Ashes Review - Tried too hard to sell the game engine

from AshesoftheSingularity Forums

Thinking back to when Ashes of the Singularity was announced, there was all this focus on the fact it was using the Nitros game engine and all this focus on what it allowed you to do. Thousands of units, DX 12, 64 bit, etc, etc. So what about the game? Well, I draw a big blank. I might not have been following the news well since I jumped aboard back in access, but I feel like I still know more about the game engine than about the game itself.

The world was supposed to be a setting where humans have become posthumans. It is a world where the posthumans now terraform worlds into giant computers because humanity had evolved into digital lifeforms. The enemy is one of the early AIs that some time later decided to take a hostile stance against posthumans. All so that it might live and leave the galaxy to its progeny. In many ways, these villains feel like a B Movie antagonist. A no point did it really give much reason why it thought that posthumans would create so much chaos. If anything, its underhanded sneak attack and hacking of Posthumans to force them to turn against fellow Posthumans feels like it is going to create more more chaos the Posthumans have done thus far.

Actually, we don't really know much period. The campaign starts and ends with the war with the AIs and their hacked posthumans started. You learn who your foe is in time, but you don't really see much else in the galaxy. It doesn't help that the voice acting in the cutscenes were so quite. Increased volume, volume controls, and some subtitles would have helped a lot. Maybe this doesn't really matter as other games in their field didn't need good story to have a game made around, 1000 year wars and all...

The units don't have a very Posthuman feel to it. They look like land ships made by an advanced civilization. They are even literally called frigates, cruisers, and dreadnoughts. There is also aircraft and defense turrets common to many other games. There is research too. I can't say all too much about global abilities as I win most of my games without them. In fact, there might be a problem as the resource used to power these abilities are also the same resource used to buy upgrades. Do you call down an orbital strike or upgrade your guns? An orbital strike is a one time event and you can make a mistake and waste it, but the weapons upgrade lasts for the rest of the game.

I think the only thing that is special about this game is that it is a territory game. You can't build power plants and mass generators like you could in Supreme Commander. If you fail to get resources, you're done for because there isn't anything else you can do. You have to venture forth and take territory. You need to do that because all the mass and rad extractors belong to the different nodes spread throughout the map. Territory is also wealth. Nodes can be cut off because most of them need to link to each other in order to reach your seed.

All of this feels pretty mundane and yet hides the game engine quite well. It is easy to forget that this game engine is supposed to be a radical step forward in game technology. On the other hand, games like Starcraft and Supreme Commander felt like game changers in their respective fields. They still feel impressive when compared to this game. Supreme Commander allowed you to send a lot of units on the field, use artillery, shields, land/air/naval units, T4 units, and tactical nuclear weapons. The last two makes the game feel pretty big and epic as they can be big game changers. As for Starcraft, it managed to set the bar for RTS games. It managed to shift from 2 symmetrical different factions to 3 asymmetrical yet balanced forces. It also had an epic feel to it. It had powerful units with the right feel to them, and had useful "spells", with different origins such as psionic powers, advanced tech, or even exotic biological abilities. The variety and power of these "spells" was good, with Terran Vultures able to place land mine, Zerg Queens able to kill any biological land turn, and the Protoss Arbiter is able to freeze time for a group of units. Units like Siege Tanks, Ultralisks, Archons all felt powerful end game units

Ashes however, have land ships and "spells" like orbital bombardment and EMP Pulse. They feel much too mundane, like some of them being possible now if humanity really tried. Somehow, a species that should magnitudes more powerful than anything in most other games somehow does less. It is almost difficult to imagine that the game is supposed to be a radical improvement in games when the game doesn't feel as epic.

It might very well be the expectations of gamers that is going to be the big hurdle that you have get over. As many have brought up many times, that many limitations such as a unit limits exist because of technological limitations. Many gamers don't understand that these limits exist and wonder why they are there. When a game does not have those limitations, they will probably not notice. It was never something they would look for, something they never understood, and is only worthy of notice if it becomes a problem. In a way, being the first to develop something that has never be done before is creating more work for yourself. You have to create the engine, and make a game worth playing. You might have done better if you skipped making what made before and focused only on making a good game.

