Combat Arms: Fusion Overview

Combat Arms: Fusion Overview

So, as everyone should be aware of, Combat Arms recently went through it's first stage of "Fusion". As much as we'd hate to admit it, Nexon stepped their game up this time. Before this, the game was on a serious downfall.. The community was quickly going down the drain, meaning seeing the words "nice shot", or "good try" were a rarity. Plently of well-known and respected players stopped playing. *Frostfire..* Hackusations and rage kicks were worse than ever. Content that was being pumped out monthly was primarily focused on handing the players a poorly designed map with more overpowered weapons, (like a new specialist, really? Was ANYONE even asking for this?)

BUT! In the distance there existed a faint light of hope. TF2 going F2P, AVA joining Steam, and the threat of incoming major name FPS competition finally beat some sense into Nexon's thick skull. There's not better wake up call than the sound of money being forcibly vacuumed from your wallet. A few things were starting to improve. Monthly hacker wipes, bug fixes were becoming more common, and Nexon came up with a few good ideas to implement (with the help of our wonderful forum community). Things like the Gun Emporium (which included a Roulette Wheel, a customization feature, and a weapon crafting feature) was introduced. Daily Jobs followed suit, giving players big rewards for pretty much just logging in and playing for a few hours. Even a huge EXP/GP boost, meaning no more endless Fireteam grinding for those who wanted to quickly rank up. Alas, it was still not enough.
The big question was: "How do we keep our player base active and playing with all of the sh*t that's about to hit the fan?!"

Combat Arms: Fusion.
With the addition of the Fusion Project to Combat Arms, the game as a whole improved. The community responded well and even I (who's very well known for having a very long going love & hate relationship with the game) thought this would be the saving grace.

"Coming soon to Combat Arms, we're making improvements, customizing new features and maps, and fixing long standing issues. Starting in August and continuing through October, you'll see big changes in Combat Arms. While you'll see new systems, weapons, and maps, you'll also get improvements and fixes throughout the game. Building a better game play experience is what Combat Arms Fusion is all about."

"Here's what's coming in Stage 1. We'll be announcing additional upcoming features and improvements soon."

STAGE 1: ENHANCE
Abilities System: Upgrade your soldier with special abilities to gain the upper-hand.
New Map: A whole new battleground to test your skills and prove your dominance.
Rebalanced Moderators: Enhanced Moderator rules for better, more balanced matches.

The Abilities System can be better elaborated in another thread made especially for it on the Combat Arms section in the forums (or just read about on the forums.)
However, here's a brief touch on them. The abilities are a welcome addition to game for both the lovers and the haters. With the choice to be toggled on or off, everyone can play as they wish. A couple of things could have been improved on (like the methods on how to actually attain the abilties) but with the main goal being just implementing them in a way that's not game-breaking, it was handled pretty well.

The New Map was Hallow Ravine. Basically it's a battle of who can hold the mid-field the best. Between holding the side passage (with the one camping rock) and the tunnels that lead to the opposing spawns, it's honestly just which team can pin the other down first. The dense fog is interesting, but it probably could have been better handled if it didn't encourage as much nametag peaking.

Rebalanced Moderators was the final part of Fusion: Stage 1. A lot of people were hoping for maybe a "No Specs" option, or perhaps a better Vote Kick system. However, the "rebalancing" only applied to the Elite Mods and Super Elites. If EM's or SE's get to many Bad Votes they'll lose their kicking privileges for a day.. big whoop? And in Restricted rooms (password protected), players can now be kicked by a Vote Kick that can only be called by the EM or SE. So power hungry Mods lose like a smidge of power, which isn't all that bad. I was just REALLY, REALLY, looking forward to that "No Specialists" option.  

STAGE 2: REMASTER
Gun Emporium Gold: September brings the end of the Gun Emporium Beta as well as an improved Customization system and a whole new type of Forged Weapon.
New Clan Map: Gather your squad and battle it out on a brand new clan server map.

