Archive for category Soapbox

I played some more Warzone and Guerilla Warfare last night. I have some random thoughts.

Map Configuration You might not think that the map in the beta is too big. Personally, I do, but that’s fine. The large field with the broken pipes is a useless no mans land just to fill space. (Kind of like the one area in Fuel in MW2.) But anyway. The real problem, besides the size, is the fact that it’s hard to get out of the lower part of the map. There’s only three small areas where you can get out of the lower portion, and if the other team gets out and sets up before you do, you’re screwed. Each of those areas is easily visible by people set up in the top portion of the map. That happened to us in a game of Warzone last night, and there’s no way we could plant the explosives on the dam because we were very effectively bottled up into the lower portion of the map.

Infiltrator Bug It happened to me every once in a while, and I thought that maybe it was just me and I misunderstood what was happening. Maybe there was another guy there I was unaware of, or whatever. But last night it happened again in two very clear instances, where I could not have misunderstood and nobody else was around. My reticles were green when hovering over an enemy Infiltrator. It’s quite disconcerting to go out of your way to check for an Infiltrator only to be given incorrect information. Anyone else see this? I’ll be reporting this on the bugs thread on the official forums.

Gun Ranges Why can a guy with a shotgun kill me with one shot 80 meters away? And why can I empty a good portion of my Tactician’s SMG clip into an enemy 50 meters away, and feel like I’m spitting marshmallows?

Unlock Point Confusion Okay, I want to know: what is rule for getting unlock points? I thought I got unlock points when I levelled up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Do you get them every 10k XP? What? Enquiring minds want to know.

I played some more KZ3 beta last night, and before I get into it I’d like to make some comments. First, I’m only one person, and this is only my opinion. Second, I know this is a beta, but if I can’t criticize a beta, then they shouldn’t have released it. Also, this game is close to release. Those of you saying “it’s only a beta, the final version could be much different” don’t realize how software development works. The final version will be just like this. Let’s just hope that they patch it. Third, I keep playing it because I want to like it, believe it or not. I know I’ve been doing a lot of complaining, but I bring to the fore issues with the game that need correcting. I played KZ2 quite a bit. Those of you who were around for KZ2 will remember all the game nights I put together. I like the franchise, and I want it to improve, and I want to enjoy it. Fourth, to those of you who like to insult me because I express my opinion: grow up. Or not. I like a good laugh.

Okay, let’s get into it. I played several matches of Guerilla Warfare last night, and nothing else. So these comments are about that.

Before I get into the meat of it, those of you who don’t have spawn issues should watch a little more carefully. Last night I caught someone by surprise right at the start of a fresh game and killed him within seconds of the match start. First blood, and he definitely didn’t see it coming. While I enjoyed the kill, I acknowledge that it was totally unfair.

So last I decided that if I can’t do well at the game playing the class I want to play (Tactician), that I would try one of the classes I dislike playing against. I couldn’t bring myself to play the Infiltrator, so I chose the Marksman.

How did I do? Well, to put it mildly: extremely well. I went from one of the players that don’t really make a difference to probably the best performer on the team. For almost all the matches. I didn’t get the highest number of kills, but I turned in the highest number of kills over deaths. And in Guerilla Warfare, that’s what matters. I routinely got games where I went nine and two, or nine and one. (For some reason, nine kills was a very common number for me.) I often got a ribbon for the highest k/d ratio.

I know you’re thinking “Nine kills? What’s the big deal about nine kills?”. Yeah, I’m not the best player in the game. I never said I was. But a score of nine and two contributed a lot more to the win than the “top” player that went 15 and 12. If you don’t understand that, please don’t reply. The leader boards at the end of a Guerilla Warfare match are not organized by contribution to the win, instead they’re organized by the number of kills, which isn’t the same thing.

Anyway, I’m trying to point out that going from a Tactician to a Marksman greatly improved my score. I did a lot better playing a cheap hide-in-the-corner class than playing a class that is more team oriented. Sure, it was very satisfying to turn around and kill two people who were standing right next to me who didn’t see me. But this is adversely affecting the game. Last night I didn’t see a single Medic. There’s no incentive to play the Medic. I rarely saw Tacticians or Engineers. Some games, there wasn’t a single Engineer on my side, so we had no resupply depots. I had to scrounge around for weapons when I ran out of ammo. Is this what you guys want? Everyone playing Marksman or Infiltrator?

Last night was another night of frustration playing KZ3 beta. On the whole, the evening left me drained.

1. Initial Spawn Problems
   Why is it when I play Guerilla Warfare, I get killed three seconds after I spawn for the first time. At the beginning of the match. It’s not like I wait around before spawning either. I spawn myself as soon as I can, and there’s a bad guy waiting for me. How does that happen? I’m not just talking about joining a game in progress either. I’m talking about a brand new game. How did they get so close so fast? Do some people get to spawn sooner than others? Are the spawn points for the two teams not far enough apart? It’s very frustrating.
2. Subsequent Spawn Problems
   When I spawn in Guerilla Warfare, the system should not put me next to a bad guy so that I die right away.
3. Missing KZ2 Features
   In KZ2, you could go online and check out matches after the fact. Pretty cool, huh? Are we still going to have that for KZ3? What about the ability to create a rotation of games with custom game types and maps? Are we still going to have that? What about squads, and spawning on your squad leader? I don’t see that in the game either. It’s really too bad that KZ3 is missing these neat features. Any I missed?
4. Maybe Need More Playlists?
   They’ve broken out Team Deathmatch into a separate mode. If we’re not allowed to set up our own custom games (see previous point), maybe GG can set up some additional playlists instead. Like an Assassin playlist, where all you play is two rounds of Assassin, with a possible tie breaker where you both have to kill an enemy target at the same time. Or how about a Capture and Hold playlist? Capture and Hold is a very popular match type. It would be cool if it was broken out too. Ditto for Search and Retrieve.
5. Scramble+ is Too Powerful
   The Cloaking and Disguise features are too powerful without a counter. The Tactician needs the ability to find these players in order to balance the game.
6. Dying Moans Are Annoying
   Can’t we please just get rid of them? Please?
7. Marksmen Should See Other Marksmen
   If you’re a Marksmen, you should be able to see enemy Marksmen a little bit better than your team mates do. The ability to be totally invisible is too powerful.
8. Die and Choose Class
   I had this same complaint about KZ2, and they never fixed it there. Hopefully they can do something this time around. I don’t want to wait for a Medic. They never arrive. I’d much rather spend those five seconds choosing a class. Instead, I have to wait for the timeout. Every. Single. Time. (Because there are never any medics.) Only then can I choose a class, when I’d much rather be in the game already playing. So please let me choose a class during those five seconds.

