Seems like the devs have a VERY steep hill to climb, given how most seem cynical with the game's prospects, or have all but given up on it.
I mean, any positivity around Humankind appears to be stifled by walls of text on how flawed or disappointing the game is. And any efforts to sustain it or even hype it is shot down almost immediately.
I don't share the pessimism that is so prevalent in the comments and discussions. There is a lot of rightful negativity, and the game has severe issues, agreed. But in the end, it looks like it's 5-6 main issues, that were also acknowledged by the devs at some point, and of which some are comparatively easy to solve and some require a lot of effort and potentially hard decisions. But this seems quite doable to me, even if it seems to take longer than I would prefer (maybe the devs prefer to elaborate combined visions for the changes instead of tacking them on one after the other?). After having a look at these main issues, that leaves the people that have (in my opinion) unrealistic expectations ("I paid full price for the game, and the religion mechanic is obviously not finished. I demand a complete overhaul and a much deeper system, because I already paid for that with the base game!") and people that want a different game ("Get rid of the culture swapping!", "only allow 'realistic' cultural progressions!", "I want a city builder/war game!"). Getting some of these people back (and to buy the DLCs that introduce the wished-for new mechanics) is the harder part in my view compared to tackling the well-known issues.
I don't share the pessimism that is so prevalent in the comments and discussions. There is a lot of rightful negativity, and the game has severe issues, agreed. But in the end, it looks like it's 5-6 main issues, that were also acknowledged by the devs at some point, and of which some are comparatively easy to solve and some require a lot of effort and potentially hard decisions. But this seems quite doable to me, even if it seems to take longer than I would prefer (maybe the devs prefer to elaborate combined visions for the changes instead of tacking them on one after the other?). After having a look at these main issues, that leaves the people that have (in my opinion) unrealistic expectations ("I paid full price for the game, and the religion mechanic is obviously not finished. I demand a complete overhaul and a much deeper system, because I already paid for that with the base game!") and people that want a different game ("Get rid of the culture swapping!", "only allow 'realistic' cultural progressions!", "I want a city builder/war game!"). Getting some of these people back (and to buy the DLCs that introduce the wished-for new mechanics) is the harder part in my view compared to tackling the well-known issues.
I get what you mean. It's just that it'd be a tough path for the devs moving forward. Given how first impressions have, sadly, poisoned the well, winning over people would be a difficult task. As you have no shortage of those who will either dismiss Amplitude's efforts or ensure that those "sins" will never be lived down.
Seems like the devs have a VERY steep hill to climb, given how most seem cynical with the game's prospects, or have all but given up on it.
I mean, any positivity around Humankind appears to be stifled by walls of text on how flawed or disappointing the game is. And any efforts to sustain it or even hype it is shot down almost immediately.
Gotta admit, it doesn't exactly inspire optimism.
You can visit official subreddit and see the opposite picture. Different kinds of echo-chambers, I guess.
I don't share the pessimism that is so prevalent in the comments and discussions. There is a lot of rightful negativity, and the game has severe issues, agreed. But in the end, it looks like it's 5-6 main issues, that were also acknowledged by the devs at some point, and of which some are comparatively easy to solve and some require a lot of effort and potentially hard decisions. But this seems quite doable to me, even if it seems to take longer than I would prefer (maybe the devs prefer to elaborate combined visions for the changes instead of tacking them on one after the other?). After having a look at these main issues, that leaves the people that have (in my opinion) unrealistic expectations ("I paid full price for the game, and the religion mechanic is obviously not finished. I demand a complete overhaul and a much deeper system, because I already paid for that with the base game!") and people that want a different game ("Get rid of the culture swapping!", "only allow 'realistic' cultural progressions!", "I want a city builder/war game!"). Getting some of these people back (and to buy the DLCs that introduce the wished-for new mechanics) is the harder part in my view compared to tackling the well-known issues.
Yep. People don't recognize that an ocean of criticism HK got basically boils down to "it's not civ7/it's not my perfect dream game/why isn't this cities skylines but history/how is a base game not have content of a franchise titan after couple of years of expansions and patches?!". This is not the problem with the game, this is probably problem with marketing to some degree but mostly I will blame players/consumers. Play the demo. Wait for the reviews. Be reasonable.
Honestly, screw all those people that gave dislike to the game. Majority of them will never change their review to "recommended", no matter what devs do. It's better to keep 2/3 of audience that gave positive review pleased, as there are still a lot of what to improve in the game.
Given the track record of Amplitude with their other games I am confident that they will continue to improve upon the solid foundation of this game. Adding things like the empire names gives me something to look forward to beyond balance. I do still hope (my broken record rant) that they will let us design our own AI avatars. I am less than enthralled with relying on the community made ones.
