Season 3 Shenanigans

[Szei]

I feel like Outwitters has a lot of potential, though the window to achieve status as a competitive game in the longterm is slipping away. There are a few problems preventing true success and mainstream appeal.

Long Games
Outwitters is asynchronous which is great for people who don't have time to sit down and play out whole games at once. However, this harms the competitive tournament scene as these events can take an extremely long time.

Suggestion: If Outwitters 2 is made there needs to be a mode where each player has ~30-60 minute clock to guarantee games last no more than 1-2 hours. This can be used in tournament settings (there would still be the standard 4 day turn limit for league play).

Learning Curve
Outwitters has simple mechanics, but the game is actually not as interesting at a low level. Sure, you can learn how to play very easily, but specials are difficult for beginners to get out let alone use effectively due to their cost. In the early days after Outwitters' release there were a number of threads by people requesting specials cost less (and this continued for the first few months). It turns out that they were actually priced well and people simply hadn't learned how to save wits effectively enough to use specials. Unfortunately, it appears that many were turned away from the game by this initial learning curve. I had an extensive argument on a forum (I believe it was pockettactics) with some people who felt this way and never really gave it a chance as a result. They said ridiculous things like "all the teams are the same and specials don't play much of a role".

Suggestion: I'm not actually sure what can be done. The issue is that the teams actually are very different despite only having one special and being quite pricy. However, at the same time newer players don't get to witness this as well. Perhaps in a sequel each team could have two specials. I see a few benefits to this at the cost of losing some of Outwitters clean, simple design philosophy (which is unfortunate, but perhaps worth sacrificing a little). Primarily, the introduction of a second, slightly cheaper unique unit for each team will allow even new players to feel the unique nature of each team. Perhaps this second special could cost 4 or 5 wits. This may also make the game easier to balance. Why? Currently if you adjust one special to make a particular matchup balanced, you unintentionally impact all the matchups. It is very hard to balance all the matchup as a result. With 2 specials per team you can tweak each matchup more easily.

Graphical Style*
OML gave Outwitters a less serious graphical style to presumably attract more players, casual in addition to competitive. A reviewer (I don't remember who) pointed out that there is perhaps somewhat of a conflict here. Often times, serious strategy games have a serious graphic style. Usually either futuristic or medieval/fantasy. With its cartoony graphic style, the reviewer stated (and I would imagine he is right at least to some extent) that quite a number of people looking for a competitive strategy game likely passed Outwitters by after looking at the screenshots. There was no doubt for me that I would purchase Outwitters, but that was only because I had a great experience with OML's first game and had much respect for them as a result of the direction they took TTL (premium game with numerous free updates). However, had I not been familiar with OML and read every post on their homepage during Outwitters' development, there is a good chance I would have given the game a pass. Had I not known Alex was an avid Starcraft fan and was implement leagues and matchmaking, the less serious style probably would have given me the false impression that the game wasn't a competitive one.

Suggestion: I hesitate to say this as the current art has grown on me after all this time with the game, but perhaps give the sequel a more serious theme? Possibly you could have an alternate graphical mode that users can toggle between. "Default mode" which would be either a futuristic or fantasy theme and "Classic mode" which would be like the original Outwitters' style. I imagine this would be a lot of work for Adam but you could sell the classic theme (I'm sure many of us who have stuck with Outwitters all this time would be happy to purchase this to show our support). Again, I do hesitate to make this suggestion though because I like the unique teams Outwitters has and I feel it would lose some of its charm if it were to revert to a generic sci-fi theme. However, perhaps charm is not what most people are looking for in a competitive TBS?

Note that receptivity to the idea of giving the Outwitters theme an overhaul will probably be skewed on these forums. The people who are still here are those who either liked the art-style or didn't mind it. This may give a false impression of what "most" people want as you are missing feedback from all the people who simply skipped past Outwitters due to the graphical style.