Support NeoGAF

[ElBoxyBrown]

Man, this game's medic class (the mushroom-headed guy) is so hard to play. Because of all the particle spam, it's really hard to tell who you're healing. In addition, your basic attack and poison grenade both seem really weak. I normally love playing medics in games, but here it just doesn't feel good at all.

It's the exact opposite for me. I get 10 kills on average with Miko with 2 to 4 deaths. You have to know when to retreat and use your poison bombs to limit other player's movements. Miko's healing does need a buff cuz healing your teammates is really slow and half the time they die as I'm trying to heal them. As for your attacks you get the most out of them when your picking off players with close to low health. Focus your upgrades on your attacks cuz poisons from the bomb, mushroom hat, and kunai knives all add up and you'll basically be commanding the battlefield. Remember to defend your mushroom hat cuz it heals you as you stay close to it and use your self heal ability as you move to attack so you have constant regenerating health for a couple of seconds. Healing your teammates also regenerates health. But always stay back close to your base and never try to be the first one to push. Miko is fast so whenever a player is about to close-in on you and finish you off just run back.

 

[Turin Turambar]

Server went down.

 

[Unicorn]

Server went down.

Wow. went down just after a game ended; didn't get to see the post-game stuff but i'm surprised I was able to finish that match.

Shayne and Aurox got me so many more kills instead of the witch girl.

 

[Chronospherics]

Yes it is. I was there at the beginning when Team Fortress came out (the original mod). I've played many 'clones' (these were quake / Unreal mods)

We've always called these Team Fortress games

Being the first class based game (that you played) does not make it the genre label. Crash Team Racing isn't in the 'Mario Kart' genre, Mortal Kombat isn't in the 'Street Fighter' genre, and MOBAs aren't in the Future Cop LAPD genre.

In regards to the genre origins, you could probably pinpoint it down closer than the original Team Fortress, if I recall there were simple mods for the original Dooms multiplayer which allowed you to select weapons on spawn. That asymetrical multiplayer type of game clearly spawned sooner than the original Team Fortress. There were also mods for things like playing as monsters.

Even games I used to play all the time, like Forsaken (released one year before TFClassic), had very class orientated multiplayer with a character selection system and unique character properties. TF2 certainly popularised that type of game but it still doesn't make sense to label the genre after it.

I get that the label might make sense to you or your friends though, but it's not the name of the genre that these games occupy, whichever way you look at it. Calling it a teamfortress-like game would be fair, but very different to saying it's a game in the team fortress genre.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Having real issues with the visual and audio clarity of this game. Perhaps doing a little too much in the colorful explosions. Or maybe they aren't distinct enough from one another. I'm not sure. But when there's a lot of explosions going on it is very difficult to, for example, discern whether or not you're hitting a given target with your bullets or arrows from range. So many things block your vision and the limited visual and audio queues the game seems to have.

It's strange to me I suppose because it's not an issue I can recall having in many FPS games I've played in the last decade. TF2 certainly doesn't have this issue. Overwatch didn't have this issue either last time I tried it in Open Beta. Sometimes it doesn't even feel especially clear who is on your team, though that probably would come with more reps. Visual and audio clarity, however, are big deals for me. If I can't tell with a level of confidence that my shots are hitting a target with visual confirmation AND if I can't hear the hit soundfx because other explosions and shit are drowning them out...I consider these reasons to not buy a game.

As a long-time Borderlands 2 player, it puzzles me that Borderlands visual clarity is anything but ambiguous but this is hard to work with.

 

[Matty8787]

Not sure how I feel about this one...

Only had a go on the first story mission and while it was ok, it didn't really grab me! Do we expect an Overwatch beta?

 

[WinFonda]

Yeah, I think the biggest issue with Battleborn are in the technical details; the choppy framerate and some minor bugs. It's not unplayable, but it is noticeable, and in a game with an almost entirely competitive slant - that's not ideal. If they can get the framerate rock solid on consoles the game would be easily recommendable to anyone who likes FPS games or mobas. It has some very well thought out mechanics, modes, and character classes.

