Yep, I wholeheartedly agree with every single thing you stated. I honestly expected more here, no offense to the dev, but the user interface, shop, inventory, anything the player must navigate on the screen in front of them...in every instance of the game (actual gameplay, chosing missions, gear management, etc etc) is so overly burdensome that it just sucks my desire to play the game away. I agree about the AP system as well, but I could honestly get past that...but it is kind of a mess. I don't mind ap for every action...but I dunno..I just feel blind here..especially with having to bring up an entirely separate skill inventory screen any time to use a skill...its all..just such a chore. I hate hate hate that this is the case, at least for myself, bc I was super excited for this game since the announcement # Also, am I really the only one with CONSTANT crashes? I was playing it on an iPhone 6+ Sigh...so pretty too, but even tried with all graphics lowest and still got constant crashing. I will be watching and if there are..well...a LOT of improvements/polish made through patches/updates I will absolutely buy it again and give it another go. I would usually just take the loss and allow the dev that cash, this is probably my 2nd app refund ever, but I'm just too poor atm, morphite's on my list too and just around the bend.
Iphone 6+ and tried many different settings including all turned off. I really kept hoping and trying, but just too many things ruining my experience I'm afraid.
@Tychaeus: Can you send your crashlogs to Wavelight? Do you have any of the graphic settings on? If yes, switch them off first to test. And the usual: Close all background apps, restart device. Also, if you have a ton of apps/icons on your homescreens, in large numbers those eat a lot of memory. I think ~100 was where it got noticeable on an Air1. I had one crash right at the beginning, when I switched all 4 extra graphic settings on my Air1. Didn't try to reproduce it yet, will do that today. And send the logs
Support for a patch for the shop/inventory system. It's so boring to use it and I don't really understand the way it works. Do I have to click on every item at every new mission. What does the new button do ? And the 1 2 or 3 stars items do nothing at all ? #
Yes, you need to tap every item to see its description (touchscreen has a hard time doing the equivalent of mouseover ) , and then tap it again to drop it back. Rinse, repeat. The "New" button refreshes the items available in the Shop. And the 1,2,3 Stars filter items for quality. Hit the 3 Stars, and you should see a ton of Epic & Legendary(?) level equipment (purple and blue colors) . 1 Stars shows all the vendor trash with a few good items in between What I did in Demon's Rise: I only went to the Shop when I had enough Gold to be reasonably certain I can afford an item, e.g. every few missions. @Wavelight: That reminds me what one of my major quibbles was (and still is, going by first impression of Hydra): You don't get enough Gold (without lots of grinding) to afford all the fancy high-end stuff. Second problem, still exists: Getting a few good items early on makes or breaks the game, same as in DR: On one save, I got a 7k item I couldn't use right on mission 2 - nice starting cash to buy a good reasonable replacement. Other save, I get some crappy broken ammunition on the first two missions, sold for only a few hundred Gold each. Sure, I can replay missions now until I get another good item. But I don't want to, I wanna see how things progress and not grind. I recommend you download Tactics Maiden and check out its resource distribution. Or we figure a way to do a screenshare on iOS and I can show you: Has about the same total number of equipment slots (minimum 20 soldiers, up to 40 or more) , each with 4 slots. One thing that makes a huge difference already: Each new unit starts out with level-appropriate equipment. You typically get at least 2 new items per stage, sometimes 5 or more (killed enemies drop items). A lot of them are usable, and the ones that aren't sell for ok cash. You can kit out/upgrade one soldier every three or so missions, and the others get the leftovers for smaller upgrades. Plus the items you find give you another full kit every 3-4 missions, so you have a really nice power progression. On top of that, Gold distribution is quite different: You get a few hundred Gold per mission (same as in Hydra I'd like to point out), but... equipment prices are a lot lower, starting at a few hundred Gold for good stuff, and going up to 2k or so if I remember right. So, in a nutshell: Your system would be much better if the Gold rewards match the high equipment prices. If you want equipment to be scarce, that's a different story. But like I said for DR1/2: You have all those slots, and cool stuff to go into them. So most people want to use them right away, not wait ages and spend a fortune on one good piece.
The iPhone 6+ only has 1gb of RAM despite having a large screen and high pixel density. This makes it a very difficult device for development purposes. In demon's rise I force all the options off on this device and compress textures. I tried to relax that here on this game but I'm thinking that was a mistake. I will submit a patch today that will adopt the demon's rise approach that should make it stable.
Actually you get much higher rewards in later campaigns than in demon's rise. The first few are about the same but it scales up pretty quickly after that. The highest reward in demon's rise is around 3k whereas the highest in STH is 6k, I think.
I agree with most of the reviews here. The actual gameplay is great, the UI and everything else is terrible.
Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to make improvements where possible on the UI. However, if the game itself is too complex for you, then I'm afraid that's just how it'll be. I enjoy that hardcore element as do many others. Different strokes for different blokes.
New button restocks the vendor with new items. So if you have money but nothing to buy, you can click it to get new stuff to buy. The 1, 2 and 3 star boxes show you low, medium and high quality items to buy. So if you have lots of cash, just click the 3 star button to see expensive stuff.
