So I've been playing the game this week, it's really solid but I feel like the game is not playing upon its strong features. These are mostly minor, but at times make the game pretty frustrating when they add up. Since the game may get further patches, here's a list of grievances:
- Commander role should be made available to lower ranks if no one's taking it. A poor commander is a lot better than none, unless the newbie commander deliberately team-kills - well in that case you have role kick and ban, right? When not being commanded, the game just plays like any other FPS, and it completely breaks the balance if one team has one while the other has not. This is pretty obvious to anyone playing these days but I can give further details if needed.
- Squad Leader role should be open to role kicking. I can't even comprehend why this isn't in the game. These two issues are probably made worse by the influx of new players, but I've seen high-leveled players completely forgoing the SL duties too. I think it would also be better to lower the rank requirement for SL to 10, more leniency could be acceptable since it's open to voting now.
-UI could be made less cluttered, especially the chat window and quick command screen. Currently both notifications/orders and chats show up in the same area, one could be moved to the top left - this would also make following orders and artillery warnings easier. It would help greatly if these were colored differently. Also, texts seem to disappear too quickly, maybe these can be ordered so that a text by commander stays the longest, followed by those by SLs and then the grunts.
-Making the tactical overlay on by default would help newbies to get their bearings.
These are mostly small fixes which I hope wouldn't be hard to implement. I think there are couple areas for improving general gameplay:
-Currently the Commander role is one with low rewards and high risks (due to TK). Aside from getting kicking/abused by players, I've been seeing a lot of reports where Commanders who were having a good run getting auto-kicked by the server due TK limits, these should be extended for commanders. Also it'd be better to make the Commander more of an authority, giving them the option to remove non-cooperating squad leaders would be a good start. Maybe it'd be good to allow commanders to assign squads to certain spawn points.
-I think SLs could also be made more of an authority, but I cannot think of easy ways of doing that, maybe a similar change allowing SLs to assign squadmates to certain spawn points would work.
- This is probably far-reaching, but a reward system for completing given orders would bolster both of these roles. E.g. commander orders a squad to certain place, if squad does that, the SL gains points; in a similar way, SL orders the squad to throw a smokescreen, or defend a location, squadmates who do that are rewarded.
-Radioman role, while crucial, is often boring, bordering useless when you have commander who prefers to turtle the radios. By simply giving them binoculars and the ability to mark coordinates they can be made a lot more exciting to play, something like a deputy commander.
- Going further with communication, a rework of quick commands would be great. Let's face it, majority of players will never use voice chat, it's just the way it is. Quick commands could be refined so that more frequently needed ones are easier to access - things like requesting smoke screen should be much easier. Getting a numbered list which can be controlled by number keys would be a lot better than current wheel layout.
- F2P newbies (including me) are always the worst playerbase to educate, but the game really doesn't make that any easier. There's no real tutorial other than a shooting range and most essential things like checking the map, tagging enemy locations or understanding the tactical overlay are not demonstrated well enough. The tutorial videos (and they aren't really well made) open up an external browser which means 90% of people will not even bother with watching them. Making these tutorial in-game would help a lot. It would also allow the devs to lock certain roles behind completing these tutorials, so that someone who doesn't know how to throw smoke does not uselessly occupies the scout role.
Oh well this has turned into a wall of text, wasn't really aiming for that. It's just that I really, really enjoy the core gameplay but often feel like the game doesn't nudge people towards that, I think RS2 is at its best when it can both accomodate the mindlessly rushing newbs, K/D ratio obsessed tryhards and tactical people with the reflexes of a turtle. But as it stands now you have K/D enthusiasts as squad leaders, the slow as rushers and no one as commanders.
