Dear Ubi - Feedback part 2 | Forums

[Machitos-01]

Following my first thread here's some additional suggestions and feedback that hopefully help out.

For reference: http://forums.ubi.com/showthread.php...Early-Feedback


In no particular order:


1) Stealth gameplay: Bodies disappearing & Moving bodies. There's a lot to be said about stealth game play revolving around enemies finding a body, but unfortunately in GRW this isn't the case. The fact that bodies disappear so quickly can at times detract from the player the value of a carefully placed shot. Not to mention immersion breaking.

This coupled with the fact that bodies cannot be moved removes a certain stealth element from the game genre which is by default quite expected. Personally, I make sure all my shots are planned so that the body drops in spots no one has line of sight to, so the ability to move bodies is less paramount to myself (albeit I can understand the strong arguments for it), but the bodies disappearing is quite jarring at times.

These two factors combined with the AI "telepathy" from my first thread are an integral part of the stealth game play and would add serious value back into the game when appropriately fine-tuned.


2) Rebel Support - Vehicle Drop-off: There should be an option to select between the vehicle choices as many times I have found myself needing a ground vehicle - only to be locked into getting a helicopter. Additionally, although less important, being able to spawn a vehicle at a target location (targetting reticule) would be a great feature. I am tempted to say that this is how it worked in the Beta, but I did not extensively test it at the time, nor do I properly recall. I'm sure the community will be able to correct me either way.

Having the choice of vehicle selection however is of paramount importance for this specific skill. I daresay out of all the rebel skills this is what I use 98% of the time and I am certain this applies to many other players as well. The remaining 2% goes into spawning rebel reinforcements for the Radio Missions, which brings us to the next point.


3) Rebel Radio Missions. These missions have sparked the most rage from the community than any other mission thus far. For some it is the sheer point that it is purely a run and gun rambo-style defend the point, for others it is the high level of difficulty that this mission poses. Although I have found ways to beat the majority of these missions thus far, I can agree with the community that these missions are quite bothersome.

I cannot say that I have beaten these missions easily, as most of them (barring Itacua and one other) have required more than one attempts, but the fact that my most successful strategy revolves around forming a barrier of vehicles surrounding the radio, with ample mines scattered around, should by itself point to the fact that this mission is inherently flawed.

Suggestions on making it great would be to increase the radio timer, stretching out the mission to double or even triple the time. This would allow for the enemy spawns to be stretched out as well, making them more like waves instead of an endless assault. Furthermore, the radio itself needs some serious HP (health pool) love, as it is currently so paper-thin, a single enemy passing through your defenses can in no time flat take out the radio, forcing you to spend another 20-30 minutes rebuilding the "wall-o-cars".

The majority of complaints I have seen thus far regarding these missions come from solo players, and I can personally attest that even with 2 player co-op these missions are quite bothersome. I don't know how it plays out with 3 or 4 players, or if the difficulty doesn't scale making it far easier, but at the very least these mission types should scale down to accommodate squads with less players as the difficulty threshold currently is too high for it to be an "enjoyable" mission.

Given my strategy of building a "wall-o-cars" as everything else I've tried hasn't worked as well thus far, I daresay I have felt as if playing a "valet parking simulator" at times. Not very Ghost-like at all.


4) Rebel Antenna Missions. These missions are not as bad as the radio missions, but were quite bothersome early on. After attempting to beat the timer for some of the earlier antenna missions, my co-op partner and I found that splitting up and being ready at both antennas to trigger at once was far easier than trying to deal with the "race" component of the mission. Of course, early on we would also avoid the helicopter due to horrible controls.

Now that controls are seemingly improved and manageable, we find that just flying a helicopter makes these missions far easier. That was up until today. In some of the later missions (higher zones) these missions have the antenna placed within Santa Blanca outposts and even a Unidad army base. Not only is flying a helicopter over these places almost impossible, but reaching the antenna on time is quite the task at hand with enemies swarming your location at record speeds.

Now my partner and I are back to square one, clearing the outposts while one of us waits at the 2nd antenna, and the 1st goes back to activate the mission. This doesn't feel right nor very ghost-like. Even if you were to rush in and barely manage to activate the 2nd antenna, you'd surely still die to enemy fire. You'd get credit for the mission, yet still die. This is just wrong and needs serious fine-tuning. And easy fix would be simply to adjust the timer on these missions based on the difficulty of the location of the 2nd antenna. Thus allowing for a more proper approach to dealing with the threat as well as successfully completing the objective.