Fusion Weapons:  After a lot of work, sweat, and no small amount of swearing, Bubba Ares is introducing the latest line of weapons for the discriminating soldier. The new line of “Fusion Weapons” might better be described as the “Frankenstein’s monsters” of weapons development. Bubba will take bits and pieces of already great weapons and fuse them together into death machines that frankly scare us just writing about them!

Customization Improvement: To make the weapon customization process easier, all of the old customization items have been removed from the game and replaced with new "Customization Parts." Any customization items currently in your possession have been replaced with an equal amount of Customization Parts.

UI Change:  The Gun Emporium UI has been reorganized to be more intuitive and easier to use. As you can see above, the customize menu has been revamped and easier to use. The Forge menu has also been freshened up.

Aside from those though, you can now keep attempting customization on your guns until they succeed (and even pump up the success rates with GP up to 80%!) The Roulette Wheel is so much cleaner and more manageable now that all those pesky barrels, pistons, and triggers were just combined into Customization Parts.
Players are now even allowed to force PERMANENT weapons, that's right, what we've all been waiting for. Don't use that L115A3 anymore? Change into a S 58 MUSKET.. FOREVER!
But the biggest addition to the Gun Emporium was the FUSION function. A new Fusion Pallet was added to the Roulette Wheel, which allows players to "fuse" their weapons to create bigger and better ones. No, it doesn't mean you need both weapons, but you do need the primary one. For example, to create a WA2000 Tactical, one only needs the WA2000 and a few Fusion pallets. No need to scrounge around for that DSR-1 Tactical . Oh yeah, and did I mention the Fusions are available for Perm Duration as well?  
Nexon did a great job with the Gun Emporium this time, it gave players what they wanted and delivered what we asked for.

New Search & Destroy Clan Map: Piazza
Piazza is a new map for clans only! This Search & Destroy map is only available on the Bulldog server. For those of you who are forum-nerds, you know about the map before anyone else thanks to our very own crackers finding these images in the games files. The very first of new Clan Map series. It's of medium size, not too large, and only available for SnD Mode.
It's not the giant update we wanted, as a matter of fact, it's rather disappointing. Here's the mission briefing:
"A successful mission has become a disaster! Your team recovered an EMP bomb capable of shutting down all electrical and communication networks in an area the size of Rome from a local terrorist cell. Something happened on the way to your pickup though. All communication with headquarters has been lost and you’ve gone to ground in a quaint nearby village. Unfortunately, it seems that the former owners of the bomb have tracked you down. Now you have no choice. You must defend the bomb in the village until communications with HQ can be restored. You’ve taken the bomb, now you have to keep it!"

It's honestly not a bad map. Small, but feels like a medium sized map just because you can't go around the entire map in 30 seconds with all of the passages you're forced to take. It's a shame really that this map is restricted to clan wars only, It's probably one of the few maps Nexon puts actual effort into creating. Not the best looking, but not too shabby. Definitely not as good as the original maps, but still thought out and is relatively fair. A nice addition to the map list if you ask me.

STAGE 3: RESTORE
http://combatarms.nexon.net/News/View.aspx?boardNo=101&contentNo=00D90
An extremely large update, and although it isn't what we hoped for, it did satisfy the bare minimums (I guess.)
So, for this reason, I'm only going to address the biggest things.
Those would be:

Bug Fixes
Some major, some minor, but another bug fix month is always appreciated.

