I was playing the game with a friend who is very new to it. I was looking forward to playing with him so I could discuss the opinion of a neophyte who steps into the game with little to zero knowledge of it; overall I'd say he had a mixed impression. And now I'm here in the forums to contribute my grain of sand based on what he experienced.

When it comes to gameplay there were no negative points. He was mostly experimenting with different characters to see which one he liked better; and yes, he was having fun with that.

The problems arose mostly from the UX/UI. Starting with the long rewards screens. My friend was having fun learning how to play and he wanted to keep on playing without interruptions, but he found the post-match screens to be a hindrance. First the featured player, then Cortez telling you the score and rewards, then collecting the rewards and the experience, then opening the adventure tab and waiting for the dailies' animation (and god forbids you level up). Alltogether those screens interrupt the flow of a gaming session that won't be compelling for a newcomer that just wants to familiarize with the game as quick as possible.

Then he stumbled over the most recent addition to the game; the Epic Forge. He was testing the waters with different characters and was wondering how to make them stronger. When he figured that he could build several different weapons for each character he was more than interested! But as soon as he opened the forging interface his interest decayed over a cloud of confusion. "this is not intuitive at all", "I don't even know what i'm looking at" where a couple of his opinions.

Ultimately he decided not to mess with the crafting because he didn't have enough parts to build the guns; which was yet another issue, he wanted to gather more parts but he had ran out of dailies, leaving him with no options. All that made up for a rather discouraging progression experience.

So my suggestion sums up to a single word; synthesize. I don't know when people stopped complaining about the long reward screen; but I remember it used to be a recurrent topic several updates ago, and it's still a problem; and MSE keeps aggravating it by adding and adding stuff. Please; just shorten the goddamn screens, it's easy... synthesize.

Now the forging is a more complex topic; but I'll agree with my friend here. It is not intuitive, it is confusing, it is discouraging, and it also needs to be synthesized into something more comprehensible and user-friendly. Honestly I can't imagine what the purpose is with the over-elaborated complexity of the modding system, but i suggest to MSE that they approach to it differently. If they are going to make the game challenging, let that be in the missions, rather than the crafting; because that just makes a poor UX (if not boring).

BUMP because the suggestion is still valid & it seemed to be getting good impressions from the players

(I suppose the idea of timed crafting comes to "solve" the problem of regulating the pace of progression of the players. But it's a precarious/intricate solution and it doesn't really synergyze with this type of game.

One of the things most called for by both newcomers and veterans alike; is the possibility to unlock and experiment a decent variety of builds with more flexibility and based on their own decisions rather than a limited number of random options. The latest system installed is good because it removed the limits and the randomness, but it's far from being flexible, in fact it's the opposite of flexible.)

Now let's get to the heart of the matter. To really solve this issue I propose getting rid of the crafting times for Talents, and instead; implement a "capacity" attribute on the characters. Players will be able to increase this attribute on specific characters with points earned by leveling up.

Just to make things more clear I'll state an example. Every character has the capacity to learn a huge amount of Talents. Currently once you meet certain lvls a group of Talents become available for every character.

My suggestion aims for a more personal system based on a Talents "capacity limit" increased by players as they level up. Each character would start with a capacity of 1; meaning they are only able to hold a single Talent (their starting Talent by default). When the players level up; they will be granted a given amount of "capacity points" to spend on their characters of choice to increase their Talents capacity limit.

So; for a character to learn more Talents beyond their starting card, they will need to buy the new Talent with 1 capacity point and its respective price in Talent Points; if you don't have capacity points you can't unlock further Talents until you level up again and get more "capcity points".

In the same vein; further groups of Talents that are more advanced down the list; will be locked behind the players' level AND would require the player to pay more Talent Points and the characters must have unlocked a specific amount of talents on the lesser rows of Talents.

For example the second row of Talents for all characters will be available to unlock at level 20, but for each specific character first you need to have 3 talents unlocked on the first row to be able to advance to the second. And then they would need to learn at least 4 Talents of the second row to be able to advance to the third, and so on.

Lastly; why would we need both "capacity points" and Talent Points? Well the capacity points will only be there to increase the amount of Talents a character can hold, and Talent Points; much like their current function; will determine the cost of learning a Talent. So for example learning a Talent from the first row will cost you 1 capacity point and 500 Talent Points, but a golden Talent from the last row will cost you 1 capacity point and 100K Talent Points. This will present interesting scenarios on how the players manage their Talents progression "should I keep all my Talent/capacity points to focus on my favorite character? or should I distribute my points to improve the build of several characters?".

To sum up my suggestion consists on the following ideas:
> Characters will have a limited amount of Talents defined by the characters' "capacity"
> Each character starts with a Capacity of 1, being able to hold only their starting Talent
> Leveling up will give you "capacity points" to increase the characters' amount of Talents learned
> "Capacity points" will allow you to unlock 1 Talent per point plus its respective price of Talent Points for one character
> Rare Talents will still be blocked behind levels/tiers and will require a certain amount of unlocked Talents on the previous tiers.
> The more advanced the Talents are down the list the more expensive they will be
> Talent progression will be individual to each character; you won't get Talents available to unlock on all characters by leveling up

The melee system needs something to make it more interesting, specially when it comes to PvP, the melee combos between players feel way too flat, the prediction system to counter melee actions lacks a lot of depth; and furthermore there's a hard tendency of raiders bunching up on the antagonists leaving no options for the antag but to die.

