New player, very Underwhelmed at the moment

from Sins Forums

I had great expectations for Sins, and at the moment I am quite disapointed I have to say.

To give some background, I love RTS'es and Space op. I come from the Warcraft series, Command&Conquer, Homeworld, HW2, and on a more tactical level I just loved The Jupiter Incident.

Also a big fan of games like Imperium Galactica, and GC.

 

So, with those great reviews, and great (so it seemed) word of mouth, why am I disapointed?

First, what I thought was going to be the big strong point of Sins: Graphics. Granted not everything is on max on my rig, but most settings are on Med to high, and things are very blocky and look very average. I wasn't expecting something like Jupiter (which is on a much smaller scale), but HW2, heck, even HW1 level. Not quite so, except for some backgrounds. Ship design goes from good to very meh, but it's not too bad.

 

Then, The tutorials/manual. Wow, what a letdown for such (seemingly) a deep game. Incomplete, half done job on documentation. The GUI seems very powerful, it'll take many trials and errors to dig into it unfortunately.

The lack of Campaign: Not too much of a letdown in itself actually, I knew that Stardock had rushed the game out (after advertising the game for more than a -year- in PCGamer) and did what they could with their finances. It's ok, even though I hope a Single Player campaign will be added in a -FREE- bonus pack, that would be the least they could do. Why? Simply because in a year or 2 from now, when the online portion of Sins will have died out (if not earlier), what will be left for buyers of the game? Sandbox  play, and mods. No great storyline, which is a shame for such a rich background and story (so it seems, from what I've read around).

Game Begins, on Map "Small" (9 planets): I apply proved recipes, build, protectect, expand, keep up on research, etc.

The randomly generated "Small" Map put my first world right next to my opponent, but gives me two planets nearby and 5 to him, this opponent it seems had also magically developped far more ships than I could in much less time when I discover his planet. And then ... Pirate raids start. Every 10 Fracking minutes. With growing and growing forces, requiring me to spend larger and larger amounts of resources in keeping a force that can repel their assaults, and eventually I face a huge pirate assault along with an ennemy one, with a force depleted to 1 capital ship and 1 frigate and funds to almost 0. Which is when I decided to quit for the night.

 

And that's on "Normal" difficulty, with patch 1.05 applied (supposedly less pirate raids? I would hate to think of how it was before). I'm not giving up on Sins (I paid $40 after all), but this is a very sad first experience I have to say.

29,857 views 39 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top
You can turn off the pirate raids when you set up a new game, which I recommend while learning. I got owned when I first played, then decided to set it on easy mode. Then I did okay against the Ai and learned the game as I played. I agree there should be a good manual. But in the meantime I prowl the forums and watch replays from other people. You might also lock teams in setup, so you dont have to deal with doing missions for Ai players to make them like you or be allies. Many new players end up becoming the enemy to _all_ the Ai players otherwise. So, put the game on Easy, turn off pirates and lock teams in setup of new games. And study the forums. Have fun. :-)
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
Agreed. Sins is a complex game and the default setup for a two-player game throws a lot of variables at the new player. As an example, it sounds like you didn't try and outbid your opponent on the pirate screen to send their forces at the enemy instead of you.

A good set-up to try is a four-player map where you have one ally AI locked and pirates are turned off.

Best of luck - the game is worth the investment in learning to play, and hopefully you'll be able to come back here and post that you're "getting it" and liking it soon.

-- Retro
Groupy 2 - Organize multiple applications into grouped tabs on your Windows desktop
Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
Have you tried the settings that are highest? Remember this game(correct me If I am wrong here :D) was published to reach a wide variety of computers. I know they look awesome at highest.

Ya the tutorials dont help much, but thats what WE are for. Anytime you have a question just pop it into a forum and you should have a reply within a day.

Another problem is that you are playing small. Small is optimized to value combat OVER empire building. You want anything remotely 4x start on medium or large. I dont think pirate difficulty changes with the AI setting.

However pirates SHOULD NOT be that much of a problem for you. Dont like fighting them? Bribe em. As soon as you first hear pirate raid eminent you should place bounty on another player. It is REALLY a bad idea though because unless the enemy is hugely wasted they SHOULD be able to deal with it. Its a better idea to just leave a capship with a fully outfitted planet and it should be able to deal with pirates(pick up phase detection to learn where pirates will strike, or just wait at the planet CLOSEST to the base :P).
Reply #4 from Stardock Forums Top
Welcome. Pirates are a pestilence, as is the AI which is pretty annoying, but mostly harmless :) Thou I do not encourage people playing vs the AI at2x or more speed since you will lose lol.
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top

It sounds like most of your complaints are superficial. If you want eye candy and graphics, I suggest Crysis or UT3. If you want 4x RTS then I recommend Sins.

