AGN: What are your most or least favorite changes that SOE has made over the last year?

Deringer · 2013-12-08, 08:42 PM

This week's question is ...

"What are your most or least favorite changes that SOE has made over the last year?"

As always, respond here or e-mail us at [email protected] or call us at (415)787-3224!

MerlO · 2013-12-08, 09:24 PM

Least: Harasser, in particular ES-H weapons

Most: OMFG, better late than never

GreyFrog · 2013-12-08, 09:32 PM

ES MAX abilities.

Chewy · 2013-12-08, 10:35 PM

Agree with MerlO. Giving a NS vehicle ES weapons is one of the worst ideas SOE has had so far. Should have been the same as the Sunderer and limited to NS weapons.

Only way to fix it now is to make all of the weapons useable for all factions. I don't see how you can get the Modified to be anywhere as good as the Marauder without buffing AND nerfing the hell out of both. It's a NS vehicle, make it neutral and go from there.

BlaxicanX · 2013-12-08, 10:37 PM

Harassers and Vanu MAX's.

Don't mind harassers as a concept- they're just too durable and too powerful for how fast they are. A single AP round from a Prowler or Vanguard should one-shot them even at full-health.

Vanu MAX's are just not fun to fight against. You either one-shot them with a missile launcher or you die horribly. There is no challenge nor entertainment in fighting them.

Ghoest9 · 2013-12-08, 10:51 PM

Nerfing the ability to blow gens behind lines.

They ruined the way that 1 or 2 guys who knew what they were doing could get a head of the zerg and really shift the course of a a map conquest.

They also ruined a lot of fun small fights between a few defenders and special ops attackers in these bases.

DirtyBird · 2013-12-08, 11:58 PM

Least Favorite: Falcon nerfed to oblivion and they aint finished yet afaik.

Most Favorite: Learnt along time ago not to sing the praises of anything for fear of it becoming the least favorite.

Timithos · 2013-12-09, 12:06 AM

Worst: Their decisions to keep maintaining deplorable, non-defensible base design. This is the absolute worst thing for me in this game. They think that facilities should be balanced fights between attackers and defenders, versus giving the defenders the advantage to repel an overwhelming force. This was Malorn's recent opinion on the matter. And also that a base that was too defensible would cause too much frustration and harm the "fun" factor. However, empirical evidence suggests that defensible bases are extremely fun as the most popular fighting ever has been Bio Labs (currently our most defensible base only due to two unimaginative choke points), and the old Crown. If people were really not having fun, they wouldn't fight at defensible bases at all, versus the reality of players making them the most popular spots in the game.

Best: Optimization

Best: They moved from being absolutely horrible at bug squashing to being adequate since April.

Best: Despite the community's over zealous weapon balance nerf & buff cries, they understand that balance is precarious thing that needs tweaking and not extreme changes. They seem concerned and put a lot of focus on balance. They may not always get it right, but for the most part their balance fixes get closer to target, not further. Their balance changes may not be popular, but for the most part they were the right thing to do. However, introducing OP weapons to boost sales and then nerf them later is not a very scrupulous practice. Let's hope that practice is over with.

Worst: Their lack of imagination on how to make a base defensible. Walls & choke points seem to be the only tools in their tool box. I could rattle off almost two dozen tools in my base design tool box.

Worst: Instead of enhancing the hex system which the community provided all of the solutions for them, they went with lattice. What is to blame for getting lattice? 1/3 of the blame is on esports, 1/3 was poor optimization that lead to player population drops so they thought the solution was to funnel fights down lanes instead of optimization, and 1/3 of the blame goes to PS1 vets crying out for some sort of lattice system so the dev team barfed something up for them.

Worst: eSports became a poison that is still affecting our poorly defensible base design and capture mechanics to this very day. (Latest example: Test server Freyr Amp Station) We're given facilities that are like fighting in an FPS arena game where bases are nothing but obstacles equal to both sides of the fight as if we're in an airsoft/paintball arena; where bringing 55% forces to the fight is just like pressing the automatic win button.

typhaon · 2013-12-09, 12:50 AM

Worst: ES MAX abilities are poorly implemented. And it's not a change, but just SOE's general inability to react to balance issues in a timely... reasonable... even lazy manner. They simply haven't done anything, at all.

Best: Spawn room changes.

Timithos · 2013-12-09, 02:41 AM

Originally Posted by typhaon

Best: Spawn room changes.

What.. spawn.. room.. changes? Are you talking about that one spawn room on the test server that's sunken, with 5 tunnels in it and roof exit? If so, I hope it makes into the game elsewhere, instead of the under-utilized location it is in now.

almalino · 2013-12-09, 02:42 AM

Best: Alerts

Worst: Harasser

camycamera · 2013-12-09, 06:17 AM

worst? well, i don't know, i mean, i like the new base designs for Esamir and stuff, but i HATE how they didn't change up the spawn rooms! they put walls everywhere to stop tank spamming the spawn room, good, and it made it that bases were for infantry only in most cases (like in PS1), BUT in the end, especially if you're in a zerg steamrolling bases, it ends in just farming! i was expecting PS1-esque spawn rooms, but i'm guessing we wont see that for all bases any time soon.

another minor gripe would be the changes to projectiles, if i'm not mistaken they changed them in GU10(?) from real bullets to straight baby lines.

oh! i also forgot about this one. the changes they made to my god damn striker. yes, i'll admit it was OP, but now it is UP as fuck, and as soon as something goes in front of the target, or the target goes 500m out EVEN IF the missiles are right behind them, they fly straight up the air. it is INFURIATING, they need to fix this. my outfit does not sit on top of mountains w/ strikers raining down hell as much anymore

my favourite change(s) would be lattice, the Esamir bases (yup, contradicted myself there), the almighty Harasser (yes, the ES weapons and the vehicle itself is OP. but it is still as fun as hell damnit!), the AV turret (still OP but still awesome),anchor for my prowler and the SMG's.

edit:

Originally Posted by Timithos

What.. spawn.. room.. changes? Are you talking about that one spawn room on the test server that's sunken, with 5 tunnels in it and roof exit? If so, I hope it makes into the game elsewhere, instead of the under-utilized location it is in now.

i like the change, but it needs more tunnels, and underground bits. and the gens need to be shifted around, like in PS1.

ringring · 2013-12-09, 08:20 AM

Best: Alerts, flawed though they are.

Worst: Going live 1 year ago with so many broken or missing mechanisms.

Emperor Newt · 2013-12-09, 10:28 AM

Worst:
- Harassers (not Harassers as an idea but the current implementation is just outright bad).
- The ongoing implementation of air/air and air/ground interaction which is just not really fun for anybody. At least pilots can have some fun with their rotating/wiggling contests they call "dogfights"

(and I would actually welcome if they could do so without ground AA interfering)
- Also that SOE tends to make weapons obsolete by introducing better alternatives (eg Artemis vs SMGs). And it doesn't look like SOE has any plans on fixing those. Which really is a bummer, especially when people paid cash for them. Dear SOE, making shitty weapons cheaper is not a fix.

Best: OMFG seems to be nice although I didn't notice much. Except that my client crashes much more often now... But hey. Wouldn't be an SOE update if everybody would be happy

typhaon · 2013-12-09, 10:52 AM

Originally Posted by Timithos

What.. spawn.. room.. changes? Are you talking about that one spawn room on the test server that's sunken, with 5 tunnels in it and roof exit? If so, I hope it makes into the game elsewhere, instead of the under-utilized location it is in now.

Spawn rooms used to have fewer doors, smaller doors, no tunnels, no teleporters, and generally were more exposed.