Global Agenda

[Jester]

What I've been playing instead of EVE for the last couple of weeks:
http://www.globalagendagame.com/

MMO FPS. One race: humans. Four classes: assault (tank or DPS), medic (healer), recon (sniping, mostly, but also EVE stealth bomber tactics), robotics (DPS via pets). Very basic skill tree which you can climb super-rapidly. You can also readjust your points in the skill tree pretty much at will. Straightforward equipment selections with only 20 or so crafting mods of three quality levels.

Pluses:
Ridiculously easy to learn with a fantastic tutorial.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Instant-on, instant-off gameplay. Have only 15 minutes to play a game? You can still play a match.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Good mix of PvE, raids, and PvP.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Good mix of free-to-play, or a one-time fee for fast advancement, or subscription fee for super-fast advancement.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
New players are relevant in any role within a few days of starting play.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Everyone can play and level all four classes on one account.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
The four classes are well-balanced, and all have important roles.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Player skill counts for a lot more than toon skill.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Conquerable PvP map that resets itself periodically (using "seasons").[/*:m:14stg8a2]

Minuses:
Riddled with micro-transactions throughout.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Limited maps at the moment.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Obvious bugs are a little slow to get fixed.[/*:m:14stg8a2]
Botting in the form of "aim-bots."[/*:m:14stg8a2]

It's not a particularly deep game. It's definitely not a "live to play" game like EVE is. But the learning curve is the opposite of EVE. The learning curve is so easy, it's practically a downhill slope. You can understand pretty much everything there is to understand about the game in only a few days, and the game is fairly limited in scope. You log in. You decide if you want PvE or PvP. If PvE, you decide if you want solo missions, group missions, or raids. If PvP, you decide if you want skirmishes, battles, or wars. You make those selections, and you start shooting things. Crafting is laughably limited in scope, as is market trading.

Still, I'm finding that I'm enjoying it a ton. The game balance is terrific, and I hope the DUST guys are studying it closely. The instant-on thing is what appeals to me the most. It's not like EVE, where I have to plan my evening around EVE. I can log into GA at any time day or night (even late into the night in California, where I am), and there's lots of people on-line. And if I only have 15 or 30 minutes, that's fine -- it's enough time for two or three PvP battles, or a long skirmish in the skirmish area, after which I can log out. Or if I need to log out NOW because of something going on in the house, I can do it without worry. Solo players can either play solo or will be level-matched into a group.

There's MT throughout the game -- I count at least four different major ways you can give the developers money. And that money can be used to buy either vanity items or in-game weapons. Still, there's almost nothing that I can find that you can get with MT that you can't get without it. Just takes longer without it. And there's no weapon, mod, or level in the game that's particularly overpowering in any case.

Overall, I can't see this being my new primary MMO or anything -- it's too shallow. Still, I can see myself logging in for months to come, 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there, if that's all I have to do a little pew-pew. And if I want to play longer, the game certainly supports that. Again, I hope the DUST guys are studying it carefully. There are definitely worse models.

[DaBigCheez]

Plus: JETPAX

[Jester]

Indeed, plus jet packs. Watched an assault hover over a battlefield firing a minigun down into the crowd yesterday. He didn't last long, of course, but he did a lot of damage. Great stuff.

[Forever Calzone]

Haven't played this in over a year how much has changed? I seem to remember actually buying this :psyduck:

Is it actually an MMO now or still the same instanced TF2 stuff?

To be honest unless things have drastically changed I'd really hope the Dust developers are paying more notice of Planetside(and it's many fuck ups) rather than this.

HOLY SHIT checked my steam, I actually payed 45 euros for this fucking thing they better be offering me blowjobs for life when I get this shit reinstalled :cut:

[Spaztick]

Got to level 50, stopped playing after i got into the "end game" stuff.

[Dahak]

Haven't played this in over a year how much has changed? I seem to remember actually buying this :psyduck:

Is it actually an MMO now or still the same instanced TF2 stuff?

To be honest unless things have drastically changed I'd really hope the Dust developers are paying more notice of Planetside(and it's many fuck ups) rather than this.

HOLY SHIT checked my steam, I actually payed 45 euros for this fucking thing they better be offering me blowjobs for life when I get this shit reinstalled :cut:

It is now FTP, but those who purchased are "Elite Agents" who get double end-mission XP and credits and tokens. FTP people can purchase Elite status if they so choose.