Major Changes/Fixes
·         Elite Moderator Voting Revamped!
o   Abstain Votes now become half of a “Good” vote, down from a full “Good” vote. An Abstain vote is when a player does not vote on an Elite Moderator kick.
o   If more than 30% of players vote “Bad” on an Elite Moderator kick, that kick is flagged as a Bad kick. This is down from 50%. Elite Moderators who perform Bad kicks are unable to kick for the next 3 minutes.
o   When players are prompted to vote on an Elite Moderator’s kick, a message is displayed informing them that voting “Bad” may result in the Elite Moderator to be blocked from kicking for 3 minutes.
·         During Fireteam matches, the health of the rest of the players on your team will be visible on the right side of the screen.
·         In-game messages can now be up to 120 characters in length, up from 60 characters.
·         The event timer in-game will no longer keep track of milliseconds to address a performance bug present while it is on screen. This timer appears when a bomb is planted, during some sections of Fireteam matches, and when the headquarters is secured in Seize and Secure.
·         Destroying the traps in the Courtyard Ambush of Desert Thunder now automatically opens one of the lower gates.
·        The Default Maps for the various Game Modes have been changed: Give some overlooked maps a shot!

The other changes are weapons, UI/HUD, and other changes, but nothing big enough to warrant a post. If you really want to see them, the link is always above.

Party Respawn Tokens
"How often have you gotten to round 20 of Cabin Fever, only to get blindsided by a pack of Tankers? Or seen your entire team taken out by a stray rocket at the last stage of Desert Thunder? The Party Respawn Token will allow you to turn those narrow defeats into heroic victories, bringing your entire team back to life at once, ready to take the fight to the enemy one more time! Don’t go looking for it in the shop, though. You’re going to have to earn these by completing Daily Jobs."

I, for one, still have about 500 respawn tokens laying around from the time they were available for GP, however, these Party Respawn Tokens are very good additions to Combat Arms' list of items. These would be very helpful in maps like Desert Thunder and Desert Fox, but inferior to the regular tokens in Cabin Fever and Black Lung (just because it's easier to zombie trail alone.) Nothing gamebreaking, just a nice way to promote teamwork and strategy in the Fireteam department.

Piazza: Clan-Exclusive No More!
With the great response to Piazza, it’s now available on all servers under the Search and Destroy game mode!
This is amazing, and to be honest, who didn't see this coming? We all knew it was right around the corner, and now our prospect Clan SnD Map can finally be worked on.

New GP Guns/New Customizable Guns!
Now Available at 2nd Lieutenant III: The INSAS Rifle
Hailing from India, this rifle combines technologies from many different firearms including proven designs like the AK-47 and the M16 family of rifles.

Now available at 2nd Lieutenant IV: The Colt Cobra .38 Special
An iconic weapon of noir detectives, the compact design of this Double-Action revolver makes it an easy-to-conceal firearm.

Now available from the Gun Emporium Upgrade Jobs:
SG550 MARK II
PSG-1 CAMO MARK II
Saiga 20K CQB MARK II

New Customizations:
M416 - The runner-up for best gun in the game is now customizable? The rival to the G36E has finally received a godsend. With this, the no-recoil noob cannon now stands as the easiest gun to use in the game. The G36E is extremely deadly and versatile, but now the M416 is death to anyone in the hands of chimp.

M92FS Silver - Nothing special. A pistol that is rarely seen gets an upgrade? It's unique in that it's one of the first pistols to get the customize option, but besides that, it's nothing to make a big deal out of. The gun goes from mediocre, to actually decent, but it still doesn't beat out the P99, the USP series, or even the G23 series.

PP-19 - NX and Clan SMG's aside, the big SMG's are the UMP series, the P90 series, and the PP-19 series. The UMP is usually seen for it's high damage and vertical recoil making it a headshot machine. The P90 is used for it's quick fire rate, low spread, and 50 shot clip. The PP-19 is the middle ground, and although one might assume it'll be the superior choice with it's 65 bullet clip, decent power, and decent fire rate. It's spread isn't as great as either, and the extra bullets aren't that big of a bonus because a skilled played usually doesn't need all 65 to down an enemy. However, thanks to this upgrade, the PP-19 becomes a definite top-tier SMG if one has the time and money to fully upgrade and extend the usage on this bad boy. This right here, is the start of the bunny hopping PP-19 spray N' prayers. Lord help us all.

