MAG

[RenegadeRocks]

Deleted my SVER Character and joined RAVEN. At least my character doesn't look like a rag-picker now ! LOL !
Had a nice sniper battle. But what is annoying is that evrytime SVER wins the battle.

 

[patsu]

Domination is the only mode that supports the full 256 players.

Well it is a pretty large building with 8 targets, so the platoons are spread out over them. But because your always attacking/defending the same target, which could easily be for 20 minutes, it's get a little repetitive near the end. Do Valor and SVER get to deal with incoming airstrikes on their final spawn points? I haven't really noticed that happening, but that might be because most squad leaders don't know how to call them in. Or Raven base get practically hammered into the ground by them. Most of the roofs between the central spawn points and the 8 targets are completely open. You can easily get killed right outside the spawn point. The camera before you respawn shows a small overview of the map near the spawn point. I've seen as much as 4 green smoke signals on it, signalling incoming airstrikes.

Ok, I think it may be because there are no (very few) squad leaders in my games. So airstrikes are far and few between.

Fat Princess is perhaps the best solution, padding with bots and allowing drop-in/out. This elliminates wait. Even if the game isn't great with lots of bots, it's infintely better than sat watching a static "Searching for players" screen!

I agree. They can also grow the battlefield in stages (64 -> 128 -> 256). But map design and on-the-fly expansion may be tricky. Heck, can they combine 2 on-going 64 player games into 128 halfway ^_^ (It's all server-based anyway) ?

Deleted my SVER Character and joined RAVEN. At least my character doesn't look like a rag-picker now ! LOL !
Had a nice sniper battle. But what is annoying is that evrytime SVER wins the battle.

Why no Valor love ?

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Will the final game also allow only one character to be created? Its a real bummer, I want to chk out all the factions.

@patsu: well, I didn't know you chose Valor. Someone mentioned RAVEN weapons r more precise , so I went for that (shrug)! In fact, I was expecting all the factions to be similar mostly, with cosmetic changes. Seems its not so and the faction descriptions don't really tell you much. Ithink they should let the player try out the factions before asking him to decide.
Anyways , its a beta.

 

[JardeL]

There is no way to get past SVER bunkers. They keep fixing the turret continuously and if you wanna kill that engineer you need to get close , aim well and throw a grenade. If you're lucky enough he's gonna die and you'll get a chance to get close. Then you need to plant bomb and blow up the bunker but defending team has another advantage ; respawn time. If a member of attacking team dies , he needs to run for 10-15 secs to arrive bunker again but defending team can respawn in even 2-3 secs. That's BS. So you're gonna die most of the time while planting the bomb.

Some of those bunkers are placed ridiculously. One of the attacker spawn point is in range of bunker's turret and if SVER soldier aims good enough, you'll die immediately after respawn.

MAG = SVER wins the battle , currently.

Oh , and giving orders to your squad as a squad leader is AWESOME!!!

 

[Cornsnake]

Yeah, on the SVER Domination map most oil towers are covered by 1 or 2 bunkers. Taking down the oil towers before the bunkers is nearly impossible. By comparison, on the Raven Domination map we can't even see the oil towers from our bunker.

In general I would say the oil towers on SVER are too easy to defend, while on Raven they are too easy to capture. Ideally I think they should make SVER more slightly more difficult to defend and Raven a little easier. That way the battle won't stay centered around the same targets for such a long time.

 

[patsu]

http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/12/mag-beta-ends-with-zipper-challenge-this-friday/

Beta to end this Friday.

I got to play the SVER map yesterday for the first time. We were deployed in an MPV to take over multiple bunkers and towers. That's the map you're talking about right ?

It is indeed a problem. We lost big time (Major Defeat). Basically, the bunkers and enemies would cut me down no matter which path I took. Is that why more people joined SVERs than Valors and Raven in the beta ?

