General Discussion

[TipicoDev 63]

Hi there!

First things first, a quick introduction. I'm TipicoDev, and I was part of the staff for MicroVolts on the South America version. I've played the game since the very first closed beta, on 2010.

Since I got a key for the closed beta on the second wave, I decided that I should try it and now I'll write down my conclusions, feedback and suggestions regarding specific closed beta changes, as well as general gameplay/ecosystem and suggestions to make the life of the new staff much easier (and that's why I'm not posting this on the CBT topic). Here we go, and sorry for the wall of text.

- Weapons

Honestly I'm a bit divided because of this. Yes, there were insanely unbalanced weapons in the game, and I'm really grateful that the team decided to change that. However, MV had very unique weapons, which were kinda special. For example, the red/pink AC-ME was one of the best shotguns in the game, but some players chose to use the Aqua Blaze, because it was a decent weapon and had nice design and sounds. Some players preferred picking Venom for the double zoom, and other players hated it. The Gold Rifle was one of the best rifles in the game, but players who had Silver/Black Rifles (which had a little less damage) used them simply because they were rare weapons. AK-47 was a terrible rifle because of the recoil, but players were using it because it was fun to use it once a month or so (and it had too much power, tbh).
What I'm trying to say here is that weapons were indeed unbalanced and need balancing, but quite a few weapons were unique not because of being overpowered, but because of other factors. In my opinion, keeping that uniqueness is essential to keep the "nostalgic" feeling the devs seem to be aiming for.

- Snipers

Not sure if it's because it's been a while since I last played, but I felt like the normal sniper zoom was increased, almost like the default value was the original Venom's zoom with 2x scope. If so, please revert it back to normal, and either leave the 2x zoom for Venom, or make it a global setting that you can turn on/off. Talking about settings, a few that would be nice to have:
1. Turn on/off the re-scope after a sniper shot;
2. Scoped-in sensibility;
3. (Room setting) Turn on/off the no-scoped damage on the Sniper Mode (just for fun).

- Weapon upgrades

Getting and upgrading weapons is part of the game's grind. I'm not sure if the closed beta was intentionally made easy to test the weapons, but having a single level for upgrading kills the grind towards upgrading your weapons. I'm not saying the old system was great, but having at least 5 levels should keep players engaged on a late-game goal. If you wanna keep the possibility to allow players to easily switch between upgrades, maybe add an item in the store for swaping the current upgrade on an item, but keeping the upgrade level. Also, bring back the glowing effects and make it toggleable by weapon or weapon type. Unfortunately, the glow gives away your location when you're holding a sniper on a wall for example, but I would love to have it on every other weapon. I'm still divided on clothings/sets/accessories upgrades, so I'll leave that for later.

- Game problems and cheaters

No matter what you do, there will be cheaters around. The best way to do with them is making their life harder. Since you're going with xigncode3, which isn't as bad as many people here are saying, make sure to get the latest version possible and have the heartbeat on. Having an active team looking for cheaters in-game and making good use of the internal tools is also really helpful, but that requires human work, and I'm not sure if there are enough resources available for that right now.
Since the game is now going for a competitive style, please consider adding a 1:1 observer mode where you can see the exact moviment of the player's camera, aim, etc, so people can record better clips of cheaters and report them. Replays also would be great (for reportings and highlights), but I get that this require much more work. Maybe for later on.

I also have identified a few critical game problems on the closed beta that could be exploited. Unfortunately, talking about it here would just spread the news for potentially abusers/hackers, so I'd rather report it on a private section on the forums, or using the ticket system. Having those fixed is essential before the game launches. (Devs, could you please take a look at the #1039329 ticket? Thanks!)

- Moderation suggestions

Add a menu for mods/gms to interact with the players inside a room, like kicking, muting and so on, even for players outside the match (like players using the inventory). This will make the life of the new staff much easier, mainly during events.

- Achievements

Add the in-game achievements on steam. That's it.

- Trade System

Considering items will be mostly cosmetics, I don't really think having the trade system is necessary. It was good for "changing" item stats, so trading a 1:1 speed item for a hp one, for example. But, if you ever bring it back, be sure to make ranked reward items or special event ones untradeable.

