Feedback at 100 hours - an overview

[Hoshizora]

 

 

 

[glow=red,2,300]Well done, Avorion team, well done![/glow]

 

It's been a long time since I was really sucked into a game like this, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. 100 hours in just a little over two weeks! YouTube's Aavak and his let's play series of this game is what got me into this, so don't discount let's players!

 

Shortly after I started, I opened up a notepad and started keeping track of my thoughts on this game. Now that's I've passed 100 hours and have killed the final boss three times, I feel like it's time to put my two cents in.

 

May I present to you.... The Horn:

 

http://imgur.com/B9UBVxT

 

Built for utility,  not aesthetics. Those stats have only gun turret and hyperspace drive upgrades in, the rest is raw, beefy blocks and manpower; all 30 million cubic meters of it. And yes, I did enjoy the idea of soaring through space and destroying enemies in a shamelessly giant phallus.

 

The biggest appeal of this game was the idea soaring through space dominating enemies in a ship that I designed myself. Sadly, I couldn't enjoy that on this playthough because of the dodgy AI making managing these ships too much of a hassle to be worth it. I'm sure that's not news to you, Avorion team, so I'll spare you the details and the log reports. Just let me say this: player fleet AI is a pillar that holds up a huge element of the most appealing part of gameplay that will draw in and hook players. It will be worth every hour and every line of code to polish that to a mirror shine.

 

The biggest drawback right now, if I had to pin one down, is inventory management. This is what took the most time away from space battles as I tediously moused over turret to turret to turret to compare damage and decide what's worth equipping and what should be thrown into the research slot machine. I would have gone crazy if it weren't for Kuro11's mod that changes the tooltips to display actual dps (http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,1626.0.html). I don't even remember what the original tooltips looked like in detail, but I remember it didn't have dps - and that's a big problem. Doing the math to compare different damages and fire rates is not engaging gameplay! It gets worse as your ship gets bigger and you need to place more and more turrets. This can be remedied by, obviously, showing dps in the tooltip, giving each window it's own sorting setting, giving more options for sorting, and some mechanism of quick-deploy turrets on the ship.

 

I get into more nitty-gritty details in the other posts:

 

 

Feedback at 100 hours - an overview

you are here!

Feedback at 100 hours - little things overlooked

http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,2804.0.html

Feedback at 100 hours - small suggestions

http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,2807.0.html

Feedback at 100 hours - shamless suggestions

http://www.avorion.net/forum/index.php/topic,2809.0.html

 

 

For now, just know that you have my respect, Avorion team. I don't crack out hundreds-of-words posts unless I really want to see a game shine - and I'm glad that I got the chance to play this game in its early access, and possibly have an influence in how it's made.

 

[shadow=red,left][shadow=red,left][glow=red,2,300]Bravo![/glow][/shadow][/shadow]