5) Crouch after tagging resources. A minor issue, but becomes more important when trying to grab resources while in an active op. Once you tag a resource you should be returned to the same position you were before tagging.


6) Host controlled difficulty. The host player should be in control of the difficulty level for the entire squad. If a squad is set to play on extreme, then it defies the purpose if one player is on easy-mode. Matchmaking should also revolve around matching players based on difficulty settings as well.


7) Fast rope & bolt cutters. Merely a suggestion but it would be quite interesting to get a fast rope option while in the helicopter for our squad to rappel down, as well as bolt cutters (or something similar) to cut through fences.


8) Grenade tossing while in cover. There needs to be a method of tossing a grenade while in cover, either behind a barrier of sorts, or on the side of a door. Having to step backwards and leave cover in order to toss a grenade is not a great method of dealing with it.


9) While driving other faction vehicles, enemies should not be suspicious or alerted. While on the road they are constantly suspicious and when entering a base through the automatic doors, they become suspicious far too quickly. This needs to be fine-tuned so that it becomes a truly viable stealth option of infiltrating using an enemy faction vehicle and not just using it as a "keycard" to enter the base from the automatic doors.


10) AI GR Squad. Let's finish this thread with a large topic. Perhaps this should be a thread of its own, but here we go.

Having played 2 player co-op for the majority of my game time thus far, I decided to try out solo play to see what all the gripe is about regarding the AI squad. As a primarily co-op player, I have to say that I was thoroughly unimpressed at the solo game play of this title.

First and foremost, when playing solo, the game play is completely turned on its head and from a stealth shooter really becomes an RTS game. There is simply no reason not to have a drone out and simply undertake all operations with sync shot. It is fast, efficient, and they never miss; well they do, but then they quickly take a second or third successful shot. There is no real penalty to doing this for the entire game, and it quickly becomes a crutch more than a game play mechanic.

Most players will argue that you don't "have" to play that way. But in reality, the same argument can be made towards having one weapon limitations, unequipping primary weapon slots, enforcing host difficulty, playing with no HUD, etc. You don't "have" to. But having the crutch readily available there, it quickly becomes the "go-to" solution when things get hairy. This really detracts from the GRW experience as a whole.

Secondly, sync shot is horribly implemented in GRW. The AI can take shots from behind walls and through rocks without having to readjust their position at all for line of sight. But the slightest guard tower with a sniper inside becomes an impossible task for them (rather than adjusting position again). Not only is this immersion breaking, but it also reinforces the "lazy" game play crutch of playing this as an RTS with a drone out. If all shots hit, then there's no reason not to sit outside of a camp dealing with all enemies easily.

Thirdly, the AI is silly at best. They can walk up to enemies and not be detected. They will take fire and not seek cover. They will sit in grenades and not dodge out of them. There are simply no words. This needs serious love for all the solo players out there.

In addition to that, the AI finds the worst moments to help revive you due to all of the above. They will revive you while taking fire, while a grenade is on the floor, while the vehicle nearby is about to explode. 9/10 times I was instantly killed upon being revived.

Finally, the AI squad screams to have full customization. Not only their clothing should be customizable, but their weapons as well. It'd be one thing for specific characters to be "locked" to a type of weapon (the sniper only carrying a sniper), but there should be a greater purpose to the unlocking of weapons + attachments. Would be a great feature to see, even though I most likely will not be playing solo anymore (aside from any potential future testing).

The absolutely only saving grace for the AI squad is the pure ease of taking out a convoy (especially early on) as well as flying a helicopter in an outpost while they literally annihilate absolutely everything in sight.



As always this is personal feedback and suggestions so take them with a grain of salt, but hopefully many changes towards the right direction will be made going forward to further develop and fine-tune this potentially great game.

I hope the community piggybacks on this thread and many others to offer their own opinions and suggestions, so we can help steer the devs towards what we want.



