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[Dragonmaw]

is really good

discuss

[Kinaetron]

Imma buy it. Also it reminded me how brilliant vertical movement is for FPS games

[ink.inc]

beta runs out 6pm today

[Kinaetron]

I can't fathom the purpose of the bots in Titanfall at all, when topscorers float around 10 player kills a round and over double that for AI there is something not quite right.

It feels like the inclusion of the Titans is the wildcard that has required maps to be a certain size, creating a knockon effect on other design elements. Large maps generally require a decent player count to populate it and somewhere along the line they've ended up opting for AI as filler. If only we were able to mod a game like that, it'd be really interesting to experiment with mapsize and titan acquisition/count.

The bots are there to solve the issue of accessibility for Titanfall. Specifically to make sure that new players have targets that they can take out with relative ease while they learn the ropes of the mechanics and catch up with everyone else in terms of skill level. The last thing the developers want is for new players to be frustrated by being killed every 20 seconds by all of the more experienced players and then coming in dead last with no kills.

[Mittens]

I wrote a list of why I thought Titanfall was broken,
I'm trying to get into the habit of doing this for any game I think has missed the mark, learn from their mistakes.

Anyway, here's my reasons;

• Game length is crazy short, you are never given the opportunity to feel invested in your victory or loss. Compounding on this problem, which side is winning is painfully unclear when looking at the HUD
  
• Creeps (grunts) distract from the joy of killing other players, they also get you into a false sense of security,
  You get so used to seeing enemy soldiers around that you eventually tune out and ignore real threats, enemy pilots

• There is not enough feedback to let the player know when they have killed a player or enemy mech.
  Call of duty made it very clear when you had actually finished an enemy, but Titanfalls HUD and sounds are so busy it becomes difficult to distinguish or follow all the garbage being flashed in your face.

• The mech cooldown is too short, every human player is in a mech almost all of the time
• Combat from within a mech is totally vague and devoid of skill
• The HUD is super evasive and obnoxious and yet conveys almost nothing useful
• The mechs take way too long to turn on.
  Once you've moved to enter a mech the screen and controls take a really long time to be responsive, letting all enemy mechs find you and que up some attacks

[Dragonmaw]

I wrote a list of why I thought Titanfall was broken,
I'm trying to get into the habit of doing this for any game I think has missed the mark, learn from their mistakes.

Anyway, here's my reasons;

• Game length is crazy short, you are never given the opportunity to feel invested in your victory or loss. Compounding on this problem, which side is winning is painfully unclear when looking at the HUD
  
• Creeps (grunts) distract from the joy of killing other players, they also get you into a false sense of security,
  You get so used to seeing enemy soldiers around that you eventually tune out and ignore real threats, enemy pilots

• There is not enough feedback to let the player know when they have killed a player or enemy mech.
  Call of duty made it very clear when you had actually finished an enemy, but Titanfalls HUD and sounds are so busy it becomes difficult to distinguish or follow all the garbage being flashed in your face.

• The mech cooldown is too short, every human player is in a mech almost all of the time
• Combat from within a mech is totally vague and devoid of skill
• The HUD is super evasive and obnoxious and yet conveys almost nothing useful
• The mechs take way too long to turn on.
  Once you've moved to enter a mech the screen and controls take a really long time to be responsive, letting all enemy mechs find you and que up some attacks

I guess I'll address this list, since I played 20h of the beta (lol).

• It's pretty obvious who is winning. Look at the bottom left; whoever has the larger bar/more points is winning. As for game length, that's personal preference; I'm fine with it.
• Pilots are extremely easy to notice; they enter areas AI minions don't, move faster, and are generally more obvious if you pay attention. If anything, I tune out minions.
• For enemy players, you see a bright orange text near the middle of your screen that says "PLAYER KILLED" so I don't know what else you want. As for titans, it actively displays the health of the last enemy titan you damage to the top right of your crosshair; it's pretty easy to tell when one has been taken out.
• Patently not true. Due to actions speeding up Titan cooldowns, the titans are usually staggered out. They also die really quickly, assuming you try to kill them instead of harass. Generally speaking, unless it's a complete stomp, titans per team hover between 2-4.
• You didn't say anything. Vague and devoid of skill? What? Explain?
• The HUD conveys lots of useful things. For example: cooldown/health on your Mech, ammo, scores of the teams, health of enemy mechs, cooldown on abilities, number of grenades. You aren't really offering any direct criticism, just making vague assertions about a lack of information.
• It's there to prevent you from instantly hopping in a mech; adds an element of risk to jumping into your AI titan during a firefight. If it's a dropped mech, you can climb in with no risk at all; the dome shield blocks all fire and actively damages pilots/mechs that enter its radius.