- Let the community decide

There are some things that just can't please everyone. But, you can let the majority of the players decide some updates/changes. For example, the new icons for the level. Some players prefer the old ones, some prefer the JP ones, others prefer the MW ones, and so on. Make a poll system in-game with some requirement to avoid bots (level/playtime) and present the icons available, and let the community vote on which one they prefer. This is just an example, and I don't think the community should be able to decide everything.

 

I think those are my main suggestions/feedback for now. I will be glad to discuss or dive into any of those, if needed.

[TipicoDev 63]

Unfortunately, I still haven't received any response from the staff... I just hope they are ready for a server rollback if the game gets released like that.

[The Emperor 13]

hopefully they use your experience as a part of the original game and being one of the most knowledgeable asset from that era 

And welcome to the new start 😄 

[desafinado56 358]

Hopefully theyll listen to us all and change the game to what it should have been, surge with removed bullshit.

[Volt 485]

2 hours ago, desafinado56 said:

Hopefully theyll listen to us all and change the game to what it should have been, surge with removed bullshit.

Most of my suggestions have been generally centered around this idea. I genuinely think the developers of MV Surge were genius, but were pushed to make the game as P2W as possible. If we just took what MV had, rebalanced some weapons, and removed unnecessary stuff like bullet/explosion armor, it could be so good.

[Sorel 171]

I agree with most of what you said, but not with the trade system not existing, ik creating a trade system takes resources but trading skin for skin is worth, just to keep that in mind. Highlight of ur coment for me is the rarity of the items and the very satisfying sounds of some wepons like tlaloc's tear and aqua blaze etc.

[007 82]

Answering at this time will leave hints that could lead to the changes they implement, which look undesired at the current state. The game manager's statements strongly support that conclusion. Also, if they constantly provide us with information about the changes, that will put the team in a dilemma if they get both positive and negative feedback.

We've waited for years. A couple more weeks should be endurable. Hopefully, we will be satisfied with the changes. 🙂

[desafinado56 358]

20 hours ago, Micro said:

Most of my suggestions have been generally centered around this idea. I genuinely think the developers of MV Surge were genius, but were pushed to make the game as P2W as possible. If we just took what MV had, rebalanced some weapons, and removed unnecessary stuff like bullet/explosion armor, it could be so good.

Exactly but the thing that the devs didnt seem to get about what made rt weapons better than mp ones wasnt their default stats it was the mix of them being a little better and far easier to upgrade, because if you put down a kw and an adv one at level 0 they would perform similarly, same thing at max level but in practice people who paid had their rt weapons amxed out while mp players had them at lvl 3 to 4 which made a huge difference.

[miwafoxl 23]

On 9/15/2022 at 11:40 PM, Tipico said:

Getting and upgrading weapons is part of the game's grind.

I'm not sure about that. The original MV was about grinding as well; It did work (?) but, personally, I don't think this system works nowadays. See, old players will always have the so called "good" weapons because they grinded for it, that makes sense. However, since the game doesn't have any sort of matchmaking, it will be a nightmare to new players to get this going. It is not fun to be killed over and over again not from skill issue, not because you are bad at aiming or using your weapons, it's because you haven't grinded yet, "foolish of you trying to have fun in MV without grinding!!!" New players will leave the game out of short-term frustation. Of course there is a lot of people to tell them along the way and there's also the tutorial gift boxes, still not very convenient either. I already sent suggestions about it making the weapons stats uniform here, don't think they will do it as the community is more over the opposite side (more authenticity from the original).

Edited October 2, 2022 by miwafoxl

[Volt 485]

2 hours ago, miwafoxl said:

I'm not sure about that. The original MV was about grinding as well; It did work (?) but, personally, I don't think this system works nowadays. See, old players will always have the so called "good" weapons because they grinded for it, that makes sense. However, since the game doesn't have any sort of matchmaking, it will be a nightmare to new players to get this going. It is not fun to be killed over and over again not from skill issue, not because you are bad at aiming or using your weapons, it's because you haven't grinded yet, "foolish of you trying to have fun in MV without grinding!!!" New players will leave the game out of short-term frustation. Of course there is a lot of people to tell them along the way and there's also the tutorial gift boxes, still not very convenient either. I already sent suggestions about it making the weapons stats uniform here, don't think they will do it as the community is more over the opposite side (more authenticity from the original).

I actually think he's quite right with that, though I think upgrading weapons wasn't very fair in the first place. We need something to replace that grind though because at least in the beta, I had full sets for 2 figures and 2 fully upgraded weapon sets within the first like day or two. There's gotta be something to make you want to play, some incentivization, though it doesn't have to be making your weapons just directly better than other players weapons.

