What was the final straw that made you not like 2042?
For me, it was lack of content and the specialist system.
Forum Discussion
I can't say that I completely dislike the game. There are elements to it that I like, along with elements that I intensely dislike.
For instance, I think the specialist system is, at base, a good idea - the extra perks and specific abilities add a layer to the fundamental concept of people-running-around-shooting-each-other. I'd personally have liked to see an MMO-style skill tree with customisable models rather than have perks and specialisations tied to gobby caricatures.
The same is true of the conquest-128 maps. I enjoy Orbital, Manifest and Discarded, for example. They're overall well-designed maps which do a good job of guiding the flow of play, encouraging a more territorial way of thinking. Orbital is effectively two three-flag maps with the mountain acting as a separsting spine. It doesn't actively discourage run-and-gun gameplay, but instead offers a trade-off between defending a sector and moving to another. Some of the most fun I've had in 2042 has been in rounds where I've never left the C sector. In contrast, Hourglass is simply... awful - poorly-designed, with the majority of flags just offering up infantry on an industrial scale for vehicles to farm. The solution of reducing the number of vehicles feels like a band-aid for a broken leg.
Further decisions like forcing matchmaking-only for the core game compound the issues with map design. Portal could address this, but the lack of persistence makes it extremely difficult to populate a server - communities can't form around servers that aren't predicably available.
