[Resupply = fire mission (sometimes)]

It would be nice if it said in big giant red letters what you were about to click for, as sort of a "don't screw this up" confirmation. I know there's some small red text in the corner but it isn't quite obvious enough

[Non-bug Feedback Request]

They're not hard to control; they are hard to *learn* to control.

I love the hurri control scheme, don't change it

You can tell bots where (and what) to drop right now.

It seems bot management is too micro-managementy. I wish there was a way to say "drop here, but take whatever you want" instead of *needing* to specify something. I went to an empty server once and tried to get bots into formation and storm a base - they had trouble forming a tight formation (kept bumping into and plowing each other over), spinning in random circles, then had trouble advancing as a group. I wish I could just highlight a bunch of guys, tell them to "generally stick together", and go in "this general direction".

[A couple sugestions]

One of our worst fears about DropTeam is that potential players will fire it up and conclude "so all you do is drive around shoot stuff" when in fact there is so much more than that beneath the surface.

This is exactly what I thought when I fired it up. "Huh, I drive around and blow stuff up." As I learned more and more about the game, I got more and more excited - but those without my epic patience may drop the game too early.

"it's supposed to be challenging and it's so flexible the way it works now and it's so rewarding once you get good at it... blah blah"

I LOVE mastering a new vehicle and being one of the few that are really good at it... But the transport is simply way too hard. Keep the flight physics/dynamics the same if you want, but we have to fix the flying INTERFACE. With all the hills and mountains nearby, I have no idea if I'm pitched forward; it's too hard to tell if I'm rising or falling; etc. etc... We need more feedback on what the craft is doing. I'm getting better at it, but my flight usually consists of lurching forwards, hovering, lurching forwards again, and hovering more.

Friendly players can (and should) place a waypoint for you and say "Abi, hit the waypoint!" No easier way in the world to target fire.

You know what would make that realistic? Hitting a button while looking at something targets it as a waypoint. Like, hit "G" and it'll pop up a quick waypoint, maybe with your name followed by a number or something. That would make it quick and easy to target for artillery. Heck, even make it so you can only have 1 waypoint quickmarked, and make "H" the "wipe" key for removing waypoints.

The only time you gain detection of any enemy units that other people on your team see is when you have a command track on the ground.

Here's a suggestion that will meet you halfway while promoting more teamplay - if a commander orders a unit to attack an enemy, that enemy should show up on the units map. Just the other day I was telling someone to take out a rapidly-moving hurricane, and he didn't have LOS. "It's right there on the map!" I kept shouting, but he couldn't see it. After I finally realized he couldn't see what I could, I tried marking waypoints for him but the enemy was moving too quickly. :/

[Extraction - resupply]

This seems to be a really common problem, misplacing the resupply ship Maybe a supply-ship-shadow can be shown on the ground where the mouse cursor is, to let you know whereabouts it'll try to touch down? I have no problems with it, but this will make it much more intuitive for the noobs.

[Starting New Round bug(s)]

I run into two problems semi-frequently (every 2-3 games?):

(1) When a new round starts, on CTF maps, I cannot spawn anything in. I'm sure that I'm in my designated area, and even try switching teams to no avail. It's like the server punishes me for being so good with the hurricane in the previous round.

(2) If you leave the score screen up too long before hitting "continue," the server drops it's connection to you (as it should). But you don't know this until you wait the 90 seconds for the level to load up, which can be annoying.

[Emplacement Effectiveness and Use]

I love/hate turrets.

AA turrets are perfect, I think. Range is just right, quantity available just right, power and effectiveness just right. They force people to land away from them, but they're still easily destroyed by lasers and shells. (the effectively disable all artillery and missles, which RULES) I also like how it can force your opponents to land at a certain area of the map - at least, in the early stages, before they can destroy some of the others.

The ground turrets, though, need something like homing plasma balls to be effective. They simply don't hit anything. I used to freak out and blow them up as soon as I saw them, but even when driving my slow EMV van I just ignore them nowadays.

[Questions]

The manual is a little hard to discern on the whole jamming issue... Does jamming make YOUR units invisible within the radius, or does it make the ENEMIES sensors not work who are in the radius?

[Some Comments]

Well I've been playing the game pretty nonstop since release (12 hours logged yesterday alone!), and I feel I can safely make some comments and thoughts about the game.

First: WOW. FUN. AMAZING. I'm a huge fan of gameplay, and I'm a huge fan of realism, and you've really hit the nail on the head combining the two. It isn't to "arcadey" and it isn't so realistic it's boring. BRAVO!

I have so much praise for so many different aspects of the game, don't feel I don't like them if I leave them out.