On the whole I get the feeling that GG isn’t all that good at game balancing. Often playing Warzone or Operations, things feel so lopsided that I just want to give up. The Spawn and Ammo dump camping are terrible problems, and we don’t even have the turrets to protect our home spawn like we did in KZ2. Plus there’s all the other things I’ve mentioned in this and previous posts.

So far I’ve had two frustrating nights and one fun night playing KZ3. That’s not a good ratio. I hate to bring up CoD, because I know there’s so many anti-CoD fanboys out there who’ll rail on me, but I will anyway. When I play CoD and do badly, I wonder how I can improve my game next time. When I play KZ3 and do badly, I wonder how the game can be fixed. That’s not a good sign.

For KZ3 last night I played with a friend and tried Operations, which I hadn’t played a lot of before. Here are my thoughts.

1. Just like many other shooters, playing with a team that actually communicates makes a big difference.
   Not only did I have my friend on my team, but others on my team were communicating as well. We played several rounds, and had a lot of fun. As Helghast, we never let the ISA get past the first set of doors. As ISA, we always accomplished the first two missions, and got to blow up the dam two times out of three (IIRC). I played a lot better last night than the previous night, which was also a lot of fun. The voice chat is very good. I could always understand my team mates. Why can’t other PS3 games do this?
2. The Marksmen weren’t a problem this time around.
   Sure, they annoyed a little. I remember one that was majorly corner camping. But on the whole they didn’t annoy me as much this time around. I don’t know if it’s because of the game type, the people I was playing with and against, or what. If most sessions go like this with regards to the Marksmen, I won’t consider them a problem.
3. Some of the weapons a class starts out with aren’t very good.
   I find myself doing strange things to level up. Like using the Engineer class to get kills to get points to unlock the good weapons on the other classes so that I can finally use them. I don’t know if everyone’s wearing armour or what, but it takes a lot of bullets to kill someone with the Tactician’s SMG. (The Tactician, in case you’re wondering, is my favourite class. I just don’t like the SMG all that much.)
4. The class system plays a greater role in KZ3 than it does in KZ2.
   I think that’s cool. In KZ2, everyone pretty much chose whatever class they liked playing. But in KZ3, it’s important to have at least one Tactician and Engineer on your team. As to Infiltrator, Marksmen, and Medic, those are all pretty generic classes when it comes to getting things done in the game. But at least there are now two invaluable classes, which mixes things up a bit.
5. The Infiltrator is the most selfish class in the game.
   People who play the Infiltrator do so for kicks. It’s the danger-close noob-tube class of KZ3. (For those of you who played MW2, you know exactly what I’m talking about.) The Infiltrator is annoying as anything, and last night was no exception. In KZ2 it was much easier to spot an Infiltrator (for an ISA, the blue light on their suit wasn’t on, for Helghast, I think maybe their eyes didn’t glow). But in KZ3, no matter what people say, it’s hard to spot an Infiltrator. Judging by my team mates’ comments, I’m not the only one with this problem. To be honest, I tried the Infiltrator once or twice last night to see what the fuss was about. It is indeed easier to get kills with this class. I walked right up to one guy’s face and blasted him away. He had no idea that I wasn’t his team mate. We were up against a lot of Infiltrators last night, and seeing how easy it is to get kills with this class, I better understand why.
6. The UI could use some tweaking.
   There are several places where they use text that scrolls back and forth. It’s very hard to read at a glance. It’s also hard to find your name in the stats when you want to see how many kills you had (or didn’t have, in my case).

Am I still bringing back my pre-order? I’m starting to waffle, to be honest. If I can find a group of guys to play with more often, then I think this game can be a lot more fun than my first long exposure was. We’ll have to see. I’ll play the beta some more and make up my mind.

I haven’t been able to play the KZ3 beta very much, just because I couldn’t get online. After the patch last night, however, things were a lot better. I could connect no problem, and so I played several games. I was placed in several Guerilla Warfare matches right at the end, which was frustrating. But I also got to play through several full matches of Guerrilla Warfare and Warzone.

I’m going back to the store and asking for me pre-order money back. There’s no way that this is an enjoyable game. KZ3 is more frustrating than MW2 ever was.

One. It’s not fun being killed by people you can’t see. I was walking along, minding my own business, and a guy right if front of me, who was cloaked, shoots me dead. Sure, it might be fun for the cloaked person. “Tee hee. I was standing right in front of him. Giggle giggle.” But to everyone else, it’s an annoyance of epic proportions. (Well, as epic as annoyances in a video game can get.)

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