M6A2-SRT - An amazing gun, the sister gun to the M416 CQB. They both perform nearly on par, the biggest difference would have to be the ability to change scopes on the M6A2, and that you can't hold down the trigger as long. With a damage upgrade though, this problem is remedied and the M6A2-SRT now becomes the superior option. With 35 bullets, low recoil, an ACOG scope, and that bonus damage, you have yourself a low recoil AK-47. Jesus christ.

M-200 - DSR, TPG, TRG, and WA2000 all say hello.

M107CQ SE - This underused but very special sniper has that niche scope. You know, the one that goes from very low magnification, to very high. It was mainly used for Kill Creek, and now with the ability of increased power and accuracy (+Steady Hand), it definitely reigns as king in that Map. I still has touch competition in any other circumstance, but nevertheless, it didn't gain much beside that.

M24 Woodland - Oh my, if the damage ups this gun's power enough to become a 1HKO, this would probably be a top tier gun. The lower magnification (the green scope) is probably the favorite of majority of Combat Arms Players. Therefore, 100 Accuracy, 100+ Damage, above average magazine, high portability (for a sniper rifle)... instant top tier.

P226 Silver - See M92FS Silver. Better than the M92FS series in general, and assuming they get access to the same upgrades, this gun would probably be a tad better in every aspect besides ammo count.

K3 SPW - This MG rarely had any usage, even if you're just looking at machine guns only

M4A1 SOPMOD - See M416. The forced iTech scope isn't great, but the gun itself used to be the best gun in the game until the M416 CQB was released and the G36E was altered. With this boost, the tan beast assures it's spot as an amazing gun still.

Nice wright up!

I do somewhat like this patch and other various changes such as Nx to GP but things could be better. As far as I know from the Nexon forums, people are still unhappy with Nexon with various longstanding problems that have yet to be fixed like specs, customer support (or lack of it), and lag. I know everyone also says they want hackers fixed but all Nexon can really do is minimize them and compared to some past events, such as Christmas/New Years 2010 the hacks are not as bad in my opinion. I guess it can be a small start to fixing the game and getting back on the right track but who knows. Some people are unhappy with this patch and even though I didn't hate this patch, I was expecting a bit more out of Nexon. I've usually been neutral with Nexon's patches and didn't actually rage or hate on them too much unless they completely shat on me, but at the same time with such attempted hype for this fusion plan, they should at least listen more to the community by taking away things that we want taken away and do things we want done instead of going "we did our own thing, now give us your money."

This is more of a personal thing but I happened to ran across this thread in the forums and I do believe that if Nexon were to bring back the old UI and old HUD, various lag problems and possibly my own FPS problems could be fixed.
http://forum.nexon.net/CombatArms/forums/1/8212759/ShowThread.aspx
I doubt Nexon will do that though but after seeing this thread I do want the old stuff back even more. If you look at the two videos, there's a CLEAR difference in gameplay and performance in terms of how smooth the videos are.

Nexon should have been fixing their stuff before all this started. I believe if they did, they'd have a larger player base than before and have less problems to deal with than they do now. As you said, I think the only reason Nexon's doing this is because AVA going to Steam and TF2 becoming F2P are big threats to Nexon's profits. I'm a lot more hopeful about the next stages of the plan though, since i think it's THOSE parts that may save the game. Remastering it possibly to bring it as close to its glory days as possible, and restoring it through various bug fixes (but let's hope the bugs fixed are important and not random little ones).

Blahblah677 wrote:

I do somewhat like this patch and other various changes such as Nx to GP but things could be better. As far as I know from the Nexon forums, people are still unhappy with Nexon with various longstanding problems that have yet to be fixed like specs, customer support (or lack of it), and lag. I know everyone also says they want hackers fixed but all Nexon can really do is minimize them and compared to some past events, such as Christmas/New Years 2010 the hacks are not as bad in my opinion. I guess it can be a small start to fixing the game and getting back on the right track but who knows. Some people are unhappy with this patch and even though I didn't hate this patch, I was expecting a bit more out of Nexon. I've usually been neutral with Nexon's patches and didn't actually rage or hate on them too much unless they completely shat on me, but at the same time with such attempted hype for this fusion plan, they should at least listen more to the community by taking away things that we want taken away and do things we want done instead of going "we did our own thing, now give us your money."

