The important question Siege MUST answer

In the current iteration here are the things that I see as different from other TD games I've played:

Multiple defense points. You not only have to defend your base but also your metal generators. This seems to have some nice map creation options where you can have a large flow of metal at the start to help get the initial build done, but then threaten it later. It seems like being able to build/rebuild mines could be an option.

Scavenger Modules: Needing to build these to harvest resources adds a twist. 

Darkness: Not knowing the full map at the start seems different. 

Huge maps; Not being able to see the whole map at once is different

Mission Goals: Nice to have some goals beyond just survival. Although I don't currently see what the reward for accomplishing them is.

Graphics Quality: The look and feel is superior to most TD games I've seen.

These are all fairly minor twists, nothing that will totally redefine the genre. But they give the game a personality.

The things that will make me feel like I got my money's worth are:

How does the gameplay evolve? It won't be long before I have access to all the towers and abilities. So how are subsequent planets different? What makes me want to keep playing?

Amount of content: If a world has 12 - 16 encounters, if there are just the two worlds that are shown now, I'd feel a little ripped off. I'd expect maybe 10 worlds when the product shipped?

Does Siege of Centauri support UTF-8 (or UTF-16) text format?

If Stardock has future support plans, could you tell me the plan of support another languages?

I think, Siege of Centauri seems to support only iso-8859-1 text format now.

rixmith: I like these. Although I find it curious that you mention not being able to see the whole map at once as a positive. That is something another person has already suggested we change to allow a strategic view similar to what is already in Escalation.

This game was boasted about using the new engine and the new AI to make an ultimate tower defense. 
I find the current version severely lacking any difference to the genre. 

I would expect, based on the marketing, to have numerous paths, paths that can be built or destroyed by tower placement and have the AI and sheer unit numbers flood in and try to find the best route through the defenses.

Having units take the same path over and over is boring and every other game does that. I feel there is nothing new here. I'm even disappointed by graphics and effects. Units dissolve silently, bullets pass through enemies, enemies stack on each other. There's no collisions, no explosions. The turrets looks bland and small. I understand that half of that might still be in production. 

Honestly though, I kind of wanted this game to be the ultimate version of those StarCraft 1 and Starcraft 2 Terran missions where you build up and defend for 30minutes against the Zerg. But because of the engines abilities, I expected vastly superior number of enemies, with wide ranging tactics and numerous locations I could build. I wanted my turrets to be part of the wall of the path where the touted AI would have to decide if it was worth it to try and run my gauntlet or try and break through. With stronger towers being weaker to direct attacks and basic towers more of a re0inforced wall structure. I dunno. I was just expecting something different and I feel I got a watered down defense grid. 

So far, the largest change this seems to bring to the genre is the enemy unit count.  Compared to playing Defense Grid (1&2) the flexibility of placing turrets is a double-edged sword since it can be a bit fiddly, and a few mistakes can result in non-optimal placement/density.  I definitely miss the ability to route non-flying enemies through tower placement.  I AM enjoying the bonus/win conditions in each round, and they help with replayability somewhat.  The lack of seeing my score vs. previous (high)score in a given round doesn't incentivize me to replay a given level once (at least not at the same difficulty) once I've gotten two pips on it.  And I have no way to readily tell if I've completed it on a given difficulty level.

I'd love to see the game easily bring editing/creation of maps and units via Steam Workshop, so after the main game is done, it continues to have life.  By all means, I'd possibly buy new 'scenarios/stories', but giving the community tools to keep the game alive would be great.  By contrast with Defense Grid, who allowed you to vote on curated maps you could then awkwardly purchase externally.  Heck, you could charge for the map creation/editing tools if desired.  Allow anyone to benefit from the fruit of it, but get a bit of $ from those wanting to create to incentivize the support of those tools for mainstream (vs. your devs).

Oh... I will confess I wish there was at least some form of rewind time ability in case you make a mistake.  Perhaps it's simply a crutch, but I am used to it, and having it makes mistakes less punishing.  If not at will, make it another 'Orbital Geo-Temporal' thingy.

