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As you can see by my forum thingy, I've been around from damn near the beginning, in closed beta when there were only 4 or 5 mechs. A few months back (Shortly after the Jager came out), I stopped playing the game for various, non-game related reasons, and have just come back. I find it interesting how the game has progressed, and for perhaps slightly vain reasons, I decided to put a few observations/opinions of the changes made, in as reasonable a manner as I am able.
Oh, but where to begin? Well, I'll start with the good...
The game seems to run much smoother now. I have a pretty high-end PC, but the optimization really seems stellar. And I haven't seen any crash to desktop errors, or the other technical difficulties that were so prevalent back in the day. Good Job :3
Also in the same vein, it's now possible to hit light mechs with ballistic weapons! Huzzah!
The state rewind seems much improved over when I left.Airstrikes, and UAV's, and all those little niceties really seem to add alot in group play. It's genuinely terrifying if I'm bunched up with my allies, and red smoke appears in our midsts. It doesn't really seem to do much in PUG matches, but, they are geared more towards organized combat.
As a streak enthusiast, I think the way you balanced the little buggers was a simple solution. Spreading out their damage doesn't kill the weapon, and keeps it perfectly viable. I still like using them. Just not going to be dropping mechs like flies with them anymore
BAP neutralizing ECM at close range is an elegant solution to the way it was, making Jenners able to stand against Ravens once more, as long as they plan for it.
I believe I recall the Devs saying they wanted to make the game more tactical way back when.. and that seems to have been accomplished fairly well thus-far, exempting pug matches.
Well, how about some things I'm critical of?
Gauss Rifles.... What have you done to my beautiful Guass Rifles? T.T Y'know? It's actually not THAT bad of a thing really. I'm quite fine with the charge mechanic, that seems like a reasonable thing to do. But having a window in which you can fire it is terrible, especially so short of one. By all means, make us charge it before we fire it, but let us keep it charged indefinitely. The trade off is that they are explosive when charged, but inert when not. If you MUST leave the mechanic as it is, make the tones for charged/discharged LOUDER! It's fine when you've got relative quiet of long range combat, but up close when you're getting hammered by lasers and missles, and AC's, the tone quickly gets lost.
There are times when it's necessary to listen to the community, but more important is knowing when to ignore them. The above example of the gauss rifle nerf is a perfect example. People complained that the gauss/ppc combo was 'OP', but I never had a problem with it. Either in using it, or fighting against it. The idea should be to encourage specialization, IMO. If you want tactics, that's how you do it. Everything has its own natural counter. PPC/Gauss boats are subject to (skilled) Light pilots, or indirect fire from missles. Especially with the new UAV system. As well as those rapid-fire AC's that knock their crosshairs around. Guass, and PPC's are SUPPOSED to be the highest powered weapons. But, it's more than just about that one weapon. I've seen alot of times when something was considered overpowered, that were fine, that got nerfed. There have been legitimate issues, I.E. the UAC5's, when they would essentially triple-fire. That's what needs to be adjusted. The other weapons are just about finding their own balance... As more mechs are released, with their own optimum builds, the few super powers we have will be swallowed by other super powers. The field will level itself over time. So long as there aren't any TRULY broken weapons.
An alternative to making weapons worse to use, would be to make worse weapons better to use. Leave the mechanics alone, for the most part, they work great. Instead, maybe incentivize using worse weapons. Give C-bill, or XP boosts for using those small lasers, LBX's, etc. You already track individual weapon accuracy, which means you keep track of the hits... if a Small laser gave you 50 c-bills per point of damage caused, while a gauss rifle gave you 1.... What do you think you'd see being boated alot more? Suddenly it would be worth peoples time to use weapons that otherwise aren't feasible. Then people might experiment more, and you'd see a greater variety of tactics/weapons on the field as people try to balance combat effective, and rewarding. Then, if a weapon that really honestly works perfectly fine becomes too prevalent, just drop its reward! :3
Just some general ramblings, neither good nor bad:
The new spawn points on maps... It's chaos right now, but I imagine that will sort itself over time. I understand what was trying to be done, spread out the combat, take away the blob on blob action... and, it might yet prove effective in both these things once they get sorted out. For now, it's extremely disorienting. And I have my doubts as to the specific locations of certain drop points. Specifically Tourmaline Desert, where two opposing lances spawn within spitting distance of eachother. Leaving the fate of the match to which of the two lances is heavier than the other. (Or, everyone just rtb's, then blobs on)
12 mans aren't fun, for the most part
Not for me, at least. They require tactics to be used, and I've always relied more on skill, speed, and power to get me by. Still works great in pug matches, but I seem to get slaughtered in organized combat XD Not a bad thing, just a rambling. I'll adapt, but it would be nice if you could choose different sizes of matches, like you can game types though. Why not still allow 8 mans? Or even 4 mans? It would enable smaller units to play together as well...Heat Vision: Remember back in the day, when you there was actually a color scale for heat? It was broken as heck, because you could see mechs on the other side of the map clear as day.... So, they switched over to the greyscale. But, I don't think that's the best way. I think the color gradiant should have stayed, the appropriate fix would be the terrain also has heat. I.E. Those big, black rocks in Tourmaline, baking in the sun? Should be blindingly white, and obscure heat vision entirely. Same with basically everything in Tera Therma. (Awesome name, btw) Even on maps like forest colony, the water would be cooler, and easier to spot mechs in, while the buildings and such would all have their own heat signatures to obscure mechs. But on the two snow maps, mechs should light up like christmas trees. It was also great, because you could tell when mechs were near overheating, and that you should really hone in on that guy. The thermal, as it was, was great. It's just that the environment needs to reflect the same laws. The current version works well enough, it's just... more of an easy fix, than improving gameplay. It would be cool if we could get Mag-Res too :3
I want to be able to shoot missles down. If I've got a flock of LRM's coming down on me, I should be able to sweep my lasers through the swarm and reduce my damage in a pinch....
Could Module parts be less expensive? I hate juggling the one of each part I buy between all my mechs... it doesn't prompt me to do anything but get annoyed....
In the 'Mech Inventory' section of the mechbay... Could we be able to sort our varients? Rather than having to scroll through all of my mechs, could we be able to make our own, custom named organizational 'folders'. Where we can put whatever we want in them? I.E. I could make a folder for Assault mechs, or Snipers, or MIssles, or whatever I feel like labeling them?
I miss alot of the cool things we had back in early versions of the game:
I miss rearm-repair. It added that much more of a sense of depth to the game...
I miss when the atlas had glowing red eyes. They were legitimately terrifying. It made them easy sniper targets from range, but maybe just make them have a shorter draw distance?
I miss mechs falling over. (Not the horrible glitches that went with that though) *still has nightmares of a dragon just flipping reverse, and repeatedly tackling my mech* XD
I miss the sweet Matrix bullet-ripple gauss rifles used to have
I miss when an atlas' head was as big as its entire head... though, I absolutely do NOT encourage bringing that back.... it was just hilarious
I WANT AN ANNIHILATOR!!! XD
I realize my criticisms has a bit more in them than my praises... but, overall, I still am really quite happy with the game. I wouldn't take the time to put my voice to it if I didn't love it, and want to see it do better. I think it is, for the most part, progressing nicely.
Okay, that's a big enough wall of text for the moment ^^; I think there are a few things I'm forgetting... but I'll come back to it if they occur to me. If you read all the way to the bottom of this post, go have a cookie. You deserve it!
Edited by Twilight Fenrir, 05 December 2013 - 08:59 PM.
