Hard West - tactical turn based + wild west setting

[Jedi Master Radek]

I am wrong or does AI feels weaker after the patch?

 

[Infinitron]

Wot I Think: Hard West

Much has been made of how Hard West [official site] is XCOM-with-cowboys, but if anything it’s more like Jagged Alliance. With cowboys. Demon cowboys, yes, but really they’re just cowboys with horns and a flame effect. Point is, this isn’t a game about gradually building up a super-squad and a grandiose base in order to take down an almighty, otherworldly threat, but about a small gang of gun-wielders carving or limping their way through more disassociated skirmishes.


That’s not an opinion. Not yet; I just want us to be clear. This isn’t XCOM with cowboys. It’s a turn-based strategy game with roleplaying elements with cowboys. There was a time when ‘turn-based strategy’ wasn’t defined by XCOM, you see. True, we prayed every day for a new X-COM during those wilderness years, but we didn’t want the entire genre to be about it.

I don’t think Hard West does, either. For all the superficial similarities – the percentage chance to hit, the cover system, the permanent fatalities – it’s very clearly trying to be its own game. Maybe a little too hard, to be honest. Its Wild West concept barely has a moment to breathe before it lays the demonic aspect over the top of it, to the point that it might as well have been set in present day Chicago, Belgium’s distant future or Dagenham high street on Tuesday, February 10th, 1981. The meat of the game is really just some men with guns versus some men who sometimes have horns. It’s a testament to the solid, tense combat that Hard West always feels like it’s walking its own road even despite this.

The narrative, doomy and dry, offers no shortage of Frontier tropes, though all rapidly tend towards the mystical. So please don’t turn up expecting turn-based Red Dead Redemption – though at a pinch, you’re getting the Undead Nightmare add-on.

Hard West puts the work in to build atmosphere, front-loading its numerous sub-campaigns with apocalyptic morality tales about deals with the devil, survivor’s guilt and mysterious strangers, and peppering the mid-mission dialogue with elliptical prophecies from all-knowing hermits and mad soothsayers. It’s playful, in an extremely serious sort of way. Unfortunately the presentation of the game proper can’t quite keep up, with the arid lighting, samey art and over-filled text boxes lending it an undeniable air of cheapness. The ambition is clearly there, but, I can’t help but suspect, the budget was not.

The ambition most shines in the systems. There’s a ton of ideas being thrown around, but admirably buttoned down into logical and coherent controls. For instance, each of your characters isn’t saddled with a set clutch of skills, but instead carries ‘cards’, each with their own constantly active or recharging single-shot power. You can assign any card to any character, essentially turning everyone into a specialist of your own design, rather than of the game’s. I’ve got, for instance, a guy with lousy accuracy but tons of hitpoints, who carries a shotgun and has a big movement boost so he can essentially run right up to anyone and drop a shell into their spine. Another is frail but with good range, and who can cast a fatal hex on any enemy in sight – so long as they’re not stood in sunlight.

Truth be told there aren’t quite enough characters or powers available to create too many variations, but nonetheless it’s a neat way of making your squad feel yours when visual customisation isn’t available. It might even be a more meaningful one. Which makes it only the more sad that your characters are effectively lost after just an hour or two. Not because of death – more on that shortly – but because the campaign is divided into vignettes, each with their own stars. Some interconnect, some loop back, and there is a Getting The Gang Together throughline, but it means a lot of stopping and starting.

I really like the theory behind this – there are hundreds of stories out there in the Weird West, each just as worth telling as any other – but it lends the game a stacatto feel it doesn’t deserve. Stories end abruptly, others dawdle along uncertainly before stumbling to a halt with a routine boss fight, and effort put into buying new weapons and trading tobacco and liquor across settlements simply doesn’t seem worthwhile. Even if the next story stars one or some of the same characters, all their equipment and skills reset. On top of that, some campaigns introduce new ideas, such as hunger or gold-prospecting, which are ditched come the next one, never quite establishing purpose or pay-off. It’s a jittery game, and feels as though it’s made of parts pushed loosely together rather than ever built as one whole.

At the same time, this means nothing outstays its welcome, and there’s certainly pleasure to seeing what scenario it’s going to throw at you next. Losing everything you’ve put into your characters is unforgivable, but I can appreciate that it’s been done in the name of balance. Hard West is forever seeking the sweet spot between challenging and punishing, and pretty much manages to stick to it (although you can crank things right up and turn on an Iron Man mode which necessitates restarting an entire sub-campaign if certain characters are lost). It doesn’t quite live up to the chest-thumping of its title, but as far as I’m concerned that’s a good thing.

