The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

(TheBlueMuzzy) #1

preface: I’ve been waiting for this game for so long. played it at PAX, loved it then, LOVE it now. I’ve gotten at least 20 people to buy this guy. at least. no exaggeration.

At first, the game was so different from any call of duty… that i was terrible. now after two sessions of playing, i can score anywhere from 6000 points to over 10000 points per game. It’s all about team work, which is exactly what you guys were saying this whole time. I don’t think anyone really understood how important it was. So to sum up some of the things that make me smile:

Teamwork is absolutely necessary, and more important than any other game i’ve played. people need to understand this to be good at or even like this game. too many converts from COD thinking it’s about killing people.

love that my equipment (mine/turret) don’t go away when i die.

The movement is everything i’ve wanted in an fps (FINALLY). (though it’d be sweet to climb like in Infamous)

And the sounds are ridiculously solid.

the abilities are BOSS and i’m excited to unlock the LazNade!!

The art got in the ring with every other fps and knocked them out, right quick (except for TF2).

I LOVE… LOVE… LOVE button mapping on a console. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.

the missions are varied and fit the maps they belong to wonderfully.

the maps are EFFING AMAZING. and huge, and i drool over them (i’m the environment supervisor for the cg team at nickelodeon)

Now for the things that don’t make me smile:

it’s a jarring experience to snap out of a console capture when it puts you in third person.

upgrading a console with engineer doesnt put you in third person (so you get destroyed)

turrets and mg nests are far too weak (granted i’ve only got the medium turret)

all of the guns feel exactly the same, barring auto/semiauto/bolt etc. recoil might be the only thing that really separates them. the belgo pistol with the coga scope muzzle break and speed reloader is the BEST gun in the game. numbers at the end of the bar representation would be more telling for a player to choose a gun. with all of the customization in the characters, there is really hardly any in the guns. (i know the game isn’t about the guns, but they are an integral part)

i’ve unlocked EVERYTHING weapon-wise within the first 20 minutes of playing, literally. a large pull for some people is the mini-reward system that comes with unlocking things. I am at level 17 and i have gotten more audio files than guns/weapon skins.

enemy AI turns around faster than the highest sensitivity setting would allow me to.

friendly AI NEVER buffs me. and rarely do they heal me.

(i admit i might not know how to do this yet) should be able to switch between characters you’ve created during the game, not just classes

running all the way from the original spawn is painful (especially when i’m a heavy) capturing command posts should give you the option to spawn into that area. you just take the risk of command post camping/mine laying, but that should be up to us to deal with

a hardcore mode should be accessible to the players. it should be up to US whether or not we want to die from 1 bullet or 50. The guns are almost a callback to HALO, which is sad.

and my biggest gripe ever is this one:

let me preface this by saying that i’m INCREDIBLY happy with the fact that this game ISN’T like COD. but… their team/party screen/system is FAR superior to this one. Getting your crew together BEFORE starting your match in the way COD does it is clean and efficient. Please make it easier to party up (on xbox at least)

i really do love this game. it’s been a long time coming, and there are just little things that i’d love to see worked on (hopefully they can be for console). Thank you SD for kicking so much A and taking names later.

if anyone wants to play with someone who gets the TEAM BASED FPS, hit me up on XBOX (until i buy the pc version) my name is TheBlueMuzzy

(3Suns) #2

Great post, Muzzy! Welcome to the official SD forums!

I think I can speak to two of your concerns:

  1. You cannot and will not be able to switch characters in the middle of a match, nor will you be able to switch body types. This is a game design decision.

  2. re: game lobbies. Have you tried “Custom Games”? badman walks through the steps here. Hopefully, this answers to some of the lobby system concerns you have.

I’ll send you a FR. My gamertag is ESuns

(TheBlueMuzzy) #3

3Suns
Thanks for reading and responding! I figured out how to address the lobby “issue”, i just didn’t realize you had to wait on pressing “Ready Up” until your teammates joined you. and i can see how it would be a good decision to not allow character switching in match, and it makes the character you choose fit into a story, however, i have (almost every game) had mostly bots in my party and if i could switch to a character i’ve created with better skills, i could better complete my mission. But i’ll deal just fine without switching. I’ll definitely accept your FR, i’ll check it tonight. I wish people wouldn’t post one sided posts (brink is such a let down, or brink is god) it’s a great release with some functions that seemed to have been skimped on or neglected entirely, i say that regardless of the decisions being based on time, money, or choice of play style. see ya!

(3Suns) #4

Muzzy,

Great news that the lobby is functional! (Still don’t have my copies yet, so I couldn’t verify.)

One more piece of advice, from someone who doesn’t even have the game yet :smiley: , try a match with minimum bot participation, even like:

2H + 3bots vs 2H + 3bots.

I have thought a lot about the disparity between the PAX impressions and the release impressions and all I can think of is that they are:

  1. not tuned to go for primary objective, but are tuned to go for secondary which means they aren’t of much use to the SP gamer.

  2. because of 1, they do better when supporting teams already half populated with humans.

I am hopeful that the bot programming can be changed with a Netvar tweak - moving emphasis from secondary command posts to primary objectives.

I am also hopeful that the criticism (elsewhere) of chokepoints can easily be fixed by changing the impact of the command stations. If the command station gives a greater buff, then players will find them more important to gaining the primary objective, and thus will spread their attack/defend lines over several areas.

(TheBlueMuzzy) #5

very good points suns. i love that they are using netvars. it should honestly make things very easy to update. as far as choosing a team setup that specific, i don’t think i’ve been able to do so (on xbox). otherwise i’d wait and wait until both teams were full up with Human players honestly. I played this at PAX seattle and it was perfect ONLY because they had both teams FULL of human players. (not to mention when i picked medic, i was level 20 with laznades hehe)

are you in the UK?, or just slow to getting the game? I think they should be able to create multiple AI categories based on the team layout (Human, Bot ratios). the more humans you have, the more the bots tend towards secondary objectives, the fewer humans, the more they tend to either support you if you’re going for main objective, or they go for it as well (albeit, slightly less efficient than if you would go for it).

cheers

(3Suns) #6

Playing in Japan, got the Asian versions which were shipped FedEx from Hong Kong. They have apparently arrived, so I will be playing as soon as I get home from work (in another 5 hours or so).

Looking forward to playing with you as the timezones, and networking, permit. If it is very laggy, which may well be the case, we can wait until the inevitable patch comes out to fix it. I play almost exclusively with Americans and Canadians and always get lag, but most games are playable (e.g., the CoDs, Halo, Battlefield). I don’t expect lag free, but I do expect playable and fun. Hopefully SD can get a fix out soon.