As for the minion discussion:

The minions are there for a few reasons. One, you can "farm" them to get your Titan quicker, ala creep kills in Dota to get an item. Two, they allow players who are bad at the positioning game (aka against other players) to contribute to the match; if a player kills four grunts, then they "break even" in terms of score. Three, they add a push-pull element to the fight, as they fight amongst themselves and attack titans/players (albeit slowly). Four, the special minions (Spectres) can be hacked to provide a player with a squad that follows them around and assists against other players/titans.

I could not imagine Titanfall as anything larger than a 6v6, at least with the current map and titan design. They could go larger, I'm sure, but it would remove the thing that people seem to be finding most fun about Titanfall: brutal, intense, chaotic fights. It would either make the game far too chaotic to allow players to make individual contributions (if map/titan design stayed the same) or it would remove the entire point of your parkour abilities (if they made titans way weaker and maps way larger).

You gotta judge Titanfall on what it is. It's not Battlefield.

[Thomas Finch]

Personally, I love the AI in the matches. I always felt like multiplayer online games with big maps have felt really empty. I'll spend long periods of time just looking for someone to kill. It's nice to feel like there's less time in between confrontations even if they are really easy confrontations.

[J-Snake]

Personally, I love the AI in the matches. I always felt like multiplayer online games with big maps have felt really empty. I'll spend long periods of time just looking for someone to kill. It's nice to feel like there's less time in between confrontations even if they are really easy confrontations.

Play Unreal Tournament Classic. This game actually understands how to occupy yourself, with people.

[Dragonmaw]

Hurtling across the map at ludicrous speeds and blowing someone away with a shotgun is incredibly satisfying.

[Mittens]

Hurtling across the map at ludicrous speeds and blowing someone away with a shotgun is incredibly satisfying.

I really like the freerunning in Titanfall, it's super smooth and all the maps are well designed to accommodate it being used effectively.

It feels like the game is trying to be two different things at once and failing.
I feel like the game wants me to be inside a robot almost all of the time, but it's the part I find least fun.
There's is zero skill in navigating as a robot, you cant even jump. Robots don't involve skill in combat either, you just kinda fire all the rockets in a general direction and hope you have the numbers on your side.

It's like they've tried to completely remove the mechanic of "aim" from an FPS but then they haven't put anything in it's place

[Dragonmaw]

That is so completely wrong. Titan piloting takes a lot of skill, it's just a different kind of skill.

[Slader16]

I was instantly hooked to the beta, day one purchase for me!

[starsrift]

@Thomas Surely you see your complaint for what it really is? A map issue, not a player issue.

I'm not sure what your point is with this. Is criticizing level design not a valid criticism?

[Thomas Finch]

Big FPS games have a big issue that's really hard to solve. Most people don't enjoy maps small enough to force the players close because it discourages sniping and the overall strategy ends up being shotguns. Yet if your map is big enough for a lot of strategies and playstyles, it ends up feeling empty sometimes. You can increase the player count, but sometimes games are emptier. It just depends. I think adding AI to the maps may be a bandaid, but it's a good bandaid. I never felt like they were in the way or ruining any aspect of the matches. In my opinion they made the game feel more alive and like a real warzone. Not saying this is the solution for everyone, but I personally wish more FPS had some AI running around.

[Impmaster]

Is this game basically Call of Duty with mech warriors?

[Praying Mantis]

The gaming press has been hailing Titanfall as the new Halo/Call of Duty/Battlefield FPS messiah, but from what I've seen I'm not so convinced. I did not personally participate in the beta, but from what I've seen of the game, it seems like there's a such a big emphasis on the mechs, which don't seem all that interesting or intuitive. The speedrunning aspect of the game is the most appealing thing to me, but otherwise there isn't enough to set the game apart from the mass of modern FPS games.

[J-Snake]

Look at this gameplay and compare it to modern fps games:

[Tazi]

Look at this gameplay and compare it to modern fps games:

...or to TrapThem.

[feminazi]

jsnak u shud mak trapthem fps

[J-Snake]

Don't worry, won't happen.

That's what some suggest in all seriousness. That is not how the potential of the game works though.

This is my goto video for oldschool stuff;

Boring weapons, btw.