We've talked about this game in the Microprose thread, but I don't think it has it's own separate space.
It is an interesting game with great artistic style and narrative content and the world in which the game is based is very unique and interesting...however, I've found the game very difficult and the combat to be fairly limited. For instance, I don't like that you can only bring one of your ships onto the map at once, whereas the enemy can bring several. I also think the battle space is too small. Still, it is definitely worth a look.
I came across this video of a custom ship build and HOLY CRAP! It's a monster.
Highfleet a being actively patched, right? I'm curious what the developer's and Microprose' future plans are for it.
I wonder if they're going to come out with a non-epilepsy version. That was painful to watch.
Cheers,
CC
Quote from: Commander Cody on August 25, 2021, 03:54:22 AM
I wonder if they're going to come out with a non-epilepsy version. That was painful to watch.
Cheers,
CC
It didn't bother me...until you mentioned it. Thanks. :coolsmiley:
The only contribution I'm going to make to this thread is I hate this game with a violent and I mean a violent passion. Oh how I wish I could get my money back.
Read my Steam review if you're curious about knowing why but if not do yourself a big favor. Don't buy this game if you are on the fence. It is absolutely a frustrating, repetitive, and rage inducing twitch fest. Can't believe I fell for this brilliantly executed marketing on a game of sorrow and woe.
So, I did good getting Airships: Conquer the Skies instead, right?
Wow W8...this is unlike you.
Quote from: solops on August 30, 2021, 03:35:51 PM
So, I did good getting Airships: Conquer the Skies instead, right?
Putting aside Highfleet, Airships is awesome and you can't go wrong.
Quote from: W8taminute on August 30, 2021, 02:51:44 PM
The only contribution I'm going to make to this thread is I hate this game with a violent and I mean a violent passion. Oh how I wish I could get my money back.
Read my Steam review if you're curious about knowing why but if not do yourself a big favor. Don't buy this game if you are on the fence. It is absolutely a frustrating, repetitive, and rage inducing twitch fest. Can't believe I fell for this brilliantly executed marketing on a game of sorrow and woe.
I can't see your review on Steam, would you mind copying it here or summarizing your thoughts?
Believe this is it.......
I hate this game and regret wasting my hard earned money on this factory of frustration. Combat seems to always begin with the enemy peppering you with so many missiles and cannon fire you don't have time to think and lose all your ships instantly.
I also love how frustratingly satisfying it is to have your fleet tracked down and pounced on right off the bat when starting a new game by a strike team of death you have no way of beating, forcing you to restart yet another new game.
Do yourself a favor, don't buy this game. It is rigged against you. I really don't know how all of those let's play videos make it look so easy but this game is nothing but sorrow and agony. Don't buy it.
Update 2021-08-28 Having played some more I've realized that not only is the game frustrating but it is boring due to repetitive chores. What I mean is the radio keeps beeping all the time. You are forced to solve the incoming transmission to make the warning chime go away. These frequent interruptions serve only to break the players concentration ruining focus.
Having to see the tutorial messages over and over again every time you restart is another point of frustration. I wish there was a save function so that if something goes wrong you could just restart from the last save instead of having to restart the game all over again.
Although there are some really fun aspects to the game they all get destroyed due to boring repetition, constant restarting the game, and constant replaying battles because you messed up. If you say you need to get gud I'll say why should I get gud because this game is boring. Glad to see you enjoy the game but you must have a simple mind.
Have nice day.
This game must have really pissed W8 off because his post above and the above review don't sound like him at all.
Quote from: Gusington on August 30, 2021, 06:25:53 PM
This game must have really pissed W8 off because his post above and the above review don't sound like him at all.
LOL.
Yes I'm usually very forgiving of games even if they aren't that great but this particular really got me torqued. To be fair however I did know going in that there was a lot of twitch combat to the game but because the YouTube clips I watched made it look so easy I fell for it. Lesson learned.
I am shocked into silence :/
But do you disapprove in your silence?
Quote from: W8taminute on August 30, 2021, 08:25:30 PM
Quote from: Gusington on August 30, 2021, 06:25:53 PM
This game must have really pissed W8 off because his post above and the above review don't sound like him at all.
LOL.
Yes I'm usually very forgiving of games even if they aren't that great but this particular really got me torqued. To be fair however I did know going in that there was a lot of twitch combat to the game but because the YouTube clips I watched made it look so easy I fell for it. Lesson learned.
