Hi Jax, nice to have you back! My feedback:
The New Map:
I'm sorry to say this, but I'm actually pretty disappointed with Arid. Credit where it's due; it's nice to have a night map, and it does look absolutely beautiful, but I've actually found it a little boring. Some things I noted that I found a bit disappointing:
There's not a single functional siege engine we can use in this massive siege. There's some catapults sitting around but they're just props. The castle walls are completely inaccessible. We're fighting our way through an entire city, but there's not a single indoor space. None of the buildings have interiors, and there's not a single functioning door. There's no pitfalls, and there's no fun props we can pick up (like the cabbages/apples we got on Noria) — come to think of it, this might be the first map where there's actually nothing to pick up at all; no weapons lying around, no shields, no boulders to throw, or rock buckets, or boiling oil — nothing. (edit: I've been told some boulder spawns were added in a new patch, but the point still stands)
There doesn't seem to be anything fun or unique about the map in terms of gameplay — none of the interesting interactable stuff I loved about previous maps. I'm talking about stuff like the icicles and elevator on Mountain Peak; the trap door, dungeons, closable castle gates and sawmill on Grad; the bar with it's own music, random rooms, rooftops, diggable tunnel and dungeon on Feitoria; the choppable trees to create new pathways on various maps. Stuff like this is what made me love this game because it introduced unique ways to play and have fun that weren't just 'swing swords at eachother until one of you dies', which was great because, let's face it; the combat isn't without its flaws, and it's nice to get a break from the intensity of it to have fun in other ways. Especially since so much of this game's appeal rests on its monty python-esque humour.
In comparison, Arid just feels like this (albeit nice to look at) big open space where there's nothing to do except fight each other.
Server Changes:
I think the idea to merge Frontline and Invasion servers into one playlist was a mistake, and I must say, I think it was a bigger mistake to not consult the community on this one. If there was a worry that the different game modes were “segmenting” the player-base, I think this will really be the nail in the coffin there, cause it has created a situation where people have to compete against each other with votes in order to play the game mode that they enjoy. I worry that any divide we had over game modes is now going to be deeper than ever. Also, last time I checked (at least, in the EU region) we almost always had a few options for fully populated servers for both Invasion and Frontline — it’s not like they were sitting empty.
On a personal note: I actually prefer Frontline, but I worry that I'm in the minority there. I play Frontline mainly because it allows me to access the whole map area at any time as opposed to Invasion where we are forced to fight within certain bounds depending on the current objective. I make use of certain quieter areas on the map in order to create YouTube content for this game. It's now going to be a lot harder for me to create content since Frontline seems to be the minority preference.
Armoury Changes:
The new armoury has quite a lot of issues but u/jael89 will probably explain that better than I could in this list he's been compiling.
New DLC:
It seems like the community generally don't mind paid DLC because there is this impression that the funding helps the development of the game, which is pretty amazing. I was actually one of the few who originally suggested and supported the idea of introducing paid DLC for this very reason, way before we ever had any. I recently had a conversation with developer geach3d (Environment Artist), though, where he left me with the impression that the 6 month wait for one map wasn't too far off what we should expect as a good time-frame for content — that while some improvements to workflow were made recently, he didn't expect any major improvements to that time-frame.
That interaction left me questioning whether I should actually buy the new DLC. I decided — along with many others, to buy the last DLC back in December, and we still waited over 6 months for an update. I want to support the development of Mordhau, and I'm happy to do it with money via paid DLC, but that money doesn't seem to make a difference to how often we get updates. I don't think Mordhau will survive another 6 months without an update, especially considering that the community is generally unhappy about this most recent update.
I'm also aware that any funding Triternion now recieve is most likely going to go towards this new game that we know you're making anyway. But since we've been told exactly nothing about it, I have no idea why I should support it via buying this DLC either.
Novice Servers:
Fantastic addition.
Thanks Jax, take care!
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