Things the next shooter needs
Time to cover things I feel the next game must have, regardless of what style of game they go for (whether it’s more of GW3 as opposed to BfN2 for example). Some of these we’ve covered before and if I’ve forgotten anything, please comment with them!
Netcode must be solid. All 3 shooters have hit registration issues of varying degrees. About the only good thing I can say about Valorant is that it has excellent netcode so this isn’t the issue there that it is in our shooters. I feel this is one of the most crucial things we need for the next game. Having our attacks hit what they are supposed to hit, being able to tell where an enemy is and it be correct is crucial and needs to be a prime focus.
Bugs have to be minimized and fixed in a timely fashion. Bugs are the nature of the beast in modern games as they’re far more complex than they used to be with big teams doing different parts of a game instead of one person or a very small team making the whole thing. With that being said, all 3 shooters still have more bugs than I would normally expect, and all 3 were left in a state after support was pulled where they really need some work. GW2 and BfN both launched in bad shape too, and I know we lost a lot of people early on in both games over these issues. The next game must launch in more solid shape, and bugs have to be squished as quickly as possible, especially those that affect balance and gameplay. And don’t do a Founders where the game is still a beta after very little public testing, that really hurt BfN badly.
Solid and fair economy. And I mean both for how we spend real money, and for coins and any other currency we have in game (I’m hoping for coins being the main currency again, with regional currencies being a thing as part of the free roam regions’ experience and on a similar vein, the time shards for the Gnomiverse). GW is the only one of the trio I felt really got this right; buy the game or the deluxe edition, and then buy coin packs if you like. GW2 started off with a similar situation, but took a turn for the worse with all the upgrade packs, especially the Torch and Tail one that gave you Torchwood and Hovergoat. The red and blue trials were rough, but worth it to earn those characters, never been a fan of buying things when it’s more interesting and enjoyable to earn them. BfN’s economy is even worse than GW2’s became thanks to the way coins and regional currencies end up worthless after a while and how bad the rainbow star situation is. I’ve posted about ideas to make a fair economy and the removal of randomness that a lot asked for, but regardless of what ends up being used for the next game, it has to work, feel fair, and not give those that spend more money a power advantage over those that don’t. Playing the game and especially PvP matches need to feel rewarding as well. I also want currencies to always be useful and desirable.
Powerful, but easy to use, communication system. And I’m talking about quick and easy voiceless communication. I always turn in game chat off as it can be awful or just annoying; anyone who played GW before they fixed the issue and experienced the always on voice chat knows what I’m talking about. GW has 4 gestures, GW2 regressed down to 2 as the other 2 were swapped to changing through characters in solo Ops, which I use but not all that often, BfN’s system is far and away the best here. I’d like to see that BfN system refined and streamlined, with focus on tactical stuff over the ‘fun’ ones, but the core system in BfN is along the lines of what I’d like to see.
Core mechanics have to be fine-tuned. I’ve been playing shooters back before the use of the term ‘Doom clone’ and have experienced all levels of responsiveness, smoothness, and adjustability, and BfN in Founders was the worst I’ve seen baring the terrible game ‘Mortyr’. It’s much better now, but I still get weird jumpiness of my targeting cursor when zoomed in as a Cactus and Deadbeard that has gotten me vanquished. Before working on costumes, weather effects, cool changes to the main hub (like Giddy Park, which does look great to be fair), and the store, get the moving, shooting, camera, and aiming feeling as good as it possibly can be.
Don’t let veterans have a power advantage over new players. This can be hard to 100% get right, but the very least keep it like it is in GW2 and BfN (GW’s upgrades are random, but veterans tend to have more of the random upgrades as they will have purchased more packs), but my idea for upgrades was to not have them even linked to levels and instead be always available so brand new level 1 player can compete equally with a level 90000 veteran, skill and knowledge being the main factors instead of who has spend the most money or leveled the most. Consumables have an effect here, one reason I don’t mind BfN’s timer as we’re all equal there, but they matter less than things like a basic Super Commando or one with the upgrades in GW.
Give us an incentive to play and support the game for years. Without making us feel the pain of FOMO or feeling forced to pay/play, entice us to hang around by making the game fun to play, rewarding, fair, exciting, and well supported. Imagine how many more players we’d have in GW2 if it had more balance and bug fixes along with greater support like new variants, maps, community challenges, and keeping the better portals available, or Ops phase 3, more new characters, and more prize maps for BfN. This happened to Heroes too, great game, good ideas and support just cut off. This really needs to stop and the next shooter would be a great place to see that happen, and hopefully PvZ3 gets the same love and support as it has great potential from what I’ve seen. I bought a lot of coins in GW and GW2, and some of the GW2 packs as well as the Feastivus pack and some rainbow stars in BfN, I even joined EA Play for BfN to get the extra costume bits for BfN just to show support. I did cancel that after BfN lost support though. I’ve said this a lot, but make a game where we love it and want to show that via spending extra money on the game, but don’t make it feel like we have to. Some folks just can’t spend that money and they may just leave if they feel, or they actually are, missing out. Don’t drive people away, we need a healthy population.
Marketing, communication, and promotion. One thing BfN lacked compared to GW and GW2 is that we barely knew it as coming, and we’re on the forums and many of us are on the Reddit and follow on Twitter! Only a few videos, and even Sir Patrick Stewart, couldn’t provide enough buzz over the game. I did enjoy the live Twitch streams, but they got cut off, thanks to Covid at least partially, and compared to getting videos for almost everything for GW and GW2 made their absence for BfN even more striking. Give us some teasers, and more videos, and please, much better communication between the community and the dev team. The devs always seemed cool to me, even if I disagreed with them on some things, they’re still awesome to have around. I want to see the awesome video support GW2 had for its early life brought forward to a new game, and I normally don’t even use Twitch at all, but I was there to watch the streams from Neighborville after work, that’s how much I love PvZ shooters!