Titanfall Beta Impressions

[InsaneNutter]

So for anyone who's played the beta (use the term very loosely, the game is finished, this is a multiplayer demo) what do you think of the game?

For me personally I think if Titanfall had a campaign with co-op it would be quite fun, however for a multiplayer only game i've found the beta a bit boring if i'm honest. It's nothing really that new, i cant help but feel its just another generic fps...to me its like Call of Duty with some mech / jump power-ups added.

At £40-50 for a multiplayer only game i find the price very hard to justify, i see it as more of a game i would pickup for £10 on sale sometime in the future.

The graphics on the Xbox One version are not that good to be honest, i think it looks more like an Xbox 360 game with maybe a slightly higher resolution.

I hope to try and have some games with Nimrod and anyone else on Digiex who gets in the beta this weekend, however i dont think its going to be a game i get at launch now, if at all.

 

[Hutch]

I havent had a chance to play yet but ive seen a fair bit of beta footage and while im really keen to have a try i did wonder if perhaps it was a little bit generic shooter with giant robots bolted on. It looked like it might get a bit samey from the play ive seen on streams but i understand that people only generally queue for 1 game mode so maybe thats it?

 

[NinjaNorb]

I'm still wating to get a key but from the looks of it the last titan standing mode is awesome you need teamwork and cordination to win over the enemy team

 

[SnoopZ]

I hear the graphics have improved across the board on the X1 since that dreaded filter was removed in the update, has it made much difference to Titanfall?

 

[Hutch]

Well I have now had the pleasure of putting in about 4 hours or so on Titanfall on the PC. I have only played attrition so far with 1-2 friends playing with me and I had a lot of fun. I was getting a bit tired of it by the end of my 4 hours but i think that is mainly due to the limited map rotation and the fact we only played one game mode, will try for the others tomorrow.

Graphically I am pretty happy with the game, there is a decent amount of detail and most of the animations feel nice. That said a few of them notably some melee animations feel pretty shoddy and I can only hope they are being worked on before release.

The gameplay is smooth, the integration of titans into a fairly standard fps is very well done and it is extremely satisfying doing big stompy robot things. I did feel that some of the explosions were not err explodey enough and I really don't like that titans cant jump at all.

Most of my matches were close but some were very very one sided and it does feel really hard to come back from being behind when the entire enemy team is in titans or as one team did, entire team on auto titan mode while they flanked and killed the folks trying to kill their titan

 

[Nimrod]

Well I have now had the pleasure of putting in about 4 hours or so on Titanfall on the PC. I have only played attrition so far with 1-2 friends playing with me and I had a lot of fun. I was getting a bit tired of it by the end of my 4 hours but i think that is mainly due to the limited map rotation and the fact we only played one game mode, will try for the others tomorrow.

Graphically I am pretty happy with the game, there is a decent amount of detail and most of the animations feel nice. That said a few of them notably some melee animations feel pretty shoddy and I can only hope they are being worked on before release.

The gameplay is smooth, the integration of titans into a fairly standard fps is very well done and it is extremely satisfying doing big stompy robot things. I did feel that some of the explosions were not err explodey enough and I really don't like that titans cant jump at all.

Most of my matches were close but some were very very one sided and it does feel really hard to come back from being behind when the entire enemy team is in titans or as one team did, entire team on auto titan mode while they flanked and killed the folks trying to kill their titan

I'd honestly recommend giving the Domination (Control the 3 points on the map) gamemode a try. The game turned from 'ok' to 'very good' at that point. Suddenly you find it more a 12v12 battle with a lot more tactics. Using your Titan's AI to its fullest by guarding points while you strategically work together with others to take one of the other points. Setting your Titan to Follow mode to try and help push into a new point (at the cost of leaving other one's undefended). After I started playing this, I got hooked for hours and my viewpoint of the game changed from 'ok' to 'this is good' very quickly.

 

[Nimrod]

I've posted my feedback to the Developers on the feedback forum, but wanted to share with you all to because it's a good impression of one of the major flaws I find in Titanfall (which is in other games to, but I hoped Titanfall would work on it to):

Titanfall has been awesome so far, one of the area's of feedback I wanted to highlight though is regarding to Balancing in-game.

There will always be the pro players, and their will be the casuals and both audiences are looking for a good time. One thing I noticed in the beta (which could change in the final) is the lack of mid-game re-balancing.

So say one team is totally dominating, winning round after round. Why doesn't the game pick up on this and take either course of action:

* Force split up the team on next-lobby. Shifting the skilled players so they are balanced over both teams
* Or realize the current game doesnt work, and split the game up next lobby screen, moving the weaker players into another lobby (or vice versa) so it's skilled vs skilled and unskilled vs unskilled etc

I know their will be some situations where this isn't possible, say if a large party is together but then there's a ways to deal with that, put large parties against other large parties (that way, only they have to suffer unbalanced gameplay because they want to play together) or collective add up their Trueskill rating and divide by the number of players in the party therefore giving an Average and using that to matchmake.

Xbox Live has that awesome TrueSkill system to validate player skill and also work out who's likely to win before the game has even started. But based on my current experience it doesn't seem to take affect at all in Titanfall. The game just keeps continuing and continuing until players quit in rage.

More information here: TrueSkillâ

I know Matchmaking isn't always popular with some gamers who just want to quickly enter a game without waiting. However realistically we all know the best games are the one's where it's neck and neck and it's a real push / challenge to get that final point and declare victory.

Games which are unbalanced aren't all that fun, and I'm speaking from both sides of the coin. Yesterday I was in a game of Hardpoint and we won 15 games in a row, it was fun for a couple but then the challenge wasn't there and the game became boring. The other team kept having players quit and get replaced by new team member's who didnt have the ability to compete either which meant it wasnt fun for any of them, nor for the winning team. I also saw no option to manually switch teams at the lobby (though please correct me If I missed something there).

