Mystic~

I'd rather have a set map list or pool of uncommon maps than play the same map over and over. During PUGs recently however I see the same maps mostly played over and over... Field-X, Daybreak, Outposts, Lakeside, Tomb, Arctic Stronghold, Reservoir and occasionally Walls or Whiteout is picked also.

I like the idea of team squads, similar to the numbered groups in the RTS and then give them some sort of visual element to identify it and provide some sort of interface that assigns, manages and lets someone type in an objective. i.e. Air Group, Anti Aircraft Group, Artillery Group, Tank Group etc. I don't know how best to handle the voice element, let people group themselves into a server's discord channel. Don't make it so over controlling that people can't play the unit they want to use. I think even in vanilla ren most of the commander powers should be removed from the commander and distributed into some sort of team wide ability menu. i.e. smoke and emp airstrikes anybody should be able to call in and it uses player cp that recharges. I think anybody should be able to control and manage the harvester or mines. I think the buff powers should cost less points, effect up to 5 players maximum and more people should be able to apply it, say the people with the best stats on the team function as team leaders or is passed onto the next person if they don't want it. There would be less pressure and the commander could then come up with an overall strategy for a game and there would be more multi-pronged attacks and team work.

If you become voted the Commander for the game, you can start a team chat message using the /C (short duration) or /R (longer duration) prefix and it will display whatever you write in large letters on the centre of the screen, this is really useful for getting your team's attention during public matches and you can use it to issue instructions, commands and whatever you would like people to do, although it is optional and depends on you winning or earning your team's confidence. The special commander Ctrl + C (I think) menu also opens up options to use the spy plane, cruise missile, emp/smoke airstrike as well as offensive and defensive team abilities, lay or set team waypoints and stop or start the harvester. Radar apparently lets you see the enemy team somehow, on the mini map I think, but I don't know if it's a passive ability or something you activate, either way, I never really see how it helps me, but you need it captured or neutralised if you want a rush to work without being spotted far in advance by the enemy team.

It's not clear to me what "MMR" is so hard for me to comment on this further. I'd actually favour a shuffle team vote during a match without restarting the map, as this just breaks the state of play at times, however maybe there would need to be functionality that prevents the highest scoring few players from being moved, say if they destroy a building or get a permanent damage break on a building, they're not then going to want or accept being moved onto the opposite team at that point. In small games it's often easier to beacon a building than it is to get inside a building that is mined in a base that is actively being defended. Maybe someone could come up with some other sort of victory condition, but I don't know what. It's frustrating when you can't infiltrate and it's frustrating when you can't call in a super weapon when you need one, but I know a single SBH can often plant, defend and win a game through beacon's in small player games. Being able to vote for a map by its name would be a really nice ability. I think for commander votes it's possible to vote by entering a unique string that's part of their name, this is normally how I donate credits using the console and I think it works for person votes too. It's actually really frustrating trying to locate players in the list and enter their ID number when you want to kick a player.

I'm still hoping this map is going to make it into some sort of playtest or one of the future planned updates, but it needs adding into some sort or process queue so it doesn't get lost and forgotten, feel like you put loads of work and effort into it, but it's not going to get acknowledged or added to the game.

I think 64 people on small maps is a bad idea, personally, I feel attacks become very spammy, and this isn't usually the sort of game where it's one shot kills, there's a lot of meat grinder fights, unless you're being constantly hit with a ramjet, so many airstrikes, so many people that can repair in buildings and so many repairers that can stay with a tank. There's no proper resupply option in this game either, you kill one or two people and then get killed yourself.

Maybe there is a way that Discord can display a list of servers and let people meet and join a game from here? It's also nice to jump between games when servers are either full or not enough people to make a viable game.

After the last set of major changes to the rocket soldier I found it incredibly difficult to lock onto any aircraft travelling as part of a group or swarm such as apaches or orcas when viewed from the ground or sides because you can't very easily acquire a target lock on anything. The problem is when the locking reticules just keep skipping between different aircraft and you never really get a lock on anything, so in the end you settle for using dumb-firing with right click into the group or path and hoping you hit something during a team rush. I was wondering if there could be some sort of initial cursor selection lock on a particular aircraft and then the hard lock comes after the focus animation has played and centred... or something similar to the extent of this. I think if you're aiming from in front you can probably always catch the lead aircraft. There's maybe an argument to be made that travelling as a group is a way of countering rockets, but it also feels sort of unfair, particularly if that unit is all you have to sensibly target air vehicles. I'm not sure if this also affects aircraft versus aircraft or the stank and MRLS versus aircraft etc. Please post if you experience the same issue or have any ideas or solutions around this, thanks.

I agree, airstrikes become spammy on certain maps like Crash Site and Islands. The cool down timer could be increased... Would also add, would be nice if there was some sort of check that prevents two people from trying to place an airstrike at the same time, only for one to get denied after the bar is filled, often results in in an expensive and frustrating death for one of the players as it's one of the most vulnerable things to do in the game with a laser sight going back to the player.

Yeah it's shit, but I'd want that forward station idea for Ren:F if there's no better alternative.

It's a dark and gloomy map if I recall, yeah, I think there should be some sort of power generated flood lights for lighting up the fort. It's a long distance to run if you spawn near Airstrip tower but need to run to Hon or Refinery, same for Bar to Refinery or Weapons Factory. These are the mechanical jump pads used in Satisfactory, they're much more in keeping with the technology of GDI/Nod. I reckon the central cut out in the rocks directly in front of each refinery needs to be a V or Zig Zag cut so it's not so easy to drive through or begin shooting in a straight line from the base entrance.