I fear that the biggest hurdle is the ignorance of gamers. They don't really understand the limitations of previous generations of software and hardware put into games. They might not understand why the next generation is better. Such as what 64 bit, multicore, and DX 12 really does for them. It is much easier to take note of when things don't work or they hit a limitation than it is to notice that no limitation is there. Because of that, it would mean that it is important to impress people with the game and not the game engine. If you tried to impress people with the game engine and not the game, you have to make a good engine, do an education campaign on game engines, and convince them to care more about the engine than the game itself.

TL;DR I feel that too much focus has been on the technology of the game engine and maybe too much work on trying to make a game that uses that technology. It fails to get the feel that other RTS had when they were quite popular. I don't think that the devs got a good Posthuman feel to the game either.

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Reply #1 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top


You can't build power plants and mass generators like you could in Supreme Commander
End of quote

 

Yes you can .

If you start think in this game has you think when you play SCFA, then forget you wont like.

Actualy you wont like play any game if you want a clone with on a diferent Dev team, AOTS have his own style and its not a clone of SupCom or any other game.

 

But they learn from it and grab some nice ideas from some diferent games ,so think in AOTS has a game you never try or play .

 

This isnt a and game that is released and only patch it to fix some issius,this game isnt boarn yet or have the full power , it will grow in the next years with the help of all even by this kind critics.

 

So have fun play it in next years.

WindowBlinds - Free yourself of the default settings, customize your desktop.
Reply #3 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I intend to add my thoughts on the campaign later. Check back later.

Reply #4 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Mered4, reply 2

I agree with the OP.
End of Mered4's quote

Of course you do.

Reply #5 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I replayed the first 4 missions. Here are my thoughts.

Mission 01: This does pretty much what it sought to do. It gives you a single unit to control. You can move it around and avoid enemies. It has radar, so you learn how to spot and avoid enemies using radar alone. It later gives you an artillery unit to destroy enemies with. It shows you that you attack stuff that you can only see using radar. And it takes it slow enough that you can get a sense of how things work.

Mission 02: The enemy doesn't expand or take stuff. You can advance at your own pace. Everything seems to be good until you are supposed to take a node. Playing incredibility stupid for a moment. The advisors don't tell you to build more frigates, so the first node can take a while to capture if you follow commands to the letter. It also does not tell you build some rocket frigates, and why having a mix of attack and defense matters. They could have said "Brutes are good for defense, having the hit points to take a beating and the numbers to be a distraction. However, they have terrible firepower, so build some Archers. Their rockets will quickly destroy anything the brutes are tanking.". After that, it should have said to build some more metal extractors. I know that players can figure this stuff out... in time... but I think its best to teach best practices sooner rather than later. Many people will jump into the campaign and assume that the missions will teach you everything you need to know. As such, you should teach them everything they need to know.

Mission 03: I've yet to finish this mission by killing the dreadnought at any of the plateaus. Part of the problem is that the Artemis moves slow. By the time you build them at the base, they probably won't make it to the first one and maybe not the second. The other half is if you some how managed to get some at the first site, they won't make it to the second site in time. The first time that I did this mission, I had to bunker down at the door steps of my seed. I couldn't make it to either site quickly enough. I had many units and a good mix of units, with a focus on Artemies, so I was able to kill the dreadnought there.

On my most recent attempt at the map, I was able to get some Artemies at both sites, but I did that by building factories at the sites. Even then I still didn't manage to kill the dreadnought at either site. Something that I did notice was, the enemy army would stop to fight any force that engaged it. It would even take a few steps back if the army was aggressive enough. For some reason it got stuck at a metal extractor. It was like I gave it good enough beating that it was afraid to attack even a harmless building. :P

Mission 04: This mission is hard to do if you don't know what you should be doing. You don't have a whole lot of resources to start with. One of the nodes that you need to control to access the other nodes is a location that will be attacked by all 3 armies routes that advance on your base. You need to be able to defend that site, not hide at your base and hope it holds against the storm. If you tried the later, you will surely exhaust yourself as you wouldn't have resources to keep yourself properly armed. And every mistake you make would set you back some. It wasn't like a normal map where you could do something to set back the enemy; their attacks would come at you like clockwork.

