I've racked up quite a few hours in this game now, so I thought I'd consolidate my feedback in to one thread:

1- Green/Blue balance - It's clear that Green has a major advantage in defensive terrain. While Green can tunnel underneath the mountains to get the intel, Blue can do no such thing because the Greens have low lying land and rivers to stop burrowing. Because of thi, Blue often ragequit and you end up with unbalanced teams and thus vast advantage to Green.

- A solution would be to have the river generate in the middle. This would make a "no mans land" where people cant dig and must cross through enemy fire to reach the other side.

2- Climbing - There needs to be some sort of feature where you automatically traverce a 1 block high terrain. This would mean you wouldnt have to jump at every step in each hill, and would make higher fortifications and trenches more valuable. maybe edit the terrain gen to add steep cliffs in areas to make the map fairer to balance this.

3- Ironsights - As mentioned by many people, they're currently a bit useless unless you're scouting. Reducing the accuracy of hip firing is a must, as well as reducing the bulkyness of the ironsight silhouette.

4- Player colours - While enemies being highly visible is good, it might be an interesting experiment to make the colours of the players lighter or more "pastel", so they can blend in to the background better; it may end up being aweful, but an interesting thought all the same

5- Team Chat- Make it clear to see when team chat is on/off

I'll add more to the list as it comes to me.

I haven't played enough to comment on the team balance issues, but I definitely agree about #3; the rifle seems to be just as accurate fired from the hip as it is in ironsights, making it only really effective as a zoom-in. Most of the time firing without aiming is the better choice.

And #5 is essential, I always found myself hitting enter and then pressing Y again just to be certain I was in team chat.

Agree with number 2. The shooter aspect would be greatly improved with easier navigation.

About the balance thing, it'd probably be best just to have there be different map formulas for different styles of play/gamemodes.

IE I've always really wanted an almost completely flat waterless map with just a few ridges where the fighting would be focused around, making trenches and low bunkers the only viable defense anywhere else.

"maybe edit the terrain gen to add steep cliffs in areas to make the map fairer to balance this."

I like this idea, cliffs would be great!

Cliffs... hmm... It would definately change how the game is played. Perharps giving the option to server admins for having certain features in their levels would be the best way to go about it. Lakes, rivers, cliffs, the steepness and frequency of hills/flat lands.

Also, why are there no flat areas on the maps? Seems like there should be at least some.

I like the green/blue difference...Blue stands for BALLSY

Maybe if blue tried to capitalize on the advantages of the mountains they would succeed (i.e. build a bunker around the intel underground instead of buring it like nubs)

Maybe post these to the googleMod http://www.google.com/moderator/#16/e=6f3a1

A bunch of people have already put decent effort into suggestions there, can't be a bad thing to try and organise them in one place :)

@ magicsofa

Build a bunker? Okay, then what? Greens dig underneath, grab it, hide the tunnel, flee unstopped. Every. Single. Time. It's a nigh on impossible to counter strategy that simply can't beusedby the Blues. It is, by every measurable means, stupid, unbalanced and downright unfair.

Ironsights zoom in at the cost of clunkier aiming and such long range confrontations make the zoom necessary. Guns don't need accuracy reduction to make them useful.

3. Oh please no. I hate aiming down iron sights. Leave the accuracy where it is and just increase the zoom on the iron sights a bit to give using them a bit more of an advantage.

The rest sound pretty reasonable though. Exercise caution around 4.

"About the balance thing, it'd probably be best just to have there be different map formulas for different styles of play/gamemodes."

Map editor maybe? A height map even, in a small image that can be traded. At the very least some way to trade the seed for a procedurally generated map, if you stumble across a balanced map why not keep using it.

Some RTS games have a chalkboard option that allows people to make notes over the map (like: passageway here --> build bridge here --->). Only your team can see it. This would be awesome for planning and organization.

Also, I can't wait for larger maps with more people per team. Epic battles.

You by far, give the worst suggestions relevant to the game.

1- Green has the defensive advantage of rivers, Blue has the offensive advantage of mountains. How often does Blue try to defend their intel? Do they even do anything with it? Most of the time no, they are all attacking while all but one green can defend.

2- Faster climbing makes fortifications LESS useful. The whole point is it takes time and effort to scale a hill, if there's a bunker it makes it that much harder. If climbing a hill were suddenly faster, then any sort of defensive structure would simply be moved back to the flat ground on top.

3- I can use iron sights just fine. Just because you suck with them doesn't mean it should change.

4- I'm beginning to think you're some kind of idiot.

5- When you press 't' it's allchat. When you press 'y' it's teamchat. You're the one pressing the button you should know which you are talking through.

Headcrab zombie, I like that idea a LOT. I think that would definitely help.