Well, I am sorry to learn about that, but it is, after everything's said & done, a personal take on the situation. :P
In regard of repetitiveness, it also depends on one's ability to make good use of all the tools at one's disposal to beat the campaign, and swap between them to use it at the right place, at the right time - and by that, I mean tactics too (whether we're speaking strike teams, airstrikes or missile strikes). By every means, this is one of the most complex games available out there to a larger public in regard of gameyfying SIGINT & EW warfare. People say Command is complex - I never quite got that feeling myself (perhaps the hours spent playing Harpoon do pay some dividend afterall) but that? It's on another level. Some might find the mini games infuriating (you seem to think so) but they are also part of the core experience. It's a game where being at full efficiency requires you to keep a sheet of paper and a pen nearby to remember about the names of the stuff you intercept, so that you can break coding keys later on. Whether needing to write down stuff so as to use your brain later on in a meta-way is acceptable in 2021 is debatable - as for me, it brings me back to the days when I was watching my father do just that in the 1990s on point & click adventures & all. That's what some of us are looking for, and that is precisely what was delivered to us. ^-^
That game asks for some true grit from the player throughout campaign gameplay, so obviously the core functions have to appeal to you. You're always on the edge, hunted down, and looking for an opportunity to turn the tables, with little room for mistakes, if at all. It can be stressful. If you're looking for a laid-back, more contemplative gameplay experience, I can't blame you, but I can't really blame the game either. But if you really do want to be fair, when I do realize that a dish isn't to my taste although it's quite popular out there for most, I'd rather believe that my taste is peculiar, not that the dish is inherently bad. Game's by now is at 86% positive world-wide & English - for all the best (complexity) to the worst (hey pew pew is cool) reasons, but there it stands, and there you do. But to each his own approach to subjectivity I guess :coolsmiley:
^ Well this post convinced me to pick the game up and give it a whirl. :buck2:
Quote from: The_Admiral on August 30, 2021, 10:55:24 PM
By every means, this is one of the most complex games available out there to a larger public in regard of gameyfying SIGINT & EW warfare. People say Command is complex - I never quite got that feeling myself (perhaps the hours spent playing Harpoon do pay some dividend afterall) but that? It's on another level.
Can you please explain this and shed a little more light on this claim? I've found the SIGINT aspect of Highfleet to be a cute diversion, but fairly trivial overall. Where is the complexity that in anyway could compare it to CMANO? Unless I am missing something, there is no challenge to it and the only signals to intercept are basic communications that are revealed in a scripted manner. Again, it's a neat little gimmick, but nothing more in my view...where is the "complexity"? I am pretty early in the campaign and have only had the opportunity to intercept two messages, does the system change deeper into the game?
Perhaps complex as a word was badly chosen here - by there I did not mean an excess of depth or lack thereof, I meant an ease of access in regard of the systems simulated. Technically Command and Harpoon before it do muster all relevant information on the same interface as they integrate the flux of information coming from different sensors, whether they are active, passive or triggers all together on your situation map. In other terms, the CIC does its job and you, as a commander, get the information digested in real time. By Command not being complex to my eyes, I meant that it was very much familiar to my senses. It isn't a big departure from Harpoon for all the best reasons, and provides you with a pre-processed situational awareness which you would expect as a commander, at the required level of detail or control today even more than in the early days of CMANO (obviously it got better at that over the years too, and after that CMO was a big step forward in many regards when it comes to customizing the experience & taking into account the characteristics of the sensors feineding the info).
Here, first off, to make sure that I am not being misunderstood as being critical in that regard. It's not that I deem CMO easy or overly simplified, it's just that I tend to find it streamlined & intuitive by the standards of the milsim industry despite the cries I used to hear left & right about it being the GUI bogeyman. :knuppel2:
Now, as for Highfleet, the comparison stands, and yet doesn't at the same time. Technically the result is the same - information will end up in the map - but it is not processed by your staff, it is processed by yourself. Hell, your staff doesn't collect it either, you do. You are the whole chain of command instead of only being at the top of it. For one, by my standards - and that's why I'd find CMO less complex of a business - its gameplay comparatively requires naturally attention, dedication & technical skills of a higher degree in order to make the most of it. It is, for all intents and purposes, not unlike what we have in the new Destroyer: The Uboat Hunter demo in its non-simplified, non-automated form. You end up doing the jobs of different specialized ratings so as to involve you further in the final result. Clearly Command is a command (!) game, a tactical affair. Highfleet, or Destroyer, are hybrids: to be allowed to make tactical decisions, you need to go through a simulation-like process first in order to provide yourself with the dope, and this is one of the first inherent, seminal characteristics of this game which might take a grognard by surprise (and involve a strong reaction). :hide:
Now, when it comes to these mini games, or "little gimmicks" as you call them, they are aplenty, and I am a bit at a loss to explain to you how you should consider them to be complex. If you are to check a few vids online (just checked a few ones here) Caracal in particular certainly would make a better job of it, and he obviously covers areas that I didn't even get to play myself early on either, or understand fully. The man does.
But to summarize my thoughts
- Game covers air radar, ground radar, object radar signature, search vs tracking, radar signature damping, counter-detection, radar jamming, directional search & jamming, anti-radiation guidance, perhaps even home on jam, IRST, IR signature... Whatever the gimmicks are, some of them are surprising for a game with that sort of gameplay & story, and obviously another reason why one would be pleasantly - or unpleasantly surprised when he/she realizes there's a need to deal with all this if you want a winning, or even a fighting chance. Naturally, the fact that they tend to be based on soviet-inspired tech (as the IRST or the RWR will show it easily) makes them both alien & familiar at the same time, and relatable despite the completely fantasy system & situation. Not saying CMO doesn't have it, again it's apples & oranges: to a CMO player, all this amounts to a track number & a contact line with a color or a legend according to the relevant sensor - here it's all on you (so yes, by these standards I don't find myself particularly overwhelmed in front of my big blue CIC map ^-^).