I also heartily endorse this game. Not, as mentioned, deep, but fun.

[stoat]

It seems like this game attracted more of a mmo crowd. I noticed there weren't very many people with good fps skills playing (haven't played in 2-3 months though).

[Dark 0men]

It seems like this game attracted more of a mmo crowd. I noticed there weren't very many people with good fps skills playing (haven't played in 2-3 months though).
That's because the damage model is straight out of WoW. You can't accidentally half the enemy team in five seconds like you would in an FPS. DPS and healing scale much more with number of dudes in the room than with individual skill.

Want to bet T:A and T:U will have medics and won't have instagib mine-disking?

[sinergistic]

No, it isn't because the damage model is straight out of wow.

They deliberately toned down damage in order to encourage and reward teamwork. Having played it 'competitively' - read, 'top-tier' AvA with SHC (who had a good team by the end, before devs went bonkers) and Legendary (First euro forge, despite having to deal with vehicles with 10x a teams HP) - I believe I can say that was in fact the case.

There was plenty of room for people do awesome FPS game stuff (landing that perfect shot to finish the beacon carrier, etc), while preventing one guy from soloing an entire room because he twitches faster. In the end, I think their system was way more fun (with an organized team) than the typical FPS insta-gib version.

[Jester]

They deliberately toned down damage in order to encourage and reward teamwork.
Agreed. Teamwork is strongly rewarded in the game as it exists today, even down to the rewards for successful PvP and PvE missions.


...before devs went bonkers...
Curious what this means? I've only been playing this game for a few weeks, so I have zero sense of the history, though from reading chat channels, I take it there was some kind of massive nerf to the structure of the game as it existed a year or so ago?

[Dark 0men]

No, it isn't because the damage model is straight out of wow.

They deliberately toned down damage in order to encourage and reward teamwork.
:lol: :lol:
That's the essence of elves-and-dragons MMO combat. Tone down the importance of positioning, aiming and prediction, and reward more dudes shooting the same target. It's a kind of teamwork, but it's a boring, self-defeating kind.

I'm not a raging teenage Quaek 3 fiend with youthful reflexes, but "twenty fat men hitting each other with popsicle sticks" isn't my idea of good times.

[Jester]

That's the essence of elves-and-dragons MMO combat. Tone down the importance of positioning, aiming and prediction, and reward more dudes shooting the same target. It's a kind of teamwork, but it's a boring, self-defeating kind.
I assume you're talking mostly about PvE. And actually, in my experience, GA is quite quite good in this regard. The AI is really well done. Overwhelmed enemies just run away, and the higher end ones run away using cover, zig-zag back and forth to avoid fire, or deliberately run behind weaker units to use them as meat shields. The AI also routinely tries to turn an advancing group's flank, and if the AI exposes a weak point, you can watch the AI shift its assets to exploit that weakness. It also does a fantastic job of covering weak units behind stronger units. You can watch the weaker units stop (usually in cover, and usually crouching) to wait for stronger blockers to move in first.

I got to see this happen during a 10-person raid the other night. The raid took place in and around a T-shaped building we were defending, with AI attacks happening on both ends of the top of the "T". Three of our robotics had strongly reinforced one side of the top of the T with turrets while the rest of us were on the opposite side. But a particularly strong unit (called a Guardian) managed some lucky AOE shots that destroyed those turrets. While the AI had the rest of us distracted on the other side of the "T" with a large attack, most of the additional troops moving to reinforce our side instead swung around the top of the "T" to attack the undefended side. By the time we got over there, a Zerg-like rush of units was pouring into the gap behind a trio of grenade-throwing units that wiped out most of our assaults and one of their supporting medics. The remaining medics (I was one) could do nothing with our weak weapons but fall back and watch the AI advance. By the time the assaults respawned, the objective we were defending had fallen.

It was pretty cool, in a horrifying way. ;)

Better teamwork, positioning, and prediction on our part would have prevented it, and the number of units we had firing on this or that individual AI unit had nothing to do with it.

[Dark 0men]

That's the essence of elves-and-dragons MMO combat. Tone down the importance of positioning, aiming and prediction, and reward more dudes shooting the same target. It's a kind of teamwork, but it's a boring, self-defeating kind.
I assume you're talking mostly about PvE.
No, I am not :) PvP time-to-kill in Global Agenda is about twice higher than I find entertaining. A order of magnitude higher if medics are involved.

