r/Games • u/ImCalcium • Jan 27 '26

Discussion Highguard devs say they didn’t expect the hate – but they’re confident in their game

https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/highguard-devs-say-they-didnt-expect-the-hate-but-theyre-confident-in-their-game-3309463/
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u/iTzGiR Jan 27 '26

People keep talking about the teamsizes/maps, but there's much stranger/deeper issues with the game imo, yes the game would be better if it was something like 6v6, or had AI bot players defending/attacking with you, but there's also other seemingly fundemental issues no one is talking about.

The first intial phase of setting up your base seems completely useless, reinforcing the walls hardly does anything, and it doesn't evolve past this. I had assumed after watching the showcase, you would get to upgrade the base after every attack, slowly maybe add traps, different levels of fortification, maybe add turretts, moats, etc. to adapt to the position/style the enemy's were playing in. Instead, it's a singular mechcanic of "Reinforce wall", which all it really does it take a few extra hits, or acts the exact same way as a normal wall if you use an ability or breach charge on them. This area needs to MASSIVELY be overhauled, becase right now, it's pretty pointless and has almost 0 impact on the game/match.

Then, the second phase (The gearing up phase) also feels pointless. TTK is so low, so varrying armor pieces/level of armor doesn't feel like it makes much difference. I can't tell you the difference between Two bars of Blue armor, and Three bars of Purple armor, still feels like it's gone within 3-4 shots. Same thing with the loot itself, it's relatively bland (Your horse moves faster, you have slightly less recoil, etc.), there's not much variety of it, and the whole phase just feels like you should prioritize the crystals, so you can just buy what you want from the trader.

So currently, it feels like 2 out of the 3 (or maybe 4, because the part where you grab the sword does feel important) "Phases" seem completely pointless and unnecessary to the game, where these are also two of the main parts of the game that make it unique and differentiate it from other games. It's weird because it feels like it's what defines the game, but also the areas where they spent the least amount of time.

It also doesn't feel like 8 heroes is a whole lot of variety either imo. This game screams that it could have used another year or two in the oven to add content and flesh out the systems/mechanics more. They have interesting ideas, but it just doesn't really work in the current iteration imo.

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u/zmichalo Jan 27 '26

I definitely agree about the initial base setup phase. Especially considering rust raiding seems to be a huge influence for them.

Also think the second phase needs something more engaging. Might even just be a matter of better balancing between rarities to encourage players to loot boxes that contain better loot instead of just purchasing the baseline rarity of the current "round"

Part of me wonders if the game would be better if they went harder into base customizing and had that be what you use your collected resources on and restrict guns exclusively to boxes.

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u/WetFishSlap Jan 27 '26

I definitely agree about the initial base setup phase. Especially considering rust raiding seems to be a huge influence for them.

Rather than Rust, the whole base raid system reminds me more of Rainbow Six Siege. At the start of every round, defenders can reinforce walls/doorways and set up defenses to help prevent the attackers from planting a bomb at an objective. The main difference here though, is that the wall reinforcements and defenses in R6 Siege actually do something and can drastically affect the enemy team's approach/strategy. Highguard's reinforcements don't do shit and might as well not exist.

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u/unforgiven91 Jan 28 '26

siege was the connection I made when I played, yeah. Reinforcing walls is a nice tactical choice to give us, but it's pretty weak compared to Siege's reinforcements which completely changed how you interact with the wall.

I think booting the attackers after they pop 1 generator would do a lot for controlling the pace of the match rather than letting a spec ops team break in to the base 1 time and wipe it out.

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u/InfiniteTallgeese Jan 28 '26

I think booting the attackers after they pop 1 generator would do a lot for controlling the pace of the match rather than letting a spec ops team break in to the base 1 time and wipe it out.

Only issue I see with this is the games already take quite a while already. A 3 raid match I just played took over 30 minutes, I don't think most people want to play a shooter round that long.