 

[Cornsnake]

That's the one. It's a common complaint on the official MAG forums. So I'm pretty sure they'll fix it.

It's a shame they're going to end the beta before bringing back Acquisition. I would have liked to play that some more.

 

[patsu]

I sure hope so ! I played another round last night on another map.

It felt that the SVER team had a really good handle on the situation. No matter which route I took, they were everywhere. This was a map with a few empty, single storey, torn down warehouses (?).

Another major defeat. I'm missing something here. Since the game focuses on team work, it would be great if the system could tell me what happened in the last game. How exactly did we get out-menuveured so badly ? Were we out classed ? Who called in the artillery and air strikes ? Or were they more coordinated ? etc. etc.

It could help me improve my game

Spoiler

or just join the other side

EDIT:
Now that I think about it... a more interesting idea is for the leaders to update us on-the-fly. In Resistance 2, sometimes we were asked to assassinate a top scorer on the opposite team. So over here, if the game can tell me who's (or who are) causing us so much trouble, we could at least do something to make their lives miserable.

EDIT 2:
The other way is to update me about our strategic position when I am waiting to be respawned. Right now I play it like a normal FPS, which may be missing key gameplay elements.

 

[Cornsnake]

Chances are it's the same map. Each PMC has only 1 map per gamemode. But with the Domination being so huge, and the 256 players divided over squads of 8 with each their own starting point, it gets a bit hard to tell where in that massive battlefield you are.

The side effect of SVER's imbalanced maps means they'll win more, that leads to more XP, which leads to better unlocked skills sooner, and that again helps them win more. Basically the difference between the PMC's got bigger as the beta went on. And as soon as a PMC gets ahead in the fight over the contracts, they'll get to defend. So about 90% of all games got played on SVER's maps.

It never got this bad in earlier phases of the beta, and probably due to Domination only being available a few times then. Acquisition is a lot better balanced.

Squadleaders should keep you updated on what to do. Of course a lot of them can't because they haven't got a headset. The FRAGO's are there to show the squad their next objective, but there were also plenty of squad leaders that didn't know how to use them. Hopefully the full game has proper training missions for stuff like that.

Doing something against things that are giving you trouble usually involves blowing the correct objective. As an attacker keeping the defenders from bombarding you, requires you to blow up their mortars. To enable the forward spawn and your own airstrikes, you need to blow up their anti-air. More things a good squad leader should know to effectively fight the enemies.

I think they should give squad leaders the ability to set multiple FRAGO's. Right now they can set only 1, so there is only place that squad can get the XP bonus. And all mindlessly rushing towards that objective isn't necessarily the best way to complete it. For example, taking objective B on SVER Sabotage is a lot easier if you can also hold the far right wall where sniper like to defend B from. Setting an extra FRAGO on something that isn't a direct objective would let squad leaders communicate their tactics even without a headset.

Anyway, the beta is over now. I can't wait to see what improvements are made in the full game.

 

[patsu]

Chances are it's the same map. Each PMC has only 1 map per gamemode. But with the Domination being so huge, and the 256 players divided over squads of 8 with each their own starting point, it gets a bit hard to tell where in that massive battlefield you are.

...

I see. Thanks for clarifying.

Squadleaders should keep you updated on what to do. Of course a lot of them can't because they haven't got a headset. The FRAGO's are there to show the squad their next objective, but there were also plenty of squad leaders that didn't know how to use them. Hopefully the full game has proper training missions for stuff like that.

I was thinking the system should give a more detailed summary while I was waiting to be respawned. The MAG HUD is very useful in terms of who control what, and where the conflicts are. However, a historic view would be helpful too.

It may be asking for too much compared to past FPS games. However the unbalanced SVER map made me realize that there may be another dimension to FPS that developers can explore.

If the developers want us random players to work together, give us simple cue to make us arrive at the same conclusion. A lot of time I was out of touch with the rest of the folks because I didn't know what's going on. Even if I wanted to chat with other players, none of us had a good picture, or was convincing enough to lead others. So we went on our own businesses.

