Hard West 2 - sequel from Ice Code Games

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1282410/view/3229664706315435369

Patch 1 is Now Live!

Greetin’s Community!

As promised, we are now releasing Patch 1 to the main game. Thanks for all the testing feedback and thoughts. Patch 1 includes all of the fixes/changes that we outline below. However, we're planning to continue to support the game in the long term, so we will have a lot more information to share about future patches and plans to continue to improve the game shortly. We realize there are some mixed feelings on the difficulty levels, so we're actively discussing ways to improve how those are conveyed and exploring new options for providing greater player choice when it comes to game difficulty. Please let us know your thoughts on Nightmare mode and the challenge it now provides with the patch implemented.

Hopefully the balance changes introduced by Patch 1 will help the game to feel even more fun to play and you all continue, or return, to explore the wild world of Hard West 2 with us.

Please note: You will see the testing branch removed and your existing save will be playable in the main game.


Patch Notes:

Performance

• Memory Leaks sealed / Loading times improved.
• Crashes and exceptions mitigated.

Gameplay Settings

• Added an optional toggle called RNG+ which will generate new Chance to Hit results after each game load.
• Fixed game speed reset after battles.
• Skipping a turn no longer causes abilities to be deselected.
• Demo save loading disabled.
• 5 new Achievements added.

Gameplay Balance fixes

Enemies:

• Certain enemies will switch to shotguns after depleting dynamite: Revenant Demolishers, Mad Dogs, Blasting Brothers.
• Explosive attack charges are reduced from infinite to 2 - the same amount of consumables that each Posse can carry.
• Blackhearts - HP is lowered to 15. Can cast Transfusion only once and its range is reduced. Friendly fire enabled.
• Revenants - Now regenerate only 5 HP.
• Witches - Can now summon a lesser amount of Revenants and less frequently.
• Status Effects - Bleeding duration is reduced from 3 to 1.

Posse:

• Cla'lish - starting equipment is now improved.
• Lazarus - starting equipment is now improved.

Global:

• Economy - Mission rewards for main and side objectives are now higher.
• Economy - Unwanted Trinkets can now be sold at reasonable prices.

Levels:

• The Ritual - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• Frostbitten in Calla Calla - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• Frostbitten in Calla Calla - The number of enemies has been lowered.
• Riftwalkers - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• Lady Shrike - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• A Bridge to Nowhere - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• Shootout at San Argent - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• The Last Train to Utah - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• The Last Train to Utah - Objective "All posse must survive" has been removed.
• Grand Bank Robbery - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• Grand Bank Robbery - The number of enemies has been lowered.
• Grand Bank Robbery - Objective "All posse must survive" removed.
• Hellsgate Station - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• Served Cold - all time limit objectives removed on Easy and Hard difficulties.
• Served Cold - Mission was tweaked to be less punishable, number of enemies has been lowered.
• Served Cold - Turned off objective "Do not use any of the Posse's skills."
• Served Cold - Objective "All posse must survive" has been removed (after entering Ghost Train)
• Served Cold - Obstacles tweaks.
• Hellgate Station - Objective "All posse must survive" removed.

Additional bug fixes:

• Mission objectives clarified.
• Blockers removed for certain missions.
• Localization updates.
• Characters no longer drop through the floor.
• Localization fixed and descriptions updated overall including for Chinese.
• Tickets Please - Colt's Voiceovers overlap with one another when triggered in quick succession.

Known Issues:

• HDD drive loading times are still long but are not increasing with gameplay time.
• Revenant Demolisher shotgun VFX is misaligned.

Thank you all for the support and feedback!

 

[Taim]

They had an AMA session a few days ago that I thought had some interesting insights.

They also addressed my question on discord which was pretty cool:

I'm reaching out because I am hoping the devs can add support for Nightmare mode WITHOUT the round limits.

When playing nightmare I loved the changes to enemy damage and chance to hit %s, but the aggressive time limits force a very specific style of play and limit your engagement options. I will say that I was FINE with the optional time limits on hard difficulty where thematically appropriate.