Did they buff dome defense missions? When I played them a few months ago, you just needed to have not-entirely-retarded teammates. An auto-matched group is likely to have 4 recons and fail miserably at everything. Medic protip: if you can't keep an assault up, they 1) went with a retarded spec (ie not full tank + 3 in minigun damage) and/or 2) don't know when to back off and let you recharge.

[Mike deVoid]

Will probably give this game a try. I scoped it a few years ago, and their version of Free-To-Play seems fair enough.

[Jester]

I assume you're talking mostly about PvE.
No, I am not :) PvP time-to-kill in Global Agenda is about twice higher than I find entertaining. A order of magnitude higher if medics are involved.
Hm. I'm not noticing that. A lot of the good PvP agencies and their players have no problem racking up kills quickly and they use good teamwork to do it. I'm not in an agency myself yet, but thanks to my being thrown into battles by the game's PvP matching, I've found myself on both the receiving end and the contributing end of such treatment. ;) From what I've seen so far, a 5-man team seems to be popular for establishing beach-heads in breach missions, for instance: a point assault (tank fit), a DPS assault and a bomber recon behind him, and then a sniper recon and a healing medic behind them. Once the beachhead is established, a robo comes in and solidifies it with stations and a turret. The tactic doesn't work without significant teamwork behind it.


Did they buff dome defense missions? When I played them a few months ago, you just needed to have not-entirely-retarded teammates. An auto-matched group is likely to have 4 recons and fail miserably at everything.
I can't speak to the game's history; I've only been playing it a few weeks. But the dome defense raids I've been on have required significantly more than simply not-retarded teammates. As I said, the AI is surprisingly good. The 10-person raids I've been on (again, just me being matched with others by the game) have typically been 1-3 assaults, 3 robos, 2-3 recons, and 2-3 medics. However, you are right that there are an over-abundance of recons (particularly sniper recons) playing the game.

[Spaztick]

That's the essence of elves-and-dragons MMO combat. Tone down the importance of positioning, aiming and prediction, and reward more dudes shooting the same target. It's a kind of teamwork, but it's a boring, self-defeating kind.
I assume you're talking mostly about PvE. And actually, in my experience, GA is quite quite good in this regard. The AI is really well done. Overwhelmed enemies just run away, and the higher end ones run away using cover, zig-zag back and forth to avoid fire, or deliberately run behind weaker units to use them as meat shields. The AI also routinely tries to turn an advancing group's flank, and if the AI exposes a weak point, you can watch the AI shift its assets to exploit that weakness. It also does a fantastic job of covering weak units behind stronger units. You can watch the weaker units stop (usually in cover, and usually crouching) to wait for stronger blockers to move in first.

I got to see this happen during a 10-person raid the other night. The raid took place in and around a T-shaped building we were defending, with AI attacks happening on both ends of the top of the "T". Three of our robotics had strongly reinforced one side of the top of the T with turrets while the rest of us were on the opposite side. But a particularly strong unit (called a Guardian) managed some lucky AOE shots that destroyed those turrets. While the AI had the rest of us distracted on the other side of the "T" with a large attack, most of the additional troops moving to reinforce our side instead swung around the top of the "T" to attack the undefended side. By the time we got over there, a Zerg-like rush of units was pouring into the gap behind a trio of grenade-throwing units that wiped out most of our assaults and one of their supporting medics. The remaining medics (I was one) could do nothing with our weak weapons but fall back and watch the AI advance. By the time the assaults respawned, the objective we were defending had fallen.

It was pretty cool, in a horrifying way. ;)

Better teamwork, positioning, and prediction on our part would have prevented it, and the number of units we had firing on this or that individual AI unit had nothing to do with it.
I never really noticed that, but I was a snipercon killing shit so quick it couldn't run.

[sinergistic]

:lol: :lol:
That's the essence of elves-and-dragons MMO combat. Tone down the importance of positioning, aiming and prediction, and reward more dudes shooting the same target. It's a kind of teamwork, but it's a boring, self-defeating kind.

I'm not a raging teenage Quaek 3 fiend with youthful reflexes, but "twenty fat men hitting each other with popsicle sticks" isn't my idea of good times.

Other people have responded, but that is exactly what it isn't, at least it didn't use to be. Granted, the solo queue pvp stuff was godawful, but AvA was anything but people hitting other people with Popsicle sticks.

