First and foremost, thank you everyone for playing my game! Also thank you to everyone who's given me feedback, it's always helpful and welcome!
Started my day job back up Monday, and taking a few days this week to mentally recover (launch takes a toll, as exciting as it is). I'm now starting to formulate what the future entails for both me and Broadside Renegades.
First and foremost, the main negative feedback (and looking at achievement data) is that the game is either too hard, or not doing a good job of on-boarding players. The combination of ship like controls, and the nature of the more "hit and run" style of broadside combat is thrust upon the player, and ramps up quickly once it starts. I have three (or all) possible avenues in the short term to address this:
1. A ship designed to offload the broadsiding while you learn to steer. I'm considering a 3rd starting ship, probably that controls like the first. I am still brainstorming, but imagining it having either autofiring, or partially autoaiming broadsides. This would allow players to get a hang of steering before having to learn steering AND timing shots at the same time. I am also trying to find a way to present the ship in a way that explains it is "easier" without discouraging players from trying it.
2. An outright easier difficulty. I actually have a ton of control over scaling, spawning, and even some unused built in multipliers (ie enemy damage -50%). This would be very little work. It's really a menu and some variables away. (This also means I can go the other way, but I'm not sure anyone's asking for that yet)
3. Expanded tutorial or practice room. This ones the largest undertaking, but will most likely happen in addition to the first two. Currently the tutorial explains the basics, but then thrusts you into the main game at full difficulty before you've gotten to use your new knowledge. I'm thinking of adding an intermediate level with some real enemies and cargo ships to get a hang of things better in. The big thing will be expanding how I present the player knowledge here. There's some tactics that probably arent immediately apparent, like how POI grant more gold the farther you warp, or that warping resets a portion of your threat level (buying you time, you arent expected to beat bosses when they first show up, run!).
I don't want to make grand promises yet, but in addition to this, in general my list also consists of:
1. Adding a ui element for "right" and "left" that turns with the ship. I could say port and starboard but that isn't helping the onboarding process.
2. New map type, that just needs an asset or two to make sense adding
3. I am going to test a new boss at some point, but will only add it if it is good. The idea is a bit elaborate so I'll need to see how it plays
4. I have some work done today on a very simple "cutscene/end graphic." I had cut the idea near launch, but I want to add a little more weight to winning.
5. I actually have a small cache of content that is almost finished, or even actually finished and disabled in game. As this is my first launch, I leaned on minimal bugs or crashing, and put a lock on adding new content early. I still do art for leisure, and some things were WIP, so there's things that it wouldn't make sense not to get in the game.
If you've read this far, thank you! I try to check the community hub often so it's a good place to reach me!