Hi,
I recently started playing Escalation, and as someone who loved Supreme Commander I also really like some of the improvements this game adds to the genre (the army system is one of the best systems I have seen in RTS games). Simultaneously, after playing some missions, something seems to be missing. I know that this game doesn't try to be a direct successor to SupCom, these are just some points I really would like to see improved.
First, all the units seem to be rather samey. I am not talking about the balance or their purpose, but their looks. It doesn't help that they are all hovercrafts (and yes, I read the reason for that). They also seem to be rather boring regarding their design - in SupCom, you had tanks, mechs, huge spiders, gunships, UFOs, multi-barreled artillery and so on and so forth. Here, dreadnoughts just look like upscaled versions of the smaller units. The variants look almost identical with some weapons changed. Every unit is also quite "flat" - they don't have a lot of height. Buildings, especially the factories, could also use some more animations. They just don't really seem "busy" when creating a new unit.
Additionally, in a recent post of a developer they said that naval units are going to be added. I was quite excited at first, until I read that there probably aren't going to be huge battleships. Why? Is bombarding the land with huge cannons not fun?
Imho, there's a lot of wasted potential right there - if the engine allows to add multiple, independent guns to a vehicle, why not try something more ridiculous? I think everybody who watched the trailer for SupCom remembers the monkeylord, a huge spider-like mech with a laserbeam that disintegrates unit after unit, which just felt awesome. I don't really have the same feeling when playing this game and attacking someone with my dreadnoughts. I also looked at screenshots of the upcoming Juggernauts, but even those look more like upscaled versions of the dreadnought. This is just not exciting enough.
This brings me to my next point: The maps. Granted, I am currently quite biased right now, since I only played a few skirmish maps and some missions of the campaign: Why are the maps all so cramped and full of cliffs? I have the ability to create huge armies, but there's not really a huge (and diverse) area where I can use them and watch them fight. Again, look at the trailer for SupCom to see what I would prefer. Also, how about some colour?
Now to my final point: The scaling of the units. Why are engineers just as big as frigates? Why are cruisers only a little bigger than frigates? Only the dreadnoughts seem reasonable to me, but still quite small to be honest - especially when looking at the range of these things. It looks like as if they can only fire around ten times as far as their own size. Why limit this game so much there? A huge cannon doesn't feel epic when it can't fire further away than 20 meters.
I would like it more if engineers were smaller, frigates were smaller and cruisers were bigger. The overall weapons range should be heavily increased. Sadly at this point, I guess it's not really possible anymore. I am still eager to see what the new updates will change.
What is your opinion regarding my points? Do you feel the same way?
Thanks for reading, and thanks for creating and supporting this game!