Hence I come with an idea that I believe would make the melee combat a more interesting, deep and balanced mechanic; I suggest to experiment with the addition of a brand new melee action: blocking.

Adding a fourth option to the melee fights would make the prediction game a more skillful  dynamic instead a random lottery with broken patterns.

Now how would blocking work? Well I wanna take an approach to it focused on the PvP fighting; given the way the players behave in CQC. And as it is, I think it is fair for the melee to be just as asymmetrical as the PvP is at large.

>Blocking will give you a bonus of melee resistance and will stagger the attacker in a similar way than when they hit an immune target

>For antags; blocking melee attacks consecutively will build up an "over-stress" gauge; which will apply some sort of bonus/buff if it fills (This will encourage the raiders team to take on strategic & thoughtful offensive approaches rather than just surrounding the antag and spamming Q or E alternatively to get an easy kill).

>Blocking a grapple will stagger the enemy and build up part of the over-stress gauge.

>This new dynamic would give the stealth play-style a higher relevance & interest since finishing enemies with a surprise grapple would be a lot more rewarding time-wise.

>Blocking without receiving a hit quick enough will weaken the effect of the blocking; incoming hits will break it and grapples will have a normal effect

**please note that the purpose of this suggestion is not directed to buff antagonists but to make the PvP gameplay more tactical and thoughtful**

Just some feedback on the long-term gameplay/endgame. I've been thinking for while about how some players call the game repetitive; and as i agree with their feeling, i disagree with this approach.

This game is by no mean more repetitive than any other game out there. In fact, when you think about it; ALL games are repetitive; but the impact of iterative gaming feels different in each case, with PvP focused games carrying the less weight of this sensation; for logical reasons.

Spacelords does feel heavily routinary; even tho we do have quite a decent amount of stages each with different dynamics, a good roster of varied characters and gameplay that mixes pve with esporadic PvP.

So now i'm starting this thread to share my opinion and discuss feedback on the topic, and bring up some ideas that might help the game to get in a good direction for it to be less of a burden when grinding for progression, or just playing for fun without feeling the sensation of repetitiveness.

I personally think adding unique mechanics for antags rather than just mimicking one of the characters would be good. I guess we'll see about that with the future specters update, which will hopefully make the PvP more attractive, interesting and balance.

Now i encourage you to share you opinion on why you think the game feels repetitive and what solutions you think would be good to solve the issue! 

That early concept looks awesome! As expected from your artists quality

I appreciate the creativity regarding the weapons' designs, and I mean this for both visuals and mechanics, I like a lot the fact that they are being creative enough to make a lot of varied guns without coming up with nonsense like bows/arrows or boomerangs, which happens in a lot of games.

So if you read next campaign's description "Council Apocalypse", you'll find that the fifth council's been collecting archaeological data, and also (as seen in the mission "the enemy within") they are looking for the protectors as well.

This might bring a plot twist even bigger than what we've discussing in this thread. What's their purpose? As stated by the raiders, humans could use the protectors' power to be able to warp back to earth and bring with them a bigger army and weaponry so they can easily dominate the planet and its aleph.

But as we know, the canon has it that the raiders managed to find and keep the protectors by their side, which ruins the plans of the council, or not? As i said; Council Apocalypse's premise states they are looking for archaeological information; what a term! As we know, ancient technology is a major element in RotBP universe; and archaeological investigation seems like something you could use to figure out this technology.

Assuming the Fifth Council can obtain enough information about the planet's ancient tech; they perhaps could do by their own means what the protectors are supposed to... (wait for it)  bringing back The Legacy of the Old World. If we assume this is possible, getting to this legacy will become a race between the raiders and the council.

Now let's recall a few facts: the legacy of the old world remains in hands of Shamash (horned guy, who was referred to by that name in Schneider's showcase stream former to his release) who is waiting for the protectors to open the portal for him and his people. Post credit cut-scenes tell us that the portal has been in fact opened.

Opened... by who? Protectors or Fifth Council? Only time will tell. But to keep theorizing even deeper; what'll happen if each win's the legacy race? Protectors would probably ask just for help to make humans leave the planet (which Harec planned by simply warping them to earth). But council could have a more interesting proposal for Shamash.

In the past; after abusing of the aleph power and technology that led to the break of the planet, the current locals in the planet became pacifists (apart from obvious exclusions), their ancestors expelled from the planet those natives who wouldn't agree with the new philosophies, leaving in exile those who still believe the ancient technology's power can be of good use.

Today; humans are looking to exploit aleph and all its potential. If the Fifth Council gets to recover The Legacy of the Old World, they could ask Shamash to join forces with them; to worship and exploit the aleph with the power of the ancient tech, as the planet's ancestors used to. Current locals' society will oppose; Shamash will have to choose... remain loyal to his own kind, or join forces with humans who support his ways.

I see war coming.