I play a few matches of the new flagrun mode in Unreal Tournament 4 and give my thoughts on the state of the mode. If you want to know how this mode currently plays and want some thoughts on how it can be improved then you have come to the right place!
Thoughts and Feedback:
*Weapon pickups in bases:
I feel like its kind of strange to provide flak, link or shock without having to ration these potentially powerful weapons with your team. All of the better guns in this mode should be strategic choices, not meaningless infinite weapons.
Bring back the UT2004 shield gun and modify the functionality to protect other players on your team or yourself. I think a creative option here would be a hugely cool addition to the game.
Bring back the UT2004 assault rifle. All players should spawn with the shield gun and assault rifle as well as the enforcer. It would actually be interesting if you provide a way for players to choose from a list of sub par weapons that they can spawn with. Crappy weapons can be amusing, instead of the flak cannon it can be the slak cannon or the spark rifle lol. You get the idea. All of the big weapons should spawn as standard pickups in the level as you are already doing.
*Health and armor pickups in general:
Super strong dependence on health pickups placed in the level. This means that the mode will have some serious flow issues due to most players not having the items they need when they need them. Also with how some of the bigger most powerful pickups function its nearly impossible to access these items when they are most needed. I have thought about a few interesting ways to solve this problem. Make it so that the pickups in the level provide bonuses for your team as a whole rather than just for yourself.
New pickups with new functionality, for example:
Health pickup that provides regen to yourself and everyone around you for X amount of time.
Ammo pickups that provide the team with ammo regen bonus.
Damage amplifier should be a team wide bonus
On that same note, Runes could be a very interesting aspect to this mode. Runes are can almost remove the need to even have standard health ammo and armor pickups in the level. Imagine if there are runes placed in the level last for a certain amount of time. Imagine how that might effect the flow of the game.
*Being able to score even when there are multiple defenders standing next to the point.
Ok this is a big one on a couple fronts. It is way too easy to just grab shield belt and run to the objective with flag while the entire defending team is near. The final objective should only become available after contesting a control point for X seconds.
*Flag should not just be sitting inside of the attackers base and it should require a coordinated attack to earn the flag.
The flag itself should not be placed in the attackers spawn. I think the flag should be placed in a central location outside of the attackers base and the flag should not become available until the attackers contest a control point for X seconds. This means that they need to defeat or push away the defenders long enough for the control point make the flag become available. This area should make for an interesting team vs team battle location and the defenders should be able to reach this location long enough to entrench themselves BEFORE the attackers are allowed to leave their base.
*Rate of fire and explosion radius of grenade launcher
Give it a slight buff on both aspects please. It was nice to see people actually using the grenade launcher though. Not sure if the Bio rifle would have been used as much if it were available.
*Instructions for match is insanely hard to absorb before a match begins.
I doubt 90% of humans will be able to both read and comprehend the information you see before a match begins.
*Attackers have way too many advantages and defenders have limited respawn tickets.
Attackers have a natural advantage that they choose when and where they will engage the defenders. This is just a natural side effect of this kind of mode. Attackers have to come to the defenders. Defenders dont have control over the attackers. The game should naturally skew towards the defenders. The reason for this is that the game should be about who can get the farthest while getting their butts kicked as attackers.
Remove limited spawn tickets from the game. This causes all kinds of issues in serious play. When a game becomes a 3v5 its a massive disadvantage, you might as well just end the game afer 2 or more people on the defending team cannot respawn anymore.
*WTF is a rally button?
I bound all my keys to weapons. Since the game has 10000 weapons I seriously think the flag carrier should be able to set a rally point by just standing inside of an uncontested rally point for X seconds. No key required!
So with all of that said I feel like this mode can really be great with some more work done to it! I look forward to future updates! :D