I have played this game a lot, 1006 hours according to steam in 11 months. Probably paid (without regrets) around £180 as well. I just stopped playing about 2 weeks ago without even realising it even though my last session was by all counts ridiculously successful compared to my regular standards. But every time I think about going back it is because I am thinking about either what the game WAS or what the game COULD BE, not what it IS. Nothing about what it IS is amazing. What the game WAS I remember back in ~February when I could incinerate people with a scatmax, squadwipe 5 clueless people with a shotgun light assault or blast infantry to pieces with a HEAT shell (I couldn't even fly without crashing at this point however), even though the vast majority of my time was spent as line infantry in zurvan amp station, rashnu biolab or tawrich techplant. Now I really can't do any of that, I can still do well with most of it but it just doesn't feel quite the same. The old MAX felt like you were a walking juggernaut of destruction designed to walk in first and clear out a room, now it feels pretty much just like a slow infantry class where I have to be careful with every move I make. NC maxes were waaay too good against maxes no doubt (as were all shotguns) but a max-shotgun-resistance would have solved that, if the other VS/TR guns were upped to the level of the mercy/cosmos then it would have been fine, also remove revive. Regular shotguns are just cack. I don't think I had died to more than maybe 2 pump actions in the last month of play, they are so bad right now and changes to nanoweave/cqc carbines/windows/jetpacks have really pushed the power bar over to HA from LA anyway. I used to love wrecking watchtowers/amp staions as solo LA (I almost always play solo unless in a vanguard), granted amp stations with attacker-accessible jump pads were stupid and it was unfair that all shotguns were 1000 certs but that has now been fixed. Watchtowers are extremely confined areas with multiple levels, so a logical conclusion is to play a mobility based class with a point-blank weapon. However apparently logic is to just let players take whatever they want whenever they want and just nerf shotguns to be a sidegrade at best when you KNOW that you will never fire at +15m. You should have to use what you think will work, not just whatever you want and demand nerfs. "I don't like using shotguns", "OK, use an SMG", "I don't like them either", "well I'm so glad you turned up to help, why don't you just sit in the corner until we have kicked them out", "don't need to brah, I'm off to the forums to make sure that a laser sight assault rifle is just as viable at 10m as a shotgun, brb". I feel the need to qualify this next statement with the clarification that I am not a vehicle *****. Almost all of my vanguard kills are using the AP cannon, I hardly ever run rocket pods, don't gun harassers and don't even fly liberators. If you subtract every kill I have ever got from a vehicle and keep all the associated deaths then I still have a K/D of about 2.8 so don't call me biased, vehicles make up about a sixth of my kills but I like them to be fun when I do use them. Tank splash is just stupidly small now and at the same time it is STILL too easy to trap infantry in bases with bombardment. Important An ideal base layout (imo) would have infantry fighting within an enclosed "box", this box would have a few skylights with which light assaults/drop troops can gain a positional advantage/shortcut route (flanking/height) IF and ONLY IF their faction has air superiority (otherwise they would be picked off easily). A similar system of "edge of box" flanking routes could be employed for tank bombardment. This would allow infantry to fight mostly unmolested inside but with external superiority acting as a force multiplier to the power of intelligent infantry. This would allow a full reverting of the splash nerfs to at least the vanguard, magrider/lightning should only get about half of it back (against their mobility is way more useful than a extra metre of splash from a vanguard) and the prowler could probably increase by say 100 damage and 1m radius (for example). Tanks should be death incarnate to infantry caught outside and without appropriate terrain and skill should not be necesary in this case, only flak armour should protect from a close splash. That is what the game WAS, essentially fun. Obviously tanks/maxes should get higher K/D than infantry otherwise they should be available for free with no timer from any console with no restrictions. Balance changes have made the game much less fun for me over time. I didn't mind dying a lot as infantry because I expected it (minus being spawn camped in the old "spawn closets"), I thought it seemed obvious that you should expect a lot of death playing as the weakest unit in a game with NO PENALTY for death. I didn't mind dying to shotguns instantly from 5m, I do hate sniper headshots (given that many NC guns require a stationary user in order to shine) but I accept that the fun is to be had by the sniper not the snipee and I live with it. I guess I was just being too reasonable. What the game COULD BE Looking to the future there is a lot of cool stuff proposed and I have liked pretty much every map/interface/resource/"metagame" change. Honestly with the exception of server transfers I have liked every idea, unlike SOE however I never thought they were going to have the amerish update / resource update / ESF update / continent locking all done by last month. I would have focused on factional/inter-factional balance before optimisation if I were SOE first because it would be much quicker, much less buggy, go a long way to lowering frustration and most importantly does not need to be perfect. But no matter, higher frames would be cool too (I run 30-50 depending on locale, 5 more would