I was wondering what's going on with Humankind. I saw that the negative steam score (reception) of the game is pretty mixed, there are people who love, and "hate" human-kind, some say it is pretty unbalanced and has lots of glaring gameplay issues... So, I was just asking here, what's really going on with the game? What is it's perception, and the peoples perception of the game? Is it good, is it bad...? Why the people are giving it negative mixed steam reviews? Why some people are skeptical about Humankind (i've seen someone- A Vodianny, commenting he is 'skeptical' about the game) and why there are so many negative, mixed reviews about humankind? There is even one negative steam review i've seen like "Tl:dr, Do not buy. Half baked" And then he points out to the fact there are some "cool" features and ideas for the game (humankind) but he did point out that the devs didn't point out to the fact they didn't and or haven't thought about some of the glaring issues that may arise by implementing some of it's core-feature mechanics. I looked on that review and said "Hell, that's a nice review. It's not really a gameplay-wise mechanic review of the game, which is important, but it quite reminds me that this is an important aspect of the game that did, or do, have to be thought out more true. There are a lot of thing's in game that i've seen that haven't been really thought out.) But the problem was, these "features" or "glaring issues" that haven't been thought out, When I saw them for my first eye of glance, I was really worried, albeit, shocked. These glaring issues this man was pointing where not simple, ordinary things like "Oh, you do this and X will happen" It's more like "Guys, if you do this, and you implement X game mechanic, it will prolly come in conflict with Y game mechanic and you guys in order to fix this issue need to basically cut off either one or other game MECHANIC since there is absolutely NO FIX for neither X or Y. For example, how can you prevent a BOT from acting faster than a player in SIMULTANEOUS TURNS if you can't prevent him from **NOT READING** through all the screen crap players have to read?

Anyway... It's a really difficult thing and topic.

I was reading thorugh all these things, and I was just nodging my head and thinking, "Well, this is no easy fix." "This too." "This too". "Omg... Is the game doomed?" Then the guy written up up to 7000 characters long text and about 7-8 glaring issues the devs didn't thought about and I was like "Yup, Yup yup... Quite sure... Lol" anyway... :(

I don't have humankind so that's why I am asking, lol.

I haven't bought it as a preoder because I was like meeeeh I'm to lazy to buy things RN but then when the reviews came it went mixed some guys/most guys said it was 'half-baked' I was like, wut? Wutf? What's going on?

Then I came here in these steam/g2g forums to ask you guys about it, lol, lawl xD

So what's going on with humankind? =) What are your thoughts?

I lov thids sophons

Basically a number of contributing factors (such as The scoring system, lack of interactive mechanics outside of war, the fact that the most interesting thing about most cultures is their unit, poor balance of stability and expansion mechanics) lead to limited variability in the game. In the endless games, each faction plays very different, but in HK even mixing factions together, it often feels like each game is the exact same as the last. On top of that, once the early game is done, there is very little for a player to interact with besides war. City building feels tedious as maximizinh district yields is a simple matter of just tiling similar districts near each other, and religious and cultural expansion, while seemingly being peaceful mechanics, really only impacts the way the player interacts with the game by allowing empires to go to war. Game design and balance always just point the player to the same conclusion game after game, and unfortunately cultures are mostly boring stay buffs that don't do enough to mix the game up and make it interesting

I'M GLAD Endless Space and Humankind didn't exist beforehand, lol xD

I'm glad too i've made and put this review there, lol

For how long things have been like that in Humankind?

How long it took until players notice the glaring issues within the game?

How has Amplitude since been?

Dale_K wrote:

Velorace wrote:

Do not buy. Half baked" And then he points out to the fact there are some "cool" features and ideas for the game (humankind) but he did point out that the devs didn't point out to the fact they didn't and or haven't thought about some of the glaring issues that may arise by implementing some of it's core-feature mechanics.

- Culture swapping.

[...]So one turn you're next to Babylon, Assyria and China, then next turn you're next to Ottomans, England and America. WTF? There is absolutely ZERO identity with the civs in game. The only stable thing is the player's colours, so you don't battle against civs, you battle against colours. And in a civ game that is horrendous!

