Firefall Finally Launching July 29th

[Dielan9999]

I liked the beta, but it wasn't quite enough.

What's different?

 

[malikdanab]

I liked the beta, but it wasn't quite enough.

What's different?

Which beta? Considering it went into Closed Beta in September of 2011...wait...WAIT....DAMN IT HAS BEEN ALMOST 3 YEARS!

 

[malikdanab]

So I "Read" the patch notes...is this even firefall anymore?

 

[Dakinara]

So I "Read" the patch notes...is this even firefall anymore?

Haha... well its still shooting and jetting. But it is very different in a lot of ways. There is no more permanent item decay, just commonplace repairs needed from death / combat every once and awhile. The level up game plays a lot more like a wow type game now - lots of quest hubs with voice over stories sending you from place to place. There are still dynamic events like ares missions / random events that pop up all over, devs currently working to increase rate of those - but most dependable leveling mechanism is the new job system. I guess too many people got annoyed with running to dynamic events only to find them completed right when they got there - the additional job system is like a personalized quest that you dont have to worry about other people completing first.

There is also a "jewerlcraft" (module) system where you socket gear with dropped modules that give different effects. IMO these things are way too critical to gameplay - your abilities start with huge cooldowns (45-60 seconds) but with modules and perks you can drop those to below 10 seconds - i dont think it makes for a good new player experience at all, personally.

The devs made a lot of odd decisions with launch but i guess they think taking systems more "mainstream" will increase popularity. Well see i guess.

 

[Dakinara]

I liked the beta, but it wasn't quite enough.

What's different?

There is a lot more content... that could best be described as WoW with guns lol. I mean, there are levels, quest hubs, dungeons, raids, owpvp, etc. It still has sandbox aspects as well, but they added a whole lot of themepark-esque content with launch.

I have mixed feelings on the pve stuff - i like the stories from quests but the mechanics can get repetitive. In addition, i still dont feel like the devs have really gotten "hard" content figured out - you can solo all of the hardcore dungeons if you have good shooter skills / equipment. Raids arent unlocked yet but that should happen any day now - will see how those go, they are intended for 20 people.

But the pvp is great and that is what keeps me playing for most part (few balance issues at the moment aside).

 

[MajDeath]

that could best be described as WoW with guns lol.

I feel inspired to say that you need to stop comparing this to WoW... and that if this were WoW with guns you'd have aimbot.

Top problem to balance, Bastion destroying everything and everyone.

 

[Dakinara]

I feel inspired to say that you need to stop comparing this to WoW... and that if this were WoW with guns you'd have aimbot.

Top problem to balance, Bastion destroying everything and everyone.

All i meant by that comparison is that it went from an open ended game where half the people who joined had no idea what to even do (kind of like minecraft), to a game that clearly holds your hand from place to place with convenient level markers identifying if this is where you should be. So much more "themepark" than "sandbox" as people are fond of saying.

also, bastion is not a problem at all anymore - if anything they are too weak, the health of deployables did not scale well with the update but may be revised soon. Now raptor and recluse (god especially raptor) - i dunno who is in charge of design and number balancing but they missed a decimal place or something on raptor for sure lol - its currently dealing about 8 times more damage than any other frame, totally broken.

 

[MariusAbyssal]

@Dakinara I see you compared this to tribes, I'm a big tribes fan and quite sad that ascend got shut down how does this compare to tribes in terms of speed and weapons now. I've played the beta and there wasn't really any sense of speed to it like in tribes.

 

[Dakinara]

@Dakinara I see you compared this to tribes, I'm a big tribes fan and quite sad that ascend got shut down how does this compare to tribes in terms of speed and weapons now. I've played the beta and there wasn't really any sense of speed to it like in tribes.

There is no skiing, and the general travel speed is not as fast as tribes. There is a somewhat "advanced" movement mechanic called hover sprinting where you burn your jetpacks at full throttle while skipping along the ground like a stone on a pond, lets you maintain a much faster rate of speed than just sprinting. At the top end, the movement speeds are more akin to quake / unreal tournament than tribes. However, several classes have very rapid acceleration movement abilities that can lead to some pretty intense aerial dogfights that feels a little tribes-y.

Weapons - very similar to tribes / unreal tournament. honestly the weapons feel basically copy pastad from those two games lol. If you want a class that uses weapons similar to spinfusor, the assaults, and especially tigerclaw fusion cannon is basically just a spinfusor with a different particle effect.

So if you are specifically looking for tribes: the mmo, youll be disappointed, but if just looking for an MMO with high-time-to-kill, fast paced shooter that harkens back to older shooter game mechanics, you will probably enjoy the combat. The game as a whole has a lot of work needed, but i just absolutely love the combat and have stuck with it for that alone during these growing pains.