The Collective "First Impressions" Thread

[Grandy]

Hello and welcome to all of the new players joining us over this, the so-called "soft launch".

@JustinPierce's development and vision, twinned with the private playtests of every release, has brought the game this far - we know it has a few bugs and needs polish in some areas, but that's what early access is for, right?

Either way, what we do lack in is first impressions. You only really get them once - the things that first appeared as confusing or odd; us old'uns can't give opinions on the matter with much conviction, so any and all feedback about this, or any other part of the game - bugs, guts and all - would be greatly appreciated!

So, here's a central thread for the musings of new players to Arms of Telos. Thanks to you in advance.

[Zen]

I had a very enjoyable first few games. Mostly things were easy to understand. Didn't realize that staying on the enemy's flag longer made your capture worth more until i read it somewhere, still don't know how to make speed boosters (I haven't done the tutorial things so..). Didn't realize that those platforms in the lowG area were magnetic if you pressed shift.. mostly actually pretty intuitive, easy and fun. Still don't know how to use the grappling hook effectively, but that's probably just something you figure out over time.

OK I don't have anything useful to say so I'm going to stop writing now

[help]

First of all, game is very fun and all kinds of awesome! And at least for a Tribes vet it's quite easy to get the basics down and start playing. Loving it.

I'll share a few points of confusion I had during the 3 or so hours played. These are exactly first impressions, so I try to not over analyze:

• Map design is great but a bit confusing. For example the colored rectangles in walls nearby doorways. They look like a door more than the actual opening and are quite distracting. In my opinion every map feature should have a function and serve to help focus instead of disorient. Also the very bright colored background planets look like important objective but serve little purpose.

• Me and other players had trouble remembering to "ready up", there should be some way to avoid excessive waiting. I was also initially confused by the intermission and challenge mode stuff upon joining a CTF server.

• VGS shortcuts are so close to the Tribes equivalents, that muscle memory causes all kinds of erroneous communications. I think it should be either completely different, or even better, exactly cloned so that all the same commands work with same keys.

• It's a bit hard to judge rocket distance for timed explosions. Initially I had trouble realising you need to keep the button pressed for rockets to travel further. I felt like an idiot but I saw other players repeatedly having similar trouble.

• Also the rocket launcher alt fire where you charge up minirockets.. If you click and hold it too fast after making a shot (while the gun is still in the reload phase), it does not do anything, you need to release and then click & hold again to make it work. Would be more intuitive to have it start charging automatically after the timeout, even if you started holding the button down too early. I lost many duels because forgot to wait until reload is done, and it just feels clunky.

• I still have trouble adapting from the Tribes skiing/walking distinction to movement in AoT gravity areas. Like, am I running or sliding? If running, I would expect to have a fixed top running/walking speed. Now if I gain more speed by whatever means, I can run faster? That doesn't make much sense. A bit hard to explain why this confuses me. In Tribes it simple; skiing allows to gain speed and play with momentum, running/walking is totally different and works as you would expect in real world. AoT feels like something between those two modes of moving.

• Related to the point above, with the grabble it's even more confusing. Feels like if I walk slow, my feet work are braking against the reeling power of grabble and I can't gain speed that way without jumping. But on higher speeds I can reel in no problem while touching the ground. It's not very intuitive or logical, how it works.

• Zero gravity areas are more intuitive. However I would expect to be able to jump when against any surface. And I feel like one should be able to snap into the magnetic surfaces regardless of roll orientation (if I fly bellyup near magnetic surface, I still should be able to snap to the surface, I would be automatically flipped the right way).

• I still didn't "get" how to get most out of the magnetic surface. Or whats the utility in them. Not sure if one should jump, boost, or both to gain speed from them.

Also a few feature requests:

• Switching weapons with mousewheel should "roll around", as in, going up from slot 4 goes back to 1 and vice versa. At least a config option to do that would be nice.

• Please allow team change midgame to balance servers with low population (3vs1 or something happens, and it sucks). At least we couldn't figure out how to do it. Vote shuffle teams command or something could serve the same purpose.

• Would be nice to have grabble not take a weapon slot, usable through a key without having it separately equipped. Grabble was in all litle bit disappointing, for some reason it's personally very important feature and a selling point, so to say.

[AdelbertSteiner]

Very fun and interesting game! I will keep on playing this and watch what happens.
I have messed around solo a bit and played a few matches, which were very fast paced and fun.
I will just make it short, with these suggestions/impressions:

• Login: Make it possible to remember the login info and make it possible to press "Enter" to login. That way I just have to launch and press "Enter". I really dislike having to re-type my password all the time.

• Sticky: I would love to see the Teleporter Blade be a sticky mine. Where players do not have to keep locking them in. When you have to keep looking at enemy, it kind of isolate you, instead of making it possible to do a fast attack and move on to next enemy. Or if capper grabs flags and fly away around a corner. A sticky mine would be so much more fun.

• Maps: I really like the map and how it opens up for so many approaches. However the colors made me confused 24/7. I had much trouble telling where or who enemy base/flag was. I could not even find my own. The color layout often confused me and made me mess up my route. Maybe make the future final art something that kind of shows the way in a natural way? I dont know. It was however very easy for me to tell enemy players from allied and actually see a enemy player, which is nice.

• Self Regen: It should be just a tad faster. Most of the time when it is used, is when battle is over and not while in the middle of the battle. This leaves players hanging in space for too long. When used you are almost always alone and in a safe spot, where you will not get attacked. Therefore it should not take that long. Just heal up and get moving. It should not even be possible to use while in battle however. No self healing while fighting. That is support's job.

• Weapon Slots: I would like to be able to equip the G-Hook to my 2 weapon slot. I find it annoying to press 3 in order to equip it. Freedom to choose what weapon you want in each slot. If you are able to, then I do not know how and am stupid. Maybe even have it as another key like "F" or "G".

• Minor stuff: As mentioned by others, the VGS should just be a complete copy of T:A. The case of having some, made me want all the VGS and I felt empty in my heart when there were some VGS I could not say, or they were a different key. Lots of confusing with the F4-Ready. Most of the time new players (including me) will not know to actually press F4, before someone tells us.

None of the things above annoyed me that much and I really enjoyed the game. Very interesting to see where it goes.