Can't the civilizations in the Humankind have a general "country" they originate, like "cultures of... BRAZIL (I don't know, indegenas (indegenous, then "Rio-de Janeiros"...???? I dunno???) and then something like "INDEGENAS OF BRAZIL or INDIGENAS (BRAZIL)" Instead of just INDEGENAS, EUROPEANS... ESCANDINAVIANS... ???

I mean, if the cultures don't have a single country of origin, then it might be hard to indentify that culture really. Maybe having a single country of origin helps with that...?

But I think the game is really done for, tbh...

Velorace wrote:

Dale_K wrote:

Velorace wrote:

Do not buy. Half baked" And then he points out to the fact there are some "cool" features and ideas for the game (humankind) but he did point out that the devs didn't point out to the fact they didn't and or haven't thought about some of the glaring issues that may arise by implementing some of it's core-feature mechanics.

- Culture swapping.

[...]So one turn you're next to Babylon, Assyria and China, then next turn you're next to Ottomans, England and America. WTF? There is absolutely ZERO identity with the civs in game. The only stable thing is the player's colours, so you don't battle against civs, you battle against colours. And in a civ game that is horrendous!

Can't the civilizations in the Humankind have a general "country" they originate, like "cultures of... BRAZIL (I don't know, indegenas (indegenous, then "Rio-de Janeiros"...???? I dunno???) and then something like "INDEGENAS OF BRAZIL or INDIGENAS (BRAZIL)" Instead of just INDEGENAS, EUROPEANS... ESCANDINAVIANS... ???

I mean, if the cultures don't have a single country of origin, then it might be hard to indentify that culture really. Maybe having a single country of origin helps with that...?

But I think the game is really done for, tbh...

Seriously, don't just take my word for it.

There are 7 people who still love and play this game. Eventually one of them will come along and tell you why they love the game. :)

Hmmmm... Ok.

Dale_K wrote:

Anyways, TL:DR. Take some rump steak, chocolate, zucchini, Twisties, pink icing doughnut, and half a can of coke. Put in a baking tray and bake on 160C for 10 minutes. What you'll get is Humankind.

Some amazing ideas thrown together and half baked. They do not interact well at all and lead to an extremely frustrating game. I recommend not buying it.

Lol. This description is so funny, and, yet, sadly so perfect. Add in a group of chefs who didn't try it before they served it and seem incapable of grasping why others are unwilling to eat the resulting mess, and you've got the whole picture.

Well, Chief in Service. You got the full picture here... xD

To put it in a simple way, if you want to play humankind for max 20 hours, it's fine, go for it. Lots of new unseen features, some fun, and another opportunity to conquer the world.

If you are looking for a game where you can spend hundreds of hours, then you better wait 1 or 2 years until this game is fixed (if that is possible...not sure), as you will realize it is effectively half-baked...some would even say unbaked.

Sad luckily I still ha@ev some I-deas e.e

What? A developer has followed me? I better post out my idea! Wow! :D It's so amaaaazing *-* ♥

I was going to post a longer comment but Dale_K basically covered the two main reasons I bought it but haven't been playing it. Recapping anyway:

Culture mixing: I think Amplitude failed to realize that players need at least some kind of persistent identity for the faction they're playing. The "choose a culture" mechanic just puts everything into a blender, with confusing name shifts from your neighbors and no strong identity for your own faction. There isn't much incentive to start another game because it will feel the same. I guess we were spoiled by the creatively designed and very different factions in Endless Space and Legend. This is such a core feature of the game that I don't know how they'll fix it, but I'm willing to keep an eye on it to see if it can be improved.

The other thing is the war mechanic with forced peace, where the game slaps your wrist for winning a war. It's similar to how warfare works in Paradox games but it's very poorly implemented here. It's just not fun. Maybe this can be fixed. If you don't want to buy the game right now, it could be worth taking another look at in a few months or a year from now.

I have played 200h on Humankind and still enjoy many of the features but Dale_K and Zenicitus pin down the two glaring issues perfectly:-

1. Lack of coherent identity for the different "players" so that only the team colour persists as an opponent:- confusing and lacking in immersion. This could be addressed in part by having better integration between map and diplo screens and identiying cities and units on the map with the player identity (Lucy, Ancestor etc) rather than the culture they currently adopt. 

