I'm a huge fan of Titanfall 1. Loved the sequel's campaign.

However, their decisions on multiplayer changes are still baffling to me. They took steps backwards on customization.

I remember watching developer interviews about the first game. They talked about how to do Titan health. They were throwing out ideas, and talked about how they didn't used to have shields. And that lead to cases where your titan got to low health and became useless, you didn't want to use it. So they went with rechargable shields.

Then the sequel comes out. Your shields don't work unless you unplug the battery and plug it back in. And they don't recharge, leading to the same situation the devs themselves thought was a bad idea in the first place.

The levels weren't nearly as well designed for pilot travel in the sequel. Felt like the first game's maps were all about mobility. In the sequel they had huge wide open spaces and few traversal options for pilots. It wasn't until they started releasing original Titanfall maps that this became better.

Then there's the game mode changes. Hardpoint rewards camping so much more. In a game all about mobility, you'd think camping would be extremely ineffective by design. However, if your team isn't actively sitting there jerking off in the corner of a hardpoint, they're losing out on the boosted points. If you go join the combat, your team score is punished. Bad design.

The first game's hardpoint let you capture a point and keep moving on to the next one. It kept the game flowing all over the map.

Another core philosophy from the first game was that everyone would get their titan in a match. In the sequel, they originally had it so this wasn't the case. They eventually undid their change more or less and moved back towards what worked originally - having a sort of timer for your titan construction.

A lot of their decisions with multiplayer don't seem to be them trying to do something better, so much as change for the sake of change. If you've never played any Titanfall game before, Titanfall 2 is great. If you were a huge fan of Titanfall 1, well, Titanfall 2's campaign is great.