We're back with a new Player Top 10 Priorities list as voted by you for the second time, and we'll do one shortly after the upcoming patch.
The important part to remember is that this is a priority, what we work on first. We have our vision and priority, so this is an alignment exercise that we combine. What do we work on first?
Urtuah-Jibblies from the forums suggested we publish a 6-month roadmap in that thread and while that's incredibly complex as it doesn't only take priority but resources, assets, specialty availability into account, I said I'd try to do a simplified visualization of how it work. Here is the thread.
http://forum.eternalcrusade.com/threads/its-that-time-again-your-chance-to-give-me-actionable-items-to-affect-prioritization-in-my-roadmap.63112/page-24
Baptiste, one of our great people in Customer Support took the first stab at processing, so I'll just let him get straight to it. Note, the suggestions are from players, excerpts or frequently ocurring themes, they are not our suggestions.
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Hello, here are the Top 10 Priorities reported by the players on the forum, plus other popular ones.
Every n°1 issue on a player list earns 10 pts, 9 pts for n°2, 8 pts for n°3, etc.
200 players reported 250+ ideas.
TOP 10 IDEAS
1. REDUCE LAG.
526 pts (reported 60 times, including 30 times in 1st place)
Need an option to play on EU or NA servers only. Especially hard on melee since it often *appears* that the units you are trying to hit "teleport" out of the way.
2. BETTER MELEE SYSTEM.
414 pts (reported 51 times, including 15 times in 1st place)
Suggestions: There is an issue how Dbash can be dodged by evade, and how it can be hard to distinguish heavy and fast attacks, which makes rock-paper-scissors into a guessing game, instead of a game of counters. Normalize attack speeds and fix the dbash so it actually works. Make clangs act faster. Remove Lock-on from melee (other players suggested "Giving a never miss, auto-aim mechanic to ANYONE"...) Parrying Blow/Dbash: Is wrongfully soaking some power attacks, counting as a clang, rather than taking the hit/dmg/stagger. Allow cancellation of your own DBashes and Strong attacks at any point during their animation by dodging. Buff devistators' melee, they're a bit too hopless in close combat. Add parry+riposte, maybe even a second dodge move (small sidestep) that works in lock on only. Making parrying something rare that requires a lot more skill and with a much faster animation (the current animation is too slow and make player vulnerable to bullets)
3. MORE AND BETTER GAME MODES.
340 pts (reported 48 times, including 10 times in 1st place)
More game modes with more purpose and side-objectives. Multi-faction stuff. Alliances, 2v1 battles, three-way battles, PvPvE, multifaction PvE teams, etc. Modes where battles last like 30-45 minutes so we can get a feeling of epic battle.
4. BETTER PERFORMANCE.
275 pts (reported 34 times, including 13 times in 1st place)
Improve optimization, especially on fortresses (Zedek and other newer maps)
5. BETTER CAMPAIGN.
240 pts (reported 36 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
Give us an actual campaign map and not a graphical representation of server matches and match history; each match map should be conquerable and then gets locked by the side that takes it; those maps should be unique and do not repeat. Need an engaging Storyline/Player Immersion: there are no Faction leader goals, no reasons defined as to why our factions want these territories, no sub-faction leaders, no narrative to keep the player engaged. Add more incentives for campaign play, and special equips and cosmetics only available with currency earned in campaigns.
6. MORE MODS AND WARGEAR.
221 pts (reported 37 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
More mods and wargear, and better distributed between factions. More things to buy with RTC.
7. ELDAR ROADKILL.
198 pts (reported 29 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
Reduce it or get rid of it, it's a massacre. Buff Eldar vehicles in other areas.
8. MORE CUSTOMIZATION.
184 pts (reported 26 times, including 2 times in 1st place)
More cosmetics: unique weapons, appearance, voices, heads, colors...
