Titanfall 2

First time poster, long time Titanfall fan [>300hours] here. With Titanfall 2 being recently announced. I keep hearing the following suggestions for what Titanfall 2 needs: more customizations, single-player campaign, more guns and titans, more pilots and less AI grunts,etc. While not bad suggestions, I feel they demonstrate a deep misunderstanding of what titanfall is and a desperate attempt to homogenize what I firmly believe to be one of the most original and well-balanced shooters I have played in a very long time.

To me Titanfall is about the following qualities: balance, intensity, creativity, and speed.

The following are ideas that I believe will expand upon the core ideas of the original and further differentiate Titanfall from the competition. Where possible, I have suggested ideas on how it could be implemented. Nonetheless, I remain hopeful [and confident] that the talented developers at Respawn will integrate mechanics that will easily supersede my own.

I. Multiple titan escape routes and increased pilot movement when rodeoing. One of the most awkward moments in Titanfall is when one is being rodeoed by a pilot and is forced to get out. The whole process is very cumbersome. I believe presenting multiple strategies to this situation will be beneficial. For the pilot in the titan I believe the ability for the titan to pull you out and throw you either forward[ with the player gauging distance as seen in the CGI trailers or like a grenade ] or being thrown left, right or underneath by holding X and indicating the direction. As a counter, the rodeo pilot should be able to change positions on the titan instead of just being locked on the weak spot. Also, increased camera control in the rodeo position would be great for making tactical decisions.

II. More tactical abilities
a. ability to run on ceiling with possible ceiling cling. [opens up new tactical abilities]. For instance, when close to a ceiling a push of the LB button will move players upside down and vertical to run on the ceiling.
b. side dash and quick drop ala advanced warfare on ground and in air. I don't really like advanced warfare that much but I feel this would greatly contribute to the speed of titanfall.
c. Increased vertical jump [like the spectres do, which looks really cool] with a lethal slam down.
d. Still thinking of more: [maybe get rid of silencers... I hate that attachment lol] or ability to spawn a flame or smoke trail where you run to counter pursuers.

III. Better integration of AI
A lot of people dislike the grunts. I agree they can be easily farmed, are dumb, and annoying when they kill you. Instead of removing them, how about allowing the player to better use them in battle. For instance...
a. Be able to grab human grunts and use them as human shields by clicking and holding down the right joystick. Holding the left trigger will place your weapon over their shoulder while moving the joystick from left to right will move you from shoulder to shoulder.
b. hacking and directing. Instead of just having the spectres following you, it is possible to have them set up perimeters around an objective. Use the dpad to do this just as you can with the titans. Or, have them be able to jump on your titan and assist with attacking other titans.

IV. Expand on map designs and game modes
a. Ideas: antigravity map where pilots are randomly moved from the floor to the ceiling [Titans are immune]. I know this is tricky and may annoy people but I feel Titanfall is the only game that could pull something like this off.
b. other ideas: maps with moving parts that can be used for traversal.

V. Unique weapons.
This may upset people, but I believe the pilot primary weapons are just fine and I felt the smart pistol was one of the most fun weapons to use in a shooter in a long time [it may be a "noob" weapon, but it requires some decent understanding of the traversal system; which I believe was the point of it in the first place].

One idea that I came up with [but comes with its own set of balance issues] is the idea of a sword that holds a gun underneath. The sword is a quick and ranged melee attack that does a lot of damage but does not kill you [one hit melee kills feel cheap]. It requires the gun as a finisher, the gun is an instant swap. Holding the crouch button allows the sword to deflect rifle shots, LT brings up the gun, and RT launches the attack. Also, the sword will do considerable titan damage.

VI. Melee system
Get rid of it. The kick is too slow and disrupts the flow of the game. Keep only the neck snap [and the shield mentioned above].

VII. Titans
I'll be honest here. I am very concerned that more Titans will be added just to say there are more Titans. I believe a better idea will be to give each Titan more unique core abilities. I don't have any ideas on this but I'll keep my fingers crossed that something mind-blowing will occur.

Conclusion: as you can see I can go on all day with this. I resisted the urge to simply say "more of everything"; although that is cool too. However, I still believe that the things Titanfall 2 needs are ideas that could only be done succesfully with Titanfall 2 and not other shooters.