General Game Feedback Summer of 2019.

(Weapons)

Weapons:
(Personally, I despise how freejam decided to do balance after removing boosts. Instead of keeping what
was seen by most as a fairly well-balanced set of stats, keeping it and using tiers as a way to balance
them, they reworked everything on a whim and for the most part made every gun feel worse and threw
the balance out the window. Personally, how I would have addressed the removal of boosts is keeping
stats as is and change as proven necessary, and then use increasing weapon energy pools as you go up
in tier to fit in with the energy use of weapons. This would allow low tier guns to have a place as you go
up, as they would fire longer and faster, but would not allow for weapons to be brought down and used
effectively since the greater consumption of power in a tier with a lower energy total would yield even
less shots for that overtiered gun)

Smg
Before the removal of boosts, I would have said smg needed no changes and was a great all round
weapon that didn’t overshadow the roles other weapons had. However, with the massive increase in
both damage and energy usage I feel it has a lot of issues that need to be looked at. For a start it no
longer feels like sustained damage, and more so gets used as a burst rifle peaking behind cover every
few shots. Secondly, the amount of shots on low tiers guns is ridiculously bad and even on higher tier
ones it doesn’t feel great. This lack of shots combined with added movement inaccuracy makes what
used to be a great introductory weapon which as you progressed added more skill requirements and
more payoff for landing shots, into a weapon that just punishes you for missing while making it
guaranteed you will miss at some point with the added accuracy nerf. I would really like to see the smg
balance move more towards what it was during boosts, more shots, and a change in fire rate from
super-fast to well-paced that encourages aiming as you progress. In addition to that both due to the
damage per shot nerf, I would honestly half the movement inaccuracy as that really just does nothing
for the gameplay but punish you for playing smart. If I am playing my bot right, by dodging fire to keep
my guns and tracking the enemy well, why are you adding in a punishment for doing that? The goal
outside of making it more forgiving to use is to make it better vs air by allowing ground bots to dodge
instead of sit still since it’s much easier for an air bot to hit a ground bot with the inaccuracy.
Significantly reduce, or remove MOVEMENT inaccuracy as a way to reward aim, rework the speed at
which damage is dealt to allow more reaction time and longer engagement time

Rails
Honestly, I wouldn’t call rails op or touch them at all right now. The damage while not amazing is
respectable, and if other weapon balance changes occur, I can see rails going back up in usage rates or
further down depending on which way the meta goes. No changes needed

Plasma
I wouldn’t call plasma balanced, its damage output is extremely high, and the increase in splash radius
has made it even easier to deal that damage. However, nerfing that damage may very well present an
issue with plasma not packing enough oomph to be relevant. After thinking about it the only thing I can
see that won’t make the gun underutilized is to just reduce the AOE range to 20 or 25 meters so that
aiming it is a bit harder, but the reward of hitting is still there. Another possible change would be to
speed up the fire rate, but that feels like it would mess with energy management a bit too much for my
liking. Reduce radius, possibly revisit to lower damage or amount of shots

Tesla
Looking at its stats, and damage the weapon honestly isn’t that bad by itself. The main thing holding
tesla back is the prevalence of plasma, and the lack of movement options for them to be viable. The
F=ma update basically nuked any viable tesla bot and lowered their agility noticeably, making the
weapon itself much worse. No change to the weapon needed, but the types of bots which use them
need help

Nano
Before the most recent buff to nano, the balance was fine. It didn’t out heal damage, but it didn’t do
nothing, making it rather useful but not required or too strong. Now with what was effectively 2 buffs to
the heals per second and energy usage being reduced, the gun is ridiculous. Alone in a 1 v 1 with a medic
healing one of the bots, you can effectively negate the other bots damage entirely with a bit of dodging.
This has made nano in my option too strong as it now not only heals more, using less energy, and hitting
faster (effectively the second buff for the first two buffs) but can be used as a side weapon for everyone
on a team creating extremely slow and frustrating gameplay for any solo player, or team who doesn’t
have a way to surpass the nanos, and burst down a target. Reduce heals per shot by what it was buffed
by, leave the speed and energy use as is

Loml
I would argue that loml is in a good spot right now, and does not need a huge change. Sure, you might
be able to argue the turning speed of the rockets needs a buff, but I see much more value in lomls as
distractions, or ways to punish people who are exposed than I do in its ability to deal damage. No
changes needed

