Enemy Territory: Quake Wars (Beta 2) - Second Impressions

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » August 9th, 2007, 7:51

Given that a fair few of us have given this a go now, I thought I'd see what people think of this compared to the first beta.

For me, it seems a lot better. The delay in changing weapons and entering/exiting vehicles has gone, which was one of my most immediate gripes. Weapons still feel a little underpowered I think.

The main thing putting people off from what I can gather is the lack of knowing what the hell to do. The new map seems slightly clearer than the first one - GDF have to repair a bridge, drive massive vehicle thing over it and down tunnel, get into first strogg base and capture it by "activating" the big vehicle at a certain point, then attack the second Strogg base and disable/hack a thingymabob. Strogg have to stop them.

One tactic I saw employed to much win the other day was a few engineers running along behind the big vehicle repairing it constantly, which meant that they pretty much drove it non-stop into the base and capped it very quickly. Given the lack of functionality within fire teams (from what I can see), and the inability to set objectives as in squads in Beef, having a few people on TS working together would make a significant impact on the game.

I'm a fan of the in-game "friend" system, where you can add people and join them in game, and where it notifies you if they load up their game. Not sure if there is any way of communicating with them similar to xfire yet, but it seems like a logical addition to the system, and we all have xfire anyway.

The game still feels slightly unbalanced in favour of the Strogg, and I'm hoping that this will be addressed prior to the full release. I'm also hoping the full game will be a bit more "meaty" in terms of its overall feel.

Whilst I don't love it yet, I am enjoying it and hope that people are willing to get through the initial confusion stage and give it a fair go before deciding if it's for them or not.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 9th, 2007, 7:55

pretty much sums it up for me.

The GDF giant tank objective needs to be clearer/easier though, i've seen a lot of people get it to the right point without activating it.

Post by **HereComesPete** » August 9th, 2007, 7:59

Having not had the chance to try the beta 2 yet, im still meh, but I do want this game to excite me :lol:

it looks like it would be a good taemspack run co-op for the win style game, and enough different to beef to make a change. I shall endeavour to like it if at all possible because I feel it deserves it!

Ooh 500, well done me!

Gunslinger42 · Post by **Gunslinger42** » August 9th, 2007, 10:09

Pretty much everything lat said.

As far as the friends thing goes you can right click on them and send messages, you'll need to hit escape to get to the menu to do it when you're in game though, so it'd be easier to use xfire.

Everything seems massively biased towards strogg, but I have a feeling that's because so far the only maps we've seen have been strogg defending and GDF attacking. It might just be a case of the game being biased in favour the defending team in general rather than the Strogg specifically, which is more reasonable.

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 9th, 2007, 10:11

What slinger said too.

Also the manual might be handy to some of you

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 9th, 2007, 10:12

I made the mistake of jumping in the giant tank and storming out the other side of the tunnel without any engineer support. The tank was easily disabled before it got to the fort thing and then we spent most of the rest of the round trying to get to it. Opps, my bad.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » August 9th, 2007, 10:25

Dr. kitteny berk wrote:What slinger said too.

Also the manual might be handy to some of you

Cheers for the link Berk.

The awards/XP accumalating over 3 rounds makes sense when looking at the campaign mode:

Player Guide wrote:In Campaign mode, three linked maps will be played representing a regional conflict, with the match awarded to the team that wins at least two of the three games. Player Experience Points (XP) and Proficiency Awards will not be reset until the end of the third game.

Sounds like a good idea to me, I like the idea of the rounds linking up rather than having each one seperate and unrelated to all the others.

The whole guide certainly seems worth a read though, and is a good way to procrastinate!

Post by **FatherJack** » August 9th, 2007, 10:33

Sounds boringly complicated, I only ran around the first map on my own and didn't really like the way the two team's equipment was so different.

I'll probably only ever play this much if we get our own server, as the last thing I want is some random ten-year-old screaming "Don't you even know you have to press X six times to activate the control while you wait for an engineer to capture the substation barricade". Uh, no - I just thought I'd, um - shoot stuff?

Post by **Dr. kitteny berk** » August 9th, 2007, 10:37

I'll probably be able to sort us an unranked server in the next few days.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » August 9th, 2007, 10:43

FatherJack wrote:Sounds boringly complicated, I only ran around the first map on my own and didn't really like the way the two team's equipment was so different.

I'll probably only ever play this much if we get our own server, as the last thing I want is some random ten-year-old screaming "Don't you even know you have to press X six times to activate the control while you wait for an engineer to capture the substation barricade". Uh, no - I just thought I'd, um - shoot stuff?

It's not that complicated really, it's just that what you should be doing is not as immediately obvious as Beef, and it's a bit harder to complete objectives single-handedly. Once I knew what I was doing, I warmed to it a lot more.

That guide still doesn't shed any light on the purpose of fire teams though.

An unranked server of our own might be good for getting to grips with stuff, especially if it's just a few 5punkers learning what to do on it rather than a load of twatty randoms. Cheers Berk.

Post by **FatherJack** » August 9th, 2007, 11:15

Lateralus wrote:That guide still doesn't shed any light on the purpose of fire teams though.

They must either catch on fire themselves, or incinerate stuff.

Lee · Post by **Lee** » August 9th, 2007, 13:04

Maybe it's just the servers people have been on but according to the stats site the GDF win more often than the strogg.

Beta 2 does seem like a big improvement over beta 1 but I haven't been able to play much due to crappy fps. I think my processor is starting to show its age mainly and the rest of my computer is now averageish but it's not likely I can do anything about that for a while. Hopefully they'll do alot of optimisation before release.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 9th, 2007, 13:36

I've just realised, the sound on beta 2 must be much improved as I haven't noticed it being really bad like in the first beta.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » August 9th, 2007, 13:49

Yeah, I only noticed some stuff had been fixed when I realised it wasn't pissing me off like the delays in weapon and vehicle changes.