be great) and I would probably change my tune if I was tuck on 20 fps. This is what makes me not want to leave forever though, I miss this game and do want to play it because no other game is even trying to touch the level of complexity of PS2. Adding to this sadness is that even if ALL forms of continental conquest and resources were removed and the game was solely pitched 36 vs 36 battles with 2 ESF's, 2 MAX's and a handful of fixed land vehicles per side with the bases being treated as selectable maps then it would be leagues ahead of any other FPS just on faction diversity and gun handling alone. Just the gunplay (interactions between recoil/accuracy/cover/damage) alone is better than BF3 for instance. Infantry vs infantry is amazing with 6 classes and few common pool weapons (I love feeling like an army with its own stuff). Tank vs tank is extremely methodical and very diverse (however prowlers can't beat vanguards and magriders can't beat prowlers at a point. Mag vs van is very interesting though and is very enjoyable from both sides). ESF hoverfighting is just.....incredible, never felt a rush like it in a game, the tension when facing an equivalent pilot in isolation makes me want to keep flying. The problems arise when getting infantry/tanks/air to interact with each other (infantry don't like being "farmed" whilst trying to engage other infantry, ESF's don't like lockon/flak whilst they are going A2A and have no intention of attacking ground, infantry anti-tank equipment is just OP in general when the infantry arn't trapped by poor base design) whilst also inputting a map with resources into the fray at the same time. It could be fantastic, but it's currently a bit of a mess. Making it worse is that the balance department seem hellbent on making a game that appears to be balanced around KDR, rather than accepting that players that use vehicles a higher percentage of the time SHOULD have a higher KDR, they are being more helpful than someone who "just wants to play on foot". There is nothing wrong with "just wanting to play on foot", just like there is nothing wrong with "I only like to play infiltrator", but you must accept that you are being deliberately unhelpful (again your choice, fun should come first) and that therefore you will have a lower score than someone who pulls a vehicle to push defenders into a watchtower and then gets out to take it on foot, you can camp outside in your tank but again your score will suffer. If you do care about KDR and play infantry then just accept that say 1.2 is quite good if you only use vehicles for 2% of your kills, if you have 60% of your kills in vehicles then obviously 1.2 would be terrible. This is why it is worthless as an overall stat, I am already at the stage where it goes down slightly/stays about the same if play a lot of infantry or goes up moderately if I play a lot of vehicles, I can basically put it where I want it. What it is Alas we are at a stage where the balance has removed all fun in exchange for essentially catering to idiots who don't want shotguns/sniper rifles/ubgl/splash/air/shields/cloak/maxes (and even SMG's and hipfire spray in genral!! **** me) and would be happier if everyone was basically a combat medic using a gun with a foregrip and ideally everyone would have the same gun (basically BF3 with the mind-numbingly superior M16 referred to as "versatile"-a posh word for at least 9/10 at everything played on no vehicle maps) to make it "fair" (aka boring). The guns which are being catered for are fun to use but I preferred it when it wasn't quite so obvious which guns were better than the others (seriously shotguns are shockingly bad for anyone reasonably good at the game, you have a big mag, that is all). But the "metagame" has not progressed to a stage where the game can rely on anything other than just solid deathmatches on a big world. I love all the "picking the right unit/location to make a difference" stuff, make sit feel like I am putting some thoguht into what I will be engaging. For equipment however as NC it boils down to carnage/blitz/anchor for 90% of infantry combat (I like to mix it up but these are the best 3), mattocks/ravens for all max combat, AP/halberd for vanguards 90% of the time, heat lightnings, fury/halberd harasser, with only the reaver having every option be viable (loving the M20 atm) if you are lucky enough to have mastered flying. The other factions are basically as bad (better in some, worse in others). Look at the vanguard, you have 3 primary's, 7 secondarys, 4 utilities, 2 frames and 5 defence slots. If you want an actual effective tank then this boils down to 2 primary's (heat being preferable over AP very rarely but it can come up), 2 secondarys (again halberd>enforcer 90% of the time), 1 utility (shield, tank is not functional without it, you would lose every fight), 1 defence (front>all almost always, side/regen are OK but are more of a lazy mans pick) and both frames. 840 possible combinations of stuff and only 8 are viable (read obviously superior if you look into it) and even within that AP-Halberd-front-shield-"legitimate tossup between frames" is by far the best 90% of the time. For location, well the map basically picks for me and is in a shockingly poor state when I tried to play my VS yesterday. So I will be joining the "I will be back when it is better" crowd, I hope you succeed SOE, I won't be spending any more money (I kind of have what I want) but I will gladly be content to enhance the experience of other players on NC Ceres if I see suitable improvements in the future. BF4 / COD50 don't hold a candle to this games potential and would be inferior just in gameplay if PS2 wasn't being so ambitious, I won't be playing either. I have reading and other game genres (assasins creed/xcom/might and magic/final fantasy) to play in the meantime. Get a move on!. See you soon.