2. War support and surrender:- returning most of your war spoils to a thoroughly beaten opponent is bizarre. The final war score needed to secure Liege status is too high. 

Valid criticisms but its not a bad game either and have still enjoyed it. I feel Humankind is in a lot better place than civ 5 vanilla ever was which was missing entire systems that are now considered staple.

Guys what do you all think about from Humankind to Endless space 2, then? I only have endless Space and I think it's my favorite 4xx by now. It's a blast! :D

I love it so much! *-* ♥

Do you guys think Endless Space 2 was better than Humankind, in general, or are you guys simply making "force" to "like" a new game from amplitude, after all? xD ♥ 

Because... You know... 

It doesn't seems like it's much balanced either...

And a game with core indentity and funcituional mechanics broken and riddling themselves, plus a big of a mega balance issue in the game like... Sorry? Isn't that way a little bit too much?

Just asking...

In my views, endless space 2 was nothing like that. Really. 

I hate history I love space. we are the polar opposites, lol

I do think ES2 is way better than humankind btw...

Dale_K wrote:

Velorace wrote:

Do you guys think Endless Space 2 was better than Humankind, in general, or are you guys simply making "force" to "like" a new game from amplitude, after all? xD ♥ 

Because... You know... 

It doesn't seems like it's much balanced either...

And a game with core indentity and funcituional mechanics broken and riddling themselves, plus a big of a mega balance issue in the game like... Sorry? Isn't that way a little bit too much?

Just asking...

In my views, endless space 2 was nothing like that. Really. 

I haven't played any other Amplitude game. Humankind is my first from them.

I MUCH prefer historical based games than fantasy/space based games.

EDIT: Sorry, not entirely true. I just check steam and I have EL1 and ES1. But both games less than 10 hours each. Both last played 8 years ago.

I recommend you trying ES2 tho. It's amazing. 

Very, very good gameplay, balancing and different patching for Major Factions. I believe ES2 is considerably a very big major improvement than Humankind, really. Having ES2 and looking how Humankind looks for me is a big no go lol xD

ES2 seems much better... In my perspective...

Both in balancing, in major factions... And much the rest, really. 

Anyway... 

Velorace wrote:

Dale_K wrote:

Velorace wrote:

Do you guys think Endless Space 2 was better than Humankind, in general, or are you guys simply making "force" to "like" a new game from amplitude, after all? xD ♥ 

Because... You know... 

It doesn't seems like it's much balanced either...

And a game with core indentity and funcituional mechanics broken and riddling themselves, plus a big of a mega balance issue in the game like... Sorry? Isn't that way a little bit too much?

Just asking...

In my views, endless space 2 was nothing like that. Really. 

I haven't played any other Amplitude game. Humankind is my first from them.

I MUCH prefer historical based games than fantasy/space based games.

EDIT: Sorry, not entirely true. I just check steam and I have EL1 and ES1. But both games less than 10 hours each. Both last played 8 years ago.

I recommend you trying ES2 tho. It's amazing. 

Very, very good gameplay, balancing and different patching for Major Factions. I believe ES2 is considerably a very big major improvement than Humankind, really. Having ES2 and looking how Humankind looks for me is a big no go lol xD

ES2 seems much better... In my perspective...

Both in balancing, in major factions... And much the rest, really. 

Anyway... 

I'm completely tied up with Old World. Fantastic game! Much better than Humankind and Civ6.

I highly recommend Endless Space 2 if you enjoyed the first one. ES2 and Endless Legend are the current pinnacle of Amplitude game design in my opinion. 

DragonGaming wrote:

[...]now add in all the updates and patches since ES2's launch along with the dlc except awakening into ES2[...]

Bolded for emphasis. I cannot +1 this enough. ES2 is a masterpiece, but if you play with awakening it will ruin your first impressions.

