My issues with this lovely game (not in random order) :
1. Depth of the game(play) and overall personality
A. The Stormman
Basically you have 1 character with no personality. In-game we see a blue/red silhoutte of a human form (head+ body+limbs). Even the name 'Stormman' has no originality or personality to it.
Give me something to put on the shield on my back
Give me a golden skin
Give me ...
Make it a bit more special but not over the top like Team Fortress 2
And a badass designed laser/rocket-launcher would look really nicely in-game. Unfortunately you only get to see the crosshair... but that's no big deal.
You can't see the eyes/soul of the Stormman. There's no detail to him. Just blue randomness which only becomes uglier if you get closer.
In Overwatch I get affraid if I get too close to Reinhardt. That's the key difference, right there.
B 2 Weapons : Rocket vs Laser
This is okay. It's the genre of the game. But it sure adds to the repetitiveness of the game... I don't think I'd like to see extra weapons, but maybe try to incorporate the nucleus & arrow better into your main game modes. Especially Elite where those weapons never ever ever get used. Also give us some extra railpad and arrowpad possibilities. Maybe an arrowpad detached from bluepads? We should try this out some time!
Give me a golden rail or beam ( laser skins! )
Let me chose between a rail or beam ( it wont change the gameplay )
Let me adjust my rocket trails
Let me put my teamlogo on my weapon
C Maps
The map-editor is an amazing tool! It's simple to use even for beginners so give us more of it.
50 blocks to create a map ( I'm sorry if the number is higher) with barely any personality is not enough. No logos, no story, no atmosphere, no vegetation, a handful of decorative blocks...
And then there's the way how the community creates maps. There are 2 ways:
1.Create a beautiful map which usually isn't optimized for competitive play with (barely any) personality. It's more of a statement than it is playable. ( "Look how good I can map?!" "Look how good this mapeditor works!" )
= Awesome, but usualy those maps dont make it into the competitive scene.
2. Create a clean & simple map with a good lay-out optimized for competitive play with absolutely no personality at all.
( Just look at the current Elite Map pack : Rust, Valley, Old Sun, ... )
Why is this relevant? Because the competitive side of your game could look way better.
D Blocks / Objects
The blocks we can use are too limited to give us the necessary variation.
Where are the NADEO official objects? It took 3 years until we saw custom objects in Elite... We could blame the players and the community, but nobody was stopping you NADEO to give us a little push in the back and help us... Provide us with a bare minimum of blocks and objects, please!
1. Official objects I'd like to see :
planks, crates, fences, decorative badges, smaller media signs, ledges, posters, lamps, bars,... endless possibilities which could contribute to the overall feeling/personallity of the game and gameplay (f.e. new jumps possible because we have crates)
But also : officially designed pick-ups like the ones in Combo, but for stamina-boost, fast-reload, regeneration, ... Why are these objects not already in the game?
2. Official blocks I'd like to see :
Official invisible blocks to make certain areas off-limits, block variants with/without wooden decorations, floating jumppads, floating teleports, decorative blocks, ...
Why should the extra items/blocks be made by you, NADEO?
Because the quality of your items/blocks(everything) will always be better/higher than a community-made item/block and will be preinstalled on every PC regardless of the filesize. You would be creating a better foundation for the game, you see? And it would be relatively easy for you to add new objects anytime you want and you'd give the community a sense of 'progress' compared to the never-ending stagnant game-state that you created now.
E. No Storyline
That's okay. We(I) dont want a story. It would take up so much time to develop. Time that can be used to improve every other aspect of the game. But because of the lack of 'story' the game has even less personality. The game feels a little bland/empty sometimes... I cant identify myself with the game. I cant 'enter the game with my mind'. I dont lose myself in this game.
F. Menus and ingame interface
The in-game interface you made is okay and is going into the right direction. It used to be worse in the BETA
BUT :
A rematch-vote on top of the scoreboard (so you cant even see your own score after a match...). On top of that the chat-window (obviously the chat becomes completely unreadable) and then some additional window of maniacontrol. So that's 4 layers on top of eachother... AND ALL OF THAT WHILE THE PODIUM SEQUENCE IS PLAYING IN THE BACKGROUND... So that's 5 things on top of eachother... I'll try to add a screenshot of this later.
How to fix?
