Denaut
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Totally, and those WoW battlegrounds too, completely aping the MoBA trend. I mean, what other kind of game has classes and instanced PvP?
Firefall
- Thread starter Vilgan_sl
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That's why I said the rest looks decent enough, the moba copy is most likely a fucking terrible idea though because unless your balance is excelent(very unlikely) or your choice of frames is insane(which won't happen for a while), then you'll run into the issue of having every fucking one playing the same fucking shit. And it's a complete change from their previous system where you picked your skills for your frame and what not, now you pick your frame to pick your skills.
Complete changes are fine but they keep changing shit over and over and the game never really has time to settle. They do a massive mechanics change, patch a few things, then work for a few months without any significant update on the next big change of systems. Just hope for them they manage to attract enough new players everytime they do such changes to replace the people who quit because the game isn't what they initially liked with it. I guess hitting the moba genre they have a larger playerbase than the competitive FPS genre though.
Denaut
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Perhaps I am really missing something here, but how is this a MoBA copy? It is basically a traditional class based MMO structure. Your battleframe is a set of abilities and stats that define a role, you then enter a match to fill that role. As they flesh out the frames with more abilities, you will be able to swap them out for alternatives to make a build. It is exactly like instanced PvP in pretty much any RPG, from WoW battlegrounds to Global Agenda. They removed the progression because people whined that they didn't want to PvE for PvP, personally I don't mind progression in PvP at all, in fact I like it.
It isn't a complete change. At its core everything still works the same way, they just restructured and increased progression while adding new abilities. They refined the classes, vastly improving them. They added quite a number of abilities and removed most of the crappy or useless ones. A few good ones were lost too, but I am sure they will make it back. The entire system is designed to let them easily add and balance abilities while allowing for customization.
Even harvesting and crafting has essentially the same concept, they just expanded it significantly to allow for the introduced progression and customization.
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Obviously the MOBA style of gameplay is close to every RPG since it is basically the SC/WAR3 hero concept where you have a class that progresses and unlock skills. The difference is in the limited scope and the amount of "classes". You seem to believe that they will add new skills to existing battleframes. The way they made the new system, to me it seems more likely that they'll add new battleframes instead with new skills. Because they decided to monetize battleframes themselves, it's also the best way for them to keep making money in the long term, keep adding battleframes that people will buy with money instead of ingame ressources to have access to them asap.
The main difference between mobas and classic RPGs in terms of class progression is simply that in mobas, the class progression is very limited, the difference between 2 players using similar classes is null or close to(item builds and in some cases external abilities like LoL summoner spells) and instead the game relies on a very large choice of classes to find depth into team composition more so than classes depth themselves. Other than a few exceptions(for example dota's rubick and invoker), moba/dota classes are fairly shallow.
My reaction seeing the changes is that's the way they're going. I could be wrong and we'll see in a few months when they start releasing new stuff again what they're going with.
The other changes all seem very good, and in a PvP aspect I don't necessarily think the moba change is a bad thing, it works fine in that environement(I still can't accept any game selling classes as their main revenue in this genre though), but if I'm right and they do go moba progression it will make the pve very dull, unless they add a way to change classes on the fly, and I don't mean like wow's talent spec change out of combat etc, I mean like a real incombat class change, with a cooldown of some sort. In this case it'd be very cool to build a "deck" of battleframes to counter every situation. Think FFXIII combat.
Could be they simply wanted to streamline the process and make the classes more unique with less overlap and they'll add new skills that reinforce that idea and I'm completely wrong, but at this point I don't think it can be said one way or the other(and since the forums are down I can't check if a dev commented on that yet).
The main difference between mobas and classic RPGs in terms of class progression is simply that in mobas, the class progression is very limited, the difference between 2 players using similar classes is null or close to(item builds and in some cases external abilities like LoL summoner spells) and instead the game relies on a very large choice of classes to find depth into team composition more so than classes depth themselves. Other than a few exceptions(for example dota's rubick and invoker), moba/dota classes are fairly shallow.
My reaction seeing the changes is that's the way they're going. I could be wrong and we'll see in a few months when they start releasing new stuff again what they're going with.
The other changes all seem very good, and in a PvP aspect I don't necessarily think the moba change is a bad thing, it works fine in that environement(I still can't accept any game selling classes as their main revenue in this genre though), but if I'm right and they do go moba progression it will make the pve very dull, unless they add a way to change classes on the fly, and I don't mean like wow's talent spec change out of combat etc, I mean like a real incombat class change, with a cooldown of some sort. In this case it'd be very cool to build a "deck" of battleframes to counter every situation. Think FFXIII combat.
Could be they simply wanted to streamline the process and make the classes more unique with less overlap and they'll add new skills that reinforce that idea and I'm completely wrong, but at this point I don't think it can be said one way or the other(and since the forums are down I can't check if a dev commented on that yet).
