When they first went to launch, the community pointed out that tehy were no where near ready. That they thought they were is problematic. That they then released a game that wasn't ready for the platforms they said it would be, and was still seriously under-baked after so much community feedback, is a little depressing.

SpikedWallMan wrote:

Dale_K wrote:

The interns have taken over...

Must have missed that detail.  When did they announce this?

I mean, that's what they did to ES2?

just checked the ratings again, sadly, recent reviews are now 48%, meaning the negatives are in the majority now.

Dale_K wrote:

Slashman wrote:

Sublustris wrote:

Majorly because of slow update roll out, as a side effect of their chosen development workflow. It worked before when their games had lower scope and better focus, now it crushes anticipations of their fresh widened audience.

Game is fun, but certain design choices made experience "bland" and not as unique with every new playthrough compared to previous titles. It whould probably be not as apparent, if not for the attrocious balance and pacing of final eras.

It is maddening to see it and I don't understand why they don't address the pressing issues that are glaring. It's like they are almost apathetic to what is frustrating folks about their game or they don't understand what it is that has made people reluctant to play their game.

This odd, almost indifference, to the later eras seems to have persisted from Endless Space 2. It eventually got a little better in ES2 but why repeat the same mistakes over again?

They've put their focus on Endless Dungeon now. Humankind has been dumped, and with good reason. The interns have taken over and will spew out cosmetic DLC's that do nothing but twist the existing dials and buttons to make it look "new", all to recoup Sega's marketing budget.

There is no point waiting around for real fixes that aren't coming.

If this is true, I'm a sad panda.

lbasil wrote:

I also would not reccomend the game at the actual state of things. The game has serious design and balance problems, devs are not comunicating future plans with the players (if there is any), recent patches have been bug fixes only and the incoming vitruvian update seems underwhelming to say the least. I really had high expectations on this game (I preordered and played the opendev), but now i am losing hope. One thing is for sure: if this game will not receive enough love from the devs this will be my first and last game from Amplitude.

Endless Space 2 is a masterpiece; Humankind is meh, Endless Legend is bad enough to make humankind look balanced.

Scheneighnay wrote:

lbasil wrote:

I also would not reccomend the game at the actual state of things. The game has serious design and balance problems, devs are not comunicating future plans with the players (if there is any), recent patches have been bug fixes only and the incoming vitruvian update seems underwhelming to say the least. I really had high expectations on this game (I preordered and played the opendev), but now i am losing hope. One thing is for sure: if this game will not receive enough love from the devs this will be my first and last game from Amplitude.

Endless Space 2 is a masterpiece; Humankind is meh, Endless Legend is bad enough to make humankind look balanced.

Only problem I had with endless legend is being capped at, I believe, 10 races per map. I wish I was able to put every group on a map.

While I understand the frustration and disappointment of some, personally I'm quite enjoying the game, warts and all. To give some perspective: I don't do multiplayer or do the online events. Sure there are some bugs and some things (OK, lots of things) could be explained better, but I've played seven games so far (5 AI opponents, playing at Nation and Slow speed), and am enjoying learning the nuances of the game. (Who knew how useful Garrisons with enhancements could be for stability?) I don't find the games repetitive: had one game where I got to the last Era maybe 5,000 Fame points behind and eventually overtook the leader with some careful War Score management to cramp her development while not wiping her out too soon. My past experience is a bit of Civ, last played vanilla Civ6. I don't want to go into comparisons, because that's another red rag to some.

Sure I find the renaming of the Empires confusing, and surely I'm not the only one who has sometimes forgotten which culture I am currently or which religion I founded. But I've also enjoyed trying out different cultures even if they might not be the best fit, and there's enough of a moral angle where I have to think a bit about event choices - do I go with what I actually believe or what would work best in the game? And I can't bring myself to let pollution run amok. OTOH I do enjoy unnecessarily wiping out that irritating AI who caused me so much trouble three Eras ago.

