First impressions

(GENETX) #1

So, i’ve got the alpha key since last Friday, time for me to share some first impressions on the game.

First:
@)&$&@(@ Damn @#(@#@$# Craptop @$*@*@%@

Until I figured out NVIDIA didn’t get the Optimus thing right. Fixed it and there my crappy GeForce 310M even pushes out around 30FPS on ultra low. Never expected that, so thumbs up for SD for making the game even run on my laptop. Note that I do have a much better desktop, but not in reach for the next 2.5 weeks.

Well, then to the game. The very first impressions are hectic. Then “Why can’t i kill anyone…” and “FUUUU backraper”. Somehow, compared to ET I got backraped a lot. Maybe it needs time with all the new ppl to cover each asses. But still it wasnt as clear to me who is on whose side… Just a bit hectic yet. Ofcourse I don’t know the maps good as well.

As for the shooting. Might be my low 30FPS… But it doesn’t feel as good as ET. Like I need a lot of bullets. Can I see my accuracy somewhere?! I also don’t have the feeling that headshots make that much difference. At least for me it doesn’t really work that well… ET seems way more accurate and you need less bullets. I have the feeling that DB could use some more accuracy and more damage, at least on HS. But still, might also be due to me being a noob and only having 30FPS.

For the rest, as I get more used to it, the gameplay is good. Deploying turrets fast. Running around. It all feels nice and fast. Objectives seem to be OK as well. Altough I will play more before I will also give some feedback on the maps.

The good:

  • Turrets are cool!
  • Quick Q button is awesome
  • Speed of gameplay
  • C4 at soldier seems to be fine
  • Overall objectives (pickup). EV might be a bit faster tho
  • The thrill to go for the obj
  • Overtime obj

The bad:

  • Engineer only 1 nade. Even 2 wouldn’t be enough imho. Just give the ppl 4 nades so they can do serious damage to the EV or take out turrets.

  • Shooting accuracy should be improved imho

  • Too many markers in the screen. Don’t know if you can turn em off or not. Maybe make them smaller and perhaps more clear? Especially for the main objectives the class required should also be displayed imho.

  • Overall the objectives are not marked clear imho. Maybe add them to the limbo as well like in ET so ppl can easily see what needs to happen?

The weird:

  • Spawning system is still weird. Different places, different times. No timer. Not that bad tho. Probably need to get used to it. To me it is not as annoying as to others looking at the feedback tho.

What I do miss:

  • Riflenades! Sometimes I see a lot of ppl clustering around and I just want to shoot that riflenade to :slight_smile: . Furthermore on White Chapel I have the idea that for the attackers, the end is unbalanced and very hard… A nice heavy weapon the get rid of a cluster defending opponents, such as the riflenades, might be nice. Would make attacking a bit easier since right now it has been a slaugther for me the 5 times I played it or so.

  • Proning and leaning. Add them plz :slight_smile: . I really felt vulnerable when planting C4 at a barricade witouth my prone… Furthermore, the game, next to being hectic, also feels a bit more tactic over ET in my opinion. And leaning around a corner would really improve this tactical feeling imho.

The bugs:

  • So far I was really annoyed by the on screen overlay of objectives malfunctioning. Sometimes they are not displayed. Especially a few (2 or 3) times when a bomb was planted by the opposite team and I didn 't get a marker on my screen where to go to, tho I was engineer. Running around like a headless chicken over the map, not knowining where I was required… Ouch…

Keep up the good work, because this game is getting really good. I can feel it. These impressions are only after playing and mostly noobing around for only 5 hours. But I guess they might be of relevance to share as well since you would like to keep new players in the near future as well. Main improvement for real newbies that havent don ET/ETQW before, make the objectives more clear for them.

(rookie1) #2

[QUOTE=GENETX;456572]…The bad:

  • Engineer only 1 nade. Even 2 wouldn’t be enough imho. Just give the ppl 4 nades so they can do serious damage to the EV or take out turrets…[/QUOTE]

Agreed Would be nice to have more nades:)

(Volcano) #3

[QUOTE=GENETX;456572]
The good:

  • Turrets are cool!
  • Quick Q button is awesome
  • Speed of gameplay
  • C4 at soldier seems to be fine
  • Overall objectives (pickup). EV might be a bit faster tho
  • The thrill to go for the obj
  • Overtime obj

The bad:

  • Engineer only 1 nade. Even 2 wouldn’t be enough imho. Just give the ppl 4 nades so they can do serious damage to the EV or take out turrets.

