Not like the ads
Disappointed & tired of waiting for a real fix
No suppprt
Brilliant but ultimately flawed by monetisation
The game used to be more viable for low spenders or f2p, and a big part of my motivation and enjoyment of the game was defeating obvious big spenders via better strategy. However, over the course of any account, the pressure increases to spend to keep up in order to have sufficient unit(s) to contribute more meaningfully. It just gets to the point where years of small bonuses from skin sets add up to give accounts quite severe advantages despite their efforts to improve the matchmaking system for the month-long Conquests. People naturally game the system in any competitive situation, so of course there are alliances that stack power from very few but strong active players… who can face alliances of many small actives that stand little chance individually or even as groups due to the simple mathematical differences in damage intensity and damage resist stats.
I still had a ton of fun in this game; I ended up with lots of interesting experiences with clan members from around the world. I have been in top alliances of a server as well as led small but fighting-focused teams for lower tiers. The efficient dedicated Windows client saved my phone battery and me from carpal tunnel. The Discord community was fun, and there is a lot of depth in how one could specialize and focus their account to perform different roles. The RTS style of free movement of the units is far more dynamic and enjoyable versus older wargames that locked in a timed march to the destination in order to calculate the outcome upon arrival. The implementation of land, air and sea units and the modernization of the theme, away from the WWII origins of the game, was an interesting arc of adaptation and balancing.
Unfortunately the years of providing content for “end game” players and fishing for whales has turned a strategy game into one that feels mostly like a handful of veteran players making new accounts on newer servers. Those who do not spend an inordinate amount of time both playing as well as learning how to optimize and build/research efficiently for their units and officers will end up with a less satisfying experience as they get constantly wrecked by those with experience or spending. I tried my best to educate and guide my peers, and there are some content creators that did a good job… but there were always incentives for less active people to just ride the coattails of others. Lilith could have done more to develop stat tracking to show the “career” accomplishments of individuals and alliances to truly encourage more competitive play, as well as put caps on the cumulative p2w bonuses. The separate restricted stats vs unlimited branches of conquest was a great addition, but not enough was done to encourage everyone doing their best versus making meta coalitions and simply negotiating to “share” objectives rather than see a true tournament. If there was not a whale (or several) bullying weaker accounts, there were conquests where it was too boring, and opponents rarely exited the safe zone or actively fought.
At the end of the day there is no other game quite like Warpath. It is the closest mobile game to an old favourite from Nexon called Shattered Galaxy, which had one of the earliest executions of an always-active RTS with persistant world and territorial conquest, and a focus on the action of controlling a squad rather than any construction. If Lilith was to obtain the rights to that game and develop a modernised version of it, they may be uniquely qualified to pull it off well, and I would also dedicate a few years to it… until it becomes too pay to win.
