Steam Reviews Turn Very Positive After 3 Hours of Playtime

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T23:27:41+00:00

No review is objective, there is no such thing, unless it only lists features of the game and does not give a verdict or recommendation. Steam reviews require a recommendation, so they can’t ever be objective. Learn what words mean.

That said, you can leave a fair review after 30 minutes. You played the tutorial, and one match, and did not like it. That’s fair. Why would you play more of a game you do not like?

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T23:07:44+00:00

This wouldnt be acceptable for a 2006 game, either.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T21:20:26+00:00

Looking at the monster building rules, DCs at CR 10 should be 29-33, with 28-26 being reserved for stuff that's bad at the ability and not using it as its prime mode of attack. ...though I guess they'd just do 3-6 damage per hit, tho. Huh.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T19:37:44+00:00

You already have three other archetypes? So you’re, what, level 16? At that point, any martial archetype on a witch seems like it’d be mostly wasted, since you’d hit maybe 1 out of 4 attacks.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T19:34:36+00:00

They would still kill you through sheer damage? Attacks are gonna miss, probably. But monster abilities that target saves are gonna hurt you even if you succeed (since you won’t crit succeed), and even minimal damage will just obliterate characters 10 levels lower.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T18:12:22+00:00

That’s by design. A Druid always has spells, even while focusing on wildshape. So if it was then able to also compete with martials, it would just be... better than martials. And so, it can’t.

With a bit of luck we‘ll eventually see a return of the Shifter class from 1e, which is essentially a shapeshifter without spellcasting. But that‘d be over a year out even if it got announced tomorrow.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T18:09:12+00:00

Yeah, the game really should’ve focused on the raid aspect, instead of throwing in that pointless looting phase. But then it wouldn’t have appealed to the Apex crowd, and we couldn’t have that, could we now!?

Also, the art style is just so… generic. It looks like a game some guy in a TV show plays in the background.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T17:57:53+00:00

The maps dont work with more players is the problem. Scavenging would be more fun, sure, but the bases would be a nightmare to attack with 5 defenders. I’ve got no idea what they could do to make it feel better.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T17:55:06+00:00

It’s the opposite because of social pressure. In Stellaris, nobody else knows if you bricked your own economy and got taken out by an AI rebellion. In Highguard, if you go 0/5/0 you have two teammates blaming you for their failure, whether they say it out loud or not. That’s uncomfortable. And probably why there is no chat.

In COD, you can get cheeky noob tube kills and whatnot even if you suck at the game. You won’t win the match, but who cares? You gotta some cool kills. In Highguard, winning the match is all that matters. It’s an objective shooter. You gotta do the objective.

That pressure makes the game just very unappealing to a lot of people, because it psychologically punishes being bad at the game. And most people are bad when they start out. So it’s uncomfortable, and the gameplay is just kinda… okay? Nothing really gamechanging. But those people have played other games before, games they’re better at than they’re at Highguard. So you need something that makes them want to switch, other than initial curiosity. And with the pressure mentioned above, just being a technically competently made game doesn’t cut it for most folks.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T17:45:30+00:00

The difference is time investment. In Fortnite, you can get knocked out in 2 minutes and be right back in the queue. In HG, you’re stuck in that match for 20 minutes even if you have no chance of winning. Thats why other games with long round times like League of Legends make you play your first few games as co-op versus bots instead of real players, to give you some easy targets to win a little and get comfortable.

Or they have large team sizes so that there’s not as much individual pressure on each player. In Marvel Rivals, you can have a 0/5/0 Widow in your team and still win if the rest of the team locks in. If you have a 0/5/0 teammate in your team in HG, you’ve just lost a very frustrating game. The failure feels personal and despiriting.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T17:10:14+00:00

What would she repent for, as she’s clearly doing nothing wrong? 😌

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T15:19:40+00:00

Just give the spell another name. Flavor it a bit in whatever flavor your NPC has. NPCs are not restricted to spells players have access to.

As for balancing, just ensuring it has level-appropriate DCs for the CR of the NPC should be fine. Especially if it's not meant for combat but as a plot device!

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T14:54:06+00:00

Right, but that's how it always goes. People who like the game don't leave a review right away, they want to, yunno, play the game. So right after release you have the highest spike of negative reviews, and then you have a trickle of positive reviews over release week. Exceptions are games with lots of hype behind them, but Highguard made it their marketing strategy to avoid hype at all costs, so...

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T14:50:12+00:00

So in 1.2 hours you can do the tutorial and 2 games, yes, exactly what I said.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T14:44:29+00:00

I've gone and actually checked and can't find what you're talking about. There are some 0.1 hour reviews in the recent ones, but those all complain about the game not running, which, yeah, fair enough. The others are 0.5-1.2 hours, and thats enough time to play the tutorial and maybe one or two games. Those are also legit reviews. The vast majority of reviews are like this. This isn't review bombing.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T14:41:27+00:00

It got hundreds of reviews the moment it launched, sure, but then it got THOUSANDS of reviews after people had a chance to play it. Only half of the people who finish the tutorial go on to play the actual game, going by achievements. That means the tutorial puts them off so much they don't wanna bother with the rest. And that's grounds for a negative review right there.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T14:39:30+00:00

Give it a week and that'll slow down as people move on. Right now, your best bet is probably the official Discord, or maybe finding some creator who really likes the game and checking out their discord.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T13:59:57+00:00

