My thoughts and impressions after soloing the entire Beta and co-oping a few hours | Forums

[Nutmeg23]

Thanks so much for offering a Beta here! I thoroughly enjoyed jumping in and getting to be among the first (of the public anyway) to give this a run!

I've had extremely high hopes for this game since it was first announced, so I was naturally a little nervous to actually try it out - I didn't want to be disappointed. Here's what I was nervous about:

1. Having played a few of the Far Cry series, where the weapon handling / aiming is soo clunky it increases the difficulty of the game for no reason
2. Open world, with realism - how "living" / detailed could it be?
3. Connections, connecting with partners, etc. How smooth / painless would it be? (GTA is anything but easy!)
4. The Division.
5. Not much info on PvP yet. Would the Story alone be worth it?

I guess the biggest worry for me was clunkiness and realism - how smooth would this play, and could I enjoy it playing "tactically"?

I put in quite a few areas, primarily solo mode on the Elite difficulty level - nothing too crazy.

I've heard some people complaining that it's too easy. I get that, but at the same time, you're basically Navy SEALS, working against low-level Cartel baddies. You should wipe the floor with these guys... it's shouldn't even be close to balanced. Same goes for UNIDAD forces. If you really want a challenge, turn off the enemy markers on the HUD and maybe even the minimap.

Here's what I enjoyed about the game:

• Open world / free roaming was fun to fly around (notice fly, not drive - more on that later) after getting the hang of the helicopter dynamics
• I liked the scenery and long sightlines (playing on Xbox One)
• Smooth shooting and gunplay - it's like you're actually a Navy SEAL and can manipulate your weapons easily, which is a breath of fresh are after Far Cry
• Music - seemed quality. The Far Cry radio in Kyrat was awful. I like this one more, but maybe because I only heard but so much of it.
• Small details in the story: It seems like you guys have put in a lot of work to flesh out character backgrounds and stories, fill in gaps of information, give us reasons to fight, etc. - Love it! Really enjoyed a lot of the details here!
• Choose-your-own-adventure approach to missions, and endless replayability. My brother and I would replay Fortresses on Far Cry just experimenting in different ways - definitely going to enjoy doing that here.
• The grind didn't really feel like a grind - tagging supplies, finding weapon parts or intel, etc. This (to me) seems like a huge upgrade from the assassins creed style of doing things, despite being the same idea under the hood. I can believe that I'd tag supplies for rebels to come snag for later use (although they might have trouble getting to the stuff inside Fort UNIDAD!)
• Ease of Co-oping: This is big for me. GTA is a PAIN. This work effortlessly.
• Story: I am not typically a story mode, single player type guy, but I am excited to play this one start to finish!

Now here are my suggestions on what could be improved:

• Vehicle variety: While there are plenty of different types of cars, a handful of helicopters, etc., nothing feels much different when swapping between archetypes. Big vehicles that you'd expect to be pretty heavy and slow were still pretty agile. Smaller, lighter vehicles you'd expect to be more agile were not much different than their transport / cargo size counterparts. We could spice this up and make more tradeoffs between different vehicles.
• "Weight" of driving physics. This was pretty dissapointing, to be honest. Momentum isn't really much of a thing, and going off a jump throws you to the ground asap.
• Driving realism - crash detection, driving up cliffs, hairpin turns, instant stops, etc. - I get that driving isn't the main focus, but getting from point A to Point B is going to be a major part of time in the game, and the realism / immersion factor drops off here.
• Ok, trying to back off the driving / travel elements after this: Have you ever driven in a South American country? How about on a dirt road there? They are BUMPY! The dirt roads in the game don't feel much different than the pristine highways. I think a lot can be done to improve the "texture" and feel here: brick roads, dirt roads, mountain paths, city streets, and highways should have different flavors to them.
• Use the RB/LB buttons to rotate planes, helicopters a la GTA - just makes life easier.
• Sound of guns, explosions etc. - Just didn't have a lot of oomph for me. I picked up a new headset and have been amazed with the quality and detail of sound in Destiny, and I think even just cranking up the volume of weapons, explosions, etc would be helpful (maybe I just need to adjust audio settings). Everything seemed to lack a lot of punch.
• As mentioned by many others: Group tagging of supplies. Let the snipers hang back and provide cover without having to go in and sprint around from box to box afterwards.
• It would be nice to free up the animations of supply tagging. There were times when I was in full stealth mode sneaking through camps, trying to minimize body count, and I would have to move to the other side of a Medical supply box and stand up in order to tag it - too rigid in my opinion, but I understand the difficulty.
• Weird exclamations like "COCKHOLSTER!" - what is that?
• Boss health - headshot should = dead.
• Bodies shouldn't disappear until you leave the area. I don't even need a drag / carry mechanic, but bodies disappearing is rather jarring.
• There should be certain ranges wherein AI will detect you regardless of light unless you are thoroughly in cover like hiding in a bush. Laying down at night shouldn't be enough to hide me on concrete when I'm not in shadows)
• Variety in the enemy onslaught that comes in response to alarms: they shouldn't all come to the same entrance, through the same door in a huge line - should have got a screenshot of this I guess, but it was pretty underwhelming (specifically on the Steal the Car mission)
• Rebels: If I'm an elite operator trying to infiltrate a base - I DON'T want Rebels driving up and opening fire while I'm trying to work my way in and eliminate targets stealthily. Really annoying.
• Same goes for freeing rebels from the cages - they just pull out a gun and start shooting? What is that? They should just run away or jump in a car and bail out.
• I'd very much prefer the option to call in Rebel support only when I want to.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the Beta and am going to pre-order for sure! ( I know many of you will love that!) I am excited to co-op with my brother and enjoy the story start to finish.

