Hi Mithril, would you have a progress to communicate to us concerning Ti Alloys and construction ?

Hi Mithril, would you have a progress to communicate to us concerning Ti Alloys and construction gameplay?

Yeah the opening map on indar has been drastically impacted by this change. Fighting at the crown isn't as fun as on TI. I don't understand why the rock bridge was removed and the base disabled.

because that was so funny so 80% pop of indar was fighting on TI

yeah it seemed everyone enjoyed fighting at TI, so it was promptly deleted. Great measures taken by the fun police.

The logic is flawless, I must admit it:

1) players like to play in places where they have fun.
2) The Game Designers think players should play in different places (for any reason or no reason)
3) So the places where players are fun are disabled

The impact on the strategy has also been substantial. If the eastern warpgate can't get Crossroads Watchtower, then they shouldn't bother attacking the western faction. Without Crossroads, Regent Rock Garrison can be easily cut off, there is no T.I. Alloys to push through, and any further north and you have to go to Dahaka Southern Post. Crossroads should absolutely be important, but it shouldn't be so important that you either must take it or don't bother with this front.

The map is reduced to two lattice between the SW warpgate and either of the two opponents.

What does that mean? You simply cannot counter the zerg. You cannot flank them anywhere in the lattice. They simply need to alternate between two lattice lanes.

The removal of this one center base was wrecked the entire continent.

I avoid Indar now and I used to frequently pick it.

Restore the land bridge Ti Alloys and be done with it. Don't like everyone fighting there? Fine, make someplace else better and we'll move.

I've said it before, but I'll reiterate until this eyesore at the middle of the continent is fixed.

The fight at T.I. Alloys did end sometimes. There were times when nobody was there. If this happened, it was after the base changed hands, the defending faction lost their hard spawn, and didn't bring any other logistics. If you want to make the fight at T.I. Alloys end more often then redesign the base to change hands more easily and more often. This could be done in a number of ways:

Suggestion 1: Add an extra floor to the center building so that trickle reinforcements from the main spawn room have farther to travel, and are less likely to get the point back.

Suggestion 2: Shorten the capture timer so attacks go through more often.

Suggestion 3: Reshape the terrain around it a bit so that the sunderers are easier to kill.

Suggestion 4: Redesign some of the base to make it more open. This way it won't be such a haven to people who hate vehicles and aircraft for existing. This would also mean that if the scale of the fight escalated, a squad who fight around T.I. Alloys rather than in it would still be contributing the the flow of battle for their faction, instead of the "more men into the breach!" meta.

Another reason these all day blenders happen is because they are where instant action sends people. If you want people to join more than one fight, make a smarter instant action system. While on the topic of instant action, add some randomness to it. It currently is a useful way to redeploy a zerg, which is not its intended function. I ran with a zergfit for a while who would have more than 100 players coordinated with outfit VOIP to all hit instant action at the same time

If you want players to try out something other than IVI, make instant action sometimes drop people into empty weapon mounts on vehicles. This way they can dip their toes into vehicle play without carrying any responsibility. If the player didn't want to be in a vehicle, no harm done, they can wait for the vehicle to pull up close to cover with line of sight to enemies, and dismount. This is something the vehicle should be doing anyways, so the player shouldn't have to wait long. If the owner of the vehicle doesn't want an instant action gunner, they can always hit page down.

The main issue with TI was for players attacking from ceres. If they tried to climb up the slop they would get farmed from the guys defending TI and snipers/tanks from the crown. If they tried moving their spawn up the road, they would get deleted by tanks and other AV from the crown.

The thing is it was still easier/more fun for people to attack TI from Ceres than the Crown - that should indicate something.

I'd say the issue isn't with TI, and never really was. The issue is that the Crown doesn't allow for a fair and fun 3-way, Ceres doesn't either, so it was only really TI left to host the opening 3way fight. It actually did really well for this, despite it not being designed to do so.


But yeah if they redesigned the crown a bit so it's actually possible to attack it from ceres without your spawn getting deleted by the constant rain of C4 because it's parked right under the tower, or competing with the other attacking faction for A spawn which can be shelled from Crossroads.

I mean take Hossin for example, Nasons is such a great fight for 3 ways we don't fight 3 ways at gourney dam or broken vale when the map opens.

