Hey guys, here's some feedback based on my first few hours with 0.85:

Flashbangs
I tried using them as much as possible in the latest version of the game, but I haven't found a single instance in which I thought "Gosh I'm so happy I have Flashbangs instead of regular Grenades now!". The range is better, but that seems to be the only plus about it. The downtime created by a flashbang is hardly ever enough to then run up to the soldiers and kill them manually. They're either back up once you reach them or they are simply covered by any one or two soldier not hit by the blast. I'd rather have killed 5 with a grenade than temporarily incapacitate 8 with a flashbang.
I suggest greatly increasing the downtime for soldiers hit by it OR change the effect to a HUGE aiming penalty for a considerable amount of time.
It can be summed up with the fact that the flashbang doesn't fill a niche right now, it's still something your throw at the enemy in hopes of hitting as many as possible with the effect. Only the effect is significantly less useful than with a grenade.

Riot Shield
What purpose does this serve?
I tried to use it as cover for my teammates, but they seemed to ignore me completely.
I tried using it to get from cover to cover, but since it can't be aimed it didn't work at all.
I'd suggest changing the way it works by having it automatically aim at wherever the mouse is pointing. This would allow you to easily move into cover or as efficient mobile cover. (If the AI would recognize it as such...)

Slots
And why can't I automatically pick up a rocket launcher if I have no Riot Shield as my alt weapon? If it says 0, why do I need an extra action to turn that 0 into a useful rocket launcher with the risk of accidentally picking up that AK or Flashbang that also dropped when I busted the crate...? Customization is nice and all, but I'd rather start with NO alt weapon icon every time and simply pick up whatever I find first. Same for grenades (if the flashbang wasn't so crappy).
Long story short, needing an action to pick up weapons is fine, picking up grenades and alt weapons the same way doesn't work well. I suggest separate slots for all or simply throwing out the Shield and Flashbang altogether.

Inventory/backpack
Oh god, why...? The game's beauty lies in its simplicity! Run and gun! Not hoard management! There's little point in gathering weapons you never get to use since you tend to live no longer than two minutes on average. Of course it's nice to gather some weapons you MIGHT use, but it completely changes the pacing of the game, and not for the better! I VERY MUCH dislike the inventory system in general. Please don't over-complicate matters.


Suggestion: Smoke grenades
These have probably been suggested before, but these would fill a much more tactical gameplay niche than the flashbang does now. The AI would be alerted by detecting smoke, but would not be able to see other AI or players in or through the affected area. This could work both defensively (throw the grenade at your own feet) or offensively (force the enemy to reposition to be able to see anything) or even as a distraction (Look, smoke! No way someone is sneaking up from behind right now!).

TL;DR Flashbang sucks, riot shield sucks, the inventory system shouldn't even exist. Smoke grenades might be amazing.

(Sorry!)

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Replied on Reddit:



Flashbangs: Everyone knows they're just not as useful as frags. Pasik put them in only as a test to show the new grenade effect possibilities. He has acknowledged that right now, flashbangs are about as useful as rocks.

Riot shield: You can aim them by clicking in a direction. AI will recognize it as cover if you are relatively stationary. I've had instances where my squad will stack up behind me when i have the shield out and follow tightly behind.

Slots: Yea it is kind of annoying. Remember, 0.85 was just a ground breaker for future updates. More of a proof of concept and a general idea of how things will work. Very much WIP.

Inventory/backpack: The inventory system is undergoing massive changes and based on what you've said, you may not like them. However, most of these changes are planned to be focused on Invasion mode rather than PVP. In fact, I see almost no change in PVP AT ALL.

Smoke Grenades: These a LOT of things are coming. Just sit tight, hold on to your britches, and enjoy the ride!

Command Modifier: I've yet to even bind this to anything. Only useful once in a blue moon.

ComJak

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ComJak's house... stay out of it

For the short version, read ComJak's post above.



They'll pick you as cover if there's no better cover elsewhere for them, hence it's meant to be used in otherwise open space, which refers to map1. See where everyone's running http://www.desura.com/games/running-with-rifles/images/rwr-0851? They don't yet know how to shoot over it, so they'll mostly try to shoot through your shield. Meanwhile, use it with other players, we surely had some fun with a shield in a PvP based session, once someone found a shield in the first place. It became a capture the shield contest

You can direct it by holding down shoot key.



You or the game has selected for you the initial support item randomly, similar to all other items, currently LAW or shield. The collectable item only changes on your input when you pickup something else, then it will always stick with you and you auto-collect only those items. To summarize, choose your weapons after you've started the game, and then the game works exactly like 0.84, no random weapon/item switching by the game even if you hit 0 count. In 0.86, there are armories where you can purchase any stock weapons and items, in 0.85, you can find the secondary weapons from crates / corpses only.

Imagine what would happen if you'd pick up whatever you find first automatically if you only wanted to specialize on LAW usage; you'd have to separately drop the shield each time you walk over a shield if you had 0 LAWs.

In my opinion, it should stay the way it is. You pick/buy what you want to use and not collect everything you happen to walk over. We will ultimately have a lot more support weapons and throwable items, most likely more in the Invasion mode, so once you've got yourself set up, you're good to go and the game won't try to guess if you wanted to use shield or LAW after all.


