f13.net

We didn't have a Titanfall thread.

(https://www.googledrive.com/host/0BwB9-qGxxzjAV0djUi1fN0MyQWc/titan4.gif)

It's a first-person shooter focusing on mobility and mech-on-mech combat made by the team that made the original Modern Warfare/Modern Warfare 2.

Sign up for beta - http://www.titanfall.com/beta

Press NDA just lifted, lots of videos:

Last Titan Standing mode - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VV689PvZd4
Hardpoint Domination mode - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcppL-t51nw

At the time I made this thread there are lots of people streaming Titanfall on Twitch, here's one of them - http://www.twitch.tv/drift0r

I think the setting and aesthetics are great, which is why I hate that it's just an iteration of CoD.

Is this the one with good loot or just more bullshit?

It looks awesome visually and I'm sure the production values are high and it's well made, blah blah, but I've watched some footage of the game and it's alot of double jumping / parkouring / flying around shooting, which annoys the shit out of me in a shooter.  It reminds of Quake, and not in a good way.  L33tz0r dudez jumping all over rocketing shit wears on me.  I'm getting old.  :sad:

I know I am gonna hurt myself on this, with disappointment and all, but I literally can't wait.

I mean, come on (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oqYASh6izQ), even if only the single player, it can't be bad, can't can't can't!

I don't think the game has single player.

edit: this video is informative. http://www.giantbomb.com/videos/unfinished-titanfall-02-11-2014/2300-8489/ . It showcases my biggest problem apart from being a CoD reskin: bots. Most of an average player's time is spent killing bots. I cannot understand why people find that kind of gameplay interesting. I mean come on, they don't even try to fight back. But it does seem that this is a large part of why the journos and youtubers are gushing: you get to pretend you're "dominating" by shooting helpless bots.

I'm not really sure you get to say that so soon after making a thread about Flappy Bird.

..
Ha, touche. But seriously speaking, this is the biggest AAA game right now. It's the CoD ideal of positive reinforcement no matter what the player does, no matter how stupid he is, amped up even higher. On top of being terrible game design, I feel this is just extremely manipulative.

I really fear the bot thing is a result of the MOBA craze. That is consistent with the 6vs6 max players in multiplayer. "Minions" is slowly replacing "bots", but the shit is the same. That's why in one of the best MOBAs out there, Smite, I prefer the arena mode. Less jungle, less minions, less PvE in a PvP game.

Also no single player, really? Daaamn..

Less jungle, less minions, arena deathmatchy... hmmmm. Sounds kinda like a game that came out a while ago. What was it? Oh yea, Quake3.

=p

In fairness, it looks awfully good.

This went from what? 16v16 to 6v6 so they could let everyone get a gold star by shooting bots and holding points till the magical timer dings. Pass.

And no schild, no loot in this one. I am pretty sure that is Destiny - out in Sept. But that is much more MMOish and more fantasy shooter.

I don't think it was ever announced to be 16 v 16 at any point.

If I sat down and decided to design a game that would be most offensive to my gaming sensibilities, I still would not come up with something as garbage as this.

And wasn't that a great game? But it had no giant robots.

I think I got the 16v16 from some fansite chatter, more hope than substance. It was tested @ teams of 12 and 8 though according to the wiki.

I don't know why people are comparing this to quake... it's not that fast at all, nowhere close. Basically same speed as battlefield but with more z-axis play, more infantry focused.

Fantastic, it means I can ignore the shit out of this.

EA

Already lost interest.

I was very excited about this but I hear its on Origin?  :why_so_serious:

No thanks.

FTFY  :why_so_serious:

Seriously, fuck this game. The mech gimmick is the only thing remotely interesting about this, completely killed by the idea that 6v6 is the largest map you can have - which means all the maps will be fucking COD level garbage grenade spam phone booths. Fuck this.

This game actually reminds me of Warframe, except in 1st person instead of 3rd.

I dunno why some of you are so butthurt about this game. You sound like the fuckwits in WoW complaining about the fact that raids are so easy now and it was better in the old days of TBC. Like it's a bad thing that anyone can junp onto a game and enjoy themselves/feel good by dominating (poor widdle bots). Elitist cockhead bullshit. It's not for you, sure. You know what? It's not for me, either, but I don't feel a need to make myself seem like a h4rdc0r3 l33t player by shitting on those who will enjoy it. Schild actually has the right idea. ignore the fuck out of it.

 :facepalm:

This is a message board about games in which we talk about games.

Seems to me like there's some angry about it being EA/Origin, and then there's some angry because there are mobs in a PvP game. Jumping and all is part of these kind of games since Quake, Tribes and the likes, from rocket jumping to jetpack jumping, so I don't think the issues are in any way related to some idea of purity.

