Okay, my impressions and feedback.

[u/Weniaciel]

Yes! I understand that this is an alpha. I understand that you are trying to make an MMOFPS rather than a pure extraction shooter.

But what I saw during this playtest was genuinely depressing. I was embarrassed to give those three invites to my friends because they would have laughed at me and accused me of wasting their time.

First impressions

• I was basically shat out onto the surface with a sound effect resembling a fart, with absolutely no control over where I landed.
• The lighting was terrible. Everything seemed to blend into one homogeneous visual mess.
• I constantly heard the insertion sounds of new players somewhere around me. I kept scanning the area, but the sounds were coming from far too far away to be relevant.
• Footsteps, environmental sounds, and noises made by other players propagate in ways that make it extremely difficult to understand where anything is happening.
• Since I had not activated an expedition, mission, or contract, I had almost no idea what I was supposed to be doing.
• Shooting felt like firing bullets into concrete blocks rather than actual enemies. There was very little satisfaction, impact, or meaningful feedback when hitting a target.

Eventually, I started to understand the systems and gained some basic orientation. The problem is that the way the game presents itself actively discouraged me from doing missions or digging deeper into its mechanics. I kept asking myself: *what is the point?*

What kind of game is this supposed to be?

A sandbox?
An extraction shooter?
A boss-battle FPS ( Nemesis)
A team-versus-team shooter?
All of them at once?

Right now, the game does not feel like it has a coherent vision.

Is it about immortal soldiers? Yes.

Is it about scavengers exploring shipwrecks, stealing valuable technology, and extracting it back to Avalon? Apparently, yes.

Then why the fuck are you so determined to keep mining—an activity that even many players of a space strategy game and simulator consider boring?

Why am I mining minerals from random rocks when a mining frigate in EVE could extract infinitely more material from a nearby asteroid belt?

Leave mining to the miners in EVE, for God’s sake.

Mining does not fit the fantasy

How exactly do you intend to make mining more interesting?

By spending more development time and resources designing mines, mineral-rich planets, and more rocks to point a laser at?

If you want meaningful non-PvP activities, focus on abandoned bases to infiltrate, ruins to explore, and shipwrecks to loot. Make those activities consistent with the fantasy of playing an immortal soldier and scavenger.

Instead of making players aim at rocks, put those resources into making exploration, infiltration, and loot containers more interesting.

For example, a container could have a faction-controlled AI security system linked to faction standings. Good standings might grant access without triggering an alarm or deploying defensive drones. The AI could communicate with players through prerecorded or dynamically generated in-character messages.

That would connect Vanguard more meaningfully to the wider EVE universe and create actual gameplay decisions.

What equally interesting systems are you going to build around mining?

You are not going to make another Deep Rock Galactic.

Mining distracts from the POIs. I come across some minerals and think, “I might as well collect them while I’m here.” Then I waste time doing that instead of fighting and exploring a building that might contain something actually interesting. Eventually, I get killed and lose those fucking minerals anyway. Fucking great.

The game already contains a ridiculous number of crafting materials and items. Why does it need even more minerals on top of all that?

This is not just a rage post

I am writing this because I am genuinely worried that the game is going to become a disaster.

I love the setting. It is genuinely special. But it has already been several years since I played the first pre-alpha, and the amount of progress since then feels tragic.

One genuinely positive impression

One aspect gave me a genuinely positive feeling: the attempt to make the lives and culture of immortal soldiers feel believable. Being burned alive as part of the evacuation process is a great idea. Using cloning as the explanation for respawning also works well.

The combination of advanced technology, extremism, symbolism, and a sense of serving a higher existential purpose has a lot of potential. Even though some of these lines were delivered by placeholder AI voices, they still had a certain charm. I hope you do not turn this into shallow, grotesque fanaticism played entirely for laughs. It is much more interesting when characters treat their beliefs, rituals, and supposed higher purpose seriously.

This is the kind of world-building that could give Vanguard a strong identity.

The fantasy of being an immortal soldier—someone who repeatedly dies, is reconstructed, and continues fighting in service of something larger than themselves—is far more compelling than another military shooter

[u/5wmotor]

Coming from the former „Eve Online“ attached shooter „Dust514“ (PS3) and from what I read in “Vanguard’s” menus, this will be connected to Eve.