Whoawhoawhoa, who told you to use the backpack? This is an open world game, you are entitled to run and gun tactics. Have you tried how much that has changed because of flashbangs, slots and inventory between 0.84 and 0.85 if you don't force yourself to use any of those? Not at all.

Ok, I know you're trying to agitate a bit, but come on. The game evolves in bits and pieces, not as fully implemented steps that always provide a balanced game experience with whatever you see anywhere in the game. What you see in 0.85 is just a fraction of what we will be adding, because you know, the whole inventory system wasn't made for flashbangs (if you happened to read the blog post about 0.85, flashbangs was said to be a proof of concept item that isn't awfully useful, but proves the system of inventory and grenade switching is functional). There are other threads with discussion about future items, so I'm not going to rewrite all the plans here.

I can somehow see why some people dislike the inventory and the stuff that comes with it, my take from it is that I think it overwhelms some players because they think it requires actions from them. I hate to say "newsflash", but, you're not required to do anything just because there is new stuff in the game. Especially single players aren't, PvP oriented people might think some things provide them an advantage over the other players, but like said elsewhere, PvP is about having stuff in balance, so most of the new items to come won't make an appearance there, and especially carrying multiple weapons won't be a norm starting 0.86.

The remarks we are having about inventory kinda proves a point too. If people visibly see something in the game, they think they have to use it for something even if it fights against their thinking. We could probably arrange it pretty well so that the game allows you to choose between "Classic", the simplified single player like mode people are used to, with only 1 hand grenade type, 1 secondary weapon type, and 8-10 weapons, I'd actually dare say that comms truck would have no place in Classic either as it might make players think they have to hunt and destroy it, and then the other "Lotsah stuff" mode, which has all the bells and whistles, item/vehicle/character based objectives, unlockable rare weapons and so forth. (come to think of it, what I basically just described was Normal and Invasion modes, if Normal would be cleaned up a bit and Invasion scripts made proper in single player)

As backpack could be made just another item in the future, it could be removed from Classic completely easily, and when you'd access the "closer look" view by holding pickup, the backpack area would be entirely gone from bothering anyone. You could still do armory interaction there and check your stats if you wanted, but mostly you wouldn't even need to know you can hold down pickup key. I'd say this would be the basic PvP mode too, but it would be open to server admins to cook up a mode with whatever settings and items enabled if they'd want to try something more experimental.

As the backpack will be an item, if you choose to not equip yourself with a backpack, you'll rule out yourself from a certain part of the game which involves you to carry valuables for completing objectives to get rewarded with points to use at the armory to buy mortar strikes, squad drop calls, vests, medikits, and so on, it's up to you if you want to play RWR 1.0 or RWR 2.0

As a concluding note, fighting with the AI at the main attack target, i.e. run & gun, will still form the very soul of the game even if we are extending the game with various directions. It's sad to see people take the possibility enablers we are adding as something they have to use rather than as optional stuff. Certainly, our point is not to add stuff simply because it can be added, even if flashbangs and inventory currently might appear that way.

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ADDED:

This is for Visionhunter in particular, but others are of course free to give suggestions as well:
* Assuming the game would not evolve in direction of introducing new items (i.e. new weapons, secondary / support weapons such as medikits, mines, C4, sandbag wall construction material, stationary weapon set up systems, and new throwable items like smoke grenades, AT grenades, molotov cocktails, distraction rocks, throwing knives, wearable items such as backpacks, vests (for not getting killed but wounded to survive lethal hits to not drop all your valuable inventory you could be carrying with you *hint*, if you had a backpack), generic valuable items such as a freaking Mona Lisa painting worth of many mortar strikes, support request calls such as mortar strikes of varying types, artillery strikes, paratrooper drop calls, vehicle drop calls, on-ground reinforcement requests, and the potential side-objectives that could be bound with these --- and so on), what would it be that you would like to see in the game instead?

(I'm going to assume this part of your comment is not intended to sound belittling.)

I don't mind new items, I really don't. I wasn't aware the Riot Shield could be aimed or that the flashbang wasn't meant to stay this way, so that's a big plus already.

I'd personally like to see three things in the game, all revolving around optional playstyles: playing the game the way you want to.

1. Optional classes
I know there are plans to add classes to the game. I haven't read the official declaration, which I presume is out there somewhere, but seeing demolition experts, medics, support, engineers, etc. in the game would be really cool. However, I do think it should be optional. If you want to play the game the way it is now (no classes, every soldier is the same) that should be possible. But if you like a bit more complexity and customization, being able to enable player/AI classes would be neat.

2. Optional extra vehicles
Driving around in the APC with an AI gunner is ridiculously fun. Whether it's dealing death while driving circles around the Suburbs in Vaal, hunting down the enemy Comms at full speed or acting as a bullet-sponge during a push to capture new territory, I'm always having a blast driving an APC.
I think adding vehicles like tanks and mobile artillery (http://www.military-today.com/artillery/t5_52.jpg) as OPTIONAL (and probably overpowered) would be amazing.

