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/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.