For Battlefleet Gothic: Armada - here is a no-nonsense feedback from a Filipino player!

I played the first iteration of the game last year (Battlefleet Gothic: Armada) on a crack version and apart from the bug in the campaign that did not allow me to finish it, the game was really exciting and amazing.

Thus, when I saw the game for pre-order on Steam, I immediately went to set up a PayMaya (online cash payment) account, went to the nearest 7-Eleven and paid P1,100 (~$22) so that I could have the game and get into the first round of the pre-order beta.

Now, here are my impressions of the game:

The graphics are extremely pleasing to the eye. It’s really astounding to see the details placed into making the ships and giving them an identity through their unique names, as well as giving them avatars that fit their roles as rulers of the starts in the 40K universe.

I also loved the new interactions between weapons, hits and morale, as well as the new system of abilities that have been placed into the game.

Finally, the game did not eat through my old computer (ASUS ZenBook Pro, early 2015 edition) and allowed itself to be played for an hour before it started to heat up and slow down. I do hope for more graphics optimization as well as other settings that would allow mid-range computers to be able to play the game at a decent frame rate!

Here are my hopes for the game:

1. Place an autocast for abilities. This will allow admirals to actually focus on killing their opponents – rather than thinking about different ability cooldowns and whatnot (MOBA and StarCraft, anyone?) However, the AI for the autocast should not be 100% accurate (or at least, should be based on the automated engagement settings that the players use during the battle) – players who take the time to manually cast their skills should be rewarded.

2. Given that this is still a beta version, one could not be expected to have everything in line at the moment. Please give reconnection options for multiplayer – and warn players if their ping is unplayable. I got kicked out of a multiplayer 1v1 that I tried to join!

3. Add Asian servers for multiplayer (preferably Singapore); Asian players can’t simply connect to North America or Europe unless they are willing to have 100-300 ping.

Thank you for giving us this wonderful game! Now, here’s to hoping for a great launch in 2019…and a great game to be shipped ahead of us!

Its pretty difficult to set up auto cast for this game since most abilities are single ship focused or damage focused in this game and in RTS games most targeting is done by player directly. Imo abilities while many in this game (not nearly as much as in first game) dont immidiatly turn this game to a Starcraft or Moba clone. It presents a raised skill ceiling which is good for any strategy game.

Nobody would be playing RTS, RTT games if they played themselves.

@canned_f3tus doesnt matter if all can if even half were made to be auto castable it would reduce the micro burden significantly on the more casual/average player. Weather or not its the most effective is irrelevant simply because anyone can choose not to use said auto cast feature.

@imptastic im just sayin. What can really be put on auto cast on its own. Most abilities are to crucial to chance wasting. The only things that can be set to auto cast are the moral and crew boost abilities. The targetable trickshot abilities are a No Go.

the ones on the same cooldown as repair?
who would be stupid enough to do that?

@ashardalon the same person that would play the campaign on easy... just cuz you wouldnt or you cant get past the MP perspective does not make someone stupid for using micro reducing features.

@canned_f3tus boarding actions, torps, the skills you mentioned all could be put on auto cast doesnt matter if the uses are limited, the person putting them on auto cast will feel the burn if they choose to play that way its up to them.

@imptastic said in Feedback and Impressions of BFG 2:

@ashardalon the same person that would play the campaign on easy... just cuz you wouldnt or you cant get past the MP perspective does not make someone stupid for using micro reducing features.

then i hope that person loves losing vs easy ai
why give people noob traps to fall into

@ashardalon i played scrim on normal... there is no noob trap to be had as long as you mob up and single target youll destroy normal so i would assume easy is not a hurdle that would impede. trying to force these 10 ship rosters is horrible on all scales... it will push average away from pvp, make pve less enjoyable to your casual/average, and make reviews more harsh towards the game effecting new purchases. If you dont give them a bone the majority that do not make up the above average players will find the overall package meh to blah.

Autocast would be nice for boarding and torpedoes on certain fleets. Obviously many fleets DON'T want to autocast boarding. But I'd love to tell my corsair BB to board anything that gets in range, because I'm going to be scrambling to get it OUT of that range if it's there, and in most matchups I have no interest in conserving boarding charges on it.

