Rivals first thoughts
Full Disclosure: I am an original C&C, Red Alert 1, and Generals player. Always loved the franchise.
Back in the day when C&C, Total Annilhilation, and Warcraft series were commanding the RTS scene, C&C Red Alert was always my goto RTS until Generals came out.
In any case, I find this game incredibly fast paced where speed and strategy play key parts in whether you win or lose. Speed is everything. You have to be a touch screen ninja to tap and build as quickly as possible in the beginning. I liked the Single Player series and Skirmish modes as it allowed you to slow things down when you just wanted to chill.(And it let you experiment with AI with different technologies, strategies, etc.) This is a personal preference and I do miss those modes which are not available at least in the pre-alpha.
My current issues of just 2 nights of play:
Problem 1: Unit selection is inconsistent. When SPEED is everything, I find as soon as a unit is deployed sometimes they are preselected for you to just tap and click where you want them to go and other times they are not selected at all. I've hit the unit deployment button and they are not preselected thus wasting valuable seconds as your tapping where you want to go just to find out they were never preselected to begin with.
Problem 2: Unbalanced matches. Sometimes the matching system puts you up against someone that is stronger/weaker than you with already upgraded/lower level units. They really have to play BAD or royally mess up for you to have any shot with their higher level units. This starts up from the get-go for failure. What's the point of even playing at that point? Its a waste of time. I get that there isn't enough players yet to balance the matches, maybe use AI/Bots as a filler until players ramp up?
Problem 3: I am not a fan of the god awful crate and unit card system. This * has infected many other titles from EA (Yes I'm looking at you Madden). If i have the resources to upgrade the unit, why do I need these stupid cards to upgrade the damn unit. This setup greatly emphasis being in an alliance where you can share cards. You will advance much more slowly without it. OR if you drop a butt load of money on this game to buy the cards then it ruins the game for everyone else. This leads me to problem #4.
Problem 4: Crates and Pay to play. I have a special F word for these type of games constantly infecting the video gaming community. And now you're going to ruin the C&C franchise too. There's a special place in hell for these types of games. I have a better idea that you can a spin on the monthly service from Blizzard. Why not setup a monthly subscription service(tiered with different levels) that gives access to these "power ups" on a regular basis for ongoing subscriptions? For example, Blizzard charged $5-10/mo for WoW. Which of course greatly limited play since you couldnt play for free. EA can create a basic package thats free(ads), basic, mid level, high level, and a holy s**t package. Each level can give these types of power ups across other EA franchises & genre's of games which is unlocked by using your email address for each game. Example: Mid Level package gives you frequent power ups(cards, coins, etc.) across multiple titles like C&C, Madden, CoD, Battlefield, etc. Think of it as the EA version of the PSN or Xbox Live subscriptions. You guys have enough titles to pull this off. Let the bean counters and executive management call it "Managed Gaming Subscription" or some *.
