Titanfall impressions thread

Apparently the final count of modes and maps was found in the beta or something. I'm sure some sites have the story. I think it's something like 14-15 maps though, which is more then I was expecting.

does anyone know how long the servers are still up for the beta? It's already 7 am est and 4 am west cost

@crithon: The servers are online until 2/19 6PM PST.

I'm on PC and I'm loving it - especially the Titan gameplay itself. I always wanted a FPS game with Dash and active Blocking. I've been clamoring for it since forever. Same goes for organic movement and doublejumps and wallruns. Now if only it was more largescale with more organic feeling and wide-open environments, and total destructiblity there-of. A Battlefield take on the game, if you will. Maybe with Titan Falls being linked to capture points, rather than to individual soldiers. As in a new Titan deploys every 2 minutes at every captured hardpoint, until up to a certain maximum - I'd be even more ecstatic.

The elegant simplicity of Titanfall is something Battlefield has lost since BF3. That said, in terms of depth Battlefield is the deep sea, whilst Titanfall seems more like the newest and greatest waterpark in comparison. Battlefield and Titanfall complement each other perfectly. Honestly though, I want them to have sweet sweet babies together. Mixing the scope and scale and destructible environments of Battlefield with the organic high mobility movement and epicness of giant robot fights of Titanfall, all-the-while keeping it elegantly simple, yet full of depth.

By the way. Titanfall 2 will be the DOTA of FPS games. Such a gamemode practically designs itself, and it's going to be glorious. Hopefully on PS4 too by then. So, I'm on my way to my local games e-shop to preorder Titanfall for PC. It made the race against the past-gen version of Dark Souls 2, which comes out the same week. Titanfall... approved! May it tide me over until a shiny version of Dark Souls 2 releases.

The only issue I have noticed is with the 6 v 6; and it is not for the normal reasons that have been brought up before. The issue is when you have a 12 v 12 or higher game, the match not being full isn't a really big deal. 9 v 12 leaves plenty of room for skilled players to overtake the other team. In 6 v 6 though you seem to have a huge disadvantage, especially in Hardpoint or Last Titan Standing if you get as low 4 v 6. There is just too much ground to cover and it is very difficult to survive any 1 v 2 Titan battles. You are down a player AND his Titan for the match. It is just the negative side of having less players, each pilot is much more important.

That being said, any players want to play together (Xbox One)? I would love to party up and play using some coordination while playing. I prefer the Beta Variety playlist. I am Eastern Standard Time and can play around 6-7 pm till whenever (willing to sacrifice some sleep to get more time in with the game).

Today was a good day.

It felt like I was getting a lot of kills and doing very well, but then realize I am killing mostly grunts, and rarely even seeing another player (if they aren't in a titan).

I'm playing an FPS MOBA and just killing creeps the entire game. Kinda unfulfilling.

I have to try more of the other modes, maybe they will have more player-on-player action.

@psylah: The best strategy for finding other players is usually to be more vertical as the grunts will never be on a rooftop. Also watch your minimap because when an enemy pilot or Titan fires his gun, they appear on the minimap (pilots as a big red dot and Titans as a big red arrow). It will also show you if they are below or above you.

Basically, if you ever see someone jumping or running along a wall, it's a human player.

It really lends itself to a controller. I can't see myself playing with a keyboard. It's easily the best acrobatic first person experience I've had, including Mirror's Edge. Being able to hijack titans feels especially great. You can kill them fast enough that it's not tedious, and slow enough that the pilot can still get out and kill you while you're riding it. I'm annoyed by the inability to really customize controls though. This is a game where you really need to utilize all the buttons and none of the current setups feel quite comfortable or natural. I'll get used to it eventually, but it just doesn't feel as good as if I could just specify what all the buttons do. There should also be an easier way to distinguish between bots and real people (maybe the bots have a red outline or something). I'm really nitpicking though, because now that I've played it and can see how much fun it is, I'll be buying this game day one for sure.

I went back and played a couple of BF4 matches after 3 days of straightforward Titanfall and Ohh boy... That game feels unnecessarily bloated. I wish they were focus on the core experience (gunplay, hit detection, net code, weapon design, etc.. ) than visuals. Battlefield have a special place in my hearth and I will probably keep playing it forever, but man... they need focus more that game, BF4 is a prime example more stuff doesn't equals more fun.