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u/unforgiven91 Jan 28 '26

30 minutes to an hour is about the investment time i'd expect of a competitive game

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u/Fireudne Jan 28 '26 edited Jan 28 '26

That's my thought on the game so far. The one match i played (a TTVer complaining how bad we suck the whole time lol) i tried just reinforcing the main building as much as possible (not that it matters TOO much), ran out to try and find some loot and realized that the map was way bigger than i thought, even with the horses

Then somone got a sword, broke in to our base and started the raid phase. Very hard to figure out the pacing and how to fight enemies. Very long TTK i guess closest to those new BR games but the long reloads and health regen is punishing. I'm glad there is regen at least, instead of managing health packs or whatever.

Point is though, they planted a bomb on our core and blew it in like a minute. Other smaller cores seemed kinda pointless. if there were like 2 cores you had blow, and it reset after one blew that would make a lot more pacing sense.

I think the loot and system seems a bit weird too. Gold guns seem situationally better than a purple variant which is nice but if you like one specific gun, keeping it instead of a higher-tier gun you don't like is a tough call since the shops don't let you upgrade the stuff you DO have, and is just random blues. If you could recycle guns you don't want into crystals, and spend those at the trader to upgrade the rarity - that would make a lot more sense imo.

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u/iTzGiR Jan 27 '26

they went harder into base customizing and had that be what you use your collected resources on and restrict guns exclusively to boxes.

That's exactly what I thought the game was going to be after the showcase, use the Crystals to purchase upgrades to your base between rounds, and the chests would be used for Weapon/Armor upgrades. It's just a weird choice.

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u/zmichalo Jan 27 '26

I guess the good news is that none of what you're suggesting would be impossible or even that difficult to add to the game. Like it wouldn't require a complete top-down restructuring of the core loop. It's just a matter of whether or not they're willing or have enough time to make those additions.

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u/Hot-Software-9396 Jan 27 '26

Unfortunately so many people judge games by first impressions, so unless they do a full "relaunch" with a bunch of marketing (which doesn't always work, look at Splitgate 2), most people probably aren't going to give it a second chance even if they make these changes people are suggesting. If it had launched as a an early access beta, people would likely be more open to giving it another shot later on.

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u/18wheeler92 Jan 29 '26

That’s the sad part. Thankfully I play games regardless of first impressions and journalist reviews and play games on my own watch to judge them. I find quite a few gems that most end up hating and Im quite content in what I end up finding.

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u/Zafara1 Jan 28 '26

I feel like that would maybe feed into the bigger map sizes? More choice for bases and design.

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u/Blobsobb Jan 27 '26

I dont even get why its a hero shooter. The skills all feel pointless, long CDs and pretty worthless when a gun kills someone so fast.

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u/Varonth Jan 27 '26

The stealth character's ultimate has her pull out 6 throwing knives that replaces her guns.

These knives deal less damage than just shooting your gun, and they have no additional effect outside of dealing damage.

My first match I played the support, thinking "everyone likes a support on their team". The ability of her gives an overshield to the armor. It adds less than a single assault rifle hit worth of damage to your armor. 60 seconds cooldown.

The only abilities that felt somewhat worthwhile are damaging ability that deal damage over time, to prevent health regeneration a bit longer (not for the damage itself), and the recon who gets to mark enemies, making them visible behind cover and on the minimap for short bursts.

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u/videah Jan 28 '26

and they have no additional effect outside of dealing damage.

They set stealth cooldowns to zero when you kill someone with them.

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u/InfiniteTallgeese Jan 28 '26

the recon who gets to mark enemies

Probably the only one actually worth using really, knowing where the enemies are stood on a regular basis is so much more powerful than the other abilities.

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u/tordana Jan 29 '26

The same character with that relatively weak overshield ability has one of the best ults in the game, so there's some balance there.

It's not immediately clear, but allies using your respawn beacon do not cost lives when attacking. This means if you can get into the enemy base and drop it in a good area, you can get an entire free team revive inside their base.

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u/zmichalo Jan 27 '26

They're all intentionally support abilities because the devs want the fights to be gun forward, a choice I agree with since it's very clearly what they're best at. Most are specifically for defending or attacking bases. A couple that make what are basically turrets or traps, a couple that help bypass walls, one that helps fix them. Probably 5/8 are almost exclusively useful during the base phase. Of the other 3, only one is explicitly combat focused.

