Recent reviews by PyxelDust

Look, first things first. The game is abandoned; it had much potential and each DLC that was released added a new aspect to the game that was great, especially the ancient worlds one.

BUT, there isn't any point to purchase the game when you know that the problems and bugs will never be addressed; everything that "needs improvement to make it a good game" is fixed forever in place.

The game had potential, it was just like any other paradox game in that it just required regular DLC updates to add and fix problems with it's content. The lack of updates and total silence made players assume that the game had been abandoned and when they announced the axe had fallen it just confirmed what was already assumed.

Buyer beware; the game is unfinished. Do not buy. Paradox made the wild decision to give up on it a year after release.

"it’s likely that multiplayer will be temporarily disabled, as many of the changes we’re making to single-player will require some time to balance and integrate. As of now, our plan is to finish that work and reactivate multiplayer sometime before the official release"

"will require some time"

This is a wholly unacceptable direction change for the game; disabling a CORE aspect of the game because your pet project found people liking it is not a good business strategy. I am aware that as of the time of this review it has not YET taken place, but that does not change the nature of such a drastic shift yet to be implemented. Any new player looking at the game can see that it is still labeled as co-op and not realize that its going to be taken offline soon with the promise that at some point in the future, when they've decided it finally fits their vision for the game that it'll.. probably.. come back.

I understand that the game is in Early Access, but that does not make such a change in their intent of the game acceptable. Leave the multiplayer up, let players be able to access this feature; even if it's not something you're interested in pursuing at the moment. Why the choice to disable something that is a core part of the game is totally beyond me, this would be like League of Legends disabling unranked mode or Barotrauma forcing the traitor mode on a group.

To start off with, this game is one of the absolutely WORST games in terms of balance I've seen in a LONG time. The "normal" difficulty states that you're on the "Same footing as everyone else" except that's just not true at all, the enemy DOESN'T MISS! Oh, they're in a smoke cloud and you have a 5% chance to hit? Guess WHO DOESN'T MISS?!?! I can appreciate a game that is tough or difficult, but your "normal" difficulty is not normal, its completely unfair in the AI favor. I didn't select Hero difficulty because I like to be challenged, not win because the enemy intentionally makes bad choices. But I'm not looking for a difficulty where the AI cheats. I have to ask, how is this even remotely "same footing"?? I have a 65% chance to hit and I miss all 4 shots, but they have a smg and shoot across 6 tiles (a distance where I'd have less than 10% chance to hit) and hit EVERY SINGLE BULLET? Your balancing is utterly broken.

Let me be clear, I love the story and it's lore but your combat system is so god awful that it genuinely makes me rage. 3 people with melee weapons utterly destroyed my three people with guns. The utter dice roll of your shots combined with their INABILITY to miss you as consistently as you miss them makes every battle feel like an uphill ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that you constantly reload so you can get the lucky streak where you actually land your shots to feel somewhat on par with them. The enemy can practically freely reposition themselves at will with little to no consequences because your "reaction" shots will only ever do 3-4 damage to them whereas they nearly always do full damage to you making even the smallest reposition with 2-3 gunman on their side crippling as they all get a free shot at you. But they can all run around behind you without consequence to invalidate your cover.

I started a round of combat with a character who had 30 hp and a 60 hp shield, I focused on one target on their team, only managing to do a paultry 28hp out of his 50 with all three characters, on their turn they stripped my character's shield completely and downed them with their shots. I attempted to even the score and only managed to take off 18 hp of the enemy to watch another character fall in combat.

Repeat the above ad nauseum for every single fight and you'll quickly see how its just entirely frustrating to play combat in the game. I am softlocked in progress because every progression requires me to fight a lopsided battle in the enemy's favor. If I cannot win a 3v3, how the hell am I supposed to with a 5v3 or a 6v3?!?

I'm only what... three hours into playing this game and it FEELS like HOMM3 but modern day; punchy graphics, upgraded systems and several overhauls to game mechanics that make the game feel GOOD to play. I have played just about every HOMM game that has come out and none of them have captured the charm and essence that HOMM3 brought to the table, this game does that in spades.

The good...
The cities: I LOVE the city design, it's completely unique and really adds to the game because while it limits you in some ways (total number of buildings) it stands apart from the rest because you have that modularity to make what you need and choose what kind of production the town does, such as resources early game and units lategame. Maybe you need to have more of a garison present defending the border town that gets constantly attacked, you can. I like this a lot.
The magic system: In a lot of the HOMM genre you see magic done on a mana pool based play, where magic is strong but it can leave you weak if you use it. Here you're not only encouraged to cast spells often, but it doesn't help NOT to cast spells because you get mana each turn of combat that is reset at the start of the next combat so saving it isn't necessary. I really like this, it gives the player a good sense of commanding the battlefield with magic.
The Bad...
The POIs are nice, I like their strengths and weaknesses that come with them, but I find great distaste in the way the game doesn't want to tell you what they do until you activate them. Discovery is fine, I like that and you shouldn't know what they do until you've activated them once... but once you know what they do, the game shouldn't go back to hide that information. It seems like needless tedium that wastes the players time. Does this structure give me a permanent buff or is it a temporary one? Does it give me a buff/debuff that I don't want for this hero... I can't tell... Visual clarity is something really needed.
Heroes leaving party: They take everything they have on them with them when they do so. Did you load up your army and items on one person to maximize the strength? Great. Their leave of your party takes everything with them without any warning or ability to take what you need/want for your current ongoing map. I don't like this. Give me a prompt that it will happen or the ability to trade/take things from them. I can understand if it's something like an ambush or rockfall that cuts the two off suddenly, but if the characters obviously have the opportunity to shuffle around gear, give me the chance to do so.

