Hey guys, First post! Been playing the game for a while and reading up on the forum, but hadn't registered in the forums yet. This is what I think of the game so far. I tried to play all the available classes and as many different roles as possible so I could see how it was from every perspective. Vehicles: The balance is great on the vehicle side of things. The NF primary tank, the light tank, is fast, agile and hard to hit and fairly inexpensive, while the BE tank is more expensive, but has more armor and firepower. Yet it all depends on who is actually driving in the tank to determine the winner. The NF might have a slight advantage since they get their "good" tank earlier than the BE, the AFV just can't compete well against a decent Light Tank, but if the BE hold off long enough to get their Medium tank they can fight on even ground with the NF. Riflemen: This is the part I don't think is too well balanced. Although the NF assault rifle is a decent weapon, the BE version is just so much better, it feels more accurate and powerful for some reason. If its meant to be that the NF have a better heavy rifle, then it needs some improvement since its a bit too weak to be a heavy rifle. I guess the devs meant to have the BE assault rifle to be better while the NF rely more on their heavy rifle? I also like that they are actually able to damage tanks and buildings, but not to the extent of the other classes. Grenadier: Man, this class is hard to use. Its fairly easy to get killed by any of the other classes, and it takes so many shots to kill a single tank its almost not worth the attempt. The mines are great though, nothing beats terrorizing the enemy making them watch their every step Scout: I didn't get to play this class, just not my style, but I found a few players that are pretty good with its sniper rifle. Found em quite useful when they were taking down enemy engineers trying to build stuff, but I almost never heard any enemy spotted, requesting fire messages. (kudos to LittleWing) Engineer: Ha, the most powerful and important class in the game. Can fix up tanks, heal and revive mates, build entire bases on his own. The team without good engineer support is actually doomed to failure. Bringing one along in an attack allows you to hold up that attack for a longer amount of time, and with revive you could easily double the power of an attack, while on defense you need em to keep repairing ruined buildings and keep the defenses in good shape. Is it possible to make it so that we can drag the dead bodies of our mates to safety before reviving them? Was playing district when I saw three of my mates lying in the entrance of an alley, but whenever I tried to revive em they went down in a hail of lead (BE had quite a few good riflemen), I just wished I could try to drag em out of the alleyway before reviving them. Also, I've noticed that if a BE engy, fights a NF engy, the BE will almost always come out on top, the BE SMG1 seems a lot more accurate than the NF ones, so you can fire from farther away, and up close you can get more bullets into the enemy. Also, what's with all the different SMG types? I only saw ppl using the SMG1 as BE since it seems the more powerful, while as NF I liked the SMG3's power, which is why many ppl use em, while most seem use the SMG1 simply because its the default one. Commanding: Tried my hand at this once, needless to say we were defeated. I still have to learn the whole research tree, that's what I think is one of the weaknesses. There is no way for a newb commander to know what to research as the information provided in-game is so limited. It would be awesome if you had a research tree option ala Age of Empires where you went to a screen with the entire research tree and moving your mouse over each tech/weapon provided all the information you would ever need of each weapon and technology. Right now you can see what a weapon does AFTER you research all the technologies to get to it, but it would be nice if you could see this information BEFORE you spent all that time and cash researching tech only to find out it wasn't what you were expecting. Also, is it possible to place a small icon on top of your players so that you can see them from farther away? I found I sometimes had to zoom out all the way due to terrain obstacles and then I couldn't see my own soldiers, maybe a simple green circle at their feet could be used? Maybe even have it change color so you get real time info on their health, without having to select him? Also, could you make it so that the camera actually follows the terrain so that it doesn't get stuck simply because the camera (which I'm guessing is actually an invisible player) hit a mountain peak? (kudos to vrooom for helping me out with this) Anyways: I really liked how the game worked, how it requires teamwork to get anywhere, and how important your team mates are in combat. Had some fun performing tank assaults and wreaking havoc in sections of 3 or 4 tanks, fighting for the life of my team in a losing game, alamo style. And the fast paced action of District style maps. If you add aircraft and manage to get them well balanced, the awesomeness will triplicate.
thanks for getting on the forums, its always nice to have more people. i cant say much about changes they are making too any of those things, cuz idont no much, so just wait until someone smarting replies.
Well acually the NF AR shows its advantage best in close range combat. True it usually only lands one or two hits per aim before your shooting at the clouds due to the horrendous recoil. But the NF AR has far more damage than the BE AR as well. I personaly perfer the BE AR as well because I like longer ranges. (But I'm not a cheating scout/sniper bastard either) Yes the aircraft should finnaly provide the counter to arty which is currently too powerful to match in several maps. (ex. Money) According to Krenzo he is hoping to have aircraft implemented by version 1.10 (Current version being 1.071b) So that roughly turns out to be an estimate of three months time. (Please Understand these are only estimates) PS: Welcome to the forums!
Both the NF and BE rifle require three shots to kill someone at full health. Although I'm not sure how a riflemen's body armour changes this. Not sure where they're going with the NF AR at the moment =P Grenadiers' mortars are great at destroying enemy buildings from a relatively safe distance. With the ammo increase unlock, one grenadier could cripple the enemy single handidly. Also, in case you didn't know, if you hold the mouse button after firing, you can quide the rocket (although gets a little inaccurate at range =P) Anyway, glad you're enjoying the game
Grenadiers just control the whole map on district/escort if they are used properly. (especially escort) You can fire 20 mortar shells without reloading. Mortar's damage radius is very big so hitting/killing enemies using it is very easy. 8 mines are enough to stop almost every team (if they start to defuse you can start to suicide mine). There's my little "secret" tactic on district. Get health upg, health regen, speed up and defusal as BE grenadier trying to capture first NF flag. You can start running from alley to the NF building leaving all turrets and soldiers far behind you and setting mines in the building so you will be safe from enemies for some time. When NF is shocked with losing the building other part of the team can try to take their first flag. Did I say that grenadier ownz?
I agree with you completely on the vehicles, Trajan. I love how the NF light tank is working in the current version. It's cheap, fast, versatile, and effective, and that's how NF likes to roll. BE does get much more powerful vehicles later in the game that tend to balance it out (assuming the players know what they're doing), so it works out pretty well overall.
True, you can't put just the right combo of what you want on them. But with dual railguns on weapon slot one with the first being primary and the second be secondary. You have rapid-fire hell along with decent accuracy. But I do like the NF's heavy for it increased armor. Along with HE cannon, bio engine, (The others just crap out too damn quick when you really need to move) and bio machine gun for the run-and-gun tactic while the regen armor repairs and the enemy wastes ammo trying to shoot via long range. What makes empires the best will always be the vehical duals.
That and their extremely high price. They are more like end-game weapons that are there to finish off a crippled enemy.
What if you could go over the weight limit? Instead of simply preventing you from building it, going over the limit would simply degrade the performance of the vehicle. It would move more slowly, it wouldn't handle as well, and it would overheat more easily, but in return, you could pack it full of weapon-y goodness. The performance degradation would prevent it from being overly-powerful in combat, but also allow it work.
Then I could finnaly make a heavy weapons platform. But seriously doesn't this already occur when adding more to the vehical? A heavy with the same engine but with maxed weight moves considerably slower than one with no ordinance.