Looks like fun for a bit. I liked what I've seen and the Giant Bomb walk through verifies what I thought this'd be. I'll try it at the next PAX and if it's fun, I'll suck it up and patch Origin.

I don't get the hate for Origin though. It's not like I leave even Steam running all the time, so what's one more storefront to only launch and then quit once the game session ends? If it's fun, it's worth it.

I could understand the complaints that there are AI bots in an FPS if FPS's were an underrepresented genre, there weren't tons of other alternatives coming out, and people were just going to be stuck playing this to get their FPS fix, but that's not the case. Like Azazel, I'm not particularly interested in the game myself, but I'm not offended by the fact that they're trying to make something slightly different.  It does seem like people are trying to go out of their way to be dismissive of this game. First it was "it's CoD with Mechs" and now it's complaining about bots and the number of players.

Sure, not a problem. I'm talking about the palpable anger that some have towards it. Like it ran over their dog by allowing people to shoot bots and feel good about it. Plenty of things worth getting angry and/or offended over in the world. I'm just not entirely sure that Titanfall is one of them...

I would play the shit out of this game with a bunch of my friends, only if it was released by literally any other publisher. EA means I will not be buying it. Every other person in the clans I play with all say they are not interested purely because EA.

Origin is pretty much my major stumbling block here (I've never played CoD so I don't have any strong reaction one way or another to it, and what I've seen so far looks cool).  Yes, it's just "one more storefront" but that's like the third or fourth one I have JUST FOR GAMES ALONE.  I'm getting sick of every company requiring their own login and password for their own game/store/app/widget/whatever just because they can and fuck you if you want an alternative.  If it meant I got it cheaper or had access to special features or something, fine, but I'm not looking forward to having more hoops to jump through for a feature that doesn't add value to the product.

The fact that it's EA is a double "fuck you" given that they're already pretty much leading the pack in intrusive anti consumer bullshit in their games.  They've long since burned through all the good will I had for them.

It's not like I see it as some moral stand or anything, like people who DO use Origin are wrong somehow, I'm just personally sick of dealing with this kind of thing.

There's "Origin account required" and "Origin client required" games. Some EA-published games use Origin so they don't have to code their own secure account system. I have no idea which Titanfall would be, because they lost me at "no single player." (I've never, in 25 years as a gamer, seen a game that made me enjoy competition against strangers. Yes, yes, I'm a carebear. Whatevs.)

How much less objectionable that is is a matter of opinion.

Well the hate for this game is surprising :awesome_for_real:

Personally I'm not particularly excited by this due to
1. Origin. I have steam client running 24/7...Origin? My gfs sim city addiction. I`ll forget the game exist long after anyone tells me its good.

2. Dear me those pretty colors. I have a low to midtier laptop bought for the specific purpose of playing 80% of the games on the market. Im gomna guess Ea is shooting past my lowly rig.

3. Its going on be sold at full price... nope. 60 dollars just for multiplayer better come with a blow job.

Dude, this is f13. I know that I degenerate into a shameful uber nerd while here, and I suspect that so do others. It's part of the charm of this place.

If anyone has a Xbox One and wants a beta code, I have one. No clue why I got a code for Xbox One since I am quite certain I said I had a PC  :awesome_for_real:

You don't have do that, you know?

This is a FPS game.  Pretty standard looking one at that.  This sort of game has never been received well here.

I've watched some streams.  They didn't really make want to jump up and preorder.  It was dudes shooting at each other.  Being in a mech didn't seem to change that equation much, just the height.   If I get a chance to play this, I'll give it a shot.  Otherwise, not going to bother.

Defend f13's honor or turn into a shameful uber nerd?  :why_so_serious:

lawl

Maybe I should start a Kickstarter to get me an Xbox One for this.

That seems to be a widespread problem and there is a workaround.  http://help.ea.com/en/article/titanfall-beta-code-platform-issue-and-workaround/ (http://help.ea.com/en/article/titanfall-beta-code-platform-issue-and-workaround/)

I played about 3 hours of this last night.

The hype is real, you guys. The player count is fine, it fits the size of the maps with the player mobility. It's a fast-paced mobility-focused game on foot, and a game about playing slightly more conservatively in a Titan - it doesn't feel like some one-sided vehicle vs. human fight in Battlefield, the Titan is powerful but it's not completely uncounterable.

If you can get the drop on a Titan and get on top of them, you are suddenly a huge problem for the pilot. They are forced to either get out and deal with you, or use a loadout that pops a smoke cloud that zaps the shit out of you. BUT, if you're using that loadout, you're forfeiting the usage of the shield, which is used more in Titan vs. Titan combat to fling projectiles back at the attacker.

The Burn Cards don't feel like 'death streaks', you can only bring a max of 3 into a fight and they help slightly, but they're not game-breaking in any way.

