[h3]Worth checking it out if you can deal with games when they are in development and changing a lot.[/h3]
Some of my crew had already checked out the game and I decided to throw in $20 and see what it's like so far. It's rough for sure, but I have hope and feedback. Most of my friends have played together since 2002-2004, and we've played a ton of MMOs (World of Warcraft, EQ, DAoC, PlanetSide 1 and 2, Star Wars Galaxies, LOTRO, City of Heroes, Lineage, BDO, and others) and those are just the ones we played together for many years.
I'm coming off a couple years of BDO and am looking for something new to play. I want an FPS game where it has the MMO feel, but isn't going to suck me in 7 nights a week for 3-4 hours at a time since I'm also jumping back into Star Trek Online. I'm really only on Steam because it seems to be the only way to play this game right now.
I was almost scared off because the first week of reviews makes this look like a rotting corpse, but I have seen games crash early and recover. It's at least worth checking out for me where the game is at to see if it's going where I want it to be. I'm glad I took a look. I can see it being pretty amazing over time, it just needs to cook and for people to support it while it cooks.
I've been in Early access playtests, and betas for many years, and I have the patience for it. If you aren't patient, just buy stuff when it's fully released.
With games at this stage you can learn a lot from the community and can most always tell when the devs are listening. I can see it so far based on the Discord community and discussions, but like I said, there's a ton more work to do before it will appeal to a big audience, and I tend to like underdogs that are fighting to prove people wrong. This seems like that kind of game.
NOTE: This is my early opinion on this, and less than 10 hours in so far, so I might have a different opinion after 100, 500, 1000 hours.
[h3]Pros[/h3]
[list]
[*]Gunplay is pretty solid - sniper rifles work and it feels great to headshot people from forever away, Smg is weak from far, but good fire rate and damage up close. The LMG feels right. Not so sold on the pistol yet, because I should be able to headshot easier, and I want a full auto version that I didn't see in the game.
[*]Some basic quests/missions are in that can be built out - I can see re-rolling missions to find the ones you want in the future, more feedback below
[*]Loot system is absolutely not tuned, so you can get some pretty crazy drops right now - I know I have that in as a pro/positive, but they have to fix it before launch, and I read they aren't wiping the servers in the future, so I'm looting up early
[*]Deploy and extract work - the sewers have red smoke coming out of them - not sure I would go in there, I can see with large amounts of people this is going to become a campground, but maybe that's the plan for now and it will be addressed later
[*]Inventory system and selling/buying to the merchants in the base works and sort is there, but I want more sort options (sort by value, tier)
[*]Crafting - it works and it's cool, but needs more variety and uncertainty (dice roll outcome for quality and tier?). I also would love to break down weapons in the field to just bring back the parts. Probably get shot doing it, but it would save space if I would strip off the aluminum allow (also maybe that affects quality)
[*]Discord community - super engaged but small group. It feels like a solid small core that can take off when the game gets big enough
[*]Grouping/Squads - invites and squads work - need to add guilds or larger groups, and make it so you can join squads from the base before you venture out
[/list]
[p]
[h2]Needs work[/h2]
[list]
[*]bugs and artifacts - placeholder art work "insert fence here", a lot of basic stuff and general cleanup
[*]Water - swimming and holding your breath are not in (also you can drive underwater)
[*]New player experience - I like figuring it out, but a lot of people want to be guided early on what to do
[*]Stats - definitely needs stats on kills, missions completed,
[*]UI - E to loot, E to close the bag. Time on the HUD so I know if I need to bring night vision goggles or not, the ability to move the map on the interface, or if I should wait to get back to base.
[*]NPCs - they do some stupid stuff - some are super dumb (don't react when you shoot them 4-5 times) and others are waaaay too smart (see you hundreds of feet away and you get ambushed)
[*]Squad Extraction - let us go back to the same base as a group.
[*]Trading - you can drop stuff on the ground, and friends can pick it up, but I would rather have a safe place to trade, either at my base, or some kind of a black market
[*]Prices for items - they say they are worth a certain amount when you mouseover, and are worth half when you sell them. Maybe dynamic pricing based on supply?
[*]The lighting needs to be brighter at night, and add lights to vehicles that you can turn on and off
[*]Animations - the NPCs pop back up when you run them over - it's a bit weird, but pretty funny to see how many times you need to hit them to kill them. If you are going top speed, it's an instakill, so that is working correctly.
[*]Driving - feels like you are in the middle of the vehicle and you get stuck on rocks. Either remove some of the collision, or let me push the vehicle off the obstacle.
[*]Shared missions - need a way for people to do the same mission. I was doing the cargo area and one of my friends was doing the vault, it would be even better if we could plan these at one of our bases
[/list]
That's it for now. It's early access. Hoping this gets the audience over time, but still a lot to work on before it's ready for thousands of players. I know not everybody can or wants to pay to be in a beta. $20 to me isn't a lot as someone that has paid for MMOs and expansions, AND subscribed for years.
