New to giant bomb, been lurking and listening to the occasional giantbombcast. I come from the uberent forums and was one of the first 5 people invited to the SMNC beta in september, feel free to ask when it comes to anything SMNC related!

Also, i have a youtube channel which i post SMNC gameplay on, since its my main game ATM (barring LoL which i have just started playing) and was one of the very few active MNC commentators towards the end of its PC lifecycle. My main classes on SMNC are assassin, assault and karl (though you probbably dont care), and imma spinnin in a chair 8D

P.S. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7odR7wgQ_E Tutorial for the assassin class (or at least how I play her)

Is matchmaking (real matchmaking based on some skill rating) coming any time soon? I feel kinda bad always dragging every team I play on down. Also goddamn I want to be good at this game, but it's so hard to get into a MOBA being a shooter guy. Aim means jack, situational awareness means jack (you can see dudes through walls, always!). I know not to die. What else do I need to know to get better?

The only pro I'm not horrible at is assault.

i dont know the exact ETA for matchmaking as uber knows that the active beta population isnt big enough to put up barriers between groups of players. if you want a class where aim means something, then sniper is your go to (he can 4 shot a jackbot to the head, and can headshot bots). situational awareness is probbably 70% of the game if i am honest, its just that you need a different kind of situational awareness from shooter games and even MNC.

if you want to get better, i would reccomend this video (kinda basic), this assault guide, and possibly this mentoring thread. also, feel free to add me on steam, im salomdi on there aswell! (but imma sleep nao, tired and school tomorrow...)

we have a giantbomb steam group for smnc - http://steamcommunity.com/groups/gbsmnc

SMNC doesn't support groups yet though

^by groups do you mean parties? if so then it does, but you need another party to go up against (and i have already joined the group xD)

@Ertard: no there is no real matchmaking. its HORRIBLE right now

@tunaburn: Isn't it still technically a beta?

@salomdi: But you have to headshot a player like 5+ times to do anything. I tried gunslinger and it's not for me. Generally I play more mobile and aggressive in games. Aggressive in this is not a good thing exactly as my style of aggressive normally ends up with 3 enemies dead but me as well. Of course that's not possible here and dying is not an option..

Regarding SA, please explain. Knowing where enemies are or what's going on around you is meaningless in SMNC, unless it means avoiding getting raped from behind, which is super easy of course. Thanks for the tutorial!

edit: Realized I actually haven't tried the sniper. Will do that next.

Happy belated Welcome to Giant bomb, Duder!

@senorfuzzeh said:

@tunaburn: Isn't it still technically a beta?

yes but its still very far from balanced. and without matchmaking its hard to really play the beta to give feedback. its just a mess right now. it can be fun for sure when the game is fairly even and everyone is playing, but that rarely happens. some of the characters are useless and others are way to good. i know its a beta and will slowly be balanced. i just hope they do . so far the updates havent really done much.

@deathstriker666: TY!

@senorfuzzeh: Yes, it is (they are just inviting a lot more people now, lifted the NDA, stats will not be reset when the game goes live and you can buy uberpoints atm).

@tunaburn: There is, it just looks at your level, up to a maximum of +/- 80 levels. I don't know how it makes teams after that.

@Ertard: The way i play, which is supposedly the 'best way' according to people who are better than me, is being aware of who is on low health on the enemy team, where/when the enemy team are pushing, where your team is, ect. its something that you get by playing the game more than anything else. This video does talk quite well about it (generally if you can play commandos, which is very difficult, you have the basis for playing any other class other than the sharpshooters), rogueblades is one of the few people who i consider better than me at assasin. Also, gunslinger isnt for headshooting, its for this (which is dumb, but works as a low skill alternative to sniper).

btw, im SGT.GRUMBLES in the steam group, the name is an in joke with my mates.

@salomdi: Yeah, I wouldn't call that SA in the FPS sense, it's something more. I saw it referred to as gamesense, seems more accurate. SA is more common used to identify what's going on in front of you, gamesense is so much more. It's a skill that doesn't transfer from FPS at least, more strategic.

And that isn't matchmaking you're talking about, that's just.. something. I suck and I've played against what seems to be the best players in the community in matchmaking.

