[dalt_ud]

A lot of text, but i want to try to help with this game, its not hopeless.

I am guy who like shooters, i played it a lot (~10 000 hours played from 2008 for now on ps3 and ps4). I played a lot of different games (Resistance 1,2,3, battlefield bad company 1,2, Battlefield 3,4, Killzone 3, Destiny 1, including many free2play games Dust514, Planetside 2, Blacklight retribution, Loadout, Fortnite, H1Z1 Royal battle, World of Tanks (its, dare to say, some kind of shooter too).

So, i want to say, i know shooters well.  And i am old enough to make some analisys. And yes, english is not my native, so dont take my mistakes in it too seriously, try to take what i mean.
My post addressed to developers, i dont care about opinions of players.
I like concept of game, its interesting enough, but game will not become popular if devs wont understand what they do wrong.

I waste my time to write it as experiment, i doubt if any devs will read it and take it seriously (they usually have too high opinion about themselves and their sacred plans about evolution of game), but i want to try.

Now what i want to say about free2play games and about that game in general.
I saw 2 ways of evolution of free2play games:
1. Explosive burst of popularity - World of Tank, Fortnite
2. Balance near death line of numbers of online players - any others free2play game (sometimes they near death from beginning, sometimes they lost their players because mistakes in development choices)

So. This game obviously not going to be 1 way of popularity. 
And here we are to try to undertand why free2play games lost their players. I will say it from point of view of competetive player.

1. Bugs, unbalance and netcode problems.
This game have good enough quality about bug and netcode. But characters is unbalanced. Unbalancing usually not problem at all, if game is interesting, most people can wait fixes of balance.
2. Lack of content. Lack of goals.
For start of game here is enough of missions. But for me here is obvious lack of goals after 2-3 hours of playing. You can set as goals - unlocking characters and weapons only. Ok, for some time its work, because of curiosity of players, and some players just like to try hard to collectioning things (i dont understand them, but they exist and here are many of them). But any player can make some approximation - i got new character, and new weapon... for what? What i will do with it? Why i must spent time (a lot of time in this game) to get new one? And answers for Spacelords is not positive for developers - answer is - to do the same, what i did 100th times before it. And when player will get this answer - he most likely will leave this game. I almost deleted this game, because of it, only one thing stopped me from that action, i will write about it further.

Characters and weapons should be resource to play the game. Game must give the goals, where characters and weapons is just tools. For now you can get tools to get other tools. Its seems pointless for anyone, who can think in one step to future at least.
Btw, same thing happens with planetside2. When fun from new experince is over - player suddenly discover - game dont have other goals instead collecting of weapons. And players leave it.

So most free2play games (especially unpopular) usually do same thing:
Make game with unique feature (massive battles in planetside 2, or "wallhacking" helmet instead of minimap in Blacklight retribution, and Antagonist in Spacelords) - and think it will work forever for attracting new players. It wont work in long perspective, any new experience lost its newness fast or very fast. And if devs have nothing more to provide for players - game die or balance near death.

How to solve this problem? Its hard enough, but i guess is possible.
Basically your game is same as Destiny with only unique feature - Antagonist. But Destiny contain not only PvE, but also its contain PvP, and they do a lot of activities to hold players in the game. Your Spacelords contain only PvE, your Antagonist feature - is not make it real PvP. And playing same missions hundred of times is boring for both sides.

Even Bungie have not many resources to create new PvE content fast enough to satisfy players, so they do activities, challenges and etc. Not enough, and their PvP system is bad, its have same lack of goals, no clan system, no clan battles, no true competetive.

When player play PvP game - he like to compete with other players. What its mean? Its mean he is like to compare his skill with skill of other player. Its one part of it. Other - here a lot of people, its impossible to play against everyone to compare with them. So, smart people figured, we need to make statistics of players, and rating of players. so each player can see his own statistics (accuracy, % of headshots, KD, WL, MMR) share it with anyone, and bragging it, or shame it, and try hard to improve it.
So making new content ( i mean new missions only, making skins or weapons - is pointless, if you do only that) - its not primary goal for devs. Because its dead lock in long terms.
Devs must make new gameplay experience in existing content. Like improve PvP system, make statistics, site where we can watch it, make new PvP modes, 2vs2, 4vs4 and more. Make rating of Antagonists, Mercenaries in public sites and etc. Also new PvE activities, like "hold waves of enemies" and etc.

And devs should do it first, they have no time to lazy creating new weapons and skins. Players will leave this game before it, here nothing to do.

I am totally bored while writing this post. So its over.

And here only reason why i not deleted this game - you make this game without aimassist (thanks for you), and i keep it as "training apparatus" to keep my aiming skill up. So i play as Harec only, and do headshots, when i have no friend online to play other games, where devs make goals instead of endless collecting weapons.