This is my problem with the game in a nutshell. I HATE phone booth sized maps with a passion. It's why I've never cared for the CoD flavor of FPS's. If the shooty game requires multiplayer to be no more than 12 players total by design, I really have no interest in it.

Well more players/large map is not inherently superior... Nobody likes a phone booth where you can spam grenades around easily from point to point, but a map that's got a lot of players and is too large and open has downsides. You just get all kinds of areas being camping by campers with long range weapons, cutting down anyone who tries to make something happen. Gets boring.

Just because they made CoD, which as an absolutely massive franchise that's constrained by it's position as a critical revenue generator for a publicly traded company and really can't change much, doesn't mean they aren't smart enough to try something new.

Thanks for that link.

Too easy.

 :grin:

This game is pretty goddamned fun.  Played it a bit via (XB1) beta, and I can't fault it.  Lots to do, lots to kill and all that nonsense.  I can't say that 8v8 or 16v16 would have been worse or better, but as it was, it was fun from start to stop when I played it.  I know that there's a crowd that wants this to fail, but it's pretty damned fun, so I hope it doesn't.

I've been told you can create a new EA account and give them a fake key to get a real one. Not that I encourage unethical behavior.

I am in the beta for PC and I am enjoying it so far, but surprisingly enough this is making Hawken, which just landed on Steam (in a weird fashion: you have to pay to play it on Steam, but it's completely free on the game official page), look even cooler than it did before. Gotta test them back to back for a while. I don't particularly like fast moving mechas, I like them slow and heavy, but in this particular area I'd say they both do really good. They also both share this crammed maps feeling.

Played this beta on my buddy's xbone because he wouldn't shut up about it. My opinion thus far is that Hawken is far superior if you want to play a quake speed mech fps. Plus you know...Hawken is free and has nothing to do with ea.

Goon summed it up really well. Played a bit of the beta:

It's pretty much CoD trash with robots and cooler movement.

I've watched several streams and the most jarring part is how the normal on foot stuff seems as good as any other fps but once everyone gets in their mechs the game goes all boring and slow.  Any map using "last titan standing" sucks to watch.  Their main gimmick, the mechs (sorry "titans"), is actually the weakest part of the game.

As a not-very-good fps player the idea of a false sense of accomplishment via killing those dumb as rocks AI bots appeals to me but the titan stuff looks pretty bad.

Also FPS games are usually what define bleeding edge graphics.  I don't like battlefield or call of duty but I still have to admit they look pretty amazing graphically.  Titanfall does not.  I mean it looks good compared to other genres but when contrasted by other FPS games it looks at least five years old.

None of this is relevant.  If you are the type of person who buys the latest CoD because it's the latest CoD (and there are millions of you) you will like titanfall.  Especially since the latest CoD's newness has worn off by now.

Hit level cap. Yeah, this would be good if the weapons weren't all 0-recoil bullethoses with slightly varying damage levels and titan combat wasn't so boring. Also if the maps were bigger than a broom closet.

I think a lot of the "hate" comes from the amount of hype it's gotten, relative to what it is delivering.

I think it gets a lot of attention (because former IW guys, Xbone, nothing else coming out right now), but if you define hype as people actually saying a lot of extremely positive things about it, I haven't really been seeming that much hype.

So I've been seeing a mix of haters gonna hate and game not matching original promise. If this is just CoD with slow moving bullet sponges, I may grab it for lulz with no expectations. It's neat looking. And yea, I said "neat". Been a long week.

I was sorta looking forward to this, but then I hit the whole ai bot thing. I still don't understand why they went with that. If you want an emphasis on having mech v mech combat, just make the maps like 10v10 or something, with 4 mechs a-side. Am I just old, and not understanding the 'we want everyone to get a participation award' mentality or something? The game should have been a perfectly fine nu-future cod clone with nice gimmicks and spammy guns. Instead it's turned out into some kind of bizzaro comp-stomp thing.

Got the beta invites yesterday, one for PC and one for Xbox One. I'm using the PC one, anyone want the Xbox One one? PM me.

Because it makes bad players feel good about themselves, including the gaming press people writing previews and reviews.

(http://i.imgur.com/oibkh0L.jpg)

I actually came close to prepurchasing this when EA sent me a Valentine's Day "50% off any title on Origin" offer. I figured getting in on the zeitgeist might be fun enough for half price. But perhaps unsurprisingly, "any title" does not mean any title.

This game is actually pretty fun and I'm exactly the sort of casual FPS player it's targetted at. Be curious how distilled the beta is, different maps and game modes are definitely needed.

I'm still bad at it though.

It still blows my mind that people say that this game is bad, that just seems objectively wrong. Is it not something they're into? Sure, that's fine. Don't play it if you hate it.

It's not a realistic shooter or a full Q3A style arena shooter, but it is an evolution on the CoD-style shooter that is dominant now. Some people happen to like that style of game (myself being probably the most vocal advocate for them here), and this emphases the parts of the genre that I enjoy, mainly mobility and positioning. I honestly have had the best luck calling in Titans as a distraction and zipping around on foot getting positional advantages on people and Titans.