[TipicoDev 63]

14 hours ago, SeaWasp said:

Answering at this time will leave hints that could lead to the changes they implement, which look undesired at the current state. The game manager's statements strongly support that conclusion. Also, if they constantly provide us with information about the changes, that will put the team in a dilemma if they get both positive and negative feedback.

We've waited for years. A couple more weeks should be endurable. Hopefully, we will be satisfied with the changes. 🙂

I don't really mind waiting, I even made a post telling people to chill out =P I was specifically referring to the "Game problems and cheaters" section of my original post, sorry if that wasn't clear. Unfortunately this isn't something that can wait for the release and be handled afterwards.

2 hours ago, miwafoxl said:

I'm not sure about that. The original MV was about grinding as well; It did work (?) but, personally, I don't think this system works nowadays. See, old players will always have the so called "good" weapons because they grinded for it, that makes sense. However, since the game doesn't have any sort of matchmaking, it will be a nightmare to new players to get this going. It is not fun to be killed over and over again not from skill issue, not because you are bad at aiming or using your weapons, it's because you haven't grinded yet, "foolish of you trying to have fun in MV without grinding!!!" New players will leave the game out of short-term frustation. Of course there is a lot of people to tell them along the way and there's also the tutorial gift boxes, still not very convenient either. I already sent suggestions about it making the weapons stats uniform here, don't think they will do it as the community is more over the opposite side (more authenticity from the original).

It will have some kind of matchmaking tho. The original game (or at least the SA version, not sure about the others) had a "newbie" server which you could only play if you were level 10/15 or less, so that would avoid new players getting farmed. As for the new game, since there will be a ranked system, the "normal" games will likely be more enjoyable than usual, since mostly people will be playing it casually/for fun.
Not that I don't get your point, but I think your concern is more about leveled weapons being broken than the grind itself.

[Braga11 21]

6 hours ago, Tipico said:

It will have some kind of matchmaking tho. The original game (or at least the SA version, not sure about the others) had a "newbie" server which you could only play if you were level 10/15 or less, so that would avoid new players getting farmed. As for the new game, since there will be a ranked system, the "normal" games will likely be more enjoyable than usual, since mostly people will be playing it casually/for fun.
Not that I don't get your point, but I think your concern is more about leveled weapons being broken than the grind itself.

I feel divided in relation to the rankeds, for me they will take the essence of the game away that was the clan war or the accounts levels. On the other hand, having ranked system is also good (if its a solo queu) for the more tryhard people. I personally will only play to reach a rank who was the reward i want and continue to play casual.
I would like to have more people feedback, so i could form a better opinion for ranked mode!

[007 82]

9 hours ago, Tipico said:

I was specifically referring to the "Game problems and cheaters" section of my original post.

On 9/16/2022 at 4:40 AM, Tipico said:

Having an active team looking for cheaters in-game and making good use of the internal tools is also really helpful, but that requires human work, and I'm not sure if there are enough resources available for that right now.
Since the game is now going for a competitive style, please consider adding a 1:1 observer mode where you can see the exact moviment of the player's camera, aim, etc, so people can record better clips of cheaters and report them. Replays also would be great (for reportings and highlights), but I get that this require much more work. Maybe for later on.

Assembling a team to record and search for cheaters shouldn't be a challenging task, but for it to be effective, we have to discuss multiple facts to come into agreement:

• The chosen members of this team should first play the game and get to know it for a while; otherwise, players will end up with false punishments. 

I'm sorry, but you can't bring a player who only plays melee and ask for their judgment in cases where it's unclear whether a possible offender is using a trigger-bot or an aim-bot. Though the member role might have more time to fulfill this task, rewarding them with gifts wouldn't be wise. That would generate an excessive number of misleading reports.

• I'm unsure what you mean by "internal tools". There's absolutely nothing that facilitates inspection for moderators. If a moderator joins the observer mode, the chat system will broadcast a message in the room. Cheaters will then take precautions.
• Adding different camera modes will significantly help in some cases.
• That might not be in my field of knowledge, but saving replays of the matches might seem a little expensive. Players should help by recording if no staff is online.
• We are unsure how many staff there are right now. It might be necessary to recruit additional helpers from the member role if it's needed. After all, this is the least expensive option for the current state.

