I think Firaxis let the genre down with Civ6, and I am really grateful that Amplitude steps in and provides

1) SO much better artwork, Civ6 sometimes feels like a spreadsheet (e.g. compare the tech screens)

2) AI that are actually fun to play against

3) Revamped combat and expansion systems (no more boring "where do I place my cities" planning, just take the territory)

4) A much more lively map and world

5) Automatic roads and working on tiles

6) Simultaneous turns - so cool! (should this even be #1!?)

etc.

I have added a critic to metacritic.com, because I am really really happy with this game and I feel it is completely undervalued. I am also totally looking towards more patches that polish some of the game mechanics and even more polished successor.

Overall, I do have to say: Amplitude, please get your devops pipeline towards Stadia straight! It's unacceptable that this takes so long. You need to work closer with your partners.

I love Humankind, but I gave it a negative review. The game still has bugs. Until the most recent patch, I couldn't even finish a game. Now with I can finish games, but I keep encountering bugs. I'm not talking about a rare bug that happens on the occasion with an odd set of circumstances. I'm talking about every single game of Humankind I've played. I'm a programmer and I get that squashing 100% of bugs is not realistic, but they should be squashed enough that you are not encountering them on every. single. run of Humankind.

I gave the game a bad review on steam. The game simply isn't fun.

I think the reason for the mixed reviews are that most players don't understand how complex this game is. If they understood it they would realize that this is one of the highest quality 4X games ever released on initial launch.

FabriceCPR wrote:

glider1001 wrote:

I think the reason for the mixed reviews are that most players don't understand how complex this game is. If they understood it they would realize that this is one of the highest quality 4X games ever released on initial launch.

Players did not understand ?

But what about the fact that they say Humankind is buggy, unbalanced, incomplete in some areas, etc ...

That's a lot of fools, isn't it?

It's not that players don't understand, but rather that very few players bother making comparisons of this sort. Most people only care about what other alternatives there are right now and how good they are as of current instead of comparing how good titles were on initial launch.

Is this game enjoyable? Is it an intellectual challenge... yes. I am a Civilization player from early Civilization, with thousands of hours gametime (where did I find the time...). So you know my background on games like these, I know what I’m talking about. Things ‘happen’, contrary to Civilization where many turns can pass without really much going on. There’s speed in this game, there are developments. Also, world wonders are fairly easy to claim, and can be constructed in a fairly reasonable time, especially faster than in Civilization. Although you can claim not so many wonders. In Civilization the AI sucks. Playing Humankind is a lot harder than playing Civilization. The AI controlled opposing cultures are really strong and fast. That's good!

The bad: The AI controlled opposing cultures are a bit too strong. They develop outposts into cities very fast, on terrain you had in mind to grab at some time, and where you have a couple of expensive military units, they suddenly have many, and far far stronger than you. I can imagine this total defeat is a turn-off for many new players.

The ugly: Many players report this, and I myself suffered from it: at a certain turn the game stays in ‘turn pending’, nothing happening further. You lost your game. Veeeery annoying. No solution at this time but to start a new game. You lost all your hours of progress. This is a big turn-off. Also, the agressive Independent People often pop up out of nowhere, immediately have a fully developed city claiming a lot of territory (you had in mind to take), have overpowered units and simply slaughter you. No fun in there, and no entertainment value for any newcomer to this genre. (Of course the IP decline to the stage where you can take their city or assimilate them, and there are peaceful IP as well).

It could be for many players it is all too intimidating, where the challenge is bigger than the entertainment value. A solution? Yes, there is. Make the lower difficulties a lot less difficult than they are right now. To make the learning curve easier and let the new players have more fun.

To put it more eloquently: what I would like to give to the developers and the studio: Humankind is what Civilization VI should have been, but was not. That's a great compliment. BUT... here come's the big but. Humankind is NOT Civilization VII. That's it.

It's not the next thing, it's a current thing. Please make it better. I am glad I bought it, and would like to see it progress.

I can only weigh in as someone who decided not to buy, but maybe that's also relevant in a way.
I was in the beta. I loved the exploration part of the game.
Smooth graphics, easy surfing, interesting things to do - what's not to like.
At that point I was sure the game would get a 100%ish rating and was willing to bet that it would end up as my favorite game (judging from what I had seen so far and assuming that it would go a normal Civ(pre6)-ish way).