Overall I give the game a solid 9 out of 10. The above critiques really detract from the gameplay in ways that as a player I really find distasteful. That said, as a person who loves this type of gameplay; its an absolute MUST purchase. Especially if you're the kind of person who's looking for a solid spiritual successor to HOMM3

Major Order Complete: Save Managed Democracy!

When gamers publicly call out a games company for a business practice that they find abhorrent and the company responds favorably to their outcry, it is thus the duty of those gamers to also praise the company for listening because feedback is essential to shape the game that we want to play. If no matter the change that the games company makes, we revile them; then we should never expect the game to improve for the better.

I highly appreciate not only the commitment to change but then the backing up of their words with actions that firmly cement the changes that they stated that they will make. The active roadmap of all the planned and completed changes is something that games companies should strive to do; it not only keeps the company accountable for all the changes that they promise, but it also lets gamers know what changes to expect in the future. Good on you Gaijin.

That said, I feel there should be some work done on crew XP as moving up in tier feels incredibly poor when you cannot expert a crew because the level is too low (without spending money) and your gunner takes much longer to aim at an enemy because they have to spend a lot of extra time aiming (Horizontal then vertical aiming, I'm looking at you) as it makes playing higher tiers feel really bad. You are playing a tank that is completely inferior to someone that has played for many thousands of hours and has a maxed crew.

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Original Post: When you make a F2P game, you are NOT entitled to someone's money. You stated it yourself "80% of players don't pay anything", this isn't something unique to your game. If you want to convert a non-spender into a spender, you don't make the grind harder in hopes that they out of desperation want to progress and thus spend money. You make it interesting and fun. Having free tanks with and EXPECTED net loss is a very crappy business model which plants the game firmly in the P2W category where only the players paying for premium tanks can progress.

The reaction from the community is absolutely valid, complaining that the review bombers are out of touch with the game is just plain insulting. The community has a perfectly valid reason to be upset, as a developer; it's in your best interest to listen to the community when they as a collective majority, express what displeases them. Instead, Gaijin Entertainment has decided to be offended that the players are making it known how displeased they are when the developers won't listen. You reap what you sow.

While the game on the surface seems cool it suffers from a decidedly large lack of content. I probably enjoyed about 45 minutes of gameplay, the rest was attempting to find an interesting ending. For the price of the game, you should expect more than a couple hours of gameplay, in the 2 hours that i played, i did literally everything you could do in the game, including reading almost everything that i could.

The game is a "choose your own ending" style of game. But the story arcs are really short and leave you with absolutely no attachment to the character or the story, i came away from this game with a sour taste in my mouth, feeling cheated of my money.

Honestly, its a game i wish i had never purchased.

Very simplistic game, tons of different community maps, cutesy but fun game.

i'd give it a good 5/7

As games go, this one is quite unique. You create clones of yourself and use them in a varity of way to complete puzzles to advance the story line. The game give you the sense of being alone, but uses a sparse contact with some NPC's to direct you forward through the plot.

I appreciated the graphics and that the puzzles themselves were not unfair, that said, some of the puzzles were extremely difficult and required you to stop and stare at the puzzle for a few minutes before you understood what it wanted you to do. I had a few occasions where i would stumble upon the solution and went "wait.... oh i get it!"

Cons:
~~The achievements are secret areas that are absolutely unfair to find, that was a big letdown, you cant find them unless you looked at a guide or spent hours walking into walls trying to find the small spot in one that was a fake wall. I wish they were more a puzzle aspect than just simply hidden behind fake walls.
~~The storyline has no replayability, while it is a great thought provoking game, it is good for exactly ONE playthrough. It took me 7 hours to get through the story, i dont ever plan to play it again.

All in all i would recommend this game to anyone looking for a well thoughtout puzzle game.

Graphics: As far as graphics go, this game has some GLARING issues. I did like the art style, but the models and their interactions didnt always mesh correctly. For example one of the bosses is cutting up a body with a bone saw, but rather than the saw actually touching the body, it was floating a good foot above it. However the game has a borderlands kind of feel to the art style and i found it quite fitting for the type of game it is.

Gameplay: This game was designed first and foremost as a stealth game, when you finish an area without being spotted you got a MASSIVE xp boost, which allowed me to finish out the skill tree before i finished the game. While that does take out some of the "gameplay path" structure of games like this, it didnt detract from the gameplay; merely gave you more stuff to work with as you played more. On the nore of gameplay, i saw a review that said that while the game was a stealth game that you could bruteforce your way through the game. While this is true for the first 1/3 of the game, newer units that are introduced into the game prevent you from doing that and require you to be stealthy about your approach. But remember, this game is FIRST and FOREMOST a stealth game, play it as one. This also rings true for those people who complained that there was no CQB for your character, Its a stealth game... many people have been too babied by games like assasins creed, which allow you to fight off 6+ people at the same time and come out without taking any damage.

Story: Here i do have to say the story is kind of weak, it doesnt do a good job of fleshing out the intention of the story up until the very end. The motives for moving from area to area are flimsy "oh we found this guy" then "well maybe this guy???" However the story arc as a whole does come together quite nicely, though the final boss totally breaks the idea of a stealth game...

TL;DR: IF and ONLY IF you actually enjoy a challenge where you ACTUALLY try and stealth the whole game, then this game is a must have (play it on hard!), because it breaks the tedium of the current market of stealth games being "stealth until you mess up then go beastmode on them instead"