The lack of a mid-battle save system had me swearing a few times, when one cock-up meant I’d have to repeat some 40 minutes of careful work, but it’s there to necessitate caution and thoughtfulness, and I don’t really begrudge it that. It did make me careful, to the point of anxiety – never leaving cover, reloading my weapons compulsively, scurrying wounded units way out of sight. In battle, Hard West has that special blend of tension, of risk/reward, which made so many of us love Jagged Alliance, X-COM and XCOM. Every decision feels momentous – apart from the odd moment when there’s only one enemy left but the bugger’s hiding somewhere and you have to trawl the whole map to find him.

The fights are good, then. They look a little bit ropey, a little too Made In Unity, but they’re scary and thoughtful and crunchy. The card powers are a giggle, some appealingly devastating and others curiously specialised, and they enable Hard West to regularly present scenarios which appear unwinnable at first look but are eminently beatable with a little consideration.


Outside of fights, Hard West is a more mixed bag. It tries to be a baby RPG between missions, as you scuttle across a map trading in towns and making occasional dialogue choices with slightly different outcomes, but while characterful it sadly seems a little purposeless. It’s just killing time before the next battle, and there’s every chance that will be the last battle before the sub-campaign ends and everything resets. To start with I’d try to do everything I could, agonised over every choice and every purchase, but as the game wore on I felt my time was being wasted, and sought out the quickest apparent route to more gunplay. The flavour text in these sections isn’t bad, but neither it is wild or funny or ingenious enough to prop up the innate purposelessness of scuttling around that map.

It just adds to that sense that Hard West is a turn-based strategy game with a strong core surrounded by a fragmented, uncertain exterior. I’d say it’s definitely worth picking up if your XCOM and Jagged Alliance itches currently feel unscratched, but expect something to dip in and out of, not some grand timesink opus. The best times with it will come from playing it on maxed-out difficulty in Iron Man mode, and its wounds system – whereby the injured are weaker in the short term but even stronger in the long term – turned on. Make the central battles as long as involved as possible, because that’s where Hard West has the surest footing.

 

[MasterSmithFandango]

Think that's dead on, honestly.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I think it's pretty bad. Luck is completely missing from the text, nothing about the AI, encounter/map design, weapons balance. Basic things. Some things are outright wrong, like 40 minutes encounters or graphic being bad. Apart from that, a good reviewer would see how extremely well all mechanics fit the game thematically, how tight the design is. Writing a better review would be very easy.

 

[dukeofwhales]

I'm in between scenarios so I said fuck it, let GOG Galaxy take a crack at this shit...and now it's downloading 10 GB. The game directory only has 5GB. I'm getting too old for this shit...

I have no idea what the fuck is wrong with GOG Galaxy. Serpent in the Staglands is <300MB but the download in Galaxy is measured in the gigabytes. GOG needs to get their shit together if they want to sell new games which get regularly patched, they're not even close to the same user experience as Steam.

 

[ArchAngel]

I am wrong or does AI feels weaker after the patch?

I would not know, I bought the game on GoG

Oh well LotV "free" version was finally released so this game is going on pause until that one is done.

And Steamspy now says around 20000 owners on Steam. It is getting better.

 

[Lord Andre]

Patch 1.1 is out on GOG, 19 MB updater or 3.2 GB via Galaxy.

 

[anus_pounder]

I think it's pretty bad. Luck is completely missing from the text, nothing about the AI, encounter/map design, weapons balance. Basic things. Some things are outright wrong, like 40 minutes encounters or graphic being bad. Apart from that, a good reviewer would see how extremely well all mechanics fit the game thematically, how tight the design is. Writing a better review would be very easy.

You expect any sort of quality from rps?

 

[Metro]

I think it's pretty bad. Luck is completely missing from the text, nothing about the AI, encounter/map design, weapons balance. Basic things. Some things are outright wrong, like 40 minutes encounters or graphic being bad. Apart from that, a good reviewer would see how extremely well all mechanics fit the game thematically, how tight the design is. Writing a better review would be very easy.

You expect any sort of quality from rps?