3. Optional 'Hardcore/Commando' style
This would basically come down to what you did in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DS1yvfIYA2g. Only now with an elite squad of AI units at your disposal and a fixed mission objective. Basically a simplified version of Jagged Alliance / Commandos for singeplayer or coop.

And of course some smaller things like smoke grenades, maybe a flamethrower, booby traps, mines, etc. but I'm sure you are well aware of players' desire for these thing (if not already developing) already.

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Correctly assumed, that was probably the more constructive part of my counter-ranting



1. While you will see some class system-like features emerge in the future, this by mostly through setting yourself / your squad up with certain gear set with items, you still won't see the word class appear anywhere in the game. I want to keep it flexible and so that you can "switch your class" on fly to be able to do the improvisational runs where you just grab whatever weapons you find and try to adjust. The current classless system as such will stay in.

We will keep tight restrictions on what you can carry with you so that no one can play in a simultaneous medic-assault-support-engineer role. In my opinion, 0.85 has way too loose carrying configurations as you can indeed carry for example two primary weapons, this is a big no-no. This could be allowed for someone really special through finding a really special backpack, but usually and by default, the backpack won't help all that much with direct combat, as it's not meant to do that. Backpack will offer other ways to help you yourself progress and hopefully your faction too, once we find the right ingredients to everything.

2. New vehicles will surely come once we are past the item system enabler development. We have been intending to add a jeep with mounted MG / humvee for a while now, but we've had some setbacks with the model and had to reprioritize the whole task. I've tried having the APC set up as firing rockets as a quick and dirty tank hack, and there's no doubt something similar will be used somewhere. It would fit Invasion rather well, maybe as a kind of miniboss, as you could pit cooperative players against an overpowered AI enemy without too much concern over the balance. I'd surely like to have it as a proper tank with tracks.

Mobile artillery is an interesting topic, we've had some chats with JackMayol about it a few times. It always ends with the "gunner role" being very dull to operate, and gets pushed aside. We had some ideas that the mechanic would be two-fold, one player out in the field as a forward observer, giving targets (coordinates?) through radio to the mobile artillery squad/gunner player somewhere farther away, the gunner would click on the map to shoot at the coordinates, and the observer would tell how to fix the aiming once the rounds would miss the target, the gunner would retry and so on.

A fun addition to this was that what if the enemy got to the observer, stole his (special?) radio, and continued to give firing orders?

Ok, the gunner could be automatic too, to cut some boring parts. The next question is then, is it any more fun to drive it either out there somewhere in the wilderness where there's no one there? Maybe the mobile artillery could function mostly similar to Comms truck (AI handles), so it's left to the player to hunt the enemy's vehicle to disable it.

Yet another way about it would be that the mobile artillery/mortar vehicle wouldn't be able to shoot very far, more like the range the sniper fires. Then the mechanic would be similar to APC driver+gunner, just a little more powerful / inaccurate and longer range.

3. Stealthy AI is a tough nut to crack. The AI doesn't see the area top-down like players do, so their level of anticipation is much lower. Just allowing AI to see through buildings wouldn't directly fix anything, they would just try to shoot through them then.

Different types of side-objectives will be added similar to the Comms truck objective, e.g. assassinate a target, destroy a vehicle / building / device, now that 0.86 supports running without rifles, rescue hostage missions could be added, capture / deliver prisoners, and similar things related to items, intel / bomb delivery missions. How and if these will appear in the single map battles is unknown, but in Invasion they'd obviously have a place. Many of these suit better for lonewolf / cooperative style than AI squad leaders.

Once the mechanics and script trackers to execute these side objectives are in place, arranging them into fixed missions should be pretty easy to add through overlay mods as add-ons.

I think this is the best course of action.

- Long but limited range for the vehicle (to prevent players from parking it in the middle of nowhere like I always do with the Comms truck... *grins*).

- Perhaps a radio can be an inventory item? No radio = no artillery strikes? AI without radio = no calls for reinforcements?



That's great! And with hostages, maybe there now IS a use for those flashbangs...?

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I also don't care for the inventory system..

It just doesnt have a use.. If you can only carry one weapon, what do you need the inventory for?

Grenades and knives are already assigned to a separate key, so no need to switch.

Thats why I like RWR! Soldat was the same way, no inventory. Just intuitive controls and slick gameplay.

^ The backpack system is geared towards collecting RARE weapons that you may not be able to use quite yet. Your backpack can hold lots of rare weapons in Invasion mode.

ComJak

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If you could carry more than one weapon, where would you need all the other players and bots then?

And don't forget the other valuable items than rare weapons in 0.86.

Hmm...attack dogs will soon be a possibility to mod in. *evil laugh*
Also when custom vehicles become possible I will make a (motor)bike.
Because NPC's will eventually be able to not have to hold guns, the zombie apocalypse mod someone mentioned will be possible.
If strikes later become faction bound I could make and alien invasion where they call in a UFO vehicle (that looks like it's floating)
that spawns in enemies! That idea about mini bosses (AI vehicles) sounds awesome! Just thinking about the possibilities makes me excited!

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