Games

[recoil]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2015/03/12/ ... ps4-and-pc

Respawn founder and CEO Vince Zampella has confirmed Titanfall 2 is in development and will be released on multiple platforms.

Speaking to IGN ahead of tonight's BAFTA Game Awards, Zampella, whose title is nominated in three categories, acknowledged the game's existence for the first time.

"I guess EA announced a sequel, so I could play coy and pretend I don't know anything about it, or… yeah. So we're working on a sequel. No official name yet, but we're working on that. That's the main focus but we're starting up a second team and doing some smaller stuff too. Small, exploratory, taking it slow! It'll be multiplatform."

It seems the decision the broaden the game's horizons in terms of platform was never in doubt. When asked whether or not the team wishes they could change anything about the original product, Respawn COO Dusty Welch said, "Platform for me comes to mind right away." Though Zampella then explained, "Well, we needed that, though. We couldn't do the game," Dusty clarified the exclusivity was always a business decision rather than anything else.

"If we could do it though?" he said. "It would have been prohibitive to do that - we definitely made the right choices for the right reasons - but if you're saying what would we have liked to have done? The opportunity to be multiplatform could have made it even more significant for us.

When it came to what we should expect from the next game in the series, the duo's lips were sealed, but they did promise to expand the lore. As for whether we should expect to see a single-player component, it's still not clear.

"I wouldn't have done it differently," Zampella said when reflecting upon the original's multiplayer-only approach. "We set out to do it and it was one of our goals. I mean it obviously prohibits a certain group of people playing the game, and as content creators you want to get into as many peoples's hands as possible. We put some single-player elements in there though, and tried to mix it up. Maybe we could have mixed things up a bit better because some people blew right by it and didn't even see it because there was so much action happening around it. It's tough, because if you hit people over the head with it it becomes intrusive, and there are people who don't want or care about it. Where does the needle fall? I think it takes a while to figure that out and we haven't figured it out yet."

One thing Zampella was keen to think about changing was the DLC model for the future, citing Evolve's commitment to keeping the community united via free maps for all as the ideal way forward.

"I think that's a fantastic way to do it," he said. "I think having the maps like that in packs, it does split the community and it makes it harder for matchmaking, it's messy. Yeah. I don't know we won't do it again, I can't say that for sure, but the idea would be to do something different."

[Some guy]

Does the Next Titanfall Game Need a Single Player Campaign?
http://www.nugame.net/featured-2/titanf ... arch-2017/

According to GameSpot:

Electronic Arts CEO, Andrew Wilson, mentioned that the next Titanfall game is “looking fantastic” during a post financial earnings call. EA released their earnings report late yesterday (1/28).The comment happened in response to a question from an analyst regarding the publishing arrangement with Respawn for the next Titanfall game. Wilson replied with, “It’s too early to dig into specifics.” EA’s next fiscal year starts in April 2016 and ends in March of 2017.

It is doubtful that we will see it release this year, but a more official announcement will probably occur during E3. It is also assumed, at this point, that it will be a multi-platform game this time around.

This also begs the question, “Does Titanfall need a single player campaign next time?”

With the sales being very good for a release on a new platform at the time, there is probably no doubt that EA will want the game on multiple platforms the next go around. With games like Star Wars Battlefront doing extremely well, while others like Evolve have their sales and players dwindling down (on Steam at least), and the so-so to good reviews and user opinions on Rainbow Six: Siege, is there still a want for the next Titanfall game to be online only?

Now that the Xbox One and PS4’s install base is much larger now, there is still a possibility of an online only element to the franchise. Many expected that the creators of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare would have created the next online sensation, but the original didn’t exactly reach that expectation regardless of the positive reviews. Not that anyone could blame them, as COD’s Modern Warfare online was phenomenal and since most gamers don’t even bother with the campaigns to this day, it seemed like an obvious decision to focus on multiplayer.

Then again, there is the possibility that Battlefront is doing well simply because it is Star Wars and there is a huge fan base already established that helped make it successful. With other games, like Evolve, it can be a difficult sell. Is online only gaming worth the risk? Would have Star Wars been an even better game with a more traditional single player campaign?

There’s probably not a definitive answer as there are multiple factors that go into it; popularity, gameplay, mechanics and so on. We are curious about how you feel about the next Titanfall. Are you excited for another Titanfall? Did you play the original? Would you rather play a campaign? Let us know in the comments below.

[earthboundtrev]

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/06/12/ ... e-revealed

Prior to its press conference, the Titanfall 2 trailer leaked, revealing that the game will launch for PS4, Xbox One, and PC on October 28, 2016.

Titanfall 2 will also feature a single-player campaign for the first time, putting you in the shoes of soldier Jack Cooper, accompanied by a sentient robot companion.