GAF did some research digging through the data files on the game - 15 maps at launch, and there are still multiple maps and game modes that aren't in. Seems like CTF and potentially a raw Pilot-vs-pilot TDM mode and campaign multiplayer as well.

8 or so Pilot weapons (mix of anti-titan and primary/secondary weapons) aren't in yet, as well as 3 or 4 titan weapons and ordinances. Also titan perks and pilot perks.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=769961

Most of us here hate the CoD style shooter. Since this is that, I'm not sure why you're surprised it's getting a bad rep. I haven't played it, don't intended to, just my thoughts on the (unsurprising) reaction.

It's not a really surprise. We have people here who hate-watch TV shows for entire seasons and comment on how much each episode sucks who will spend years discussing MMO's before release that they have no intention of playing. A lot of those people tend to handwave it away as "this is f13, usefully cynical commentary", but I guess I just maybe wrongly expect that since ten years have passed since this site started (not even getting into Waterthread and other predecessors) that people would outgrow that sort of thing at some point. I mean, it's natural and occasionally fun to vent about stuff you don't like, but if somebody is predisposed to not liking CoD I'm not sure why they'd bother to check out the new FPS from the guys that made CoD.

I'm by no means an FPS expert. But I think this isn't as CoD as some people are saying. It's not BF4 (which would make it rock if it were), but it feels kinda between CoD for graphics and attitude and more like Marathon (or I guess Q3A) in terms of the volume of combat. CoD does not feel like a 3D combat volume to me, and definitely not compared to TF...

And shit, what are we gonna call this? There is already a TF and TF2!! Although I suppose that only matters if enough people will talk about it...

I am exactly the same. I enjoy it. I'm casual at FPS. I suck at this game. But I'm having fun.

If the completed release of Titan/Player weapons and armaments, burn cards, maps, game modes, and whatever tweaks they make for release make Titan combat not boring I'll actually *gasp* buy this.

It's just after a bunch of rounds on hardpoint/attrition I feel that being in a titan is actually less fun than being on foot, but auto-titans are borderline useless so if you got a titalfall up you better use it and just put up with playing peek-a-boo with other titans or running trains of them around owning everyone.

Edit: Eh, never mind.  :awesome_for_real:

I am the biggest sucker in the world for giant robots and I still think they are just fantastic looking and feeling in this game. However, the action is not to my liking. I couldn't easily explan why, maybe the small map, maybe the bots (I really don't like them), but it gave me a Battlefield 2142 feeling. Do you remember that? It was supposed to be amazing, in some way it was, and still not many gave a fuck about it. Hell, I bought it on day 1 and I think I played it for about five hours.

This was an automatic pre-order for me, I've been obsessed with it for a year and I literally couldn't wait to get it. Now that I tried I can't even measure my disappointment and I am not gonna get it.

Titans aside, this game only makes me want to play more Planetside 2 (EDIT: And Hawken).

I find this addicting in short spirts. The grunts level the playing field for people who suck like me. I'm not that good at wall running either. In fact, I'm pretty bad all around. But I don't feel as completely outclassed as I do in other FPS games, which is a nice ego stroke.

I was way more excited about it when I first saw the videos last year. But it's still a fun romp, and the mechs add a unique element to what I consider an otherwise tired genre.

Titanfall's got giant aliens in it, and maybesorta some kind of interaction with them as well. I may have to get this game just for the eye candy and general scifi feels. I will hate myself if I do that, but in the end, whatevs.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=771332

Nope, already confirmed they don't actually exist in the game. unfortunately.

Probably makes for some nice skyboxes at least, but presume they are being saved for Titanfall 2, a.k.a. the one where it's on the playstation as well as xbox.

Wow, so much excitement for the game go live in a few hours.  :awesome_for_real:

You expected F13 to like a console shooter? I'm surprised we didn't get a rant on mouse vs controller, or maybe we did and I just missed it.  :why_so_serious:

The big kb+m vs controller guy doesn't post here anymore, I don't think. Can't remember his name, it was some three-letter acronym.

The beta was okay when I played it but it was a bit too CoD for me. I'm interested but I got a lot of games to play so some interest isn't enough. I'm trying to work up the care to get back into BF4 provided they fucking fixed it so I've been burned once already by an EA online-only shooter.

Man, the "campaign" mode is really atrociously bad.  I don't understand why they bothered to include this.  It feels so painfully forced.

Oiy I know right? Someone really musta thought there'd be a whole generation of new gamers buying their first Console or something to have spent that amount of time on what could have been handled on a loading screen and a short obstacle course for wall running.


