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I'll start with my TL;DR summary, because I am curious as to what others think about it. In short the game is a lot of fun with a group of friends, runs rather well, is "mostly" bug free (at least so far in my experience) but my major concern is with longevity. The game plays quite similarly to a co-op Farcry 4. Is the intention of the game for you to play it with friends and then when you complete the game you don't come back? I haven't been following the game for a long time so maybe I've missed some long term gameplay elements but it seems like once you take every zone you will have a lot more rebels helping you, missions will all be done. Then what do you do other than goof off a little with friends?
Longer version:
Graphics - Overall very nice. Draw distance is amazing and it looks gorgeous. Runs decently well. My friends and I have varying PC's and are running varying settings and it seems to be perform within reason. FPS for me is mostly steady, but I will say that at seemingly random times I get quick 1 second "pauses" where it isn't even really my framerate dropping, but the game just freezes and then comes back literally 1 second (or less) later. The FPS counter remains at 60+ usually during that time. It happens rarely. Also really enjoy the day/night cycle with nights being very dark. Driving on a road in the middle of the night was quite fun, and we were all joking about how we could easily take a turn wrong and the car go off the cliff (like in real life in Bolivia!)
Gameplay Overall - Co-op is a blast, and very easy to do. Overall the game seems a little easy (even on hardest mode). I also worry about replayability/longevity. We finished the first zone in about 4 hours (with some goofing off time as well). It seems to play like Farcry 4 so once you are done I'm not really sure why you would continue playing the game? What keeps the game interesting?
One extra thing about the difficulty worth mentioning - I think part of it comes from the ability to plan ahead so well that you are fully prepared. It seems like if you have fully skilled drones you can fly around quite easily and spot everyone before your assault. While I think it's cool that preparing in advance significantly helps you, I find it strange that once you spot an enemy you can see where they go permanently. I think the drone/binoculars should give some visual cue to how many enemies are there, and maybe "last known locations" but if you spot an enemy outside and they go inside you shouldn't be able to see that they go upstairs. Maybe you could have "last known location" spotting as the default, and then add a skill to the drone where you "shoot" enemies with small tracers to tag them. Those enemies you can then see whereever they go because they are being traced. Also I think the drone should be easier for enemies to spot, as right now I can usually fly right by the enemies and they don't even notice. A couple times they started to be alert, but the drone was so fast they didn't ever attack it. If you don't want to make changes, at least give an option where the "spotting" only keeps track of known enemies present vs. killed, and "last known locations" to increase difficulty (Like a "realistic" mode).
Missions - The story missions, at least from what we get in open beta, seem to have a good variety. I have a feeling the side missions are quite repetitive. The replayable supply missions are fun the first time, but going back and "restealing" a helicopter seems a little strange, especially since it seems like there is no variety (even the enemies seem to spawn in essentially the same numbers with essentially the same positions).
I like the "intel gathering" idea where you choose what kind of intel to get, but I don't like that it seems that once you finish a zone you have gathered all intel. By the end of the zone I think you should have some things that you weren't able to reveal so it really feels like a choice instead of just "what am I going to choose first, I'll get them all in the end". You could add in some "ultimate intel" item that doesn't show up on the map that you just need to find that reveals all perhaps to compensate.
Would also like to see more "pop up" events. Maybe we haven't gotten far enough in yet but one thing I did like in Farcry 4 was when outposts that rebels controlled would get under attack and you would have to turn around and save them. We completed the first zone and got about halfway through Mantuyoc and didn't see any of those really. Something like that would also help with longevity if there could be "repeatable" attacks (like the supply drop missions are repeatable) that randomly occur at different locations.
Weapons - Guns handle well, there seems to be significant differences between each one which is nice. Good range of customization for guns, and I like the idea of finding new ones in the field (and attachments/mods) vs. picking up guns from enemies but losing them if you die. I can't tell yet if eventually you end up permanently finding all enemy weapons. Would prefer it if some weapons are only ever just found on enemies and you have to stay alive in order to keep them.
Skills - I can't tell yet but I've reaad from other people that in the end you have enough skill points to get everything? If so, I'm not crazy about that. Would prefer a system where you make choices so each team member can specialize. One way to do it would be to allow you to ultimately purchase everything like we have now, but create a limit on how many can be "active" at any given time. So if someone is actively utilizing a ton of their drone skills, they can't also be actively utilizing a bunch of other skills. Not sure how exactly to do it, but I would like to see one of my friends be our "sniper" and be actually uniquely different even when we are high level.
Vehicles - Good variety. Some of the cars handle very strangely but in general driving in these games that aren't real driving simulators is always a little strange. Cars seem pretty darn durable, which I guess is a good thing but also a little strange. We all seemed to have issues with the Helicopters being able to pitch well enough to move foward without losing altitude. I think it's a problem with "w" being pitch since you can't really go "half-way" versus "full", you can only click or unclick. Perhaps that is better with a controller.
Bugs - Didn't experience many major ones. We had a bug where to me I was sitting on the helicopter just fine, but to my friends it looked like I was standing on land even after we took off I was continuing to stand. Similarly once I jumped out of the car and died, but to them they said I was just standing on the side of the road. I have one friend who is having connection issues (Keeps saying NAT failed or something, and hasn't been able to play at all). In about 6-7 hours of play time between 4 people I think one person crashed once. Maybe twice. So that wasn't bad either.
Sorry if that was a little long. Overall I will likely purchase it because I think even if it does last 30-40 hours or so I would get my moneys worth, however at this point it does seem like the kind of game where I will finish all the story missions and then likely never come back. Needs to improve on some "replayability" for co-op groups. I have seen that PvP is in the works, which will work for some people long term but not for me personally. Would like to have more repeatable PvE elements (that are difficult) to keep me returning.
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I can agree with most things you put.. As far as skills I can get on board with you if in solo mode we could customize our squads skills too, otherwise theres no reason to handicap players skills. Maybe only limit it in the coop mode? The active mode isnt too bad of an idea either.. but again, maybe save that idea for coop specifically.Originally Posted by DrWookie87 Go to original post
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That is a good point. I could see someone running "solo" (IE with AI mates) wanting to be a "jack of all trades".Originally Posted by Anentet Go to original post
Honestly any of these things could just be more options to make the game more difficult since as it stands with 4 players it is quite easy on the hardest mode as long as you plan everything out. The changes to skills and the changes to spotting enemies honestly to me would be my first "go to" changes to make the game more difficult. I would rank the issues with spotting higher if I had to choose.
The drone is just too darn powerful. I'm not even fully upgraded by with the range I have and the battery life in most situations I can fly through each building to make sure I get everyone and I rarely miss an enemy at an objective. Then all we have to do is just watch the orange circles move around and take them all out. Reinforcements can get tough, but even the initial assault could be made far more difficult if the drone/spotting doesn't create a "omnicient" mode where you can see every step each enemy takes.
If you had a "last known position" that then automatically updated every time you saw the same enemy (with your eyes, binoculars or drone) that could be a compromise. So as soon as an ally lays eyes on the enemy you previously spotted, it updates on your screen but if the enemy runs and hides you can't actually see where they are.
