Yeah I noticed a bit too late there was actually a feedback channel on top there where I thought were only news and announcements so... Could someone kindly move it to the feedback section, please? Thank you.
It's been a while since I last played Plazma Burst 2, and today I went to check the game out again after hearing about it in one of my YouTube comment sections. So without further to do, I went ahead to check it out. And I saw a lot of new things. Goods and bads. I wanted to make a video about it at first but then I thought text might be more productive and seen.
The generals
Things that didn't deserve a separate point just go here. And of course the site goes here as well. While not a lot of things have changed initially, I can definitely see some improvements here and there. Custom maps which are being advertised, the news page is actually active, the game site itself was adjusted so you can update your game to your preferences. It's definitely a nice thing.
The game still played as well as before, and thanks to some new rig, it ran a little smoother as well.
We still have the good old and enjoyable maps. Some new, some old, and I would say it's great to see a mix of new and old still, which makes playing the game a lot more nostalgic.
Improved UI, enhanced stability
One thing I noticed immediately after entering the game is an improved stability. My biggest problem a few years ago were issues with the stability. Constant frame rate drops, connection issues, and I feel like today none of them were apparent. I didn't have optimal frame rate, but that's fine. I'm used to it in flash games and I definitely don't blame the game. But the connection was way more stable and my ping was much higher. I immediately felt the improvement.
Movements were a lot more fluid, less laggy, and people I played with mostly had fluid movements as well. During PvP, this quickly was noticable. So I definitely and hugely praise the improvement in this regard.
I also checked the options and I am impressed with how much new options were added. The separate options make customization a lot easier and better and makes the game a lot more playable to players like me who would like to have more options to as example disable custom music.
Player count improved?
Despite little amounts of players, I found a lot of full games. A long while ago, I used to see a lot of rooms with only one player in it. Today, it's a lot more full rooms and less 1-man or 2-man rooms. They were still there, but much more rare. And while I know that's (probably) not a game improvement in itself, but the community has improved in that realm. After entering a match, I found a lot of new things. Like an annoying text to speech for some reason, new weapons and also new character models. Which I guess was nice.
The ultimate gun mayhem
I entered the advanced level editor to see what it was about. I mean I saw two new weapons, new models, I was kinda curious to see what they are. I loaded up my test map and immediately went ahead to check for new weapons. I was... shocked.
I scrolled and scrolled and it felt there there was no end to it. If anything, I was overwhelmed. Too many weapons, in my opinion. We already had a lot two years ago or something, and was enough to fill up maps with diverse and interesting choices. Now it just feels like we want to force an infinite number of weapons without any substantial reason behind them other than just having them. I don't see any balance gaps which couldn't have been fixed with gun mod triggers.
And all those different sounds, projectiles, but same weapon concepts just really hurts eyes and ears. Keep games simple, not extensive and diverse.
Overall, and this is my definitive statement: We have WAY too many weapons now.
Custom backgrounds and custom decorations
I of course went ahead to check out the rest of the advanced level editor. I was impressed by some things, such as quality of life improvements for triggers (linked triggers, sorting), UI cleanup and finally a dark mode. Those were some impressive additions which I surely support and love to see.
Backgrounds and decorations were my next choice. And well, I have to say I enjoy the concept behind it, just not the execution. You see, I scrolled through the custom decorations, and eight out of ten decorations were completely out of place, didn't fit with the initial plazmaburst 2 style, were generally weirdly colored or looked terrible.
Now of course people will come forth and say "Just don't use them" but I'm afraid I'll have to see them on different maps where the style isn't at all unified. Retro-looking characters and full HD solar system? I mean, sorry, but this ain't a good idea. Rather create more decorations on your own, custom text fonds, maybe an in-editor decoration editor so you can recolor/transform existing decorations. But this just feels weird and to be honest, excessive.
It may be a good concept at mind, but the looks and execution of it will not work out for most people to enjoy.
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If anything, that's all that really fell into my eye. The last two points may be negative, but honestly, the game is still taking a good direction, and I hope to see the highly anticipated update sometime soon.
Kind regards ~ Whyme/PeriCore