by Dale Harvey

Recently Respawn held a Tech Test for their upcoming game Titanfall 2 in order to let gamers help them test their servers for scale, (meaning when this game goes online, will players be able to play in a stable online environment) and shake out any obvious bugs that we found. For the most part, Respawn got just what they wanted and maybe a little bit that they didn’t. See, this was their new baby’s first time walking in front of the gaming public as a whole and as always, the fans, haters, and trolls were out in full force. Full disclaimer: I am a huge Titanfall fanboy. I won’t go into how huge, but if you look around on the internet a bit, you’ll see just how bad it is for me.  I really want this game to be epic and to have thousands of players still playing it long after it has been released… yes this is a pipe dream, but it’s mine and I’m holding it close to my chest.

The Tech Test

When you start up the game on PS4 (This was only for PS4 and Xbox 1, PC gamers will get their turn later) there were two disclaimers telling everyone that there would be issues with the game, because this was not a finished product (of course). So my mind is in the right place, I’ve got my mic ready, my squad is on standby ready to jump in and…HERE WE GO!

Playing the game, it was almost like putting on a pair of old jeans. You know the ones that fit you just right…the ones that know every single hug and crease of your butt cheeks?Yeah, you know the ones. The first couple of rounds just felt good, and looked amazing. You can tell that Respawn Entertainment is really putting in a lot of work to make the game as lovely as possible.  Controls were tight, and trying to learn my way around the new maps was just fun!

One main selling point of the game is the movement/parkour system that it puts into place.  It’s meant to feel slick and fast once you get up off the ground and start wall running.  Hell, once people start to do this, they quickly see how fast the game can get, and how it is not like Call of Duty(link) in many ways. At one moment while we played, I had a person ask “My god man, do you ever touch the ground?”  Only if I have to, brother!  So was it fun?  Why yes, yes it was! It was a blast and when the people I normally play with online finally got a chance to get in and play with me, it was glorious!  We had a group of vets and newbies playing together and the difference in the play of the newbies from their first to their fifth game was dramatic. Heck, as I was wall running a path to flank and get to the other side of the map, I turned and looked around and there were two or three others with me all the time. Needless to say, all I could do is smile on the inside at their progress.

Gaming fun aside, there were others in our passionate community that had serious concerns about the current Tech Test.  As such, some were even up in arms about how the game had changed too much from its roots, and how these changes, if not reversed or fixed, would spell the failure of this game come October 28^th 2016.  My first thought as a fanboy was to dismiss this internet crying as puerile hate. But to casually dismiss someone’s opinion without even looking at it or giving it fair consideration? Well, let’s just say I wasn’t raised like that. So I took three of the main concerns I saw over the weekend and tried to address them with my own set of opinions based on my previous experience playing Titanfall, and my experience with the weekend playing the Tech Test of Titanfall 2.

Issue one:  Titan Timers

Here’s the deal: In Titanfall, your “Titan” (as the name implies) is an integral part of you as a pilot. You are the brain, the tactics, and the bad intentions. The Titan is the tool and direct projection of your will and desire to send the other team back to the god-forsaken rock/system that they decided to warp in from.  There is no one without the other; it is core to the game play experience.  In Titanfall, when you first drop into the battlefield, field ops tells you that your Titan will arrive in 3:00 minutes, there are things you can do during the course of battle to help shave off time with this timer and get your Titan much quicker, but no matter what, you will get a Titan at the 3 minute mark period.  This was great in many ways because you knew that even if you had horrible aim, and just annoyed the enemy by shooting and hitting everything else but them, at least you would get a chance to open up a can of hot whoop-ass as soon as you hear that sweet, sweet sentence: “Standby for TITANFALL,” and just maybe you were much better at being a Titan pilot than just a pilot on foot.

In the Titanfall 2 Tech Test, the timer was gone, and replaced with a meter that you had to fill up with kills and direct actions against the enemy team.  Without them, you would fail to get a Titan at all – meaning that if you can’t go out and capture a point, or at least kill some AI grunts or specters, you would never see your own Titan during a game.

Quite a few people were very upset about this change, and while I can’t say that I’m upset about it, during the Tech Test I’ll have to say I was deeply confused about why they went that way. In one of the game modes that we played, even seeing a Titan drop was a very rare occasion, to the point that Respawn decided to patch the Test client, in order to up the spawn rate as it was too low.

After playing on Attrition and Hardpoint this afternoon, I deeply hope that Respawn decides to bring back the Titan Timer, or at least give modes that have the option to turn them back on. Maybe a classic option, as I feel it makes the game more frenetic and provides “hope” to the player who is having a bad round for his team, but is able to pull it all together once they hop inside their battle buddy and promptly proceeds to start kicking bastards dead in the chests.

Issue Two:  Paper Champions and The Pilot Fear Factor

So far, with the Titanfall 2 Tech Test, the two Titans that we’ve been given to work with feel like they fill the role of “Titan” but their survivability seems very low; it feels like other Titans and pilots can rip through them like wet paper bags. Sadly, in going back and playing the original Titanfall this afternoon, every time I had a Titan drop I knew that (if I needed to) I could take on at least two Titans and a pilot and still survive if played right. Granted, this is because my current Titan is kitted out and armed to the teeth with remorseless pieces of ballistics, energy based weapons,  and a nuclear ejection that will make you sorry if you get too close to me in my death throes.

However, the Titans we were playing with during the Tech Test were pretty bare bones, and didn’t have the full complement of pilot countermeasures that many veteran players are used to having. Taking that into consideration, one would have to say this is a “push” for the moment. I would love to suggest for Titanfall 2 that the Titans health or armor be bumped up to Titanfall levels, but given that all we had to play with during the first Tech Test was two bare bones Titans,  I would like to wait and see what else Respawn has in store for us. I get the feeling we won’t be disappointed.

Issue Three:  Speed Kills!

In Titanfall, speed is the name of the game. The ability to get up off the ground, wall run, and carry that momentum into your next wall runs will put you and your teammates into positions that can swing the tide of battle with ease.

During my time with the Titanfall 2 Tech Test this was a little hard to judge, as there were moments when my pilot felt zippy with the few wall running paths that the two available maps provided, but even during these moments the pilots felt just a bit heavy. It’s almost like they had just eaten a full meal before dropping into the battlefield.

To be fair even running in Titanfall on the ground without Stim equipped, the movement tends to feel this way as well.  However, there is a difference between the two games so far in this regard. I’m not sure if this is an easy fix, or if the new classes are “supposed” to be faster, or the rope/hook is supposed to be your new way to get speed… but if possible I would like to see pilot speed (at least while wall running) bumped up about 15%.  If that is not possible, then if Respawn would please let us know how they intend for us to achieve that level of speed that we had before, that would be awesome.

To summarize this was a great opportunity to give feedback to Respawn about what we want and need out of Titanfall 2,  and it’s even better that we know they are listening.  That is very rare, and I hope that we as a community don’t abuse it.

In my opinion, the Tech Test was very enjoyable and it was nice to go back to Titanfall and see once again what a pure diamond they made with that game. Even with its flaws, there is tons to be learned – both good and bad.