointless.

So not surprised you didnt want to hold the fort as a lone wolf.

In bigger games like standard COD 6 vs 6, lets face it. There's usually a couple crap gamers who dont know what they are doing, but as long as the rest of the team carries the load you dont need all 6 players doing well to win. You can win with 2-3 decent players. And the bigger the team mode, the more buffer you got on the team. I did my share racking up KD in TDM to carry the load. But as long as the teams are fully manned I can live with that. But what I dont want are those games players drop off so fast and the game some reason cant inject join in progress gamers it's 3 vs 6 all match. Forget it. There's only so much you can do in lopsided matches like that.

So to try to play a lengthy objectives mode shooter down to 1 vs 3 knowing the game wont add players or bots to rebalance teams, I'd bail too.

No doubt why I think the gamer base is dropping. They tried it. Most probably dont like 3 vs 3 to begin with but willing to give it a try. Then they find out players drop and teams are permanently shorthanded and then they bail too. Then they just say forget it and bail from the game entirely.
 
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Does anyone else think the pace of this game is why it failed?
Not really, I think these were the reasons:

No 5v5 at launch.
Terrible performance issues and lack of basic features on PC version at launch drive away players.
Player numbers decrease quickly as a result, and PC player numbers are the only player numbers that people can see.


Lessons other developers can learn:

Thanks to steam charts, the PC version of your game is the most important version in terms of public reception.

When you launch a game that depends on a consistent player count and microtransations, it has to work well from day one. It also has to work well on a large variety of hardware. Neither were true for this game.

You can't take a number of features that PC players are accustomed to having, then not include them at launch and say "we'll get to that later."

What is essentially a LAN party with fellow streamers is not the best way to see how most people will respond to your game.

Closed tests may "ruin the surprise," but they're more likely to keep you from making mistakes.

Never launch the game until you're ready.
 
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The only two things I genuinely think hurt this game:
-Revealing at the game awards
-Zero gameplay testing made available to public

Devs have to stop making games like this in an echo chamber.
 
The only two things I genuinely think hurt this game:
-Revealing at the game awards
-Zero gameplay testing made available to public

Devs have to stop making games like this in an echo chamber.
I dont think the Game Award reveal was bad in theory. It got eyes on the game leading to 97k steam peak alone to try the game. Along with all the other PC gamers throughout the week and console gamers. I dont think any game studio wouldnt like a Keighley plug (assuming that rumour is true it was free). If Keighley didnt plug it, nobody would know or care about HG. It'd probably not even do half what it did.

Problem is he overhyped it and that trailer was crap and totally misrepresented the game. So one part Geoff salesmanship and one part the studio making a crap trailer. If these two worked together to present the game in a better way, then gamers trying it out wouldnt be disappointed as much because at least the gameplay parts could set up expectations better before trying. In that trailer, they didnt even tell gamers it was 3 vs 3 or showed the gem mining phase. It was pure action packed gunplay with horses and an objective to do a sword and siege thing.

Zero testing no doubt a big issue. But that's what you get with echo chambery game devs. They had a smash hit shadow launch with Apex and now think they are forever stealth launch masters. Not only would testing feedback benefit gameplay but performance issues too.

Even Balatro had a demo download on Steam. So a low key cheap game for $15 US, made by one guy, looks like it was made in Windows 3.1, and is really just another who cares kind of indie game even set aside the ego to release a demo. And people loved it and gave feedback.
 
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The lack of knowledge is insane.

-Enemy orbs heal you
-Focus a dome splitter entrance to stop enemies
-Destroy Mara ult always
-Use dome splitter and you can revive there as a spawn.
-Yes you can get legendary items even in earlier rounds if you're lucky
-Shoot the air drop down. Lmg drop from it is amazing
-Use ultimate enhancers

It goes on and on. So many dumb players.
 
The lack of knowledge is insane.

-Enemy orbs heal you
-Focus a dome splitter entrance to stop enemies
-Destroy Mara ult always
-Use dome splitter and you can revive there as a spawn.
-Yes you can get legendary items even in earlier rounds if you're lucky
-Shoot the air drop down. Lmg drop from it is amazing
-Use ultimate enhancers

It goes on and on. So many dumb players.

This game actually has a surprising amount of depth and features that a lot of people still don't realize. I learned the other day that if you position yourself in such a way that mutiple vesper crystals are in front of you, you can use the hammer to shatter them a lot at once making farming them trivial.

You can also position the zipline during raids in such a way that you can basically zipline from the tower directly to a generator room or the anchor point in a single movement without even being detected.
 
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This game actually has a surprising amount of depth and features that a lot of people still don't realize. I learned the other day that if you position yourself in such a way that mutiple vesper crystals are in front of you, you can use the hammer to shatter them a lot at once making farming them trivial.

You can also position the zipline during raids in such a way that you can basically zipline from the tower directly to a generator room or the anchor point in a single movement without even being detected.
You want depth and tech?

 


I guess they went the Concord route and precomissioned a whole lot of CGI vids
Cautiously optimistic they will turn this around and find an audience large enough for continued development.

I haven't played it yet, but could see myself getting a group together to give it a try.
 
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