Sorry this is a long post.
FYI, I agree with everything click said above.
I have been enjoying the new patch quite a bit as well. I have not had the kind of time I would like to get used to the new changes as I have had a lot of family stuff to do. However there seems to be a big emphasis on working together. Rambo used to work really well but hit a wall at knights and teamwork had to kick in, in hard mode all you really needed was city map, a couple of snipers and a couple of commandos and you could go a very long way: Adding extra players actually made it more difficult not less. The same was sort of true of the later normal levels.
Balancing things out and keeping the skills lower has significant benefits for progression through the enemies. The devs now have far more tools at their disposal to make the game more fun. Keeping the nord and swadian gear seperate also gives the devs more power to balance the game so these changes will be long term pluses. The new classes will also make working together significantly more beneficial as many are so specialized that having the work together will create a combined arms force capable of significantly progressing through waves.
Previously there was little incentive to work together until knights hit and then the tools at one's disposal for going further, short of barrels and res tomes were much more limited than they are now. Sharpshooters and pole arm specialists make keeping the front line alive more workable and that is definatly a good thing.
There are goals for the individual and goals for the team. The individual wants to smash every wave and wants to be empowered enough to do this. If the dev team goes too far in the direction of the individual the only answer is to add so many Nords that no group can get through without the barrel or the tome, essentially restricting progress to the very rich and not the talented. If they go this way there will be super fast snipers that kite everything, crossbows that are OP and reload instantly, commandos that charge in and annihilate everyone but get killed by horses and Skirmishers that feel underpowered until they are behind a barricade that no one wants to stand behind. Essentially, the game was close to being broken and if it had continued without these radical changes, it would have been and I think we can all see it.
Now that commando and nord gear is seperate, the ability to buff their gear separately to the Nords can make the shield wall tactic work a good deal better. Buffing our shields and not the enemy at the same time will have good long term benefits. As to hard mode, it is too early to tell as hard is definatly a work in progress and I have not spent enough time there since the patch to make any informed comments.
What is somewhat missing and I can only speak for the commandos at the moment, but it might be true of other classes also, is the sense of major progression. Before the patch, the difference between recruit to first tier and so on was obvious and highly sort after. Recruit was still worth playing but the goal was obvious and so were the benefits. When you strutted out onto the field after reaching fourth tier the sense of achievement was truly palpable. Perhaps the gap between these two points has been narrowed too much? I think the devs are aware of this and I am looking forward to a happy middle ground being reached. I think it is possible to feel like a champion and still have to fight as a team player at the same time and think reaching that balancing point will make this mod even better than it already is.
Keeping sense of progression while also keeping balance is really difficult, many games fail at it (looking directly at oblivion now), in other it really works. The dev team is talented enough to get us into the latter so we ought to provide good feedback as players and support them in this effort. Raging and winging will accomplish nothing.
On that note: why you break the mod co-worm, y u hate freedom
FYI, I agree with everything click said above.
I have been enjoying the new patch quite a bit as well. I have not had the kind of time I would like to get used to the new changes as I have had a lot of family stuff to do. However there seems to be a big emphasis on working together. Rambo used to work really well but hit a wall at knights and teamwork had to kick in, in hard mode all you really needed was city map, a couple of snipers and a couple of commandos and you could go a very long way: Adding extra players actually made it more difficult not less. The same was sort of true of the later normal levels.
Balancing things out and keeping the skills lower has significant benefits for progression through the enemies. The devs now have far more tools at their disposal to make the game more fun. Keeping the nord and swadian gear seperate also gives the devs more power to balance the game so these changes will be long term pluses. The new classes will also make working together significantly more beneficial as many are so specialized that having the work together will create a combined arms force capable of significantly progressing through waves.
Previously there was little incentive to work together until knights hit and then the tools at one's disposal for going further, short of barrels and res tomes were much more limited than they are now. Sharpshooters and pole arm specialists make keeping the front line alive more workable and that is definatly a good thing.
There are goals for the individual and goals for the team. The individual wants to smash every wave and wants to be empowered enough to do this. If the dev team goes too far in the direction of the individual the only answer is to add so many Nords that no group can get through without the barrel or the tome, essentially restricting progress to the very rich and not the talented. If they go this way there will be super fast snipers that kite everything, crossbows that are OP and reload instantly, commandos that charge in and annihilate everyone but get killed by horses and Skirmishers that feel underpowered until they are behind a barricade that no one wants to stand behind. Essentially, the game was close to being broken and if it had continued without these radical changes, it would have been and I think we can all see it.
Now that commando and nord gear is seperate, the ability to buff their gear separately to the Nords can make the shield wall tactic work a good deal better. Buffing our shields and not the enemy at the same time will have good long term benefits. As to hard mode, it is too early to tell as hard is definatly a work in progress and I have not spent enough time there since the patch to make any informed comments.
What is somewhat missing and I can only speak for the commandos at the moment, but it might be true of other classes also, is the sense of major progression. Before the patch, the difference between recruit to first tier and so on was obvious and highly sort after. Recruit was still worth playing but the goal was obvious and so were the benefits. When you strutted out onto the field after reaching fourth tier the sense of achievement was truly palpable. Perhaps the gap between these two points has been narrowed too much? I think the devs are aware of this and I am looking forward to a happy middle ground being reached. I think it is possible to feel like a champion and still have to fight as a team player at the same time and think reaching that balancing point will make this mod even better than it already is.
Keeping sense of progression while also keeping balance is really difficult, many games fail at it (looking directly at oblivion now), in other it really works. The dev team is talented enough to get us into the latter so we ought to provide good feedback as players and support them in this effort. Raging and winging will accomplish nothing.
On that note: why you break the mod co-worm, y u hate freedom