Perimeter 2 - the best or the worst game ever?

[Babax]

"Perimeter 2: New Earth" is the long-awaited sequel of the critically acclaimed RTS "Perimeter". Ideas of territorial gameplay and landscape modification, introduced in the original game, are now realized on a new concept & technology level.



http://perimeter2.kdvgames.com/

Did someone played it?

[1v0ry_k1ng]

1 was terrible

[rattle]

according to KDR Perimeter 2 isn't any better

[clericvash]

The first one was weird and not fun.

[Babax]

The first one was weird and not fun.

Yeah, the first part was kinda weird, but quite fun. Terramorphing feature is really impressive, and energy-field idea was also awesome. But the game do look more like puzzle-rts than kill-them-all RTS.

What the best/worse features in Perimetr 1/2?

[lurker]

From what kdr said the pylons don't need land area to feed you energy, so you can have an exponential economy pumping out superweapons a couple minutes into the game.

[KDR_11k]

"Superweapons" are providence abilities, the default is to take your campaign levels (!) for them with you but that kind of stupidity was in Maelstrom already... You can disable that, then you have to unearth psy crystals with the "hand of providence" (I call it the bucket because that's what it's like, sucks up terrain until it's full and dumps it elsewhere, if the game wasn't over within minutes you could probably build some impressive sandcastles with it) which is fine in SP but fails in MP since everybody can use the hand anywhere that's not inside enemy weapon range so when one player digs for a crystal another can steal it before he can take it. One crystal can already unlock a power so you can use nukes and meteor strikes that level parts of a base near instantly with just a little digging. The only resource is energy and generators can be spammed like hell, you only need 10k E to fire a nuke which you can get in seconds if you spam generators.

Another problem is the unit setup. The units you get are light, medium, heavy, experimental. That's all. The regular three have a transformation into air mode. Lights attack from ground to ground or air to air, mediums attack ground to air or air to ground and heavies always attack ground and ignore the perimeter shield. The problem is that ALL units can attack buildings, even those that can't hit ground units. Also defense turrets can only attack ground or air, depending on their type and the AA turrets are T2. That means at T1 you cannot fight against light flying units with anything except more light flying units. Research takes quite some time and T1 flyers can demolish a base pretty damn quick. Also the lab can be upgraded within seconds, costs a lot of E but at level 3 it can make experimentals without any research, while the Exodus experimental is fairly useless the Harkback get an instakill-everything sweeping beam unit (think Imperator antimatter beam without chargeup time from THIS) with massive armor, you can feasibly make one before the enemy even researches T2. Theoretically that superunit is weak against air but T1 is so powerful in air to air combat that trying to attack it with T2 units from the air will just get you shot down (and T3 air attacks are so laughable you shouldn't even try).

The sides are completely IMBA, in addition to that superunit the Harkback have it WAY easier to get buildable land (which is your only limiter to base growth), letting them throw up factories (which are also the unit cap raisers) much faster and just overrun the enemy with T1 air spam a few minutes into the game.

It's also annoying that EVERY generator can build stuff and unlike Perimeter 1 or Fibre you don't have a central structure your generators must form a network with, they can be set up anywhere and function perfectly fine so demolishing a base is like fighting a metastasizing cancer.

It's workable in the campaign, there's just the issue that the AI is active so unlike most other RTSes campaign missions can't be solved by sitting back and building up, you have to play them like multiplayer: Spam hard and fast. Whether that's an actual problem is up to you of course.

Oh and the game doesn't even have a server browser for internet play, you have to input the host's IP directly!

Just check the Fix List topic... The devs said they're going to make a patch to fix any problems but I'm not sure if it's going to happen, I bet they're now just cutting their losses.

[Gota]

Sounds horrible...

[Babax]

Yeah, pretty sad...