1. Rematch vote in the corner of the screen
2. TAB should always show the scoreboard and minimize everything else that's in its way.
3. Run your own matchmaking-system with all necessary features so we dont need different-styled widgets in our interface making things feel cluttered and ugly.
4. Opening the chat should minimize everything else that's in its way.
You designed TMT so lovely with fresh menus, so transfer that beauty to SM please, pronto.
2. Ranking/Ladder
I'm sorry, but the ranking is not even in real-time and by the end of the week we all have the same rank. I cant check my progress and there isn't even a ladder, but it's there in TM... So why is it missing in SM? I also can't check/understand why I would deserve to be first on the 'ladder' or how much better I'm playing than number two. Or : Why am I not ranked one? What do I need to improve in my gameplay?
3. Matchmaking
A. A russian roullette of bugs!
When matchmaking got released I was so thrilled! Most FPS-games that come out nowadays all have MM so SM couldn't stay behind! Smart NADEO! But did you see in what state MM currently is? A lot of matches simply arent enjoyed by the players anymore. Often something goes wrong! I'm sure you know bugfixes would be very welcome!
B. Penalties
30seconds! Is that even a penalty? It's an invite to take your pee-break, quickly grab a snack or strectch your legs? It's not a punishment. Does a player deserve to play a new match if he didn't want to finish his previous match and thus let 5 other players down? Just one of the questions I sometimes ask myself when playing Matchmaking.
C. REMOVE LOBBY MAPS - MATCHMAKING DIRECTLY IN MENUS
Do we actually need a lobby...? Why not something like CSGO where we wait in the menus? I found 4 good reasons why:
1. I imagine that by the time that I loaded and connected to the lobby map I could already be matched and load my match-map instead.
2. Lots of players in 1 map make the game lagg. Having a lobby packed with players gives players a laggy time. It's not ideal and the gameplay will feel completely different from your actual match. A good gamer will understand/feel what I mean for sure.
3. Finding/clicking your friend in the sidebars to ally can be really hard (because you cant find him in the list or his name is moving everywhere because players are getting matched).So imagine allying your friends in a full lobby. The simple thing of 'allying & playing together' would become something annoying, and that's not something we want. Heck, it is already annoying.
4. How are the other (good) games doing it? In the menus, right?
D. Currency
So I collected some planets and honestly besides having them, I dont really use them. I know they can be used for horns, but I make my own.
'Donating planets' doesnt bring me pleasure?
I won planets in a Paragon Secondary Cup once... I mean... I'm grateful, but but but... What am I supposed to do with them?
I have 22 887 maniaplanets right now and I dont even care.
I'm playing Overwatch and I almost cry (of joy!) when I get 50 currency out of a lootbox because I can almost buy the sexiest skin I've ever seen.
Again, can you understand the difference?
My ShootMania Review Summary:
A unique game with loads of potential with an average foundation but it's simply not ,yet, good enough:
1 character with no personality, maps with no personality which all look the same, 2 weapons, nothing to fight/play for (rank & currency), a broken matchmaking-system, no lan (not even in France anymore), too much bugs, no playerbase besides 3-4 modes... No money or hardware to win (You discontinued ESL GO4SM, CPS, EPL), Limited communication... We don't know how this game will look like in 2year and we dont know in what direction it will evolve. Active players that have been here for 4years deserve to know at least a little bit, dont you agree?
And then there's the community-made-content... It's an awesome idea, but besides maps, it offers absolutely nothing to the competitive side of the game. Look at Elite, Combo or Siege and prove me wrong...
You've been focussing so hard on your tools NADEO... but what has been the effect of it on the community or on the competition? Not 1 single tool you gave us helped us with Elite. Not 1... Yet you focus so hard on your tools and less on everything I mentioned above.
Put the gameplay & mapeditor first (my suggestions), then the tools (could be an awesome additition to this game, but not needed if your game is good!) and then I believe that in 2017 we can have an awesome game.
I sincerely hope that anyone of you reads this and takes this seriously. I'm sure you planned some good updates for ShootMania in the future, but everything I said here is key to the survival of this game. Once we finally get an update I'll come back here and check if you listened.
I wish you the very best and good luck! If SM gets a revival just like TMT does for TM, then I have nothing to be worried about
bonne nuit
PS : Small studios can release awesome games too! Just look at Rocket League... They found the hole in the market and filled it. If they can do it, so can you. ShootMania = pure potential, but you have to make the right choices and move forward in the right direction.
