[kewlbot]

This is my first Beta weekend with the game and I've been playing it at pretty much every moment I can. There's some stuff I really really like about this game, but also few things that I don't. For simplicity, I'll just label them as pros and cons.

PROS

• Great looking game. The entire cast of raiders all look awesome. Can't say I dislike any of these designs and their alternate skins look great too. Same goes for the enemies, very well designed and fun to look at.
• Performance is great too, I haven't ran into any performance issues throughout the whole weekend besides the game crashing once today.
• I'm a huge fan of user interfaces and I'm really liking how the menus are designed. The menus just feel good to navigate and are very cohesive to the game's theme.
• Melee attacks feel meaty and fun to use. You definitely get an impression that they hit really hard. Grab moves look and feel awesome as well.
• Guns, for the most, part also feel pretty good.

CONS

• Lycus's ability seems disjointed with his personality. He seems like a very wild and agressive guy, so why does he have a shield? Doesn't seem to fit the character.
• Gameplay leaves little room for error. If you mess up a melee attack or grab with an enemy, it always seems like you're guranteed to get destroyed.
• Raiders all feel helpless against more than one enemy. If you're caught in a fight with two or more enemies, you are most likely going to die. There's no way to deal with more than one enemy than to frantically run, or get killed. The only raider that I know that can really deal with being surrounded by enemies is Konstantin. Why can't the raiders have some kind of grenade ability?
• Now, I love shotguns in shooters so I naturally gravitated towards Alicia and she's a really cool looking character too. With a shotgun, I expect heavy close range damage, but the enemies in this game can really take a hit. I've emptied my gun's clip several times and the enemy is still standing even from mid range. Paired with the fact my character can't do anything against a group of enemies and suddenly Alicia just doesn't seem cool anymore.
• I can't unlock Shae for some reason. Finished all the missions successfully and the game is still claiming I can't unlock her. Looking through the forums, it seems this has been a costant issue. It bothers me quite a bit this hasn't been fixed yet.

Overall, I think my experience with the game was pretty good. I think if some of my concerns are addressed, this game can easily be one of new obsessions but so far it's difficult for me to really love it.

[Rhynerd]

Lycus's ability seems disjointed with his personality. He seems like a very wild and agressive guy, so why does he have a shield? Doesn't seem to fit the character.

Having a shield to call up means you can attempt to charge an enemy you normally wouldn't or allow you to forgo the normal safety of cover to complete objectives. The fact that it's charged by running also encourages you to make b-lines where other raiders might go cover-to-cover.

Gameplay leaves little room for error. If you mess up a melee attack or grab with an enemy, it always seems like you're guranteed to get destroyed.

Yeah, I feel I've been killed too many times because of a strike a split second off or a dodge that lasted a little too long...

Now, I love shotguns in shooters so I naturally gravitated towards Alicia and she's a really cool looking character too. With a shotgun, I expect heavy close range damage, but the enemies in this game can really take a hit. I've emptied my gun's clip several times and the enemy is still standing even from mid range. Paired with the fact my character can't do anything against a group of enemies and suddenly Alicia just doesn't seem cool anymore.

They've been buffing most of the guns, but I can still agree with you. Even at the edge of striking distance, most shotguns only feel as useful as a buckshot-based punch that the AI won't think of trying to dodge (until this weekend).

I can't unlock Shae for some reason. Finished all the missions successfully and the game is still claiming I can't unlock her. Looking through the forums, it seems this has been a costant issue. It bothers me quite a bit this hasn't been fixed yet.

That's a bug we all know and suffer from. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

[kewlbot]

As an example of how many shots it takes to kill an enemy with a shotgun, here's a gif I made while playing last weekend.



I should also mention that this is after I got a card in the game that increases her gun's clip size, so it was much more difficult without this buff.

Perhaps this isnt so much an issue with the guns but the internet connection not registering the hits?

[MSE_Meta]

In the situation that kewlbot shows I tend to shoot  for like 3 hits or so (still got some more bullets in the clip), and when I'm in melee range I finish him with a punch. Because he already took damage I can one-punch him, and by killing in melee I get ammo back.
So, I rarely finish an enemy only by shooting in this kind of situation.

[WYRDBOY]

In the situation that kewlbot shows I tend to shoot  for like 3 hits or so (still got some more bullets in the clip), and when I'm in melee range I finish him with a punch. Because he already took damage I can one-punch him, and by killing in melee I get ammo back.
So, I rarely finish an enemy only by shooting in this kind of situation.

Yes, that is what I had accommodated to, because I usually empty the shotgun before the enemy dies and have to finish them with melee.
Is this her intended playstyle?
It's really weird for new players, because they are used to other shooters where shotguns are really powerful, here not so much.

I can see this feedback being echoed in the future.

[TehMud]

Yeah same. I love shotguns generally. PErsonally though now I have Smokin Daisy so I almost always use that with Alicia since it hits like a truck.

[kewlbot]

In the situation that kewlbot shows I tend to shoot  for like 3 hits or so (still got some more bullets in the clip), and when I'm in melee range I finish him with a punch. Because he already took damage I can one-punch him, and by killing in melee I get ammo back.
So, I rarely finish an enemy only by shooting in this kind of situation.

This does seem to make a lot of sense but I've tried something like this before where I mix up my strategy with some melee attacks after shooting. The only problem is that there's always a chance your melee attack will fail and depending on the enemy, they can counter and completely destroy you. Maybe there's a point where an enemy takes enough damage with your gun that it's impossible for you to fail a melee attack? I know you can do this with the more advanced enemies by depleting their HP to 0 but I haven't figured out a way to guarantee a successful melee take down with a regular enemy.

[MSE_Meta]

Maybe there's a point where an enemy takes enough damage with your gun that it's impossible for you to fail a melee attack?

In fact, if you inflict enough sustained damage to an enemy it will react and won't counter your melee attack. Different characters need a different amount of sustained damage and different weapons apply a different amount of reaction.

For example, Alicia's Novera CC1-1212 is a light shotgun with high spread that applies a lot of reaction with each shot. In turn, its damage isn't as high as other weapon's.

Is this her intended playstyle?

Each one of us has a different playstyle for each character. I enjoy her mobility by walljumping, shooting while in the air, then melee when landed (her card Impetus works really well for me).
If I can't walljump, I shoot a couple of times, then try to flank the enemy, shoot again and melee if needed (like pew, pew, move quickly, pew, pew). Or maybe there's a lot of enemies and I can't get in melee range safely, so I try to make use of her shotgun's spread and hit several enemies at once.

That's how I play, how do you play?