I can totally accept that many of the criticisms are valid and that there's a lot that can be improved, but at the same time I can still enjoy the game as it is.

I quite enjoy the game too, ctemp, and I'm not even using the latest version (Stadia's a patch behind).

I understand there's problems, and I see them in my own games, but they don't diminish the fun I'm having. I'm always creating games with different settings to see how it goes. For example, I recently played a game on the endless length and ran away with a space race victory. This was a stark contrast to the standard length games where I never so much as reached the modern era. 

I guess when it comes down to it, as long as I'm having fun, I can overlook the problems.

Grathocke wrote:

Also, I'm unsure how that works on Steam. Can people who haven't purchased the game rate it?

You need to have the game in your Steam library at the time of the review, either by purchasing or receiving a key for it. Furthermore, while it's true that people who have issues with a game (negative) are more likely to review or comment about the game than those with a positive outlook, there are many games with overwhelmingly positive reviews too. Sometimes it depends on the nature of the playerbase but I wouldn't count on a significant number of positive reviews missing from the overall score at this point in its lifecycle.

For me, the only question is: "What are they doing about it all...and why has it taken so long?"

I understood the first steps being to wait and assess the issues that people were having...but it has been glacial...really glacial.

I'm confident that they can turn it around...I'm just not sure why they haven't up to this point. The game has been out since August of last year...you really shouldn't need all that time to make a solid plan and start executing it if you want to regain some of the momentum your game had on launch. Do something...

Slashman wrote:

For me, the only question is: "What are they doing about it all...and why has it taken so long?"

I understood the first steps being to wait and assess the issues that people were having...but it has been glacial...really glacial.

I'm confident that they can turn it around...I'm just not sure why they haven't up to this point. The game has been out since August of last year...you really shouldn't need all that time to make a solid plan and start executing it if you want to regain some of the momentum your game had on launch. Do something...

100% Agree!

I sometimes read these threads people post regarding how much and why they are disappointed with Humankind and why they think this game, which I've been thoroughly enjoying and couldn't stop playing since OpenDev, is boring or below average or as some say plain bad, in an effort to see whether there's really an indisputable flaw or fault in Humankind as a 4X strategy game. So far, I couldn't see a single objective criticism that I can agree with. Different people, obviously, seem to have different expectations from a 4X game and where they think Humankind does not perfectly fit the description in their mind they say it's bad or disappointing. Aside from those ridiculous players who left negative reviews in Steam complaining that "AI always wins in this game", people who have genuine criticism all talk about personal preferences.What they enjoy to see in a strategy game need not to be the only way such a game has to be made. I don't know, maybe, too many players just demand Humankind to be another Civ clone and to do everything as Civ does.

SpikedWallMan wrote:
The tedious complexity added to the battle system makes Humankind battles harder to play than Endless Legend and makes me ignore manual battles entirely in favor of auto-resolve.

Among all things complained about and criticized regarding Humankind this is by far the most puzzling one for me. Personally I quite love the whole war system and tactical play on battlefield. Battles are so much fun to play that in the very beginnings of each campaign when there is not much of an action to live, the little commander on my shoulder spends his time by impatiently staring at horizon beyond snow-capped mountains and my hands start itching eagerly in anticipation of the first war to be unleashed upon me by my militarist neighbour (generally Mycenaeans) who is always lucky enough to spawn near much of the luxury resources of the continent. Even after I'm finished with all AI empires (diminishing them into single-territory city states) I seek out those innocent independent people to feed my insatiable battle frenzy. Yes, it's this much fun and addictive. :)))

Regarding overall gameplay of Humankind the only nitpicking I could make would be about how lacklustre Industrial and Contemporary Eras become in every game I finish since I can always complete my dominance over the map by Early Modern Era even in hardest difficulty and nothing much else remains to be done afterwards. If AI could challenge the players more to keep competition alive until the last era this also would not be an issue at all. Nevertheless, I'm not sure whether this is a flaw of gameplay design in Humankind or an inevitable consequence of playing a 4X game efficiently.