Thank god they opened up the beta to everyone. I was kind of getting a little put off by all the luke warm comments on the game I've seen, but now I'M SOLD. I've been having a blast. The maneuverability in this game is so good. Dropping down a Titan, blowing up a group of enemies, dashing across the map and meeting up with your fellow titans to wreak more havok is the best. Especially when your mech's about to blow up and you jet up into the sky only to drop down on the Titan that killed you for a little revenge is so satisfying.

I sound like a little kid describing my experience, and I'm okay with that. I think what it's really going to come down to is if you like multiplayer shooters in general. The actual playing of the game is great, but it may not stick for those usually uninterested overall with the scene. I've been able to sustain a longer relationship with games like Battlefield and Cod before, so I'm not really surprised in my want to keep playing for the long haul.

I think BF4's core experience is amazing, except for the Anti-Air aspect of it. The gunplay especially is incredible. Pretty much every gun handles distinctly, and offers great depth for mastery. Sure, sometimes things get wonky in sychronization, but given the circumstances of scale, scope, playercount, vehicles and destructible environments, and the sheer fidelity of all the simulations - it's not at all surprising that sometimes things get wonky. I think people have unreasonable expectations at how consistently tight an online experience can be, especially when there's often players from all around the world on the same server. On PS4 serverside lag is all but eliminated, except for weekend peak hours - and it feels super tight despite a very international playerbase.

But yes, BF4 is bloated - but it's also incredibly rich and deep. Sure it can be overwhelming, but once you arrive, you'll feel like a big bad shark in the deep blue sea, and it's a feeding frenzy. I too wish DICE would be more decisive. One mode. One ruleset. One direction. For them to make a Battlefield game like they did with Bad Company 1. Rethinking all paradigms of Battlefield design, and striving for something better. To purge. To reform. To redefine. And most importantly. To define what Battlefield is. Right now it's too many too different things to too many people, and EA/DICE has to cater to everyone. While they are quite successful at that (Battlefield 4 is my favorite BF game to date), I'd much rather see what DICE could do, if it was all about a singular experience.

Also, is it just me, or is anyone else totally unable to play this with Vsync turned on? I can play it at near max settings at a constant 60 with it turned off, but as soon as I turn it on, the frame rate goes to total crap. Really weird.

I've never been part of a big COD/BF season, and I'm somewhat tempted to be part of one. Played the beta and had fun. I installed a bunch of other competitive FPS to gauge against it. I'm gonna admit something, my two favorite recent shooters are actually F2P: Hawken and Blacklight Retribution. I'll wait for the launch madness to wane and perhaps pick it up after the post launch surprises are settled. I still feel a sense of dissatisfaction playing it, I dunno why. It seems a bit low on team cohesion and tactics. A bit too run and gun, even with all the wall running and titan play.

Im having an ok time with the PC beta. Its not blowing me away making me want to preorder though. I'm going to wait and see how things go with it a couple months after launch.

So I played a little bit of it earlier and I had a blast. However, I did feel like there were a few killcams where people were snapping on to me. As if they were using a controller. With some kind of auto aim. That should never happen.

Now, before you bring out the PC master race assumption, I love playing PC single player shooters with controllers. I generally prefer controllers, actually. However, when it comes to multiplayer shooters, the worse control method shouldn't be handicapped to the point where it has an advantage over the much better control method. It feels cheap. I definitely think they should implement some way to separate the KBM users from the controller users in matchmaking.

Otherwise, I liked playing it a lot. I really like the mobility options and I think they've balanced out titans with players quite well. People who bring titans next to buildings or anywhere a good player can get around them are likely to find a bug on their back. I killed, or helped kill, several enemy titans in this way almost every match.

PC--Beta

I have no idea wtf I just played. There is no thinking involved at all. It's just muscle memory. I think my IQ dropped after playing the game. I think I forgot my name after playing a session of this game.

It's too fast of gameplay. It doesn't make any sense. Mindless responses. I don't really recall any interesting moment that stands out about a match. If you were to ask me about, for example, BF2, even now I can fondly recall nice matches, interesting moments that occurred years ago. But for Titanfall, the gameplay is just a blur. I double-jump... I shoot... I eject... rinse wash repeat, in essence.

The gameplay style can be defined by a single term: Hyperventilating .

