Posted: Sat Apr 11, 2015 7:53 pm
Personally I don't mind spending a minute or two sorting out a balanced match. The confusion between reverse pick and normal pick and all that definitely caused unnecessary delays which were a hassle though.cowtown wrote:QUOTE (cowtown @ Apr 11 2015, 10:31 AM) I think you exaggerate, just a tad. But I do agree with the premis. At this point (speaking only personaly) I don't have the time to sit and read the chat for half a hour, to wait for a game to start. I can turn on the PS3 and be in game in a minute or less. Yesterday, we had a "pick pool" flopping back and forth "normal pick..no..reverse pick...no...normal ". Groan. Then we got "well I don't like anyone listed" FFS who cares. It's a efn game. Let's play. Press the bloody auto balance button and launch FFS!!
I'll see you guys in another week or so, but at this rate I may as well just delete it altogether. It is absolutely pointless to keep trying. When it creates more frustration than fun.
And I think this is a fun game...when we play.
I'm back with another round of thoughts after playing several rounds.
First pain point is definitely the hotkeys. Allegiance is a no mouse game and having simple thrust controls around WASD would make movement far more intuitive and satisfying from the start. Second minor point is the station screen. Would be nice if I didn't have to hover across each terminal to see what they do, have a title visible at all times like "Loadout", or an icon that more intuitively guides the user. Third minor point is returning pod to base. Fortunately there's a red arrow that pops up at times to guide you to the nearest base but other times it's more confusing. Thank goodness for autopilot. Fourth major point is shake while boosting. When the screen shakes fiercely like that it plummets my game engagement because everything is blurry. And boosting is something I had to do so many times. Ticks me off a good deal. I'd really like to see the screen remain stable and just hear the roar of the boost. Or make the shake barely noticeable. Fifth minor point is equipment info. Would be nice to have descriptions and info about items like probes (range, lifetime, etc) provided in-game. Would really drop the barrier to access for engaging the interesting nuances of the game. As opposed to playing with the abstract and nothing concrete to theorycraft and optimize over.
Onto what I enjoyed:
Game enjoyment is widely variable, mind you. My peak moments were destroying bombers, forcing constructors to ripcord out at 20% hp, running a 6-probe deep scouting run (though the long pod drive back was boring), and exploring/probing alephs into enemy space much faster than they could.