Edited October 3, 2022 by SeaWasp

[The Emperor 13]

2 hours ago, SeaWasp said:

Assembling a team to record and search for cheaters shouldn't be a challenging task, but for it to be effective, we have to discuss multiple facts to come into agreement:

• The chosen members of this team should first play the game and get to know it for a while; otherwise, players will end up with false punishments. 

I'm sorry, but you can't bring a player who only plays melee and ask for their judgment in cases where it's unclear whether a possible offender is using a trigger-bot or an aim-bot. Though the member role might have more time to fulfill this task, rewarding them with gifts wouldn't be wise. That would generate an excessive number of misleading reports.

• I'm unsure what you mean by "internal tools". There's absolutely nothing that facilitates inspection for moderators. If a moderator joins the observer mode, the chat system will broadcast a message in the room. Cheaters will then take precautions.
• Adding different camera modes will significantly help in some cases.
• That might not be in my field of knowledge, but saving replays of the matches might seem a little expensive. Players should help by recording if no staff is online.
• We are unsure how many staff there are right now. It might be necessary to recruit additional helpers from the member role if it's needed. After all, this is the least expensive option for the current state.

The main problem with hackers that their only reason to exist is to ruin the fun for everybody 

As a valorant player recently there has been a lot of undetectable wallhacks and aimbot so imagine a huge company like riot still cannot figure anything for this problem 

So i suggest that every player should have proof of any kind of obvious hack and share it with a specific department with MODs GMs whatever side to make sure we have a clean community that's the only way because if a hacker wanted to destroy the game there is no security system can detect it  

[TipicoDev 63]

On 10/3/2022 at 3:50 AM, Braga11 said:

I feel divided in relation to the rankeds, for me they will take the essence of the game away that was the clan war or the accounts levels. On the other hand, having ranked system is also good (if its a solo queu) for the more tryhard people. I personally will only play to reach a rank who was the reward i want and continue to play casual.
I would like to have more people feedback, so i could form a better opinion for ranked mode!

Since we know nothing about it yet, it's common to feel like that. I wouldn't mind having a solo/duo ranked mode and a separated ranked only for CW, for example. Only time will tell...

On 10/3/2022 at 6:47 AM, SeaWasp said:

Assembling a team to record and search for cheaters shouldn't be a challenging task, but for it to be effective, we have to discuss multiple facts to come into agreement:

• The chosen members of this team should first play the game and get to know it for a while; otherwise, players will end up with false punishments. 

I'm sorry, but you can't bring a player who only plays melee and ask for their judgment in cases where it's unclear whether a possible offender is using a trigger-bot or an aim-bot. Though the member role might have more time to fulfill this task, rewarding them with gifts wouldn't be wise. That would generate an excessive number of misleading reports.

• I'm unsure what you mean by "internal tools". There's absolutely nothing that facilitates inspection for moderators. If a moderator joins the observer mode, the chat system will broadcast a message in the room. Cheaters will then take precautions.
• Adding different camera modes will significantly help in some cases.
• That might not be in my field of knowledge, but saving replays of the matches might seem a little expensive. Players should help by recording if no staff is online.
• We are unsure how many staff there are right now. It might be necessary to recruit additional helpers from the member role if it's needed. After all, this is the least expensive option for the current state.

I think you're digressing from my points, and I don't really think I should be explaining confidential informations about moderators and tools, so I won't reply to any of that. 

My biggest concern about the game right now is this:

On 9/15/2022 at 11:40 PM, Tipico said:

I also have identified a few critical game problems on the closed beta that could be exploited. Unfortunately, talking about it here would just spread the news for potentially abusers/hackers, so I'd rather report it on a private section on the forums, or using the ticket system. Having those fixed is essential before the game launches. (Devs, could you please take a look at the #1039329 ticket? Thanks!)

[TipicoDev 63]

On 9/15/2022 at 11:40 PM, TipicoDev said:

I also have identified a few critical game problems on the closed beta that could be exploited. Unfortunately, talking about it here would just spread the news for potentially abusers/hackers, so I'd rather report it on a private section on the forums, or using the ticket system. Having those fixed is essential before the game launches. (Devs, could you please take a look at the #1039329 ticket? Thanks!)

As an update, sadly those problems are still present on the current beta 2 phase. It's been 3 months since I've opened my ticket and I still haven't be able to contact devs properly 😛