June 30, 2022 - PTS Update (Surf and Storm - Round One mulligan)

Thank god Oshur lattice got reworked. That continent is just a massive stalemate of 48-96 armor columns smashing their faces on their keyboards. If it's not prime time, it'll literally take a whole day to start an alert.

VR Training needs to have a water section so people can test the new water equipment, water guns, and how stuff performs underwater.

The boats at the moment are really bad, I have the impression of seeing a Dervish/Chimera V2.

The Design does not correspond at all to the speed it is totally unpleasant 80KPH it is too slow, I would have seen around 150KPH with an Afterburner in addition.

If he comes across a Magrider or Chimera in the open sea, I don't give much for him.

I see this boat more as a Harasser like rather than a Sunderer like.

In addition, many bridges on Oshur need a Rework to be able to pass under them with the Corsair!

I hope to see more boats in the future MBT like, Sunderer Like, Flash Like that their designs match what they are and are actually good on the water without a ground vehicle that has the ability to go on the water be superior to them!

Please consider making the catapults vertical launch distance a bit higher, currently, the catapultee will fall short of the height required to get onto the landing pads of tridents.

hello already have to add the vehicles corresponding to the land vehicle Flash = jet ski harass=cossair Sunderer= troop transport boats Lightning= light attack boat MBT= heavy attack boats improved the speed of the boat it was much too slow added a turbo could be cool the guns to send the passengers must be able to send them higher and further we must reach all the bases from the sea also no it is useless its must also be effective a deployment module! improvements still to be made when the boat turns I think it seems to have trouble turning on the water new deployable for swimming underwater must make you come back to the surface faster I find it a bit slow

Infantry wise, the pace that comes with the underwater stuff I really quite liked! Although the propulsion device might feel a tad much, giving the light assault trait to all classes might be a step too far? How would it play out if the verticality was tuned down a little?

I found too that situational awareness was oddly difficult under the water. A sea-bed map would be neat, which I hope and suppose will come closer to release.

Just got off from the second playtest (I wasn't around for the first so I don't know how that testing went), and I have mostly negative thoughts about the underwater combat that was tested.

The environment fell very flat for me this time around, and part of it has to do with how the graphics have been reduced over the early life of the game; real life underwater environments, particularly coral reefs, are filled with vibrant colors, and this is very lacking at the moment. Everything just looks like it has a slight blue grey filter over it which makes things very monotone, and bland. This is unfortunate as this game is capable of vibrant colors like were present in the beta and early life of the game. A quick image search of the game before and today, or coral reefs in real life, will show the differences.

Audio was likely the aspect that was most lacking. Real water is very conductive of sound, whereas here there was basically nothing, things felt almost mute; there is little to no detailed ambience that I could hear on my closed back headphones, and large objects like galaxies or objects moving fast like soldiers with the new underwater drifter jet device, I really didn't hear much of either. It felt more like the soundscape as a whole was being quieted and muted instead of being distorted differently being conducted through water than by air. This needs serious work.

Both of these aspects were fine beforehand considering underwater activity was very unutilized, but since we'll be spending much more time there now, it's important that these aspects, especially audio, present well and feel different instead of handicapping.

As for the balance, there are some positives, for instance that maxes can't be repaired, and heavy assaults and infiltrators can't use their broken abilities. Time to kill has never felt more consistent this way, and it's nice not to get instarekt by someone before they're even done uncloaking. However, this does mean that entire classes don't seem to have much of a role anymore (though I don't know whether recon tools are usable underwater), especially since none of them have unique weaponry that is actually worth using underwater. It's all UB, which is 4 guns, and everything else is basically disappointing. I think the idea of having gear specifically for underwater is good, but at the moment it is lacking. There's nothing to replace infiltrator or heavy assault abilities (and if you do add something, please make it different, not just a worse cloak that's still annoying or a worse shield that still creates inconsistency), and other tools that don't work underwater. The movement speed penalty makes some degree of sense but it does nevertheless feel sluggish and less interesting. Perhaps toning it back even further would be better, perhaps to 0.75x or so. But a strange feeling it is to have people move slowly while others drift across with the new propulsion device without making much noise at all. Not that the propulsion device isn't balanced, especially since every class can have it except for light assault, which already has jets, aside from perhaps the general lacking audio it emits. The one base in the center of the map I fought at was fine, but I disliked that the seaweed was much harder to see through than say a bush or something, which has much thinner solid parts and more holes to make out things through. This means that if you're spotted, your enemy is behind some seaweed, they can aim underneath your dorito and take you out without you ever seeing them to a much greater extent compared to the foliage that exists on the surface (perhaps now is a good opportunity to implement foliage also blocking elements like this in addition to the objects which clip), especially with the reduced movement speed. In this case and generally, if you're caught in some way, you have very little way to react like you can on land, which makes the whole thing more uninteresting and boring than not. Welp, guess I'll die. This is probably somewhat less true as light assault, but that's not a class I tested. It's fine that positioning is more important here, but at the moment I believe it's too far into the other direction as there's very little of reaction left. Both are required for an engaging interactive experience that is both passive (positioning) and active (reaction).

After some thought I do also have some overarching wonders: why would control points be placed underwater in terms of lore, or ideal design? Why not have bases which are partly underwater, perhaps some areas flooded, leaking, instead of the entirety of the combat taking place underwater (aside from technical hurdles, which I understand exist, but I'm just making an idealist point)? Personally I just believe that would make more sense at this time, especially for something that has this degree of novelty for this game mechanics and balance wise.

This part of the update is not ready to go live. Perhaps for a long time. In this build, there's too much to add (underwater gear), improve upon and polish aesthetically and mechanically. I'm grateful that there was a test. Thank you.

This isn't to say that this is a complete bust; there is potentially something very good here, but at the moment the underwater combat feels more like a spinoff game in a functional alpha build that has just the bare minimum and mechanics that aren't in the right spots yet.

Thank you for reading and considering.

P.S.: rework / remove auxiliary shield.

The bit about situational awareness likely has to do with the very sub par audio underwater.

Why not work on backlogged things with NSO as well?
Make NSO MAX weapon effective range, projectile speed, damage, etc... changes, and let people play test that too at the same time?

or add lower floors to enter the trident with stairs (not gravity lifts) so there can be stairwell fights like in Call of Duty and Battlefield games in high-rise buildings