Only had the time to play Esamir so far, but my overall experience has been overwhelmingly positive. The new bases are interesting, the storm is far less intrusive than I had originally expected, the dreaded Cryo-Spam was nowhere to be found, and the percentage of medium-to-large size fights was greater. On top of this the Dead Zone battles are far, far more fun and interesting than the BioLabs ever were, at least during Prime. The back and forth scraps between PMBs or little groups of Sunderers in a new environment is extremely engaging, and the lack of any lattice or 'official' objectives means that the fights are very dynamic and it's often possible to circumvent defenses in ways traditional bases would have made impossible. The directives are cool I guess, overall I play the game the same way I always have so not really much of an impact for me. Haven't had a chance to mess around with the campaign yet and probably won't unless I see a big incentive to, it's cool that it's there for the players that wanted that kind of content, though. Will be interested to see what the plans are for other continents. I would really like to see a Dead Zone that takes up the middle of the map and offers the ability to attack an enemy anywhere along a wide front so it better integrates with what's going on in the continent and see how that plays. Overall though or the moment the fights are fun and at the end of the day that's what I'm here for.
Thoughts are it's a stroke of genius. Fan Breath of fresh air for me. Done several posts whoopeedoing it. So no secret I'm a 'Shattered Warpgate' fan. Knowledge gained I'm playing in ways I didn't before thanks to the 'missions' etc. Never played the medic. Had a go at that one and like it. Found a new weapon that quickly became my favourite. Strangely was learning stuff I'd sort of ignored before. Very well sign posted as to what you do. Maybe helpful for new players? Scenery Changes to the map are wonderful. Just went hiking last night to take it all in. Cream Could play Esamir all day and night long now. Mind you, Esamir was always my map. Shattered is just the cream on the cappuccino. Real cream that is. Looking forward to.. Have not met the bad weather yet...looking forward to that. Got my brolly ready. Finale. One happy bunny but I'd like to see changes made to accommodate the unhappy as much as is possible.
I agree with this one, the fights themselves are very fun, and overall most of the balance changes like harasser cost increase and minor AA buffs are welcome and make battlefields more diverse : I've actually had sniper duels and tank battles out in the open instead of constant harasser spam, and it's refreshing. Esamir is refreshing, less bases is actually a quite positive change as there isn't an overabundance of indefensible outposts. Most bases look really nice : tons of snow, bases are in various states of wrecked and it looks great. Gameplay-wise, the Shattered warpgate is refreshing and the environment is full of cover, the rest hasn't changed too much, I think that the spawn points are too exposed in most new bases and they're still just as easy to farm in as the old ones, I'd say it's the Southern warpgate getting shafted now and storms are annoying, but overall I'd say it's an improvement in terms of visuals, but only a little better in terms of gameplay. The only really impactful change I don't like is new central Indar. Removal of the rock bridge makes TI Alloys too hard to take, and adding SNA-like tunnels below Crown made it too hard to take. Central Indar is too much of a slog now, as if it wasn't already, but maybe others will like it. Missions and campaign suck hard, but they're so detached from the rest of the content it doesn't impact my enjoyment one bit and can be freely ignored, my condolences to anyone who bothered with it. The only complaint I have is that some bases in Esamir should've been kept, that in central Indar DBG needed to update Ceres Hydro, not the other two, harasser needed a weapons rebalance and not such a massive cost increase and missions and campaign, everyone already talked about it, too grindy, boring and borderline impossible to do. Could've been a banger of an update, but I'm fine with it.