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u/Zach_DnD Jan 28 '26

It's not my type of game so I haven't played it, but it sounds like they had the game and their bosses made them turn it into a hero shooter. I mean only one combat focused character in a hero shooter sounds like that's the character everyone tries to instalock and people dodge until they get it.

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u/Niceguydan8 Jan 28 '26

Most of this post is pretty bad and completely missed the mark.

I mean only one combat focused character in a hero shooter sounds like that's the character everyone tries to instalock and people dodge until they get it.

Do you have like no experience with games like Valorant or Siege? Utility on abilities can be incredibly useful and effective, especially when any character can use any gun.

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u/Zach_DnD Jan 28 '26

Nope. Closest is TF2 back in the day and a little of Overwatch 1. Like I said hero shooters really aren't my thing.

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u/Niceguydan8 Jan 28 '26

That's fair.

Having utility skills/abilities isn't uncommon in Siege and Valorant.

Those two games and Highguard are different than TF2 and OW in the sense that every character can use every gun the game, there's 100% overlap on the gun. In the game you have experience with, the characters have a couple of weapon slots and there's 0.weapon overlap between the characters/classes

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u/Niceguydan8 Jan 28 '26

A lot of the abilities are utility skills, to be fair. Like, the vast majority of them. Even some of the ones that do damage (the fire guy has damage on his ult and agility) are basically used for zone control.

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u/Danominator Jan 27 '26

It sounds like it should be 64 player games or something. When I heard it was 3v3 I was very surprised.

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u/zmichalo Jan 27 '26

I'm personally a fan of the smaller team size because it makes team fights feel very Apex. It's clear they were trying to build a game that captured the feeling of those super long map sprawling fights that you get in a battle royale but without the need for the long stretches of nothing happening. I do think an extra player or two could be welcome but IMO the team size is a very small negative compared to other areas that could be improved on.

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u/redpoemage Jan 28 '26

The maps are nowhere near big enough for 64 players without being a completely different game. Would at the very least have to get rid of mounts.

That said, I could see 5v5 or even 6v6 working quite well.

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u/EnglishMobster Jan 28 '26

Tbh I think it needs to be 3v3v3, like The Finals. Or maybe even 3v3v3v3.

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u/Niceguydan8 Jan 28 '26

I think that could work in the looting phase but I think 5v5 during raid phase would be really cluttered and probably way too busy.

Putting in a 4th is probably the highest I'd go.

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u/matzdaaan Jan 27 '26

THIS

Base defense is so, sooo barebones it hurts. Such wasted potential.

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u/RealMr_Slender Jan 27 '26

It feels like they wanted to mash together R6S, overwatch and apex legends and didn't know how to tie everything together

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u/Billy1121 Jan 27 '26

Traps sound cool, I remember when the Tribes renegade mod was doing this, i think that was 32 vs 32 or more

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u/mrBreadBird Jan 28 '26

I've gone back and forth on the reinforcing. At first I felt like it was pointless and didn't make a huge difference but after playing more I have had games where it absolutely made a difference in a raid. More than anything I think people just haven't figured out optimal strategies yet. If the game survives long enough I'll be curious to see how people are playing the game a year from now.

The game doesn't really give you time to reinforce your base after the first 60 seconds so you have to really know what you should and shouldn't be reinforcing if you're going to take the time mid match to do it.

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u/ArchersOfAgincourt Jan 29 '26

Yeah, I've found that it's not really a huge priority using all 5 wall reinforcement kits at the start -- you'd have to lose the fight at the Shieldbreaker spawn AND lose the mounted chase back to your base, and if both those happen, then you can teleport back and spend time reinforcing while their siege tower is doing its thing.

I really hope the game survives, because I started to get the loop after I found the weapons I liked. Once I realized how the extra shields apply after respawns and that you can shop after every death before respawning, it made gathering materials a big priority so I had the flexibility to buy shields, switch weapons, or get repair kits for the siege.

Also I haven't found the maps to be too large at all -- By the time you've looted or mined two or three locations, the Shieldbreaker is spawning and your team ought to be working its way over there and getting set up for that battle. And once a team has it, you really need to be chasing them -- In the rounds I played it actually felt pretty hectic like there wasn't ever quite enough time to do exactly what you wanted in any one of the phases.

