The last time I wrote a forum post here, I was level 5 I think.
I am level 20 now, got a lot more experience under my belt and am generally more aware of some issues.
So here we go, I will just go over this without a lot of structure because I am recollecting it from memory, so if this seems very unstructured... It is.
First of, and because it infuriated me the other day, automatically spawning another match after your own ends needs to stop ASAP. This had me tearing my hair out yesterday when it happened three times in a row. Its very likely a bug, because it didnt even go to the score screen after the match (where you can see your KDA and how much your weapons have grown) so I will not hammer on it too hard. On the off chance that its actually meant to be this way: STOP. Shame on the devs in that case. This is something that absolutely has to stop.
For ingame itself, the netcode needs a bit of love. the networking frequency needs to be increased by a bit, as too often, people just drop dead in a single shot (from their perspective) this is a hard topic, as networking is insanely difficult, but I have faith in you, my devs.
Weapon balance is another one of these topics, as its a very delicate thing. Currently, the vector feels like a pea shooter. That maybe also to do with the netcode, but it seems like getting 6+ hitmarkers with it was the norm. Also for it being the highest RPM SMG, it doesnt kill very fast at all. I sadly have no huge data for this, but if you can, team up with the guys at symthic.com to give them your data, so they can host them, or host the detailed weapon stats yourself. It will be very much appreciated.
Now, a big one: Sniper rifles.
The TTK in ironsight is on the longer side of things, so naturally sniper rifles flourish in this environment because they need their OHK to be viable.
The solution to this is simple. Reduce the regions in which you can get bodyshots dramatically and it should be fine. Alternatively, you could increase the firerate of other weapons while decreasing their recoil to make them more lethal instead. Both work, but I think reducing the power of the Blaser and the DSR seems like the easier task here.
Menus are another point that I think should be reworked a bit. Choosing a weapon should just choose the base rifle/gun in general. A right click afterwards should bring up the skins menu.
This should be true for all things here. Also, if you get a skin for a gun, it should unlock the base gun as well, so there is no issue with this system.
Ammo: Now, I do not know what the effect of the ammo is, but I can guess and I really really do not like it. I suggest removing the ammo system, as it just makes guns even more costly to run. Another approach could be (but requires intense reworks) to go with something like Tom Clancys Future soldier:
Have like 12 options to diversify on a gun and let ammo be one of them. Would not be an issue if you didnt though.
What is an issue in my eyes is grenades.
Why can you not permanently unlock grenades? I would recommend changing this to unlock permanently for like 8000 credits. Or, if you absolutely, positively have to have this, give us a third option that unlocks permanently which would cost as much as a pistol to permanently unlock.
Now, more things to add than to change.
Something that is severely missing are perks that protect you from drones. Assassin or coldblooded from MW2/MW3 come to mind. I am also missing stuff like scavenger, which has always been a staple in the COD franchise.
Aside from that, this might be something more personal to me, but I feel like the standard amount of classes should be 5 instead of 3. You should also be allowed to change their names, so you can more easily see which is which. My reasoning here:
I usually have a class specifically for SND, one for destroying air targets, one for rushing, one for sniping and one allround. This irks me more than it should, but I currently only have three slightly differently skilled allrounders.
It would also make it easier to fulfill missions, since you can have one class per weapon type, so you never have to redo your classes for dailies.
Gameplay wise, I think you should steal from CSGO and COD a bit more (yes this sounds unflattering, but if it works, why not?):
1: the X damage in Y hits indicator from CSGO. I really REALLY want that at times when someone kills me and I think "Why are you not dead, my magazine is half empty!"
2: The killcam. I sometimes wonder how someone got the drop on me, and this would honestly help, but given that more often than not, the death screen shows my own loadout, this may be a bit difficult to program, so I will let it slide.
For gamemodes, most of them work fine, but I would change two things:
1: for ressource control, make it so the tags the bots are dropping are color coded and award only half as many points if an enemy picks them up. Its infuriating to gun down the reaper only to give the enemy a huge point advantage because they stepped inside after your hard work.
2: Headquarters needs to be changed to a longer single round where if you capture it after the time limit, it just gives your side a point and after 10 minutes the one with the most points wins. You can reduce the time it takes to capture this way and it makes the game more dynamic as you arent forcing breaks between captures.
Grenades feel a bit weird in my eyes. Normally I like realism a lot, but... I kinda liked the rather bouncy grenades of Black Ops 2 a lot. They give you all sorts of tactical abilities.
Furthermore, the movement feels a bit stiff at times, especially after sprinting. Can you make it so a jump out of a sprint gives you a longer jump? Other features, such as dolphin diving would also be cool, but lets take small steps here.
Now, this maybe sounded very negative, but I will not end it like this and give you loads of positives.
Aside from a few rough edges, I feel like in the good old days, playing MW2 with friends. I am having fun, EVEN ON MY OWN. This game has such an amazing amount of potential, especially with the ever growing dissatisfied COD crowd and the game having affordable minimum requirements, the gunplay is a bit unbalanced, but everything is somewhat usable, the maps are mostly balanced, although outpost is really infested with snipers and not having one yourself sucks a lot (see my suggestion to have 5 classes) The sound design is good, the modes work well (Domination, kill confirmed, capture the flag and such would be nice too, but lets not get ahead of ourselves) so, yeah. I congratulate you, your COD-clone surpassed todays originals. That is something you can be proud of!
