Recent reviews by Varonth

Awesomenauts, oh how good you could be if your developer fixed the long standing problems this game had before launching F2P.

There are quite a few problems, some of them deeper design decisions, some of them technical.

Let's start with the worse that every player will encounter more often than not. If you think about picking this game up and enjoy a round on your own, well matchmaking will remove that fun for you.

It likes to pit you against premades. Long term player premades on top of that. Yes, you as a new player solo queuing with an characters that cannot even buy every item available in the shop, will be put against veteran premades. And you will get stomped hard. And this will get worse, as the playerbase declines after the F2P release. I cannot imagine how the game will look like in 4 weeks for a new player just joining.

Next up, a technical issue. The game uses Peer-To-Peer for networking. One player is decided to be a host, who controls the basic assets like turrets and droids. Other than that, you have a connection to every player, and the connection between you and the other players decides how fluid those players move around. You can have those with a good connection towards you, and it works fine for the most part. But then there can be a player with a bad connection towards you, and those players will move eradically, with lot's of teleporting. Since hitting it based on their current position, you have to hit those teleporting models. In return, you will most likely also teleport around on their side. But if you know you have a bad connection for the most part, you can just pick a character who requires less aim.

If you ever wondered why your general Moba, even the smallest ones, uses dedicated servers, well this game shows why.

The there are design decisions. Characters, called Awesomenauts or short 'nauts, in this game only have 2 abilities plus a third ability which is their basic attack. There is for the most part no resources either, so skills can be used based on cooldowns, and cooldowns only. That isn't necessarily bad. After all, it's not fun to not be able to use your skill because you have to save mana. Also there are no ultimate abilities which long cooldowns and massive impact, which isn't so bad either. The problem comes from the fact that every 'naut has only 2 abilities. For them to have a unique feel, and impact on the game they must the strong. Like really strong. They basically rolled the power that is normally distributed among 4 skills including the ultimate into just 2 skills. This results in most characters dealing massive amount of damage, with very bloated abilities. Most characters have abilities which allows them to deal burst damage like you would expect assassins to do. Yes, even supports will have abilities which are around 400 damage, just like assassin abilities. With how fast it is to switch lanes (about 1-2 seconds), you are basically always in danger of being ganked if you play offensively. Even when a support switches lane, that's an assassin now.

Abilities are also upgraded with new perks along the match. They automatically gain damage or healing for each ingame level which is shared (think Heroes of the Storm), but they can be further enhanced with ingame currency. These advancements can be higher scaling (which means more bonus damage gained per level, and more base damage), or unique modifiers. This results in very bloated abilities. We are talking about abilities that will deal damage, lifesteal, and CC you. Or an abilities that constantly knock back enemies, does damage along the way, blocks turret shots and drops healthpacks. I think you get the idea of what I mean with bloated. They are at some point abilities which are like 2 abilities in one. Which makes it so much more unforgiving for new players. Missing an ability is more like missing 2 abilities. And with the amount of damage abilities do, you basically already lost, and you better start retreating.

I just cannot recommend this game for new players. It's an exercise in massive frustation before it may become good.