@onemanarmyy: I am hoping that if this new game does well, maybe Microsoft will commit to a new one that can attempt something more innovative (or at least more evolutionary). This game gives me heavy vibes of Microsoft coming to Relic with a contract that says "make us a new Age of Empires 2".
I doubt it will ever happen but I would love if AoE becomes the RTS that I dreamed of where there's a more in-depth economic game and decreased emphasis on micro. This would probably not go over well with the hardcore AoE2 crowd, though. I just find it somewhat annoying that we are still handling singular units and manually telling our cavalry to flank.
... What I basically want is a big-ass, modernised Rise of Nations where groups of units have a modicum of intelligence so that I don't have to micro them as much and can handle battles on multiple fronts simultaneously.
Ben points out that he was really into Left 4 Dead 2. Maybe it's nitpicky, but I feel compelled to point out that Turtle Rock made the first Left 4 Dead but they did not make Left 4 Dead 2. Valve made L4D2 in-house. Turtle Rock was only involved with the expansion campaigns for L4D2.
Huh, I always thought they did L4D2 when they were part of Valve, TIL! I wonder if that at all explains why I like the first game and Back 4 Blood but didn't really get into L4D2. Though it was probably just L4D fatigue considering how quickly they released the sequel.
@onemanarmyy: Different strokes for different folks I guess. I'm looking forward to this and I would be glad if Firefly had have taken the route of "old game but new graphics" with the Stronghold series. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see innovation, too (in particular, a deeper economic game in both Stronghold and Age of Empires) but these particular franchises are enough of a niche within a niche that a do-over of the older games is kind of the only thing that'll keep them going outside of an indie dev with nostalgia trying their hand at the same type of game.
Although I guess with AoE they already did AoE2 HD and definitive so disregard what I just wrote lol. Game still looks neat, though.
Edit: This documentary stuff is awesome. Kid me would've loved this since AoE2 was what got me interested in history
Regarding the Back 4 Blood talk: I don't think cards are as big a deal with the jump from recruit to veteran as people might think. You probably don't want to go straight into it with a starter deck unless you're the kind to level 1 run Dark Souls but after one completion of recruit I was ready for it. That said, I don't think it eases you into the next difficulty as well as Vermintide does.
The big thing that catches people off guard is the pacing switch and perhaps friendly fire. It's almost two different kinds of game, recruit is a run and gun breakneck speed sort of thing and veteran is a lot slower and tenser. Also, on veteran you definitely want to be keeping in mind what weapons the team is running so you don't have too many people relying on one ammo type. Ammo pouches and especially defibrillators that don't see much play on recruit become valuable.
Some of the later cards can tip the scales in your favour a bit but it also becomes more about specialising because many of the more potent cards have drawbacks. Playing matchmade games I've found that my doctor deck is pretty useful because even though I'm trading away potential damage, most people seem to want to kill loads of stuff so the overall drop in team damage isn't much and the increase in team healing is definitely worthwhile on the higher difficulties.
Played the demo and I liked the vibe and battle mechanics but unfortunately I'm too bad at deckbuilding (I have to use premade decks in other card battlers) to actually progress. So I might have to give this one a miss if it's this difficult, same reason I never got into Slay the Spire and similar games.
dijidiji's comments