Intro
TL;DR-Hi

Hello during the closed beta I gave my overlong analysis of the game based on my experience with the beta ( http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...on-on-the-game ) I have now played the open beta and am going to give my follow-up opinions on why I still won't be buying the game at launch.

Micro-transactions
TL;DR-It's absurd that these will been added into the game

In my previous post I talked about how ubisoft might be putting in micro-transactions, well as it would turn out they are, how fabulous another game that is being sold for the full 60$ with the added pressure of micro-transactions, and they won't even give us dedicated servers. Honestly do you expect me to pay that plus all the DLC characters? Absolutely not. I would reasonably pay 40$ for a game with those qualifications but you're also putting in a campaign so I'd stretch it to 50$ assuming the campaign isn't a cookie cutter mess. I would say I'm surprised but then again you put micro-transactions in assassins creed. I'd like to say I'm disappointed or upset but I'm not this is ubisoft and I gave up hope on the idea that you could produce a game without doing something wrong after watch dogs.

Combat
TL;DR-Mostly balanced except for some minor annoyances

I have played the combat even more and have come to the conclusion that it is about as balanced as I would expect, although now that I have played it a lot more I have to say blocking has some odd problems I think. the main issue is that it's never given an in-depth explanation so when I move the stick to block the left to block the left attack and it just doesn't block the left attack I am left in confusion because I'm playing as peacekeeper one of the fastest heroes in the game and I assumed had the ability to block anything as quickly as you can manually block but sometimes it just doesn't, normally when they only need one hit to actually kill me.

some heroes have moves that you have to dodge in order not get hit, most don't so you'll have to forgive me when play a character like for example the conqueror or the warlord, who's entire kit is designed around defensive blocking then suddenly have to move out of the way of an attack in order to not get hit by it. especially when it does so much damage, multiple times I got hit by it when my health was at a bar and a half and it killed me, not even the heavy attacks do that much damage and you make this one unblockable?!?!

Shield breaking is also weird, I don't understand it anymore, now that people have gotten better at the game we end up countering shield breaks more often but I don't get why when you do that one of you still gets pushed back and determining which is pushed back is a mystery, you would assume it's the one defending the break since he/she is the one who is defending the push but I played a game where I defensively tried to counter a shield break and I still got pushed of the ledge. presumably one of the primary points of a shield break counter is to stop people from throwing you off a ledge or into hazards, but if that doesn't work then the move is broken.

I don't want to be one of those people who complain about the hazards but I'm gonna be anyway, they're really annoying I don't like when a match starts and I am suddenly thrown into a fire because a raider from off screen decided I was too cold. I am not saying get rid of them but I guarantee your customers would appreciate a map or game mode where the only way to win is to actually be good at the game.

Game modes

Elimination/Kill
TL;DR-A garbage mode

I hate this game mode a lot, it encourages players to leave the fight their in to go get power-ups and help their team, to say the very least it's annoying but to say the most it makes the game less fun when the person you were about to kill runs away to get help from people who are actually good at the game. I wanted to completely ignore it but basically all the orders I got were for that game mode so If I wanted to level my characters I had to play it, I would suggest adding in an option to change the orders for game modes you actually want to play.

Domination
TL;DR- It's mostly alright if voice chat works

Domination is annoying but I have already gone over that in my previous post so I'll just say that the voice chat basically needs to work for this one and most of the time during the beta it just didn't.

Brawl
TL;DR-My favorite mode

Brawl is my favorite mode because for the most part it actually takes some semblance of skill since most of the people I encountered either didn't use hazards or only did for one round it also lets you practice fighting two enemies at the same time if you're teammate isn't very good.

Duel
TL;DR-Second favorite

Duel is fun if you just want raw gameplay I like that I can normally just get a solid fair match without all the hazards and stuff.