First up, positioning was super important. Your team needed to be a cohesive unit that moved as one mass of players. Too tightly knit and enemy nades and the token AoE assault would eat you alive. Not tightly knit enough, and enemy assaults would have a field day chasing down and corning medics. Body blocking was a medics best friend when it came to staying alive. As a good medic, you'd have to be able to predict if you were going to end up in a bad spot, and do everything you could to avoid getting into said bad spot. You should only really be taking fire from the enemy team when you're already moving to avoid that fire. Add to that the logistics of trying to keep the positions of eight (recon doesn't really count here) other people in your head, and keep FoV to them despite obstacles, and you have a recipe for disaster if good positioning doesn't exist in the team. Often times a medic would have to choose between being in a good but exposed spot to heal the team, and being in a safe spot but not being able to heal everyone. Then you have the medic meta game of timing boosts and abilities, managing power between the beam and the jetpack, juking recons, assaults and robos, avoiding turrets and grenades, yatta yatta.

As a good assault, you had to be able to manage a bunch of things. First and foremost was power; assaults never had enough of it. Then you needed to keep track of their assault buddies, the entire enemy team, watch for enemy turrets, be able to single out the enemy medics and go for the targets they could kill. Often times the only thing that would land a killing blow on a medic was a well placed conc nade which did about a 1000 damage upfront on contact. The assaults I played with were constantly lobing nades and hitting people mid air. That doesn't even begin to take into the fact that every shot count as an assault. Even a couple missed shots could make the difference between a medic dying and getting away. Good assaults also kept track of where their medics were, were a safe place to fall back to was for heals, how the flow of the fight was going, and so on.

Good robos relied on positioning more than any other class in the game, and quite a bit of subterfuge. I didn't play robo much, but I can tell you about the good ones, because the good ones were a royal pain the ass. Imagine the enemy assault/medic bundle dropping on you. Nades fly, people get low, it's one of the most dangerous times in a fight, because everyone has all their goodies at their disposable. A bad robo drops in with the bundle and immediately starts setting up a turret in plain view. These turrets are usually killed right away, before they can deploy. A good robo drops shortly after the bundle, or drops from someplace else entirely, and sets up a turret behind or to the side of the enemy a few seconds after the fighting as started. They'd have a better chance of setting it up then, because the assault power was likely low, and the team as a whole is likely focused elsewhere. These kinds of turrets MURDER teams.

And by far one of the biggest displays of aiming. prediction and positioning is the recon/beacon carrier cat and mouse game. Both players are having to predict what the other is doing, and the recon has to be able to hit a juking robo who, if they where good, wouldn't be exposing themselves to fire to much.

I'd go into all the aiming, prediction and positioning a good recon needed in order to survive, let alone be effective, but this post is already growing far longer then I meant it to be. I'm not sure why I'm even defending the game, since i quit playing after hirez fucked over the euro ava zones and ava in general.

[Jester]

i quit playing after hirez fucked over the euro ava zones and ava in general.
That's twice you've said that. Can you explain in a little more detail? I'm honestly curious.

[cullnean]

played some yesterday, really enjoyed it,

did some of the 4 man instances, chain gunning assault crew checking in, tempted to go elite

[Haffrage]

playing drone robo for about a day was the best fun I've had in a third person anything, ever

and then that next patch hit :facepalm: I can't even remember what it was that fucked me off so much, must be blocking it from my memory

[Hels]

Suppose I could pick this up when I get to Japan. Did want to try it, but only right when everyone started raging at it.

[cullnean]

is it worth me setting an Agency up?

suggest names.

also is it eu/us or all in together?

[Forever Calzone]

is it worth me setting an Agency up?

suggest names.

also is it eu/us or all in together?

For like 5 people? :derper:

The population of this game is tiny don't even get me started on AVA.

Can't see much has really changed just that there is a hell of a lot less people playing now and some new bugs are floating around and that AvA is literally fucking dead. Oh and lolepics are everywhere seriously next time I see a recon with that stupid fucking sword I'll beat them.

For a simple dick about the games a good laugh but it really has lost a lot and degraded horribly compared to what it had on release and what was planned for it.

[cullnean]

tried some pvp at lvl 10, came second on our team :obama:

recon fuck yeah, there are some poor player out there.