WOT U THINK

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I have just finished the natives fort from the Velásquez campaign. Genial encounter design.

 

[SerratedBiz]

Is this ever going to get an Overwatch thing? It's pretty annoying that the best way to deal with a gunman hiding behind cover is to run up to the other side of his wall / window and shoot him point-blank. Muh immershun.

 

[Zombra]

Genial encounter design.

But not xenial?

Legion

 

[ArchAngel]

Is this ever going to get an Overwatch thing? It's pretty annoying that the best way to deal with a gunman hiding behind cover is to run up to the other side of his wall / window and shoot him point-blank. Muh immershun.

How would overwatch help?

 

[Lord Andre]

Is this ever going to get an Overwatch thing? It's pretty annoying that the best way to deal with a gunman hiding behind cover is to run up to the other side of his wall / window and shoot him point-blank. Muh immershun.

How would overwatch help?

A lot of people would prefer if gameplay consisted of sitting in cover while the enemies charge into your overwatch. It would make the game more tactical you see...

 

[HotSnack]

How to deal with enemies in cover/not get flanked in Hard West:

• Use your card powers
• Use high powered/scoped weapons that deal decent damage to enemies in cover
• Don't end your turn where the enemy can see you
• Use your card powers
• Avoid engaging in cover based pew pew against the enemy
• Don't let enemies get close enough to flank you to begin with
• Flank them (why is this immersion breaking lol?)
• Use your card powers
• Use your card powers
• Use your card powers
• Use your card powers

 

[Stompa]

You didn't stress "card powers" enough. Shit's ridiculous at times, Shriek solved 90% of that Mexican town encounter for me (practically every enemy is in sight from the start and all of them had 3 hp), Disguise bypassed the whole stealth part of the girl's rescue. Part of the problem is that cards are awarded randomly which can make or break the encounter. A lot of maps were made with an assumption that player will have Ricochet, for example, yet you may go through the whole scenario without getting it.

 

[Baron Dupek]

I posted somewhere, shortly after release in News, that might be better than WL2.
What you know. It is better.
Better encounters and combat while WL2 was all about skillchecks put in the most boring way. That happen when you put codexers into game developement.

Even that patching shenaningians is better than waiting another year for complete (enhanced/director's cunt edition) game.

 

[m_s0]

All the encounter design praise makes me want to give it a shot.

 

[ArchAngel]

I finished 3 out of 8 scenarios and all have been enjoyable so far. I highly recommend this game. It is most similar to Expeditions: Conquistador but with less free roaming but better and more varied turn based combat maps.

 

[Lurker King]

Mass murder combo: the equalizer + chain kill

 

[ArchAngel]

Mass murder combo: the equalizer + chain kill

That also brings your guys to 1 hp?
Probably does not work well if I use injuries option.

Has anyone figured out what is the point of using transfusion?
Only situation I found it useful was in Inquisitor campaign when you need to save your guy in 9 turns. I saved him when he was down to 2 HP but could not transfuse him with my 5 hp guy (who heals 1 hp per turn).

 

[dukeofwhales]

Mass murder combo: the equalizer + chain kill

That also brings your guys to 1 hp?
Probably does not work well if I use injuries option.

Has anyone figured out what is the point of using transfusion?
Only situation I found it useful was in Inquisitor campaign when you need to save your guy in 9 turns. I saved him when he was down to 2 HP but could not transfuse him with my 5 hp guy (who heals 1 hp per turn).

I consistently get killed whenever I use the equaliser since it takes a full turn to use, I guess the sensible thing to do would be to put it on someone well away from the fight so your other dudes get their two actions but I am not that smart.

You're supposed to use it against enemies (have to have LOS), not friendlies. Transfusion works well when you're taking down a very high HP enemy, like a demon. Put it on a guy with 5 HP, since most of your guys will have a 5 damage gun, and most enemies do 4 damage max and you can swap his health. It only heals to maximum HP so you can't have a 20HP monster charging around but it will take the demon down to your dude's health.

 

[Kacper Szymczak]

Hey!! Sorry, took a few days off, had to sleep off the crunch. Also spent some time rummaging through some bugged wasteland.

Thank you for all your kind words!

So, to business.

Kacper Szymczak How does cover work in the game if you're not next to it? Say if I'm standing 5 squares away from a big object that offers cover - does it offer any form of protection? Also, if there are multiple objects in front of you, do they affect the enemy's chance to hit you?