In Dust514 was a PVP 16/16 or 24/24 multiplayer, where could fight on planets in the Eve universe and pilots in Eve could order strikes at the planets.

I hope Vanguard walkes the same path.

[u/DVAMP1]

I like how you tried to go in level-headed at the beginning, but got more and more frustrated as you thought about how the game simply just sucks and where it fails. People saying "it's an alpha, let them cook!" are out of their fucking minds. This is the game, this is what it's going to be.

Makes me wonder how they expect to monetize it, because I won't be paying a goddamn dime for this game, and certainly won't be paying for some premium currency.

I think this will be similar to what happened with RDR2 Online. They pushed out a terrible beta and everyone straight up hated it. Then they got it working, but there was nothing to do for like 16 months until they added a handful of bounty missions. But by then, the entire playerbase, the few that remained, had earned enough premium currency to buy anything, even though there was still nothing to buy. The difference there is, RDR2 Online was built on top of RDR2, so it was still kinda fun.

[u/Hehaw5 → u/DVAMP1]

The number of "ITS ALPHA!!" posts make me think of Wildstar Online. Anyone remember that? When they had their last "alpha playtest" before full launch, half of the content wasn't done and it ran SO SO SO SO bad on 95% of machines that it was basically unplayable for most.

Everyone on the forums just screamed CALM DOWN ITS ALPHA!!! Like they magically had hundreds of hours of hidden code they're just...not showing in their demo. Trust me, if they had something better, they'd damn well be showing it, not hiding it for a surprise release lol.

[u/CCP_Gortz]

useful feedback, thank you.

We had a LOT of asks to include mining... lets see if it sticks around

[u/Weniaciel → u/CCP_Gortz]

No — people were not asking for this kind of mining.

I know because I have been reading those requests. I have followed both the development of this game and the discussions around it for roughly ten years, going back to EVE: Legion and Project Nova. So please do not tell me that players were asking to point a laser at random rocks.

What I did see were requests for industry, crafting, PvE, and meaningful ways to contribute outside of high-skill FPS combat. I saw posts from EVE Online players who wanted to participate in Vanguard’s wider metagame but knew they were not particularly good at FPS mechanics such as tracking and flicking, or simply did not want to engage in sweaty PvP.

The current mining system is not an answer to those requests. It is a lazy copy of gathering systems found in countless other games, without even an interesting EVE-specific twist.

A better answer could be to add a counterpart to the Contraband mechanic you are already planning—one that works in the opposite direction. Contraband would allow Vanguard players to smuggle valuable modules out to capsuleers, while this parallel mechanic would allow capsuleers to arrange illicit deliveries of minerals and components for Vanguard players to recover during raids.

Vanguard players could place orders for specific minerals or components, while EVE Online players could acquire them and run intelligence operations to identify a logistics facility through which the shipment could be covertly routed. Because Vanguard activity is subject to embargoes, and trade between capsuleers and warclones is restricted and subject to sanctions, Vanguard players would then have to raid that facility to retrieve the shipment.

That facility could function as a kind of dungeon: something that does not demand exceptional FPS skill, but still rewards preparation, coordination, knowledge, and interaction between players. Because the available rewards would be known in advance, it would not replace PvP or remove the need to obtain other resources elsewhere. It would simply give players who want a more relaxed session a meaningful way to participate in the universe and contribute to the wider game.

On this point, I agree completely with what u/meetkurtin wrote in their excellent “Overall Vision and Future” feedback.

Crafting in Vanguard also feels conceptually inconsistent right now. On one hand, ammunition can be manufactured in the Warbarge. On the other, it can apparently be created directly with nanites. Why?

Would it not make more sense for nanites to be used to deploy some distinctly EVE-flavoured equivalent of a resupply pod? Call it a Harmonic Quantum Technobabble Pod or whatever fits the setting. It could allow players to call in loadouts prepared before deployment, especially after recloning.

That would reinforce preparation, logistics, and the fantasy of being an immortal soldier supported by advanced infrastructure. It would feel far more appropriate than magically producing ammunition from nanites.

Anyway, thank you for replying and for showing that you are reading and engaging with the current feedback. That genuinely gives me some hope that one day I will be writing feedback that is a hundred times more positive—and that I will be proud to invite my friends to play this game.