Stormgate News

Replays and Build Order Openers Now Available on Untapped.gg

Albino of afterMath Esports is one of Stormgate’s top players, and he believes replays are the most valuable tool you can use to become a better player. They allow you to break down your game into key moments or phases, enabling you to analyze specific aspects of your gameplay. This makes it easier to replicate successful strategies and better handle scenarios based on your mistakes.

Thanks to our friends at Untapped.gg, a leader in the field of data-driven tools for gamers, you now have a way to research different Stormgate build openers to practice based on how effective they have performed with robust search options including win rates by faction matchup, skill ratings, and even filter by map.

Want to practice like a pro? Watching high-level gameplay and comparing it to your own will help you understand how they handle certain situations, enabling you to adopt techniques and strategies from top players. When analyzing a replay from a professional, it’s important to watch the clock. Ensure that you’re building structures at the same times they are and have the same number of units when they do. Setting goals for yourself—such as identifying one or two aspects to improve—will help you focus your practice. Reviewing your own replays can reveal why you may not be reaching your goals or why you have fewer units/tech than high-level players.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Reviewing replays from high-level players is one of the best ways to learn and execute new, fun, and successful strategies. It can also help you counter certain strategies that give you trouble. For example, if you’re an Infernal player struggling with 2-base all-ins from Vanguard, you can find a replay of an Infernal player defeating that specific build order.

If you are committed to making serious improvements to your competitive play, it’s important to make replay review a regular habit. Consistent analysis helps you see improvement in your own play over time. Watching replays can also positively impact your mentality. Noticing your own progress over time can be a powerful motivator. Even if you come away from a bad loss on full tilt, by going back and analyzing your gameplay in a calm manner (after replacing your broken keyboard), you can reduce that feeling of frustration and develop a more positive mindset. Having friends or a coach review a replay with you can also create a sense of camaraderie and support, reinforcing a positive environment for growth.

Watching replays will also help you refine your mechanics and improve decision-making. Observing your actions, such as micro-management in big fights or worker production lapses, can highlight areas where you need to improve your mechanics. By analyzing moments when you hesitated or made a questionable choice, you can learn to trust your instincts or weigh your options more effectively.

Replays provide concrete examples of how to improve. Whether it’s learning new build orders, optimizing strategies, enhancing mentality, improving mechanics, or discovering new and successful tactics, replays are a key component and a valuable tool for your improvement.
Untapped.gg has made it easier than ever to find high-level replays tailored to your playstyle. We hope you’ll take advantage of this new feature and let the Untapped team know in the untapped.gg channels on our official Discord if you’d like to see additional features or functionality in the future.

[h2]USING THE NEW REPLAY AND BUILD OPENERS FEATURES[/h2]

Starting today, you can visit the Stormgate Untapped.gg page and click on the OPENERS tab at the top of the nav to discover the most popular and successful opening build orders for your favorite faction. Maybe you specifically want to improve your results as Celestial vs. Infernal on Broken Crown as you’ve been struggling?

Here, you might see a win rate just under 50% when you open with a Collection Array.

But look, if you dig a level deeper, you can find that going Collection Array > Creation Chamber isn’t nearly as successful as following up with a fast expand into a second Collection Array, before building your first Creation Chamber (and following that with a third Collection Array).

Let’s dig in deeper. You can click on the magnifying glass on the right to then check out match replays where you can see these build openers in action. This view shows you the units and structures created as well as the upgrades that player picked. Don’t worry if you’re a competitor and don’t want your strats shared–these games are anonymized as “Player 1” vs. “Player 2”, so your strats will be a secret unless you opt into sharing your replays with the public.

So what do you do once you’ve found a replay file to study?

Click the download icon to download the replay
Save the replay file to your replays folder. It is typically located in: C:/Users//AppData/Local/Stormgate/Saved/Replays/
The is the name of the folder where the replays are contained from the latest build of the game.
Launch Stormgate and go to the Replay viewer by clicking the button at the top.

Please note: Only replays from the current build are downloadable or viewable in the Stormgate client. Replays from older builds will not be viewable.

And you’re in! Use the tools to speed up, slow down, and learn everything you can. GLHF!

