First it is good to see the final release of this mod. EA owns the Forgotten much debt in term of the storyline and it is good to see someone finally filling in the blanks
Also it is heartening to see how vastly the team's modelling skill had had improved since the last mod. The new units and structures of the Forgotten look really cool and fit the faction design. The new Ion Storm and Sidewinder's Gas Sprayer ability effect also look spectacular (although the latter does tend to cause lagging a lot when triggered).All these plus an epic sound-track certainly helps in building up the atmosphere.

The storyline of the campaign is quite interesting, which is further backed up with the separate background fiction. Although I feel that the cutscenes could have used a little more work. It is not the acting, but it gets a bit tedious when you all see is Trogan just standing there briefing you over and over again through out and before each of the missions. Using real-time rendering is a good idea, though.

As for the campaign itself, the missions appear somewhat lacking in terms of design. In every mission the enemy has access to much higher tier units than you, and they don't mess around when it comes to attack. Therefore, providing that the units available to you are much inferior, it forces you to bunker down behind defenses and unable to push them back until you can spam up to 40+ War Campers or Tick Tanks. It's pretty much the same throughout the entire campaign, which causes it to eventually grow tiresome and irritating, also very time-consuming.

Gameplay-wise, the new faction also need a lot more work on the balance tweaks and some polishing. My guess is that you created the Forgotten to be a faction with weak armaments, but a strong economy and some other unique gimmicks. However it doesn't look like it's working out that well. The Forgotten units are weak - too weak, and their functionality aren't that great either. For an instance, the Forgotten has a lot of trouble dealing with aircraft. The Marauders have limited range and vision, and can't quite catch fast-moving aircraft. The War Camper's missiles' ROF is way too slow and without impressive firepower, so they are not useful unless in large group. The Slicer seem to be made of paper and is not available before T3. Jeeps just don't seem to do any damage to any units at all. The Forgotten units in general don't fare well against their counterparts in the other factions, either. There are almost no units that can withstand much damage and their firepower is mediocre in comparison to what the enemy has. Tick Tanks might be one of the few reliable vehicles the Forgotten has, but it still doesn't stand up to other MBTs unless it deploys, which takes a long time to do so, making it only useful as a mobile turret. The Long Horn has a very jerky locomotor, cannot turn its turret and isn’t really that sturdy for a T3 unit, which severely messed up its aiming, so in combat you’ll see the tank shaking its head in front of the target, and its main gun has little, if any chance of firing. Expecting to garrison infantry to help would be met with poor results, as the tank is slow and rigid, barely able to catch up with fast units and aims badly at heavier units, has a tendency to hurt friendly units in close quarter if Disc Throwers were garrisoned, plus you cannot ungarrison the troops once they are in side. All these make it very hard to use and in fact not useful at all. It would be better to maybe make it more nimble, but reduces its armor, so it would function like the GLA Battle Bus to do hit-and-run against high-priority targets.

To me, the general strategy for the Forgotten seem to be turtling behind defenses and gather up as much tiberium as you can to produce a large army in order to overrun the enemy with sheer numbers. But it doesn't turn out viable because they cannot effectively counter enemy troops or disrupt their base, and would likely lose in fighting over resources. The opponent would have little trouble teching up and easily roll over your defenses with T3 units, to which you have no effective counters, either. In short, it feels very depressive playing as the Forgotten, as you are suppressed all the time and are unable to strike back before acquiring a large force. In fact, the Forgotten feels a lot like NOD without stealth or the Avator, and with even more primitive weapons, which is just not right. Maybe you should try make it a little like the GLA in Generals. Their units are initially weak, but very mobile and will be significantly toughened once upgraded. This, when coupled with their resourcefulness, prove the GLA a deadly foe. The Forgotten at this stage has only the economy strength, but no suitable arsenal to do this. So perhaps this would be a good way to change it into.

In summary, the Forgotten MOD has many merits of its own. I can clearly see that the team has put in a lot of efforts into it. It brought in an important aspect of the Tiberium universe that was omitted by EA and tells its story beautifully. However, it is not without flaws and the multiplayer needs a lot more work to balance it out, as of the moment the new faction is far too weak to stand up against the other three, and not very enjoyable to play in skirmish either due to its faction design. But overall, this is undoubtedly a vast improvement for C&C All Stars, so I'd it's a job well done.

Thanks for your comments--very interesting. Here's my initial reaction:

It is certainly true that playing as The Forgotten is challenging. In many ways, their units, as you rightly pointed out, do not match up one on one to their counterparts. They have distinct weaknesses, such as early anti-aircraft against jets (they fare much better against slower helicopters). It's true that in early missions the other factions have more developed firepower, though that gap begins to close as the campaign continues. I'm not sure about your point that the Forgotten have no defensive capabilities--their defenses are actually quite strong, they have the benefit of walls, and some of the units, such as the Tick Tank, enjoy huge defensive bonuses when they take the time to deploy.