Torpedo autocast would be useful on large torpedo-centric fleets, like certain IN or nid builds. It's probably never going to be as good as careful, synchronized player use, but I just don't have the micro ability to land 10 rounds of torps on 10 dauntlesses in a brawl while also trying to board, set target priorities, keep ships using both broadsides, avoid rams, adjust stances, and rotate shieldless ships to the back. Whatever damage AI torps can apply (and in the first game, autocast torps were surprisingly well-aimed) is a bonus, because I'm not going to be landing more than 1 or 2 volleys myself.

there are some situations where having a trigger for auto-cast would help without making you a bad player. for example if I wanted to mass lightning strike in the first game, it was helpful to be able to switch auto-cast on for the strikes before switching it off again. same was true for ordnance use and boarding. the second game improved use of skills with several ships selected, so it is a very minor thing (and a beginners trap).

@imptastic said in Feedback and Impressions of BFG 2:

@canned_f3tus boarding actions, torps, the skills you mentioned all could be put on auto cast doesnt matter if the uses are limited, the person putting them on auto cast will feel the burn if they choose to play that way its up to them.

Than why make these an option in the first place? These people will just complain about it being a feature.

@canned_f3tus umm if its not standardly set then no one would complain, giving options to players who already feel over burdened by the micro/macro aspects of the game however is always a win. take a step back from your views of the game based on your love of MP and put yourself in the shoes of someone that is not very good at the game and doesnt have great reflexes and tell me you wouldnt welcome auto cast abilities to help you stomp on weak ai teams.

that person should use the tactical cogitators
they even provided a full pause button for people like that to play it as a turn based game

i cannot for the life of me understand how less options could be better.... you dont like them then dont use them because they are at the end of the day they are just options.... but if i must get dragged down into this then here we go. 1, im sure there are going to be large battles that a novice or low skilled player will have problems handling in the SP content as you say they could slow the game to a crawl and try to play it that way but you assume they would find that fun... watching things drift on your screen at a snails pace is boring. 2, the game already feels much slower than the first which is a turn off to some. 3, sometimes ships can enter boarding range when your not paying attention, given the bigger size of the maps and fleets this is going to happen much more often now. 4, with torps the same argument comes as before. 5, the game is already micro/macro heavy making it lighter in that regard even if its a bad option for MP is still good for the game as a whole. 6, the game does not and never will revolve around MP, in fact if anything it will revolve around SP as thats where the money is folks make it better for them the player base stays longer you have better odds of keeping the game maintained tho admittedly the game being maintained for a significant period beyond launch is already highly unlikely.

@imptastic this has nothing to do with how i feel about multi lets be clear on this. Im just mentioning that auto cast is only useful for certain things but it can be a problem in some situations. Cause in the end the player will be able to make better call than the AI when it comes t9 targeting priority.

Im not against Auto cast. Just saying that it is redundant in a few situations. Thats all.

@ashardalon said in Feedback and Impressions of BFG 2:

@imptastic said in Feedback and Impressions of BFG 2:

@ashardalon the same person that would play the campaign on easy... just cuz you wouldnt or you cant get past the MP perspective does not make someone stupid for using micro reducing features.

then i hope that person loves losing vs easy ai
why give people noob traps to fall into

So there's a there's a silly reply. The first game could be played absolutely fine with autocasting (Even up to Hard). It wasn't optimal, but you won't lose to an Easy AI, not even close.

@imptastic said in Feedback and Impressions of BFG 2:

i cannot for the life of me understand how less options could be better...

This is the same community that's telling the singleplayer community to be grateful for less content. Common sense died quite some time ago.

@canned_f3tus said in Feedback and Impressions of BFG 2:

@imptastic this has nothing to do with how i feel about multi lets be clear on this. Im just mentioning that auto cast is only useful for certain things but it can be a problem in some situations. Cause in the end the player will be able to make better call than the AI when it comes t9 targeting priority.

Im not against Auto cast. Just saying that it is redundant in a few situations. Thats all.

For sure, I don't think anyone would argue against that - heck, in the previous game the marker for torpedoes made auto-casting them basically a waste, since it wouldn't lead the targets. Still, it's nice to have the option to dictate how micro or how macro you want to go. They gutted most of the customization to tame ability micro... And then forced us to micro those abilities anyways.