Squeegeez' Compendium Of Feedback

(Squeegeez) #1

I love this game. Please keep this in the back of your mind while reading these feedback notes.

This is from the perspective of a level 15 gamer that plays mostly 8v8 objective mode. I tend to notice things that many players miss, and I would like to take this opportunity that my personality provides to be useful in helping the developers make a better game.

General thoughts:

The rate of credit income is perfect.

The server browser has too many Max Level 5 servers (unjoinable) cluttering up the list. It needs a filter to exclude these servers, or just simply not show them, as they cannot be joined anyway.

The game’s menu system feels a bit sluggish. Like it’s got a 100ms delay when you click most things. This is exacerbated by the short between-round menu, because you are trying to switch loadouts quickly.

Your defibrillator sometimes gets intercepted by a friendly player, and is frustrating. The defibrillator can revive dying teammates, and harm enemies, but does nothing to healthy teammates. If you are in a frantic fight with a lot of people, you want your defibrillator to do what you intend for it to do - namely revive your dying teammate. Catching a foot/leg of an enemy I can accept (It still does damage), but I can’t accept wasting a crucial defib on a teammate - One that happened to meld through your body from behind (His hitbox slightly overlapping yours, impossible to see coming), or one that briefly darted over your downed teammate at the wrong time. I just feel like it could be better. What would work would be a priority system:
Take all the targets hit by the defib (Not just the first),
If there was a dying teammate, rez him.
Else if there was an enemy, shock him.
Else if there was a teammate… tickle him I guess.

The airstrike sound plays when there is no airstrike called in (And the lines to indicate which direction the airstrike will land are needlessly there as well). If the airstrike marker turned into a dud grenade (And refunded some cooldown), it will make the sound of roaring planes still. I think it should be more obvious whether the grenade is just a grenade, or if it was in fact an airstrike that you need to get out of ASAP. I don’t think it should play the sound or make the lines coming out, unless it’s actually an airstrike. Too many times I’ve ran for cover and waited, for apparently nothing.

Fragger’s and Nader’s grenades could use more differentiation. I’ve died a few times to not knowing which grenade was lobbed. Is this pineapple I’m standing on going to kill me, or only take away half my health? Fletcher’s sticky bombs have a distinct look to them, but the other grenades get obfuscated by the red ring around them. Both have the exact same generic ‘grenade’ icon attached to them. Fragger’s grenade is more powerful, and should be reflected in the icon as well. Maybe make the red icon spiky, enough to differentiate it.

The map Terminal is a bit hard for the attackers on the first objective. After thinking about it, I think the problem lies in that the attackers get split up, and have trouble making a concerted push for the forward spawn. The long balcony (with the MG) is dangerous and you want to get through it as quick as possible. The chokepoint door (Leading to the forward spawn capture point) feels very scary and unsafe. So both these most common routes lead to uncoordinated rush tactics, and the attackers really struggle to make a needed push effort. Just looking at the map as a whole from a lot of experience, it seems to be: Take the long way and die on the balcony with very little support; or take the short way and die shortly after exiting the chokepoint door. I’m not sure what would fix this, it would be up to the map makers, but I guess I’ll mention some of the usual ways to change up a map: More Access routes, more windows, or more cover. Another point worth mentioning is that capturing the forward spawn isn’t emphasized enough over planting the C4 on the wall. I think instead of saying “Destroy the containment wall”, it should really tell players to “Capture the forward spawn.” The forward spawn itself could do with being more recognizable as an objective.

The pushback effect while your character is on the EV is ineffective. You can negate the effect by moving in the opposite direction of the push force. So you can basically dance right on top of the mg in the middle if you wanted to. I don’t think that’s intended. It seems weird to have a pushback, but yet have it not completely do the job.

The map loading screens aesthetic looks odd. I thought it was a graphical glitch at first (A friend thought the same). It just kind of looks ugly, strange, and as an initial impression I thought something was wrong with the game.

I’ve had way too many games lost due to friendly Vassilis. More than one sniper really hampers your team. It’s very frustrating playing a team based objective game when half your team doesn’t realize they’re not even helping the objective. 4 Vassilis? - That’s a guaranteed loss. I played a game where there were 3 Vassilis on both teams during the 3rd objective of Bridge. Mind bogglingly bad, the objective room felt so empty. I know it seems ranty, but it seriously deteriorates the enjoyment of the game. A class limit of one would be ideal to improve reaching the goal of the overall game design.

There needs to be party functionality. I want to play with my friends on the same team. Working together cooperatively for the feel good times. Sadly this is not possible right now, and it’s a hassle trying to maintain being on the same team every single game.

I’ve seen a colour of uniform for Aura (I think Cobalt) that looks way too similar to friendly team colours. Normally friendly Aura mercs are blue. I ran to defib revive a squirming blue medic, only to find out it was actually an enemy medic. This is confusing having friendly and enemy mercs share blue colours.

I’ve seen a number of aimbotters in the game. Unfortunately there’s no easy recourse (A right-click, report for cheating would be fantastic). The votekick system is unreliable, as some people on the aimbotter’s team are unaware of the problem occurring.