There's quite a bit of depth and learning curve to it though, so they need proper tutorials. A lot of people I've played with don't even understand the basic concept of clearing minion waves. Seems many people just load into the match and want to go straight to hero brawling, and Battleborn does not actively punish that with towers -- which is fine! but it has a much more passive punishment where if you have teammates who're just constantly pushing into enemy territory to hero fight and not minding the waves, even if they get kills, they can still end up really far behind by not wave clearing. In a game like Battleborn where the minions can be pretty beefy and require the efforts of more than 1 person, it's doubly important that concept is understood. I'd like the tutorials to focus on the material gains of the various map objectives.

 

[Unicorn]

Seems to be back up.

I wish while queuing up I could work in my inventory/gear/characters. Let me review/edit while waiting

 

[donnaben]

Yeah, I think the biggest issue with Battleborn are in the technical details; the choppy framerate and some minor bugs. It's not unplayable, but it is noticeable, and in a game with an almost entirely competitive slant - that's not ideal. If they can get the framerate rock solid on consoles the game would be easily recommendable to anyone who likes FPS games or mobas. It has some very well thought out mechanics, modes, and character classes.

There's quite a bit of depth and learning curve to it though, so they need proper tutorials. A lot of people I've played with don't even understand the basic concept of clearing minion waves. Seems many people just load into the match and want to go straight to hero brawling, and Battleborn does not actively punish that with towers -- which is fine! but it has a much more passive punishment where if you have teammates who're just constantly pushing into enemy territory to hero fight and not minding the waves, even if they get kills, they can still end up really far behind by not wave clearing. In a game like Battleborn where the minions can be pretty beefy and require the efforts of more than 1 person, it's doubly important that concept is understood. I'd like the tutorials to focus on the material gains of the various map objectives.

Agreed on all points.

 

[gypsygib]

It's impossible for me to join a game. I haven't been able to play a single match in any game mode.

 

[Justice_Bolt]

Seems to be back up.

I wish while queuing up I could work in my inventory/gear/characters. Let me review/edit while waiting

Yup. That would be great!

 

[Unicorn]

I think the largest readability complaint I have now is that it's hard to see what teammates are doing on the map. It's a local map, not arena map, so respawning I have no idea where bot lanes are at or where my teammates are exactly or what they're doing. the particle effects may be distracting, but the local map helps mitigate that.


Ugh, play people. trying to squeeze one more match in before I have to go to work. 5/10 for dayzzzz

Is it down again!?

 

[Trigonx]

Seems to be back up.

I wish while queuing up I could work in my inventory/gear/characters. Let me review/edit while waiting

I thought you could, on PC at least. Yeah on PC you can do all that stuff while in queue

 

[Unicorn]

I thought you could, on PC at least.

I try to go to those menus and it asks if I want to quit out of matchmaking.

Nevermind it works!

 

[patchday]

Anyone know how to get a scoreboard to show up during gameplay so you can see your KDA?

Calling it a teamfortress-like game would be fair, but very different to saying it's a game in the team fortress genre.

yeah to get to the point usually press calls these "Class based shooter genre" types of games. Although Overwatch bends that rule- thus making it along the lines of tf2

Actually everyone just calls these games "Hero shooters" now

 

[Unicorn]

Let's all pour one out for Super Monday Night Combat.

 

[Turin Turambar]

Wow. went down just after a game ended; didn't get to see the post-game stuff but i'm surprised I was able to finish that match.

Shayne and Aurox got me so many more kills instead of the witch girl.

Same happened to me. I'm sure the server went down in the middle of a match, but our client didn't connect to it until the end of the game, to send the match info and stats.

 

[Xevren]

Anyone know how to get a scoreboard to show up during gameplay so you can see your KDA?



yeah to get to the point usually press calls these "Class based shooter genre" types of games. Although Overwatch bends that rule- thus making it along the lines of tf2

Actually everyone just calls these games "Hero shooters" now

On ps4 you hold down the touchpad to bring up the scoreboard, not sure what it is on the others.

 

[patchday]

Thought I tried that one when I played the ps4 ver. guess not. Thanks!

 

[Unicorn]

I really need to figure out how the fuck mercenaries work. Seems to be the deciding factor.

Small bots seems so inconsequential. In SMNC you really needed to be on your bot game, but this seems to really focus heavily on mercs.

