Impressions of Updated Version

I've been playing both the PC release and the mobile beta. A lot of things have been done really well. But there are many changes I don't really understand. I have a lot of feedback to give, so I'm just going to list all my thoughts here. Some of these may seem like nit picks, but Harbinger is still so close to being amazing, I think it needs to correct these little issues before it can really take off.

-Hull and shield bars should have the same scaling. As they are now they are visually confusing. I can't tell at a glance how much health I have because it changes from ship to ship.

-Repair seems to prioritize capital ships over drones. I was so excited this got fixed. Good job!

-It is still confusing how lasers, death rays, point defense lasers, repair drones, laser drones, shield regen drones, and shield reenergizers all use the same beam color, but repair beams are green. Color coding these could make it way easier to tell what is happening in a battle. Perhaps blue for shield repair, green for hull repair, red for damage? This is an art choice I guess, but I do think we should be able to tell them apart at a glance.

-Vulcan Cannon still shows that the range upgrade affects recharge time but it doesn't.

-Repair beam repair amount upgrade says it increases repair amount by 10 per level, but it is actually 20.

-Many modules don't show all their stats. This makes it hard to decide what to buy or understand how an item works. It also makes it difficult for hardcore players to min/max.

-On mobile you can have up to 8 fighter groups, but the UI can only handle 6. Fighter types should probably be added to the targeting ring.

-Did repair drones get a new model? It's slight, but they look good. I like it.

-The fourth stage is almost always easier than the third. The unknown ships are strong enough I think, but you usually only encounter 1 or 2 at a time. On the third map you can find yourself fighting 4+ ships frequently. This needs to be fixed, it ruins the pacing of the endgame right now.

-Option to toggle off damage numbers would be really nice.

-The new ships are really cool. They aren't quite balanced, but they are still a great addition!

-Why can we only call certain ships for reinforcements? How could this limitation possibly improve the game for the player? It doesn't, it only removes choices. Right now the player LITERALLY CAN'T USE AN ALL GUNS FLEET, unless they take weaker ships like the raven. Why?


The general balance of the game is better, but it is still just weird. There are many items that are bad or have bad upgrades. This is super hard for new players to deal with. For experienced players, it just limits replayability and forces us to use certain fleet types. There are so many cool items in Harbinger that aren't worth using, this is a real shame. I'll list some of my more specific thoughts here.

-Tesla coil is weak, what is it's purpose?

-The Particle Cannon is very expensive but actually has low dps. The trolgar projectile cannon is probably stronger in most cases. It isn't very good, why hasn't this been balanced better?

-The nerf to bolter drones seems to makes sense. Now laser drones can work with bolter drones to take out enemy ships. There is good synergy here.

-I still don't understand the purpose of bolter fighters. What are they good at? If they had an upgrade for hull and were faster/more agile than other drones they would make a perfect escort for keeping bombers alive!

-Bomber behavior isn't great. On paper they are pretty balanced. However, they always approach targets directly instead of setting up an orbit. This means they coast right onto enemy capital ships and get killed by point defense, UGH. They should try to maintain range to stay alive. If they had small thrusters on their front to help maneuver they might hold range better.

-It looks like the shield reenergizer was nerfed. Why did this need a nerf? It was already way weaker than shield repair drones. Where is the balance in this?

-Some of the "super" weapons have great base stats and bad upgrades. The deathray is a perfect example. With no upgrades it is OP. The damage upgrades are too weak to matter, and range just makes it more OP. If you get one of these as a drop, it should be an item that is pretty decent, but has the POTENTIAL to be amazing if you invest in it. Right now, finding a deathray just makes the game easy, and fighting them is too hard because they are always strong.

-I still think the game needs an armor module. It should be slightly weaker than the shield module. This will help to balance out the shield/armor damage.

-Repair beams and shield reenergizers are way weaker than repair drones. Why? This makes it really hard to run a fleet without drones. Don't take that option away from the player.

-The point defense changes are interesting. They do seem to have balanced point defense, but they also made the gatling the strongest for most situations. Where is the choice in this? The player should have point defense options that are all good at different things so they can choose how they want their fleet to work.

-What happened to tractor beams? This was a cool concept that should have been improved. Instead they just turned into lasers that only target fighters.

Greetings!

Vulcan cannon range upgrade does affect recharge time, the difference is just so small that it can't be shown right.

The Particle Turret should still be really good, it cannot be stopped by some unit in its way. The projectile from a projectile turret can.

Regarding items: If every item is good then no item is good. There has to be bad items so that one can appreciate the good ones. Tesla coil should be ok in short range battles.

We have gotten feedback regarding fighters and bombers differing from yours. Apparently fighters are good and plasma bombers OP to some. Fighters are good due to their price and size, soaking up incoming bullets.

Honestly, I cannot remember us nerfing the shield reenergizer. Are you sure about this?

Why some ships are not in the reinforcement does have reasons. The Harbinger for example, with 4 hangars. Having 3 of them would mean 12 hangars. Another reason would be balance and difficulty, which is extremely hard to have at a good level in a game like this with so many random elements.

I only have one thing to say right now. We get tons of feedback and requests, all the time. And you know what, very often they contradict each other, because they are subjective opinions. Sometimes there is something that is really unified, and we can try to change that.

This game will never be perfect for everybody, ever. All we can do is promise to do our best here. That said, we do appreciate all the feedback! The hull, shield and engine upgrades have been on our minds but we will see.

Thanks for the response, glad the feedback is helpful =) I don't agree that bad items are required to provide contrast for good items. Especially when all items can be upgraded, every item can be a better and worse version of itself. It is all up to the player how they strategize and which upgrades they prioritize.