[PohtHehd]

Often the only annoying thing about this community is the constant stream of people who have played it for a week and think they know exactly everything about it. Then they make demands and they make threats of leaving or predictions that the game is soon to die because of something they didn't like about it; probably getting overwhelmed as an Antagonist or Raider.

In this instance, you have played for less than 10 hours by your own admission and truly believe you understand how the game works. I very much doubt you have even made it to level 20 in that amount of time. You have not seen the majority of the content and already you find it lacking which is folly.

There is basically nothing, outside of being in the Sci-Fi genre, that I would associate between Spacelords and Destiny. They are not even the same style of game, one is third person and one is first person. One is class oriented gameplay the other is more a "hero-shooter" type of situation.

You talk about this "lack of goals" and "lack of content" and doing the same mission "hundreds of times", which you probably haven't done, as though Spacelords' has this unique problem. Indeed, you say this as though some of the most popular games in the world do not trespass the sin of a lack of content or repetitive gameplay. I doubt you have even played all the missions, much less unlocked all the Raiders, so it seems strange to chastise the developers for a lack of content when you have yet to explore the current content.

You should know that creating assets for anything is going to be time consuming and resource demanding work. Especially with the attention to detail most of Spacelords graphics typically show off.

As I understand they just released a big content update some couple months back which was an entire campaign. It makes sense from a development cycle to then wait several more months to release another big update. In the meantime weapons and skins are more than welcome to many Spacelords players. They are hardly indicative of a desire to cease production on the game or as a replacement for future updates.

Man, if you were bored writing that imagine how bored I am reading it.

[dalt_ud]

In this instance, you have played for less than 10 hours by your own admission and truly believe you understand how the game works. I very much doubt you have even made it to level 20 in that amount of time. You have not seen the majority of the content and already you find it lacking which is folly.

I told about 2-3 hours, because its was obvious in this time already.

Actually i 57 level, and not played only 4 mission of game.

I told about "i dont care about player opinion" because hour of shooters player open me one simple thing - 90% players total noobs. You can think i am arrogant bastard, or something like that. But in fact half of fail free2play games happens because devs too much hear community, and 90% noobs just flood any good suggestions from skilled people (i not mean myself, i saw it many time in many games).

I not threatening about my leaving, i just tried to show to devs - why most of players will leave. This game have bad start, and i very doubt it have any future, if devs think their only feature - "destiny with antagonist" without real PvP and content will work good.

[PohtHehd]

I agree and I do not think you're an arrogant bastard. Anyone can have an opinion that is spot on for the situation at hand. A lot of what you say is true, the Antagonist system is a turn off for many players.

Some of us really like it but most seem to absolutely hate it.

The problem, I believe, stems from people's inability to pontificate on the presence of the antagonist. They instead do not wish to understand, as many people are wont to do, and simply want the aggressiveness to stop. An Antagonist makes the game thrilling, especially for higher level players. For lower levels, though, it is an exercise in frustration. Which to me is ultimately the problem.

Antagonists represent an end-game level of commitment to the game. You have beaten all the levels and have gained power and now you wish to show off that power to other people. At least, lower level Antagonists do not bother me so it seems this way to me.

Consider this little expressed theory; this is not an asymmetric game. It is not 1v4 but rather it is a 5-man team that creates the best experience for the game. 4 Raiders and an Antagonist.

If one Raider isn't playing optimally, as in they leave or just are AFK, then it ruins the system just as having an Antagonist who is friendly, which I do quite often, also seems to break the game.

If there is any change to the system I'd like to see it is having Bounty Hunter, Treasure Hunter, Affiliation bonuses add up from both Raider and Antagonist, then I think people would begin to understand that it really is just a team thing. Part of the team is just supposed to kill the other.

[dalt_ud]

I agree and I do not think you're an arrogant bastard. Anyone can have an opinion that is spot on for the situation at hand. A lot of what you say is true, the Antagonist system is a turn off for many players.

Some of us really like it but most seem to absolutely hate it.

No, i like the idea of antagonist.  My point - its absolutely not enough for this game to survive.

Here nothing to do except collecting weapons and hire characters.

Even Antagonist system is not finished. Where statistics? If i am good - how i can compare myself with other antagonists efficiency?
Same with Riders.

And other PvP modes. Devs probably think - we made antagonist, its enough. But in fact - its not. Its become boring, i got totally bored on 20-30 lvl.
I keep this game in hdd - because 2 things, really, its good practice with aim skill in game without aim assist. And second - i am a bit interested to try all kind of recons here. So i use it, when i return to Overwatch to get grand master (i got master, but take a break, because played it too much and got bored) - this practice let me not lost my skill, while i play RPGs and eventually Spacelords.