Likewise, being on the losing team game after game after game takes away the fun from the less skilled and more casual players. The game needs to appeal to everyone, and ensuring people are matched up against people of a similar skill just makes sense, for the long term enjoy-ability of the game.

One other thing to note, right now everyone's still learning to a degree, so the skilled vs casual player base isnt that far apart yet. Wait until the final game comes out and you have people playing non-stop for weeks/months vs casual gamers who just come on for a couple of hours at the weekend. The skill difference will be massive and if it's anything like COD, it will make the online play very toxic for new players who have no chance.

Oh, other than that, awesome game Really loving it!

 

[bwat47]

I actually wasn't a huge fan when I first started playing the beta, but after I gave it a chance and played for a while I'm really enjoying it. The gameplay is very fun and addicting, and I feel like the gameplay elements they've added to this game do a lot to differentiate it from just being another COD-like game.

My issues with the beta:

Technical issues: this game's vsync seems very buggy. If I enable double or triple buffered vsync I get a TON of jittering/stuttering when moving the camera. Its OK with vsync off, but obviously with it off I get a lot of ugly video tearing.

The game also has an annoying abritrary FPS cap of 60 when vsync is disabled (yet when I have it enabled I can get my full 120 fps). It makes no sense at all and is a dumb limitation.

I was able to mostly workaround these issues by playing the game in borderless windowed mode with vsync disabled.

And I agree with the sentiments above about the matchmaking needing improvement.

 

[Rockman]

I watched Angry Joe's Titanfall gameplay video and I was pretty disappointed because I thought it would be an epic game with mechs and all but it's more or less Call of Duty with robots. *saddened*

I love robotic games (Gundam, War of Monsters, Evangelion, Zone of Enders, etc) but this won't be a title I'll consider picking up in the future.

 

[bwat47]

I watched Angry Joe's Titanfall gameplay video and I was pretty disappointed because I thought it would be an epic game with mechs and all but it's more or less Call of Duty with robots. *saddened*

I love robotic games (Gundam, War of Monsters, Evangelion, Zone of Enders, etc) but this won't be a title I'll consider picking up in the future.

I'd say calling it 'cod with robots' is not accurate. there are similarities to cod, sure, but its a very different game with many different gameplay elements.

 

[Nimrod]

I have to say, this game has grown on me over the past 3 days. It started out like COD with Mech and I was terrible at it. That was playing the normal deathmatch / point system (forgot what it's called now).

Then I moved onto Hardpoint (Control 3 points) the following day, started to enjoy the game a lot more but it was still just another FPS.

Then today I moved onto Last Titan Standing, that turned out bloody amazing, it was pure mech on mech battles, played non-stop with Digiex member xzkingzxburnzx for 6 hours.

Then this evening we played Hardpoint again, now I got to grips with the titans and put that practice into play in a normal gamemode where Titans are 'additions' to the FPS, the game has turned out very impressive. I've maxed out the level cap, as well as all the weapon addon's and put in over 12 hours to this beta and I must say I am now a true convert, I absolutely love it.

From talking to others with the game, they also found it similar. To begin with, I think all the hype from E3 and other trailers set expectations really high. Then the reality of the game kicked in and you felt a bit disappointed. At this point your a total newbie not knowing what your doing so you just keep dying and never get to enjoy the true competitive and gripping game that it is.

Once you get out of the pointless deathmatch (free for all) gamemode and move into ones which actually have goals and objectives, the game goes from being disappointing to a true master peice. Combined with the fact that after a good 3-4 hours of playing you start to figure out how to best use Titans and Pilots correctly (Hint: Titans are not always the best choice, I regularly have my Titan on Guard Mode or Follow and use the nimble pilot with an Assault Rifle). Suddenly the game becomes a lot more appealing

You start to then realise how balanced everything is, as a Pilot I could easily take down someones Titan, or avoid it all together by going via the rooftops. At the same time, if I needed to smash my way into an objective and cause choas I know when's the best time to jump into a titan and charge in guns blazing, then at the last minute jump out and do Pilot vs Pilot.

Another thing you started to notice is actually, a lot of what they talked about 6 v 6 and balance between Titan and Pilot is spot on. This game may not have campaigns or tons of maps (unknown yet, but I dont expect more than 6-8 at launch) but for what it does have, its made with balance and fairness in mind which is something eagerly needed. Another noticeable improvement compared to say COD/BF4 is that it is new comer friendly. You actually live for longer than 10 seconds and actually have a chance no matter your skill level to impact the game. The welcome removal of killstreaks (I hated these, it basically rewards those doing well with even more firepower making the less-skilled more casual gamers have no chance) is much appreicated, replaced instead with Burncards which are one time bonus cards that you can use JUST once in a game in the future. Getting these cards is easy and you don't even have to do well to receive them.

I appreciate this is more of a ramble than a proper review. I just wanted to stress that for people who give up in the first hour, you're never going to know what you're missing. It is a master peice and a welcome, new, challenging addition to the otherwise stale FPS scene. I was never a big fan of COD/BF4 (It was totally unwelcoming to casual gamers who couldnt dedicated their time to play non-stop to get good, basically excluding people with jobs) and I am losing faith in the established IP's I use to love (Halo and Gears). So Titanfall 1 at least, has that new, interesting and different outlook to FPS which gives it a welcome reboot. Oh and one final benefit, they did say this game isnt going to be ruined by Microtransactions. So if that holds true, then it will be fantastic to see a game focus on its roots, pure balanced fun which is welcoming for all skill levels