Inside the Development of Team Mayhem - Episode 3: Welcome to Scorched Earth

In this entry, we’re excited to give you an in-depth look at the making of Scorched Earth, the first map designed for Team Mayhem. As we continue to refine this fast, furious, and unconventional 3v3 mode, Scorched Earth plays a central role in providing players with tactical depth and varied gameplay, pushing teams to coordinate and adapt to different objectives across the map.

First, a quick recap of our design goals for Team Mayhem:

Team-focused gameplay (Start together, end together)
Short-to-Medium game-length (Easy to fit multiple matches into a play session)
Loads of positive teamplay opportunities (Also, avoid conflict between teammates)
Support Hero and Sub-faction variety (To keep the meta and team comps highly varied)

[h2]Map Design Priorities[/h2]

Creating a map for a 3v3 mode involves a completely different approach than a traditional 1v1 map. Jorge, one of the designers who helped build Scorched Earth, explained:

"My main goal was to create an engaging playspace that could accommodate six entire armies, offer a variety of tactics, and complement the 'battery' and 'core' mechanics. This map offers a lot of opportunities for teams to outmaneuver, pincer, funnel, flank, and surprise the opposing team, while offering multiple defensible positions."

He also emphasized how Team Mayhem encourages players to build forward positions and defend the neutral territory:

"Unlike 1v1, this map is designed around the new central mechanics for this mode, the 'batteries' and the 'cores'. We wanted the batteries to be placed in neutral territory away from the player’s main bases to encourage the construction of defensible positions at the Luminite sites across the map."

Early Version of Scorched Earth Map (Not Final)

[h2]Varied Gameplay and Tactical Choices[/h2]

One of the key elements of Scorched Earth is providing players with meaningful choices throughout the game. As Greg, another designer on Team Mayhem, pointed out:

"We wanted to make a map where there isn’t a clear best way to play. We want players to have several options for what they can do at any given point in a game. Some areas of Scorched Earth focus heavily on expansion, while others offer key objectives, such as additional battery towers, creep camps, and even a boss creep. This way, you could claim advantages that fit your personal playstyle or your team’s goals."

Greg further explained how different parts of the map are designed to support varying playstyles:

"For example, the bottom left corner is very expansion-heavy, while the top right corner has an extra battery tower spawn, more creep camps, as well as the boss creep."

Balancing these different areas was one of the major challenges the team faced, with Greg noting:

“We needed to figure out the right balance between the number of expansions, creep camps, and other map objectives. We also needed to make each of the different objectives feel rewarding to go for. As we were testing, we went back and revised the map to make the terrain, cliffs, and chokes more interesting and varied from one spot to another to create a more dynamic playspace.”

From Jorge’s perspective, one of the major challenges was creating an engaging playspace that can comfortably accommodate six players.

“This is surprisingly tricky. There are “sweet spots” you must discover as a designer when it comes to spacing and distances. Choke points can quickly become frustrating if too tight, and areas that are too open can feel bland. Through a lot of testing and iteration I believe we found the sweet spot for a 3v3 map, and I’m excited to see how Scorched Earth plays out when it goes live.”

[h2]Art and Environment Design[/h2]

Scorched Earth sets players up on a deserted, post-apocalyptic wasteland tileset. From an art perspective, Scorched Earth has evolved with the rest of the game and benefits from our recent improvements to lighting and terrain. Joanna, one of our artists, shared her thoughts:

"Exploring the map is really cool because it’s like playing hide and seek with enemy camps. It’s a game of dividing and conquering areas, as each team fights to compete for additional resources."

Joanna even pointed out an unintentionally fun detail resulting from the map’s asymmetric design:

"I discovered that one corner of the map looks like a goat’s head. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it."

Pro tip: Goated teammates work together. They don’t butt heads.

Jorge shared a few more of his thoughts on Scorched Earth, pointing to the work the artists put into the map as one of his highlights:

“I love the environment art in Scorched Earth and how our gun “Cores” turned out. Our art team is amazing and our maps are improving week after week. I believe this map is a glimpse of what’s to come and highlights our commitment to continuously make this game better for our players.”

