Help me with this:

[Insano-Man]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this. I'm probably not the target of this thread, since nobody prompted me and I've been doing roleplaying for a very long time. Still, I'm a new(?) player, so I thought I'd share some bullet points on what my experience has been like. This just felt like the most appropriate thread I could find.

For some background, I played Discovery a very long time ago, back in the neighborhood of 2008 - 2010. I was only just getting into roleplaying then. It was last month, or the month before, that I had a stray thought about checking if Freelancer was abandonware. Found it, downloaded it, played the campaign, and had a spontaneous urge to see if Discovery was still around. I've been playing for a few weeks now, mostly in a group with two of my other friends, who are also longtime roleplayers. In other times, I've been playing by myself.

So, here goes:

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[+] The mod feels less amateurish from when I last played. I haven't seen any (obvious) rips from other games or franchises. Things feel better polished, and more original, while still being in line with Freelancer.

[++] The balance is better. Liberty isn't just terrible like it was in the campaign.

(--) I don't like PVP. I don't like the impression I've been given that DIscovery is a PVP-focused mod now. I don't like how it feels that the game has suffered for it just to be more balanced. It feels like the mod's suffered the same fate as the RTS genre; trying to make a level playing field has levelled everything of interest, too.

(---) The progression track feels incredibly short for neutral IDs. It doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of difference between fighters and other fighters, guns and other guns, and so on. I didn't even feel any kind of power spike from getting a frigate on my solo character. If anything, I felt weaker than my group character is with a bomber.

(--) The concept of tech compatibility is incredibly frustrating. Having to consult a spreadsheet to be sure I'm not going to brick my ship is the dead last thing I wanted to do getting back into the game. Between that and the flattened, PVP-first balance, it's seriously discouraged me from seeking out anything new.

(-) The server feels kind of lifeless, especially during my group's Australian hours. I mostly don't see people. When I do, they're usually zipping by on a trade run. It's once in a blue moon that I even get a "hi". Being new in a well-established community, I haven't had the courage to do much more than blurt out idle chatter.

(--) Roleplaying feels seriously hamstrung by the 128 character limit in chat and the clumsy, ephemeral chat log. I've not been hooked enough to want to join the Discord server. With the shortage of people and the drought of communication, there's not much roleplaying to do, either.

(-) I come from a background mostly made up of RTS, forum, and Discord roleplaying, where I'm not constrained to a single character or perspective. It's an alien experience trying to get used to acting through a single ship, but I acknowledge that this is chiefly a personal issue.

(--) NPCs feel castrated. They all but completely ignore the player on most occasions. NPCs don't scan you, trade lane pirates just sit there and stare at you, and even the dialogue feels quieter than usual. I don't think I've once had a cruise disruptor fly at me. A lot of what I remember from Freelancer is just gone.

(--) NPCs feel overtuned. Fighting them is an irritating experience. They never stop dropping mines, and they're constantly jittering around like an epileptic on a water bed - even when flying straight. Missions are patently absurd. If it's not a flock of gunboats, it's a swarm of fighters so thick that their own mines start targeting them. I've won most of my battles, but I've only had a few I actually enjoyed.

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My overall estimation is that there's not much to keep me engaged with the game. I see a lot of good, but I don't think much of it works for me.

The combat is a nuisance, which means the primary focus of Freelancer is a bit miserable for me. The mod's new direction is completely opposed to my preferences, so I feel like I'm flat-out in the wrong game. I feel like there's not much to look forward in improving my ship, or buying a new one. Even the discovery aspect (hurk) feels muted, since the NPCs are mostly ambivalent about my presence, and I'm reasonably sure - given the flattened balance model - that I could kill most wandering patrols by myself.

As someone who's doubled down on roleplaying as a core hobby, I'd be able to deal with all these things if I felt more inspired to craft my narrative, but it's not easy to take the first step here - especially when there's rarely anybody to take a step towards.

I've stopped playing my solo character. Assuming my current trajectory continues, I'll be departing as soon as my group loses interest. I had a lot of big ideas on story concepts, but maybe it's for the best; I don't know how well they'd mesh with Freelancer.

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A grudge. A promise. A burning need.

An end.