Don't get started. Stupid console controllers making FPS games 2D. But I'm not the three-letter guy. And don't care what all you console people think :-)


Yea, Hawken became my standin shooter since BF4 had enough issues to give me buyer's pause, and I can go the rest of my life without another Madden COD.

Tgr. I assume he's living in a doom bunker now with no internet connection to keep the DRM out.

I thought your original post here had something about "moba" in it, which after the last couple of days feels like as good a description as any for why there's bots in there.

They're good fodder for players who won't progress fast if they can only advance on successful hits or kills of other players. I don't know if 6x6 was a design decision or a compromise due to a tech. But the bots fill the gap ok if for no other reason than it forces players to move around the map.

They also add a dimension of play I haven't seen in an FPS. Not a whole game mode per se, but enough to make this feel different from the CoD matches I remember (though it's been a couple of years).

It happened, I found this for cheap and caved in. It's a pretty cool game and the environments are godlike in their scifiness. Played through the first campaign or should I say radio play, lost every match. Then started on the other one and lost again, for a total of ten in a row. Great matchmaking there Respawn. Kinda funny how it doesn't make any difference to the campaign, just makes the characters sound rather over optimistic.

Yea I got to the fourth point in the campaign on IMF side and found not enough shit to give. Not sure why they call the other mode "Classic". But that's all I really do. I've found over time the matchmaking balances out. But if you do see a game lobby with a bunch of upper levels on one side and lower levels on the other, best just leave that lobby and try again. Not worth the aggravation, whether you'd be on the winning or losing team.

Welp, you'd better endure that laughably bad campaign if you want to unlock the other two Titan chassis!

Damn, really? I didn't know that, insofar as I hadn't bothered to look at the requirements.

The campaign is really badly thought out. They make it the first thing you should do, but that's when matchmaking is still clueless and you'll get matches that make no sense at all. But it's not that long, took me about 4 hours to finish both.

Yeah, it's a pretty terrible misstep, imho.  I am sort of obsessed with the game (and I basically never play multiplayer shooters anymore), and I think it's fun as hell, but I genuinely think the game would be better and have made a better impression on people if it simply did not include the campaign at all.  It wouldn't be AS bad if it wasn't pushed as the First Thing To Do, but it is pushed as that, and it makes the game look cheap and stupid.

I played through it to unlock one Titan, the idea of doing it again is unbearable. Not gonna happen.

Despite having had a healthy distrust of this game before release, I keep coming back to Titanfall. I guess because it's a multiplayer shooter that doesn't aggravate me. Movement is so fast that there's a way out of most sticky situations and the shooting is easy enough that you don't have to be a caffeine addled teenager to hit something. There's also a whole lot special abilities to leverage, that actually significantly contribute to your score. So no snipers and tactics trump twitch. I like!

This. Some mock it for being a bit too noob-friendly. But you know? After a few decades of sucking at FPS games and yet wanting to keep trying, it's nice to not be completely frustratingly outclassed at every turn. It's a great looking title (on PC, no idea how it looks on console), some of the sci-fi stuff is fun (i.e. when the flying creatures grab the NPCs or drop ships), there's enough options that you need to keep moving, can see why you died, and there hasn't seemed to be any sure fire template that has worked on every map.

I just wish I could name my templates. Not that it matters, I regen'd and am level 2 again. But still, minor annoyance.

Other annoyance is match making. They recently changed it. It does feel slightly different but I don't know if it's an improvement or because all the overly frustrated people already left.

I always go to the variety playlist, and I haven't really noticed any difference in matchmaking, new or old. One constant niggle persists, namely the lack of autobalance.

Been playing a fair bit of this the last few weeks, and can't fault it, really.  A fair bit of fun, even on console, and the 'beta' matchmaking is just about right - sort of a shame that they didn't launch with it.  The burn card mechanic is just about perfect - my brother and I fucking destroyed a team by dropping 'Reserve Ogre' cards simultaneously, but it's not like we could do that bullshit twice in a row, and the shooting is as well-tuned as anything I've played.

Not that anyone but Noisy, Jak and I care, but they released a patch (http://www.titanfall.com/news/titanfall-patch-update-two). Mostly bug fixes, some nerfs, but also the introduction of a new Private Match game mode.

Copy/pasted here because their site is eye-bleeding (yet another poor use of responsive web design):

About time. Was one of my biggest complaints.

I was playing this with my brother last night and he mentioned that he went back to the PC version for a bit while he was off that day and how different the same game is on the two platforms - on PC, everyone's bunny hopping with shotguns, while on the console, it's all about the assault rifle/SMG and ambushing people.

Also, count me in as a huge fan of the different colors for your party.  The other changes are neither here nor there for me, but that one is huge.

Ya know, that actually makes me wonder if this would play well if PC and console users were allowed into the same session. I imagine there's already PC players playing on the same map whether using KB/M or (for whatever silly reason they wouldn't use the far superior KB/M method* ) controller. Some maps can benefit some types of players more, but none so much so that a controller-user would be at a perpetual disadvantage.