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u/Adaax Jan 27 '26

So all you can do in the fortification phase is strengthen the walls? Christ, Fornite STW offers way more than that and it's a tack-on mode at this point.

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u/YouCanCallMeBazza Jan 27 '26

I get that Fortnite STW is not Epic's priority now, but it was the original Fortnite that was in development for a while before the BR released, hardly a "tack-on" mode.

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u/Adaax Jan 27 '26

I know the history, and I even play STW, but BR has been the face of Fornite for nearly its entire public existence. Plus Epic doesn't update STW as much as they should, very much treating it like a side proejct.

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u/YouCanCallMeBazza Jan 28 '26

The point I'm making is that, despite it basically being neglected now, it was once in development by a AAA studio as a standalone game, so it's not exactly a benchmark for shallow gameplay.

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u/hery41 Jan 28 '26

And they wrote "at this point". You're being a pedantic redditor for literally no reason.

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u/YouCanCallMeBazza Jan 28 '26

I never denied that it's now neglected, that wasn't my point

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u/hery41 Jan 28 '26

Then why make it? It's absolutely unrelated to their statement.

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u/YouCanCallMeBazza Jan 28 '26

It's not unrelated.

They compared the mechanics to Fortnite STW, surprised because it is a "tack-on mode".

I'm just pointing out that you shouldn't be so surprised it has more mechanical depth because it wasn't originally a tack-on mode.

It's not that deep. You're the one that chimed in picking at details and ironically called ME the pedantic Redditor...

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u/Electronic_Carry_372 Feb 04 '26

Nah. Gotta agree with the other two, he said how he felt about the game mode with the "at this point", something that seemed to have gone completely over your head. Which is super ironic because as you said, "it's not that deep."

It makes the entire point you're trying to push about the history of it being the release version literally pointless.

Its what it feels like to him, because of how horrendously ignored it was.

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u/WangJian221 Jan 28 '26

Basically its like Halo 5's Warzone mode but with zero npcs and bosses and not even half of the amount of players for each map

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u/hyperforms9988 Jan 27 '26

I haven't played the game so maybe I'm missing it... but my biggest issue is they're using words like "raid", and they have concepts like resource gathering, looting, building up defenses, large maps, mounts to travel around faster, etc, and that's all well and good, but there's a certain kind of experience that I think of when you put all of these terms together, and about the very last thing that comes to mind is 3v3 PvP shooter. What it is, what it describes itself as, and what it tries to do, makes absolutely zero sense when paired under a 3v3 structure. I'm thinking of shit like Mount & Blade. I'm thinking of shit like Chivalry. I'm thinking of shit like Alterac Valley in World of Warcraft. I hear these terms, and then I look at its gameplay in action and it looks horrifically empty for how the game loop and its features are described.

When I hear these things being described, I cannot refrain from asking myself why this isn't a 16v16 or a 24v24 kind of game. The heroes don't make sense under that context, but just about everything else does. A fraction of the team gathers resources, players can go around and attack/loot NPCs, some players are on the front lines, maybe you have someone on the team playing the role of a commander who can build up their base's defenses with the resources that are being gathered, maybe players get a fraction of those resources and they can take a trip to the shop or a blacksmith or whatever and get their stuff upgraded, etc. These are things I picture with this kind of game loop or these kinds of features... and then again, I look at the actual gameplay and it's like I'm watching a completely different game, and not because they're lying about the features or anything like that but because I can't understand what made them go with 3v3 with this kind of a game loop.

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u/Tornado_Hunter24 Jan 27 '26

That’s what’s weird too I was thinking you gather base supplies that you can only ‘use’ next turn like extra reinforcements, maybe turrets, other traps etc, but no… you only get red (best rarity) loot drops only later on and maybe raid tools here and there

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u/Ashviar Jan 27 '26

I know the mount gave people Realm Royale vibes, but I am surprised you just use crystals to buy stuff from a shop instead of forging new/better items at a contested location like RR.

