My Impressions of Off Limits Thread - Off Limits mod for Half-Life 2

I've only played a handful of matches with a small number of players so far, so some of my observations might be overlooking something, but at the time of writing the servers are usually empty, and in the current state of the game I cant blame anyone for not wanting to play.

-Maps: While I'd like to phrase this in a more constructive and eloquent manner, the maps that I have played on so far are, quite frankly, terrible. They almost seem like they were made in some HL2 random map generator and then the OL team came in and plopped a bunch of their assets down in random places. On most of the maps I had a hard enough time finding out which direction the next capture point was much less how to get there. There's no clear indication of where you're supposed to go, and on top of that most of the maps are so convoluted that you run the risk of passing by your objective and walking into the enemy spawn. I think this is the only game where I have unintentionally walked past the center capture point and ended up at the next one. The maps also lack a proper amount of symmetry. I'm not one of those people that thinks maps have to be mirror balanced to be good, but on some of the maps it feels like 2 different people designed the 2 sides of the map. I'd like to be more constructive and perhaps give some input on how the maps could be improved, but honestly I think the best thing you could do for Off Limit's maps is to remove them and get someone other than the person who made the current maps to make some new ones.

-Gameplay: Gameplay in OL feels like its kind of in a grey area right now; like its trying to be unique, but its not sure just how. Of course there's the element of the juggernaut, which I'll get into later, but other than that it kind of feels like its in-between being a fast twitch-shooter or a slower tactical one. Characters can certainly move around faster than in games like Counterstrike or Battlefield, but the damage is at a point where you cant really survive a shootout if you didn't fire first, aren't outnumbering (or out juggernaut-ing) the opposing group, or aren't in a position where you can immediately take cover. I also cant tell whether or not their is any advantage to crouching, standing still, or m2 aiming while shooting due to the fact that the aiming reticule is a static image. The hit indicator and audio feedback are nice touches, but Its hard to tell when you're getting hit as damage indicators only occasionally work. There may just be a feature that I'm overlooking, but it seems kind of silly to me that you can easily tell when you hit your enemy but you cant noticeably tell when they hit you. Armor (or, the number under health that I am assuming to be armor) is a curious mechanic is this game as it seems to do jack shit, as every time I died I had 70+ armor. If a developer could clarify what armor is supposed to do, I would be appreciative. The weapons seem like they could be adjusted to have more clearly defined uses, as the two assault rifles are indiscernible from each other, the SMG seems like its just a lesser version of an assault rifle with no obvious advantages, and the shotgun is flat out terrible. Grenades could use some adjusting as they go off so fast and are so hard to avoid taking damage from that I feel that they might as well be replaced with rocket launchers. The shield grenades are a neat idea, but they feel clumsily implemented, and I think it would make more sense to implement them as a device that gives you a cooldown-based ability that lets you plant shields at your cursor location with a keybind.

I have more input, but this is getting longer than I anticipated, and I've probably spent more time on it that necessary. I've probably come-off as over-critical, but these are my honest opinions of the game so far, and I only wish to see the game improve in the future. I wish the Off Limits team the best of luck as they continue to develop the game, and I hope Off Limits reaches its full potential by the end of beta.

Edited by: Ninpou