*
 :dead_horse:

Yeah - he's playing the PC version with a 360 controller and says he's doing alright - he just plays it a bit differently due to the different tactics in play - the only map he doesn't like (regardless of platform) is Rise - I admit it's not one of my favorites either, though.

Rise is so restricted it hurts. I always want to climb to the rooftops but it's already out of bounds.

So they're cutting game modes from the PC version because of lack of players. It really makes me sad that nobody expect Valve is willing to make a shooter with legs anymore. Everything is just a short term throwaway thing, regardless of how much development it took.

http://www.titanfall.com/news/addressing-updates-to-pc-playlists

Meh, just makes it easier to pass on this thing when I get my new gaming rig later in the year.

Was 40% off on Origins for the weekend.
Tried it for 2 matches.
50 GB install size.
I asked for a refund afterwards.
It's just bullshit unoptimized port.

The funny part about this 40% sale is that you could actually get it for roughly the same price at launch. It's the 60 buckaroo Origin msrp that does it.

*Nothing* has legs in gaming. The games industry thrives on the next thing, innovation, constantly tweaking and improving for the next product release. Its natural that stuff fades into the background as time goes on unless some prominent entity funded by sponsors takes it over or it receives an injection in the form of an expansion / content pack, and even then that only adds a couple years at most before a new product *needs* to enter the picture.

Games like Team Fortress 2 and Counter-Strike are flukes in a hit-based industry just like you don't watch the same film or read the same book all the time.

Multiplayer games especially can have lots of legs these days, because they truly are like sports and you don't get bored to play football if that's your thing regardless of the rules, the shape of the ball or the colour of the field staying the same. The thing is, that's only valid for those multiplayer games which happen to gain eSport status. And while lots of products get made with that hope in mind (Titanfall for example was made with this idea), once they see it's not picking up as well as they hoped they just divert resources to a new product, in order to rake up more box money.
In fact, if your game reaches true eSport status, you absolutely CANNOT release a new version every year as that shakes things too much and people could just feel tempted to learn a new one altogether.

I am under the impression that they didn't develop Titanfall as a throwaway thing, but since it clearly didn't have the success they hoped and it didn't become the "next big multiplayer thing" they changed the direction.

Do we know how well it's doing on the consoles?  Because IIRC Bungie's dropping half a billion (with a "B") on Destiny with the idea that it'll be kicking around for a decade or so to earn it back.  If "game by the former devs of CoD" isn't making bank, I don't see why it would be looking much better for "game by the former devs of Halo".  But if Titanfall is doing great on the consoles and only the PC is having problems, Bungie's decision to go console only makes a bit more sense.

This feels basically true, but I'm not sure exactly how we got to this point.  I played Team Fortress Classic and Counter Strike (the original) for years, and although clan matches were a thing they didn't drive the success of these games (in fact they were mods).  Quake 3 and Unreal Tournament had their different camps, but both were ultimately successful.  Quake Live still exists for that matter.  

UT did have that point where they decided to go sports release style and release a new one every year or so but people balked because they didn't want to pay another 60 bucks for the same game again.

eSports as a widespread thing is basically still brand new outside of Korea.  Obviously it has been going on a long time if you count only a niche audience. But I'd say the release of Starcraft 2 in 2010 at just around the same time these streaming services (Twitch, mainly) became a big deal, is when it really took off.  

So, in under four years have we really seen streaming become so central to the ongoing success of a title that if their game isn't being streamed very much companies are just cutting their losses and trying again?

Titanfall's ultimate failure is that there is no server browser and their matchmaking doesn't match people, it just throws them in. There isn't even autobalance. It's from the stone age.

But even so, the game's been out for two months. That's got to be a record on how fast you start cutting modes. I think even Brink survived longer.

Clearly they need to add hattes.

To be fair most people don't really like CTF anymore outside of TF2.

Even in TF2 I think CTF isn't really a  highly played mode (beside 24/7 2 fort, which is really more about 24/7 deathmatch than about actually capturing flags).

Tribes: Ascend had its brief day in the sun with CTF recently, but I can't think of another game that featured the mode prominently.

Yea this could feel like they're cutting support for a game. But it could very well be them just optimizing support for the players they have. Not a lot of post-purchase monetization happening in Titanfall.

The CTF playlist is back:

http://www.titanfall.com/news/ctf-matchmaking-update-pc-and-xbox-one

The game is pretty fun, but it feels like it was made for a 2008 audience and is fairly low on content. There are dozens of healthier PC games with more game modes and maps that you could be playing for free instead.

To be fair, that applies to about 90% of the AAA console ports.

Two months after launch, and they have to write that wall of text to explain why their game doesn't work like they wanted it to?

