tall shoal
Title checks out. Besides the standard game mode, we have had 3 other game modes in the past few months:
- Zap Trap
- Capture the Flag
- Wumpa Whale
All of these game modes have one thing in common: They severely reduce the gameplay to one aspect. The standard game mode is great: You have different roles, character attributes, gem platforms, wumpas, relics, powerups, relic stations and various objectives and it involves a lot of decision making on what the next best action is depending on the current state of the game. Basically, no 2 matches are ever the same.
This is not at all the case for the new game modes that we have been able to test so far.
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Zap Trap has no relics and relic stations at all. The electric fence OHKOs all characters, so strength and health don't matter anymore. The OHKO fence also nullifies certain powerups such as the fridge. Basically anything that deals damage or restores health is useless because it gets obsoleted by the fence. The game balance is also severely skewed towards fast characters - Coco and Crash are essentially the only viable characters in this game because they are the 2 fastest characters and no other attributes matter. Zap Trap is a very poor game mode overall and severely reduces the highly dynamic gameplay of the standard game mode.
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Capture the Flag is unique because it has a different winning condition. But this game mode also suffers from reduction: Scorers are essentially useless and so are powerups that support you in scoring (such as the Wumpa Stash). All flag carriers are reduced to the same speed, so Dingodile is the only viable flag carrier because the viability of a flag carrier is decided by the health. Flag carriers cannot attack on their own, so their moveset and strength also don't matter. This game mode has no relics and relic stations either, so boosters are also useless (well, Coco and Cortex are great characters independently from their role, so you will still use them). In this game mode it's all about health and strength, so characters with these attributes are greatly favored. The gameplay is notably stale though and lacks the dynamic of the standard game mode, especially since it doesn't even work conceptually on some maps because the wumpa banks are so close together.
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Wumpa Whale was released only yesterday but is especially poor in this regard. Activating the wumpa whale is a guaranteed win in 99.9% of all situations. Scoring doesn't matter, only collecting relics does. Boosters are naturally at a huge advantage there. There are wumpas, relic stations and gem platforms but you don't want to use them because they are useless. This game mode is all about collecting relics quickly, so characters with fast movement who can see double relics are at a huge advantage (read that as: Coco). Every match is the same with little variety.
I wish new game modes had more to offer. All the new game modes so far have been a drastic reduction from what makes the standard mode fun. Next week there's gonna be bank swap and I don't know how you can possibly mess this up but seeing as how the game modes have been so far, I have a feeling that even bank swap will have a huge catch. Please introduce more game modes in the future that add value to the standard mode and not take value away.
tawny merlin
olive parrot
winged edge
meager spire