Initial feedback after 20 hours

(Varonth) #1

So I am ~21 hours into the game now, and I thought I’ll give my initial feedback.

The Gameplay

Mobility is king. With the damage of any weapon except for Arty’s Dreiss AR, bonus health will not really help you. Mobility on the other hand will. Playing as a mobile class you just hop around all day as there is no downside to jumping around while shooting. [On a sidenote I would like to see someone shoot a shotgun while jumping IRL]

That sort of gameplay does not fit the hitscan, rapid fire nature of the game. If I wanted that kind of gameplay, I will play Tribes or Unreal Tournament as those games are designed with lots of jumping involved. How?
They have weapons that have traveltime on their shots. You will have to lead a target, and a jump is, while a fast action in those games also an action that makes the next few hundred milliseconds extremly predictable allowing to lead a shot on a position your target will probably be in.

Oneshot kills are boring. Being oneshot when playing Fragger is just hilarious.

Objectives themself don’t give that many points, so those that just look for a highscore generally rather go kill someone than doing the objective. I have to say, this is less of a problem when defending as there is the rather good Long Defense Bonus, and players tend to run towards you anyway.

Also why does planting C4, which consists of pressing buttons on a brick of C4, needs to be done while standing still, but repairing a vehicle or generator can be done while sprinting around it?
It just doesn’t make alot of sense.

The Classes

I am sorry, but what was the thought process when designing Proxy?

  • Let’s give her the highest movementspeed
  • Let’s also not make her the most squishest of all characters
  • Let’s also give her the best weapons for mobility character
  • Let her throw mines instantly like grenades instead of setup time which requires you to stand still for 1-2s
  • Let her repair the EV faster than any other class
  • Let her plant C4 faster than any other class
  • Let her defuse C4 faster than any other class

Not only is she one of the best offensive character, she also takes every spot for “being better at doing that objective”.
Some of that stuff should be on other classes. The Soldier classes like Arty and Skyhammer might be better at planting C4. Fragger and/or Vassili could be better at defusing them. And Proxy keeps her bonus of being better at repairing.

And as mentioned, she needs a setup animation for mines. Throwing them is just a bad game mechanic. Seeing how Proxy stands ontop of the small building in Underground throwing mines in the room beneath her isn’t how mines should work. That is Fraggers job. Mines, as they are right now, are a massive area denial tool. You can just rush into a well defending room and throw a mine down. Sure it doesn’t explode immediatly, but it still will explode or deny that spot for a while.

Also on the spot of weird characters. Arty. He is just plain worse than Skyhammer. His standard rifle is a straight downgrade compared to any other weapon. It is so bad, I would trade it for Vassilis sidearm.
That he has no non-class specific ability indoors is weird. Maybe exchange the Q for an underbarrel grenade launcher indoors. And fix the target designator requiring poiting on the same spot for like half a second. If someone shoots at you, aimpunch will simply interrupt it until you are dead. Maybe it would be enough if the timer would not reset instantly but decay if aimed too fast at different points.

The Maps
The current set of maps all play the same. The amount of different objectives is rather small. Nothing to hack. Repairing is mainly done for sideways and the amount of goals per map is rather small. This also becomes problematic in stopwatch. Delivering EMP charges or drug samples requires 2 of them. Delivering one does not count as a fullfilled goal in stopwatch as it seems. So delivering 0 or 1 does not make alot of difference.

The map design itself has too many corridors. More open spaces like the second part of Terminal would be good.

The artstyle on the maps is quite good though.

The progression system

Unlocking anything takes alot of time. Like ALOT of time. Even after todays patch, it feels like a massive grind to gain a new mercenary and while grinding credits for mercenaries you are left with crates that come as a match reward. Which are nowhere near enough to actually get the loadout you may want.

Besides that, you don’t even know what loadouts for each character exists. Like which weapon with which perks combined.

You may want to increase the credit gain, while also increasing the price of crates. That way the crates per match would stay similar to now, while increasing the speed of gaining new mercenaries.