So I need to replay that mission for 6k 6 more times to afford one single item in the higher/est price range (40k+). Let's assume we get an additional item reward in the same range per replay, with chances being good (>50%) that I need to sell it cause I have something better or it doesn't fit my guys: Then we end up with 3 items in the lower range, and an additional 18k - almost half a high-end item. And that's only for one of the 66 slots available. NOTE: Sure, sometimes you get a really expensive item (say, 35k+) that is easier very useful, or adds nicely to your cashpool. But... due to the randomness and sheer amount of items available you cannot count on that, so currently I'm not willing to factor that in. If your loot drop mechanics e.g. guarantee that I get a highest-tier item everytime I replay that 6k stage, then things look different of course. Conclusion: If you want Hydra to be grindy, equipment to be scarce, or both, it's your game and your call. However, I still think that you're not doing your games justice with that approach: They do not feel/appear/play like loot-collectors/grinders, instead they give off the completely different vibe of a very complex indepth tactical game. And the current way the whole thing works just does not mesh with what Hydra and the DRs play like. I get that a lot of players like the huge number of slots and stuff available. I'm actually in the same boat, at least somewhat (while cool, I think it's just a tad overkill ). Or rather, would be if equipment would be easier to get. Give it a try how gameplay changes when you greatly increase the gold rewards so they match the crazy equipment prices Oh, and: Looks like I'm a minority, but I really like the new UI look&feel, sufficiently scifi-ey. It does have some parts that can be improved, but in general it's good.
Yeah, that's a fair point. I'll tweak the costing formula to make high end items a bit cheaper. That will make items you find and sell less valuable too but overall the effect should be to make items easier to purchase.
Nice game, but I would like to add my vote for some of the changes suggested above. - Steamworld Heist style AP range displays. - Sort the shop out. Only display stuff you can afford, or maybe enter a price range. - What is that dragging stuff on top of itself in the shop about? On another note, do you have to actively collect battlefield items, or do you just get all of what is left at the end of the battle?
Regarding the ability button to bring up abilities, that's the same method that was used in Demon's Rise. You click a button and it brings up a screen that explains what the ability is and then you decide whether you activate it or not. The only difference is that in this game, rather than having six buttons to bring up the ability details, it's a single button. I don't see it as being any more difficult to use. I also can't think of any way to have a 1-click method of activating an ability. You can't put all the details and explanation of each ability in the HUD. So you have to have some way to bring up a sub-menu that explains what each ability does. I personally like the UI a lot. So while I'll tweak it to make it better, I don't expect there is a radically better way to handle it for a game of this genre and complexity. I'm going to push out a patch today that will address stability for the iPhone 6+ and correct some minor spelling / grammar. Then I'll work on the next major patch that will add the option to remove on-screen cam controls and other stuff that I can change. I won't redesign the graphics because some people don't like them or find them too cluttered ... the vast majority of feedback I've gotten from twitter, email, etc. has been overwhelmingly positive in this area.
Squad Setup Tips Time to talk gameplay, that got the backseat for too long already Currently on Mission 3. The one skill I use the most is the Commander's "give another unit 10-25 AP". I do this to fuel my guys who deal damage, like the Missile soldier and the Sniper. So, revised squad setup for early on: 2 Commanders 1 Sniper 1 Missile Marine 1 Medic or Commander (you might not even need the Medic for the first few missions, but better to have) 1 Nova Marine/Assault Marine or Commander The idea is to have 2-3 damage dealers and enough Commanders to keep them fueled with AP constantly. If you want to go overboard, use 4 Commanders and 2 Damagedealers. For a more balanced approach, go with 2 Commanders, Medic; 3 Damagedealers e.g. Sniper, Missile, Nova/Assault. I wanted to replace the Nova Marine with another Commander, but just got a 30k-worth weapon with really great stats for her, so she'll stay a while: Optimised Splinter Gun (purple name) , lvl 42 Shotgun, +8AP, +14 max. ranged damage, +22% ranged critchance. So looks like the Assault Marine will warm the bench for a bit and make room for a second Commander. TWO UPDATES ON THIS: One is here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=4039488&postcount=115 Second one is here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showpost.php?p=4039797&postcount=137 Important part: Don't need the Medic yet, use 3 Commanders and 3 Rangeds till you get into trouble and have to heal.
The items collected during a battle are just temporary buffs. They don't extend beyond a single battle. Only the inventory items persist from battle to battle. Not sure what you mean about dragging stuff on top of itself. I'll look into making items that you can't afford grayed out or something. That might be surprisingly easy now that I think about it.
I personally wouldn't go with multiple commanders but I guess that can work. The give AP ability is very useful ... I'm just not convinced you would want to have multiple commanders for it. You might be right, though, haven't thought it through enough. I suspect that the Command's grenade launcher ability is a little overpowered at later levels but need to test it more. I personally love the Nova Marine, her shot gun blasts are just so devastating at short range. I definitely wouldn't drop her.
@Wavelight: That's for early gameplay, to make things a bit easier. Due to the ability's large spread of 10-25AP (reduce that to 15-25 maybe?), I need one Commander to fuel one Soldier. Having e.g. the Missile use that super Firing Stabiliser ability AND be able to shoot (2 or more times if you get lucky with the AP) in the same turn is worth a lot more than having another shooty/slicy unit instead of the Commander used to fuel the Missile guy. I fully expect that once your soldiers get enough AP to do these combos out of their own AP pool, you no longer need more than one Commander, and can replace the surplus one(s) with other units. I didn't use the Commander's Grenades even once yet, so can't comment. As for the Nova: My Assault did a bit more damage than her so far, and is a bit more tanky, so the Nova was the first choice to replace - but then I got that nice weapon
That's an interesting angle that I hadn't really considered. I saw the TA stream where they did the same thing. So I'm guessing it is kind of important. I guess at the end of the day, it's a tough call to say whether having a commander use a buff to boost an existing character is as good or better than just having another character (instead of the commander). It's a tough call but I think you're correct in that it's a strategy that works well in the early game but may not be that useful in the later game.
Is this game plot-heavy like other tactical/srpg games?, I mean, there is cutscenes? telling a plot?, there´s dialogue in and between missions?, the missions objectives are different or are always kill all enemies?