I know that chances of this being read by a dev is minimal, but I think it's worth a try since there'll be at least one hotfix. On the off chance that it gets read, I can even make a decent report on these suggestios (I've some QA experience). I hope the game gets a few more patches, it may not have the numbers now but I think it really has the potential and the recent giveaway can do a lot good if properly managed (like how R6S fixed itself up)
- Commander role should be made available to lower ranks if no one's taking it. A poor commander is a lot better than none, unless the newbie commander deliberately team-kills - well in that case you have role kick and ban, right? When not being commanded, the game just plays like any other FPS, and it completely breaks the balance if one team has one while the other has not. This is pretty obvious to anyone playing these days but I can give further details if needed.
- Squad Leader role should be open to role kicking. I can't even comprehend why this isn't in the game. These two issues are probably made worse by the influx of new players, but I've seen high-leveled players completely forgoing the SL duties too. I think it would also be better to lower the rank requirement for SL to 10, more leniency could be acceptable since it's open to voting now.
-UI could be made less cluttered, especially the chat window and quick command screen. Currently both notifications/orders and chats show up in the same area, one could be moved to the top left - this would also make following orders and artillery warnings easier. It would help greatly if these were colored differently. Also, texts seem to disappear too quickly, maybe these can be ordered so that a text by commander stays the longest, followed by those by SLs and then the grunts.
-Making the tactical overlay on by default would help newbies to get their bearings.
These are mostly small fixes which I hope wouldn't be hard to implement. I think there are couple areas for improving general gameplay:
-Currently the Commander role is one with low rewards and high risks (due to TK). Aside from getting kicking/abused by players, I've been seeing a lot of reports where Commanders who were having a good run getting auto-kicked by the server due TK limits, these should be extended for commanders. Also it'd be better to make the Commander more of an authority, giving them the option to remove non-cooperating squad leaders would be a good start. Maybe it'd be good to allow commanders to assign squads to certain spawn points.
-I think SLs could also be made more of an authority, but I cannot think of easy ways of doing that, maybe a similar change allowing SLs to assign squadmates to certain spawn points would work.
- This is probably far-reaching, but a reward system for completing given orders would bolster both of these roles. E.g. commander orders a squad to certain place, if squad does that, the SL gains points; in a similar way, SL orders the squad to throw a smokescreen, or defend a location, squadmates who do that are rewarded.
-Radioman role, while crucial, is often boring, bordering useless when you have commander who prefers to turtle the radios. By simply giving them binoculars and the ability to mark coordinates they can be made a lot more exciting to play, something like a deputy commander.
- Going further with communication, a rework of quick commands would be great. Let's face it, majority of players will never use voice chat, it's just the way it is. Quick commands could be refined so that more frequently needed ones are easier to access - things like requesting smoke screen should be much easier. Getting a numbered list which can be controlled by number keys would be a lot better than current wheel layout.
- F2P newbies (including me) are always the worst playerbase to educate, but the game really doesn't make that any easier. There's no real tutorial other than a shooting range and most essential things like checking the map, tagging enemy locations or understanding the tactical overlay are not demonstrated well enough. The tutorial videos (and they aren't really well made) open up an external browser which means 90% of people will not even bother with watching them. Making these tutorial in-game would help a lot. It would also allow the devs to lock certain roles behind completing these tutorials, so that someone who doesn't know how to throw smoke does not uselessly occupies the scout role.
Oh well this has turned into a wall of text, wasn't really aiming for that. It's just that I really, really enjoy the core gameplay but often feel like the game doesn't nudge people towards that, I think RS2 is at its best when it can both accomodate the mindlessly rushing newbs, K/D ratio obsessed tryhards and tactical people with the reflexes of a turtle. But as it stands now you have K/D enthusiasts as squad leaders, the slow as rushers and no one as commanders.
I know that chances of this being read by a dev is minimal, but I think it's worth a try since there'll be at least one hotfix. On the off chance that it gets read, I can even make a decent report on these suggestios (I've some QA experience). I hope the game gets a few more patches, it may not have the numbers now but I think it really has the potential and the recent giveaway can do a lot good if properly managed (like how R6S fixed itself up)