Single Player Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwbutTQ8Yow

[infernovia]

I would highly recommend this game, even if it's just for the "Effect and Cause" mission. It was one of my favorite single-player experiences last year. I would have loved to have more time with that mechanic. But even outside of it, it's well made with a lot of cool and memorable levels.

The MP is significantly worse than the older game (smaller maps, movement sucked, etc.), but whatever.

[strangemoe]

I've been playing this game for about 150 hours now and it's awesome, both in SP and MP! The first game was better in some ways, especially with its larger and more open maps that seemed like real places. It had a serious, metallic look while TF2 is silly. All TF2's paid DLC is cosmetic and everyone is running around with tiger print rifles, hot pink camouflage, and anime girls painted on their giant robots. Too bad almost no one is left playing TF on PC.

infernovia, why didn't you like the new movement system? I thought it was a great improvement. You have a lot more ways to go a lot faster. In TF you can gain speed with the stim tactical, wall jumping or ziplining, and maintain it by air strafing and hopping when you hit a wall or floor. TF2 has all this, plus a short boost slide you can do from a standstill. You can grenade jump using gravstar and satchel. By far the fastest is the grapple tactical, which accelerates you to 80 MPH if you slingshot and lets you reverse direction without slowing down. It's difficult, but insanely fun. Combining all these skills is what makes the pilot combat so much great, and what gives pilots a fighting chance against the stronger new titans. I've rained grenades on whole teams without touching the floor, had Spider-Man-like 3D melee battles when my opponent and I both had to reload, and captured the flag on Blackwater 15 seconds into the match.

TF was already fast-paced, but TF2 one of the craziest FPS I've played. I'm no genre expert, but the only faster one I know is Tribes: Ascend. The kill feed looks like it could have come from the smallest map on Quake 3. Aimbot, teleporting, and wallhack are normal abilities. The map design ensures the killing starts in seconds and never lets up. Team tactics are constantly evolving, but in some modes they must be pre-planned. By the time you've said something in Live Fire, the situation has changed completely.

TF2 has problems, like its janky melee system, poor weapon balance and hilariously unfair matchmaking, but that's no surprise given its extreme design and the complex interplay of its many mechanics. Even getting stomped is fun as you exhaust all your abilities just to survive a few seconds and get a decent position. Every match is a highlight reel. It's my favorite game of 2016 and I highly recommend it to anyone with the patience. Play with a clan. Feel the rage. The skill ceiling is somewhere in space.

[infernovia]

I want to mention that I mostly played TF2 right when it came out for about 2 weeks, and I played on the PC. I also played it a bit after they added one of the old maps back in. That means I don't know many of the tricks that might come up after a month of MP.

But here is what I liked about the first Titanfall:

• It's those moments when a person drops behind you, and in reaction you jump from the door to a wall, wallrun and wall jump into a balcony and shoot from the third floor as they fly past the door. A completely normal restaurant that turned into an aerial battleground (probably not correct to use "ground" in this case, heh).
  
  
• It's in that moment when you need to cross a huge wall and you hop from wall to wall building up speed and height and clear a 40 foot wall like a superman.
  
  
• Someone's chasing you as you are wallrunning on the side of a building and you quickly jump into the alley and get the drop on the person as they turn around the corner. All happening 5 stories in the air.
  
  
• The opposing person is trying to control the room that people are hacking, where they feel that they found a safespot and camp the room, but you fly down from the roof and assault from above. The vertical threat was sorely missing from the new maps.
  
  
• It's those moments where you find cool routes, sneaky ones, outrageous ones, short ones that get you across a wall, or long ones that let you cross the entire map.

This is mostly missing from the new MP maps. They are smaller, and there are less routes to take. What routes there are seem obvious and easily seen, not quite as interesting in the first one. I don't feel the joy of parkouring, discovering the routes, connecting routes like I felt with the first game. I am not aware of the gravistar+statchel trick, but the only thing that the developers of the game intended to add was the slide to "boost" on the ground (taken from Vanquish), but it barely added anything in terms of how the game played. They actually originally slowed the player down to make the slide useful (it was a significant change in speed)... but now that they sped the player up to their TF1 speed after EVERYONE complained, all the slide does is help you maintain momentum between wallruns with less skill. On PC at least.

Also, ziplines were completely removed in favor of the new grapple mechanic when I was playing. Could be better, but it was not the same because it was significantly slower. It also felt mostly useless in the PC.

To summarize, I felt the original design for the TF2 MP was a more grounded game where you had to use more grounded infantry tactics than the first one. But there isn't enough tactical elements (IE the respawns, complexity of the environment, not enough players, not enough units) to make this satisfying. And the parkouring was severely hampered because the maps simply weren't big enough to let you get up to speed nor interesting enough for you to make cool routes. It was a weird middle ground that I definitely was not a fan of.