In case you haven't seen it yet - it works always if only you're adjacent to a wall/obstacle, and the enemy is on the other side of the line that runs between you and the wall/obstacle. Except for sidestep cases. Well, it's pretty much like nuxcom.

Game uses save points: http://steamcommunity.com/app/307670/discussions/0/485622866434599576/

A different interpretation is that they realized implementing a save feature would be a lot of work. I would look into a savegame, I bet it's small as hell and stores just a few primitive variables.

Consider this: we'd either do a full fledged save system (implementation, debugging, support, at least 2 full ui screens) or, for example, the card screen. What'd you go with? I went with the cards. Might have cut the barter, tho. Dunno.

Also, I sort of relied on Jake Solomon's words that he wished saving/loading mid-game could be disabled in nuxcom. Makes for a save/load-fest. I know that's I played it, and I was bored to hell.

To mitigate the trouble resulting from lack of mid-combat saving, the encounters are short. I know that players tend to play cautiously, so that sort of fired back. Oh well.

What's up with enemies being able to Overwatch but not the players?

About the reaction shots, as we call them:

the thing is - the AIs weren't supposed to run up to you. But because of a bug, they did, so it worked assymetrically. Fixed in 1.1. Now they don't cheat.

Nobody here had any technical problems with the game? I cant even start it, it crashes with a runtime error after the hard west logo, or freezes and then crashes during intro screen up until the logo if I try to skip them.

Resolved yet? Lemme know on pm if not (if possible: .log file, platform, machine specs, project build)

Ok, so I finished all of the bottom 3 scenarios (DeLear, Inquisitor, Cassandra). Good fun, but I have to say that the lack of proper endings to the scenarios is jarring. You finish the last fight in a scenario and then "Scenario End!" with only a quit button available that throws you into the main menu. At the risk of sounding like one of 'those' people, I have to say that some sort of fallout type ending slides or at least a general ending slide would be good. This isn't a huge problem for the middle (inquis) scenario since the intro cutscene works both as an intro to the new scenario and as an outro to the previous one and the 3rd scenario has an okish intro as well, but considering how that one ends its especially jarring that we don't get SOME kind of ending narration.

Yeah, well, the idea was to include the story action as gameplay instead of pushing it out into cutscenes. But I agree that Cassandra's wrap-up is very abrupt.

But this really needs a Battlebrothers mode where you can just roam around with a posse and make a name for yourself.

Maybe

One thing in that changelog has me worried, though. Question to Kacper Szymczak: who are you looking to for feedback on the difficulty? From what I'm reading, encounter design is one of the strengths of this game, so I'm worried that you'll listen to that Eurogamer reviewer that seems to think that enemies not getting a free turn and diving behind cover is somehow a design flaw, or the typical Steam-gamer, and change things that don't need changing.

The optional combat in Hard Times was made easier, because numerous noobs reported getting stuck there. Sheesh.
But apart from that - ain't touch much about difficulty settings yet. Can't really say I can make out any repeating feedback. Except for OP abilities, and especially ability combos. Nerfing that would be a double edges sword, so I myself play on hard and pick some obscure abilities to flavor up the game, but don't really use them much.

Steamspy says around 10000 people are owners on Steam. Game's KS has 4800 backers. I hope most of those decided to get GoG version. Seems the first days of sales were not that great for this game. The lack of money for marketing + 1 week after Fo4 does this to you.
Also couple of bigger review sites shit on the game way more than it deserved.

Yes, it's a tough time. But business-wise it still made sense. The development was REALLY short. As in, you'd never believe how short. And I'm pretty sure this little extra time saved the launch.
Also, allegedly this isn't a sort of game that sells in the first week and then nothing, but goes flat for a long time.
Anyway - the publisher is pleased.
The stakeholders are pleased. (they need to see growth, and we have growth, compared to the previous game and production cycle)
so we're good.

Is there a way to choose which square you want to end up at when interacting with an object? It's kind of annoying that when my character insists on taking cover on the wrong side of the table or sometimes you lose movement when picking up an object. It's bad not being able to use your AP efficiently when moving.

Yes. Move up on the tile you want. Even if it was your last AP, you can still select the character manually and use the object (cause that's always free).
Except for if that's the last AP of your last character, because that ends the turn automatically.

