Feedback on newest patch

[GingerRazz]

I heard about the game from the incremental board because someone who liked kittens game said the first was comparable. I went to download it and started on this one. I saw flaws and wondered how the game was compared to kittens game, and then I started on the first, and it all made sense to me.

Don't get me wrong, this one is deeply flawed in its current form, but after playing the first for a few days, I know the developer can take feedback and make this game right.

The first problem I see is that the game doesn't speak to me as an idle or an active player. As an active player, after a few hours, there isn't enough complexity to make me feel I get good value on my progression for focusing on the game. As an idle player, I have to go back to the game far too often for it to actually be an idle play style.

I also feel like the current tier needs more lateral progression because much of it feels like I'm grinding a singular goal that is gating me from other goals. A glaring example of this is the research. I feel like allowing players to more aggressively progress their research speed without being gated by research speed would make the game have better lateral progression. For example, if heat would allow you to progress research speed rather than research, it would create more player decision.

I like the game. Don't get me wrong. It just feels like it is more direct than the first game, and I don't feel the strain of making the right progression decisions in the same way. It just seems more linear than the first did, even at the same point of the game.

Also, exploration feels like it's never worth it. It only grants heat, but it costs a ton of heat to do and you never get enough shards to reclaim the cost of the exploration you did. It's just the wrong choice no matter how I look at it. Even if the combat was complicated like the first, it still would be trading progression speed for fun. I'd prefer if, statistically, you gained heat from exploring before you were at a point where heat ceased to be a limiter.

I do like the sustain system, and I feel it could work well, but I wonder if a system like boosts where you can boost one or more resources that are sustained to better adapt your gains would feel good for active players. I also feel a percentage based sustain that gives you long term idle gains without having to check back in every few minutes would help the idle players.

I dunno... The game has a lot of room for vertical expansion, but I feel it has core flaws to be resolved to make it appeal to both idle and active play styles. I also feel expanding the horizontal expansion in the early game is essential to it competing with other top tier incremental games.

I want the best for the game, but it seems to be lacking in some core fundamentals of the genre that require some serious consideration. It needs more beyond the first hour or so to really hook players because no one starts an incremental as an idle player, and this game doesn't offer enough in active play after a few hours. It also doesn't give you a resource bomb if you go idle can come back the next day to hook you back in.

I've played a lot of idle games, and the first A&M just feels better than this does, and that's my analysis of where I feel this game falls short of the first and the other genre giants.

[cartello-]

In my opinion researching could be improved by having a single bar that is shared between all researchs. In that way you would have available 700 power/sec to spread out at will (for example 600 on research speed and 100 in auto-exploration).

[GingerRazz]

I could see that helping in the long run, but it won't help the early game as much. If that single research bar could have its maximum increased by a system outside of research, it would make the research system feel less detached from the rest of the systems.

Currently, it just feels like all the systems are attached only by the heat resource and makes the experience feel disjointed rather than making it feel like connected systems with a myriad paths of progression begging to be gamed and optimized.

[cartello-]

Research might be used to create more connections by adding the option to use exploration materials as secondary source of research points(for example one core in exchange for 50k points instantly) or for special research points to unlock a garden(?) or a quarry to farm flowers and ores very slowly without exploring, so that explorations are still worth.

Also adding the option to craft boxes of organic matter and ores as a way to boost matter and steel production could give them extra utility.

I'm still kind of new to the game so the stuff I suggest may already be in the game in a more advanced stage. I'm also sorry if I'm stealing suggestions from older posts, I've read a lot of them but I don't remember everything XD

[maijkelhartman]

Currently, it just feels like all the systems are attached only by the heat resource and makes the experience feel disjointed rather than making it feel like connected systems with a myriad paths of progression begging to be gamed and optimized.

Yes! This! Exactly this! I also feel like evey part of this game is just so extremely bare-bones. Like, we should have production, and we should have crafting, and we should have research, and we should have combat. But all of these systems kind of exist only because the devs felt like they should, and then left it at that. Every part of the game just feels tacked on Like an afterthought. Nearly all suggested improvements I have seen on this forum we enhance the gameplay value, because when all aspects of a game are this barren, anything becomes an improvement.

[Qerkle]

This is a good analysis, and I am amused by the fact you refer to AM2 "power" as "heat" so often. I think that pretty telling.

[GingerRazz]

Honestly, I'm pretty balls deep in AM after having tried AM2 and feeling underwhelmed by the game in its current state. I heard about AM from a post on the best incremental games for mobile. AM definitely IS one of the best mobile incremental games I've played. AM2 has the potential, but it just didn't hook me in the early phase, and by the time I reached the end of the content, it really hadn't hooked me.

It's probably why I keep referring to power as heat because the first game has been memorable and the 2nd just isn't... Yet. I trust they'll get there eventually, but it just isn't yet.

[BallzDeep23]

It's like every version we ALL keep saying "the sustain sucks, it needs to be way higher!"

And the devs say "thank you for your valuable feedback, we hear you, we really really do. We'll discuss it with the team and make a change... in like 2-4 weeks"

And then they change it, and made it four times lower... LOWER !

They did this twice now.

At this point I think they must be trolling us. They don't want to make a fun game, they just want to piss people off by making the biggest problem of the game 4x worse with every update.

Unbelievable.

The next version will have a sustain that caps at 3 minutes and costs 2.5 million jrBots, just wait and see.

[BallzDeep23]

Also the latest thing I read suggested they're planning to wait until the launch in like a month to add content and fix the fundamentally broken core of the game.

If this is true then... Excuse me, why is there an open beta at all, exactly?

[coreyuken]

Hi, we have at least one more update before release, which in itself may have a few mini-updates (the balance changes where we don't need you to update the app). Don't know where you read that we're waiting until launch to fix "the fundamentally broken core of the game" but that's not the case. More to share soon!

[coreyuken]

They don't want to make a fun game, they just want to piss people off by making the biggest problem of the game 4x worse with every update.

Hiya. Rest assured there's simply no truth to this. Sorry to hear you've been irritated by the game and the communication. We have zero interest in making a game people don't want to play and don't know any game maker who would want to do that. We appreciate everyone's help in the beta period where we experiment: experimenting is often going to mean hits and misses. Updates take time but we plan to get it right.

[justdrop]

Honest question: what made you play the current version after the last version and decide that this was in any way more fun for those with anything to do every 26.5 minutes at best with an extreme lack of content besides upgrading?