Kaunisto
Rear Admiral
As game design, what do you think about each of the ships added in the expansions?
Having recently replayed all these parts got me thinking this aspect.
Dralthi in itself was nice. It replaced the mud pig, being similar but slightly better and just different enough from all others to fly to be interesting. And it was OK that they didn't throw in some supership, I feel Raptor and Rapier are well balanced top ships.
The great element of course was being in the enemy ship, going undercover. Unfortunately the mission design didn't use this properly. Most of time they either attack you or there's something like 5 Hriss wing that'd be completely suicidal to take on. There's only that one time where you get to really backstab jalthis, take one completely by surprise. I wish there had been one normal patrol (like 3 salthis, 3 krants, 2 grathas) to do with Dralthi, letting you attack each wing unexpectedly.
Morningstar is what you want in expansion: fast, exciting action. It's a more hectic alternative to Sabre, more dangerous for lack of turret (and less armor, I believe?)
Not to mention Mace, nicely executed idea.
If there were more Morningstar missions I might grow to dislike it (like WC2 Rapier), but as the bit of spice to the series it is, I really like Morningstar too.
I left Crossbow last because it's what actually got me to think this. I don't dislike the ship itself (aside the wide spread of weapons), but...
It's boring to play - despite good mission designs. And worst of all, it doesn't add anything to playing Broadsword, it's just a slightly worse version of it.
I wish they had switched Broadsword and Crossbow. For me Broadsword is the clearly best ship in WC2 (as best for defeating enemies, not most fun) and as WC2 is pretty easy, I feel Crossbow would've done for that. You could've then brought in Broadsword in SO1 as this supership and thrown that against heaps of enemies.
Now Crossbow is just Broadsword with a small handicap.
Having recently replayed all these parts got me thinking this aspect.
Dralthi in itself was nice. It replaced the mud pig, being similar but slightly better and just different enough from all others to fly to be interesting. And it was OK that they didn't throw in some supership, I feel Raptor and Rapier are well balanced top ships.
The great element of course was being in the enemy ship, going undercover. Unfortunately the mission design didn't use this properly. Most of time they either attack you or there's something like 5 Hriss wing that'd be completely suicidal to take on. There's only that one time where you get to really backstab jalthis, take one completely by surprise. I wish there had been one normal patrol (like 3 salthis, 3 krants, 2 grathas) to do with Dralthi, letting you attack each wing unexpectedly.
Morningstar is what you want in expansion: fast, exciting action. It's a more hectic alternative to Sabre, more dangerous for lack of turret (and less armor, I believe?)
Not to mention Mace, nicely executed idea.
If there were more Morningstar missions I might grow to dislike it (like WC2 Rapier), but as the bit of spice to the series it is, I really like Morningstar too.
I left Crossbow last because it's what actually got me to think this. I don't dislike the ship itself (aside the wide spread of weapons), but...
It's boring to play - despite good mission designs. And worst of all, it doesn't add anything to playing Broadsword, it's just a slightly worse version of it.
I wish they had switched Broadsword and Crossbow. For me Broadsword is the clearly best ship in WC2 (as best for defeating enemies, not most fun) and as WC2 is pretty easy, I feel Crossbow would've done for that. You could've then brought in Broadsword in SO1 as this supership and thrown that against heaps of enemies.
Now Crossbow is just Broadsword with a small handicap.