I had intended to simply comment that it was different, without making a judgment whether that difference was positive or negative. So far, my personal opinion is that it is a negative. I often find myself trying to zoom further out, especially when I get sound effects that towers are firing and I don't see any towers firing.

One thing I am starting to see emerge from play-testing and design work is the idea of combos.   Putting the right buildings in the same area to get the desired effect.

The fog of war component was unique...but version 2 deleted it.  Shad'O is the only game that comes to mind with a similar mechanic.

Having resource gathering structures on the map is also rather unique which leads to some strategizing that isn't there in most tower defense games.

The per-map challenges are a nice touch too.  I find myself worrying more about them than merely finishing the map. I wish completing them would give permanent bonuses though (e.g. save resource generator, get +0.1 passive resource gen thereafter).

Sadly, the game feels like a clone of Sol Survivor in virtually every other way (tower placement, tower variety, abilities, etc.).

Abilities is what sets SoC apart from Defense Grid and Bloons.  Sol Survivor? Not much.

One thing that I swear was on the store page that vanished after I bought it was an upgrade tree.  A lot of tower defense games fail to have good overarching progression so you can come back to an earlier level, play it on a harder difficulty, and have a good time of it.  This is something Sol Survivor lacks.  Once you finish a map and get the challenges in it, there's really no reason to go back.

I really think the Game is lacking *IF* there is NO ability to build walls with your towers.  Might as well play a simple Flash Game, because the aliens are always going to take the same path.  It cuts the replay-ability to about 10% of what it otherwise could be. 

I'm afraid I must agree with nightshade:
Having units take the same path over and over is boring and every other game does that. I feel there is nothing new here. I'm even disappointed by graphics and effects. Units dissolve silently, bullets pass through enemies, enemies stack on each other. There's no collisions, no explosions. The turrets look bland and small. I understand that half of that might still be in production.

I really think we need a score level rather than simply 2 stars. But the per map objectives *are* Good.
The lack of seeing my score vs. previous (high)score in a given round doesn't incentivize me to replay a given level once (at least not at the same difficulty) once I've gotten two pips on it.  And I have no way to readily tell if I've completed it on a given difficulty level.

Combos are a decent idea, but NOT at the expense of pathing (building walls with towers), or some other feature, imho

Thanks, Brad!

One thing most TD games don't do that SoC could is having large shots like Minos Cannon damage units until the kinetic energy is dissipated (e.g. health of shell versus health of units it comes in contact with).  It would make powerful turrets marginally more useful against swarms/massed enemies and change strategy of tower placement to take advantage of lanes.

This is great feedback and very helpful.

As for the value proposition, it is, after all, a $10 game.  If the game had 10 worlds each with say 15 encounters that would be 150 encounters or about $0.07 per encounter.  I don't think that's something we could deliver.

I would expect around 15 encounters plus Survival mode which will have 3 different scenarios by the time it's released.

The main areas we are focusing on content are:

1. More types of enemies
2. More types of defenses
3. The Equip screen (eventually players there will only be 10 weapons the player can use on a given map so they have to pick from a much larger list).

Just a thought on the value proposition and how I came to my perspective. For me, the gold standard Tower Defense game on Steam is Gemcraft: Chasing Shadows (a $10 game). It has close to 200 maps, a very rich leveling system, crafting system, and achievement system. Looking at my play time on that game I've gotten over 200 hours of play on it over the last couple of years. That was $10 well spent!

I don't expect that much from every $10 game or TD game, but if SOC just has a couple more maps and a couple survival maps, I would be a bit disappointed. I've gotten all the stars on each of the existing maps and still have just 6 hours of play time (including trying some maps again after the update just to see what the differences are, and trying to reproduce some bugs I've seen). 

I'm not sure what the magic number is, but I would think that SOC should have enough in it to be worthy of 40 - 50 hours of gameplay? Is that a reasonable goal?

I’d like to see no upper limit in the total game time.  But I don’t think the solution is more maps but rather more replay ability.

I agree.  I value variety in maps over numbers.  Replayability is turns a small number of maps (20ish?) into something more valuable.