Only thing that bothers me is the style of that style. Very unreadable.

Otherwise, why the hate? I actually like they went into the depth they did. If they didn't, the comment thread would just continue theorycrafting instead of descending into console/PC bashing  :grin:

The good thing is that it's a game with a very modern design so instead of just waiting at a lobby screen for a match you can do matchmaking in the background while you play single-player.

What single-player?

thatsthejoke.jpg

It's bad design to have a multiplayer-only game where the matchmaking consists of queuing up for one mode then waiting at a lobby screen. If you can't play single-player while waiting for matches at the least you should be able to queue up for more than one type of game.

The problem with matchmaking of this type is that the first time it takes too long players quit and never come back. As a developer you really need to think about how to effectively matchmake with lower populations and less popular modes.

I checked Origin to see what EA was doing to counter the Steam summer sale (the answer is nothing) and noticed Titanfall is on sale for $30 and even had a free weekend thing going on, which I missed but oh well.  Anyway, $30.  Still seems too high but there it is if you were waiting for a price drop. 

*Waits for Schild's Origin rant*

Edit:  Looks like its 48 hours total and not confined to just this weekend.  Also, I got Peggle for free.  Yay?

I don't think anyone plays TF on pc anymore.

I picked it up on sale too (but a couple weeks back during the E3 sale) and yeah it looks like it was a mistake and that the game is essentially kinda dead already. I don't know how "fast" their absolutely abysmal matchmaking system IS but it felt like it was struggling to get me into a game even when I wasn't trying to complete the campaign (good fucking luck doing that BTW, it's required that you do it TWICE to unlock the remaining 2 Titan frames).

Shame; it's been reasonably fun otherwise. It's very CODish in that the guns are nearly zero-recoil bullet hoses with sights up, but the verticality of the maps and on-foot battles are great and the most unique asset of the game even compared with the robots.

The Titans sadly are just as poorly implemented and designed as I thought they were when I played in the beta. They're honestly not that interesting. They cover a lot of ground and it's neat destroying all the little ants and punching pilots off the shoulders of your friends' titans but they operate pretty much on a flat plain due to the fact they can't really jump or climb. Basically you either play peek-a-boo between building cover or you just sit there and unload on eachother in a clusterfuck of fire until someone's titan gets doomed at which point 99% of the players use nuclear ejection so you have to frantically boost away to not die. Being in a titan is an element of safety but it's pretty boring compared to being on foot honestly.

Yeah, the campaign is so shitty that it was basically impossible to complete it two weeks after launch because nobody gave a fuck. Tying two thirds of the game's main attraction to completing it was the worst idea in a long list of bad ones.

I started to download it this weekend for the free thing, saw that it was a 50 FUCKING GIG download (only got like 70GB free on a 1TB drive) and said "FUCK THAT." I wasn't that interested in it. Then I downloaded the BF: Hardline beta and was even more disappointed in that. Just  :uhrr: all around.

What's hilarious is like 80% of that 50GB is audio. No I don't know why.

Shame too because the game isn't THAT bad. If the titans could do more than boost around on a flat plain and their special options were more interesting this would honestly be a really fun game. The SPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMSPAMEXPLOSIONS shit was tedious in COD because of the level designs and "perks"; the refinements here in the burn cards and equipment loadouts + the spaceman parkour makes for a pretty fun game when matched up with a good team.

I expect the game to be a lot better with the sequel now that they have all this feedback and data to fuel the post-mortem.

I kinda wonder if MS is going to throw another mint at Respawn to keep it exclusive given the merely "okay"ish sales and the shitty state of the Xbone.

The game was originally going to be a PS3 title if I recall (which is why Respawn licensed the Source Engine as it had an optimized port for it, also IIRC), then Microsoft offered them $Texas to make an Xbone exclusive and there you go.

Tells you something that even a person as into fps as I am can't be arsed downloading the latest and greatest fps for free.

 :awesome_for_real: The reason for 30GB audio is because everyone needs to speak RUS-GER-FRE-ITA-ENG in game.

I've heard it claimed the audio is so enormous because it's uncompressed, to reduce overhead while mixing many streams (apparently cpu to decompress mp3/ogg is more precious than disk bandwidth to stream raw audio, what a world!)

if that had been the case - the audio pack installed shd've amounted to less than 20 gb - but in 2014 people need to install all 5 languages with no option to de-select them.
i bought and refunded it within a day last month. No regrets.

 The fun part of tanks in FPS games (where they are properly implemented) is the challenge of driving the heavy vehicle simultaneously with the blasting. The faster you're going, and the rougher the terrain, the more satisfying it is to be blowing up stuff. It's most fun in games without tonnes of lock-on weapons. Tracked/wheeled, low profile vehicles add to this feeling. Big, human style movement titans do not.