[[TS]Lollocide]

I really liked Perimeter 1, the units that terraform the ground verses the buildmaster units so you have a payoff of buildrate verses terraform rate. Plus the energy extraction from the ground in a psuedo-science style always worked well. The variable unit styles that used different nanites to form different units, the capture tactic that was always a bastard to pull off, the planetcracking superpowers that fuck up your energy income and the fact you had to expand based on the range of your network, slowing it base expansion.

Whereas Perimeter 2 is a pile of shit, the Core terraform-building and other shit fuck up everything I liked about P1, the fact you can just manuver your buildmaster to wherever you want a core and suddenly, DING! instant power, the fact they can extract energy from anywhere and the whole overpowered Harkback bullshit that saw me pretty much fucked most levels.

Also, in P2 the terraforming for the Harkback units (The water ones) is actually a pile of crap. I played the last level where you have to flood the harkback frame and decided to be a dick about it. I spammed cores in the small area you start in and used the providence to raise the terrain so no water escaped, so I could just cut a hole in the wall and flood the basin area. But apparently the massive lake of water I made just floods out of the hole and pools outside the hole and then disappears more than afew ingame meters in the basin. Another effort was to raise the external water level to flood the whole map, but the base level of water never raises even if you spam cores the whole area of the map.

Don't buy this, it sucks worse than wales.

[zwzsg]

more like puzzle-rts than kill-them-all RTS

Agreed. (About Perimeter 1, haven't and don't plan to play the sequel.)

[KDR_11k]

Also, in P2 the terraforming for the Harkback units (The water ones) is actually a pile of crap. I played the last level where you have to flood the harkback frame and decided to be a dick about it. I spammed cores in the small area you start in and used the providence to raise the terrain so no water escaped, so I could just cut a hole in the wall and flood the basin area. But apparently the massive lake of water I made just floods out of the hole and pools outside the hole and then disappears more than afew ingame meters in the basin. Another effort was to raise the external water level to flood the whole map, but the base level of water never raises even if you spam cores the whole area of the map.

I think water evaporates pretty damn fast, in Maelstrom the alien hydropumps had a limited effect (though you could still end up with a completely flooded map if you didn't combat them) and I think the same effect is in place here. Well, it's better than the Clonk solution where regular rain can already flood the map...

Anyway, you could just have dropped water meteors on the frame...

[Snipawolf]

Or you could play DF for all your terraforming and flooding needs...

[KDR_11k]

Or Clonk.

[SwiftSpear]

It sounds like they fired the guy who designed the first Perimeter to me.

[Babax]

It sounds like the fired the guy who designed the first Perimeter to me.

Buhahaha Dunno, gotta check the credits

[SwiftSpear]

Meh, I say it specifically because I've seen it happen before, especially in indie gaming. Someone designs something experimental, and it might be simple, but it has a certain logic to it. Then guy A either gets hired up into a more serious company because he's good at what he does, or they ditch him because graphics artists and programmers always know better than designers and they just didn't want to cut in the guy who did the thinking work for the game economically speaking... and the sequal version goes to hell. It's alot prettier and technically sound, but it clearly has lost the gameplay logic that made the prototype fun.

Occasionally it's just that the original design was a fluke in terms of how it made the game play experience, and screwing with the forumla is bound to make it weaker... but in this case the changes show an obvious and drastic lack of forethought. It really looks like alot of the decisions were made based on the ability to squeeze more explosions on screen if X change was made.

RTS games are made fun usually by what you can't do, not what you can do.

[KDR_11k]

It sounds like they fired the guy who designed the first Perimeter to me.

AFAIK half the dev team left. Not sure why. Maybe financial troubles, after getting a big hype for Perimeter 1 and having it fail, after that getting decent hype for Maelstrom and having that fail too they've resorted to using a shovelware publisher for Emperor's Testament and I don't think Strategy First is known for quality either. They've probably run out of people willing to give them much money to make a game.

[Regret]

demolishing a base is like fighting a metastasizing cancer

Makes me want to play the game.

[1v0ry_k1ng]

i never tried malestorm, how was it?