I hope there are plans to make the time limit on nightmare optional. Nightmare without a time limit would be pretty close to the ideal experience for me and (i imagine) many others!

This is a great suggestion and we've heard it a lot. There are future patches coming that might be something you'll love

 

[Taim]

I'm realizing I'm far more of a storyfag than I thought I was.

I imagine The Dungeon of Naheulbeuk is a better game in terms of combat but fuck if the story and characters are godawful. I don't find parody's to be all that more palatable than the things they are parodying.

Then you have this game which nails the atmosphere (as did the first game) but has some shortcomings on the combat.

Maybe I'm just not meant to be happy.

​

 

[Nortar]

I just finished it on Nightmare+ and I'm surprised that this game did not get more attention here.
Although before playing I rewatched the "dollars trilogy" so I was just in the perfect mood for it.

Pros:
- Handcrafted encounters with different tactical challenges.
- Posse members all have their own skillset and allow you to make some poweful combos.
- I liked the skill progress system made via poker hands, so you can rearrange your setups on the go.
- Ricochetes are more then just a minor enviromental interaction gimmick, they are useful and sometimes even required.
- All weapons feel useful, except rifles.
- Does not overstay it's welcome. It's a rare case when I finished a game and would not mind playing it again right away.
- Robbing moving trains is fun.

Pro/Con:
- Sometimes it does feel like a tactical puzzle, especially with tasks like "rob the train in 1 turn".
But there are always numberous ways for solving it and it's extremely satisfying to dismanle a whole bunch of enemies before they even get to act, it really gives you that "Eastwood vs 4 bandits" vibe.

Cons:
- Difficulty could have been a bit higher. There was the only time when I was even close to the time limit (in Flynn's vision quest) and it was mostly because I was too stingy with dynamite.
- The rifles are useless. Their higher base damage does not compensate 3 AP firing cost. I think it would have been better if the Rifleman perk reduced shot cost to 2 AP, instead of giving 1 extra damage.
- The overland movement and exploration feel too slow, espesically for all the fedex kind of quests.
- Most of consumables and trinkets are useless. The only good stuff worth having is dynamite and boots/tobacco that give speed.

 

[Falksi]

So I started playing this last night. Firstly, let me say I fucking love the original with a passion. Despite it's flaws, it's one of the most enjoyable games I've played in recent years. And I always knew that was gonna be a problem with this sequel.

I'm only 4 hours in so far to Hard West 2, and the gameplay and missions show a lot of promise, which is what really matters obviously. The additions and tweaks seem to take 2 steps forward then 1 step back, but I'm enjoying it a lot on the gameplay front and I'm looking forward to playing more later.

But fuckinghell have they dropped the ball with the story and tone. The original game was a thousand times better than what they've cooked up here in those respects.

Firstly, Death (Dave DeAndrea) is a big miss. The voice acting in this game is pretty damn good in it's own right, but Death was a show-stealer in the original, and he gave that game a real edge over it's rivals. His absence is sorely felt for me.

Secondly, the entire tone has been far too gay-ified. It feels like the shift between Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age 2; a cartoon caricature of the original which loses all of it's grounded feel. The horror aspect is shoved right down your throat from the off, and the Western feel takes a big backseat to it. Everything feels far more generic because of this choice so far, and it's early missions aren't a patch on the first entry when it comes to story setup.

This shift is emphasized by the fucking retarded decision to include Bioware-esq character conversations. It's completely unnecessary and totally kills the mystery which the original had with it's characters. The original respected the player's intelligence enough to give them a general idea of who these people were but let the key details unravel throughout the journey, whilst also giving the player enough space to fill the gaps in for themselves along the way, instead of having it all spelled out with fucking gay as fuck campfire conversations like they have here. Honestly, this "home-hub chat" trope must be one of the worst to infect gaming in years.