Jack spade,

2. This is very true, good point.

3. He is not saying the iron sights are hard to use, just that they have little to no benefit.

5. It wouldn't hurt to indicate things more clearly interface-wise.

Iron sights give you longer vision.
When you're at a range where someone with iron sights can see you but you can't see them without, that is a massive advantage. The benefit is range at the cost of movement.

@JackSpade

1- I am not explaining, for the 5th time, why it is unfair. How are mountains "offensive advantage"? What possible tangible benefit is there to offense from mountains?

2- I'll give you that one

3- Firing from the hip is equally accurate. I can headshot somebody from the same distance from the hip more easily than I can with the ironsights because the ironsights block too much of the screen to be useful. please, when arguing, don't pull the "huuur if you don't like it it's because you're bad".

4- Care to elaborate? Care to not just spout insults like you're a tween on the playground? If anything, you're coming off as the idiot for not actually contributing to the debate and just going "you're and idort lololol". Like I said, if you had any reading comprehension, you'd know it was firstly just a suggestion, and second a suggestion with BASIS. Unlike your non-existant argument.

I find that at long range I'm more accurate with the iron-sights, but each to his own.

If you do not see the advantage of having a mountain, then it's obvious why you don't understand in what situations the iron sights give you an advantage.

I would do something other than insult you if I thought it wouldn't be a waste of time, but explaining every little thing to someone who has no sense of tactical advantage is pointless.

Then do explain, friend. Explain how having to face the un-counterable strategy of tunneling is anything but a major disadvantage, and thus a huge advantage to the greens. Or maybe you don't know, and just want to argue for the sake of arguing. Like I said before, back your points up or don't bother at all.

I do agree to everything.

Agreed on most of these. Theoretically, the mountains are a great offensive advantage, yes. Problem is, the river and low land is a great defensive advantage. In the grand scheme of things, the easiest way to grab the intel is to dig under it, and the greens have the easiest time doing so. In other words, green has both a defensive AND offensive advantage.

Mountains taking time to scale is a good thing. Having to press the space bar thousands of times just to make it across the map and back is not. The verticality also screws with the iron sights functionality. Aiming down the sights, in theory, makes you more accurate at the cost of movement speed. You move noticably slower while aimed in. But this only works on perfectly flat ground. If you have to jump to scale just one block, you lose your iron sights, and likewise, if you fall just one block's distance, you're forced out of it as well.

Iron sights are only useful on perfectly flat ground, which practically never exists. Either iron sights have no place in this game, or something has to change regarding the way it reacts to the terrain.

Personally, I think the level generator is the key to all of this. You could either make the maps a lot less drastic on the vertical scale, introducing more flat terrain with a few bumps on so that the iron sights and jumping problems are negated. Or, you could allow people to scale 1 block slopes without having to jump, and generate levels with natural 2 block slopes that force you to crouch-jump to scale. That way slopes are less of a hassle, but mountains still take time and effort to climb.

All text in the game needs a lot of work, but that's to be expected seeing how early in development we are. The next needs to be a bit bigger, and either needs a background, new colors, outlines, or all of the above. Being able to distinguish between all chat and team chat is a LOT more than just recognizing whether you, yourself, pressed T or Y. It's useful to know whether your teammates are talking in team or not, as well.

If someone asks a gameplay question, but does so in team chat, I'd like to respond to it in team chat as well, because seeing the answer and not the question is worthless to the other team. Likewise, sometimes people will talk about strategies in all chat, and when they do so, I want to know about it so that I can teach them to use team chat instead.

Also, the iron sights graphic sucks and I hope it gets changed soon! Just throwing that out there. The sights are way, way too tiny and obtrusive to be useful, despite the zoom.

The optimal blue defense seems to be digging down to the bedrock and fortifying a chamber around the intel. Problem is, not enough blues will actually come and help to make this feasible. Green can tunnel all the way across the mountains before blue can get to bedrock. It doesn't help that there are no lights, so it's next to impossible to see what you're doing when you're digging that deep.

DamnedYam hit the nail on the head. The biggest issue is probably teamwork. A lone green tunneler can make it all the way to the intel without much risk, cuz hey, they are underground and it's hard to find them.

@Mr.Wrinkle - I meant a bunker at the lowest elevation, so that it cannot be tunneled under. Greens could tunnel TO the bunker, but if you dig out a large space surrounding the intel you could reasonably defend it.

As far as climbing mountains, I don't know what everyone's issue is. Try facing the corners of blocks (instead of the flat edge) and just hold down jump and forward. You can get successive jumps, allowing you to climb quickly. Also sometimes using crouch, turning, and timing your jumps can help.