Psk
I would put this in a good place, as it does not outclass smg in damage, as it should due to its aim assist.
You cannot ignore the psk in fast agile builds, since they are also fragile, giving psk some niche to fill.
However, it is not good enough to make it worth 100 cpu, and I think a cpu reduction to 50 would be a
nice buff that doesn’t break the balance for this weapon. Cpu reduction, but no other changes are
needed

Ion
The damage is fine, but feels lack luster to use. The high energy use doesn’t really come into play that
much since the fire rate is low, and honestly mega plasma fulfills the burst damage role better then ions
do currently. I would take down the energy use, as ion would still be limited in fire rate, allowing for it to
be more of side weapon to complement other guns. I don’t really know if that would make it better, but
I’m not really a fan of making it into an auto shotgun, or having it 3 shot any bot by jacking its damage
up. Reduce energy used per shot with the goal to have other side weapons compensate for its slower
fire rate

Mortar
I cant really tell if mortar needs a damage nerf, or if its ability to combo with other weapons makes it
feel strong. I wouldn’t say this needs a nerf, but I would definitely keep my eyes on this weapon for
future changes. Leave as is, revisit later if needed

Flak
This gun is both not fun to use, and not good. Its damage while not bad on its own, doesn’t really
amount to much with the low fire rate. If the fire rate gets buffed however, then the stack damage
comes way too fast and makes something like a drone the only bot agile enough to deal with it. My
proposal would be again lower the damage gained from stacking to make it both more fun to play
against, but buff the base damage so it has more of an immediate thread for agile bots. However, keep
in mind that flak should be something that controls where people are, and punishes them for being out
of position, not something that just straight up kills all air. Stack as a mechanic only punishes the heavy
less agile builds or oblivious players, and leaves the agile bots it was created to counter the only things
which can realistically deal with it. Reduce flak stack damage increase, buff base damage to
compensate for lost damage (I’m not 100% on this change, but it really just feels like a brain-dead
level of easy to play)

Chains
As little as I see or use these, I would say they are in a good spot over all. The only slight change I see for
them would be to increase damage as well as energy use so they are a bit less effective and require a bit
more dedication and positioning to use, but over all they seem to be in a good place. Leave as is, but
consider and increase to damage and energy use if needed later

General Game Feedback Summer of 2019. (Movements/Modules)

Movements:

Skis
I’m not sure who decided these needed to be made worse for two updates in a row, both directly and
indirectly but that person clearly doesn’t want a useable part. The added weight from f=ma, and the
weird added resistance to strafing has done nothing but hurt sleds. If that wasn’t enough the weight
added to parts and tx cubes further made them even more undesirable to use. Honestly just revert any
of the changes you gave to them since robopass, and don’t touch them again. Fix bad controls, and
weight

Wheels
As a few people have shown, these can actually be built in ways that retain movement under fire, and
while being fast do not appear to have a carry mass limit. Instead they accelerate slower or may have
issues climbing steeper hills. I would personally leave them as is stat wise. The only changes I would
consider are, having the build hitbox be closer to the actual visual size of the wheel (I swear there is a
block wide ring around some of them) and weirdly having their traction reduced slightly. These parts are
not supposed to be like tracks when it comes to grip, otherwise they effectively replace them. Giving
them the ability to drift slightly may add both a skill cap to driving them and allow them to dodge things
a bit easier. Smaller build hitbox, slight traction reduction to allow drifts and possibly reduce flipping
on sharp turns

Tracks
They fulfill their role of being stable, but their control and traction need some improvements.
Additionally, when you compare them to mech legs the health is lacking. Since mechs have the mobility
advantage, it only makes sense to buff the health on tanks so that their health to cpu ratio is better than
a mechs and give them the traction to at least be able to follow where wheels go and not be left behind
as a slower easier to shoot off version of them. Requires a health and traction buff to hopefully make it
somewhat of an alternative to mech legs and wheels instead of worse than both

Old tank tracks

-Extremely heavy, so heavy you can't fly with them (no helicopter, wing, or hover hybrids)
-Excellent traction and ability to go over any terrain with relative ease
-Able to climb near-vertical cliffs
-Able to carry infinite mass

New tank tracks

-You can put them on bots that fly (helicopter, wing, and hover hybrids)
-Traction is not as good, not enough torque and friction
-Unable to climb cliffs or hills, reliant on speed alone to do so
-When reversing, tracks spin uncontrollably
-Able to carry infinite mass

Mechs
Similar to tracks I feel like there are in a good place balance wise, the common use of mortar and plasma
does make them seem a bit under powered, but the stats are relatively fine outside of that. No changes
currently needed

