Review: FireFall Beta Patch version 0.6
By: Christopher
“Synther” Wilson
FireFall is a game that I have believed in whole
heartedly. So much so, that I jumped at
the chance to purchase a Founders pack, even though the game is still in
beta. A beta, that you should be
reminded, has been ongoing for over a year now.
In fact, the game seems to be in a perpetual beta stage with no real
light at the end of the tunnel as to when it will be “released.” On the one hand, I find this to be a good
thing since they actually have a chance to test things out and to actually
listen to the beta players. This is a
refreshing idea that literally no other game developer is doing any more. Sure, game developers do betas, but they
don’t care what the beta testers actually tell them and the beta isn’t there to
actually test anything or even to get any feedback. It’s there to demo the game and that is
all. On the other hand, I find this
infinite beta stage to be leading to the game developers generally losing focus
on what it is that they are supposed to be doing in the first place.
This loss of focus may actually explain the current
patch, version 0.6, that has been released.
The whole thing is a hot mess choked with a ton of features that nobody
asked for nor did anyone need. Not to
mention that the developers released the “milestone” patch with little to no
regard for their own statements on where their development team was going to be
focusing their efforts after the last “milestone” patch. Previously, Red 5 Studios tried to cram the
whole PvP eSports idea down the player’s throat. They literally flooded every interview,
YouTube broadcast, forum post, and hounded anyone that could listen about how
they wanted FireFall to be a major force in the eSports community. With the last “milestone” patch, they figured
they were close enough with PvP and stated that they promised to focus on
PvE. This would be a good thing, too,
since the game’s large open world was feeling like little more than a huge
lobby for the PvP matches. There was a
little work done and some PvE content was put in. Very little work should be stressed. The content that was added could literally be
burned through in a few hours of play time.
Six months go by and here we are at the current “milestone” patch to
receive…
Wait for it…
Updates to how Battleframes are used in PvP.
Wait…WUT!?
Right. That’s what
I said. But there’s more. Once again, they’ve turned the entire game
ass over tea kettle on how you spend your experience points and rank up your
Battleframes. Once again, they’ve
completely rearranged crafting and have added yet another new monetary
resource. Two “milestone” patches ago we
saw the Medic disappear and become the Biotech while losing the healing
rifle. I complained loud and very clear
at that time that this was a horrible idea.
I was told that the Medic was too OP and that the Biotech was a better
solution to this. I am therefore
completely perplexed as to why the new version of the Tier 2 Biotech
“Dragonfly” Battleframe has a new iteration of the old Medic’s healing
gun. Is it suddenly now somehow not
overpowered to be able to heal? I don’t
understand. Red 5’s developers seem to
be more contradictory than the Bible.
So, let’s start with the good things that were put into
this patch since that list is much shorter.
In-game
Music Was Updated.
This might seem like a pretty weak item to list but they
really did do a good job with this music.
The standard pieces are dramatic and have a sweeping feeling of
exploration and loss. The fight pieces
are very good, though they suffer from a timing issue that is pretty
standard. You know that a fight is about
to begin simply because the music started before you saw the enemy. This is very minor, though, and the new
music is extremely good. Almost to a
point that I wouldn’t mind seeing a soundtrack come out.
ARIES
Missions Dynamic Content Added.
I don’t know who ARIES is, since this is the first we’ve
really heard of it in-game, but the new dynamic mission content is pretty
cool. Along with this new content we see
some changes to the map, such as a small cave/cavern area full of bandits or a
building/complex area. These changes to
the map are refreshing and were much needed.
BattleLab
Tutorial Area For New Players Added.
Considering all the changes to the Battleframes, it is a
very good idea that they added this area.
The area itself is really nicely done, as well, and actually looks like
a military base. Considering the level
of involvement that the military actually plays in the overall story of this
game, I’d actually have expected to see a few more bases like this spread
across the map. The BattleLab does a
good job of showing you how to maneuver your character and how to use the new
abilities of the Battleframes.
New
Graphics and Weapons for Tier 2 Battleframes.
This has been needed for quite some time and it is great
to see the new looks of the higher level gear.
In some cases, it seems a little overboard, but it’s still good to have
a different look. The new guns are
really nice, too. And finally all the
level ups seem to make much more sense.
Performance
Tweaks and Improvements.
For being saddled with a dead graphics engine, the Red 5
team continues to improve performance in FireFall. In fact, this is about the only thing that
they are consistent about! But
thankfully, they do a fairly good job.
You can still expect your frames per second to drop nearly half to a
third when in Copacabana due to the fire, player crowds, smoke, and lighting
effects, but the bounce back is much better than it has been in the past and
they seem to be making steady improvements.
Changes
to the Crashed LGV and Crashed Thumper Dynamic Events.
They’ve made the Crashed LGV less lame, which is a really
good thing. The Crashed Thumper event
makes much more sense without having a constant swarm of Chosen attacking you
in all cases (though, that’s still a possibility too). You actually are able to get immediate
rewards from these events now and that makes it much more of a reason to do
them.
That’s pretty much my list for the good additions in this
latest patch. Now let’s move on to the
not-so-good and absolutely terrible additions.
New
Jumpjet Sounds are Wimpy and Anemic.
They changed the Jumpjet sounds. Instead of sounding like there are jets firing
on my back or my boots, they now sound like I’m opening and closing a big CD
changer. It’s awful, stupid, and feels
completely anti-heroic to be jumping around and hearing what amounts to an
annoying electric motor whine open and closed.
Whoever decided that this sounds good and should be in the game with
this patch should feel really bad.
LAG. OH MY GOD, THE TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE SERVER
LAG!!