COD with robots. I don`t know why I was expecting anything else. Mark another disappointment down in the fps genre. At least BF4 still has some battlefield flavor left in it, and if I want CQC I`ll play some CS. At least I saved $60.

Yep. Totally COD with mechs. On the one hand, it plays really well and it's enjoyable in small doses (at least in my opinion). But it really doesn't feel like the huge revolution in the genre that I had thought it might be. I'm not entirely sold on it and so I probably won't pick it up right away.

Dunno if it's that I've slept like shit yesterday, but I played a lengthy session tonight, and my euphoric first impression faded away quickly. It made me remember why I don't like twitch shooters in general, and on PC especially. KB&M pros are just aggravatingly fast and precise. I can hold my own, but I never feel in control like I do in the slower and more methodical Battlefield games. I'll be much happier playing Battlefield 4 on PS4 anyways, no need to split my time. I'm also thinking I'd enjoy Titanfall much more on consoles, but since I didn't buy an Xbox One yet, and it's currently not on the table anyways - I'll just get in on Titanfall when the inevitable sequel comes around. More refined and polished, and hopefully on PS4.

I've decided to cancel my preorder and put the money towards my PSN wallet instead - for Vita sales and probably Thief. Second Assault is out tomorrow, which is already bought and paid for, so that'll fill my competitive online multiplayer needs with ease for another 100 hours or so.

P.S. are there any hacks for Titanfall out there yet? I've seen a killcam of a dude with a suspiciously fast and precise robotic aim, just zapping from target to target, even offscreen ones - real bot-like. Yet another reason to avoid FPS games on PC.

yea the NPC fodder thing is extremely messy and bad. hope they can deal with it

but right now its reminding me of a Halo Reach type scenario.. good ideas without the complete package, too many flaws in the core that glare the experience

I'm enjoying what I'm playing, but nothing is blowing me away. All the positives and negatives I have about the game have been listed by everyone else. I'll just summisse my biggest complaint about the game's entire design:

When I lose, I don't feel like it's my fault. When I win, I'm not sure if I had anything to do with it.

With the cacophony of action that is going on, I never get a sense of how the tide of battle is going. In BF4, I don't need to see the ticket counter to know if my side is getting a beatdown or if we're trouncing the other guys. With Titanfall, it's 50/50.

So far, i'm loving this demo and i'm terrible at it. It's just fun to play, but i hope that they really add some sort of story element to give the game context because it really just feels like standard multiplayer modes otherwise. Hopefully the "campaign" multiplayer is pretty robust and it's not just a co-op story based thing to get your feet wet for the real multiplayer.

The capture the flag mode fixes that issue, since you are all forced to focus on 3 points so you have no choice but to run into each other

XBOX ONE

I have to say after playing this game for a couple of days in impressed. This game really has the traction to do something new and change up FPS. I honestly hate COD with a passion; but this is different its fun fast paced and fresh. Bots do not bother me and it is so easy to tell the difference by they way they move around the map. And besides a bot isnt going to be on a rooftop. When I see a bot I kill them anyway it helps contribute to the team. Titan battles are sooo easy as well. I think alot of people are saying they are weak because they don't know how to use them. Melee them when they are low to rip the pilot out and claim your pilot kill on top of titan kill. This game needs to sell well on the Xbox and with the sucess and hype from the beta it sure will.

I'm not a fan of competitive shooters aside from enjoying Battlefield every now and then (not for the shooting, mainly for the craziness). But this game has really captured my attention. I played the beta for about 6 hours and loved every second.

I only really cared for the Hardpoint mode. I wasn't having a ton of fun with the game before trying it.

I still feel cynical.... but I put in over 18 in this beta...... I'M WAITING FOR EA TO FUCK THIS UP!!!!

Played for a little bit, I just can't help thinking about how good Titanfall 2 could look, as a card carrying graphics whore. It looks good, has nice graphical effects, but often doesn't blow me away. Gameplay wise it's fun, not every weapon feels good, but finding a combination I liked to use wasn't hard. But it would take a lot for me to buy this type of game, and the lack of sp kinda kills it. I'm a little over playing with children, I tend to play the sp and only lightly touch multi and hearing a couple whiney children is usually enough for me to say "Ok, I'm good."

But I can't wait to see what games look like in a few years. I'm sure it will be night and day to what's coming out now.