Velorace wrote:

I was wondering what's going on with Humankind. I saw that the negative steam score (reception) of the game is pretty mixed, there are people who love, and "hate" human-kind, some say it is pretty unbalanced and has lots of glaring gameplay issues... So, I was just asking here, what's really going on with the game? What is it's perception, and the peoples perception of the game? Is it good, is it bad...? Why the people are giving it negative mixed steam reviews? Why some people are skeptical about Humankind (i've seen someone- A Vodianny, commenting he is 'skeptical' about the game) and why there are so many negative, mixed reviews about humankind? There is even one negative steam review i've seen like "Tl:dr, Do not buy. Half baked" And then he points out to the fact there are some "cool" features and ideas for the game (humankind) but he did point out that the devs didn't point out to the fact they didn't and or haven't thought about some of the glaring issues that may arise by implementing some of it's core-feature mechanics. I looked on that review and said "Hell, that's a nice review. It's not really a gameplay-wise mechanic review of the game, which is important, but it quite reminds me that this is an important aspect of the game that did, or do, have to be thought out more true. There are a lot of thing's in game that i've seen that haven't been really thought out.) But the problem was, these "features" or "glaring issues" that haven't been thought out, When I saw them for my first eye of glance, I was really worried, albeit, shocked. These glaring issues this man was pointing where not simple, ordinary things like "Oh, you do this and X will happen" It's more like "Guys, if you do this, and you implement X game mechanic, it will prolly come in conflict with Y game mechanic and you guys in order to fix this issue need to basically cut off either one or other game MECHANIC since there is absolutely NO FIX for neither X or Y. For example, how can you prevent a BOT from acting faster than a player in SIMULTANEOUS TURNS if you can't prevent him from **NOT READING** through all the screen crap players have to read?

Anyway... It's a really difficult thing and topic.

I was reading thorugh all these things, and I was just nodging my head and thinking, "Well, this is no easy fix." "This too." "This too". "Omg... Is the game doomed?" Then the guy written up up to 7000 characters long text and about 7-8 glaring issues the devs didn't thought about and I was like "Yup, Yup yup... Quite sure... Lol" anyway... :(

I don't have humankind so that's why I am asking, lol.

I haven't bought it as a preoder because I was like meeeeh I'm to lazy to buy things RN but then when the reviews came it went mixed some guys/most guys said it was 'half-baked' I was like, wut? Wutf? What's going on?

Then I came here in these steam/g2g forums to ask you guys about it, lol, lawl xD

So what's going on with humankind? =) What are your thoughts?

The reason is that humankind just like French cars: they are so amazing and strange (or better to say unique), and mostly are done especially for comfort of driver, BUT usual driver prefer german or american car just because they don’t understand how cool French cars are... And so with humankind, I have just played yesterday without dlc and today with dlc and the game is so amazing, that i have spent 10 hours already. Most of bad reviews are “naah its clone of civ/it is not civ/uugh bugs” abd so on, these are haters of unique gameplay that humankind provides. So the best way to understand will you love this amazing experience or drop because “oh no it is not civ” to try demo;)

EsoulBoy wrote:
The reason is that humankind just like French cars: they are so amazing and strange (or better to say unique), and mostly are done especially for comfort of driver, BUT usual driver prefer german or american car just because they don’t understand how cool French cars are... And so with humankind, I have just played yesterday without dlc and today with dlc and the game is so amazing, that i have spent 10 hours already. Most of bad reviews are “naah its clone of civ/it is not civ/uugh bugs” abd so on, these are haters of unique gameplay that humankind provides. So the best way to understand will you love this amazing experience or drop because “oh no it is not civ” to try demo;)

The problem with French cars (to use your analogy)..... like Humankind..... is threefold.

1. Reliability. French cars have a very bad history of reliability. Complete break downs and software errors, components that are amazing ideas by themselves not working properly in the car as a whole since they went untested in conjunction with other components of the car, and poor after sales support. Like Humankind.

2. Flashy marketing. French advertising, for want of a target here, come up with some of the flashiest marketing in the world. From perfumes, to French designer clothes, fine champagne, and yes their cars. Their marketing budgets are enormous and delight the audience, but in the end hold no relation with the car's reality being sold. Like Humankind.

3. One way communication with customers. For some reason, it comes across that French car manufacturers prefer to tell customers what they want, that they are wrong when customers tell them what they want, and that the French designers are the best in the World and know best. Like Humankind.