This is more of a personal thing but I happened to ran across this thread in the forums and I do believe that if Nexon were to bring back the old UI and old HUD, various lag problems and possibly my own FPS problems could be fixed.
http://forum.nexon.net/CombatArms/forums/1/8212759/ShowThread.aspx
I doubt Nexon will do that though but after seeing this thread I do want the old stuff back even more. If you look at the two videos, there's a CLEAR difference in gameplay and performance in terms of how smooth the videos are.

Nexon should have been fixing their stuff before all this started. I believe if they did, they'd have a larger player base than before and have less problems to deal with than they do now. As you said, I think the only reason Nexon's doing this is because AVA going to Steam and TF2 becoming F2P are big threats to Nexon's profits. I'm a lot more hopeful about the next stages of the plan though, since i think it's THOSE parts that may save the game. Remastering it possibly to bring it as close to its glory days as possible, and restoring it through various bug fixes (but let's hope the bugs fixed are important and not random little ones).

Remember that the patch isn't finished yet. Enhance is just the tip of the iceberg, giving us a few new features that shake the game up a bit.
Remaster and Restore are without a doubt going to be defining factors about the future of Combat Arms.
Remaster would be amazing if they repackaged the game (which should solve lag issues for at least some members of the community), and Restore could be anywhere from bringing back old features to bringing back old NX perms. It's really up to Nexon on this. If they truly care about the player base (AKA their wallets) they'll at least TRY to improve.

I hope what you say is true. The restore and remaster phases will be the patches that will save or break Combat Arms. I'm sure there are some people out there that have very high hopes for the updates, and if the updates are an extreme disappointment, I can imagine some people taking that as the last straw and just outright quitting.

People have always said "this is the last straw." However, only a few well-known players have quit for Nexon's screw ups. Popular players (mostly reviewers and forumers) have quit because either they've been hacked, they need to start focusing more on school/work, or they've just gotten bored.
I think Fusion won't be the last straw personally. Let's be positive and pray that it's CA's saving grace.

Updated with Stage 2 opinions and write up.

I completely overlooked the fusion stuff. Is the WA2000 Tactical thingy the only thing that can be fused for now?

Yes. As far as I know.

Wonder what the 3rd stage is...

its remaster...sooo hopefully they make it like it was in open beta.

Restore*

Restore better improve hackers, lag, and low fps. There are so many games out there with graphics just as good as or better than this game that I can play at a higher fps simply because their engine is better or even coded and optimized better.

RESTORE it back to open beta days

They had better have something of monumental proportions in store for the Restore patch. They hyped it up this much, and if it turns out to be a letdown, players will leave in droves.

I get a constant 50-60 FPS on AVA. Game play sucks balls but the engine is fantastic. If they can't get my FPS up to at least 40, imadbr0.

If they don't put back the old HUD BGM UI
I shall rage

http://combatarms.nexon.net/Community/#%2Fshowthread.php%3F47577-OCTOBER-gt-STAGE-3-RESTORE-(leaks-)

Leaked Information by Kalika herself... I don't know how I feel about that shotgun.

Looks like a halloween M590. Me gusta.

>Game play sucks balls

You're doing something wrong

The bug fixes better be major, not something like as Shotty said in game "Oh we fixed a typo on a gun that no one uses." And no HUD or UI toggling feature? I really hope they have something that'll fix the lag and low fps. Yesterday I played for the first time since the maintenance on Tuesday and the lag was pretty horrendous.

The lag is better-ish as of right now. (:

yay for playing minecraft>CA