(solt.) #2

I would disagree that hitscan & high mobility cannot play well together.

(humaneBerry) #3

Interesting that you think artys semiauto rifle is bad. I kinda like it actually.

I will agree that Proxy stands out as the best objective playing hero right now but some of the other points about her I do not agree with.

Aiming in this game is difficult but once you get it down her squishiness really starts to show so while her mobility might be slightly over the top it is not that bad imo.
Her mines are not that much of an issue either if you keep your awareness up. The trigger range is fairly small and you can generally avoid them even if she tosses them in your face (they take a sec or two to actually arm themselves once placed).

(immenseWalnut) #4

Part of the problem with Proxy and her Shotgun is countering her. With her high mobility and SG, she can AD strafe and not need to track her opponent, she can simply wait until her target is under her crosshair as she moves (even if they are also AD strafing) and pull the trigger for a large burst of damage. And even if her timing is slightly off or latency is causing issues, she can still deal damage due to the spread of the SG.

On the other hand, someone with an automatic needs to strafe to avoid taking damage, but needs to be able to track a fast moving target with a high degree of accuracy to beat her in a 1v1. It is more difficult to land consistent shots against a fast moving target than it is to hit them with a SG. Even more so if you are aiming for the head.

(solt.) #5

Seconding this.

(Varonth) #6

[quote=“humaneBerry;10420”]Interesting that you think artys semiauto rifle is bad. I kinda like it actually.

I will agree that Proxy stands out as the best objective playing hero right now but some of the other points about her I do not agree with.

Aiming in this game is difficult but once you get it down her squishiness really starts to show so while her mobility might be slightly over the top it is not that bad imo.
Her mines are not that much of an issue either if you keep your awareness up. The trigger range is fairly small and you can generally avoid them even if she tosses them in your face (they take a sec or two to actually arm themselves once placed).

[/quote]

That they have arming time does not make the mines less problematic. You are planting C4 and Proxy runs in and “panic shits like a bird” a mine next to you. Jep you either aboard that planting or you are dead. That is the problem. As I said, it is an area denial tool ontop of an area defense tool.

You cannot immediatly shoot it as allies first have to clear the area. If you shoot too early, you kill someone.

Fragger throws a grenade which either takes ~2s to throw for it to immediatly explode or have ~3s to get away from the grenade. Not to mention that the mine most likely will bounce into a cornor or next to a wall. Unlike proxy’s mine which will stick in the middle of the room.

So even if you are aware of the mine (which btw does not have an indicator like grenades) it will force you to leave your fortified defense position. That should be grenade domain. Or do you thing that mines are designed to fill the same role as grenades ontop of their defense role?

How someone can like the Dreiss AR is beyond me. It has like the same damage per shot as any other AR, but more recoil, less RoF and less shot per mag.

(Buttback) #7

Completely agree with OP.

(DadoPeja) #8

Yea i think mines just need to be planted as u go crounch and u really put it down like 2-3 sec and not just trow it in enemy face - and i know how its easy i play proxy alot also got obsidian card so yea its prety funny to just run in enemy group trow 1 mine and die and few sec later while they shot u and maybe shot your teammates they didnt even see i trow it — and they are dead , there u go 2-3-4 kills 1 death :slight_smile:

(respectfulDriver) #9

I agree with everything said by the OP. I feel that there is little reason to play anything but Proxy, she simply does everything extremely well.
Perhaps the slim character models of Proxy and Aura are a problem too (hitbox-wise), and one of the reasons why many seem to consider them overpowered.

(Buttback) #10

If you are going to bring their hitboxes up, you can’t forget the other two things.

Mobility and the shotgun.

Their hitboxes make them harder to hit, add up the insane mobility and they’re suddenly extremely hard to hit.

Shotgun’s biggest flaw right now is that is synergizes too well with mobility. It’s the easiest weapon to hit with the highest damage per shot (not sure if the snipers even outdamage it).

