What firefall did right: limited flight

[Luisedgm]

I don't know about you guys, but i spent hours and hours looking for the best places to glide from, gliding + afterburning + jetpacks were an incredibly fun way to travel, true free flight is convinient, but its boring as fuck

What red5 did wrong was the poor use of vertical space, almost everytime the action was at ground level, would have been fun to glide from tall place to tall place, maybe flying islands and ships hovering the game map

If we get spaceships in this game i hope their use is very limited in atmospheric flight, being used more in space, while gliding and jetpacks dominate land travel

 

[EvilKitten]

Do you remember the thermal updrafts? you could use them to glide all over the map. (for those of us non Assaults who didn't have fancy movement abilities)

 

[Luisedgm]

You could not glide 100% of the time, thats the important part
Also firefall class system was a mistake

 

[PlzBanMe]

You could not glide 100% of the time, thats the important part
Also firefall class system was a mistake

I felt the core frame was a good idea but making sub frames was the part that didn't work.

 

[MattVid]

I can pretty much agree. I have found myself many times Gliding/Jetpacking and Afterburning for hours, and not getting anything done. It was fun, and it felt great.

I think the only other "traveling" in a game that I really enjoyed was in City of Heroes ... the Acrobatic (that name might be wrong) travel choice. Leaping hundreds of feet in the air and parkour-ing all over the city. Just too much fun.

 

[Joe Solo]

Vertical space was hugely important. I agree, with an ability to go vertically, there should be level/world design that supports it.

 

[Dubbelklik]

I can pretty much agree. I have found myself many times Gliding/Jetpacking and Afterburning for hours, and not getting anything done. It was fun, and it felt great.

This is what set Firefall apart from most other games, but what was really unique was that ALL classes, at one time, could glide for as long as they wished via the mosquito wings. 'Twas a sad day when they changed that mechanic, and all the other changes they did to limit flight.

Maybe endless gliding didn't serve any other purpose but to waste time, but it was FUN! That's what video games are supposed to be about. It never made any sense to me why a video game developer would purposefully remove a fun mechanic, that most people enjoyed, from their game.

 

[TankHunter678]

I still miss soaring afterburner, it was also fun to just climb up thump dump, climb up the launch bay walls and then afterburner 5x into the sky to use a celestial wing to go circling around coral forest looking for loot bots or just because I could.

Flying in other MMOs just was not as fun.

 

[PlzBanMe]

Vertical space was hugely important. I agree, with an ability to go vertically, there should be level/world design that supports it.

One thing I notice looking back is how meh that vertical space was. Most of the time you just climbed up stuff with no reason for it. The advantages of high ground felt minimum at most in firefall. Maybe this because of the bullet sponge nature of enemies. I do remember that the Rig in the ocean PvP map had some great design how ever for vertical space. On the pve side of things was lacking when I played.

 

[CowedOffACliff]

I fully agree the world should use a lot more vertical space. There should be a reliable way for all of the classes to travel vertically in an efficient way though. Climbing mountains really sucked for some of the classes in Firefall.

One of my favorite features in Firefall was the Flak Cannon on the Assault. Not because of its annoying spammy AoE attacks but because of its use as an augmented flight utility. I used to do active PvP with the Flak Cannon using various secondaries and abilities (especially the Radiant Beam SMG). You could fly anywhere and dart rapidly around buildings with heavy skill to get behind enemies or escape.

Gliding in Firefall also always felt amazing and fluid. The flying through rings stuff they added towards the end was really fun, too.

 

[CowedOffACliff]

You could not glide 100% of the time, thats the important part
Also firefall class system was a mistake

I felt the core frame was a good idea but making sub frames was the part idea.

A core frame with weapon and ability choices available that enabled but didn't enforce class style gameplay would be a pretty good system. People like to carve out roles for themselves; I know I do. Also it would require less redundant weapon and ability content and reduce concern for archetype theme issues.

One good thing about Firefall was a small sized ability loadout which means you could memorize your abilities easier and not worry about trying to use your entire keyboard mapped out to 30 different things. I feel like 4 or 5 abilities at a time is good for an FPS game.

 

[Slumber K]

Mid-air dash abilities would be awesome. Sometimes half the fun in a game is just getting around in style.

 

[Dxpress]

You remember in Warfront how you would always respawn by being ejected from the UAS Vanguard with a glider? I always thought that was cool.
I hope that can be like common thing to happen in Ember.

 

[polarity]

When R5 put all of my gliders onto one cooldown, and nerfed the thrust of jetpacks, that went a long way towards killing the game for me. Half the fun of navigating that amazing game world was doing it from above the ground. Driving around at ground level is a completely mundane experience. No matter how fancy you make the vehicle, it's something that the vast majority of people do every day, in real life.

As someone who flies model gliders (and sails model yachts), I too am of the opinion that powered flight would be boring. You just point where you want to go, and that's it. Gliding, with the need to find the correct glide-slope, and to climb to get the best launch, made firefall's transport both novel, and engaging. If the idea of thermals had been developed properly, then it could have been an outstanding part of the game, as players would have had to master spiraling to get height, and watching the terrain below to find likely updrafts.

 

[Zarkopafilis]

I'd prefer instead of these ugly dropships, to have some kind of stronger launchpad that puts you into much higher ground but also launches you to the direction you want. You could then decide when to glide

P.S. Mosquito wings ftw

 

[McMental]

I personally think that the advertisement bus was the best part of Firefall. If this game doesn't get one I will be extremely disappointed.

 

[polarity]

Sure would be funny if we could get a kickstarter together to buy the bus, and then fix it up so it's usable.

 

[SweetVictory]

Give me options, options, options. If I want to be The Green Knight, the reincarnation of Tutankhamen, or Flash Gordon, the game should give me a way toward that end ( or maybe the most totally splendiferous combination of all three... )

Just sayin'...

 

[SomeUnregPunk]

the jumpads+gliderpad bug made it possible to use gliders in combat for me. That was fun. Until Red5 decided to try to fix it.

Seriously. You people need to actually look at what your playerbase is having fun with and exploit that for your benefit... not take it away.
Red5 kept doing that with all sorts of stuff with their "bug fixes"

Though the last iteration of the gliders was on the right path.
Instant launch of the glider instead of spawning a glider pad and then stepping on it made it more reliable in combat.

Now if I could only alter the glider in crafting by launch direction, speed, cooldown, aesthetics, etc... it would be pretty cool.

 

[PCMasterReece]

Sure would be funny if we could get a kickstarter together to buy the bus, and then fix it up so it's usable.

If I remember rightly from what Mark said once on the Firefall IRC. Guy Fieri bought the bus not long ago