The smallness of the map also hurt how "swingy" the titans were. In the original, you had a regenerating shield and your actual core damage. If you were behind, you could still drop your titan and play cautiously to turn the tide. If the opponent has a ton of titans out, the "behind team" also had a lot of hiding spots to blindside the titans. Again, due to the large map. But in the new one, if the opposing team have enough titans, you feel like there is nothing you can do. And at the same time, if you drop your titan too early, because you don't have a regenerating shield, your titan can get dropped hilariously fast just by people kamekazeing against you.

I also think the new concept half baked overall. Think about the "doomed" mechanic. In the original, it meant a nuclear explosion within 10 seconds. In the new one, you can basically live forever so long as you don't take any new damage. And you heal by putting a new battery. It's weird, and doesn't really fit imo. It also doesn't keep track of which titan you pull the battery out of, if you are carrying a battery, whatever titan you rodeo will not have one. If you don't, you will always remove a battery. Even if the guy in front of you pulled out the battery 1 second before from the same location. Just wonky.

Overall, I didn't enjoy the MP much. I played a bit more when they put Angel City back, but it was a short visit. The new Titan health mechanic hurt it and the player count was just abysmal. Even when compared to the first game.

To be fair, I never played either game with a full clan/teammates. Usually 1/2 other people.

[icycalm]

Here's a review of 2 I am considering posting, perhaps with a different rating and/or mixed in with some of your and strangemoe's comments: http://www.honestgamers.com/13421/pc/ti ... eview.html

We must try both games with a full team. The first one can be had on G2A for $5 or something, so there's no reason not to get a decent number of players in it.

[infernovia]

The main thing I would disagree with is that I felt that the campaign was enjoyable and was not just preparation for MP. The campaign just feels solid and well crafted. The first world feels very inspired by Avatar's Pandora. The story feels like a cross between Star Wars and some mech animes. You can see influences from Vanquish (one of my favorite TPS) in not just the slide, but even the level design and some of the bosses you fight. I didn't care about the connection to the first TF1, because I barely remember it. The first game's story to me was a lot of people chattering in the background while you are slaughtering minions.

There were some very cool moments in the campaign that simply were not ported over to the MP. Particularly the mechanic of fast and instantaneous time travel ("Effect and Cause"). It's quite a highlight of the game as eventually you are fighting in both the "past" and the "present" near simultaneously because of how fast and quick the time travel mechanic is. It's quite a feat. That whole mission makes you feel so powerful because you can hear the opposing commanders freaking out as they have no idea how you are infiltrating their base. I wish they could have played with that mechanic for a longer time.

It's not the best campaign, there are a few levels that amount to random platforms barely connected to a larger level. But it does have some great moments.

I didn't realize there was a ghost runner mechanic, but I can see why the babying would be frustrating. The few times I did get stuck, I don't remember any advice. Probably an option in the menu.

[strangemoe]

icycalm, last time I tried playing TF on PC there were only 48 players worldwide. I don't know how much longer a new player will even be able to find games. I can usually get one team together with my Origin friends, but I have a hard time finding two whole teams myself. Good luck. For the truly obsessed, there is a F2P Korean version now. Haven't tried that. I hear Xbox One is more active.

TF2 SP is great fun. I don't hold the basic story and puzzles against it. I played it because it was a cool FPS with advanced movement and giant robots, so only the small number of titan fights disappointed me. Once you master the MP movement and titans the whole thing will be a breeze, so play SP first. I recommend playing on the highest difficulty right away so the AI gets really aggressive. The titan boss fights are really easy and have health packs all over. You unlock a new MP titan load-out for each fight, so you're supposed learn the basics of each. The time travel level is great but I also loved the house factory with its shootouts on the moving platforms. Wall-running off the side of those gave amazing speed and a great angle for air strafing.

As for MP, HonestGamers is right that it's more like an old-school twitch shooter than the first. I don't mind that. It's the best one and a huge advance over the classics, but its appeal is different to the first Titanfall. His detailed criticism is all wrong cuz he's a mega scrub. I mean look, he says he can't survive in his titan for ten seconds. He doesn't know the other two ways to get batteries. He thinks the cannon fodder AI are too hard to kill, even though they're there so newbies who can't get frags can still contribute. There are some problems with pilot to pilot weapon balance, but pilot-titan is perfect. A coordinated team can delete an enemy titan in seconds, but every titan can gib pilots in a single shot. That's very important, since the rate at which you earn them depends on your skill compared to the enemy team. If you're good, you can get your first in 30 seconds and keep it alive the whole round. If you can't get near the objective and it takes you half a round to get the required four pilot kills, you'll be waiting a while. The poor guy is just slow, and his MP comments will only be useful to other slows. It takes a degree of skill and teamplay before you can begin to control the chaotic brawl.