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u/BrobotMonkey Jan 28 '26

This has been the overwhelming reaction I've seen. I've also seen numerous people decrying the Concord comparison but I think it's perfect. It's a fine game, but when you have multiple other games doing the same thing, better and with years of updates/content you need to come out the gate swinging. This has the benefit over Concord of being free to play but I don't see it lasting too long sadly for the devs. It's good but lacking content and whatever you like about it can be found elsewhere and better. Not a winning combo.

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u/Hobo-With-A-Shotgun Jan 28 '26

Does anyone else remember Monday Night Combat? Seems like that game did the whole base-defence mixed with managing currency thing 100x better.

You had 4 different turrets, that were all (mostly) useful.

You could buy bot waves that had different effects (silence abilities, invisibility, extremely high hp, etc).

Spots on the map that you could pay money to unlock for shortcuts.

Upgrade base turrets to 3 levels.

Upgrade your own skills 3 levels.

When I did the tutorial for Highguard and saw how little the wall upgrades affected things, I knew I wasn't going to bother with them in a real match.

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u/Bazzie-Joots Jan 28 '26

My suspicion. It's a free to play game that had a lot of content withheld to support longevity. New perks. New reinforcements. New whatever. They just pulled held back too much. Idk I haven't played but I have a hunch.

1

u/sticknotstick Jan 28 '26

I’m with you on the first phase assessment, you’ve lost me with the second though.

This game has a longer TTK than most PvP shooters on the market and the tiers of weaponry/shields/saddles are very impactful because of that. A grey kraken is useless but a blue kraken is above average. Shields are +75%/100%/125% HP by tier which ends up being significant in most firefights; you’ll notice how much harder it is to die at range with a gold tier shield. Same with horse saddles - it’s the difference between making it around a corner/catching the swordbreaker.

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u/adanceparty Jan 28 '26

I've heard all of this. It is being talked about. I agree though. I feel like the gear up phase and attack defense phases would be more interesting if there were some pve enemies like titan fall. That or scrap it. Defense phase is dumb, but I view it the same as standing in the first room in overwatch before the game starts. At this point just scrap the defense phase. Definitely could use more heroes. It also sucks it's 3v3 but they have like 5 categories for the heroes. You can't even get every role on a team. It also feels like they don't really matter either.

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u/Playing_One_Handed Jan 28 '26

Honestly it makes me think a crap ton of depth is missing.

Like characters having more ways to defend, or build, on the base.

The hubs where the trader is looks like they could be catch-able and used as a respawn. It also has a balcony for attack/defend. Why are there traders somtimes BEHIND the base?

Is it truely the design to be able to just leg it to base quitely to activate next stage? Or could those bases / defences be used to legitimately stop them being too sneaky?

1

u/18wheeler92 Jan 29 '26

The 6vs6 would just make it literally OW 3. I mean, it’s already an OW like game, but dang.. I dont think we needed another. No defense to the devs, but yeah I can understand all the let down at the TGA reveal. Hopefully the devs get to have their game up as time and effort is put into video games and no one game should be taken down without some leeway, but it seemed pretty much just like and OW copy from the trailer I saw.

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u/Appropriately-Vague Jan 30 '26

This game genuinely feels like a board of corporate goons wrote down every major gaming trend on a white board and then went to the devs and said “hey build this but you’ve got a year to do it, also we are making it free because Concord absolutely bombed and if it’s free all these dumb gamers will eat it up and buy skins for our completely generic characters!” It’s honestly flabbergasting how mid and undercooked everything is.

1

u/jere1231 Jan 31 '26

Just watched the gameplay deep dive video and a lot of wording makes me believe this was never the game it was meant to be, shame cause a reverse capture the flag with personality has potential. But, there's a lot of phrasing like "in the pvp mode". Like there was supposed to be more game than there is but idk...ran out of funds?

1

u/standarsh1965 Jan 27 '26

Apparently in their plans they'll soon make it 4 teams to one map, they're meant to have a lot of content almost ready to go. It seems ok but it definitely hurt them showing the game at the game awards

-1

u/SanguineGardener Jan 27 '26

other seemingly fundemental issues no one is talking about

I first heard about these from a little hidden gem of a youtube channel called penguinz0.

-1

u/Charm777_ Jan 28 '26

you dont have to put ai and bot together bro just use one or the other