Insect legs
The problem is there just isn’t a reason to use them. If you want to front line, they don’t work, if you
want to play support, they still aren’t the best option due to their flippy nature and lack of grip. Give
them some actual grip, and consider lowering speed since that seems to be causes some of the
instability. Increase grip, consider a health increase if lower us rates continue

Sprinters
Surprisingly, I really like what F=ma did for sprinters (but that’s really the only good thing it did for any of
the parts), the lack of delay when jumping was a very nice buff that gave them back their speed and
made them more than just a mech leg with less hp. No changes needed, currently
Hovers
Fine as is when it comes to stats, carry mass/cpu/size/health. But still feel a bit unstable even on well-
built bots. I’m sure that that means for changes needed, but doing endless backflips really cripples
hovers when they are trying to fight another both with more health or that is more agile as it stops them
from dodging or moving to a better position, very often getting the hover killed. No changes needed to
stats, but stability is less than desirable

Rotors
Despite the demand for nerfs to their com, and buffs to their stats, I would say they are almost perfect. I
do think that larger rotors need a health buff to compensate for being exposed, and all rotors as they do
seem to be rather prevalent could to with a 10 mph speed nerf with the hopes of giving other options
like planes, hovers, or cruisers a bit of an edge by making them faster relative to rotors. A slight base
speed nerf, health buff to the larger two rotors due to low use rate, will allow for more styles

Wings
Currently wings do the following, hinder dodging and fight the pilot trying to dodge unless you
dedicate half your bot to agility, your bot jerks itself back to being level immediately after you let go of a
key, movement is not fluid and doesn’t have any skill cap, people more often than not are seen crashing
into walls and taking a y turn to get back into the skies. My proposal would be adding old wings (I mean
old wings, not some attempt to kind of make them which just ends up making people mad) as a new
glider, or unpowered wing. Having the new wings be slightly less cpu, as they have no thrust, and over
all buffing the carry mass of both types of rudders so they can actually find a use other than aesthetics.
Rudders currently are almost the same cpu, around half the size, lower speed, and have about 6% the
carry mass of a wing. They are essentially useless for anything on a plane. No changes to wings needed,
but old wings seem to be a very common request, and rudders are severely lacking in any reason to be
used

Wing vs Rudder comparison

Propellers
Props as we know them, are honestly pretty well balanced. However, with weight and gravity changes to
the game any fun jump mech you could make with them is no longer possible. I do not understand the
low base speed of these parts, as they are used with other parts almost all the time, so having a base
speed of 180 or 200 wouldn’t change a ton, but may allow for some niche builds to surface. Their health
is good, and their thrust, or force exerted is fine as well. Base speed increase to allow for more types of
bots, but not over shadow other options

Thrusters
A change I would personally like to see, is the reintroduction of diminishing returns on a less severe
level. I would rather see after 12 or so thrusters the added speed (as I believe this was the proposed
alternative to boost) very slightly being decreased on each additional thruster to tone down the speed
builds. This again would be a change more focused on making the noobs have a less frustrated
experience of not being able to hit something. As fun as it is to shoot a speed plane and watch it split in
half, or to spawn camp fragile bots in a plane of that nature, I don’t think it’s exactly the best way to
encourage new players to keep playing when they are still getting used to the game and its controls.
After this soft nerf to thrusters, I would argue that making them have a base speed of 180 or 200 would
be reasonable. This WOULD NOT buff drones (which are already dead) as that is still lower than the base
speed of a wing or rudder, so their speed would not increase. I really don’t see a need for any other buff
or change to this part as it really is used for making a bot control how you want, and does not have
something like com assist, friction, or turning speed to address. Base speed increase to allow for more
types of bots, but not over shadow other options

Modules:

Blink
Reasonably useful, but could easily be improved to make it competitive by reducing the recharge time
by 5 seconds.

Disk Shield
In its current state, I would call this both useful and balanced, no changes needed.

EMP
The duration of the stun and the range on this both feel fine, requiring no changes. However, I would
not call this a competitive part as its recharge time makes it extremely situational and requiring perfect
placement to be useful at all, in comparison to something like the disk shield which can work even when
slightly misplaced.

Power Module
I would put this module in a similar place to the dsm, it’s never bad to have on a bot if you have spare
cpu, and fulfills its role very well. I would not say any changes are needed at this time.