The game lacks a campaign? So what; this isn't an RPG or an adventure game; it's a strategy game. The real game is online multiplayer, btw. Log onto Ironclad Online and go against real human opponents.
Reply #6 from Sins Forums Top
Thanks to those who made constructive suggestions, I will def. try that.

As per Centurion, there is nothing worst than an apologist.
I appreciate your suggestions concerning good RTSs as far as Crysis or UT3 go, but I think you might want to re-check your infos concerning the type of games you are advocating
Reply #7 from Sins Forums Top
One is planned for the expansion. On this:
There is little excuse to the total absence of a single player campaign, specially when you see the amount of background created for the game. If the goal was no campaign from the get go, why develop that huge story in the firt place?
End of quote
Games are very expensive to make, and IronClad/StarDock did not have an unlimited budget and a huge team to build the title with. After spending most of the budget on making a near-polished engine and game, they had one of three choices - either put in a campaign and skimp on testing, or release without a campaign but invest in a high degree of polish, or have the company go into a questionable financial position because it had already been over a year's very hard work without any revenue.

I think they made the right choice of the three.

With respect to the work done in setting the stage for a campaign, the core concept and the narrative for the intro cinematic could have been thrown together in a day, the website lore in one or two more, I'd expect that the raw cinematic art assets were around two to four weeks' work, and another couple weeks of compositing (it was not a Blizzard-quality cutscene), so it was not a huge investment and could be done at any point. However, given that Sins play in MP and SP is identical, a full campaign could only really be developed after the fleets were effectively balanced. This would have added months of effort for comprehensive testing, scripting, voiceacting, compositing, events, and so on at the end of the product development lifecycle, and would have tremendously increased the cost. So there was probably every intention of including one back at the beginning of development, but there simply wasn't the ability there to do it when it came down to the crunch.

-- Retro
Reply #8 from Sins Forums Top
I agree with most of what you say Retro, and I do understand that any budget has its limits.
But what I understand less is how far in advance the game has been publicized (over a year, with full page advertising in PCgamer and probably other publications).
That costs a -lot- of money. Money that could have been used for the game itself, and starting an add campaign in a more, say... reasonable, timeframe.
I remember very well thinking "wth" at seeing the tag "Q1 2008" while we were still early 2007 on said advertising.

This being said, I can wait. What I would find unacceptable is to have to -pay- for the expansion to have the single player campaign that should have come with the game in the first place imo.
Sins is a success that has sold over 200.000 copies. Before thinking about making the customer pay some more with an expansion, it might be time to put together a single player campaign that does not need in fact a ton of cinematics and 3D CGI intros. It just needs to develop a story that screams to be developped, even if -I agree- the premise looks like it could have been put out in a day or two (as in, not that original. Sounds a lot like a mix of the Supreme Commander backstory actually, TEC=UEF, Vasari = Cybran, Advent = Aeon. But I digress).

I mean .. the vasari -are- being pursued right? And the Advent .. they have a pretty hefty chip on their shoulder with the TEC .. so let's develop all that story, shall we ? :)
Reply #9 from Sins Forums Top
I seem to have read somewhere that a campaign is planned in an expansion pack.
Reply #10 from Sins Forums Top
You're comparing apples and oranges budgetwise, Elandyll. To have a successful game that has a good chance of making its budget back, you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO promote it. Paying for promotion for a game is as essential as paying a salary to its programmers. There are very few major games out there that aren't promoting their products heavily as much as a year in advance, and some go out further than that. Games like Civilization prove that campaigns can be optional to be successful, but getting the attention of the gaming community is definitely not.

Say you can get cheap tester at $20/hour (loaded cost, including office space, testing rig, benefits, and so on) and a cheap developer at $30/hour. If your campaign takes two effort-months to create and another two to test completely, that's $80,000 - and that's extremely conservative and likely extremely low. It doesn't include cutscenes, special models, custom art, voice acting fees, or any other differences that a campaign normally provides over and above a standard skirmish mode. But that eighty grand can buy a LOT of ad space in a print magazine like PC Gamer.

-- Retro
Reply #11 from Sins Forums Top
Darn edit function!