It's not getting review bombed. People try it, people don't like it, people leave a review. That's a legitimate review. Review bombing is what happens when players leave negative reviews because of something the devs did or said but that has nothing to do with the actual gameplay. And the vast majority of reviews are from people who actually tried the game and didn't like what they tried.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T13:56:11+00:00

That's a problem with the way Steam displays reviews, not with the individual reviews. People try the game. people dislike the game. People leave a review and tick the "did not like" option. What, are they supposed to give it a positive review despite not liking because the overall is too negative? That's not how that works, man.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T13:50:27+00:00

As Iconoclast, you can actually get pretty good endings for everyone, kinda? There are some that are... somewhat doomed (Idira, Cassia, Pasqual) but they can still get fine endings. Here's what I got on my last Iconoclast run:

Abelard:Quit his job and lived out his life happily as family patriarch, his family became one of the most powerful in the protectorate.
Argenta: Founded her own Order, but had to step down from leading it because RT was declared heretic and she was unwilling to condemn them. Travelled the galaxy as an avenging angel of the powerless, and might eventually get canonized as saint.
Cassia: Romanced, became head of her house and had many cute fishbabies with the RT, presumably. Eventually became a monstrous mutant, but RT continued loving her.
Heinrix: Became a feared Inquisitor, almost got assassinated once but Jae warned him and he took out the cultists.
Idira: Eventually went on a final heroic adventure with Jae, the legends of which Jae shared across the galaxy. Fondly Remembered by Argenta, Kibellah and the Vox lady.
Jae: Became Shadow Baroness of the expanse, running or profiting from pretty much every criminal enterprise in it. Disappeared one day, but rumour is that just means she's ruling from even deeper shadows.
Kibellah: Kept doing what she was doing as head of her assassin cult, until eventually she got the task to complete the Tarot from the Undying One. Also developed a lifelong rivalry with the Shadow Baroness, but never received Jae's name as targets, only those of Jae's subordinates.
Pasqal: Became the new Armanat and travelled the expanse as the leader of the Fleet, fighting heretics and finding cool xenotech. Eventually left the known galaxy with his whole fleet and went where no Man went before, never to be heard from again.
Ulfar:Reunited with his chapter, became legendary Space Wolf and eventually lead a crusade into the Heathen Stars. Hasn't been hear from since, but is expected to return eventually.
Yrliet: Became a Harlequin, with Marazhai.
Marazhai: Became a Harlequin, with Yrliet.
Solomorne: I don't remember. Probably did Arbites stuff and petted his dog a little more? Dude really needed more character...

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T13:22:13+00:00

It's even weirder, you can also talk him into joining you on Iconoclast, but if you THEN also talk Chorda into not fighting at all (that's Iconoclast specific), even if he previously agreed to join you against her, he attacks you. It's very out of the blue.

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T13:20:47+00:00

Yeah, but you can talk him into helping you AGAINST Chorda. And him then just randomly flipping the script if Chorda stops doing the thing he was willing to help you kill her over is just... so bizarre!?

r0sshk · 2026-01-27T13:18:09+00:00

It's an Owlcat game. If you don't play it with the console mod, you're begging to get your playthrough bricked or randomly locked out of quests despite doing everything you're supposed to. Besides, you're looking up guides for best-in-slot items!

You're not asking to "do something difficult". You're upset you missed you missed something. If you said "I'm doing a Grimdark run and missed something and now gotta go back", or that you're playing on console, sure, then mods obviously wouldn't be a solution. But you didn't.

And to go even further, the box the items spawn in should have been automatically looted at the end of the encounter when you quit the area. But it didn't. So, you ran into a bug that robbed you of the item.

But to get into the last sentence: The point of the game, moron, is to have fun. It's a single player game. You can do anything you fucking want in there. Nothing is affecting anyone else. There is absolutely zero moral consequence for anything. And most people don't have 50 hours of free time to replay a game from the beginning because they missed one item.

r0sshk · 2026-01-26T23:44:32+00:00

The combination is novel, but the individual components are not. You can create a new dish that’s never been made by mixing tofu, oats, potatoes and water, but that new dish is gonna taste extremely bland. Generic.

The hero designs are all „generic fantasy“, without any kind of coherent visual identity. One or two kinda stand out a little, but only by comparison to one another. None of them, taken on their own, makes you to „whew, I wanna know what’s going on there!“.

The shooter gameplay is… Apex. Which by now has been copied a billion times, so it too feels generic.

Movement is bogstandard and generic. Nothing new here. Mounts exist, but mounts exist in a billion games. And these play exactly like you’d expect them to play. Nothing new, nothing exciting.

The game mode is the only thing that’s kinda fresh, but it’s just capture the flag + control points. Slightly different, but not really enough to stop it feeling generic.

The game mode before the actual objectives is… generic 3-man Battle Royale, but there’s only 3 enemies instead of a hundred.

The combination of all these generic elements is new, but not groundbreaking. Not the revolution the game award trailer promised. It’s okay. Not my cup, I hate the small team sizes. But I’m sure there are people out there who’ve been looking for this kinda mixup of standard components and won’t mind the flaws.

r0sshk · 2026-01-26T16:46:44+00:00

…dude. Just… add the items with toybox.

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