But the biggest gripe for me is that none of the characters which I've played as so far feel remotely evil. After Death and the great gameplay, the next thing which I loved about the original was that 98% of characters were rotten to the core. It was a game which gave to 2 choices - 1. Be damned to hell and lose everything; 2. Be damned to hell, lose everything, but make others lose more along the way. It was a lose-lose scenario from the very beginning; death, demons and hell were all that awaited you, with hope reduced to nothing more but bloodshed and vengeance. It was an amazingly refreshing playthrough because of this, and Hard West 2 doesn't get anywhere near that level of brilliance, it's far more cliche with the heroes actually trying to be heroic. It's a journey of hope not hate so far, and I really want that to change.

So we'll see how I go from here. I'm still enjoying it a lot and hope that twists and turns in the path make me change my stance on some of the above. But from the first 4 hours I'm seeing a big Bioware style decline in effect sadly when it comes to the story beats, and it's a right shame.

 

[Falksi]

Finished the game last night, simply put it's an OK game but an awful sequel. I've a lot of negative stuff to say about it though because it embodies everything wrong in gaming, turning it's back on what made it great to be just another shit copy-cat-wanabee "trend" game. But I won't deny there were the odd decent moments occasionally.

I've already moaned about the story and characters, but with each step forward the downgrade becomes more and more noticeable, as does the poisonous Bioware influence. It's simply terrible, a character-driven chain of Mcguffin fetch quests where the characters are trying their best to act badass, but hold about as much menace as Teddy Ruxpin. Think a group of characters on par with Jared Leto's attempt at the Joker, it's like putting on a Arnie film expecting Conan or Terminator and getting Kindergarten Cop. I think you get the drift.

The gameplay is kinda OK, but again I preferred the original. It's main gimmick, Bravado, is just too OP and feels like it should have been an end-game top end special ability for 1 or 2 characters, not the core focus of the game. Bar a few unpredictable events when you first encounter something new, you can easily control all battles once you get the hang of it. I played on "Hard" difficulty (medium setting) and it was way too easy; I lost only 1 battle in my entire playthrough, and that was simply a case of setting a "pod" off prematurely.

And that's where the real crux of the lameness lies for me - it's a game which enourages you to beat the system not the scenario. From not hurting magical opponents until you can definitely kill them in that turn, to pulling back when you sense a "pod" is up ahead, to taking shots to increase luck before taking shots to actually kill someone, it's fucking grating how much this game rewards you for predicting what the (predictable) AI will do rather than playing the scenario naturally. The balance is all off as there are few well rounded enemies and there's almost always a way out of your situation, and so you rarely feel pressured. Looking to do instinctive things such as get to high ground and find good cover go out the window way too much, because the abilities in the game turn all that on it's head too much.

What you do get though is a buzz out of chain-killing enemies. This is why I think a lot of people are able to tolerate all the sub-standard shit, and enjoy it for a while. Despite my gripes, I've found some enjoyment in the gameplay too, and when I sat back and pondered why it really was down to this, just basic bloodlust.

But the game as a whole just keeps dishing up lameness after lameness regardless.

- The inconsistent use of voices dubs is annoying as fuck, it's one of those games where it constantly changes from spoken text to just written text, and that pisses me off. Either speak or don't, don't change up several times in the same conversation.

- Exploration pads the game out unnessiarily and the side-quests are wank. I turned movement speed up to x4, but even then there's still far too much running around doing boring bollocks. I'd stopped reading the sidequest text long before the end game, as they all fall into a really predictable pattern, and are usually dependent on squad loyalty. There's rarely any tough choices to make like in the first games, it's simply just click on the obvious choice.

- The POD system is awful and carries all the same flaws the Nu X-Com series does. It does work slightly different, but the same principle remains that you do well to hang back and be careful, rather than go pushing ahead for opportunities.

- The injury system in the first game is badly missed too, something which had far more merit and allure than most of the new stuff here.

- The weapons, powers and card combinations are all far less interesting than those in the first game as well.

- Whereas the first game had you take control of several different squads and gave each chapter it's own gimmick too, this doesn't and that variety is something else which is also missed.

I'd probably give it a 6/10, it distracted me for a bit but I've no intention of replaying it on harder settings like I do most games I thrive on. I'd definitely say that anyone who wants to play it should 100% pirate it and not give their money to another company too weak to stick by it's guns.