Alright, we're a few days into a patch and we've been logging some hours. After some careful consideration, we present what we've gathered from the past few days, and share what we think it heralds to the future. We've got a lot of stuff to cover, so let's get started! You can find the original Patch Notes here.
User Interface 2.0 is live. Everyone knows that was the big news, so we're just going to post here for posterity that this push came a little sooner than we thought it would - and it shows. There were a host of problems right out of the gate, and so we'll skip the "known issues" at the top of the Patch Notes. There were a host of other problems that came with this, but it's not out of the ordinary for a game to patch like this. What was unexpected was the announcement of a hotfix coming, even though they pushed the UI publish out! I understand that PGI wants to keep the publication schedule, but it could have waited a day or two I think.
There's a huge thread of Known Issues. However, the most disturbing thing is what seems to be a global framerate decrease. I have some faith this will be rectified...there was a similar framerate decrease last year during another big push. However, that seemed like it was strictly software related - and I hope it's cleared up soon and gets BACK TO NORMAL.
Make no mistake, this performance hit is huge. It's already sent some of our mechwarriors completely out of action (that's why Gearstripper isn't writing this column) which further sets us back from our goal of having a dedicated competition company. This has to be the top priority for PGI at the moment - if not, we're going to lose a LOT of players as they simply don't like the herky-jerky framerates. Who wants to run on (low) textures after you've spent $$$ on awesome skins and textures!
Lots of lights hitting the field alongside the Ember. This is the hero Firestarter, and it mounts a set of 4 flamers and 4 machine guns as it's primary armament. It's got a nice set of hardpoints (hubba hubba!) and can mount an AMS - no doubt we'll see some nasty tweaked builds out there. In it's native state, however it depends a lot on support. Well, it is a Close Support mech in the truest sense.
Now on to turrets in the Assault maps. If anything our lightning strikes to take bases without firing a weapon in under 4 minutes have been making people angry. The last article on this RSS talked about the need to defend the base, and now they've added turrets to a few maps and stated their intent to add more. This is the response PGI has to the quandary of the Assault map.
How so? Well, the addition of turrets immediately made people play a more defensive style game. It's hard to maneuver through 7 active turrets and 12 enemy mechs. This is exactly how Assault should be played, and it will change how we approach the base on a map-to-map basis. In all, I believe this is a very positive addition to the game.
Last thing, the weapon modules. I'm not impressed with these. It does give you a boost on range, and I haven't really experimented with all of them yet. However, they don't seem that great - less than a 10% range boost for the cost of some MC, C-Bills and a module slot. Not very inviting at their current boost levels.
Let me know what your take is on these new issues this week. Post comments here, on Facebook or where ever you may find us on the web. Take care, and I'll see you on the drop!
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