I've pumped a few hours into this and here are a few niggles I have with the game;
First; the missions/achievements are rather poorly laid out. For one it took me awhile until I figured out how to advance rank, the summary tab just says "Until next rank: X" with no explanation of missions. I thought originally it was matches won or something. Regarding the missions themselves I find it very queer that you (seemingly, I could be wrong or it's a visual bug) have to perform a previous 'rank' of a mission before the next can progress and be completed. EG; I'm asked by one mission to use a light gun, but suddenly the next mission asks me to use a heavy weapon instead. This isn't a big problem but it's a thorn in the side of my rank progression when the next mission in a line suddenly asks me to use an entirely different weapon or ship. Nor does it seem to 'tally' progress made with, say, the Junker for the junker achievement because it isn't unlocked until a certain level. I'm sure these are done to force players to get used to a variety of ships and weapons but the sudden lurches between ship types and weapon types can be off-putting and as mentioned the way achievements/missions are locked renders any match that isn't in a Goldfish for me as useless (In terms of gaining rank) at the time of writing.
Again; this may just be me missing something but as I see it if ship/weapon specific missions were separated instead of shoved together despite their irrelevancy then rank progression would be smoothened out a bit. On top of this just make it more obvious that ranks are gained through those missions.
Second; tutorials are lacking. At most they just teach you the controls, they teach you nothing like aiming ahead whilst moving, blind spots, repair/rebuild differences, repair priorities, momentum, ammo types and so on. The tutorials are SOMEWHAT helpful but so much of the game for newbies like me is trial and error, that being said there's not THAT much that's difficult to figure out but if the game informed people of more in-depth mechanics then we'd have a lot less Rank 1 Engineers using the rubber mallet to rebuild a manticore launcher, gunners aiming at the enemy location exactly whilst the ship is moving and pilots driving the ships like a car or plane for example. I know lots of people immediately label these people as 'bad' but to me it seems they just don't -know- about the mechanics of the game itself beyond the controls.
I'm assuming these are being worked on however, and I hope they do give great detail about the game's mechanics.
Third; Gat/flak seems to be the noobtube of the game. Nearly everyone runs it, usually with a Junker or Pyramidon. There's nothing wrong with this combo innately, I myself use it alot as a captain. But the issue I have is that other potential weapon combos are going to waste or are never even looked at because flak/gat is just so effective. Hell at times I find these light weapons to out-damage heavy duty stuff as the latter just have such long reload and repair times, giving the target plenty of time to repair.
I'm not sure how to fix this really. My only suggestion would be to add more piercing weapons to the game to give more variety than just the gatling gun or bust, and possibly just a wider selection of weapons. Alternatively you could just nerf/buff the weapons around until you find people are using an even mix of weapons rather than 90% of ships going with the same loadout. Again; nothing wrong with gat/flak, but I would like to see other combinations being just as effective and attractive options, especially for newbies who may get so used to this combo they'll find using a different weapon more awkward. (Let's be honest, gat/flak weapons are the easiest to use owing to fairly long range, short reload and minimal drop-off.) In addition; you may want to fiddle a bit with heavy/medium weapons to make them more attractive, the reloads are fine and all but due to the simply massive repair/rebuild time and the (surprising) fragility of these weapons, they tend to become useless in a firefight as opposed to lights which reload, repair and are rebuilt much quicker.
Fourth; a way to separate voice chat and game sounds between my speakers and headset would be splendid. As is I either have to risk having game echo going through my mic via the speakers or I hear voices and sounds overlapping in my headset. I'm no programmer but I hope there's a way to do this.
Fifth; Borderless window mode, please! I occasionally alt-tab whilst waiting for folks to join a match, and the game... does not like alt-tabbing, freeze ups and looping sound are common here. In addition to possibly amending these, borderless window modes tend to use less of my computer's power than fullscreen mode does. I -may- have just missed this in the options however, I'll double check later.
These are suggestions and thoughts from someone who's only just hit rank 2 in pilot and gunner, but impressions are important I find if one hopes to attract a wide playerbase. Other than the above niggles however I am greatly enjoying this game.
Happy flying.
