I feel it’s been quite a while I haven’t written a real post about the state of the game and the experience it provides. Note that this is my point of view and it’s quite personal, I’m hoping some of the elements below can be discussed and improved on (or discarded if need be). Sorry for the long post, I tried to keep it as short as possible.[B]
OBJECTIVES
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Many maps already feature tons of elements that should be side objectives:
[ul]
[li]MG nests should be constructed before you can use them. If your engineer is late preparing the base for your team to hold the enemy, then you lose a significant advantage. This also gives a new “reason to live” for the engineers that are purpose-less currently. Note that MG nests should also have a health status and require repairs upon being disabled.[/li][li]Lifts are another great example. Currently they are granted for free, already built and receiving power. All lifts should be connected to a generator or need hacking on the level selection panel to claim them. It would give a purpose to hacking proficient mercs and make it worth unlocking a secondary route. Underground is a clear example where this should be applied.[/li][/ul]
Other examples of elements of the maps:
[ul]
[li]in Bridge: side entrances to the GR building should be closeable.[/li][li]in Terminal: the forklift on the right of the last objective should allow to offer more cover or block one way around if moved back.[/li][/ul]
[B]ALTERNATIVE OBJECTIVES
[/B]A feature I would like to see more in maps are alternative objectives. If the main objectives cannot be achieved, these alternatives objectives could provide a branch in the story of the map. The goal is to limit the feeling that if the clock is ticking too fast for your team, you already start thinking the map is lost. Moreover, this feature applies very well to SW as it could grant extra points and more levels of completion to differentiate two teams’ performance.
Examples:
[ul]
[li]Destroy data cores if they prove too hard to fetch and deliver.[/li][li]Underground should be a battle for controlling the station. In case that’s not possible -> flood it.[/li][/ul]
[B]CURRENT MAPS
[/B]- Bridge: still the same hassle on the first objective. As Chippy said, it would be better to open the roof to allow the use of airstrikes on the EV repair site, and move the EV 4 to five meters closer to the road. The last objective is quite a misery with the new respawn times. If you die while defending the cores and the enemy team can pick up one, you have almost no chance at all to even reach the delivery point to contest it.
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White Chapel : still a shame the chapel is there only for visuals. It should host a side objective or an alternate objective as described above. The last objective is simply broken: you can spawn camp and kill way too easily. I would suggest giving another way around the building for the defense and move the rock in front of the delivery zone closer to the road.
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Terminal: the first objective should work like the first objective of Siwa Oasis. Defenders spawn behind the wall, but can claim a forward spawn to spawn where they currently do. Inverting which team has to fight for the forward spawn should also help as the defending team couldn’t camp the wall anymore.
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Dome: the first objective is so cramped and this part of the map is way too porous. There are simply too many routes to access the objective and it spreads the action thin. Also the delivery point should have only one entrance and be bigger inside (bit like Island’s transmission dish). The second objective is still unclear to me: why does blowing either one of the containers open the doors for the next stage ? Logic please.
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Underground: the scale of the map removes pretty much all the opportunities for consistent and challenging game play. Make it bigger. Also what happened to the last stage we had maybe a year ago with the big pit and the subway tracks ? That part was quite fun imo.
GENERAL GAME KILLERS
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Dying while planting a mine, cooking a grenade, throwing an airstrike, molotov, etc. cancels the perk in question. This means the grenade, airstrike, molotov, etc. respectively won’t be launched even though they have been armed already. This is both illogical and a game killer. There is so much fun missed from these last breath kills.
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Being shot by 4 enemies from 4 different locations at the same time. BAM ! I believe the maps allow too much to be shot from behind or locations you wouldn’t expect. It’s really annoying to not be able to know that in one area, the enemy could pop from x locations. Usually turns the experience into a fast spawn and die loop that again discourages the players from doing the objectives.
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The experience system is currently pushing toward a TDM experience. I would like to see a bunch of new XP rewards such as these:
[ul]
[li]Guard: should give 10xp rather than 5xp for covering an objective.[/li][li]SubSquad: gives xp for staying with team mates (groups of two at least) to reduce the value of playing solo.[/li][li]Supplier: extra xp for distributing med packs or ammo packs.[/li][li]Protector: escorting the EV or a team mate who carries a milk jug should grant extra xp.[/li][li]etc.[/li][/ul]
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Shotguns are nice guns. With that said, they are completely unpredictable. This is a major concern as even by playing with shotties quite a lot, it is still hard to know for sure the damage output you will get. The damage falloff is somewhat a black box and this is really annoying.
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Lobbies, lobby and lobbies again. There seems to be inconsistencies with the lobbies currently and this annoys a lot of players including me. I get that a formal way to configure your squad and teams is needed to make a game, but the lobbies are currently hindering the game time. Having to wait for 15 seconds when you join a running game once you have locked in, it’s useless. It should instantly put you in the game as a dead player and let you join the next wave. Though it might be a bit longer, at least you can gain awareness of the battle situation.
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Score boards are taking too much time as well. The xp progression screen should display all the badges you have earned at once and simple show the xp gained applied to your current XP. This could save maybe 10 seconds to be in the chat with others and favor social interaction.
[B]MERCS
[/B]- Nader: for me she is exactly where she should be, except that the rate of fire of the grenades is too high. The pool regenerates at a good speed but with slower rate of fire players will more consistently have a pool of at least two grenades and will have to be smarter. I still find it a shame the grenades have a timer before explosion rather than exploding on first contact. This would open a bunch of new opportunities in the maps.
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Proxy: the mines are really buggy, mostly when you try to put two mines at the same place. One either disappears, or it suddenly goes through walls and gets planted elsewhere. Now I remember the mines got nerfed because the single very powerful mine was annoying. So instead you gave us two mines with less damage, but with the ability to stack them to again get one powerful mine. Please, let us plant two mines in one place.
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Aura: probably many already have said that, but that healing station is really powerful. To the point of not even seeing an enemy even get hurt in 1v1. The aura of healing should have a larger radius but a falloff of healing per second the further away from it you are. Therefore a player would be granted full speed health regen only very close to the station
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Bushwhacker: turrets are another game and mood killer. The reason is that the collision box for planting it allows the canon to go through static meshes. It’s an exploit, and it is really OP. I would like to see the turrets have more spread, more health and be repairable to make them a real game element.
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Stoker: his molotov is way too OP against the EV. How come fire that should barely scratch an armored vehicle does so much damage ? The molotov should deny the repairs rather than destroy the EV.
AUDIO
- An option to get a varying pitch on the hit beeps to indicate the level of health of the enemy would be really nice (Q3-like).
- Get rid of that menu music, it’s really depressive
For now this is pretty much all I have in stock, if you actually read it all you’re a nice tapir :stroggtapir:
