Upon reading my post I realized it ended up being much bigger than I originally imagined it to be, so please bear with me here and try your very best to get through the entirety of it! Thank you in advance 🙂 Before I start this post I'd like to say that I am a returning MicroVolts player and have played it for countless hours just after it released in 2011 up until around 2016 when the game started to turn to what we know would eventually become it's demise. I had always enjoyed how intense it's mechanics are and how rewarding it felt once I started to grasp how the game worked and eventually became a good player myself. Even now, I took the time to play a considerable ammount of time in the last 3 days in order to write this post with some experience to back it up (My IGN is Miguel). In order to speak on what I feel like could be done about certain aspects of the game (keeping in mind these are not only my opinions, but also some from players I have seen in-game, have read posts from on the forums and have talked to privately), I would like to subdivide some of the things that exist in the game, with this post in particular containing only Characters, Weapons, Parts/Accessories and the Upgrade system. I will also directly mention some of the things that were said by some of the users in the forums, as I feel like it will help me deliver a better message and overall make a better post that will reflect the views of the community in general. 1. Characters As said before by Leo themselves on the forum, currently the characters stats' are all the same except for Simon who has had a different approach (although I feel like this is purely for the convenience of it as even before the game shutdown, he had no individual clothing pieces available). This is something that has been discussed a lot in the past and it comes in direct contact with how the Clothing/Accessories system works, which is something I will be touching down on later. As it stands, though, the majority of the MicroVolts community can agree that Bullet/Explosion armor or Speed/HP stats coming along with certain characters can sometimes feel unfair and could definetly affect how the game would be played competitively, as if one stands out over the others, everyone would just play that character alone and there wouldn't be an incentive to obtain/play the others. 2. Weapons Some might disagree with me on this but I really like the new approach that was given to the weapons by Masangsoft. Having different weapons serve different purposes will make it so that weapons have to be constantly changed in order to not allow some to be objectively better than others, which will in turn allow for the existence of different playstyles which coexist, keeping the game fresh forcing the developers to put in the extra balancing work (sorry not sorry, :P). 2.1. Melee : The Melee has always been an essencial part of the game as it is the tool that we use to run faster and swap our guns in between to make the in-game mechanics known as Swapping and Wave-stepping possible. Even though it wasn't always meant for close combat, it could always have been used to either camp a corner, jump on a opponent whilst sacrificing all other weapons to go for a cheesy kill or even just quickly finish someone we otherwise couldn't with other weapons, as there is a dead angle just under our character that is very hard to reach with, for example, a shotgun . This is a good mechanic that should be kept in the game as it allows for players to act as they wish with the weapons they choose. HOWEVER, the speed that the Melee weapons are currently giving is absurd. Characters feel like they're flying as we pick up the fastest melee and it completely affects the way not only playing normally feels (moving faster than expected while Swapping/Wave-stepping, to the point where it's a bit out of proportion), but also how certain gamemodes are affected by it, such as Capture The Battery or even Elimination (getting to certain spots way too fast and much more, something I definetly wouldn't mind expanding more on a future post). Given that, I will now expand on some ideas from the current Melee selection available: 2.1.1. The Chain Saw : The chainsaw is purposefully noisy so that people can't simply camp corners and always one shot someone else with the most powerful melee weapon. The Chain Saw one should always give you the slowest running speed with the tradeoff that it will certainly one-shot someone with a rightclick and have the biggest range possible, as it used to be in the original game. It also looks quite heavier than the rest of the bunch, so making it swing relatively slower than the rest could be something to look at (will speak on the swinging speed further ahead), although that's just an idea of mine. As for the skins, they should have the same type of indicators that the originals do: A skin for the chainsaw doesn't necessarily have to sound like the chainsaw, but could definitely have a warning sound. Furthermore, I don't know how possible this could be, but resizing the skins so they match the size of the originals could help with identifying what Melee weapons other players are using, making them more realistic rather than just a Steel Hammer skin with the size of a Lamppost visually, when the original is as small as a peanut. 2.1.2. The Steel Hammer : As it used to be before, the Steel Hammer used to have the smallest range of the bunch, lowest damage but with the tradeoff being the fastest running speed of all other variants. This should have stayed the way it had always been, as it doesn't make much sense that visually it's small, but has a wider range than the Chain Saw which is clearly much bigger. I think this might've just been a way for the Developers to test out some new stuff, so obviously I won't be touching on the subject as much for the other weapons, just thought it should be pointed out. 2.1.3 The Mad Wrench : This is where you can start to see how different playstyles make for a funner experience : up until now, the Mad Wrench had always been the "Middle child" of the bunch, as it looks good but never got any competitive use as it didn't deal much damage or give much run speed. By making it so that the running speed is slightly faster than it used to be and increase a bit of both the Primary and Secondary Power, you can easily create a weapon that will help finish off kills the Steel Hammer can't while also keeping it a viable option. 2.1.4 The Folding Shovel : If I'm gonna make a post, I can't forget about the basic weapons. These have always been the most useless of the bunch and have now been revamped to be as useful as the others are. I completely agree with this approach and would like to add that these SHOULD be the guns used in order to test out new stuff (For Eg. the driver right now shoots insanely fast, whereas it should've been kept the way it was before and the Zolo could have been the testing ground for that new mechanic in particular, more on that later). The Folding Shovel in particular? You could make it swing faster, allow players to jump higher... these are just some ideas off the top of my head. 2.2. Rifle : The rifles are one of the most popular weapons in the game. With good aim you can dish out high ammounts of damage from just about any range while being relatively mobile. There are different variants of rifles for different playstyles and I feel like these are the most balanced weapons in the game, although some tweaking could be done by listening to what the rest of the community has to say (there are a lot of conflicting opinions for everything so it comes down to what the developers deem right, it's their game after all). 2.3. Shotgun : As it currently stands, the shotguns are incredibly unbalanced. The truth is, even though these are close range weapons, we don't have a concrete idea of how distant players need to be from each other in order to reach the maximum damage output, as shooting with one most of the time feels like an rng based shot. Another problem that arose is how fast the Shotgun reloads as of now, which also applies to the Bazooka and Grenade launchers, something I will touch on later. That said, introducing the new driver is something I am very fond of, although like I said previously, these new playstyles should've been kept for the Basic weapons and not everyone is going to agree with me. 2.3.1 The KW-79 : This has always been the most popular yet fastest shotgun of all 3. The reason for this was that, as players, we could still deal a lot of damage, sometimes even get a 1-shot kill if from close enough, even if stats wise this variant wasn't as powerful as the others. The design literally just screams "I shoot fast!" and it just felt right the way it was. 2.3.2 The Bombard : Some users preffered the Bombard over the KW-79 simply because it dealt more damage although the trade-off was that it shot and swapped slower. This inspires more playstyles and it should be kept the way it has always been, a gun doesn't need to be particularly good to be popular, as the players will still pick on it if they enjoy the weapon as it is. 2.3.3 The Driver : This shotgun wasn't as used as the other two, but even then we saw players use it simply because of how menacing it could feel to be shot from a further distance than the other variants could and still be relatively Low-HP or get one-shot by it, which contrasts with the others. This was A-Okay, as The Driver shot really slowly and swapping to it took a long time and patience before a player could get to action. Again, this incentivizes different playstyles, something players CAN adapt to. "I certaintly wouldn't be engaging in close combat over and over again in a match with someone with a Driver after I died to them once or twice" THIS is what a player should think when learning the game, and not "That shotgun is useless so I can do whatever I want and someone with it could never kill me". 2.3.4 The Zolo : I feel like I've said everything there was to say about this gun in particular. I like the new idea that was introduced, where we can shoot 5 bullets incredibly fast but have to sacrifice our movement and speed in order to obtain that. It's a really good way to expand how we play the game and opens opportunities for new players to not just simply die over and over again without much counter-play, and could create really fun and inovating ways to play the game that we know so well. 2.4. Sniper : The sniper is a very touchy subject for me as I completely despise two things about it: getting one-shot from what feels like no counterplay and it being impossible for me to scope with it with such a low ADS sensivity and incredibly zoomed-in camera. For that reason, I will use some of the opinions from other players I have been in contact with and have seen speak out on it here in the forums. The way I and many others see it, snipers should be strong, feel rewarding to hit with, but not to the point where they kill anyone from just about ANY range. As of right now, some players can pre-aim quickscope with the sniper, and most experienced players who are used to how the ADS sensivity works in Microvolts are abusing this weapon and can completely dominate any match they get in. If people are complaining about not being able to change their ADS sensivity as it isn't available for now, making it so that they can't hit their sniper shots, what will happen when everyone is able to adjust the settings to their liking (hopefully this change is taken into consideration sooner than later)? With how strong this weapon is, it will certainly be a nightmare. 2.4.1 Different Sniper playstyles: In order to allow for different playstyles when it comes to the snipers, keeping them in a reasonable state where they're a good weapon but won't completely dominate every match they're used in, there has to be a change that allows players that want to kill with a shot from further distances (to hold a certain angle, for eg.), have to scope for a longer time with a certain variant (The Venom could be used for this intent) and the ones who want the quick-action quickscope deal less damage (either The Vast or the Sea Eagle could be the select variants), forcing them to follow up with a few rifle shots or even a combo of other guns. Mentioning numbers wouldn't be right as I feel that would upset a lot of players, and the balance has to be entirely decided by the dev team team alone, but I think you get the point of what I'm trying to say. This idea can and most likely will however get in conflict with some other aspects of the game, such as how character parts do end up working, which is something I will touch on later. 2.4.2 ADSing: I also would like to double down on the ADS part. I feel like as a mid-high sens player, I legitimately have never had to move 3 entire tables in order to hit a guy that's literally 1cm away from my scope. We need to be allowed to change how high or low we want the ADS multiplier to be. As for the zoom, I felt like the dev team made it look more zoomed-in to try and nerf the quickscope playstyle; this won't do, as most players, from my experience and by talking to some, pre-aim before shooting or simply have been playing with the game's sensivity for so long that it hardly ever makes a difference for them. Another very frustrating thing is the fact that sometimes quickscoping with certain sniper variants causes the player to deal little to no damage. A fix could for this issue could be instead of making the gun innacurate. I don't think I need to go into detail on this one though... I feel the devs should decide what they want to do about this. 2.5. Gatling Gun : With this new patch we, as players, have noticed that some of the gatling guns are definetly stronger than they used to be and this is a step in the right direction. Way back in the days, the "MG" was put as the noob weapon and was mostly useless throughout the existence of MicroVolts, simply because it took way too long to wind-up and didn't end up dealing much damage. It's also easy to know when someone is about to use a gatling gun because of how loud it is as it's close to shooting. However, the state that the Crank is in is the absolute opposite of what this game is about. It having relatively low positives to the ammount of negatives that the weapon provides makes it so useless it could never even fathom it being played by anyone. The same could be said about the other Gatling Guns, as even though they are slightly better, the damage output, movement speed (which should still be low, don't get me wrong here) and warm-up time are easily surpassed by the rest of the weapons that exist. IMO, a good fix for this (even though the Gatling Gun would still probably remain the less used of the bunch among the better players) is to allow warming-up to stay on even when swapping to other guns, which means that if done in the right time-frame, the player could still use the weapon even after swapping out of it as if it had never warmed off. This would allow for it to be used as a rifle that deals more damage up close, but makes the character move much slower while still allowing for other guns to be used in the meantiime, helping the newer players while bringing something fresh for the rest of the already existing playerbase. 2.6. Bazooka and Grenade Launcher Even though they have different uses, both of these weapons face relatively the same issues. They are way too spammable and deal way too much damage. I feel as of now they are very fun to clear certain angles or to simply combo opponents into a shotgun/rifle kill, but I do notice myself often going for bazooka/grenade launcher finishes because it's really easy to hit with them as they are almost undogeable if used right, which in turn ends up not being as skilful as for eg. hitting your shots with the rest of the arsenal. I obviously can't comment much on how they could be changed, as I did enjoy some of the changes done recently (for example, the hotdog upgraded on firing rate shoots really fast and can be really annoying but won't necessarily kill, which is something I really enjoy when combo-ing other players), but what I can say is: if a weapon has a LOW fire-rate, it has to be swapped and shot with accordingly. One of the problems with this new update arose after the Pound (before pocket-rocket) now shoots 2 bazookas and projects them so fast whilst dealing a ridiculous ammount of damage that it can become very frustrating. If only it were slower to shoot or swap to, it'd make sense as then players would know when and how to move around someone else using it. This same method can be applied to different playstyles, as other bazookas can and should shoot faster but deal less damage, or travel faster to cover certain spots before other players that aren't using those specific variants can. The same can be said about how wide the blast radius of the grenade launcher is, how many grenades someone should be able to throw at the same time or even how much damage can be dealt at once. These two are also going to be mentioned in the accessories part of this post, as they need to be discussed in order to help fight how obnoxious some weapons can feel over others 3. Reload Speeds As of now, weapons are reloading way too fast. I don't really have an issue with any weapon in particular, as obviously, for eg., using a rifle and reloading it instantly doesn't make it op. As for the Shotguns, Bazooka and Grenade Launchers... That's a whole different story. Being allowed to shoot 3 shotgun shots, swap to the bazooka, shoot once and then instantly going back to the shotgun makes you way too strong in a close range situation. Same thing applies to shooting 3 grenades really fast, reload in what seems like a blink of an eye and then shoot 3 grenades again... It just makes the game feel spammy rather than skilled. This applies to both swapping and non-swapping playstyles, as players won't keep in mind that there's a time and place for everything, and will instead just spam whatever comes to mind, reducing the skill-ceiling by a lot, and I'm sure many experienced players can agree with this. 4. Character parts and accessories There are two main narratives when it comes to the Character parts and accessories. Some players feel like allowing everyone to buy Speed/HP parts creates variety and allows everyone to choose how they wanna play. Others believe that with every character having the same stats, then there is no competitive advantage with choosing HP over speed and vice-versa. This is something that is entirely up to the dev team and our voice as a community on how it should be balanced. However, as said previously, allowing players to choose how much HP and Speed they desire, can and will affect how weapons are balanced, simply because then some variants and weapons in particular will be objectively much better than others. Personally, I feel like Snipers, Bazookas and Grenade launchers simply become much harder to balance this way. Acessories are a big part of this, too: As of right now, accessories allow players to choose from either stats to bullets for certain weapons. I don't believe accessories or pieces of clothing should be upgradable (more on that later), but I also don't enjoy the fact that accessories can allow for players to have more bullets on certain weapons. For eg., with having accessories that give both grenade and bazooka launchers more bullets, players can just simply spam as much as they'd like without having any care over how much ammo they're using. IMO, this creates an enormous confidence in spamming and also decreases the skill-ceiling of the game overall, making it much less enjoyable to everyone all around. Perhaps the problem could be this over the weapons in particular, but we're in a beta exactly to test how everything feels! 5. Weapon and Parts upgrades I'm pretty sure this was mentioned before in the official MicroVolts recharged post, but it has to be adressed further as it could definetly affect game balance and new player experience. Allowing players to choose what they want to upgrade on their weapons will further affect how the game is balanced. There is so much to worry about already and the game worked perfectly before weapon upgrades were even a thing, so why keep them? Even now, some players are complaining about certain upgrades, and I feel like instead of allowing upgrades, the weapons and variants should allow for different playstyles. I do agree, however, that having some sort of visual progression when it comes to upgrading weapons (for eg. MP weapons looking and shooting blue looks sick) is a plus, creating an incentive for the developers to keep the battery system going and allowing for players to upgrade whatever gun they desire. An issue that arose whilst thinking of this is that the capsule cosmetics wouldn't look "upgraded". This can easily be fixed by adding different pullout and shooting sounds, shooting colors and animations with each upgrade to these rare skins, making them feel that much more rewarding to obtain. I don't necessarily know about the animations, but I am at least sure that the rest of the examples I gave are achievable as I have seen modded versions of the game files before. High level upgrades used to also allow for weapons to glow. We as players should have a setting that allows us to choose whether we want or not our gun to glow, or if we want others to see our glowing weapons, as there is a competitive disadvantage to having upgraded glowing weapons (eg. PVC Factory window, if someone had a level 8-9 Sea Eagle, the glow could be seen through the wall which would give the position away and would kill any element of surprise. The parts and accessories upgrades should be scratched in my opinion. If weapon upgrades can already become a huge problem, I can't fathom how this would absolutely kill the experience for newer players. Imagine you being a level 0 newbie, with 2000 HP and 0 Speed, fighting an unkillable demon king, faster than an eagle with weapons that explode you in less than a second. Sound familiar? 🙂 This is it from me, for now Although I have many more ideas I'd like to discuss with everyone, there's a time and place for everything. I feel as of now I have said a lot of stuff already and I'd love to see how the community and dev team react to my post. I will be keeping in touch in the comments, so please feel free to show your opinions guys. If there's a time for that, that time is now. Please help in reviving the game we all love so much. Thanks for the patience! -Hyeouk