The first time I tried this mission, I lost more times than I cared to count. Eventually I noticed that the radar buildings were being left alone, so I started keeping engineers there to retake the nodes after the enemy leaves. With those resources, it was much easier build defenses and a standing army. I was eventually able to work my way to a victory after a few more defeats. The enemy dreadnought was on my door steps on that last one.

When I later came back to win a second time, I was able to win on my first try. I defended the south with turrets and the east and west with armies. When I built the southern defenses, I stopped all other production and used multiple engineers so I suffered minimal delays and built things quickly. The southern defenses was a mix of smart, repair, drones, and anti-air. Anti-air was handy for killing all the small drones that the enemy brought with their armies, while the multiple repair bays ensured that my defenses was in optimal condition for each wave. When the enemy dreadnought arrived, I pulled my two other armies to increase defenses in the south. I lost most of my turrets and half of one of my armies (my armies were arriving late), but I was at the point where I was doing hull damage to the dreadnought when I won because of my Turinium levels.

Reply #6 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

I don't think Ashes tried too hard to sell the game engine. I think a large part of it was free/cheap PR. Many game companies spend many millions of $$$ for their PR. Because Ashes was arguably the first game to do DX12 and the first to do mixed vendor multi-GPU lots of tech and gaming websites gave it plenty of free PR. I can see why it looks like they pushed the engine more than the game but if you are a company and you want to raise awareness about your product you do not say no to free PR and industry interest. If it saved the company money, improved awareness and sales and allowed them to put more money into the game itself then I think that benefits bother the developers and the gamers.

Nothing wrong with calling the units frigates, cruisers etc. The game is not set that far in the future and there are still meat and blood humans around, which the PHC once were. Its like many software apps in real life might use images of old style phones, or chalk and blackboard, or a typewriter for their icons. Though we don't use them anymore they are easily understandable and relatable. (A few months back the Devs even asked on these forums if the current category names were okay, so people did have the chance to object but I don't think anyone did)

 Ashes however, have land ships and "spells" like orbital bombardment and EMP Pulse. They feel much too mundane, like some of them being possible now if humanity really tried. Somehow, a species that should magnitudes more powerful than anything in most other games somehow does less.
End of quote

As for EMP and orbital strike. EMP will be relevant until electricity is no longer used. Orbital Stike, well they could make it bigger, but then you have game play balance implications, its not a film where you can show the advanced level of a race by wiping out a planet, wiping out a map with one weapon would not be fun. As Christ Roberts says about Star Citizen, if it were real there would be no game as combat would likely take place hundreds if not thousands of miles apart. It is why fighter games set in WW2 era or not much after, are more interesting as now a lot of aircraft would be attacking and defending from one another from miles apart and would not be involved in so many dog fights making the experience less interesting to play for most people.

I think more can be done to make things more impactful. Like I mentioned in another thread today the graphics for nukes could be better and certainly the sound. As the ground is somewhat deformable then if it left a crater or visual scarring that would be way more epic. I really hope they add this sort of thing. If I were younger perhaps I would also want everything great now! ha, but I am older now and know that realistically budget controls everything. Everything. Supreme commander and Starcraft, two games you mention had much bigger budgets so they could do more. I mean, it really is as simple as that at the end of the day.

 (EDIT: I also hope they make the Turinium Win a bit more epic, perhaps a little like the videos, with a grey chip-like surface spreading out)

 

I have to say it seems RTS is such a tough area to start a new IP in. Lots of people complain that Ashes is not what Supreme Commander 3 should be. The other day I saw a long text basically bashing Ashes for not being Sins of a Solar Empire 2. I've seen many people complain Grey Goo is too like Starcraft. When Act of Aggression came out lots of people were disappointed it was not Command & Conquer Generals. Too many people want these games to be different things, it's tough.

 

Reply #7 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Quoting Frogboy, reply 4


Quoting Mered4,
reply 2

I agree with the OP.



Of course you do.

