1) Optional: the mix of monsters is decent. only thing that might be worth an optional tweak is more bio titans at some point. they only appear in small handfulls, but not enuf to IMO warrant their use. Replacing them entirely with regular titans or having more of them would be a bit more interestion.
2) there's a couple of maps that aren't good to play on.
- 3 Pillars appears broken, cuz there's no adrenalin growth on the map. even from killin things you get no adren. That completely kills AMs and Medics both
- Special Weapon Quest. if the quest areas were removed from the map and the bits that were connected to the main open were left (including a couple of the hallway areas) it'd be more better.
- if they must be in the rotation, can we please only have 1 version of shitka khans, dumb of dumb and the other "oh god my eyes please why" maps? Yes i'd rather see them all pulled, but in lieu of that, only 1 version of each would be preferable...
4) about mines, i'm not convinced that reducing mines actually helps reduce load. after about wave 6 and definitely after 8 or so, the max # of mines is probably irrelevant. i never have more than 3 or 4 out at a time anyway at that point cuz i'm in the middle of herds of bad guys.
I think a bigger impact would be made by reducing pets. Dropping the number of pets to 2 or even 1 pet will reduce AI, shot tracking, pathing, etc. Even if the AI is simplified, the fact that any 60th lv medic can easily have 3 brutes or metallic skaarj out means that any map gets cluttered with pets really quick.
This would have the cascading effect of reducing the kills that higher level players get (cuz their pets take on their owners stats) which means more baddies to spread around, meaning they might last long enuf to actually kill someone. playing on Pasargadae Core tonight, at one point the central room had over 15 pets in it.
5) Lastly, i would def suggest not aiming for 100% happiness. No matter how hard you try you simply can't please everybody. there will always be someone to complain or threaten to 'never come back goddammit' because of a change that you made to please someone else. I think it's perfectly fine to have a "thats good enuf" goal of 90% happiness based on play-affecting issues, not trivialities or simply candy.
The worst part of this is that nobody likes being an asshole. It can be difficult to drag up the ability to be asshole enuf to tell people to "just shutup and play cuz it's fine." (if you need lessons let me know cuz i'm good at it). What most ppl don't realize is that at any moment, you or toxic or snaggle or anyone else could up and decide "fuck this shit" and not forum post or respond to emails or even play the game at all . . . and be just like most gameserver admins.
So for what you do, and what you've put up with from various pplz (including me) you deserve more than just people simpley holding their ire. Personally i've never hung around a gameserver or it's attached forum for any more than about 50 posts. Thanks for being the driving force behind what's made it worth hanging around.