9. LARGE, OPEN AND CHANGEABLE MAPS.
180 pts (reported 24 times, including 8 times in 1st place)
Large Open Maps. Maps should have more changeable space and playfield. Some doors, buttons, gates, lifts (which can be controlled), weapons, blocking doors. Just more ways to play with the map, not only shooting each other like in dozens and dozens games before. Alternative version of existing maps. Give us the appearance that the map is all connected and the locations matter. More players in maps. Please start linking maps together into larger zones with some way of deploying across ACTIVE matches with characters.
10. NEW MAPS. 180 pts.
(reported 27 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
More maps, with more variations than current ones (all of them seem to have only similar capture points inside boxes that all work the same, and the rest of the map is unused in fear of Eldar vehicles). Other maps than Imperial map. What about an urban map?
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HONOURABLE MENTIONS (more than 100 pts)
- BETTER TUTORIAL.
174 pts (reported 24 times, including 7 times in 1st place)
Better tutorial for new players (obligatory for them). Tutorials for each class would be nice. The tutorial should explain how melee combat works. Should also explain stuff, so we know what a weapon can bring.
- GARRISON SHOULD BECOME AN HUB.
164 pts (reported 26 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
The garrison was becoming an actual hub/lobby for the game (queuing for matches etc.). Allow several danger zones, vehicles danger zone. Make garrison a fortress! Add NPC's for story + quests and increase the player allowance. Make the garrison reward people for training new people.
- ADD SOCIAL FEATURES.
158 pts (reported 26 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
Having a chat/voice channel for a faction to communicate outside of games. Bring back VOIP! Guild HUB (Space ship) to hang with the friends. Making guilds have better UI and more reasons to exist. I want to join in the battle where my guild is fighting.
- MORE WEAPONS.
143 pts (reported 22 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
Like burnas and flamethrowers, Grenade launcher, powerfull sniper rifles, bolters with different types of ammo. With visualization and customization. Add more melee weapons to Eldar.
- IMPROVE PvE.
137 pts (reported 24 times, including 3 times in 1st place)
Deeper and more rewarding PVE experience. Randomly generated dungeons. PvE-Raid for 10 or more Player with some true Boss battles like Carnyfixes, Tyranofixes or Shwarmlords.
- MORE LOVE ON ELDARS.
123 pts (reported 17 times, including 4 times in 1st place)
Doesn't feel like eldar. Eldar are not glass cannons (Dark Eldar are), Eldar are extermination forces, they strike fast and hard. Mandiblaster, Reaper Launcher. Need unique weapons, more cosmetics.
- BALANCE OVER FACTIONS.
120 pts (reported 15 times, including 2 times in 1st place)
Overall balance over factions (skills, weapons...)
- SUBFACTION DIFFERENCES/BENEFITS/OPTIONS.
172 pts (reported 21 times, including 2 times in 1st place)
With unique units/weapons, more unique gameplay. Advancement Tree for every sub-faction?
- REWARD SUPPORT PLAY.
108 pts (reported 21 times, 0 times in 1st place)
We could always use more reward for the supportive play, maybe less engaging but so useful: driving, defending transports, using debuffs, healing...
- NERF AUTOCANNON AND ABBADON'S GRACE.
101 pts (reported 18 times, including 1 time in 1st place)
Autocannon and Abbadon's Grace need to be removed, reworked, or nerfed. They are far too powerful for how easy they are to pilot.
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OTHER MAIN ISSUES REPORTED (between 50 and 99 pts) :
- Better UI, lack of informations (showing buff, colors for squads/subsquads...)
- Better vehicle physic
- Elites must be truly elites
- Remove all Invulnerability frames on melee combat
- Secondary weapons for heavy weapons classes
- Powerfist/claw one shot kills: it's too powerfull
- End suicide redeploy as a means of quick teleport travel
- Veterans are still too easy to kill
- Better matchmaking
- Revamp WAAAAGH: it's great but you will most likely loose at ticket defense
- More classes for factions. Ex: weird boy, chaplains, mekboys, hereteks, scout, techmarine, librarian...
- Camera placement: let us customize it or improve it somehow, as it is currently highly unreliable at actually letting you observe the battlefield.
- Weapon value: each weapon needs to be re balanced so that every weapon or item is worth its LP cost and is useful in the game.