I played every Far Cry game, so I can say I know the franchise. The following is my personal opinion.
So far FC4 seems to be a huge step back, into the FC2 era (I never finished that one due to the extremely bad game design as well). Honestly, you guys should fire your game designers, they have no idea what they are doing. This game has so many annoying parts, it simply kills the FUN OF PLAYING.
You have a realistic looking environment, characters, etc. Yet the game mechanics are so abstract, that they create dissonance.
A few examples:
Eagles should never attack humans, except if the human is trying to climb into their nest. Eagles should never fly into a firefight. Every time an eagle attacks me, I get annoyed and frustrated and hate you for it. Especially that the game prevents you to attack it when it gets real close.
Honey badgers should die when you shoot them at point blank range with an AK. In the game you need like 5-6 shots to kill it. WTF???
I understand, that you need some natural enemies in the wilderness, otherwise it would be boring to move around. But why eagles and honey badgers? Much less people would be annoyed if you would have sticked to predators which have the size and/or numbers to actually attack a human (which is still stupid, but more acceptable in a game).
Dragunov SVD: I shot a deer or goat with it and it didn't die. I shot an enemy with it and didn't die. I had to shoot it like 5-6 times to kill him. ???
AI reaction: An enemy soldier is escorting a prisoner on the road. Suddenly someone shoots him with a dragunov (so he lost like 20% hp). "Natural" reaction: let's kill the prisoner! WTF??? He should go for cover or try to attack back. It would be okay, if a specific enemy type would go for the prisoner when attacked (like those crazy pyro guys), but all? Another design fail.
Unskippable splash screens. Really? Why do I have to create a custom shortcut to avoid all that corporate BS?
Unskippable cutscenes. Really??? In 2014???
Bad Handsome Jack ripoff. Feels forced, uninspired and it is not funny.
I'm absolutely sure I will find more annoying, illogical things, which destroy the immersion, but the above ones most likely will already prevent me from finishing this game. A game should be fun, this one is annoying. Even when it starts to get fun, some game mechanic turns it into annoyance very soon. You are working hard on making the gamers annoyed and I would say you succeeded brilliantly. A lot of the above are no brainers, yet you made the wrong decisions.
I will definitely won't buy the next FC and warn off any friends of mine. It is really sad that a good looking game like this can be so bad. FC2 all over again.
Tango