- I can understand one would call all these features trivial & cute (not just them - same with the landing phase, or even combat), at the end of the day I don't find them any less or more repetitive than, say, acquiring your XXXXth contact on your FCR display in any modern flightsim environment. To me it's as much part of your job as it is in any simulation. I don't complain about sweeping my antenna in my Falcon or my Flanker, why should I find problematic to do so in Highfleet? Only reason, again, would be chiefly due to a misunderstanding on my part of what this game is, and a clear disagreement between that direction picked by the creator, and what I think it should be.
- As for SIGINT, it's just another game in the game indeed. But it answers to the same logic as above, and to me it's all the same thing: it's not less a feature than having to look for a radar contact myself, the difference being that you can find yourself without a radar - but never without a radio (or radio intercept gear, that is). The way it is being simulated gives it a distinct "vintage" feel not unlike that of what radio intercept teams had to deal with and in that regard I have much respect for what was achieved here. Between the mechanical part & the decoding part, and its ramifications (especially when coding keys need to be acquired, or when the contents of a message reveal juicy intel that you might deduct from casual chatting) I'd say you end up with a rather meaty mini game that is not inferior to the rest. But the real complexity comes in with the array of strategic options you have in your hands, what you can dynamically decide to do based on the contents of a message, or even the fragments of a message. The mere fact that you can act decisively & smartly based on the contents of the intel you collect is the sort of thing few other games can recreate, and for a change it's all part of the command part of the game - and add tremendously to the depth of the options you have at your disposal. There again, Caracal made an efficient presentation that deals with the topic under 10mn, up to you to tell me if you managed to catch on all the possible applications of this mini-game by yourself by now. If you did, then congrats :)
But as a side-note, at the end of the day, if you don't find it - or the rest - much enjoyable at all, I am afraid Jarhead that you might not be the public to begin with - which is, by any means, quite alright. At some point, if this (very much assumed) collection of mini-games put together in the larger narrative & gameplay package that is Highfleet reveals itself to be unable to retain your attention, it's not shocking at all. We're all at different stages of our own, personal journey into our (necessary) suspension of disbelief when faced with games that attempt overly immersive environments. Sometimes it hits home - and sometimes it's a dud. :coolsmiley:
Here! Hope it made my point & my opinion a bit clearer :pullhair:
Cheers.
You have some very good points Admiral in favor for the game. I can see the appeal here to the right kind of player.
One thing you did mention which hit the nail on the head for me is there is a lot of stress in this game. For some that may be exhilarating. For me I prefer not to be stressed out from a game that is supposed to help calm me down and let me escape the every day life stresses.
Again though you are correct. Personal preferences apply. If my rage rant offended anyone I'm sorry. Some clearly do like this game but if my shared experience helps someone on the fence then maybe I can save someone some grief and loss of money on a game that might not be for them.
^Don't apologize, especially after the fully fleshed out review you just posted above!
Thanks for your post Admiral. I was unaware that those kind of EW systems were modeled in anyway. I guess I just haven't made it that far into a game. I feel like I ran into a wall at Ur, I think, where i come against a very large enemy fleet. I feel like it is too early in the game for this to happen, so I'm afraid I'm missing something.
In any event. Glad to see those details included, even if they aren't from a technical standpoint, "complex".
Cheers!
Quote from: W8taminute on August 31, 2021, 09:27:39 AM
You have some very good points Admiral in favor for the game. I can see the appeal here to the right kind of player.
One thing you did mention which hit the nail on the head for me is there is a lot of stress in this game. For some that may be exhilarating. For me I prefer not to be stressed out from a game that is supposed to help calm me down and let me escape the every day life stresses.
Again though you are correct. Personal preferences apply. If my rage rant offended anyone I'm sorry. Some clearly do like this game but if my shared experience helps someone on the fence then maybe I can save someone some grief and loss of money on a game that might not be for them.
You're quite the gentleman W8, no offense given nor taken, there's absolutely no reason to apologize.
No worries, everyone again is obviously entitled to his own opinion and path. One man's glory can very well be another man's dud.
It ain't a perfect game either (which is? especially in these days), I say it as a player & a dev both, but I have to admit that in the latter case, I do hope that TFA will be at least half as "complete" in regard of our own extreme, complete vision as Konstantin has gone in regard of his own project. He delivered what he dreamed of, and it holds it own. It is certainly a polarizing game with a very steep learning curve, but most reviews do agree on the fact that it has a soul, and a novel outlook on things. Nothing was like it before. Whether it is destined to inspire other makers or remain a unique animal forever is a story for another day. One cannot say he hasn't been scared by it, positively or negatively that is - but what we can agree on is that it sure leaves a mark 8)
Cheers gents!