NoFlunk The modding community might have one answer to that already; I haven't tried it yet, but there is a mod allowing you to have more than one AI persona. Seems a bit finicky to use at first (you need to open/close the game a bunch of time as the AI persona "designer" is in-game and encoding the result in a file that the mod then uses), but does achieve the end result of having a wider variety of customizable avatars (you have the toggleable option to "cheat" and use *all* potential traits instead of only the ones you personally unlocked). Link for the curious: https://gc2021.com/showthread.php?tid=53 (Requires BepinEx, some free 3rd party utility that is not Mod.io)
Dont listen to fang##s devs, they love You even if you sold them bulls..t in paper.
Game have potential. No, game have GREAT POTENTIAL to be the best 4x game ever made !
But You know what is wrong with it, mechanic of building civilization is lacking something in it ... ppl made their description already and You need to fix it, not just add another civ, cosmetics etc. :)
P.S I was asking before launch of the game, if there are battles with more than 1v1 ! :D You know now, why i asked :)
OOOOOO! Gotta love mods. I'll have to check this out. Thanks!
Tryford wrote:
NoFlunk The modding community might have one answer to that already; I haven't tried it yet, but there is a mod allowing you to have more than one AI persona. Seems a bit finicky to use at first (you need to open/close the game a bunch of time as the AI persona "designer" is in-game and encoding the result in a file that the mod then uses), but does achieve the end result of having a wider variety of customizable avatars (you have the toggleable option to "cheat" and use *all* potential traits instead of only the ones you personally unlocked). Link for the curious: https://gc2021.com/showthread.php?tid=53 (Requires BepinEx, some free 3rd party utility that is not Mod.io)
Its incredibly disheartening to see people so willfully dismiss peoples criticisms of the game. It isn't as if this game was highly reviewed and thus theres people shouting out issues that a majority of people don't have, the entire reason theres so much criticism is because a sizable amount of people who initially played the game obviously had problems enough with it to drop it entirely.
I've seen far too many fans keep dismissing peoples criticisms as people who "wanted Civ VII" or are "Judging the game based on Civ VI and its expansions", perhaps they wanted a game that matched the quality AND quantity the Endless games had? Perhaps they want a game that actually makes them have to strategise, think ahead, and adapt when their strategy no longer works.
You can't sit there with your fingers in your ears and ignore the fact that this game was anticipated by far more people than actually ended up playing it. The issue is either the game or them, and if its them, fine, but you can't complain when the game didn't foster the kind of community desired or peoples right to review that the game didn't meet the expectations set by both Amplitude themselves, and the expectations of what a 4x game is.
The people saying "screw those who didn't like the game" and that their criticisms of the game are nothing more than misplaced expectations and those who are negative about the game for the sake of being negative are two sides of the same coin. You're both making a difficult situation worse.
After having a look at these main issues, that leaves the people that have (in my opinion) unrealistic expectations ("I paid full price for the game, and the religion mechanic is obviously not finished. I demand a complete overhaul and a much deeper system, because I already paid for that with the base game!") and people that want a different game ("Get rid of the culture swapping!", "only allow 'realistic' cultural progressions!", "I want a city builder/war game!"). Getting some of these people back (and to buy the DLCs that introduce the wished-for new mechanics) is the harder part in my view compared to tackling the well-known issues.
Scheals wrote: Yep. People don't recognize that an ocean of criticism HK got basically boils down to "it's not civ7/it's not my perfect dream game/why isn't this cities skylines but history/how is a base game not have content of a franchise titan after couple of years of expansions and patches?!". This is not the problem with the game, this is probably problem with marketing to some degree but mostly I will blame players/consumers. Play the demo. Wait for the reviews. Be reasonable.
I'm going to have to correct you here. It is not superficial complaints with the game like you say. The issue with Humankind is at the very core of the design. It is very evident that the designers came up with a wishlist of great ideas (and they are), but then never considered how those ideas would work in conjunction with all the other great ideas.
So you end up with an idea that looks amazing on paper (culture absorption to create a multi-cultural society in modern times) that is deeply flawed due to the reality that occurs in game (fast transitions to eras, cultural trait limits, FIMS issues). The in game result is nothing like what was imagined on paper, and doesn't work (cultural identity in the game is irrelevant as the only stable thing all game for civs is their map colour).
And there are plenty more examples where I can show you that lack of thought of how a great idea would work in the whole game, lead to very bad design.
For most people, this results in comments like "this is not civ" (because civ's components all work reasonable well with each other), "it's not my dream game" (because marketing sold us a concept which on paper looked awesome but in game works like crap), "base game not have X" (because there are some things AT A MINIMUM expected by the audience in these types of games).