Alright! Thanks for understanding!

Awesome work guys, I just got the pc version but I'm really waiting for the mobile update. I like the touch interface and mobility =)

Im a huge fan of new/more ships but I haven't spent a ton of time with them yet. At a glance I feel like there isn't much new in the gun ship line. The top dawg in the old version had 5 heavy weapon points and it's bigger meaner brother hasn't come out yet? Seems like all the new ships are more drone focused which is cool but over the months I've fallen in love with the Armada and I was really looking forward to sinking my teeth into a deadlier version of it. I'm not getting the same thrill from the faster less heavily armed gun ships that came with the new update.

Can we get a dreadnought please =D



As for the carrier ships those are beast but I'm not to good with the drones yet. I know the 1200 missile bombers kinda suck at the start. They are to weak to kill enemy fighters and fly to close to do anything to larger ships. Maybe they work better as a mid to late game item when you can put research into them. I'm about to try out the plasma bombers but idk, seems like a lot of running for your life as a drone boat.

Imo more guns is better =P

Thanks for all the awesome new stuff in the update you guys rock and I love battlestation!

I've been playing a lot more today and have some more feedback. I don't mean to be too critical, I just want harbinger to be the best it can be. I'm actually going to update some of the notes I made in my first post, I think I may have been a little too harsh on a few items. I made it partway through level 6 today before getting jumped on by 8 wanderer ships all with flak cannons, OUCH. I was also really excited to find that enemies on maps 5+ drop items that continue to get better stats. I looted two 900+ range wanderer flak cannons that were VERY strong, so fun!

-I've played a bit more with the particle cannon. It is actually pretty good. It definitely has better balance than some of the other weapons like death rays. While subtle, the particle cannon's accuracy and ability to do shield damage actually make it pretty powerful. I still feel like it doesn't seem great at anything. It's decently balanced, and really cool, but seems lacking in identity maybe? It's hard for me to place exactly.

-I used bolter fighters for a couple play-throughs. They are better than I remembered. Combined with the change to bolter drones they actually feel like they are in a pretty ok spot. I noticed the description says they have more health than drones, is this true? I still think the option to upgrade their health would really suit the bolter fighter well and help to cement their role. I would actually raise their cost slightly, compared to other modules (like the pd bolter at 200 scrap) they feel cheap.

-I think the bugs related to photon cannon upgrades have been fixed. It is hard to tell without patch notes.

-I may have been mistaken regarding the shield reenergizer nerf. My apologies. However, I still suspect the item's stat panel is inaccurate. It is hard to judge, but it seems to be more effective than the description suggests. Stats say when fully upgraded it repairs only 40hp per shot, it seems higher than this. For reference, the repair beam claims to do 85. In my opinion (just my opinion =D) the bigger issue here is that the repair turrets are so much weaker than repair drones. The repair drones seem well balanced, I just wish I could use repair beams to trade guns for more drone slots in some playthroughs. Beams can't be destroyed while drones can so if beams were maybe 80% as strong as drones, I think that might feel just right.

-Admiral you mentioned that the vulcan cannon actually does lose rate of fire when you upgrade range, for balance this might be fine, but that isn't what I take issue with. I'm not trying to give you a hard time for this, but I want to make the player's perspective clear here. When the upgrade shows that a stat changes and the text for the stat doesn't actually change, that FEELS to the player like a bug, and it feels unpolished. Additionally, when other modules are known to have upgrade bugs (repair beam, photon cannon before the update, and possibly still the shield reenergizer), the player can't know if the vulcan cannon is bugged, just has a display bug, or is actually losing rof. This makes the game feel cheap, which frustrates me because harbinger is one of the best space combat sims I have ever played.

-I want to make a tiny clarification regarding my comments on bomber behavior. I tend to agree admiral, plasma are very strong right now. I did not mean to suggest they are too weak. It is just frustrating to watch them suicide onto enemy ships since the player has no control over.

-I believe other players have mentioned that the battles feel too fast, and I agree. Battles are mostly dependent on the player's initial positioning. There generally isn't time to maneuver in battle. I think this a bummer because it makes the battles less interactive. I think there are three ways to help with this, that shouldn't create balance issues.
1) Create an armor module. This has been talked about, I won't go into it here.
2) Add a shield and armor damage reduction upgrade to the shield and armor modules. This will allow the player to redirect some of their upgrade points from damage to tank if they choose. being tankier and doing less damage will both help draw out the battles slightly. This will have to be implemented carefully to make sure the player can't achieve too much damage reduction.
3) Add the speed/agility module. Once the battles are slightly drawn out, faster ships will have time take advantage of their maneuverability in combat. This should probably provide multipliers to the ship's speed and agility, so that slower ships can still be improved, but the faster ships are improved even further.
Not only would these changes improve the pace of combat, they also let the player choose between damage, survivability, and maneuverability in their blue slots, which creates excellent game play choices.

I'm gonna do some more testing with the photon cannon and shield reenergizer to try and verify any changes.

-I also still can't refuse escort missions. Silly little ship always turns up. It's like a puppy.

-I can't progress past level 69 on the mobile version. The bar just keeps filling up, but doesn't give me levels!

@Draikan. Try looping a start/die on hard difficulty to get to level 70 and see if it sticks then.

I actually jumped to level 77 then stuck there again. I'm wondering if it is related to how many levels you can gain per game?

I also have the same problems with level up.Before I installed beta ,everything was normal.This looks like kinda bug)))