Post by **FatherJack** » August 9th, 2007, 22:58

Played an hour tonight, entirely as Strogg - even trying to choose GDF had me bumped back to the other team.

Started out flitting between Aggressor and Constructor, with little-to-no success. An incomprehensible map and objectives, no idea what to do, died constantly without seeing an enemy - or if I did, it was a tank or copter. It wasn't looking good.

Then, I kind of thought "fuck the objectives, I'm gonna do me some killin". It got a lot better after that.

Defending the first bit, when they're trying to build the bridge, I went Infiltrator. And I discovered a long-lost love. Before the Desert Eagle in CS, before that weird glowy-red-dot sniper rifle in TeamFortress (well actually not before TF1, but whatever) - I loved the Railgun from Quake 2. And now it's got a proper zoom, instead of that "I-Spy My First Plastic Magnifying Glass" one in Q2.

The one in Quake 3 never felt right, especially all that gibbing nonense. This is a proper gun - you have to aim it at the head yourself. No hiding away in a quiet corner all game for a Railgun-wielder - a great big glowing line leading right back to you is there with every shot you take. Inexperienced snipers on the other team, who've never known anything but camping, mistakenly think you're still there and take aim...only for you to pop up somewhere else and smite them - excellent old-school stuff - that Guard Tower was like fish in a barrel.

Since I wasn't paying much attention to teamplay, they inevitably built their poxy bridge and made it through the tunnel. Now it was time for a different kind of fun, I went Oppressor.

The puny humans had managed to get their stupid MPV nearly to our base, but managed to get themselves all killed. I built a nice Dark Matter Cannon conveniently near our spawn, so any passing Constructors would be only too happy to repair it for points, and targeted the tunnel entrance that they were now pouring out of. Seemed to time it quite well with another guy doing the same thing, so just after his went off, and they started to advance again - mine got the rest of them. Got a few teamkills, though - you guys can see the great big orange markers, right?

While waiting for it to reload, whipped out the Enhanced-something Lacerator, and took aim at the stragglers. Well, that's rather a nice gun, too. Accurate without any of the poncy lying on the floor rubbish and a nice crosshair to tell you if it's a bad guy you're shooting at. Even seemed to do a bit of damage to vehicles, so it's good to not feel completely useless when faced with enemies in cars.

It's always pissed me off a bit when people dive or crouch as soon as you start shooting them in BeeF (although necessary to get any sort of accuracy with the guns) - I saw you first, dammit - I should get to kill you. These are Future Magic Guns, and I'm a fucking supersoldier - I should be able to snipe from the hip at a run.

In conclusion then: I say win. Hope they hurry it up, though - I can't be playing the same map all the while.

Post by **HereComesPete** » August 9th, 2007, 23:32

FatherJack wrote:Got a few teamkills, though - you guys can see the great big orange markers, right?

Even seemed to do a bit of damage to vehicles, so it's good to not feel completely useless when faced with enemies in cars.

Yup, but the time bewteen the marker goes down and the actual arrival of orange death beam needs increasing imho, you run at a dude with zoom on, zoom out with the reload, see a big orange line/circle and splat.

If you get a shit titan driver, a hyperblaster will have it 1/2 way dead before ammo runs out. The feeling of total vulnerability as a non-specialist against vehicles is fairly intense in beef until you get in the alleyways etc. Here you can run round shooting huskys, humvee's etc and actually see the impact of your fire, I likey this a lot.

Sounds are better, weapon switch/vehicle entry is better, we could go back to beta 1 and redo that for a map switch, I think team efficiency would be even more apparent on that map.

I think the refill/spawn rate, whatever it is for bombing runs/artillery/hammer etc needs reducing, people do it costantly and you cant move off the spawn on occasion for repeated death. They cause enough damage to wipe 1/2 a team if dropped right, they don't need to be every 30-40 seconds, what with multiple people capable of using them.

I like this a lot more than t'other un, mainly because its more finished. Feels a bit crazy, to the extent that we went on beef to calm down and have a more steady paced game!

Post by **FatherJack** » August 9th, 2007, 23:37

Forgot to mention my very brief vehicular excursion. Got in the fast Stroggy buggy thing and boost-rammed a tank in it. Amazingly I survived the impact, but died as I jumped out and it rolled on me and crushed me.

Post by **HereComesPete** » August 9th, 2007, 23:40

The vehicles still handle a little funny, but those hogs are great fun, watching one bounce off the front of a titan or the mpc (sp?) is a beautiful thing.

I do need to play gdf on that map, just to see what driving that big fuck off tank is like.

Lateralus · Post by **Lateralus** » August 10th, 2007, 7:11

FatherJack wrote:Many words

Glad you stuck at it then - you had a similar experience to me by the sounds of it, only I've not really played with any of the big arty things yet, and to be honest they fucked me right off last night. There should be a limit of 1 or 2 arty units per side I think, otherwise it just gets stupid.

I've not really played GDF yet on that map either, and I'd really like to. The one time I did play it with a couple of other 5punkers, we seemed to win the map relatively quickly I think, whereas last night I don't recall them even coming close.

The MVCPVC or whatever the fuck it's called really needs the driver, plus at least one gunner on top, and 2 or 3 engineers running along behind to to repair it. If that happens, you can pretty much drive it straight into the base you need to capture.

Overall I think the game will have a greater variety in it than Beef, but once you know what you're doing and know the maps, it won't be as overwhelming as it initailly appears.

spoodie · Post by **spoodie** » August 10th, 2007, 9:55

I was getting annoyed with it last night, especially when I had to reboot to get into the game after it kicked me out. I'm blaming Punkbuster for that.