Blaming consumers/players, dismissing their concerns, and saying things like "screw all those people that gave dislike", is an asshole thing to do, and one of the reasons this community is failing. It's like the Paradox forums all over again.
EDIT: I would also like to point out that I, and many other disheartened players, were part of the opendevs and brought these issues up during them. All of us were ignored and the product that got launched still contained a lot of these core issues a year later. This shows me (and also Lead Designer comments in post release articles), that Amplitude have no wish to fix the game. I still live in hope, but that hope is fast disappearing.
So because YOU believe that, I should just be dismissed? Like I said, I still have some hope. I want there to be a worthy challenger to Civ. I want progress in the genre of games I love to play. I want Humankind to succeed because it will push other games in this genre to succeed.
Game has a lot of potential and I do love many aspects of it. With that said, I am not happy with its balance, diplomacy and overall state of endless/huge map combo games. Game works on smaller/faster pace but it doesn't look like enough love was given to slower pace and its overall balancing...
Dale_K wrote: So because YOU believe that, I should just be dismissed? Like I said, I still have some hope. I want there to be a worthy challenger to Civ. I want progress in the genre of games I love to play. I want Humankind to succeed because it will push other games in this genre to succeed.
Said it yourself, you see issues in the very core of design. When people who judge the game for what it isn't leave, and those who judge for what it is remain, then game will get its ratings and reputation back.
There's much to be improved, but that improvement will only come from what is already there. Fixing for too long on constant hate towards perceived flaws in unhealthy, for both community and for the devs.
Sublustris wrote: Said it yourself, you see issues in the very core of design. When people who judge the game for what it isn't leave, and those who judge for what it is remain, then game will get its ratings and reputation back.
There's much to be improved, but that improvement will only come from what is already there. Fixing for too long on constant hate towards perceived flaws in unhealthy, for both community and for the devs.
Not listening to your audience is the fastest way to have your long term goodwill destroyed. If customers don't believe their feedback is listened to, they won't support you.
Also, squashing all criticism so that there is only one view represented is the most unhealthy type of community. Echo chamber feedback loops. Again, a Paradox forum thus become.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.” ~ Mark Twain
Just adding a small-large tidbit here since no one else has mentioned it, but the game (according to Steamdb) has 12,290 positive reviews and 5,384 negative reviews, so 69.54% of all Steam reviews are positive. That's not terrible and coupled with pretty decent critic reviews, it seems to show that most people enjoy the game at release, especially if you're of the mindset, like I am, that people dissatisfied with a product are more likely to leave reviews than those that enjoyed it and that most oceans of criticism or anger around a release where most people are happy is likely a little overblown.
My background in games is largely not 4x, and certainly not a franchise like Sid Meiers Civilization, but two of the largest communities I regularly interacted with at one point or another are the Destiny (2014-present), and League of Legends (2012-2018/2020). Both series are wildly more successful than the Endless Universe, with consistently high player counts, retention, and growth, and both have experienced significant dips in their popularity with fans/players at various points through their long lives (my older brother, little sister, her boyfriend, and most of my friends still grumble about League even after a decade and a half of constant development on that game). Steamdb lists Destiny 2 at an 84.44% positive review rate, and I can just tell you, that from someone who has actively participated in that game over its life cycle, it has had way wAY WAY more issues than anything Humankind may or may not be going through. Hell, reviews for Vanilla Destiny 2, and its first expansion, Curse of Osiris, were unrelenting, and although I don't know of a way to get the exact numbers back, they were pretty low. And yet, Destiny 2 remains one of the most successful and popular FPS IPs in the market. Their devs, like ones at Amplitude, communicated frequently with the community (by industry standards), cared (mostly), listened (though it occasionally took a while), and made consistent strides to improve on a solid, though incomplete, foundation, a foundation far worse than Vanilla Humankind.
What I'm getting at, is not to entirely dismiss arguments that Humankind has serious flaws, or has a future in doubt, or what have you. But like, it's a good game. It sure as hell isn't perfect, not everyone may appreciate it immediately, and it's no Civ7 or whatever some people were looking for, but not every game is a home run for everyone who plays it right at the bat. Sometimes just being good enough for 70% of players is enough at release (which is still friggen good like what). This one may take a couple of years to hit its stride, or (as someone in this thread mentioned with EL) to develop a personality that people come back to and appreciate months or years later, but it'll get there (if you don't think it's worth your $60 already).
Finally, I think there's a tendency of gamers to forget that there is no shortage of games that were released in truly garbage states that made comebacks that turned the game from something the majority of players hated to a beloved or appreciated experience.
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