But then they added stuff.
Specifically combat. I absolutly *hated* the way it worked. My internal rating went down from 100% to about 30% just from that.
And yes, part of it is that I found it confusing with too many hidden rules. And with some effort I could have gotten better and solved this part. But I never liked these kinds of turn based combat games with flanking, higher ground and every other overcomplicated rule someone could think of...

So since the prize was "getting good at something I wouldn't enjoy anyways" I lost interest.
At that point I checked completely out.
I didn't even bother continue playing the rest of free beta.

I think this might be what happened with the game. Mixing too many different genres/minigames - that people couldn't opt out of - so everyone could find something that was a dealbreaker for them. And they were left with only the people who liked every single system as their audience.
Someone else said something similar, to the tune of "too many completerly new systems". This is something I already noticed in ES2. I love this game (technically I gave it a negative rating on steam, but that's based on it not being playable on release and for a long while after (which made me REALLY regret buying it in early access - should have bought it at a discount two years after release and I would have been happier)). But there is an awful lot of systems that could just be removed - and it would make the game better overall.

I think mixing different genres/systems/minigames (in the right way) is a good idea in game design. But if you do it wrongly you turn it from "everyone can find something they like" into "everyone finds something they hate".
And that distinction is very much based on whether you HAVE to do it.

I just recently thought about that when I was playing Kitiara Fables. A decent game in the tradition of "Secret of Mana"-like RPGs. But they added farming. Obviously a nod to Stardew Valley. But in Kitiara Fables it just doesn't work and that got me thinking about the why...

What I came up with was that Stardew Valley has these systems, but it doesn't really force them on you. You can do everything on your own time. If you like farming you can do that. If you like dungeoneering you can do that. Same for fishing. Each of those are basically complete games. Eventually if you want to progress you have to do them all, but it really feels like it is optional (as is progressing itself which the game doesn't force on you at all... it barely mentions it).
In Kitiara Fables Farming is forced on you. Add to that some UX problems and missing design features - and it suddenly turns into a chore (and that's despite early game farming being more comfortable (and easier unlocks of tools) in that game). You just do it because you have to do it for money and then stop and never look back.

The problem with these kinds of genres/systems/minigames is that for every one you add (that people can't avoid) you restrict your target audience a bit more.
And if they already bought the game and needed more than two hours to come to a decision that that's a negative rating.
And that's on top of you having to execute the game well (i.e. playable/smooth and not buggy).

But to be constructive:

My issues with combat in Humankind could have been solved by adding an autoresolver (similar to Total War games).
That way I could have avoided the minigame I didn't enjoy and would have been free to focus on the parts of the game I did enjoy.
As a side note: This is also a good idea for development. You can add a cheap, simple autoresolver very early on in development - and then you have a working, testable game during most of the development (even while the guys working on combat are still doing their thing).

You can often find clever little ways like this to allow people to opt out of things they don't like. And even people who like the combat system will be happy to have the option to only play the interesting combats (and save themselves 15 minutes on the combats that would just be boring routine anyways).

There is an Auto-Resolve in the game...

Melliores wrote:
no Warscore, no stability/attachment gameplay, Civilizations that were strictly defined and sometimes asymmetrical, simplified trading and resources et cetera.

All good changes that came in Humankind, but the main thing I hear civ players complain about is a lack of historical leaders and clearly visible cultures.

If it wasn't for the avatar on the leader screen cosplaying, you wouldn't know who you were up against.

The call of Civilization successor has attracted many of its players. As this is currently not the case, they fled and the appreciation of Humankind suffers.

There would have been no vanity, only fans of Amplitude games would have answered the call and Humankind would have the same rating as other games from the studio.

I think Humankind in it's current state falls short  when compared to Endless Legends, too.  The combat is definitely better but everything else in the game - especially past the classical era - is very rough around the edges and doesn't have the same integrity that I remember Endless Legends having even at it's release.  In fact, for me I think the legacy of their other games is part of what is holding Humankind back.  Amplitude is treading new territory here and I see a reluctance in their design approach to leave behind things that worked really well  in the endless universe (such as explosive "snow ball to the moon" mechanics) but do not work so well in civ style game.