AoA Valoration on Steam

[Lonfield]

I've just seen that AoA has just 66% positive valoration among steam players, what i think it's really slow. It's not just that, only 71/100 in Metacritic. I wonder why is this game from an studio like Eugen getting those really low marks. Is the game deserving those marks?.

Somewhere i read that some developers said that they won't stop untill the game reachs 80% on Steam. Is something going to happen with AoA? I mean, it's the first Eugen game i don't buy since WEE and from what i've seen it seems i've done a good job.

[admiralzeech]

AoA was a game everyone was hoping for, but nobody wanted.

Anyone who might have been interested in this game had a reason to be disappointed.

In a vacuum, it's a decent game. But it's 2015 and the bar is higher.
- Near future RTS fans probably wanted something like CnC Generals. But better graphics, balance, and modern multiplayer infrastructure.

- Eugen fans mostly wanted another wargame.

- There's some Act of War fans who wanted more AoW. Again, better gfx / balance / multi.


Unfortunately all of the differences/innovations Eugen put into AoA makes those groups unhappy (noone ever complained Generals needed 3 resources), but also failed to attract many players of its own. (There are only a handful of people who love AoA for its unique features.)

Personally, I think RTS is a nostalgia genre by now, just like Fighting Games. You don't win over nostalgia players with anything too different - you give them more of the same with better graphics and more convenience.

[Lonfield]

I want more opinions, it's interesting to me to understand why this game with so much hype and so much time invested from Eugen, WRD was unfinished and they were already thinking on AoA so... i was expecting something better, not those 66% positive reviews. If you compare it with the other previous games.

WEE 80% (my beloved Wargame)
WALB 92% (I miss the old style of WEE, open maps and i would have removed planes, they solve all problems you may get)
WRD 87% (although i think mine is negative)
AoA 66%

I think Eugen should get the message, and try to improve AoA. By the way, i loved this studio, they work hard on their games (in the last times ignoring comunity and becoming too casual (but that's their strategy, if they're ok with that)) to make them better than expected and with Paradox they're the most reliable studios i've seen in my gaming life. But it's obvious something is going wrong and once again i try to help, although i think i'll be ignored, as always.

[admiralzeech]

It's easier to rate Wargame higher, because it doesn't really have much competition.

All the people playing Wargame are fans of that kind of game, and maybe don't have many games to compare to. (In contrast, I'm not interested in wargame at all, I tried EE and didn't like it.)

AoA is compared to many beloved games in the past, through rose colored glasses. And also compared to StarCraft 2, an oxygen sucking juggernaut.

Wargame doesn't have any mega games in its genre to compete with.

[torinus]

It's easier to rate Wargame higher, because it doesn't really have much competition.

All the people playing Wargame are fans of that kind of game, and maybe don't have many games to compare to. (In contrast, I'm not interested in wargame at all, I tried EE and didn't like it.)

AoA is compared to many beloved games in the past, through rose colored glasses. And also compared to StarCraft 2, an oxygen sucking juggernaut.

Wargame doesn't have any mega games in its genre to compete with.

I think this sums it up. Wargame is a big fish in a small pond, AoA is a small fish in a big pond that is dominated by Blizzard.
And everyone expects AoA to be like the big fish.

[Lonfield]

I've played loads of RTS and it's true that Wargame was different, but anyway, when i played AoA I didn't find out anything that encourage me to keep playing it. So you think the problem is that people is comparing? may be.

[Gnougnou]

Spoiler : :

AoA was a game everyone was hoping for, but nobody wanted.

Anyone who might have been interested in this game had a reason to be disappointed.

In a vacuum, it's a decent game. But it's 2015 and the bar is higher.
- Near future RTS fans probably wanted something like CnC Generals. But better graphics, balance, and modern multiplayer infrastructure.

- Eugen fans mostly wanted another wargame.

- There's some Act of War fans who wanted more AoW. Again, better gfx / balance / multi.


Unfortunately all of the differences/innovations Eugen put into AoA makes those groups unhappy (noone ever complained Generals needed 3 resources), but also failed to attract many players of its own. (There are only a handful of people who love AoA for its unique features.)

Personally, I think RTS is a nostalgia genre by now, just like Fighting Games. You don't win over nostalgia players with anything too different - you give them more of the same with better graphics and more convenience.

This. They promised old RTS game and we end up with a hardcore 3 ressources mechanic. Which is nice, or at least I think so, but is far from tiberium or RA, or even Generals. IMO this game is too complicated for a large amount of players. Not gonna lie, to me those games fail because games like RA or old tiberiums belong to an old PC master race era where players weren't that dumb. Now having 3 ressources is harder than maths and people just want to brainless shoot at something (which is sometimes fun of course).

We already said a thousand times what is wrong with this game. People don't know how to play, and people don't want to learn, they just want to instant-know. it doesn't work with this game. They rush online, die, and leave forever. This game need tutorials, and force players to play them.

[Toysoldier]

It's simple eugen didn't listen to the feedback of the beta testers and just focused on the wargame trolls who whined about the camera zoom.

[McNash]

I do agree with most of you that after a while the 3 resources system becomes an annoyance along with the silo system, while I can handle this due all my years playing different kind of RTS games I suspect this concept drove many possible players off, a solution to this could be to turn the aluminium and rare earth elements into "blue and red tiberium", which give you a lot more of credits when extracted.

The other thing that is infuriating is how little resources you get at the beginning of the game, even with the settings for a high amount of resources it's a bit lackluster as you still need to handle your income with extreme care unless you wan't to get stuck, this also makes people extremely vulnerable to early rushes.

Finally there is the matter of customization and gameplay options, only 8 colors (we already managed to mod this so it's a bit compensated), the annoying blue vs red team color setting (SERIOUSLY?! BLUE CARTEL CAMPAIGN?! Even Wargame got the colors right), lack of higher initial income, lack of game speed, lack of income rate, no sound when choosing an structure, no map creator, the lack of buttons to make your units keep certain formations, to use or not to use highways, the broken hold-fire option whose restriction is lift when receiving fire.

Now, it's obvious Eugen didn't get a particularly large budget, that's quite clear once you play the campaign or watch some details, but that doesn't mean they can't improve the game, after all Wargame started in a similar way but eventually managed to become a very polished product (sans the navy), I really hope Eugen Systems keep improving the game and eventually make a product as polished and nice as Wargame, I mean, here is TV Tropes of excellent stuff which had no budget, yet mosf of the items in the list became a success:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NoBudget

Someone please add AoA to the videogame list and buy some ramen to Eugen Systems

[atdsutm]

It's simple eugen didn't listen to the feedback of the beta testers and just focused on the wargame trolls who whined about the camera zoom.

And having to use their brain.