If Titans were more vertically mobile or more destructive to the environment I'd find them a lot more interesting. If I could punch another titan and send it careening into a building which it would then collapse, or climb over some terrain, or do cool pilot maneuverability tricks like having your titan throw you to higher ground or something it'd be awesome. As it is they're just kinda big bullet sponges.

http://www.polygon.com/2014/8/28/6078949/titanfall-game-update-pilot-skirmish-mode


Everything old is new again!  :why_so_serious:

I don't play this but found it incredible that they are doing this. Not surprising, just incredible since the whole Titan thing was supposedly the... nevermind.

Yep, and they're the weakest part of the game.

If they had shipper super-space mans shooter without titans but kept the wallrunning mobility stuff and designed levels for on-foot only combat there'd still be buzz around it. As it stands, it's basically a flash in the pan.

Recently bought this because I wanted some mindless shooting, and it was a mistake (should have read this thread first). The mechs are not fun to pilot and that's a problem when the game revolves around mechs. Unreal Tournament 3 has kept me going for years but the servers for that game have finally died.

Which is so odd. I don't know why they tried to shoehorn good infantry and mechs together like this. I personally enjoyed the game for about a month or so. But it seems like they gimped the titans because they weren't sure people would like them when all they seem to want to do is play games with infantry in them.

I'd have argued the opposite. They already have BF and the world already has CoD. Do something different and go deep on that, instead of achieving enough mediocrity to not stand out on anything.

Not that I think Titanfall was mediocre. As I said, I enjoyed it. But even when I did, the titans weren't awesome enough for me. 2/3 of the session I was just playing CoD with wallrunning.

The titans have very little mobility outside of being so big they cover more ground faster than someone on foot. That's it; just...faster than people when boosting.

If they could jump, climb, destroy the map, throw you to higher ground, etc, they're be interesting.

Yea, titans in a BF engine with all those destroyables, THAT would be something :-)

Just finally played my 2 days of free game time. 45 minutes from launch to uninstall. It's so exactly what I expected of it - competent but underwhelming, like Call of Duty except with bots that actually make the experience even less interesting and robots that don't really add anything to the game.

If they could accomplish the same look and feel, with BF4's destructible terrain and larger maps/teamsizes that would be a fucking awesome game.

Crazynecro, because I don't think the sequel was worth its own thread.

Anyone bother with Titanfall 2 yet? Is it worth loading back up Origin?

I got it because I'm a sucker. I just beat the campaign, which is pretty good if the story is mostly nonsense that washes into the background and devoid of notable characters.

It's more titanfall. More titans, more weapons, more stuff in general. I need to try the multiplayer to see if they fucked the maps up. Early on when they were testing it they tried narrowing down the mobility of the players to get CoD's "lanes" into it because they felt the movement in the original was so open that people had to really hunt to find players to fight.

Just did a match real quick. If they wanted to solve that "you can't find anyone to fight!" problem they failed pretty badly. I had a whole match (6 vs 6 is still standard) where I had to hunt for people to shoot and I got 7 kills. 2 of my 3 deaths were from the now much more deadly NPC robots. That being said the shooting feels tighter, but you feel way way slower. Like disappointingly slow. I miss how insanely fast you could move in the original.

I would be playing this if Amazon hadn't shit the bed on my collector's edition delivery.

Apparently they screwed a lot of people on this. A co-worker also didn't get his (and may never get it at the original price).

Hmm ok, I'll hold off a bit. Biz trip this week and by the time I'm back, Dishonored 2 will be right around the corner.

My Vanguard edition shipped today and Amazon sent me a code for the full game to make up for the delay.

The single player so far has been pretty damn good.

Playing some more reveals to me that again unlocks for basic functionality in gameplay is insanely cancerous. Having to grind to get access to all of the weapons and perks and kits is really insanely stupid and makes you legit gimped against higher level players in more than just experience and skill level. Your starting kits are all solid but there are definitely better, and being able to access them all from start would let people find something that suits them faster.

Has anyone spent some time with this and Battlefield 1?  I was thinking of getting one of them.  I've heard good things about both of them.  I was looking at CoD Infinite Warfare but apparently the PC (Windows store, box copies, Steam etc.) player base has been separated between those who bought it on Steam...and everyone else. :facepalm:

I have Infinite Warfare on PC. No problems getting matches. I can't imagine THAT many people bought the Windows Store version. I mean, if you're a PC gamer, you've been tied to Steam since forever (and have probably seen a few iterations of Microsoft "getting serious" about games or whatever). And the Win10 version doesn't let you play against Xbone players as far as I know.

Skipping Titanfall probably, but will definitely pickup Battlefield at some point (after Dishonored 2). Went with IW because I liked the theme and people I trust said the space combat (infantry or ship) was solid.

FYI this weekend multiplayer is F2P on all 3 platforms if you want to try this out.  Looks like it's live now.