  • Shooting accuracy should be improved imho

  • Too many markers in the screen. Don’t know if you can turn em off or not. Maybe make them smaller and perhaps more clear? Especially for the main objectives the class required should also be displayed imho.

  • Overall the objectives are not marked clear imho. Maybe add them to the limbo as well like in ET so ppl can easily see what needs to happen?

The weird:

  • Spawning system is still weird. Different places, different times. No timer. Not that bad tho. Probably need to get used to it. To me it is not as annoying as to others looking at the feedback tho.

What I do miss:

  • Riflenades! Sometimes I see a lot of ppl clustering around and I just want to shoot that riflenade to :slight_smile: . Furthermore on White Chapel I have the idea that for the attackers, the end is unbalanced and very hard… A nice heavy weapon the get rid of a cluster defending opponents, such as the riflenades, might be nice. Would make attacking a bit easier since right now it has been a slaugther for me the 5 times I played it or so.

  • Proning and leaning. Add them plz :slight_smile: . I really felt vulnerable when planting C4 at a barricade witouth my prone… Furthermore, the game, next to being hectic, also feels a bit more tactic over ET in my opinion. And leaning around a corner would really improve this tactical feeling imho.

The bugs:

  • So far I was really annoyed by the on screen overlay of objectives malfunctioning. Sometimes they are not displayed. Especially a few (2 or 3) times when a bomb was planted by the opposite team and I didn 't get a marker on my screen where to go to, tho I was engineer. Running around like a headless chicken over the map, not knowining where I was required… Ouch…
    .[/QUOTE]

I feel the accuracy part of your statement has something to do with the netcode changes they did, its gotten worse the last few patches, the icons will be cleaned up next patch thank god. The spawn system has been talked to death lately you’ll be able to find the thread for it.
If I remember correctly there is a nade launcher I think we tested it fairly early on and it was shown in one of the milestones but its not the same as the rnade from ET
prone and lean aren’t coming back

As for the grenade comment being able to resupply from the fops at a slightly slower rate to avoid excessive nade spam would be great

(.FROST.) #4

I’m kind of a noob and I love my nade kills, but I don’t feel like DB hasn’t enough exploding stuff allready. I mean, play with 3-4 soldier, throw in another two, or three FOPS, wich call in for arty- and airstrikes all the time and you’ll certainly think differently. It doesn’t even matter so much on wich side they are, it just leaves the impression of an ugly, nade-/arty-/strike-fest for me. I may be too elitist with that opinion, but after all, I’d like DB to be a game, where the major share of killing is done with old fashioned machine-guns, rifles, SMG’s, pistols and the trusty machete.

(INF3RN0) #5

I’d like engineer to have the ability to resupply nades. It would make it more appealing for offense.

DB takes quite a bit of adjustment if your coming from ET or ETQW for example. You should be seeing a lot of your concerns dealt with soon enough though; Alpha=WIP. Some of your suggestions are very ET specific however, so I would consider what changes would be vital to the game and what are personal preference. DB can be different and still be good :wink:.

(GENETX) #6

[QUOTE=INF3RN0;456593]I’d like engineer to have the ability to resupply nades. It would make it more appealing for offense.

DB takes quite a bit of adjustment if your coming from ET or ETQW for example. You should be seeing a lot of your concerns dealt with soon enough though; Alpha=WIP. Some of your suggestions are very ET specific however, so I would consider what changes would be vital to the game and what are personal preference. DB can be different and still be good :wink:.[/QUOTE]
Absolutely true. I need time to get used to it as well. It just is how I feel now about it, but that may chance over time.