[h2]Moving Toward Playtesting[/h2]

We are preparing to enter very limited closed alpha playtesting for Scorched Earth in phases, similar to how we handled our pre-alpha and alpha tests. Initially, we will invite a very small number of players, with more players brought in over the following weeks. We’ll share instructions for how you can participate here on the official website and in the #announcements channel on the official Stormgate Discord. This phased approach helps us gather valuable feedback while ensuring we can take some time to fine-tune the map and its mechanics before inviting additional testers.

We’re looking forward to hearing what players think of Scorched Earth and seeing the strategies that emerge as teams explore all of Team Mayhem’s possibilities.

Stormgate Patch 0.1.2

Hello, everyone. You have successfully summoned the patch notes!

The Frost Giant development team is working hard on numerous significant initiatives for Stormgate. This includes improving our campaign content, evolving and refining the game’s art and audio, gathering data for an upcoming balance patch, and kicking off limited closed playtesting for our Team Mayhem game mode. As a result, we are renaming this upcoming release to patch 0.1.2, coming October 29, to better reflect its focus on delivering critical performance improvements for a significant number of our players. It also includes refinements to the Co-op Gear system and even includes a spooky holiday login bonus of free cosmetic rewards. We expect to release a 0.1.3 patch in the near future that will include balance changes for competitive 1v1 play. Our 0.2.0 content update is expected later this year.

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[h3]Support:[/h3]
How to Install Patch 0.1.2 on Steam:

Open Steam
Click on Library to see your games list
Click Downloads at the bottom of the Library window
If the new build does not download automatically, click the Download Now button to manually download the new update

How to report a bug or provide feedback on the latest build: https://playstormgate.com/feedback

Still having trouble? Visit our Stormgate Help Center.

Help us out by leaving a review over on Steam: bit.ly/stormgate

Build Spotlight:

[h2]Performance Improvements[/h2]
Smooth performance makes a huge difference to your experience, and our team has been hard at work triaging the performance issues players have been reporting. We are still actively working on performance improvements as we continue down the road to 1.0, and this patch brings several changes that should improve performance for some of you.

First, we've improved some of the issues with DX12 and have identified and addressed several of the major issues impacting performance with DX12. We've seen increases in FPS by up to 50% on some of our hardware configurations in local testing. We recommend players give this a shot and report any persisting issues. (Note: If you are still experiencing issues, you can revert to DX11 by selecting a different launch mode.)

We've also been focused on performance improvements for late-game and lower spec hardware, which have generally been CPU-bound. These optimizations should also help alleviate input lag in many situations.

Our rollback implementation is now also more dynamic. It will not be active if there isn't enough headroom to support it (rollback improved responsiveness at the expense of an extra tax on the CPU).
We'd love to hear if you feel the difference or if you’re still experiencing performance issues. Jump into the game and let us know how it plays now compared to before--any details about your specific experience will help as we continue to work on this aspect of our game. Your feedback is an incredibly helpful contribution to our ongoing efforts to make Stormgate feel great to play.

[h2]Improvements to the Co-op Gear System[/h2]
Gear, in general, is a system that a lot of player’s don’t realize is available to them, but once discovered, changes the whole Co-op experience. With this patch, we aimed to improve the Hero Gear progression system by making it available at lower levels. First off, players can unlock gear slots for all Heroes at level 6 and 11, making gear viable at early progression stages. To round out the gear choices, we’ve added a 6th unlockable piece of gear for each Hero giving players more options to make their Hero unique.

In addition, we’ve changed the progression paths of each of our Heroes to incorporate these changes and help make the experience of leveling them up feel more impactful.

This is just the start, and there is a lot more on the way from the Co-op side of things. We are listening and plan to continue improving and evolving this mode to make it as fun (and approachable) as possible.

[h2]Free Spooky Login Rewards through December 4, 2024[/h2]
Trick or treat! Log in to Stormgate between October 29, 2024 and December 4, 2024 to collect two frighteningly FREE cosmetic rewards with our undying gratitude for gently tap, tap, tapping at our chamber door on Steam. (Please note that these creepy cosmetics will only be free for a limited time. Both will be available for purchase in the in-game store after December 4.)

What can you expect to see in your goodie bag?