Swapping out mercs between rounds needs to be smoother. It needs to be more responsive (Find and eliminate the ~100ms delay on transitions). It should also be quicker to just swap out mercs, with no loadout fiddling. If I want to switch out a merc fast, I don’t want to have to try to remember which of the 10+ loadout cards I was last using. I don’t want to scrutinize the weapons and augments just to try and come up with the loadout I was previously using for that class.

Joining a game late and hitting deploy will add an unnecessary delay until you can start playing. It will usually be one full cycle of a spawn wave. I don’t feel you need this time to sit around and do nothing. What’s worse is that your character is actually spawned into the game world, so you can actually die before you get control of your character (If an enemy is spawn camping). This also leads to the problem of ‘AFK’ players standing in base, frustrating the other people playing. “Why do we have 2 AFK sitting in base?”. It’s odd to spawn your character, but not let you control it until another spawn wave hits.

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(Squeegeez) #2

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You cannot choose which merc to start with when joining a game late. Your first time alive will always be with the merc on your left-most loadout. This is bad. Sometimes you don’t want to be that merc (For example if you’re just slotting it in because a daily objective requires you to do so). We should be able to choose what merc we want to play with.

Consecutive games should use your last played merc, rather than the left-most merc. This feels right. Many times as a newer player I would start the game thinking I was the merc I wanted (Because I hadn’t changed anything from the last game), but instead I had defaulted back to a different merc. It feels more natural to keep your merc unchanged between games when you haven’t changed anything.

Daily objectives are fatiguing. First of all, they aren’t daily, they’re every 3 hours, which is 1/8th daily. Second, being that they’re so frequent, they force you too often to do gameplay you don’t want to do. After the third 15k support waterboy, you’re long past sick of playing support. Having to throw in a merc you’re not going to play, when you would really like the diversity of your own 3 mercs. These things are tedium, but you need to do them in order to grind out credits. If your goal is to get as many credits as possible, it’s human nature to try to achieve that as efficiently as possible. Even if you don’t like doing it. There’s probably even a specific term for this effect (And there’s probably been many studies on it as well). The point I’m trying to make is that we would enjoy the game more if there was a bigger break from the tedium. Maybe make them actually daily instead of 3 hours. That being said, I think the overall rate of credit income is near perfect in the current system. With it feeling pretty spot on to me, you would need to adjust credit income numbers elsewhere if you got rid of the frequency of the daily missions.

Proxy’s mine needs to be more recognizable that it has been thrown down. It’s too subtle of an action throwing down a proximity mine mid-combat. I’ve seen this happen SO many times, where proxy will get a couple kills from her mine after the fight has concluded and everyone thinks they’re safe. My intuition tells me that it’s the game’s fault for this, not the player’s. Exploring this a bit further, an armed proxy mine I feel is in a really good spot design-wise. It has a red outline and makes noise, indicating there is a mine somewhere nearby. I feel like the arming mine needs this red outline, as well as a sound. The sound could be the normal sound that is already very good and distinct, or it could have a winding up sound. Right now, her throwing animation, the ‘plink’ sound when the mine lands, and the small blob of a mine on the ground are too subtle.

Nader can have her view blocked by the death snapshot effect. I love the snapshot that happens, I think it’s great knowing exactly what line of shot I got killed from. It’s pretty neat. The problem lies in that it obstructs the vision of a dying Nader trying to predict when she should press her martyrdom ability. I would suggest turning it off just for Nader.

If you are someone that can give ammo, and someone calls for ammo, then gets downed, the icons for ammo and a revivable person clash. They overlap and produce an icon that is unfamiliar.

Skyhammer’s airstrike is unreliable. The definition of outdoors and indoors is skewed. As far as I can tell, when it lands, it takes a laser pointer to the sky and sees if it hits an object. This means that a little lamp post overhang can have the drastic effect of negating an airstrike. It doesn’t make much sense having tiny objects muting your airstrike. There are objects like the enclosed trees that are very hard to judge where it’s safe to airstrike, and where it’s not. I believe if it also makes the sky calculation at the wrong time, things like players and the EV also stop the airstrike. Think about that. You toss an airstrike to disable the EV, and the EV’s front bumper slightly overhangs over the marker, and your airstrike doesn’t get off. That’s very confusing. It also means Kira’s beam is harder to initiate. A fix off the top of my head would involve increasing the radius. Instead of taking the vertical calculation at the single grenade point, also take it at a few more points around it. If any points reach the sky without hitting an object, then make it an airstrike. I’m thinking the radius would be about the width of Kira’s beam. This should alleviate most cases.

When Rhino dies while on his minigun, he is not revived with his minigun. Now this may be on purpose, but the first few times it happened I found it pretty odd to be jolted back into the action holding an unfamiliar weapon - a shotgun. For almost never using the shotgun (Preferring to stay on the minigun), it’s really odd to have it appear in my hands at a disorienting enough time already (Standing up from being revived). This probably happens to other mercs like Nader with her grenade launcher, and Sparks with her revive gun, but is most noticable on Rhino.

Balance:

Dome’s balance seemed fine. I played it a lot, and mostly won, but due to this, I didn’t get to test much of the defence of the 2nd and 3rd objectives (We would hold at the first). Attacking was really fun.