Combine the three and you don’t have to care about getting shot at. I say this because you can be jumping around in their face dealing more damage in return, while avoiding most damage thrown at you in a second.

(smartIsland) #11

Agree with most of this. I really dislike the current sniper headshot system. I think it goes against the principles of the game but so be it, it makes snipers much more deadly that is for sure. Nevertheless I think the head hitbox should be smaller and not include the neck for the instant kill shot. Also there should be some sway implemented.

I think Arty’s real issue is the targeting takes too long, as you said, but also is just poor detection in general. You should be able to aim it at the EV and be able to target the EV. You should be able to aim it at the back wall of the build-able machine gun on chapel and it should drop rounds right down into the room. The detection was just so much better on Quakewars, would greatly buff him if these two things were done. Also I love his AUG sooo much it totally keeps me playing the character!

Really agree with the character sizing issues/hitboxes as well. Although aura and proxy have the lowest health they are so tiny and hard to hit, alternatively fragger is beefy but totally massive. He can even be hit without seeing other players around corners because so much of him sticks out the sides. I worry they are trying to do too much asymmetry with adjusting movement speed AND changing around model sizes. Imagine if models were more uniform…

(humaneBerry) #12

Yes if someone plants a mine on your head when you are planting your c4 you will have to move away. I’m sorry but how is this even a problem? If someone runs in and blasts you with a shotgun you have to move away right? If someone tosses a grenade you have to move away? If there is an airstrike you have to move away?

From what i understand your problem is that the mines are threwn and not placed am I correct? And you mean that because you can throw them about half a metre they are like grenades and should be removed? Difference is that you cant manipulate the fuse on the mines. Once they have landed they take 2 sec to arm. It is superdupermega easy just to get off your ass and move away. And if you shoot a mine and kill your teammate then they were the ones being Pants on head and not moving within the 3-4 secs it takes for the toss animation, landing of the mine and arming. If the mine was already placed then it is just poor awareness.

If you force proxy to sit down for 3 secs to arm the mine like a c4 then she will diediedie because she is squishysquishysquishy.

(syku) #13

[quote=“smartIsland;10582”]Agree with most of this. I really dislike the current sniper headshot system. I think it goes against the principles of the game but so be it, it makes snipers much more deadly that is for sure. Nevertheless I think the head hitbox should be smaller and not include the neck for the instant kill shot. Also there should be some sway implemented.
[/quote]
Do you have any idea how HARD it is to hit headshots consistently right now? ESPECIALLY vs good players who crouch spams and fires accurately back! If the headbox was smaller than it is you might as well not play sniper, because you’re not going to hit enough heads to make it worth it.

(syku) #14

[quote=“Varonth;10458”]
How someone can like the Dreiss AR is beyond me. It has like the same damage per shot as any other AR, but more recoil, less RoF and less shot per mag.[/quote]
This is not true, the Dreiss AR does 50 damage on a headshot, no other AR does 50 damage.

(Varonth) #15

[quote=“humaneBerry;10631”][quote=“Varonth;10458”]
You are planting C4 and Proxy runs in and “panic shits like a bird” a mine next to you. Jep you either aboard that planting or you are dead. That is the problem.
[/quote]
If you force proxy to sit down for 3 secs to arm the mine like a c4 then she will diediedie because she is squishysquishysquishy. [/quote]

Atleast you got that point right. Congratz, you now have to setup mines before the fight starts. That is what mines are for. Setting them up before fights, not under gunfire.

(balu) #16

This also becomes problematic in stopwatch. Delivering EMP charges or drug samples requires 2 of them. Delivering one does not count as a fullfilled goal in stopwatch as it seems. So delivering 0 or 1 does not make alot of difference.

Same as in W:ET: Radar and Goldrush and these maps are 2 of the most played competive maps. I don’t think this might be a problem. What bothers me more is the fact if u plant in the last seconds there will be a overtime, which gives the attackers a bonus 40 seconds for no valid reason