Not all ideas or problems are new.
Items covered in this post:
- Stacking mercs and merc limit (touchy subject but necessary to mention)
- Practice servers for queuing people in ranked.
- Enable offline map exploration to players outside of console commands. (interact-able objectives also)
- Adding Merc-Specific ROLE screens in-match.
- Map introductions for lower level players (maybe tutorial videos for each map in DB)
- V chat functionality… as well as Mercs themselves automatically announcing their statuses. We already have “Arming the C4!” but not a “I’m down!”
- Obnoxious Objective Highlights, especially the EV’s.
- Unexplained mechanics and making them more intuitive.
- Announcer improvements (CDA commander and Jackal commander) and character announcements as well!
- An IN GAME way of editing the layout of your HUD. Xyfurion should never have even HAD to make that tool.
Stacking and Merc Limits
First of all, I think stacking certain units in ranked is terrible, and I don’t know why people would do it. There’s a loss of functionality when there are 3 people playing the same medic, but in the flip side, your aggressiveness escalates incredibly if you have say… 3 arties, or 2 fraggers.
I say, introduce a merc limit in ranked for the next season. Your team can only have 2 of each merc in the lineup, and may only have one player playing a specific merc at a time. At the same time, specifically for ranked, open up all mercs as possible to play in ranked. This allows players without all the characters unlocked to not only experiment, but have more roles. We still are lacking a free engineer to players. And Skyhammer is slowly being outdone. I also think we should have something to busy people while they search for a match, and allow people (and noobs) to get acclimated to different characters that they may not have access to outside of a ranked setting. This leads me to my next point.
Skirmishing while waiting for a match - (practice matches with FF on and your selected mercs)
Waiting for a match at a loading screen is rather um… boring. Please let us queue as a group while we are in a different temporary match with whatever our loadouts and chosen mercs are. OR, have people that are searching for a match all thrown together for random scrims etc, maybe 5 minute mini chunks in maps. Maybe you’ll find someone you want to play with while messing around and end up partying to queue together! Increase the fun!
Map Introductions and Map Exploring
I also think the introductions to each map can be completely revamped, and shown to players while entering a map they haven’t played in ranked before, and if their level is lower than 20. Instead of “blow up the wall” on terminal, have an arrow top-down view showing our spawn heading to the wall, blowing it up, where the objectives are and what they do, and then mock arrows defending it etc. A mission briefing if you will. Real mercenary combat would likely have that information.
Just some ideas… The way Phantom did the Don’t be a Dick video and Mercs in Training. In EACH of those videos, he reminds the viewer of the defenders defending the objective. Why is it so narrow in-game? (honestly, this point is probably more nitpicking than necessary, but it IS a solid improvement) Can we have defender spawn outlined on this map as well?
Also, I have no idea how many times I’ve seen a low level Skyhammer and Aura walk around a map confused. Give map tutorials and the ability to openly join an empty map beyond console commands… Crap, I’ll make the map tutorials myself if you guys want, is this a job position I could take if I move to London?!
Obnoxious Objective Highlights
This applies to all matches, but objective highlights are distracting on the HUD, and actually make it harder to see enemies, PLEASE have them on the map or find some other way to display them. I don’t know how many times I can’t see people near the moving EV because it’s this giant blinking thing with a giant yellow hexagon and I have trouble viewing the orange enemy highlights.
Making Mechanics More Intuitive
Reload cancelling is never explained to a single noob, is long jumping even explained? Add more feet on the walls to the maps. 
Recharging DEFIBS is never explained either. What on earth SD? Just because something is intuitive, doesn’t mean that everyone recognizes it or that it is intuitive to them. Crap, even the spawn timer confuses people. Solution? Add more on-screen indicators for actions, such as when charging a defib, instead of just playing the sound that charges, actually make it much more apparent that more heal will come from more charge. Add a green r and flicker the moment ammo is in the chamber, so players might see that option clearer. The steps done with “already repairing EV” have been great! Now do it for charging defibs as well! Also, finishing is poorly explained (or simply rarely done, and I’m not sure how to improve upon this…
Better explaining Abilities and Roles
We need to make abilities and how to use them clearer for newer players. Overwatch has the F1, we have the push the button and find out method if we’re too blind to read before we buy… The role call videos being accessible in-game would be a great start, but a better idea is including a ROLE SCREEN while in-match to show a screen for your currently spawned merc and their abilities’ utilities would be AWESOME. Maybe even merc specific tips will display on this screen. Especially with the 20+ mercs we’ll have access to in the next season. Just make this the F4 command! (or some other button) Remember the meet the mercs screen on the nexon website? Maybe something like that as a drop down menu in game -
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"Fragger - Lead the charge with this heavy assault merc. His frag grenade can be cooked for 3 seconds for more accurate throwing. Yadda Yadda
Iron out to players that they are part of a TEAM in the tutorial and in all videos. The fact that objectives are done, ammo is given, and heal stations are dropped is explained in the tutorial. But the fact that each merc belongs to a role and are better at it than others is lacking! You HAVE to do your role to make play possible for everyone. Guns don’t fire on free will and spirit alone, even for Javelin. Objectives don’t plant themselves, maybe you should bring an engineer to plant faster and protect it better!
Announcer Improvements
Add ticked off announcer voicelines for as the match progresses beyond just objectives: Specifically at time intervals. Such as if after two minutes for chapel, he says, “Boys, that EV is STILL. NOT. REPAIRED. We only have 3 minutes to repair it or we have to pull you out. GET ON IT!” and “How many f!@)#(* times do I have to say it!? 1 minute and CDA gains back this ground! Get your **** together!” or like wise, “That’s bought us 5 minutes to deliver the objective, get that EV moving, etc.” (this specific line could instead be used in the map introduction…) While CDA may be thanking the mercs! “Great job, only 2 minutes before backup arrives and we’ve secured our position here, etc”
Along with announcer voicelines, I think additional automatically triggered voicelines should come from the mercs whenever events happen, such as if Fragger is downed (not finished), the glorious GAHH!! sound might be considered by automatically calling for a medic or saying “I’m down.” I know we have V-chats, but they probably don’t.
Quick-Chat Improvements?
I think that pushing one button to then sort between objective or team or taunts etc is a little cramped. Consider ‘c’ for common yes, no, etc comments and team communication, ‘v’ for objectives, and ‘alt’ for taunts and enemy communication etc… This is absolutely not necessary, but it would probably feel a bit better than reaching over to v79etc to just be able to press alt-2. Any ideas? Maybe use arrow keys? Maybe V-w(for objective)1(plant)
Custom HUDs
The fact that Xyfurion had to make a hudEditor isn’t exactly a good thing. Many people are glad he did, but this should exist IN game already. Not available in matches so people don’t waste time, but available in the offline ones and in the main menu.
And if there is ever a way to introduce back-filling to a ranked match, hallelujah. Screw those leavers.
When the game is clearer understood, and better played, it’s more likely to retain customers/players! Probably each and every one of these should be added before the game is considered released… What do you guys think? This doesn’t touch on the necessary balance passes or server priority improvements that should be done as well.
Additional mentioned items by the community that I fully agree with -
- Latency balance and server choices made to best fit all players in a ranked or casual match,
- Additional merc voice lines for common communications (such as I’m coming or gtfo off my objective) etc
- Broken collision boxes, ESPECIALLY THAT STUPID EV.
- Broken Melee (both finishing and some weapons hitboxes and range) Seriously, this is retarded.