• Detect luck of an enemy. Maybe this is a personal thing but I think this ability should've already been in the game. This ability would allow you to fine tune plays like shooting a 2 Health 75 Luck enemy with 40% CtH for 1 damage to reduce their luck below 40 and then finish them of with a 40% CtH 2 damage shot. This ability would also open the way up for variety of other abilities.

Thing is - given how card system works (random abilities) all had to be badass, because getting 'luck detection' ability would be, well, suckage.
That could be a generic mechanic, but that would waste precious UI space.
Could be an item, but that'd be out the range of the item system limitations and we'd need to expand it.
So - while I agree there could be use for that, it simply wouldn't pay off (production wise) (I guess, might be wrong ofc).

Use ~60 (This should also be the cost of Golden Bullet if not higher.) luck to get a movement AP. This can be used effectively same as Golden Bullet; get free shot and move back to cover.

Aye, but again - not that really sexy ability, aight?
Remember - our studio is known for a shit rts and had very limited resources and timeframe to do this. That is why so many parts of the game sound epic, look bombastic and are generally blown out of proportion: in hope any given press person finds stuff to write about. And they did, so I guess it worked.
But that's why you might find some basic stuff missing from the game - they were cut, cause they weren't shiny enough, or simply costed more than it seemed worth, and we preferred doing something flashy and noteworthy instead.

Like this:

I personally would've preferred having access to character screen after restart.

Totally. Me too.

It's clear you guys are really good at managing your resources. So many games with shit voice acting with fully voiced text that's written terribly.

Yes, yes we are. And this VO was made for pennies, compared to some other games out there.

Sorry for diving straight into suggestions and theory crafting it's just my way of having fun. Hopefully you can salvage something useful.

Nah, it's good, I totally did salvage useful stuff.

I'm enjoying the game a lot overall would be happy to see an expansion or two.

Doing an expansion or two.

It would be cool if enemies talked in combat like in Fallout with over head text. Don't be a fool marshal!

It would be cool, but would also be confusing because that's an essential gameplay information channel for us. So we cut it

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

the thing is - the AIs weren't supposed to run up to you. But because of a bug, they did, so it worked assymetrically. Fixed in 1.1. Now they don't cheat.

It was far better when AI "cheated". Now the difficulty got lowered very much and I don't feel I am playing more aggressive now because of the change.

The optional combat in Hard Times was made easier, because numerous noobs reported getting stuck there. Sheesh.

Don't give in to the feedback of casuals. They may buy the game once, but won't stay for next installment. Listen to the core audience. Otherwise you will repeat the Blackguards 2 fiasco all over again. And optional encounters does not feel more difficult than main encounters, on the contrary I would say. After understanding the game mechanics it gets quite too easy. Especially that I rarely use cards, play mostly by positioning.

Doing an expansion or two.

Instant buy.

Some feedback on AI after 30h of playing and 6 scenarios finished (because I feel it will in the end make or break the game):
-no AI attacking point blank made the game worse. Sometimes when the player ends the turn close to the AI, instead of finishing them off, they retreat. Even if AI shoots after retreating it trades a killing shot for a normal one. Takes much of the tension away and looks silly.
-AI still often leaves cover and stays in the open, sometimes it choses no optimal cover
-AI looks as it knew it was out of ammo only when attempting to shot. Often they rush out of cover, take aggressive position in the open and instead of shooting they reload. And die next round.
-AI is totally incompetent at dealing with players using floors of buildings. They don't charge inside they building. They don't escape from shooting range. They leave cover more often and from time to time do useless movements(traveling from a to b and then from b to a in a single turn). They let themselves be whacked like moles shooting at the player from inferior positions and making mistakes in deciding how to cover. They should gather below the stairs and then group charge the upper floor. Defending against it with dodge or chain shot would be fun. AI behave in similar fashion when dealing with players having a room with only one entry, and shooting from it. (safe room from optional quest in the brother from the final campaign is the greatest example of it. Look how badly AI will take it if you put both party members at the sides of doors and proceed to shoot it from there. ) Encouraging aggresive play by making defensive play too easy is..... a bad decision

But overall you guys are very talented, keep it up and you will have a bright future. Side note: Have you played Telepath Tactics? You seem to share some design principles with Sinister Design like deterministic approach to combat.

 

[34scell]

It would be better if you had overwatch at a cost, but enemies would only trigger it if they had enough hp to tank it.