Well 1 nade is just not enough imho. If you throw it, you lost it. Face a turret at the next corner and there goes your whole chance. Or what about throwing the nade wrongly and you want to try over… Still, havent played enough but 1 nade is not enough to me. Furthermore, I didn’t see a problem with all the nades in ET as well. With the turrets being deployed now I kinda have the feeling I need the nades more now than I did in ET, but compared to ET I’ve lost those nades…

(Protekt1) #7

Good feedback. But if they add more grenades… no… I seriously hope they do not.

I think if you give more time to playing the game you’ll find that more nades are not needed. I liked it when nades were also harder to get a 1hk with. Right now their blast AOE range is way too much but I was told they would be reducing that slightly.

Also, they haven’t added ultimate abilities which are like 1 use per unlock abilities like rocket launcher for the soldier…

If you put 4 grenades in the game per life, you’d absolutely break the game. If you let people refill grenades, all you need to do at that point is camp the grenade refill and lob grenades. It’d be way too effective and literally break the gunplay. If you want 2 grenades, that is what soldier class has.

Prone is not really necessary. If they wanted you to be completely invulnerable while planting a bomb they would have added more cover.

(Kendle) #8

RTCW Engies had 8 grenades, and the game didn’t break, #justsaying

(Dormamu) #9

+1
I play mostly soldier for the spare grenade :|, rifle is in the works i hope for a Rifle nade or Thumper‎, Lobster of the ability for the soldier 03 to use the grenade launcher ammo as hand grenades :smiley:

(INF3RN0) #10

So do you want 8 grenades in DB then? #jw

(Nail) #11

8 engi nades, Yes Please

(.FROST.) #12

[QUOTE=GENETX;456572]

The good:

  • Turrets are cool!
  • Quick Q button is awesome
  • Speed of gameplay
  • C4 at soldier seems to be fine
  • Overall objectives (pickup). EV might be a bit faster tho
  • The thrill to go for the obj
  • Overtime obj

The bad:

  • Engineer only 1 nade. Even 2 wouldn’t be enough imho. Just give the ppl 4 nades so they can do serious damage to the EV or take out turrets.

  • Shooting accuracy should be improved imho

  • Too many markers in the screen. Don’t know if you can turn em off or not. Maybe make them smaller and perhaps more clear? Especially for the main objectives the class required should also be displayed imho.

  • Overall the objectives are not marked clear imho. Maybe add them to the limbo as well like in ET so ppl can easily see what needs to happen?

The weird:

  • Spawning system is still weird. Different places, different times. No timer. Not that bad tho. Probably need to get used to it. To me it is not as annoying as to others looking at the feedback tho.[/QUOTE]

The good:

  • Imo the turrets are a bit too strong atm, liked them more as they were a couple builds ago(but that’s only me coming from a “BRINK-background”)

  • Q-uick knife is indeed awesome

  • The objectives are OK and I actually could get used to the EV’s ““speed””

  • going for the objective is really a thrill; sometimes too much of a thrill though. Not only is going for the obj highly hazardous to your k/d(yeah, who cares, right? :wink:), but you spawn, just to run a few meters and get your head chopped off by the comfortably entrenched enemy, time and time again. That bears the risk of making the endgame for the attackers a bit annoying. Something that, imo, was the core issue many peeps had with BRINK and therefore left the game. Someguy in the forums suggested dual-objective maps, wich I thought was a great idea; every team would attack and defend at the same time, just like in most teamsports. And since all of SD’s games are e-teamsports that would make a lot of sense.

  • Overtime is also something I loved in BRINK and I’m glad they took it over to DB. It’s also an indicator/reminder, that DB is not just your random fps game, but a virtual teamsport.

The bad:

  • Actually I find the accuracy quite accurate. Meaning, I don’t have the feeling to miss a hell of a lot when I should’ve hit, BUT i’s actually very hard to achieve a full size kill; I’ve never got so many kills stolen from me like in this game. The beep sounds are really satisfying, and they tell me I’m on target, but dropping someone is a whole different story.

  • I also find the markers kind of annoying, and also not helpful enough. Though I have no worries that the final HUD will be informative and easy to read at the same time.

  • Sometimes I really hate the spawning, especially if you spawn directly behind something and get confused of where you are.

