I'm going to chime in on this thread because I see mostly people saying something along the lines of, "gee this 2.0 is worse than 1.9". So, I've returned to the game after a 2 or 3 year break from the first time WG really broke it, which was just prior to launch when they instituted hand-wavey altitude hard cap "cover" mechanics, followed by scattergun dispersion mechanics shortly after launch. I suffered through 500 or so battles and called it quits because WG killed the fun game that was 0.8x or whatever, pre "launch".
I get the email about "come back...again" and a friend who also hadn't played in a long time said he was having fun blasting stuff.
My take on the new flight feeling and control is that it is very close to what I remember of the pre-altitude cap flight model, when the game was actually fun to play: jump in and have some quick fun in a battle. Although, it's missing a lot of control customization that enabled players to get the controls to feel right, for them.
WoWP was never aiming at the sim crowd that the competition takes aim at. I've mainly been flying Russian planes, which used to be a no-no unless you were one of the best players and could avoid incoming fire from the USA/German energy fighters. The current controls and flight model are fun, they are fluid, linear and intuitive.
The shooting...I'm always skeptical of auto-aim and am sad to see that "aim" is perk'd up. On the plus side, at least they aren't lying about aim assistance now (I caught them in beta and caused a stir when a testing buddy posted my screencap proof on the EU forum, good times). Losing the aim pip is a toss up, I actually never used it..for the reasons they took it out: I found it distracting and could lead enemies without it once I was familiar with weapon velocity and rate of fire (although admittedly gunnery was never my strong suite as the game was somewhat choppy on the laptop I had back then 10-20 fps usually in furballs). Whatever auto-aim correction they are using now feels more "natural" in whatever it's doing combined with the reduced dispersion from last I was, 1.1 or so. If I lead properly, both in how much lead to give and where my point of aim is compared to the targets trajectory, I'll hit more. And the new hit indicators, while a bit cheesy on the audio side, offer good feedback as to when I've got the lead right for distance, trajectory, speed, etc.
So, it's fun. It plays well. Controls feel good (although more customization would be nice, I miss the ability to make bigger mouse movements induce faster response and vice-versa). Shooting feels good. The altitude caps aren't as punishing and there is gameplay that pushes most fighting to the mid-low range where most planes can work.
The camera needs to have the zoom in out added back in. When in free-look, I can't even admire my own aircraft because the view pulls way out and I can't zoom back in. Before the match starts, the ability to look around needs to be added back in. Both for admiring my own aircraft, but also so I can visually where my teammates are and what they're flying.
So, yes. Good job on all of that. But, umm...wthwith bots?! LoL, when did THAT become a thing? Stats are virtually meaningless now since the bots are terrible....and that seems to be why one player's skill doesn't win a match: the bots decide who wins when there's only 2 or 4 players in the match AND the matchmaking has given lopsided plane matchups! Take out the bots (both on the team and in the conquest mode zones of control and you've got a good PvP game (note the player in "player vs player"....not player vs bot or PvE).
Regarding PvE and bots, I don't play world of tanks. I play Armored Warfare...and I play it because I enjoy their PvE game mode, it's relaxing. BUT, there, in PvE, it's all humans one team and all bots on the other and you know exactly what's what. So, PvE is fine if you want to go that route, but this mixed nonsense is terrible.
Plus, why have a bonus to xp or credits for a win when it's the code that decides the win? That's even worse than having a win bonus but terrible matchmaking (a-la world of tanks). Now, I'm not even losing matches (but topping the charts) because of stupid teammates; I'm losing matches while doing all that I can do because of a stupid coder at WG HQ who's bots (and bad bot MM) decided which team would win! Terrible!
As for the conquest mode, it doesn't make sense: the reasoning. Who are these "neutral combatants" that red and blue are fighting? I'll offer you a solution instead of just criticism, not that you paid attention to any of my Beta solutions (which you've apparently figured out on your own in the intervening 3 years! lol).
1) Remove the bots from matches. Period. It's bad for a Player Vs Player game.
2) Tailor the map size to amount of players you can get into the battle. If player population is very low and use of bots is deemed necessary for reasonable queue times, PUT ALL THE BOTS ON ONE TEAM and all the players on the other!
3) For conquest, remove the neutral and defense bots. Instead have "CAP points" (Combat Air Patrol points, fun double entendre too!). These CAP points are accrued for having fighters or multi-role aircraft in a given zone of control, up to the amount of points needed to capture the zone (which will be a fixed number per type of resource airfield, factory, etc). Ground targets destroyed will each count toward capture points for that zone. Something like this setup would enable removing neutral and defense bots while still allowing for battle strategy to make a difference to match outcome (such as which nodes to take, how to defend or push an attack).
Fun gameplay, not so fun game mode. NO BOTS, unless as Perrigrino mentions and I concure, it's done in a Player vs Bot co-op match. Even then this should only be done when population is extremely low. Some of the most fun matches I played were when the population was low enough and queue times long enough that MM built a 5 v 5 match. It felt like an arena tournament in that every aircraft lost or saved was critical and players instinctively became more of a team, working together to keep each other's tail clear and not have fighters run off attacking ground targets throwing away their plane and such. So, small match size works fine on an appropriate map. NO BOTS!
TLDR: The game plays fun and brought me back, so I hope people will give it a try. The conquest mode needs work. Remove all the neutral and defense bots. Remove all bots from teams unless the MM forces a Player vs Bot match due to exceptionally small player pool (again, 5 v 5 worked fine in the past, but with node control might be too small).
Flight model/flight feel: A-
Gunnery: B
Controls and personalization: C
Game mode: D-
Edited by Mercsn, 07 November 2017 - 10:29 AM.