The hope is that you can use steam groups to invite people into a game so we could play together, mics and all if we ant, and have fun and learn to play.

if you guys want, we could arrange to do a private match at some time? its good provided that there isnt a horrible imbalance in teams (normally isnt due to picking teams) since you can coordinate better, and mics are a requirement. its good fun :D

Maybe, yeah. Overall there's way, way, way too few players in the beta. Uber needs to unleash the beast, and include matchmaking.

I mean the only people I seem to play with are people from Giant Bomb, cuz I see GLHB, that suck as bad as me , or aformentioned amazing players. Also leavers.

There are to few players for matchmaking. Also, your breaking the NDA by talking outside the testing forums and by posting videos.

@NakAttack said:

I'll break your NADS for talking outside the testing forums and posting videos.

Fixed.

@GetEveryone: that made me chuckle. seriously though, just trying to warn the guy, he'll get kicked out if anyone from Uber catches him.

^ you are wrong. 1.2.3.4.5.

also, eka and scathis love me (one of the first people invited to the beta, been playing since the end of september, talk to them quite regularly)

Been playing some original MNC and had a blast, played about 5 games of SMNC and all I can say is that this game seems awesome but a lot harder. It simply requires more thought and strategy. I'm still kinda dragging the team down when most people know how to play but the community is great so nobody is really upset about it.

I got some of the free Uber points and I'm just wondering if that and agent level will carry over when the game launch (like the rest of the stuff seems to do)?

Im Jeldh ingame by the way so hit me up if you want to play :)

everything is carrying over, hence why they changed from beta to 'invitational', the stats have allready been reset for the last time.

I think the community is ok. For being a MOBA and therefore automatically somewhat elitist and douchbaggy, it's actually fine. Been called this and that and people whine a lot, but hey, MOBAs.

Played my first game today where I was GOOD (nr 1! 14/9). Gunner. Too bad my team sucked except for another dude, but after an amazing game we won. First match where I felt it was not only reliant on two awesome players/communityprofiles, and it gave a vision of what this game might be with matchmaking. One feeder, 1/22. That's impressive. The worst I've done is like 12 deaths.. Tip to new players: DO NOT PLAY HARD PROS. Go by the difficulty/skill meter, it really works, play the easier ones. Commandos are HARD.

Also, Uber, if you read here, you REALLY, super duper badly, need to let more people in. Currently it's the best in the community with a few of us stragglers and that's why all of your invited players stop super fast. Just not fun to be totally owned.

I really want to play more of the SMNC beta, but it's tough to keep my cool when people are playing it more like a shooter than a MOBA.

I think a big group are extremely good players. It's in a very weird state now when about 50% of the players are seriously the best in the world at the game, and the other 50% are total noobs. Makes everything super weird and random.

@Ertard: Wow, I played my fair amount of MCN and Im still working on my kill/death ratio. I guess I need to try the gunner.

Or did you mean that this was not your first-first game, just your "first game where you played really good"?

@MrCaptain: Oh, sorry about the phrasing, yes, it's the first game out of 30 odd some where I was good. Normally I roll with a negative K/D like everyone else who isn't a part of the super duper good people. Gunner is a REALLY good noob class though.

^ ya, some of the alpha testers whine about how he is spam E while deployed to win. on the other side, if you over extend as gunner, you have next to no chance to stay alive. you need to stay with your team as him.

@salomdi: Yeah, missiles are OP in my opinion. Needs to do 25% less damage or so. But yes, I get instamurdered if I get kaklawed - which is also waaaayyy too powerful. Should have perhaps two thirds of the current range. In my level range it's very common for one decent veteran to kaklaw a dude to the rest of the team, gangrape that dude, free kill. So hard to avoid as well on a noob level as you have to move constantly to avoid it and to crazy jetpacking manouvers and stuff.

I've been playing really good now when I can play with people more along my skill range. Went 21-1, 18-0 and such yesterday. So much fun. Still matchmaking needs fixing and oh dear lord does this game need a tutorial.. I always ask if someone's new, no one ever answers yes. And then you say DEFEND THE ANNIHILATOR and you're all alone, GG.

@Ertard: LOL i get that so much xD but i personally dont think that ka claw is OP, due to it being blockable (once it goes past, stand in the string or if bots are in the way, you get blocked by them.)

@salomdi: I know, but I find that hard to pull off.