The ugly:

  • There’s nothing; game looks great, love the art, textures are sharp(most of the time), setting is great. Nothing to complain there. As with BRINK before, DB is the only mp-fps-game I’m playing. I hoped BRINK would be my shooter for at least the next 5 years, maybe DB will actually be it.
(GENETX) #13

Yeah with the kills Ive got the feeling that I should have done serious damage, but then I only see the enemy left with 75% HP… It annoys me somehow. K/D was never as bad as in DB, even after a few hours of gaming. I just dont get used to it… Its weird, but right now it sucks for me. Furthermore, other players tend to have me down in just 1 or 2 shots. That drives me completely insane then. Maybe it’s the AR of the engineer then. But I want to play engineer… I like that class.

Ive seen a lot of discussion in the DB Update thread on this as well. I really think the guns need to be more balances, more TTK, more accuracy. And yes to Nail, it will be more ET then. Maybe old fashioned. But why would all games need to look like each other in shooting. Why cant DB be different? I’ve played CoD, BF, TF2, etc. But in neither of those games, DB including at the moment, I enjoy the shooting. Only ET and ETQW did it right for me. Unreal Tournament too tho. But the rest, rubbish imho.

As with the last objective and the gun stuff. In ET, altough im not the best FPS gamer, I still had a chance. Being a sneaky engi from behind. If I was lucky, I could achieve the 2 kills required to clear the area near the objective. I haven’t had that adrenaline in DB yet where I could really knock down defence on my own when teammates had fallen and still go for the objective. In ET I always had the one chance during the map. Always. And I miss that. For me, the shooting really seems to ****ed up. Maybe too elite?? Hardcore?? With the current settings in shooting. DB is not much more than the average shooter. Alll being the same and it won’t stand out. I think DB, just like ET, should be a bit different in that. More battles on the field.

Note that I don’t need ET back (neither the prone tho, just use it alot in ET to find cover behind building boxes). I like games that try new stuff. And I think DB is getting great with the setting. But right now, one core component, which is shooting, is just ****ed up to me. And how it feels to me right now is just complete crap. If i wanted a more realistic shooter, I wouldve gotten another game. Its why I still play ET after 10 years, because it is really what gets me hooked to the shooter. And looking at a lot of comments, I am not the only one who finds the shooting terrible. Id like it to stand out from the rest. Being special. Maybe SD could at least try old ET style for a while and see how it goes.

(Mustang) #14

There is a bug where your weapon sounds like it firing faster than it really is, also hitsounds are placeholders and hard to distinguish from weapon firing sounds.

I think all of these together give the feeling that more hits are landing than actually are.

(GENETX) #15

Might also be my 30FPS, not being so smooth to follow ppl. Thats true. But not always. I also have this feeling when I am shooting ppl that are standing still and don’t see me! I even had one that I shot from behind yesterday. Down to 5hp. He turns around and kills me instantly. And I sure was aiming right away and pumping bullets in his body from quite close. So for now, I have the feeling that it is all ****ed up. Still don’t know which variable is causing the major ****up, either:

  • Balance of the guns
  • Parameters of the guns (TTK, accuracy)
  • My crappy 30FPS
  • Netcode
  • Me being a complete noob

But to me, definately something is wrong.

(INF3RN0) #16

[QUOTE=GENETX;456742]
But to me, definately something is wrong.[/QUOTE]

Try using a medium dot crosshair and turn the hit beep on if you haven’t already. Also a lower FoV can help to judge where your aiming more accurately.

(MrFunkyFunk) #17

Thank you for posting your detailed impressions GENETX.

Regarding your aim issues, poor computer performances and the current optimization can take their toll on your global perception.
I think it’s mostly your problem, also you’re new to the game, keep playing the engineer (T-Rat) and you’ll notice he’s quite accurate at medium & close range.
Stay tuned like the rest of us for the shooting mechanics balance which will happen in the future.

(Mustang) #18

True dat.

On my work desktop I have 50-70 fps and it’s unplayable with regards to actually being able to out-shoot anyone.

At home with 90-130 I start to have a chance. :penguin:

(Kl3ppy) #19

But mouse movement and aiming still does feel wrong in DB, its much better now but could still be better

(Brinkman) #20

Just got my key and haven’t played yet… but some of those things sound unreasonable and could break the game. 4 nades? spam fest…