The issue isn't just with the crown though, I'd say all the other maps except hossin suffer this issue, where the center bases aren't actually designed to offer feasible 3 ways.

Ti Alloys:
Restore the version that wrel did with the land bridge to the crown. Probably the best iteration of the game.

It only had one fatal flaw. The base could be taken from the crown .. with difficulty. Or ceres... with difficulty. BUT.. it couldn't be taken from Allatum Botany Wing.

Add a single pedestrian bridge on the south side that spans the roadway that vehicles spawn and drive off from. Fixed.

Or remove the anti personell turret staring down that archway..

What a shame. TI Alloys, with the landbridge intact, were one of the highlights in 3v3 fights IMO. You could always count on TI to bring the fight. Crown is a poor replacement and even harder to take it seems, and with even more chokepoints and farmspots.

Yeah it's a bit weird. People really enjoyed TI, a lot more than the Crown or Ceres. It's a bit weird to just remove it and not add anything in it's place. Really messed up the battleflow.

Sad to hear there's still no plans to work on it, but at least we know what to (not) expect. So thanks for letting us know.

Put it back on your plans, the deliberate way they first tried to wreck the base and then showed their intentions by outright removing it was just bad faith. All those players who enjoyed fighting there were just flipped off in favor for a gameplay they were specifically avoiding.
Worse was the paper-thin excuses like "we'll remove the bridge so infantry won't be farmed as much by vehicles". Yeah because now they have to cross the vehicle bridge to get to TI Alloys, they won't be farmed by vehicles there right?!?

The base had some problems, absolutely. But none were insurmountable. For example changing how the attackers from the north were able to reach the base could have made the base much better instead of the literal uphill battle through a blood gulch that they had before.

Make plans, restore the base, add new features to balance it out better. But don't flip off a large section of playerbase just because the devs want to push the capture-the-continent gameplay down our throats. Rather than remove bases that attract players, make the damn capture-the-continent gameplay just as fun. Players came to TI Alloys for a continuous large-scale battle, make sure that capturing the continent is just as fluid and not based on zerging, only picking easy fights, ghost capping and making fighting you such a drag that people would rather redeploy. Then players would gladly leave a base like TI Alloys to engage in the gameplay the devs are pushing.

If i understand Mithril correctly the set-up will stay as is. Reading between the lines it could be opened up again.

This makes me happy because i can jump my flash from the crown to TI Alloys again, which can be done now but if TI isn't open it just doesn't feel right.

The firm : Hi Loyal Soldiers, would you have a progress to communicate to us concerning your future purchases?

Loyal Soldiers : Unfortunately there are no plans to commit to any purchases until TI Alloys gets reinstated in full. However if that changes, you'll notice it thru sales. Not what you may have been hoping to hear but trying to keep you in the loop!

Doesn't sound so amiable when turned around doesn't it?

Adding content that maybe misses the mark a little is one thing. But REMOVING content is another thing entirely. It's the difference between "hey play this like this" and "we refuse to allow you play like you want".

There seems to be a very detectable taste of "think like I do or go away" in this for me.

And I don't like it at all.

Hey folks, not that anyone got into it too badly, but let's not shoot the messenger here, Mithril is the CM, he answered a question honestly. Thanks Mithril.

It's also worth noting that people who liked T.I. Alloys aren't the only players being subjected to "think like me or else up yours". Try playing any style that Wrel didn't make a habit of showing off back when he was a YouTuber.

The "prefered" play styles are Light Assault, infil, cloak flash, sometimes harasser, preferably Vanu. Play anything else and you'll feel the game slowly squeezing you out, because a player who is bad at overcoming his own biases is now the lead dev.

Agreed. Mithril doesn't make any development decisions, he's simply more of an advisor that relays suggestions and comments to and from the development team. Aggressing him after he kindly answers a question with honesty isn't the coolest thing to do.

Just state that you wish you had T.I. back and why, and if you're able to generate some backing by other players maybe Mithril can take your comment back to the devs and say something like 'hey, we got a lot of players that want this feature back, at least until you decide what to do with it'!

And who knows maybe something good will happen. But yeah don't get mad at the CM, especially when he's doing his job well!

Again we appreciate it, it's great to finally get some communication and insight about what's going on.