Also, I think enemy team taking over your turrets and facilities makes comebacks impossible. Especially getting the heal orb next to the second tier bot. Like, how the fuck are you supposed to come back from that?

 

[Trigonx]

I really need to figure out how the fuck mercenaries work. Seems to be the deciding factor.

Small bots seems so inconsequential. In SMNC you really needed to be on your bot game, but this seems to really focus heavily on mercs.

Also, I think enemy team taking over your turrets and facilities makes comebacks impossible. Especially getting the heal orb next to the second tier bot. Like, how the fuck are you supposed to come back from that?

When neutral mercs are up, you kill em, stand on the circle and get mercs on your side. You can tell they are ready by a symbol on the map right over the circle you stand on(they are usually ready when the thrall are just standing there).

They can be a huge factor, you can get the camp near your spawn, then quickly get the one in the middle and you'll have 3 merc up for your team. If you get the push going and the enemy camp is still untouched, you can get that one and have 4 mercs at one time.


edit: on a different note, my first few games I would quickly pick my character but now I wait to see what my team picks because if no one grabs a support character, I will. The difference between a game with people knowing what to do with the thrall encampments and a game where they run around like it's a deathmatch is insane. Earlier this morning I had a game with people who used their mics and played as a team we kicked ass, we had 42 kills to only 10 deaths and won 100-0. Where my previous game we lost 50-51 because my team except for one guy and me knew about the thrall encampments.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

hot fix in

El Dragon, Ambra, and a few others toned down

https://gearboxsoftware.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/210007213-PC-Update-Hot-fix-Information

The one time I actually came up against A Dragón he was destroying everything, backed up by Ambra. I'm good with this

 

[Special C]

After the beta, my hype took a 180 from Overwatch. Love it

 

[Chubzdoomer]

It's the exact opposite for me. I get 10 kills on average with Miko with 2 to 4 deaths. You have to know when to retreat and use your poison bombs to limit other player's movements. Miko's healing does need a buff cuz healing your teammates is really slow and half the time they die as I'm trying to heal them. As for your attacks you get the most out of them when your picking off players with close to low health. Focus your upgrades on your attacks cuz poisons from the bomb, mushroom hat, and kunai knives all add up and you'll basically be commanding the battlefield. Remember to defend your mushroom hat cuz it heals you as you stay close to it and use your self heal ability as you move to attack so you have constant regenerating health for a couple of seconds. Healing your teammates also regenerates health. But always stay back close to your base and never try to be the first one to push. Miko is fast so whenever a player is about to close-in on you and finish you off just run back.

Thanks for the tips!

 

[Glass Shark]

I didn't expect it to happen thanks to this game's fusion of genres, but just like every other MOBA, all Battleborn does is make me want to play Dota.

 

[Chubzdoomer]

I didn't expect it to happen thanks to this game's fusion of genres, but just like every other MOBA, all Battleborn does is make me want to play Dota.

Even Heroes of the Storm!?

 

[patchday]

I didn't expect it to happen thanks to this game's fusion of genres, but just like every other MOBA, all Battleborn does is make me want to play Dota.

Funny since this game isn't technically a MOBA (as far as Gearbox is advertising it). Guess any game makes you want to return to Dota

 

[spatenfloot]

Tried out Montana, Miko, Orendi and Oscar Mike. The only one I didn't like was Orendi as I had trouble not getting murdered while placing the pillars. Just didn't flow for me.

Try changing the abilities setting to "quick". That way a single button press will put down a pillar or hold it down for precise placement.

 

[Chronospherics]

Funny since this game isn't technically a MOBA (as far as Gearbox is advertising it). Guess any game makes you want to return to Dota

I feel as though MOBA is a really crappy genre label anyway to be honest.

Multiplayer online battle arena, it really doesn't mean anything meaningful semantically relative to the genre it poses to represent and that's why it causes issues with what is and isn't a member of the genre. In my opinion the gameplay experience a game offers should be clearly defined by the label itself, representing the core gameplay mechanic. Platformers are platformers because you jump around a lot, racing is racing because you race around, moba on the other hand doesn't provide much clarity on the gameplay on offer. This is why not even Gearbox know if their game is a moba or not.