End of Frogboy's quote

Whoa, Froggy.  Don't get all....Froggy.  :P

Reply #8 from AshesoftheSingularity Forums Top

Optional Mission 1: This mission depends completely on your ability to take Turinium generators from your enemy. You enemy has all 7 generators, but not enough units to secure them all. Fortunately you are given 2 small armies to take them. But they aren't really big enough to take some of the more fortified generators. You'll need more units for just that. You are also given an air scout for scouting the map, but you don't have the means to produce more as you are not allow to build sky factories. It is easy to lose your air scout you fly it over the enemy seed. The enemy doesn't really have much of an army or much of a means to build one. The thing to watch out for is that by the time you turn things around, the enemy will have a substantial lead in Turinium. If he manages to retake enough Turinium generators to start getting a positive flow again, it might be game over for you.

Mission 5: The progress of this mission is determined by your ability to follow instructions. The enemy does have a number of advantages over you, much of which is nullified by doing objectives, like taking of generators for factories, generators for turrets, etc. You probably wouldn't be able to win playing the game normally. Not much in terms of local resources and some phase of the map the enemy doesn't appear to need them. It introduces using the orbital fabricator to spawn armies and engineers to locations that you can see, making sudden sneak attacks and attacks to locations you can't reach without this ability. In fact, you supposed to build an army in a location you can't normally reach because you need to attack the enemy from the rear. They have their main base very well fortified one direction so well, that attacking from you main base is suicide. By attacking from the other direction, you get to ignore those defenses and attack from a direction that they are barely defended from.

However, I found that when trying to build an army from the other side of the enemy base, my army would request units from my main base. This meant that part of my army would try to travel through the heavy enemy fortifications to fortify my army and get killed. I had to order units manually from my factories instead of using the army to request reinforcements. Its a pain that army reinforcement is an open order to all factories.

Mission 6: Less of an instructions mission. It gives you a clear objective of what to do, but what you do there after is up to you. It instructs you to build a sky factory and an orbital fabricator. You then use an air scout to get line of sight to the Turinium generator and spawn in an army. After that, it is up to you to figure out how to hold the site. It does recommend that you spawn in an engineer on site so you can build factories and defenses. It also recommends building sentinel turrets to deal with the enemy dreadnought if in case it manages to break through your friend's defensive line (it will). After that, you only need to survive and hold the Turinium generator until you win.

Optional Mission 02: This mission can be tricky. Not because it removes most of the turrets in the game, but because it also adds a number of new things you haven't been taught yet without explaining them. Things like dreadnoughts, amplifiers, more orbital abilities, and upgrades other than logistics. Its like this mission was supposed to be done later. It pretty much gives you the whole game, but takes away the turrets. On top of that, the both enemies seem to have access to everything. The only thing going in your favor is that you start out with 2 nodes (2 units are in the process of capturing them when you start), and that one enemy is a long ways off. You need to act quickly to get the upper hand. The game says that anti-ground constructs are unavailable, but I'm under the impression that constructs are the units that move around. I think it should say turrets or towers (or whatever) are unavailable... You are given the recommendations that you take a certain hill to halt Athena's advance, and later you are told that there are a number of resource nodes to the north that Athena has no access to. With those nodes and what Relias has, you would be able to get a decisive advantage over Athena.

You should follow the advice to hold a certain hill against Athena. You will need every edge you can get. I also found that it is easy to seal off Relias. The place to seal him off is not far from your base, just down the hill in the south west. The node there is needed by him to get resources from outside his base area. The mountains near his base also prevent him from easily getting out any other way, so it would be wise to mount a radar station there to keep an eye on him and his exit route. When you ready, you can go in for the kill.

I find that you should do more than fend off Athena at the hill. Once her first wave is defeated, you should then try to attack and take as much ground from her as you can. Every resource you take is resources denied to her and given to you. I would recommend you send a few air scouts to figure out what is lightly defended. Take what you can easily take, but don't over extend yourself. You have no good turrets. If you get your army killed, Athena can turn around take her territory back with little resistance. Make sure that you defend against Relias, as it does you little good to take territory from one enemy, but let another take territory from you.