Denaut
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The MoBA comparison is makes a little more sense if it is directed at the PvP specifically. The problem is that it is only like 10% of the game. I am a bit puzzled why so many people even care about it since there are 728543 PvP games out there just like it, but the PvE is very unique and fun. Even assuming they don't allow any customization for PvP, you don't HAVE to spend real money, you can just PvE instead.
They initially made the classic mistake of most MMOs and tried to be all things to all people. That leads to inevitable failure. I think they realized what was compelling about their game is the PvE, so they said fuck it, and set up PvP to be MUCH easier to balance so that they don't have to spend lots of resources on it. In my experience it is basically impossible to make hardcore arena style players happy with balance anyway.
As for the new PvE, it is already has ridiculous customization. It has only been out like 2 days, the GUI is crap, and most of that time it has been unplayable so this is pretty easy to miss. In PvE, you are able to swap abilities in and out already. For example, I took the heavy turret off of my accord engineer and then put it on my Bastion frame. He is now a turret god and it is pretty fun.
Beyond that the customization in printing gear is amazing. You upgrade the restrictions on your frame and can then customize gear to fit within those restrictions, trading off stats on equipment as you see fit. The Mk.I upgrades are sort of all around upgrades, but you can go hog wild on the Mk.II versions. This relies heavily on planning and harvesting the right materials and then planning out what you will use to construct gear. It has more depth and thought to it than any game since Star Wars Galaxies. This exists right now in the new version of the game.
You can change classes anywhere on the fly by using a battleframe station calldown.
They initially made the classic mistake of most MMOs and tried to be all things to all people. That leads to inevitable failure. I think they realized what was compelling about their game is the PvE, so they said fuck it, and set up PvP to be MUCH easier to balance so that they don't have to spend lots of resources on it. In my experience it is basically impossible to make hardcore arena style players happy with balance anyway.
As for the new PvE, it is already has ridiculous customization. It has only been out like 2 days, the GUI is crap, and most of that time it has been unplayable so this is pretty easy to miss. In PvE, you are able to swap abilities in and out already. For example, I took the heavy turret off of my accord engineer and then put it on my Bastion frame. He is now a turret god and it is pretty fun.
Beyond that the customization in printing gear is amazing. You upgrade the restrictions on your frame and can then customize gear to fit within those restrictions, trading off stats on equipment as you see fit. The Mk.I upgrades are sort of all around upgrades, but you can go hog wild on the Mk.II versions. This relies heavily on planning and harvesting the right materials and then planning out what you will use to construct gear. It has more depth and thought to it than any game since Star Wars Galaxies. This exists right now in the new version of the game.
You can change classes anywhere on the fly by using a battleframe station calldown.
Kinda late to the party.. but if anyone has an invite left PM me please. Lookin' for somethin' fresh to play and the handful of vids I've watched on this seem pretty cool.
So I printed myself out a shotgun, but I can find no way to equip it. Any ideas?
I went to the battleframe garage and clicked on secondary weapon and it wasn't there. Logged out and logged in later...still not there. Today when I logged in and went to the battleframe garage, blam, there it is! Shotgun engineer is friggin' awesome.
This game is really on the wrong track when it comes to its PvE nowadays. In the next patch, they're adding in a durability system to crafted items with no permanent repair option. Essentially changing the grind in the game to an infinite grind. Addressing the lack of content in the game by forcing people to reuse the limited content available even more (in a boring/grindy fashion) is an awful idea.
Beyond the above, I don't think this game has time to turn things around anymore. I had a lot of optimism for the game based on constant developer interaction with the community and a seemingly high level of support, but the recent open beta announcement managed to kill that optimism. There's just no way that anywhere near enough content will be produced for the July Open Beta, and as a result the game is going to be DOA. Games simply don't turn around if they have a poor showing in open beta - they get defunded and put into maintenance mode. Really unfortunate given the talent and resources the game had at its disposal.
Beyond the above, I don't think this game has time to turn things around anymore. I had a lot of optimism for the game based on constant developer interaction with the community and a seemingly high level of support, but the recent open beta announcement managed to kill that optimism. There's just no way that anywhere near enough content will be produced for the July Open Beta, and as a result the game is going to be DOA. Games simply don't turn around if they have a poor showing in open beta - they get defunded and put into maintenance mode. Really unfortunate given the talent and resources the game had at its disposal.
Yeah. I'm not terribly optimistic for this, anymore. I was hoping for more content, but with each patch cycle, meaningful content has been pretty much a no-show. Unless they have some super-mega-content-patch in the works and ready by the end of May, it's not going to be something I'd want to continue playing.
It's a shame. I really like the game world and the design.
It's a shame. I really like the game world and the design.