#1: While I think it's the most fun to drive, the Hurricane is too powerful! It must be nerfed! I don't know if there are some ways you guys can check the server stats, but I usually have a minimum of 15 kills, more like 20-30 per game. I'm very good at moving while firing, which makes me invincible to most shells and other artillery. Foes can usually land two laser hits on me before I lob a ground-digging blast back at them. The only two challengers to my greatness are the Shrike, who doesn't have enough time to lock on to me (if I nuke him before his missle hits, I live), and the Main Battle Tanks. Damn they have a lot of armor! 5 hits to kill some guy named Lexx today. He gave up climbing out of the pit and just sat there after a while. With careful rearming and extracting, I usually have 2 Hurricanes left in stock by the end of the round! My favorite vehicle by far.

EDIT: It appears others are saying the hurri isn't too strong at all; it is perhaps possible that I am not incredibly 1337, but that my foes are incredibly newbz0r. But I have yet to meet my match in game.

#2: I love the EWV truck. It has decent armor, and though I wish the speed was a bit higher it's fairly balanced. If that beast can get near the hindquarters of any tank, say goodbye! Triple armor piercing rounds PLUS no chance for immediate respawn. I love that auto gun on the back. For a round yesterday I escorted Redcon5 and Toxic, keeping them off the enemy radar. Whenever I took damage I extracted and dropped back in; made for an excellent flag run. This is my second favorite vehicle

#3: Lasers are an excellent idea, and I definately see their use in the game, but I really don't like the implementation. It simply takes much too many hits to take out anything. You can't up the damage, because they would become incredibly imbalanced - but I don't they can exist as-is. Perhaps in a very well coordinated, large attack force they have a place... But in these multi games where your max team size seems to be about 3 people (if that)... (I'm referring to actual team players, not people that happen to be the same color). I also dislike that the targeting view looks right down the laser barrel. Too hard to see if you actually hit/where you hit. Can we increase/decrease the viewpoint altitude by a foot or so?

#4: Transport ships! I officially got a kill yesterday, snagging an enemy Main Battle Tank and immediately hitting "X" to hover. Since I had a pretty fast forward clip, the AI pitched me WAY back to stop me, flinging the MBT up almost horizontal with me. When he had a good deal of momentum, I released the teather and WWWOOOOoooooo..... BLAM! Exploded on contact. Great fun. But the damned transports are too wussy! Can we give them Anti-Aircraft auto guns like the resupply vehicles have? All transport operations (at least on these small maps) are usually impeded by a Shrike on the opposite end of the terrain. And one hit usually takes me down, so I don't even have time to drop off my cargo. I also found a bug - I had a friendly dangling below me, and I died before I could release him - the tether went stiff and the tank I was towing couldn't free himself from my tether. Imagine a matchbox car with a foot-long toothpick sticking out the top, and an orange stuck to the top of it. Then push the orange over. The car flips up onto its side! Same thing happened in game. Except instead of an orange it was my flaming wreckage.

#5: Jammer/Sensor ranges are too short. For both, maybe create a line-of-sight and a limited-radius version?

#6: While using the command vehicle, we should be able to drop turrets/sensors/etc... When dropping these items it's very nice to know current enemy positions, which you can't see unless you have the command boat up and running! Catch 22 there.

#7: AI should have a Follow command as well as a formation command. One where the AI stays within, say, 300 meters and maintains LOS to the lead, but otherwise acts smartly on it's own.

#8: AI doesn't seem to know how to drive the hurricane. I always seem to see them drifting aimlessly, and as a commander they don't respond to "move" commands. They're damageless too.

#9: I think it would be smart if the game didn't let you land a dropship within an AA radius. I was being a bastard and I plastered a Capture-the-base map with AA guns a few rounds in a row so there was only a few splotches of dry land left (which were conveniently enough, very visible mountains), and I'm sure the opposing team wasted all of their good vehicles spamming the map with burning dropships. Many people don't realize that the map will show you where is safe and where isn't. The AA turrets work perfectly and are an amazing gameplay mechanic, but those anti-armor turrets... They need some lead computation computers or something. Or!!! Change them so they have homing plasmas balls that lose their track if the turret is destroyed. That would make a well balanced defensive system.

#10: Suicides!! A lot of computer opponents commit suicide after I blow off their turret (or somesuch) and I don't get credited with the kill (AFAIK). :/ Since there's no detriment to doing so, why not have the ai request an extract first? Then maybe implement a 30 second delay after hitting "suicide" until it actually happens. Put this in place for humans as well.

That's about all I have to say for now, I'll go respond to some other threads

[ March 20, 2006, 11:53 AM: Message edited by: weasello ]