As the game developer, it is very hard to look at a game you’ve developed like GTB and be vaguely objective about how it looks, feels and plays. You think you are playing it just like a regular gamer, but in fact you absolutely are not. You are playing it like a developer, with everything that this implies.
Because I designed the GUI, obviously I find it intuitive. Because I designed the gameplay systems, I understand them completely, and don’t need them explained to me, which means I have the dual danger of not explaining the game enough to new players AND overcompensating by bludgeoning the player with constant information about how to play, interrupting the flow of the game.
So what I’m asking for here is for you to point out all that stuff that makes you think “How on earth did the designer not see that…”
I’m looking for things that confused you, even momentarily. Any point in the game, especially your first few minutes with the game, that you were confused, annoyed, frustrated or not having fun.
Did the GUI for the unit design screen make sense to you?
Did you work out what weapons counter what defenses?
Did you immediately work out how to zoom and move the camera around in all the different ways possible (click and drag, screen edge and arrow / WSAD keys).
What did you find out half way through playing that you wish had been more obivous or in your face right from the start?
I’ll definitely read and consider every opinion.
First off let me say that I am a big fan of your games and I am amazed that you create them practically on your own! Must say though I did like GSB a little more than GTB. A couple of things that bugged me about the game are;
The progression on the campaign had no direction and was not smooth at all. Mission three was the hardest one in the lot and I needed to unlock a few things before completing it. (Of course I am not the greatest at playing the game, I am sure other people got through mission 3 fine but I did not have much difficulty with the other missions) Having a solid campaign story would have been cool as well.
Unlocking system too random, I liked the choosing aspect of it though but it needed structure and should have progressed through levels with the campaign. Better items/units given at higher levels.
I like the GUI overall in the unit design screen and game but the designing of the units themselves seemed very limited (GSB was much better). The fact that only one weapon could be mounted on a unit bugged me, especially if there was a dual cannon on the graphic
Would have been nice to have a conquest mode right off the bat but I know you have limited time and it is a whole lot of work to do. Look forward to it in the future though and would buy it for sure. Hopefully you also are thinking of a GSB and GTB cross over/merge, that would be cool.
I agree with peates, although I ran into my wall on mission 4. I had to replay mission 1 and 2 over and over again, and suddenly once I got past 3 and 4 everything was easy.
I also agree with the randomness of the unlocking…would have been better in order, however, there isn’t enough difference between the weaponry in some cases. Machine gun II vs chaingun IV for instance. Be nice if there was a reason to require a heavier vehicle for better weapons.
I really would like to be able to mount more weapons on heavier vehicles as well. Maybe make the dual armor slot be a choice between dual weapons, dual engines or dual armor. That would add a lot of variety…try to rush your bruiser through or have less armor but be able to pound emplacements and infantry at the same time.
Also, the dogtags are an interesting idea but it’s frustrating that it’s only limited to infantry. I’ve seen a few complaints from attacking forces that it seems pointless to destroy turrets…why not drop “scrap metal” for both attackers and defenders and dogtags for the attacking forces. I mean…it’s not like we’re actually playing multiplayer and someone is going to get pissed one side has an advantage…if we feel like rolling tanks and mechs through artillery alley and trading volleys instead of just hoping to “survive” that would give an incentive to throw down more units and add a little interactivity by clicking on the scrap.
Oh, I forgot to add…I’d like the ability to sell/deconstruct entrenched infantry, or make up the difference for deceased units. There are so many times when a whole platoon gets wiped out except for one guy that doesn’t do any damage but seems to survive forever.
All awesome ideas. I am totally sold on the fact that the unlocking is too random and I intend to fix that. On the topic of scrap metal, I really like the idea, but I might need to mull it over. it could be pretty cool it it was only rare and slightly random that the destroyed tanks generated some scrap metal to collect. Definitely an idea worth looking at
Re-inforcing existing but depleteed infantry squads would be cool, and was something I considered, although it would have to be the same type of unit as before for boring code-reasons. I think that kinda makes sense though. I could maybe even implement that as a right click option to ‘reinforce’ that squad.
I definitely agree that gameplay tips on loading screens is a good idea. I have lots to do!
Agree. Since you always want the best weapon/scope/reload for an attacker, the only variation left are speed/armor/cost. The only time I ever put armor more than 1 is to deliberately slow down the tank anyway.
Honestly I never picked up a single dogtag… Deployment is enough work for me. As for destroying turrets I take that back already. It’s either you go speed and ignore turret completely, or you go slow and destroy all of it.
You know, lasers don’t actually counter tanks (armor)… like a majority of the weapons simply don’t work due to low DPS.
When I only have a short lunch break, I play in windowed mode - that way I can see my system clock
From the manual:
To issue a specific fire order, first select your units you wish to carry out the order, either by holding down shift and drawing a box around them with the mouse, or double clicking one to select all identical units (or just single-click one). You will see them turn yellow. Next, right-click on the offending enemy target. You will see fire-lines drawn in yellow indicating each units ‘preferred target’ is now set. Note that the troops will (on pain of docked pay) ignore the preferred target until they are within range.
Things that confused or annoyed me:
What some of the numbers mean. In particular accuracy - even after looking at a thread on this forum I still don’t properly understand how the hit chance is calculated, meaning it’s difficult to know how much better a weapon with high accuracy really is
Based on the damage information missiles seem to have by far the best overall DPS, and can be as good vs armour/shields as lasers/cannons while also being good against everything else. I’m left wondering what the point is of many of the weapons.
One thing I really liked about GSB was being able to have a 3 engine ship, or heavily armoured ship with 1 weapon. It’s very frustrating that the options for customisation with GTB are so limited. When there tends to be only 1 ‘best’ weapon choice from each relevant class it means there is very little that you can change between units. It would be nice if the options had a greater contrast, for example a very short range high DPS weapon vs a very long range low DPS weapon (at the moment it seems the better weapons deal more damage and have a greater range). It’d also be nice if there were optional slots for some of the hulls, such as allowing 2 or 3 weapons/armour instead of just 1 of each. This could also allow a dual-turret to actually have 2 weapons instead of being idential to a single turret other than with how it looks.
I’d echo other people’s comments about the unlocking of upgrades - allowing more choice here, or having the automatic upgrade given being something key (such as a repair/command/hospital truck/base). However I found it fairly easy playing as defender so it didn’t take me long to unlock the upgrades I wanted, meaning I only found this an issue when trying to play as the attacker and not having access to e.g. repair trucks.
I think the hardest part is remembering what the units are when designing if you are not very specific when naming units. Maybe a way to sort units? I.e. only see all my infantry designs and maybe some kind of compare tool?
I’d still like to be able to use hotkeys for my divisions. Tabbing through them all isn’t nearly as good as going straight to the division you’re looking for. Often I look for a certain unit/turret and I find it, but it’s the All division instead of the division I’m looking for. Just having the first division on the list be “1”, the second “2”, etc. would be great, up to 10 (The All division would not get a hotkey).
are there any plans on further updates for gtb? i noticed the thread is awfully old but i think most of what i’ve read in here are great ideas and i was wondering if there were plans of implimenting them. (especially regarding greater customization…as mentioned in the last post it feels like there’s 1 weapon for each type that should be used, i quickly found that the missle launcher could handle everything)
