Okay, let's dissect this. I'm gonna be all Thomas on some of these, but it's not being negative, it's being cautious.
Main thing:
- Tunnel systems for amp and tech facilities to give access from spawn rooms to interior of bases and base walls without having to go above ground.
|
I was very glad to see this, but then a thought crossed my mind - are SCUs still only reachable via "above ground" on Tech Plants? Because if this is the case, this change adds NOTHING to the defensibility.
The rest:
|
Originally Posted by Higby
- General performance increases, particularly for lower end GPUs
|
Okay this is reallt REALLY good, since my i5 650 seems to be the "low end one". The game seems to be handling hyperthreading really badly. A perfect example is that my loss of FPS is minimal when recording with fraps, however the game itself only runs at 50FPS max with all settings set to minimal and with shadows actually turned off.
EDIT: Oh, wait... GPUs...
- Experience (XP) system enhancements:
- Dynamic XP system for player kills, players who have more kills are worth more XP. Freshly spawned players will be worth a fraction of the current kill reward.
- Partial damage XP for dealing damage to vehicles that you don't end up killing
- Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global
- Better display of XP sources for things like defensive bonuses & population bonuses
- Rebalancing of XP rewards to help support tasks
|
This is also good, but there's one "but".
"Population XP / Resource bonus moved over to continent population instead of global" That even further removes the whole purpose of the resource system. It's a step towards stalemates from Beta, I tell you.
- Server transfer token available in Depot
|
Wonderful. No more loss of everything once moving to another server.
- UI changes to emphasize score per minute as a primary metric of player comparison
|
Not exactly a worthwhile change for a particular type of player folk - Liberator Pilots. Especially Shredder ones like myself. I'm already getting lots of idiots that see my stat and brand me a noob because I have ~1.0 K/D ratio, with SpM system, I'm gonna look even more newbish. Not like I care much, tbh, but sometimes it does make you feel down.
- Sortable columns on outfit management & addition of "last online" column
|
Just make it so you don't have to hit "sort by last online" every time somebody goes online/offline.
- New weapon type for all empires: SMG
|
There we go, SMGs. The only question I have is - if most Carbines don't have a buttstock, does it mean that SMG will look exactly like carbines?
- Short period of invulnerability will be added to freshly spawned / revived players - breaks upon game actions such as entering a vehicle or using a weapon.
|
I always considered it to be a strange addition in many multiplayer games, honestly.
- Dynamic / player configurable colors for minimap & overhead indicators for enemies, friendlies, and squads within a platoon
|
Colorblind people will now get their love. That's good.
- New Hot Spot system that displays where active fights are occurring on the map
|
Excuse me my rudeness, but since Beta I tend to look at the word combination "New Hot Spot System" with extreme caution.
- New spawn buildings with more exits, protected balconies and easy roof access to make them less campable.
|
This needs just one more bit of info - does this mean "spawn buildings" as in "Base Spawn buildings" or this includes outpost boxes of death, which are definitely way more troublesome in that regard.
- Making MAXes render more reliably at long distances for players in vehicles
|
*no comment* Feelings are rather mixed. There are two sides to that coin. Hint is - you cannot make only AA maxes render from longer distance. This means that all AI (and AV) MAXes are now primary subjects for liberator spam.
- AA improvements, notably flak changes for turrets and skyguards, giving them some better ability to aim, although not drastically impacting their DPS.
|
Does this mean that you give them better accuracy, but reduce their damage? That's not exactly a good change in my book.
- Fixes to missiles so that they more reliably detonate and actually blow stuff up
|
Never noticed this kind of stuff occuring tbh.
- Air vehicle weapon tweaks
|
Just don't mess up my Shredder Lib, please.
- Increases to reload speed for certain HE ground vehicle weapons
|
My best guess is that Higby meant "reload time", not reload speed. I mean what's the point of buffing HE weapons so they can basically have the same DPS output against armor as HEAT weapons?