The faction system
TL;DR-Still completely meaningless

After the closed beta I was reading around on the forums and noticed a lot of people talking about a faction war and I thought "oh I guess they do have a game mode for the factions that actually effects game play, I must have missed it." I then got on the open beta and noticed that you have called the "war bonds thing" as i put it, the faction war. Again I have to be disappointed in this completely useless system that adds nothing to the game play at all but have no fear because you do get gear if the people in your faction happen to care about the system at all and actually put their war bonds in it. but here's a fun question what exactly is stopping people from picking the most popular faction and just getting the gear at the end because they have the most players? Because you don't lock heroes to factions so If I want the gear it only makes sense to pick the faction that is going to win so why would I pick any other faction? The reason to pick the faction that's not in the lead is for the emblem which isn't a good reason at all, another reason to play with the faction you want is I am pretty sure you only get gear for the heroes in the faction if you win the faction war. Ah I hear you cry, now that is a good reason!! and you're right except for one minor thing, the most popular faction is going to win regardless of what you pick because they have the most players and the most people playing the "war bonds thing" by default. Now you may be thinking "well that's not entirely true Mrwillgum one of the factions with less players could just play more often and get more bonds" well that's a good thought it is however dashed by the fact that the reward for wining is by no means worth the time you would have to put in, I respect that it might take some of you playing your heart out for those rewards to respect that but think about it, you get 2 pieces of gear that everyone in your faction gets so it's not even rare. You don't even get the ability to say "look at me I'm one of the few players in the game to get this!! Woot" so pro-tip If you want to win at the end of a season find out what the most popular faction is and join that one, you're bound to win if all of you do that. The following paragraph I took from my previous post (with some edits), it details a possible way to fix the faction system so that it effects the game play at least a little I have given it it's own title because I don't think Ubisoft really grasp how the system being actually worthless is a very bad thing.

How to fix the faction system
TL;DR-Their is none ubisoft employees need to read that and complain about it to higher-ups

I realized how you could fix the faction system, make every player start out as mercenaries with no allegiance to any faction then force them to get to level 5 with at least 2 heroes from each faction giving them time to find which faction and heroes they like the most (knights obviously) then give them the choice to pick a faction and to help encourage this pick you should add faction battles where two factions get into a series of battles and one comes out the winner giving the winners gear, that gives players the option to play as any hero and remain factionless just to play or join a faction and have their heroes restricted to that factions heroes it also encourages people to stick with the game longer if the faction wars are fun enough. (with this you could also put players of different factions on the same team without having the players know wink wink)

Gear system
TL;DR-still a big heaping load of garbage

I have discovered since the closed beta that some of the game modes don't include the stat effects of the gear system and are purely cosmetic, It still dose effect game modes though so my point about how customers will probably feel cheated by it still stands, I do have to say I don't understand the level system on the gear at all. I would often find that the level 1 gear I had was better than the level 4 gear which makes no sense or in some really odd instances I would have level 1 gear be identical to level 3 gear or the difference between the two be so minimal it's not even worth changing gear unless the higher level gear looks better, which it never does. All this did was make me hate the system even more.

Technical Issues
TL;DR-mostly due to the peer-to-peer servers

Early on in the beta I found that I would play a few games and then have every game I try to get into say the matchmaking isn't ready, I had bad connection issues when the host had bad internet, because ya know that's an inherent problem with peer-to-peer multiplayer and is why we are slowly getting away from the archaic system that it is. I didn't really experience any lag for the most part, their were a few spikes here an their but they were quickly resolved. I appreciated it when you made the matchmaking faster. I can't think of any other issues other than the whole "you're charging full price for a game and adding micro-transactions and you can't even say you have to use the money for server costs because peer-to-peer servers can be run for 1/5th the cost of dedicated servers" thing, and it is a very big thing that one would hope gets fixed but then again you do get the luxury of a mostly uninformed user base who doesn't know that you are charging them more for a vastly inferior service than most modern games today.

Final Thoughts
TL;DR-thanks for reading I hope you enjoyed it

I didn't expect anything to change after my previous post, especially since I proposed changing a lot of things you couldn't change by now even if you wanted to but that doesn't change the fact that I simply will not be buying the game. I made this long analysis in the vain hope that some ubisoft employee will read it and try to change something and so people who are thinking of getting the game can get some outside input if their interested. for that ubidoft employee I wish you luck and hope you succeed and for the concerned buyer i hope I helped you decide on your purchase and thanks for reading. Please comment if you have anything to add or to argue I'd love to hear everyone elses opinion on the game. I would like to thank you once more for allowing me to play your game even with all the annoyances I found myself wanting to play the beta even more while I waited for the open beta, and with the beta I have gotten over that so thank you.

Sincerely, bilable_fricitiv (on PS4)