A few times, I ended up talking to people with troubled and young/squeaky voice.
Occasionally, I worked with people who really knew what they were doing. Essentially, they were shouting short but authoritative commands. In which case, I duely shut up and followed orders. If the PS3 targets 18 and above, teammates may want to know more before following.

Doing something against things that are giving you trouble usually involves blowing the correct objective. As an attacker keeping the defenders from bombarding you, requires you to blow up their mortars. To enable the forward spawn and your own airstrikes, you need to blow up their anti-air. More things a good squad leader should know to effectively fight the enemies.

I think they should give squad leaders the ability to set multiple FRAGO's. Right now they can set only 1, so there is only place that squad can get the XP bonus. And all mindlessly rushing towards that objective isn't necessarily the best way to complete it. For example, taking objective B on SVER Sabotage is a lot easier if you can also hold the far right wall where sniper like to defend B from. Setting an extra FRAGO on something that isn't a direct objective would let squad leaders communicate their tactics even without a headset.

Anyway, the beta is over now. I can't wait to see what improvements are made in the full game.

Ok... are you in US or EU ? The GAF folks, US and EU, play the latest and greatest, I can't keep up with them (They are too good and I don't play frequently enough to justify a clan position compared to the very avid players. ^_^). I like deep and lonely games more recently.

EDIT: I agree it would be very interesting to see what the developers' solutions are.

 

[patsu]

Open beta for everyone. No code needed:
http://blog.us.playstation.com/2009/12/mag-is-gold-beta-for-everyone-soon/

... you’ll be able to download the client in North America starting tomorrow, December 22! Additionally, PS3 owners in Asia can start downloading the file on December 25, while the European store will make it available on January 4. Check back for details on Japanese PSN store access in the near future.

Now that you know where to get the MAG Beta, your path to playing it is a simple three-step process:

1. Log on to the PlayStation Store (tomorrow) and download the MAG Beta file like you would any other freely-available PSN video or demo (298 MB)

2. Launch the MAG Beta program from your XMB to download a special patch that will restart MAG once the update has been received (another 38 MB)

3. After the reboot, the beta will reconnect and download the actual game data so that you can play (1.8 GB – 2.3 GB depending on your region)

 

[Cornsnake]

Not unimportant: You can't start playing before january 4, even if you download it earlier.

Hopefully they'll be smart enough to include the training missions this time around. Although 1.8 Gb is the same size as the last beta.

 

[patsu]

Hopefully they'll be smart enough to include the training missions this time around. Although 1.8 Gb is the same size as the last beta.

T_T Why do developers stab themselves ?

EDIT: Here's hoping the 38Mb update will include the training.

 

[2real4tv]

So the people who had the orginal beta will they need to re-download?

 

[Cornsnake]

So the people who had the orginal beta will they need to re-download?

We had to re-download the whole thing at the start of every phase of the beta. So probably yes.

It's going to be interesting to see if they have already made some changes from the feedback during the beta. Like balancing the maps.

 

[patsu]

Yes, I'm going to check out their changes too. Sadly, the 1.8Gb update is standing in the way.
Now at 29%...

 

[Cornsnake]

I'll have to wait until january 4th before I can even start downloading it. Basically I'll lose a days worth of playing it. At least outside of EU they're giving you a chance to download it early, so you can start playing on the 4th right away.

 

[patsu]

Bah ! I forgot about the Jan 4 start date.

 

[JardeL]

Why they don't let people to download entire 2GB data from PS Store? We would have a chance to download all in the background. In current situation we can't do anything except waiting for download to finish.

 

[patsu]

I sure hope this won't be the launch experience. I doubt they will get many beta testers. There are so many other entertainment options during the holiday season.

EDIT: I had to leave my PS3 running over Christmas (to complete the download) while we all left for the ski resort.