I feel like people are already too good at the game. Bummer really, I was doing so well on Friday and Saturday but people seem to be doing smart things like coming at my hardpoints more often and sometimes in packs rather than one guy who can easily by shotgunned. They're also still better at shooting than I am in general due to having done this sort of snap shooting shit for the last decade nonstop. I'm still buying it because it is hell of fun and I'm looking forward to getting all the shit for real but I think I'm done with the beta.

If I had any feedback I'd say add some function to shuffle the teams. The way it works is that losers are more likely to quit so you're more likely to be matched into a losing team. Not fun. Either when losers start quitting switch the winning team out for an equally crap team and give the winning team winners to face or just shuffle the players after every game. Or make it happen if the same team wins thrice in a row or twice by a convincing margin. The way it is though isn't great.

@themasterds: I noticed that too, it's a really poor match making. I'm the kind of guy who usually sticks it out to the end, but then I got bored when players were being too sadistic. I do feel the beta has a lifespan at the moment of maybe 8 hours.... at the first second when everyone is starting out.

I would have paid for that Beta. Played about 10 hours of it, and I just can't get enough of it....man. I think the smart pistol is the best thing for newcomers like me. It makes me feel useful and any player better than me will kill me unless I get him from behind. I like that.

Last night, I ended up blowing myself high up in the Fracture map and landing in a nice little spot that gave me lots of free kills. I ran out of ammo eventually and had to jump on a titan and take one down with a pistol. I was like Rambo.

@themasterds: Yea, I'm hoping the non-shuffling of teams is due to it just being a beta. Respawn would be oblivious to leave it like that.

@geraltitude: you should play Hawken

I've been playing Call of Duty since the first Modern Warfare. My interest has been waning over the last few years and I'm now at the point where I'll go many months without touching it. I enjoy the game style but there have been little things that have bothered me year after year lately and I've been asking myself how much longer I'm going to buy the latest iteration in the Call of Duty franchise.

I had my reservations about Titanfall. Videos made it look interesting but I've been feeling like I'm just done with this kind of game. Luckily, I got into the PC beta and got some hands on time with it. And honestly, it was hard for me to describe at first, but I really enjoyed the way the game made me feel playing it. It's very smooth and action packed. The different play styles between being on foot and in a titan constantly had me engaged. I wasn't getting angry at the game like Call of Duty has made me so many times before, cursing at the screen because something wasn't fair or didn't happen the way it should have. Everything I encountered in Titanfall felt very balanced and fair. The epilogue adds a great turn in the objective that sends everyone to the same point on the map in a mad dash and is very exciting. Most of the games I played, my heart was beating heavier than usual because of how thrilling the entire match was.

Now, I am still worried that when people invest more time in this game they'll find unfair advantages or my solo playstyle might get steamrolled by roaming groups of friends. That may detract me from enjoying this game in the long-term like it has with Call of Duty. However, it's looking like I'm going to at least invest my money into this game when it's released and pray it's even close to fun and exciting as this beta experience has been for me.

I was extremely bored in the beta. The beta actually talked me out of buying the game, sadly. To each their own but I really don't see the appeal: mechanically I didn't care for anything but wall running, melee sucked, shooting felt terrible, mechs weren't fun to pilot, and fighting against AI was laughable.

I'll get the game when it's $20 on sale.

The beta sold me on the game, glad I finally found a beta code because i probably would have skipped this game on pc since i figured it would force you to play with M/K. I think the frustration of bad K/D ratio and getting killed is taking out with the addition of the bots, so even if your having a bad game the game is still fun. The movement is great, and hardpoint mode is where it's at as far as the 3 modes in the demo. Attrition is alright after you play hardpoint for a while and get used to fighting pilots constantly, the titan mode felt a little bit boring honestly.

I'm playing the beta on PC, and really do enjoy the game. If I had a xbone I would buy titanfall right away, but this isn't going to make me buy one. I found the game fun and easy to get into, I spent most of my time not getting in my titan to start cause I died right away. I thought when the AI is controling your titan it does a good job better than I was doing to start, the AI grunts are stupid though. After several hours, I now get in the titan now and than, if there are lots of titans on the map I probably will not join in but if I'm by myself I'll probably get in. I will be getting titanfall at some point on the PC. When will depend on how much other stuff is in the full game. Beta was fun but there is a clear need for more titans, maps, game types, and what nots.

All and all, I'm in, I like it, but I'm not buying a system to play.