Yeah, but the whole problem was not being able to move from one end of the base to the other quickly enough, I don't get the point in whatever it was you were doing. I do like the new path changes though. I don't think anybody's going to play this in a pug again anytime soon as it was just rushed thru. But seriously, a hyper-tube launcher seems realistic and in fitting with the factory theme as it's not some magical barrier or science fiction teleporter. People can just deploy a parachute once in the air to move about, you just have to build the accelerator loop and find an appropriate place to put them... I remember there used to be an accelerator ladder in x-mountain that did the same thing that could work.

So played a really nice public match on Fort, and one awfully quick and over PUG on Fort... I think the field needs more spot lights around the fort centre area, because it's really dark and needs some more atmosphere. The bases are also still really far apart and I still think there needs to be something to speed up moving around bases as it's so slow and frustrating, weren't you working on some sort of teleporter before? What about the jump pads you see in Satisfactory that propel you into the air? or hyper-tubes? These idea could work for Ren. When one side holds the middle fort, the next gen vehicles make it a bit one sided so I don't know if there's a way of allowing both sides to capture something in order to allow both team to produce from it.

I like the idea of the large bunker buster bomb packs from another game for destroying things like guard towers as it feels like it fits with the game and the spirit of what might be required to destroy one, something a bit more powerful than a timed C4 charge. On the Walls map I frequently get an SBH with an airstrike and call it in point blank range and if most of the shots land its enough to destroy a Sam tower, although this can be combined with the C4 and this won't get shot down; and if two people do this then GDI air defences can come down quite early on in the game. Cruise missiles to me are similar to airstrikes and need to be called from range using some sort of animation similar to the airstrike and perhaps a laser guided aim, but I really don't like flares being placed on the battle field because as soon as its seen by the enemy, their tanks just back off and I feel like you're wasting so much CP - this is one reason why I advocate for time recharging abilities and not point dependent abilities. I do however think cruise missiles should be powerful enough to completely destroy a Guard Tower, they're usually only wood or concrete but I admit it feels like a cheap tactic when you can't replace one, that said cruise missiles are not always easy to aim and there's quite a risk in terms of lost cp if it misses. I sort of feel Nod has too much of an advantage if their commander can choose the SBH character and call in abilities without being seen.

I was very much into playing Medal of Honour Allied Assault back in the day, recently there's a sale on Steam for the game Days of War which looks and feel pretty similar, but better visually an the maps look fun and interesting. Is anyone else on here is interested in playing this? I know there are other larger WW2 games out previously, but I don't play any of these. https://store.steampowered.com/app/454350/Days_of_War_Definitive_Edition/

I few times recently upon dying the camera gets suspended in the air somewhere, I actually enjoy seeing the battle field from above as you can get more awareness of what is going on, but it feels like a bug. I asked for a feature for a spy satellite for achieving something similar that the team can use.

I just wanted a place to resupply ammo from on the field, wasn't aware of APC replenish feature or what outposts might have, but thanks for clarifying.

I wasn't aware of the plans for 'replenish', but I'm still not totally sure what you mean, as in restore ammo, health and armour? It sounds like you're discussing the idea of having a forward base now. If this is the case, then maybe each side needs a unit a bit like the MCV that deploys into a small base camp with a defensive turret, sandbag wall and remote terminal etc. I'm not sure I like the idea of APCs serving this role, maybe passive healing if you're near one, but having a spawn location somewhere on the field is very welcome, just not at an APC. Maybe you have to capture a zone or building? The drone ship would have been able to have been called by a player using a flare or something similar to the binoculars used for airstrikes, would have been relatively cheap and anyone could do it. I'd even consider making it, so it's not a purchasable item that can be lost through being killed en route to somewhere.

In Mass Effect Andromeda there's a unit called a Forward Station that deploys as a drone-ship where you can replenish ammunition, there always were drop ships in Tiberian Sun for getting new units onto the field. So I'm wondering if it's possible to have something similar in Firestorm? This as it's stated that maps are going to be much bigger and I believe it's going to become frustrating if people have to keep returning to base to resupply ammo. So maybe it could be something that costs a 1000 credits that your team periodically deploys or calls in, in order to maintain a battle field advantage. You could pack other features into it, but it would be a bit of a blatant rip from the Andromeda game, i.e. change your unit class on the field, replenish health and armour or purchase items from it.

I have a feeling the survey could have been setup better, something that separates the stock maps from custom community maps. There was also not an option for "No, don't remove any maps, but please fix some existing maps." I found myself voting for the most played and play tested maps just to ensure they're not seen as something that should be removed from the game. Commenting individually - Field-X/Tunnels needs something doing about harvesters and economy. I think Storm is a really under rated map, that just needs something looking at in order to prevent Nod artillery overwhelming the early game for GDI. I hope that Fort makes it back into the game, as it was quite fun. I'm not overly keen on seeing multiple versions of the same map in rotation, for example Islands and Islands-X as well as Field and Field-X. I'd keep Islands and Field-X but remove Islands-X and Field.

The vehicle paths are quite narrow, but there are at least three separate routes with options to change route along the way. At least one of them has a lot of open space, but I agree there's no central battlefield here other than the space in front of each base, it feels like Islands to me.

I don't think it's anywhere near as effective as the Advanced Guard Tower. Someone would have to record an early game whole team infantry rush on Field or Field-X without player defenders, then repeat it for the opposite faction and allow me to see just how many players on each side survive, usually it's the Nod base that gets rampaged, but I think the AGT is closer to the nearside tunnel.

This map definitely needs a play test soon or it's going to stagnate and be forgotten? It has equally as much potential as X-Mountain or Reservoir in my opinion and it looks fun and interesting to play.

I'd call Ion Cannon 'Laser Penne'.