In large part, these are all intentional design decisions that we made. Note that them being intentional does not mean they were wise, but that there was a reason for them. The thinking was that we were trying to recreate the atmosphere of a rebellious group fighting in a conflict between three superpowers. Such a group would of course be outgunned, they would have limitations in handling high-tech weapons such as fast jets, and they would need to pick and choose their battles carefully. You need to do all of these things when playing as The Forgotten, and all of them are largely unfamiliar. Playing as The Forgotten requires a different mode of thinking than is required for playing as one of the factions. The goal was to offer players a chance to think differently and to experience the challenge of fighting as the perpetual underdog.

That said, there are some places where the execution could have been sharper. One of the ones I'd like to re-do is the beginning to each campaign mission. If I could do them over again, I would add a non-base component to each (as currently only exists in mission 5, and then only briefly). I think while we did a good job of changing up some of the balance mechanics, we didn't deviate enough from C&C 3's very base-centric gameplay. Don't get me wrong, I still think The Forgotten has the best campaign of any RTS mod ever made (there aren't many), but I do agree that there are ways we could have made it better. Alas, these are lessons that can only be learned by doing, and hopefully we'll get them right in future projects, if we do a campaign again.

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Hi Blbpaws thank you for reading through all that and your fast reply, sorry I couldn't get back to you earlier because of an internet problem.

Now, in response to your replies:

First I'd like you to know that I came from a Chinese C&C forum, where there are a lot of hardcore C&C fans who aren't happy about the Forgotten's almost non-existence in C&C3, and they watched your mod with great interest, and are happy like myself to see its final release. However the general response from them is that the mod has a great campaign, but the new faction just isn't as much of a punch as they'd expected, and its weak firepower is very much of a reason to this. It is one thing to be challenging to play, but it is another to be totally disadvantaged when facing the other factions, because they have no notable strength to stand up against them. I understand that you are trying to create the atmosphere of a group of outgunned mutants fighting for their freedom against the superpowers, but while doing that it is also important to keep the balance in check. For at this stage I see no obvious way to outsmart the other three factions with the Forgotten's arsenal. A LOT of its weapons are just not useful at all. And its weaknesses are fatal. Lack of effective anti-air weapons is not something that can be compensated easily because it means the enemy can sweep over you with air units without much you can do, and the faction has a lot of trouble fighting over resources due to its weak units, which means it cannot expand and would eventually lead to the enemy rolling over you with sheer economic superiority. I really think that you should take a leaf out of GLA's book in this. Their units are initially weak, but they can hold on to choke point, rush the enemy with underhanded tactics, which gives them time to upgrade their units and finally produce a force large enough to overrun the enemy. They have the feel of an underdog faction from the beginning, you cannot match head-on to US or Chinese units because of the inferiority of GLA's unupgraded units, but by controlling the map and dirty tricks you can slow down the enemy and eventually weaken then destroy them. The Forgotten can do none of these things. Because their units are no much cheaper than the other factions', and no higher mobility or any stealth to perform sneaky tactics. Meeting head-on would always lose due to the pure crudeness of its units, unless they largely outnumbers the enemy, which is not likely because, as I said them cannot win fighting over resources either. Functionality of their units is also a huge problem. Like I mentioned the Tick Tank's deployment speed. It isn't all that sturdy comparing to the GDI Predator or even Nod Scorpion even when deployed, and deploying takes a long time, deeming this ability little use. And the Long Horn which is the antonym to cost-effective as the cannon rarely have chance to fire.

Also, about the defenses. I'm sorry to say this, but it is very UNWISE to place them on top of Power Stations. Because 1: you cannot disable them in the case of low power 2: It makes no sense. and 3: It takes up both the structure page queue AND the defense page queue, making even Tower Rush difficult for the Forgotten. If you really want to have a unique type of base defenses then try the Component Module style, like the GDI in C&C2. But have it on top of Power Plants is just...well, plain silly.

The Forgotten faction no doubt does offer a new playstyle, but it's by no means an enjoyable one. When I said it felt depressive playing as them, it is not just me, a lot of people on my forum who played the mod said that. The point of having a new faction is to bring freshness and something unique into the game, but it's got to be fun as well. At this stage it isn't because it is clearly no match for the other three faction.

To be honest, I really like this mod. However it is really sad to see that the team always come up with great ideas, but often don't turn out very well. All Stars had this problem. It was a fine idea, but the execution needed a lot more work and the mod feels crude and unpolished. The Forgotten has leap a great step forward and attracted much attention, it would be rather disheartening to see it end up abandoned by players because of its unpolishness and flaws.

Considering that the Tick Tank has more health than the Scorpion, how can it be less sturdy? Have you run a test to compare the amount of damage each can take?

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