Been playing T1 and T2 for several weeks now, I’m a pretty advanced player and pretty much have the grasp of these modes down. I haven’t ventured into T3 or T4 yet because it seems like it’s much more dependent on modules and I’m not ready for that just yet.
My player rating is above 1200 and for the most part I like where the devs have been taking things. There are only a few gripes I have about the game:
- Game modes are seriously lacking, IMO the best game mode is Combat Recon because it actually requires some form of planning and tactics. Demolition can be fun at times with the back and forth of the bombs. The worst mode is probably beacon hunt and domination, it becomes a cluster at the beacon(s) and just turns into a huge mess (beacon hunt suffers from this the most), especially with how short the counters are for each beacon, doesn’t really let any strategy or tactics evolve other than; getting to the next beacon first, camping and using all the AOE modules possible… It doesn’t really feel like a space battle at that point anymore.
- Introduce a team death-match mode, sometimes I just want the objective to be KILL other players… I don’t want to always have to worry about some other objective, just a straight up skirmish would be fun.
- Capital ships (dreadnaughts) facing off, withe the objectives of taking down turrets, destroying vital sub-systems and sections of the ship until it is completely blown up. Also, give the capital ships huge beam weapons and flak cannons, like freespace to make it even more interesting. * I know this is in the works, just reiterating how fun it would be *
- Attack and defend missions - One team needs to defend a space station, the other team attack, then they switch the next round and the team the defends it the longest wins.
- Escort missions - One team has several freighters they need to escort to a jump gate, the other team needs to blow them up. Switch for round 2 and the team with the most escorts defended wins.
As far as ship balancing is concerned, I’m actually pretty happy where it is now. Sure some ships can be annoying, but it seems like every ship has some annoying module that can destroy you quickly, which is balanced in my eyes. The only ship I think can use some love is probably the Engi ships in T2… they pop terribly quick and honestly don’t get much use anymore. I think a little bit more survivability is in order, perhaps some more base resistances. Maybe even give them the ability to replenish friendly missiles. This will make them far more viable, and would be a good off-set for the low survivability they currently have. Another would be to increase their maneuverability and speed by 15 or 20%. I do like that their healing range was reduced, as now friendly’s are forced to fly back to them to get repairs, as it should be. I think the roles are great and fit really really well when you play your role. Long range frigs are also squishy to intys, but I think that was intended.
Weapon balancing is also great, but I think that railgun sniper might be a little overpowered especially when intys have them equipped. Perhaps scale the damage with the distance, so it will be used more by snipers at a distance and not by fighters, and intys close range. I don’t think it was intended for that.
Anyway, those are my 2 cents. I will comment more on T3 once I start to play that, but right now T2 holds most of my interest.