Ghost
We were doing so well up until this point. This is by far the weakest module, and the least viable. Sure,
in the heat of battle it may lead to getting behind an enemy or away to heal, but there is so many
reasons not to use this which cancel those benefits out. For starters it uses weapon energy. This is
currently the only module to still rely on energy to function, and that factor makes using this extremely
slow with what you can do. To use it in its current state you have to hope no one sees you while in
ghost, get behind them, and then wait for your power to regen before doing anything. In comparison
any of the other modules impact your gameplay as soon as you use them, there is no waiting for power,
or travel time needed for them to be effective. The other main downside, which I alluded to when going
over how it is use, is that you are able to be seen. Unsurprisingly being able to be seen makes sneaking
up a lot harder. However, full invisibility I feel would be seen as too op by many players as it has been
discussed before and that seemed to be the conclusion. My proposal for a rework/buff for ghost would
be give it a separate energy pool, and have it drain power faster than it regens power (unghosted, no
regen while in cloak). Additionally, give it full invisibility up to a certain range, let’s say 50 meters away.
At that point the bot using cloak slowly becomes more viable the closer they get up to a little more
visible then they are now. Everything else, the sound, being able to see heals, and firing/being hit
bringing you out of ghost remains the same.

WindowMaker
This module while somewhat useful in thick fog does not really present a worthwhile use for the amount
of cpu it takes up, as its purpose can be easily fulfilled with map pings and a decent awareness. Consider
reducing cpu to 75 so that it isn’t such a large investment for what really ends up being used as a Band-
Aid for bad game sense.

General Game Feedback Summer of 2019. (Other)

Campaigns
I would like to see the boosts toned down a bit, so it’s not “how can I to cheese the mode” and more
about pushing people towards having to learn. Since the boosts would be SLIGHTLY toned down, it
would be appropriate to give something like the chicks in animal smash up 4 smgs, instead of 2.
Hopefully this change would also prevent the issue with taking 1 minute to degun an enemy and
another 5 to actually kill it, as that just adds to the tedious nature of the mode. The rewards from this
could for example be, bronze and silver robits, gold and diamond small amounts of cc and then
protonium could allow 1 weapon skin. Just to give players a reason to play them, as they currently do
not offer that much of a reward for the time they take. This could later be expanded on with seasonal
campaigns/rewards and community created challenges. Finally, there could be an option to randomize
waves after a player has completed the campaign on all difficulties, or as I believe was mentioned
allowing coop play (obviously with a harder level design scaling with the number of players).

Quests
I honestly see a lot of room to improve/grow. They could be slightly more specific, for example, use a
bot with at least 3 insect legs and 4 wings/rudders to avoid tacking a part onto a bot and playing
normally. The rewards from these could also be shifted with difficulty, to give more or less robits.

Community Involvement
Holding a few community events, make a bot and get it featured, make a model of a cosmetic skin,
make a map etc could be interesting ways to get the community involved with the game. This could, as
mentioned above in the campaigns section also be applied to campaigns, or quests as multiple new and
fun challenges for players.

Mod events
Allowing mods or admins to create events (with some restriction so it’s not constant and overwhelming)
that either reward players with CC, a reskin of an item or a featured bot. This could be a fun way to
engage the community with each other, and another different option to keep people coming back to the
game.

Blocks
While I would prefer a weight, health, volume ratio set up as it would put more of a focus on smart
building, the current cubes may work well enough without boosts to not really need a change. The other
issue I personally have with building, is its constantly being simplified, and the building mechanics of the
game either get removed or made much less impactful. Even when it comes to art bots, things like
having 2 by 1 shapes or a few other shapes to connect/fit some places haven’t been added to allow
those builders to have more creative freedom.

Light Cubes
These still feel a bit too much like paper to really have a valid use alone, and only seem to work as cpu
saving blocks on lighter craft using tx cubes.

Tx Cubes
Honestly, I don’t understand the health buff and weight increase they were given. The health could go
down to 3,250kg or even down to 3,000kg without breaking too much, as long as the weight was
reverted back down to 2kg. Personally, I don’t know what possessed them to make the weight change as
the last time they did that change, I’ll be it by mistake, it pissed everyone off. This while reducing weight
for things like sleds, planes, drones, helis, hovers, and even the rare sprinter that uses these cubes,
would actually help nerf meta copters by nerfing their health and effectively buffing their weapon based
counters.

