Early Access Review

TL;DR: Robocraft did not deliver on the potential it promised and instead changed the core gameplay mechanics to mimic other shooters, destroying what made the game unique.

UPDATE: After two and a half weeks, the lead game designer released a "state of the game" letter, which conveniently failed to address any of the points the community has brought up in their feedback. This, to me, puts the final nail in the coffin. These developers do not care for the quality of their game or their community, they are only out for new players for their statistics and wallets.

I have played this game for over 3000 hours (the standalone launcher does not add to steam hours) and supported the game with over 100GBP (150$+). I was a moderator for the game because I believed in it and wanted to support the community, but was removed from the team because I spoke out to a developer about the direction they were taking – not because I wasn't doing my job, but because I spoke my mind.The game has changed. Freejam have tried to make the game more accessible to new players, with a focus of getting as many players as possible. But instead of focussing on what made the game great and trying to get players to love it, they changed the gameplay mechanics in order to please a wider audience, which destroyed many aspects of what made the game great and unique in the first place.Instead of a currency reward system that allows players to buy the parts they want for their robots, they now have a "random loot crate" reward system, which is a blatant attempt at copying other games and trying to trick people into spending real money on the game. Non-premium users get tempted by the items that they could have received if they had paid for premium (every loot crate that gets opened show the premium items) with the option to purchase it now to receive the items. Furthermore, only the top scoring player on the winning team receives the highest level crate (which promises better item drop chances), while every member of the losing team receives the same low quality crate. This leads to selfish play for the highest score rather than the rewarding teamplay experience that it used to be, and also leads to the losing team to stop trying because they receive the same bad rewards either way.They also made the most interesting part about the game – the fact that building skill and design decisions directly affects battle performance – much less meaningful over the last couple of months, by removing the pilot seat component, introducing auto-healing (another aspect to mimic other shooters), and allowing each player to put several different gun types on their robots, which removes the need for playstyle specialisations. This also negatively affects teamplay, because there is no use for dedicated medics or dedicated frontline or support types – every player is now a (selfish) one-man-army trying to score the highest points.This game had a lot of potential a year ago, but the developer's decisions over the last updates have shown that they care less about making a good game and more about the money they can make by trying to get more players with lower skill levels, by copying other generic shooter-types and removing/reducing the unique aspects that used to make Robocraft great.Freejam have gone the way many F2P games go and opted for the cash-grab alternative. It is disappointing, because there was so much potential.