On paper, I would say Battleborn has the characteristics that the MOBA genre claim as inherent to their games, like AI interaction, lanes, and hero characters. Although lacking towers and itemisation, it's clearly derived from that same type of game. If Future Cop LAPD is a MOBA then Battleborn definitely fits that same vague definition.

I think 'Multiplayer Action RPG' best suits the 'MOBA' genre, and I guess 'Multiplayer First Person Shooter' best suits battleborn. I feel as though the core gameplay mechanics should be the primary determinant of genre categorisation, and at their core, DoTa plays like an action RPG, and Battleborn like a shooter. The strategic elements then surround that, but they're what you get out of the experience at a basic level. Though perhaps with melee classes considered too 'multiplayer first person action' is a better description.

You can put competitive on the front of those genre labels if that adds clarity on what the games do with the multiplayer aspect, but yeah, in general I think MOBA is one of the worst genre labels out there. I also think the fact that 'adventure' game means 'point and click' is really silly also.

That's just my opinion though, I'm aware that's not the convention.

 

[Xevren]

Already thought Kleese was pretty good before, but now he can do some damage too so wohoo! Just wish he wasn't so big.

 

[patchday]

Just spent 75 mins on PC version. The wider FOV and smoother framerate helped make the game more fun to play I must say over the ps4 version

Funny, RNG granted my hero different items there

 

[Chronospherics]

What do people think of Thorn? I think she's really good. I'm up at 150 kills 32 deaths with her now. Which is decent, I think!

She's my main character, second to Orendi, but I struggle to land Orendi's powers sometimes.

---

Edit: Just met a guy who is level 100 on the beta, what the hell?

 

[Unicorn]

Developer, maybe?

 

[spatenfloot]

Some people just play a lot. I had a guy at lvl 71 on the opposing team today.

 

[Bumblebeetuna]

Just started using Oscar Mike today, loving it. So I have used OM, Montana, the robot sniper, ISIC or whatever, and El Chapo or whoever the wrestler is. I have thoroughly enjoyed all of them but the wrestler. Game has went from an unknown to day one buy in my book.

Still wanna unlock Ghalt. Went against him once, his kit looks so fun.

 

[Xevren]

Tonight was not my night, had some of the worst teams. RIP

 

[JHoNNy1OoO]

Just spent 75 mins on PC version. The wider FOV and smoother framerate helped make the game more fun to play I must say over the ps4 version

Funny, RNG granted my hero different items there

Yeah RNG is the one thing that is still turning me off from this. I just don't like how it is implemented. It just feels like something thrown in there to create a carrot on a stick. One change that would go a long way would be if you could select your loadout after you see who the enemy team has picked or if you could just swap it whenever you want during the match but obviously at the cost of having to gather more shards to activate the new items.

Sometimes as a melee character I would like more damage reduction since there are more enemy ranged characters and other times I'd feel completely fine going with more attack damage/movement speed. Right now I feel like the game would be better off without it.

 

[Chronospherics]

Developer, maybe?

His name is ooMoBoo, that's a trash tier name for a dev.

 

[Massive Duck. C.M.]

I've seen some 60s on PS4 but not much higher. 100 is crazy lol

 

[patchday]

Yeah RNG is the one thing that is still turning me off from this. I just don't like how it is implemented. It just feels like something thrown in there to create a carrot on a stick. One change that would go a long way would be if you could select your loadout after you see who the enemy team has picked or if you could just swap it whenever you want during the match but obviously at the cost of having to gather more shards to activate the new items.

Sometimes as a melee character I would like more damage reduction since there are more enemy ranged characters and other times I'd feel completely fine going with more attack damage/movement speed. Right now I feel like the game would be better off without it.

yeah picking loot before the match is pretty ridiculous

 

[callsignkrogan]

I was pleasantly surprised on how much fun I had playing the game. However, over watch still has me more excited for it. I did experience some choppiness as a few others have said but it is a beta.

 

[Unicorn]

God. I'm buying mercs but other players aren't catching on.

I don't know if it's that bots are almost inconsequential thanks to Mercs just being too good of an option and also being able to be respawn/rehired too quickly, or if player damage and combat just outfavors any sort of lane push.