Carbon Parts/CC parts

I really think that having carbon parts for all guns along with the newly added item shop could be a nice
feature and possibly added income. The idea of cosmetics, or more bays for money is one at least that I
find to be a good solution. It prevents pay to win, and lets players customize their bots to fit their style.
This could go as far as seasonal or holiday cosmetics, and reskin packs fitting certain themes.

QOL
A few quality of life updates that would make interacting a bit easier, then a command system that half
the players don’t know exists. The ability to right click on a player for, message, add, block, invite would
be honestly just a really nice and convenient feature. Allowing either A custom crosshairs, or B more
crosshair options would also just be a nicety that some players may enjoy. The crf (I’m not going to go in
depth on this, because that’s a long discussion) could integrated into a player’s profile, so when you
right click on their name, it shows an option for public builds and brings you there. Going farther on the
profile screen could be, Kill Death Ratio, most used weapon, level, wins, as well as clan info.

Brief CRF
Having a check box of options such as, allow repost, allow edits, no edits, friends only, clan only. The
repost option specifically would be just for you to see when doing a coop build, but isn’t as needed if
something like friends only is added. Sometimes you just want to share a bot for feedback from a friend,
or post a bot that took you hours to make and not have someone pick it up and then never have to
actually learn to build themselves. This is not 100% needed, but would be a really nice feature for at
least the clan/competitive building scene. I would also like to see the cost for buying or renting a bot
brought back, as a small 5,000 robits for renting, and 25,000 robits for buying. This may also help to both
reduce the spread of meta, and give another option for players to gain robits for upgrades. By giving crf
bots a cost, you both reduce how accessible bots are, and due to that encourage people to hopefully
build their own bots more often.

Maps
For the most part the maps are very nice. I would definitely consider reworking some of the spawns to
prevent spawn camping (maybe a garage with holes in it for cover). The other things for maps I would
what changed is re adding the render fog. A lot of people have I know have been saying they lose
performance on some maps, or just in general after the recent map conditions update that brought back
elimination.

Custom Games
- Adding a cpu slider in custom games

- Allowing custom to do 10 v 10

- Adding old maps and towers

- The ability to change lighting levels ie, day or night (not important but could be cool)

- A slider for gravity would be nice

Tutorial
This is one the parts of the game which I would say needs an entire rework. While it does teach you the
basics of the game, it doesn’t go over the controls or actual combat at all. It would also be a cool place
to insert some of the game’s backstory/lore, as a short intro video, so that could be drawn on for any
future events. I would personally like to see something like, lore video, building part, fight part, teach in
game controls, loss, rebuild your own bot (not the mech), fight, win. The goal of having a loss would be
to encourage them to modify bots early on instead of just using the starter bots or crf bots. It also would
include the enemy shooting back which gives them an actual sense of combat, and how it works. I think
doing this would avoid the issue of people not knowing how to rectify, ping, or just use other people’s
bots and not build. (I do plan on making a video that includes things which were left out of the tutorial
as a tips and tricks video at some point)
Communication
While the communication is definitely better than it has been, it could be much better. Reaching out for
ideas from the community, a test server, and just more player dev/admin/mod interaction would be
really nice. It often feels like an update is thought up and done with the intentions of continuing the
community’s idea, but then gets random things added to it or changed in a way that no longer fits the
original goal well. I would always say the intention behind an idea is always good, for example making
wings easier to fly, but the actual result looking at wings now makes them both easy, and completely
lack depth while being an even easier target. While the reason for them needing a buff outside of being
accessible was being hit a lot and crippled. The intention of making them easier to use and more stable
was along the lines of what was asked for, the end result however didn’t really fit that idea anymore.
With more communication or a test server hopefully that type of thing wouldn’t happen, and a lot of the
balance updates might be easier to figure out the changes needed. I hope the team continues to ask for
input, and respond to people’s ideas if possible, to maintain a relationship of devs as players, not just
devs.

Economy Changes

With the re added use for robits, I was originally excited as this game them a purpose again in the game
after infinity removed that. But, the more I played the more I realized this was only the case for new
players and did nothing for existing players who had millions of robits stored up. The grind at the start
between weapon upgrades and garage bays is painfully slow, but towards the end game, it becomes a
non-issue and irrelevant, which quite quickly makes them yet again a useless thing you gather and never
use. My proposal would be to do the garage bay upgrades in chunks of 250, each costing 20,000 robits.
To actually reduce the number of upgrades as that is also somewhat annoying, I would start the player
at 750 cpu so they are only required to upgrade a bay a max of six times total or for 120,000 robits in
one go.