Aura is overpowered with her healing station. It just heals too fast. With her speed she can easily win 1vs1 just by dancing around a bit to dodge bullets. Yes there’s a few counters (Like Naders), or shooting the health station first. But having to shoot the healing station first (which the majority of average players don’t do), or having the healing station in a hard spot to shoot, creates a too large disadvantage to the attacking player. I would propose slowing or stopping the healing while getting shot. Another possibility is making it heal both teams (like medpacks and ammo boxes currently).

Most guns are too accurate at long range. SMG’ing down a Vassili at long range it laughable. You just strafe a bit back and forth, and most guns will still get way too many hits. Iron sighting or not doesn’t make too much of a difference either. You can pretty much just as easily do it hip firing.

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(Squeegeez) #3

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Bugs:

There is a bug where, if you use your mic while dead, it will stay on. This can lead to some embarrassing extra dialog to come out. Fortunately this can be fixed each time temporarily by pressing the mic button again while alive.

Some sounds can get stuck playing. Having a whirling minigun or buzzing defibrillator sound in your ear is annoying. I think this is related to being dead. I’d do a look over of the code specifically relating to death, and clean up a few things.

Aura’s healing station aura can become permanently visible. It doesn’t do any healing, and the healing station doesn’t exist, but the glowing healing circle on the ground (The blue/red one showing it will heal you) still remains. This can have a few consequences, as the attackers will try to find and kill it to no avail (sometimes mid-combat), and the team it belongs to will try to run to the aura to heal (Which it wont). I’m sorry I don’t know how to reproduce it, but some leads may be: The Aura merc dying while placing it or reclaiming it; The Aura merc switching classes; The healing station blowing up immediately when placed (Probably by an explosion); The Aura merc disconnecting or lagging from the server.

Sparks’ revive gun is unreliable to hit dying players. It happens decently frequently where you aim to revive a player (Your crosshair is over a part of visible body), and nothing happens. Sometimes it will take 3 attempts to revive someone that you are clearly hitting. This is aggravating. It may be a hitbox issue with animations.

Bushwhacker’s turret falls through the world. Sometimes when the turret dies it will have gravity and plunge through whatever object it was standing on. This looks weird as it falls through the floor. Someone on a floor below can see a surprise turret floating into their view from above (Thinking wtf…?). You also cannot reclaim your turret if it does this (Which I’m not sure if it’s intended or not).

Bushwhacker’s turret can be reclaimed even if it dies. Your turret can be sitting there broken, but if you time it right, you can reclaim it at the end just before it disappears. I’m not sure if the intent was to be able to reclaim your turret while in a broken state, or to not be able to reclaim it at all if it was destroyed - But in either intended case, it is not working properly.

If you die while delivering/returning/picking up the objective, you can get “Hold [none] to deliver” stuck on your screen. This is a pretty noticeable obstruction in the middle of your screen. This can be fixed each time temporarily by pressing F while alive.

There is a hilarious bug where you see someone’s animation get REALLY messed up. It’s like floating around while inside out, while your legs and arms are sideways. It’s a particular problem because the person is still able to move around and shoot, but is hard to hit himself, and it’s very jarring to see. I’m not sure what causes this, but it seems to be around the EV? (Maybe dismounting the MG while getting shot at a particular time?).

If you get revived while on a stationary MG, it can lock your controls in an unplayable state. You cannot move around, you cannot shoot, and your personal view camera is NOT where it should be (Your body is probably a few feet back where it was revived). I think your character hops if you press spacebar, but only other people see it (Your camera doesn’t bob up/down). This bug can be fixed each time temporarily by weapon switching. It’s an unintuitive fix, because you still think you’re on the MG.

Sometimes when a player dies on a ledge, their body floats down and up. It’s not very intuitive how the body interacts with its’ environment. Sometimes it’s a guessing game at what height the body will strive for next (up or down?). This has implications in that it makes it frustrating to either revive the person, or finish them off. Dead bodies need to behave in a more predictable fashion.

Sometimes when you try to plant C4, you wont get the text “Press F to plant C4”. You can be right beside the objective, and still no prompt will pop up. This can lead to people thinking that they can’t place a C4 there, causing confusion.

While planting C4, sometimes the progress bar bugs out. There’s an effect where the progress bar moves from the top left of your screen towards the middle of your screen. Sometimes this can stall. You’re actually planting a C4, but the progress meter isn’t there. So you can get confused into thinking you are not placing the C4, and mistakenly try to repeat planting, which can cause valuable seconds and lose you the plant.

Ammo packs can get stuck on players. If the person is at max ammo already, and you toss an ammo pack on them, sometimes the ammo pack will travel with them for a period of time. It can slightly bounce up and down as they move as well. This looks odd. Maybe turn collision off for players. This probably happens for medpacks as well, but I have not seen it.

I’ve heard of a few people getting a black void on the Chapel third objective. It looks like this.

Stationary MGs have weird collision. It’s most noticeable on the Trainyard first objective one. You think you can easily jump in the hole, but it’s finicky.

Full stop.