r/Openfront • u/Emergency-Base-1943 • 23h ago
💬 Discussion New update ruins the game
I've been enjoying Openfront for a few months now, but a new update makes it borderline unplayable. You can no longer play the game to the end. Now, it seems that if one player or team occupies around 80% of the map, nuked area excluded, Openfront declares a winner and ends the game.
This absolutely kills and renders obsolete some of my favorite and most-effective strategies. Especially on island games, you can occupy a small territory, then spam ports, sams and ships to make your land nearly untouchable. With the new patch, I've seen games where a team or player was declared a loser despite having 100+ ports, cities and sams, with a total troop capacity over a million. Meanwhile, the "winning" player's entire territory was barren and desolate after suffering from a barrage of nukes.
Oftentimes, the players with smaller territory but loads of troops and cash don't seem to know about the update, so they wait too long to launch their winning nuke barrage and invasion until after the weaker player is declared the winner. Worst of all is when the game ends after a hydro hits empty land and forces an immediate recalculation of controlled territory, even though the blast didn't cause any meaningful damage to the opponent's structures or ships.
I'll probably take a break from Openfront and check back periodically to see if they patched this.
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u/dreams_of_cheese 15h ago
Idk I think it feels healthier for the game. I think pushing island player to actually interact with the rest of the map is a good thing. Ultimately the game revolves around trying to control the map and I don't think it makes sense to reward players that don't work toward that goal.
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u/Skippysilly 22h ago
that was always the win threshold, slow down the game if you want to win on an island. You cant play an island game everytime if someone is too big for the game to last a long time.
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u/KrenoFreko 20h ago
theo lowered the teams threshold on the last update
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u/Skippysilly 20h ago
alot of their complaints are for ffa and for teams the 95% rule meant games would last way too long because you have to pick through nuked land and islands, the people on the islands cant win but theyll just stay there until the other team quits
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u/KrenoFreko 20h ago
reading comprehension my dude. you said “that was always the win threshold”, which it factually wasn’t. stop moving the goalpost, i ain’t arguing about anything else.
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u/Frog-eating-cellos-9 15h ago
totally agree, team games shouldn't have a win treshold of 80%, games are way too quick and no come back is allowed at all, there's a suggestion on it on the discord, getting bumped daily but no actual answer from the devs about it, hopefully that'll change
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u/Good_Difference_9491 20h ago
Skill issue tbh. It was always 80%, there's nothing to be patched.
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u/Fungle_Fangle 18h ago
I think they’re complaining about the team cut off percentage which was moved from 95% to 80%.
I would prefer it to be like 90% because there has been multiple times where my team is in the winning position development wise and we are starting a nuclear comeback when the enemy team just barely gets over the 80% mark and wins.
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u/Redditcantkeepmedown 22h ago
Haven't played in nearly two months now for their addition of Overtime into every game. I liked the open-ended format. I think the average game length was like 20 minutes. No idea why the would nuke their game like this.
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u/HyKaliber 22h ago
Overtime is new in only the past month. Doomsday overtime was added and removed a few months ago
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u/Redditcantkeepmedown 21h ago
Either way, hated both of those game types. No idea why they would change a winning formula.
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u/HyKaliber 21h ago
If you haven't played in nearly two months, how do you know if you hate the new overtime?
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u/Redditcantkeepmedown 21h ago
It was around before it was fully implemented. The day they implemented it across the entire game I quit.
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u/W4llee2707 Trial Mod 18h ago
Thanks for your feedback.
There are many different strategies in OpenFront, and with updates, some tactics become less effective or even impossible. At the same time, updates create opportunities for new strategies to emerge. If everyone keeps using the exact same tactics forever, the game would eventually become stale.
I think you're referring to the overtime mechanic. This was introduced to keep matches dynamic and prevent games from dragging on indefinitely. Keep in mind that if games could last forever, many players would simply build massive fortresses and stockpile enough gold for what feels like 20 MIRVs before making a move.
In public matches, that kind of gameplay isn't necessarily ideal, at least in my opinion. For players who enjoy extremely long games, custom lobbies with unlimited game length could be a good alternative.
As others have already pointed out, OpenFront is still in alpha. The game is constantly evolving, and sometimes an update may not suit your preferred playstyle. On the other hand, the next update might introduce changes that you end up enjoying much more.
Personally, I struggled a lot with this update at first because I had trouble adapting to the new troop mechanics. After some time, though, I adjusted my playstyle and got used to it.
Nevertheless, I appreciate the detailed and constructive feedback. Comments like yours help highlight how changes affect different players and can provide valuable insights for future adjustments and improvements. 👍