This ain't SMNC and it's fucking me up because I can't find where to put my efforts. Also I can't seem to kill mushroom dude or anyone he's buffing at all as shayne and aurox.

 

[Remmy2112]

God. I'm buying mercs but other players aren't catching on.

I don't know if it's that bots are almost inconsequential thanks to Mercs just being too good of an option and also being able to be respawn/rehired too quickly, or if player damage and combat just outfavors any sort of lane push.

This ain't SMNC and it's fucking me up because I can't find where to put my efforts. Also I can't seem to kill mushroom dude or anyone he's buffing at all as shayne and aurox.

What character are you playing as? Some characters are great at taking certain others out, some are not. I prefer to play as Oscar Mike and, so far, there is no character I have encountered that I can't eventually take down, if I adapt myself to the circumstances. Against Miko, as Oscar Mike, I have to go for headshots. Really against any character if you can consistently go for headshots for critical hits Oscar Mike can burn them down amazingly fast.

As for what to do, in Meltdown I like to build turrets, accelerators, and supply beacons. Spend your extra shards on these and upgrade them. Sure they might get taken out, but if they are ignored by enemy players they will really help drive up the score. Play the objective first and foremost. If you can kill other players, do so, but annihilate those minions.

Edit: Totally missed that you said what character you were. I don't know who him/her and demon dude play.

 

[KeyChainDude]

Ok, played one match today and it was pretty chaotic, lots of fun. Could be more strategic but eh. If you treat it more like an ability-focused Borderlands it works a lot better.

 

[JHoNNy1OoO]

God. I'm buying mercs but other players aren't catching on.

I don't know if it's that bots are almost inconsequential thanks to Mercs just being too good of an option and also being able to be respawn/rehired too quickly, or if player damage and combat just outfavors any sort of lane push.

This ain't SMNC and it's fucking me up because I can't find where to put my efforts. Also I can't seem to kill mushroom dude or anyone he's buffing at all as shayne and aurox.

I assume you are talking about Incursion. Staying together as a group and pushing the lane is 100% more effective than anything else. Against a team that knows how to play they'll burn down whatever mercs and minions that you throw at them ASAP. I have almost single handedly won games by just focusing on minions while down 3v5 because the other team would just try and get kills instead of pushing the lane. While you can kinda sorta ignore minions during team fights, they do have the ability to screw up your movement and escape paths by surrounding you if you get aggro.

At the end of the day the number one priority is killing enemy minions(for xp and shards) and taking people out along the way. If you do that you will outlevel the majority of people currently playing and dominate them. The only time now that I bother with a merc camp is if I die and I get them going back to the front lines. Outside of that I spend 75% of my time killing minions and getting the center shards and spending them on buildables every single chance I have.

 

[Unicorn]

Yeah incursion. I feel mercs respawn time is too short too on as they get killed they should have a much longer cooldown timer.

 

[Odrion]

Played a co-op mission and a multiplayer match of that traditional moba mode.

Co-op mission was pretty dull aside from the bosses, which were okay. The multiplayer was chaotic and I was kinda understanding it but..

Maybe the game doesn't really do a good job of communicating itself? And alongside the bad FOV (that's still bad at max) it looses that clarity and battle awareness of a moba. It reminds me of doing a pub PVP match in WOW.

Also I hate the writing.

 

[patchday]

Hm, loot system kinda growing on me. I see they are randomizing the stats on the items. So even though I have multiple "cooldown reduction" items they all have different perks

Feels like they just couldn't let go of the Borderlands loot drops but tried hard to make it fit within the game. I guess it kinda works

Just have to stop thinking of this game as anything remotely like a traditional moba. You can't setup your inventory ingame to counter the opponents build. It's just a much simplier sort of game. I like it for what it is (but just won't take it seriously)

There's lot of Overwatch comparisons but I feel Overwatch is more geared towards a hardcore audience whereas you can counter your opponents team comp during the game and ranked mode will be there at launch, etc. While Battleborn is more of a laid back thing to have fun with.

 

[zedge]

This is a different game on PC. Enjoying it much more.

 

[patchday]

Yes, PC version just feels vastly superior. I enjoy it so much more even with a controller