[h3]Souls of the Fallen Fog of War Shader[/h3]
Honor the spirits of the dead and invite them to witness your prowess on the battlefield with this hauntingly beautiful fog of war shader. Please note that this shader provides no tactical benefit to either player. It simply lets you revel in the number of fallen enemies swarming around you.
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[h3]Shudderfly Pet[/h3]
This spectral moth glides through the night upon wings shimmering with ghostly particles. It’s the perfect eerie companion to help welcome your enemies to a gruesome defeat.
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[h2]Team Colors[/h2]
Some new options for team color display are now available. Here’s how they work:

Standard colors are assigned based on the player slot. So in versus, Player 1 is always blue, Player 2 is always red. And in a 2v2 team game, you might spawn in as the warm color set, or the cool color set.
Cool vs warm assigns you the cool set of colors, and your enemies the warm set of colors. So in a versus match, each player will see themselves as blue, and the other as red.
Friend vs Foe colors are designed to help battle readability by making your enemies appear red, regardless of what player slot they’re in. In co-op and team games, there can be multiple enemy players so this unifies their colors to make it easier to identify the bad guys.

Patch Notes

[h2]Performance[/h2]

DX12 is now the default launch mode for hardware that supports it.
Improved stability issues with DX12 and addressed several of the major issues impacting performance with DX12.
Optimizations to late game and lower-spec hardware which should alleviate input lag in many situations.
Rollback is now more dynamic and will not be active if there isn’t enough headroom to support it.

[h2]Campaign[/h2]

We’ve added a button to the options menu to restart the mission from the beginning (instead of the last save point).

[h2]Co-op[/h2]

Gear
- We have reworked Hero Gear progression on all heroes for a more satisfying leveling experience.
- Gear slots now unlock at level 6 and 11 (was 11 and 13).
- All heroes have a new 6th piece of gear available.

[h2]General[/h2]

Cosmetics
- Souls of the Fallen Fog of War
- Shudderfly Pet
Range Indicators
- Abilities now feature a range indicator to allow for more precise targeting. This initial rollout of range indicators will continue to be iterated on and improved.
Target Validation
- Abilities now show a cursor change when an ability cannot be successfully targeted on the hovered area or unit.
Audio
- Improved some unit and Hero audio to feel more impactful
Art
- All 1v1 and Co-op maps have received a polish pass to improve visual fidelity.
Camera Angle
- Game camera was lowered 5 degrees to subtly improve unit legibility and selection.

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

Returning to the Co-op main screen after completing a game now correctly selects the same hero you last selected.
Creep camps no longer spawn facing in random directions.
Fixed various issues that could occur when loading from a campaign checkpoint.
Opening menus or switching quick macro tabs should no longer cause the next mouse input to be missed.
Fixed an issue where Shadow Mastiffs were doing more than the intended damage against air units.
Morph Cores are no longer automatically added to control group 1.
The Scanner’s Tag will no longer autocast on Critters.
Fixed an issue where Vectors would not retain their upgraded speed with the Recall Potential upgrade.
Vectors now correctly share a focus group after Delta Jumping.
Fixed an issue where Helicarrier could still attack while stunned.
Fixed an issue where the Kri’s Blaze of Light did not grant +20 damage as advertised.
Fixed an issue where the Shadowflyer’s armor debuff could not be dispelled.
Fixed an issue where the Radioactive Blood debuff from Slime creeps could not be dispelled.
Building an Ascension Matrix with a Morph Core now costs the correct amount of Therium (50 instead of 100).
Purify can no longer be cast in the fog of war.
Various other bug fixes and performance improvements.

Patch Launch and Maintenance - October 29 1700 GMT

🛠️In order to prep for the launch of patch 0.1.2 we will hold maintenance October 29 at 1700 GMT.

Stormgate will be unavailable for up to 2 hours, and you will see a “NoPermission” error if you attempt to log in.

Stormgate dev hires another StarCraft veteran to deliver the style it deserves

As a new RTS game very much following in the footsteps of titans, Stormgate has a strong list of names at its back. It boasts several former Blizzard developers from the production of StarCraft, Warcraft, and Diablo, as well as designers who worked on the Command and Conquer series. While the free Steam game has a lot to praise mechanically, the main criticism from players has been around its unpolished visual state, which is currently a far cry from the flash of StarCraft 2. In order to help rectify this, developer Frost Giant Studios is bringing in another Blizzard veteran with a powerful résumé.

Read the rest of the story...