It
is ridiculous how much server side lag is now present in the game. There were several times that the lag was so
bad that the game was literally unplayable due to being unable to actually move
or being rubber banded back to where you just moved from. Connection issues were so bad the first day
and a half of the patch that the client would hang on Establishing
Connection. If you were dropped at this
point and somehow were lucky enough to log back in, you were dumped from the
BattleLab only to find yourself in a watchtower a mile or two from Copacabana
with no real idea on how the new abilities in your Battleframe work. And the whole run back to Copacabana you got
to deal with the nerve numbing, sense shattering, curse word inducing lag. There are some that say, “Well, this is a
beta and lag is to be expected after a patch.”
No. This is a beta that is over a
year old. These kinds of major patches
should be near routine at this point.
And, I’m sorry, this game has been in beta for a REALLY FREAKING LONG
TIME so the “it’s a beta” excuse is getting really tired and worn thin. The 0.6 patch came out on 3/22/13 and it is
now 3/26/13…there is STILL an immense amount of lag that has not been
addressed.
Battleframe
Progression Has Been Completely Reworked.
Again.
We
knew awhile back that there would be changes to how Battleframes worked in PvP
and that there would be a separation of PvE and PvP ‘frames. That’s all fine and dandy, but WHY did we
need to completely rework the whole system entirely yet again? The previous system worked fairly well and
was easy to navigate. It was user
friendly. It made sense with the three
separate trees allowing you to focus on different aspects of your Battleframe
and what you wanted to do with it.
That’s all completely and totally hosed and gone. Now we are given three different mechanical
aspects of our Battleframe to choose to build up. You can basically increase your armor, your
speed, or your computing power. For each
special ability you want to run, you’ll need two cores in the computing power
section. To run faster, you can increase
your mass. You get the idea. This is great but doesn’t really reflect
anything about the individual Battleframe you’re using; it basically just looks
the same no matter what ‘frame you are looking at. In addition, I was unable to find any way of
seeing how much experience I have to spend before actually having to open yet
another window in an attempt to purchase something. I’ve been told that the experience points do
show up in the lower right corner, but they may not show up right now because
of the absolutely mind melting lag that this patch has induced. Whatever the case may be, this change was not
needed nor wanted. They could have
easily spent less time adjusting the abilities of the existing Battleframe tech
trees and used the excess time to actually do what they had promised us to
begin with: Add more PvE content.
Crafting
and the Molecular Printer Have Been Changed.
Again.
Just like the progression of the Battleframes, Red 5 has
decided that we absolutely have to mess with the crafting system yet
again. To their credit, the new
interface seems a little easier to find what it is that you’re looking
for. However, don’t attempt to EVER even
click on one of their place holder items, such as the LGV Race Terminal, or the
entire thing crashes with a SIN Connection Error. However, you may actually get this error
anyway since the entire thing is currently borked due to the nose bleed
inducing lag. So, even though you may
have successfully crafted something, good luck in unloading it since it
will likely crash at least twice.
Changes
to Thumping Difficulty. AGAIN!!
I’m
not sure how the difficulty slider works for this, but evidently there are no
half point increments. The last time
Thumping difficulty was tweaked, it made it just a tad bit easy. You could basically solo a Stock Thumper with
it taking less than 25% overall damage.
But then again…Stock Thumpers are supposed to be designed for one to two
player teams. They’ve increased the
difficulty and you’ll now be lucky to get away with your Stock Thumper making
it out with more than 20% of its health left at all. So, if the difficulty is on a slider and you
were at 5 and now you are at 6, can we try a 5.5 setting? Because this is fracking crazy.
Yet
ANOTHER New Crafting Resource.
Why? WHY DID YOU
DO THIS?? They’ve created a new crafting
resource called “Beta Crystite.” I have
no idea how this is supposed to be new, improved, or even different from the
Crystite we had before, but evidently it’s the new thing. Along with all the other things we already
needed to have to craft to begin with.
Why was this added? No reason
that could possibly be given would justify its existence, so who cares. It’s just something else for us to keep track
of. And while this isn’t the worst
offender on the list of bad things, it makes it up here because, like so much
else in this patch, it wasn’t wanted or needed by anyone.
Battleframe
Super Ultra Epic Ability Added.
They’ve added an ability called “Hyper-Kinesis” to the
Battleframes. This effectively opens up
the use of the “4” key on your keyboard.
However, you can’t use it right away and, if you’re just out exploring,
in some cases ever. In order to use this
mega awesome ability, you have to be in combat and do damage. At the bottom of your screen you’ll see a
green bar that builds up with the more damage you do. Wait…am I reviewing friggin’ Street
Fighter? Nope…still on FireFall
0.6….anyway, once the green bar fills up, you can then use your ultimate
ability on your Battleframe. In the case
of the Biotech, this would be the Necrosis ability. Necrosis should really be its own category of
awful changes in this patch, but it fits here so I’ll leave it. Necrosis is the new version of Poison
Trail. Previous to this patch, Poison
Trail would leave a green gas cloud behind the Biotech wherever he would run
for a short time. Anything that went
into the cloud took damage. It was
simple, it was awesome to look at, and it was easy to place. Necrosis instead works like a green force
field of lame. You don’t see the trail
behind you and instead just see green smears at the edge of the screen and some
green lightning bolts around the edges.
You then have to run TO the enemy target for them to take damage instead
of just using strategy to correctly place your poison trail. Again, it’s dumb and completely
anti-heroic. Not to mention that it
encourages stupid n00b behavior by having them run INTO THE PEOPLE THAT ARE SHOOTING AT THEM! It was probably thought up by the
same guy that changed the Jumpjet sounds.
He needs to feel really bad.
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