For a better idea of MP, you should just watch some footage. itsEthereal on Twitch, who I lose to regularly, is probably the fastest pilot. He'll show you the grapple's true power. dinosaurd123 on YouTube is an expert on titans.

infernovia, I play on PC too. I love the older maps and I'm glad they're coming back. The new maps are fun but they do lack the same verticality, IMO, because all the titans but Northstar are stuck on the ground. All the same, speed and height are still huge advantages and they're easy to gain, but not so easy to maintain in combat. Angel City and Colony are out, plus some new maps (Glitch has ziplines in spawn) and weapons. More free DLC is still coming. In a few weeks we'll have Relic and a new MP titan. They are also updating Crash Site with new parkour routes and ziplines so you might want to give it a try. I will still be grapple-launching over the canyon walls though. The routes available to you depend on your height and speed.


You don't seem to know how to control the grapple. It's worth figuring out. I didn't want to go back to the static zipline when I could throw my own any time and go faster at any height in any direction around any object, strafing wildly towards the apex for maximum slingshot. It's my main tactical, strong in all modes and the best in Capture the Flag. The zipline was 2.2 times sprint speed in TF. TF2's sprint is about 14 MPH, making a decent grapple like three times faster.


I didn't play the tech demo so I can only comment on movement in the release version. The timing for slide hops is lax compared to standard bunny hopping, but doing it perfectly is still faster and the movement still has a good skill gap. Sure grounded infantry tactics are less effective, and that's partly because the maps are smaller, but it's also because the tactics unique to Titanfall became even stronger. Players are still figuring it all out. I must agree the spawns are terrible and too predictable. You can even get spawn-killed by a reaper warpfall. Holy hell. I just want to spawn from any of the zones my team controls. At least there are modes with no respawning.

Titans in both games are great. You still have a nuke eject option BTW, it just isn't stock anymore. You can choose that or a different boost like extra dashes or core charge. I think the HP system was changed for balance reasons, but generally I don't like regenerating health and I'm perfectly happy to outlast the attacking pilots by choosing the fall site carefully and gibbing those who do show up. Doom is fine with me. It means your titan is damaged beyond repair and can't heal anymore, but you can still give it a battery-powered overshield. I love that melee kills doomed titans instantly. It never seemed odd to me, at least no odder than the first game, and it led to some of my most intense Last Titan Standing fights where the whole game depends on who can get the last punch. I love those execution animations, too! And yeah batteries are weird, but at least they add some strategy. Nothing is funnier than letting an opponent fall first, then extracting 6 batteries from him and earning your whole team their titans will full overshields.

My main disappointment with TF2 is that the matches are too short and the objectives too simple, even if there's no end of ways to fight for them. A Conquest mode like in the old Star Wars Battlefront would be amazing! Ideally TF3 would combine the improvements of TF2 with maps bigger and more interactive than the ones in TF1, also keeping some smaller ones for variety.

BTW there's no more problem finding games, at least in the US. I'm getting matched in 30 seconds all the time.

[strangemoe]

The "Monarch Reigns" patch released. The new Titan, Monarch, shakes up the balance with her ability to give and take overshields, which makes teamwork even more important in Last Titan Standing and Titan Brawl. However, overshields no longer prevent melee executions on doomed Titans. Her chaingun and missiles make her feel a lot like an Atlas from the first game. Both are extremely strong against pilots. Her Core is not an attack, but a recharged shield plus upgraded stats and weapons. Her third ability just cancels cooldowns on the other ones. All this makes her really fun to play as and against. Ion was slightly weakened. Now her laser shot does less damage and takes more energy, so you can't double tap it and dump all the energy at once. That technique was ridiculous - I would destroy Stryders in 3 seconds flat if I could land two critical hits, a tripwire, and a melee with that. Vortex counters all of Monarch's attacks unless she upgrades to arc rounds, so it evens out. I think this is all great for the game, and most of my friends who played TF1 love Monarch.

Relic is in rotation now and it's awesome too. It's a weird map with a bunch of buildings on each side, connected by two titan choke points in and below the crashed ship in the middle. There are a few glitchy parts but it's great fun with the new movement system, while the TF1 play styles mostly still work. CTF is especially fun there.

[strangemoe]

Wargames patch released. Everybody's favorite map is back. I hope all of the original maps come back this way. Great neon aesthetic with wide open lanes for titan duels with wallrunning routes overhead and both base buildings have pretty interesting layouts with a lot of entrances. I loved jumping through the windows at high speed and trying to clear out all the enemies, which wasn't very easy in the original version without the grapple. More settings are added to private matches and I had great fun playing 500% health CTF on this map. It works great even with the new titans and pilot movement abilities.