I understand the development life, and I am excited for you all to finally launch your hard work out there - it's been a long time coming! I am also excited to see the improvements from Beta to Launch.

Some closing thoughts:
I was breezing through the Beta on my own, mostly to finish the story. My favorite mission was the one where you steal the fancy car - lots of variety / replayability there on its own if you want it. My brother and I were running it later, and started with some stealth sniping tactics. He accidently clipped a propane tank after his shot went through an enemy, which exploded into utter chaos and alarms - it was a fun moment where I can to provide cover and he had to bug out for a bit! This is exactly the kind of stuff I was looking for, and this has my very excited for the game.

When I'm in the mood for it, I will definitely turn off HUD elements and go Ghost difficulty for that added challenge - not sure about the whole game, though. I'd definitely recommend trying this if you felt like the game was too fast / easy for your liking.

Thanks for reading my friends. I hope you all have an excellent weekend!

[Keltimus]

I strongly agree here on the majority of this.

One thing I should point out is the "weird exclamations." In the military, this is nothing out of the ordinary. I've said and heard stranger things. If there's anything not authentic in the dialog is the lack of banter between the Ghosts. In the military, we give each other a hard time because we're all close. If we don't give you crap, it's either because we don't like you, or we don't know you well enough yet. That's how it is.

There is a point you made, I'd like augment on.

-Off road handling: I don't remember feeling excessive vibrations in the PS4 controller. The devs should add to that if I missed it. The vehicles definitely should be harder to control off road, fighting fishtails and over steering. Also with vehicles I noticed you can drive it until it blows up. The engine never dies or the destruction of the body doesn't interfere with handling. There's no real punishment for driving like an idiot. This should also be addressed.

[D-from-Oxford]

[*]Rebels: If I'm an elite operator trying to infiltrate a base - I DON'T want Rebels driving up and opening fire while I'm trying to work my way in and eliminate targets stealthily. Really annoying.[*]Same goes for freeing rebels from the cages - they just pull out a gun and start shooting? What is that? They should just run away or jump in a car and bail out. [*]I'd very much prefer the option to call in Rebel support only when I want to.

Yeah, the rebels were a pain in the backside, much like the other friendly AI (your squad).

When exploring out of bounds, I stumbled across the mechanic....
If the rebels are near (when you are near an enemy) and you have a weapon out (not holstered) they immediately come to aid you. I tested it by waiting for a passing rebel truck (whilst outside an outpost) with my gun holstered. When one came I pulled out my weapon as it was passing and it stopped and they jumped out, at that point I holstered my weapon and they proceeded to get back in their truck. This is not good. Didn't test it on freed rebels though, but since there is a skill to make "freed rebels" fight better, I'd say they always fight no matter what. Payback for being tortured, maybe?

[Nutmeg23]

I strongly agree here on the majority of this.

One thing I should point out is the "weird exclamations." In the military, this is nothing out of the ordinary. I've said and heard stranger things. If there's anything not authentic in the dialog is the lack of banter between the Ghosts. In the military, we give each other a hard time because we're all close. If we don't give you crap, it's either because we don't like you, or we don't know you well enough yet. That's how it is.

There is a point you made, I'd like augment on.

-Off road handling: I don't remember feeling excessive vibrations in the PS4 controller. The devs should add to that if I missed it. The vehicles definitely should be harder to control off road, fighting fishtails and over steering. Also with vehicles I noticed you can drive it until it blows up. The engine never dies or the destruction of the body doesn't interfere with handling. There's no real punishment for driving like an idiot. This should also be addressed.

Yeah, I can see how being under fire / hit in combat could cause some interesting shouts! It just seemed very strange to me - mostly the term Cockholster in particular caught me off guard haha

I would agree that the ghosts are mostly without personality - some banter could go a long way to help that! I think striking a balance between 0 and Battlefield Bad Company's level of banter / character would be a great way to go, although probably a bit late at this point.

EDIT: Also agree that some damage / dropoff in handling, speed, etc. would improve the game as well. I think it would kind of force you to play more realistically and therefore get more out of the experience.

I believe there was a quote somewhere, not sure if it was a live stream or a promo video, but someone from the team (I think) mentioned that they didn't want a single stray bullet to ruin your car and cause you to fail a mission. That was a little disappointing - I like the idea even if it's a few bullets to pop a tire and things like that.

Yeah, the rebels were a pain in the backside, much like the other friendly AI (your squad).

When exploring out of bounds, I stumbled across the mechanic....
If the rebels are near (when you are near an enemy) and you have a weapon out (not holstered) they immediately come to aid you. I tested it by waiting for a passing rebel truck (whilst outside an outpost) with my gun holstered. When one came I pulled out my weapon as it was passing and it stopped and they jumped out, at that point I holstered my weapon and they proceeded to get back in their truck. This is not good. Didn't test it on freed rebels though, but since there is a skill to make "freed rebels" fight better, I'd say they always fight no matter what. Payback for being tortured, maybe?

That's pretty interesting, and disappointing... I'm all for specific missions that involve some rebel support, or even the ability to call for backup on an as-needed basis, but I did not like when they interfered. It also seemed like they were more an more prevalent towards the end, meaning more likely to be disrupted.