Yo, seems like the general framework around here is to simply make your own thread so here's mine.
I love the overall attitude and style of the game, aesthetically and mechanically. Seeing the trailer, teases, and characters I really, really did not expect this game to be quite this brutal. When I completely whiffed my CQC and tried following up with a grapple only to be kicked in the face, blasted back, and dispatched calmly, efficiently, and oh so easily I had a feeling I was going to be in for a treat. The movement and moment to moment gameplay is fantastic, especially the humanoid mobs where the meat of the game is. The strength and weakness plays between them, the antagonist, and raiders can make a sick symphony of mechanics that can't help but make want to shout a "Woo!" after a successful accomplishment. This is something only really possible when you place challenges on your playerbase to overcome and it feels oh so good to do. I only wish I had more friends to share this with.
PROS
The mobs are great, simple to dispatch, but not to be underestimated. The fact that a mere duo can 100 to 0 you when you're incompetent or complacent enough to allow it happen its great in my book. The unsuspecting dangers can makes some hilariously fun moments happen, so anything new that pushes more of that would be a welcome addition. Not sure if its in the AI or if its just random, but the flanks and coverfire they do is fantastic, and I have all the wishes for it to be intentional if not already.
One of best things to get right in action games like this is just so great in this one. The movement. The transitions! The smooth transition into cover and jump between combos and gunplay is what makes this game this game. By the way, this game is good.
Konstantin and Alicia.
CONS
Kinda continuing from the top, a few transitions are a slow. Sliding has a slightly jarring stop to it, and could be helped a lot by allowing shooting during it (although that might devolve pvp into a slide-meta). At the very least getting out of it faster would feel much better. The ledge climb is also pretty darn so slow as well
Game is partially untranslated, and also unclear on certain elements of the game, in particular UI. Its fine for the game to not stress the importance of certain mechanics, if that's the "trial, fail, experience, grow" type of gameplay experience you're going for, but it took me hours to figure out that solo was in fact not excluded from this beta. Took me a bit longer to figure out I could matchmake multiple instances at once. These are not fun failures to make.
The loadout thing is a good idea, but only a bit lacking. As far as I understand you can only equip one card of each category, yes? That makes which card you pick very, very important. And its clear as day how vastly inferior rotary spin speed and most other cards are. Either there needs to be more categories (best solution I believe, if the worse cards become their own category), combined effects for cards, or more slots for those categories (probably worse solution here since doesn't change inferior cards), to actually encourage the players to not simply use the top 2 or 3. I wish I noted the cards effects and I could explain in more detail.
Grappling is wonky sometimes, which is really bad. One-shot mechanics NEED to be consistent, or the player will just feel cheated. Grapples may or may not yoink the attack towards an above or below target. They also seem to have some awkward-to-gauge distances when cutting obstacles. I saw this one guy charge a grapple from behind cover inside a room, and slid an impressive distance out of cover, out of the room, and around the cover I was at to get me. Maybe it was a card I forgot? If there is a grapple range card, I'm all for its immediate removal, because inconsistent one-shots aren't fun to combat against. Basically tweak the way grapple eats obstacles, its supposed to be the anti-dodge, not the anti-obstacle (that what guns and movement are for).
The bosses are lame. They're overall way too easy. 2 dozen mobs are significant threat, all these bosses aren't. That being said this is seemlingly very early in the game season-wise, but dang man. Part of me think this is being bosses can be assisted by Antagonists, and so were made to be this easy and following bosses will follow this design philosophy. I hope that part is wrong. My suggestion would be to add more threats when there is no Antagonists if that is the case. Oh and BIG one, if majority (or the only) of the players run out ammo, I believe it would be best to respawn mobs immediately or have the boss go on the aggressive. Waiting around with 0 danger is boring.
Being an Antagonist grants weak rewards. Beating an Antagonist grants weak rewards (Keep in mind having an Antagonist on board means missions will probably take longer and Raiders die more often, draining score). Also the name "Antagonist" seems quite....literal, don't you think? I'll admit the guys are pretty antagonizing but come on, brainstorm please? Throw the community in on it, could be fun, even if you don't choose.
Probably the worst con of all? The matchmaking is slow, and when it finally works, a player leaves, and you start all over again. This is the sole reason I stopped playing, matchmaking for 30 minutes isn't fun gameplay. This could be mitigated with mid-progress joins if you ever implement that, considering the lRaider's Lives system it should work pretty smoothly, if added.
Lastly, as to be expected, glitches and errors. I've only ran into a few:
1. In multiplayer the text "Skipping now..." will be displayed after voting to skip the cutscene. Often, it doesn't actually skip it, ever, nor display the "Watching now...", if it was supposed to in that instance.
2. Elements of the loadout and game options were not in English, despite the rest of the game being in it.
3. Everyone in queue matchmaking has found a game, and everyone has seemingly accepted the queue, but the timer just waits at 00. This as so far fixed itself everytime.....eventually. One instance this limbo lasted 10 minutes, during of which is seems one of the four gave up.
4. After almost every completion of a mission I was greeted by the "PS4 servers not responding, please check if services are available." text box. After several, lengthy "Retry"s my will was broken, or it worked.
5. Alicia's currently available cosmetic doesn't load its textures and maybe some of its model. That or you have some very interesting grey and flickering design philosophy over at mecurysteam.
6. Shae was never unlocked after completion of the described Mission ("The Shock" I think it was called?). I don't know if she is a chance-based or not but I never unlocked her post solo/multiplayer/multiplayer with Antagonist.
And that's all! Overall, it was a fun beta, can't wait for the next one!......if matchmaking isn't hell atleast.
P.S. I got mixed feelings about the crazy shaky-cam in these cutscenes. Its stylish but crazy awkward.
