The goal in these changes would be simple quality of life / ease of access. No huge changes to gameplay, just streamlining what’s there as is desperately needed. I am aware that some of this is recommending explanations for things I could research answers to on this forum and elsewhere online - in fact, that is what I am going to do next - but a game shouldn’t rely on its players performing outside research to be understood. At minimum, it is a deterrent to new players not used to the genre.
1. Simplify or explain upgrading weapons
If there is an explanation for how this works, it is not easily accessible to a confused new player. There are mentions of salvaging weapons, and upgrading weapons, and things which are only available at certain levels, but there does not seem to be any in-game full explanation of the system. It is very unintuitive for someone not previously experienced with the game’s development. I’m not even sure what resources I need to get started, nor how to go about gaining them. I’m also worried about experimenting since resources are scarce enough that any I waste spending foolishly feel like they may cripple my future progress.
2. Explain the differences between similar guns.
Many of the guns have very slightly different stats and appearances which are only discernable after flipping between the two pages of stats for several minutes. While many players love crunching numbers to figure out which gun is optimal for each role, many other players can’t be bothered. A simple explanation giving generalities such as “this weapon is lighter and faster to reload, with a bit less range, and thus suited to more mobile soldiers” would solve the issue handily. The current explanations are, at best, a vague one-sentence historical description. This description not only fails to explain the mechanical differences, but also fails to explain the history itself. While I am sure someone experienced in such history would recognize the weapon and the statement about it, as someone who is unfamiliar with such it only serves to confuse rather than educate. A slightly longer, deeper explanation would at least provide historical value if not game value. A few sentences on the weapon’s history, combined with a sentence explaining the benefits and drawbacks in game, would be a great improvement on the current state.
3. Perhaps simplify the upgrade system for individual soldiers
Having to upgrade each soldier in the squad individually is fun at times, but at other times overwhelming. I can’t tell whether the upgrades are small enough not to really matter (in which case why is so much of management time spent on choosing them) or critical enough to require careful thought (in which case requiring this for 20+ soldiers seems tiring as a requirement for quality gameplay). Worse than the upgrade process is jumping into play with the now unique soldiers. It is near impossible to remember which soldier has which upgrades in the middle of battle. Some upgrades are even detrimental if you switch to a soldier with them while unaware - extra distance throwing grenades is great until you aim at a tank only to throw the explosives 20 feet past it. It seems optimal to standardize individuals’ upgrades as much as possible just so as to be familiar with your own tools, which makes upgrading each of them individually more of an exercise in frustration than a fun strategic aside. Alternative solutions for this may be to give the option for unified advancement, make more clear to the player the specific perks and such of the soldier they have just switched to, or making perk differences less obtrusive. This suggestion is meant to point out the issue rather than recommend a specific response.
4. Increase reward for objective-based play
While sitting on objectives is necessary to win, players are incentivized to avoid the objectives and instead pick off those assaulting/defending them. This increases their individual performance in the match, at the cost of decreasing their team’s chance of winning. Moreover, if you are the only one holding objectives on your team then you are actively hurting your own ranking in the match. The annoyance of this further incentivizes players to stop working as a team focused on winning the match and instead try to play every squad for themselves. A simple solution might be to add a reward for “time spent capturing/holding objectives” to the individual rankings.
5. Simplify peripheral controls
To play the game at present requires reaching across the keyboard every few seconds. If even a few of these controls could be reduced to use fewer buttons, or relocated to be more easily accessible, the gameplay would greatly improve. Many tutorials online have recommended rebinding the keys significantly. One critical change that many suggest is switching the “switch squad member” control from “y” to something more rapidly accessible, since it should be used so often for optimal gameplay. Also, since this is a core concept of this game, it seems prudent to emphasize it and make the use of the feature easier.
6. Finish loading before asking the player to spawn
Spawning in at the start with graphics still half loaded is always incredibly disorienting. More than that, after choosing a squad to spawn as there is a several second long waiting period while the game continues to load and various parts of the UI snap into place during which it feels like the game is about to crash. Overall just keeping the player in the loading screen for a few seconds longer, then showing them the spawn map like happens each time you respawn, would be much more reassuring and allow the player to know when to actually expect to jump into the action.
7. Make squad commands more noticeable
It is hard to tell when you have issued a command, and hard to tell where you have commanded the squad to go. There is no audio cue (or it is too quiet or easily confused with ambient chatter) and the visual cue is subtle enough to be difficult to make out without squinting. If immersion is the concern, then making a more visible initial cue before fading it out would be sufficient. Also it would be great if the NPCs actually responded to the command more competently and visibly, but I assume improving the AI is already a known priority.