The above post is meant to apply to a first-time version 1.00 game release, not a post-release update that adds in a campaign. If Sins were to have been originally released with a lowball campaign that just used a few standard maps and strung them together in a less-than-compelling game play experience, their 85% and 90% reviews from various sources that were absolutely critical to its success and its selling 200K+ copies would likely have dropped a very big percentage chunk. When you're releasing a mainstream title, you can't say "oh, and we threw together a few maps for a campaign" and get away with it.

IronClad could even now build a quick slapped-together campaign, but more people would likely scream at them that it wasn't up to snuff than shrug their shoulders and say "Hey, it's better than what we had before", even if you and I are both among the latter type of people.

-- Retro
Reply #12 from Sins Forums Top
Didn't you try the demo? That would have addressed pretty much everything you were surprised by.

Anyway, I disagree on pretty much all points.

I'm glad the graphics aren't excellent as that way I can run it on my laptop. Gamers who want pretty graphics should buy a PS3 or a 360.
Also the game won't be worthless in a few years when online is dead. I haven't played online once and the game's occupied me for weeks now. I play LAN or single player against bots. I definately recommend playing around with the Galaxy Forge, as you can create pretty cool maps with that.

As for the campaign, yeah it's unfortunate they didn't have one. But it's going to be added in an expansion. That said I'm surprised you think it's important for longlivity of the game. I play RTS campaigns but once (unless I happen to really really like them) and I would argue good AI is far more important.

I will agree that the documentation is pretty poor. That is definately one thing they should fix.
Reply #13 from Sins Forums Top
I personally dislike campaigns... I have tried them in every game I ever played that came with one, but it always ended up half done... I would much prefer to see the devs put time into a campaign EDITOR, so that the community could develop their own campaigns. Campaigns, like mods now would be labors of love and commitment. The time spent on one story could be spent on polishing a really good editor. I believe the ability to create fresh stories and content would be far more effective at keeping both sales and forum community going 1-2 years down the road than a single mission set in an expansion. Imagine too, if they would actually make the editor work for multi-player campaigns... Teams of players working towards goals as opposed to frying each other the fastest. THAT would actually make MP appealing to alot of single players by allowing them to band together in a common fight, A much different experience than MP is now.

As for the documentation... it didn't have enough pictures. when they figure out how to make the instructions like those in a model kit, them maybe I can read them... ;p

T
Reply #14 from Sins Forums Top
C&C owns caimpaign wise

back t sins...

the grahpics are really good if you turn up the settings...
try checking out some of the mods (i highly recomend 7 Deadly sins)
but more important than graphics (in my opinion) is scale and not having to buy a new pc, and/or graphics card, to play it
the scale of sins is incredible. ive played a map with 43 stars and 337 planets before. it litterly took weeks. but you can also play on a map with just a handful of planets. 6 for example. and win in just an hour.
we all know that most 'casual gamers' dont play rts. they play 1st person shooters or other RPG type games that you can learn the game (and beat it) in just a few weekends. rts games require much more time to just learn the dynamics, basics, and then theres microing... so sins is definitly not for everyone as it is even more complex than your average rts.
IT ROCKS in my op tho
 :D 
Reply #15 from Sins Forums Top
I was disappointed about the lack of a campaign when I first got the game but I liked the demo enough. I've come to find that the lack of a campaign was problably best. Sins is definately complex. It just doesn't seem like it when you first start out. You've got a few tech trees and very few buildings. The complexity lies in the ships and mix and matching of your micro/macro abilities. Once you begin to appreciate the full scale of your fleet behavior when you barely touch it you'll understand that a lot of the time spent on AI had the player in mind. The AI allows you be the general more often than the pilot (which really only happened when you played zerg in SC and had swarms of units at your disposal).

Don't worry about getting stomped on normal. I got stomped 1-2 games in the demo. It's probably what drew me in. I mean...if I get stomped on normal then I've got a lot to learn, which makes for a ton of awesome in the future. I've had the game a month and I still learn new things and I haven't even touched multiplayer.

I'm well on my way to the 4 hard AI achievement and once I do that I'm going to play at least 2-3 more games of TEC/Advent each and then hop online to try and find some 2v2 or 3v3.

Also a tip for some fun watching your fleet, zoom in on a bomber or a fighter while in combat. Since strikecraft are constantly moving it makes for some great visuals even before I set all the graphics on max.
Reply #16 from Sins Forums Top

This being said, I can wait. What I would find unacceptable is to have to -pay- for the expansion to have the single player campaign that should have come with the game in the first place imo.
End of quote

Typical new RTS is over $50.  Sins is $39.95.  If Sins had come with a campaign, it would have been $49.95 for the standard edition and $59.95 for the collector's rather than $10 cheaper. So the lack of a campaign was figured into the pricing structure for the game.

