1.5 a step to far!?!?!
As a Frontline Pioneer, I would like to thank the devs for taking all the recommendations provided by me and my fellow Pioneers. It was a long test period but I think everything came out alright....
Wait... that never happened, never mind.
Well I have had my first look. I will briefly give my feed back to the live test (for the community as a whole, not the pioneers). You "said" you wanted "feedback" - I will expect that this feedback will be treated as if you made the request.
Point 1. About the above, it is clear that going straight to the players the dev team is saying, "It is yours like it or not, whether it works or not, or whether it is overly complex or not." It also says, that being in the FP is a pointless activity, an empty honor. If the point is for FP to beta test, without information on what is being tested, what bugs to look out for, what develops may be coming, and now without any advance testing of game wide overhauls - the FP is pointless!
Point 2. At the first look at the new 22 player map, I can now sing praise for the old 22 player map - it was at least marginally accurate. In future -updated- maps, I suggest you just slap Africa onto the coast of North America. (I'm sure mobile users will appreciate the saved bandwidth.)
Point 3. Market changes have still not been reverted, making the pittance of resources that you "grant" the player in 1.5 barely able to cover basic needs with no money to purchase more. 'nuff said!
Point 4. Now every building type costs some of EVERY resource... actually needed (IRL) or not. Rares for road construction... are we building radioactive roads?!?! SO... now with the measly allowance of resources you get to start, you can be assured that if building you must build, resources you won't have.
Point 5. Opening new strategic opportunities with new building types... HAHAHAhahahaha!
Let me ask, what was wrong with the buildings that were available before, strategy games are based on the overall operations - not the minutia of detail! What have we got from this assortment of graphical representations?...
Now every unit has to have its own special building to create, increasing costs (remember every building costs EVERY resource), reducing strategic options (build for air superiority but now you suddenly need tanks, good luck changing that on the fly!), and making the game overly complex.
Point 6. I could almost get on board the Research changes, of course, if real participants during WWII could do research at the pace of this game it would have been Fallout by '41. That, not withstanding, the tree is better organized, the pricing is beyond reasonable - but that is kind of the point isn't it...
Point 7. You can say much about Bytro, but one thing you could never say is that they are dishonest (underhanded perhaps, but not dishonest). They called it, as they always do, like it is. They need to keep their eye on the (financial) bottom line. These changes are nothing but a very transparent means to that end;
Expanded buildings designed, which require heavy resource investment, to break up the unit production process so that if you don't pay you are limited, and if you do pay your opportunities are limitless.
Reduced starting resources - to ensure that non-payers are limited in progress, while payers, again, have every advantage.
Off scale maps and lightning quick research to reduce the time scale of each map, to get players to the next new game as soon as possible - as profits sag when to many games run "over-time".
As far as Bytro's goals on these changes it is a win-win... until the other side of the equation comes into play;
Profitable game mechanics + "solid player base" = return on investment
For the players, as long as you can keep them, the experience could have been a little less jarring!