The issue is that having to continuously jump to navigate the map is very annoying. Yes, you get used to it, but it's something you shouldn't HAVE to get used to in order to enjoy the game. You could argue that people would already be used to it because of Minecraft, but Minecraft does two things very differently: First of all, Minecraft's terrain tends to produce much flatter areas that don't require as much vertical movement, and secondly, the block density in Minecraft is significantly lower.

Ace of Spades having smaller blocks sounds like a great idea on the surface. Higher density means higher fidelity, curvier landscapes and more detailed buildings. However, it also means you have to jump roughly twice as often as you would in Minecraft to traverse the exact same terrain. On top of that, when you fight in Minecraft, it's all about the melee combat (or the bow which has perfect aim and poor range anyway), completely ignoring whether you're on ground or in air (in fact, Minecraft may be getting a damage bonus if you attack while in the air), whereas Ace of Spades mostly takes place at very long ranges and requires skillful aim, which is impossible to do unless you have your feet planted on the ground.

In Minecraft, and even Infiniminer, jumping around to navigate the huge blocks doesn't distract from the combat at all. You could argue that the combat becomes more fun when you have to dodge around giant cubes while moving in for the kill. In this game, the cubes are a hindrance. You can't reliably fight while moving up or down a slope, even when it's not very steep, and you can't move while using your iron sights unless you're on perfectly flat ground, which rarely exists at all.

It just feels strange that you're confined to the lone block that you're standing on if you want to remain zoomed in. An enemy on flat ground can strafe in any direction while keeping his sights on you, but if you're on a gentle slope, you can't move at all. Creep a bit closer and you fall, pulling you out of iron sights. You can't retreat without jumping, forcing you out of iron sights. If you're on the side of a hill, or the hill is diagonal, you can't sidestep more than half a meter without falling off your block, once again pulling you out of iron sights.

It just feels, to me, like an obstacle that shouldn't exist in a first person shooter. It feels like this gameplay wasn't designed for the kind of environments we're forced to use it in.

I honestly feel the best solution would be half-height blocks that you can cross without jumping. This would allow a more rolling, natural feeling for the hills near the river, as well. In the mountains, make them rare or nonexistent to keep the terrain difficult.

When blue works as an organized team, green can't touch their objective just as much as blue can't touch green's.

I'm not going to hold your hand and explain to you the strategy, because when I play green I like it when the intel is just sitting on the ground up for easy grabs.

People are very quick to fault the game for their own inadequacies. Adapt to the game, don't cry that the game should adapt to you.

JackSpade said: "The issue is that having to continuously jump to navigate the map is very annoying. Yes, you get used to it, but it's something you shouldn't HAVE to get used to in order to enjoy the game. "

Having to aim at difficult to hit targets is very annoying. Yes, you get used to it, but you shouldn't HAVE to to enjoy the game. It should just be easy!

Having to capture the intel against all odds is very annoying. You shouldn't have to "get used to it."

Having to spend TIME to dig tunnels and build forts is very annoying. Everything should happen instantly!

Give me a fucking break. You don't want to climb the mountain? Build a tunnel.

JackSpade said: "It just feels strange that you're confined to the lone block that you're standing on if you want to remain zoomed in. An enemy on flat ground can strafe in any direction while keeping his sights on you, but if you're on a gentle slope, you can't move at all. "

So don't remain zoomed in. Have you ever thought about how retarded it would be in real life to try looking through ironsights while jumping off a ledge? Extremely retarded.

Dude. One last time, I'm not explaining it to you again.

You CAN. NOT. Stop tunneling. I am fine with this. It is a good strategy, and I don't want to see it removed. HOWEVER. And read this carefully. You CANNOT tunnel to the Greens as easily as the greens can tunnel to the Blues. This is an unfair advantage, no matter how you look at it. The best team in the world won't be able to stopa determined tunneler. assuming that both teams have the sameskill, which they usually do, Green has a huge upper hand. It's not about strategy. It's not about "inadequcies" (which, by the way, you clearly couldn't help but do again, baring in mind you said the same thing earlier in the thread). It's about a severe handicap. Nothing else.

magicsofa: I see you missed all of my points. And also my name, but that's okay. But I'll play along for a while!

Okay, yes, it WOULD be extremely retarded to try keeping your rifle shouldered while jumping off ledges in real life. But how retarded would it be if every single sloped surface in real life was a ledge? Extremely retarded. Thus, according to your own logic, Ace of Spades' terrain is retarded. So we should probably try to do something about that.

As for the imbalanced terrain, I actually don't mind it so much. Right now, with the way the game plays, it's very... strange. But if I was making this game, I would program in a team switch after each round, and have two (or four) rounds per map by default. That way each team gets one chance at defending and one at attacking, or however the skewed map generation will make it work. I'm sure that's what what's-his-name (the guy making this game) has in mind for future updates.