Reply #17 from Sins Forums Top
I call shinanigans. It's well known that SoaSE pricing is tied to oil. Stardock is funded by the UAE who figure if the lower the prices on their addictive game they can gouge us for necessary oil it costs for us to go get it/get it shipped to us.
Reply #18 from Sins Forums Top
Wrektem, EVERYTHING is tied to oil.
Reply #19 from Sins Forums Top
Edit: delete.
Reply #20 from Sins Forums Top
If you want good graphic for sins, well... just put them all at highest. That what I did. It dont lag. Of course, graphic arent still perfect but its a lots for such scale.
Reply #21 from Sins Forums Top
Honestly,i rather have no campaign and a better skirmish games than a half cooked campaign that i never touch,and a bug ridden skirmish.

Stardock and Iron Clad made the right choice.

I seen so many RTS with campaigns but most of them are pretty much crappy in today's standards.
Reply #22 from Sins Forums Top
1. Why normal? If you're a beginner, you expect to survive?

2. Turn off the things you don't like... like pirates...

3. I'm sorry, but the graphics are the damn best I've seen in my life. Granted, my computer that I play Sins on is awesome. But... if your computer's five years old, you really can't complain about the graphics. Try cinematic mode, too. Or, perhaps they just aren't the type of graphics you like. Which is fine, but please don't expect every game to be tailor-made to you.
Reply #23 from Sins Forums Top
1. normal is .. normal. Im a veteran RTS gamer, like I said previously

2. Just did about pirates. You will notice that becasue it wasn't a launch function, there is nothing about this in the manual

3. You need to play more if you think these are good gfx ;)
They are -ok-. And the payoff is definitely that it's playable on lwoer end machines given the scale. I acknowledge that. The low poly models for ships could def be better though, we are like 10 years after Homeworld, come on.

All this being said, what suprirses me the msot is the people trying to justify the lack of campaign beside the budget, and now it seems the campaign will be part of a -paying- expansion pack?

Let's see:

- "If they had included a half made campaign their scores would have been lower":
What surprises me is how their scores weren't lower -due- to the total lack of campaign. Seriously. Also, who said the campaign would have had to be a half-backed one? You can avoid putting big budget tons of cGI + Voices campaign, and still make a good one.

- "If they had included a campaign, the game would not be as good".
I call total BS. You take two-three more months before release, develop some good maps chained together by a good story, and voila.

All this being said, I went in -knowing- that there was no single player campaign, and now with pirates diabled I find it a decent RTS game with 4X elements.
That is not what I am complaining about. It just seems to me that now that the game has been very successful, it might be time to give the players that campaign without us having to pay for something that -should- have been included.

But you can keep on trying to justify that all you want ...
Reply #24 from Stardock Forums Top
All this being said, what suprirses me the msot is the people trying to justify the lack of campaign beside the budget...
End of quote


People around here don't mind trying to justify it because honestly, many of us really don't care. For my part, I've played a grand total of maybe three RTS campaigns over the course of my gaming 'career' that didn't come off as a complete half-assed waste of time and for the effort that it takes to make a good one, there really isn't much of a payoff in terms of overall time that I'll spend playing the game. A good skirmish/multiplayer game can last me years of on and off play with friends. A campaign, no matter how good, will usually last me two days, if that.

And yes, I realize that you're not me but I think I speak for quite a few people around here on this note.

What surprises me is how their scores weren't lower -due- to the total lack of campaign.
End of quote


Games that try new things and do those things fairly well tend to rate highly. Campaigns are a feature of many RTS games but they aren't a requirement of the genre. This game is less expensive than the usual fare and it does what it set out to do rather well thus, it scored highly. Lime me, every single review that I read noted that the campaign was absent and that the fact might turn off some players but they simply didn't feel that it detracted from the game.
Reply #25 from Sins Forums Top
You can avoid putting big budget tons of cGI + Voices campaign, and still make a good one.
End of quote
Not THESE days, you can't.

People that think you can do a good critically-acclaimed campaign by just throwing a bunch of maps together and slap a few story factoids in common between them really should participate in a campaign-producing effort to see how much work it actually is (and I've done it and I know). IT IS NOT A LIGHT AND FLUFFY EFFORT IF YOU WANT IT TO MEASURE UP AGAINST THE REST OF THE GAME.

-- Retro