A final suggestion for the mods, with all due respect. I would love to see more detail about what the devs are actively working on, what they are planning on working on, and ultimately once complete and "patched in" detail of what exactly was fixed or added. I understand sometimes you can only relay what is given to you, but try to push for more detail. "Bugs and other improvements" doesn't really mean much to the community.

The more transparent and communicative, the better. I have seen many members trying to voice their opinions and offer suggestions more and more often, only to get discouraged when they don't feel heard. If you want the community to keep pushing forward and offering more insight and feedback towards improving the game further, you need to offer more detailed communication back as well as more transparency.


Thank you.



Some quick bugs:

M for tacmap. Not sure if it is a bug or not, but M should always default to the tacmap, and not the skills menu when you have available skillpoints to spend.
ADV suppressor skill not working correctly. The damage and penetration seem to be reduced.
2nd and 3rd character slots behind menus while in character creation menu.

[NoVa_Erk]

i would appreciate if they even could make ALL Side missions replayable at least after beating El Sueno. it is so sad, that you cant repeat these Wave based missions like rebel radio mission. you already do it one time in the game why it should get some tweaks? this is sad.

the best way could be to implement random missions where you can defend a random place for 5 min. rebel outpost, rebel convoy or rebel cars are getting in trouble.
search and destroy enemies spawning and patrolling the wildlands and woods, Rescure and escort. Rescue from Executes, Kill / Capture Officer in Location a and escort to safe zone. even more varieties of random locations of missions not always the static one place and once done its done. the world is so big and also so empty. there are Hostage execution animations from NPC to NPC but they only animate the Threatening animation and then repeat. they even dont kill them or transport them to caves. the world would be more interesting and give us an impression of LIFE if the missions dont would be so static. the only missions you can do after the most side missions are main and Convoy once. they have the ELEMENTS in the game to put more randomized and More mission types to repeat but they only need to take time to implement.

PLS UBISOFT take our suggestions important. also if not, the game will be dead after a month. and PVP is not the rescue button. it is a good addition. but there are other great games with pvp. and ENOUGH games with pvp !!

[Gamma.Gaming]

bodies does disappeared but not immediately. when i do stealth kills, NPC bodies remain for quite a while and sometimes NPCs detect it every after a minute. But if they will add a way to drag those bodies and hide them in plain sight, that might fix the problem.

Also, they should return back the "breach mode" and cover mechanics from GR future soldiers.

[JonathanRL]

Finally, the AI squad screams to have full customization. Not only their clothing should be customizable, but their weapons as well. It'd be one thing for specific characters to be "locked" to a type of weapon (the sniper only carrying a sniper), but there should be a greater purpose to the unlocking of weapons + attachments. Would be a great feature to see, even though I most likely will not be playing solo anymore (aside from any potential future testing).

This could also be tied into their standard-roles and how they behave is not given different orders. You should also be able to toggle the behavior of the AI Ghost in accorance to these conditions regardless of their weapons. Note that they should still behave like they are using the guns from the game and not just some clone AI Companion Gun as they do now.

Snipers = Hang bang and take out Machinegunners, Snipers etc, high accuracy.
Machineguns = Hang back and take out Vehicles, supress enemies. low accuracy.
Grenadiers (Assault Rifles with UGL) = Uses grenades liberally at clusters of enemies. Low Accuracy, high AOE.
Assault Rifles = Medium Range, medium accuracy.
SMGs = Close Range, stays close with you and protects your six and provide fire support. Medium Accurarcy.
Shotguns = Same as SMGs.

Of course, if you have a silencer attached, the MG and Grenadier may hold fire (if not engaged) or just suppressed weapons.

[MechaG2]

Fantastic post, Machitos-01. All excellent points. You've outlined almost all the issues I have with the game (I read your previous thread; also terrific). I hope Ubisoft reads this thread and addresses these issues ASAP.

There are a few other problems I sincerely I hope Ubisoft will address:
1) Bushes should be a viable means to hide. Right now, I could be lying still in the prone, in full camo while completely concealed in a bush, and the enemy AI will spot me from like 30-40 feet away. It's extremely frustrating.
2) Players should drop their weapon on the ground when picking up another. This way it can be picked up again if needed without having to locate an ammo crate in order to retrieve it.
3) Ability to cook grenades.
4) Controls, physics and handling for both helicopters and fixed wing aircraft need improvement. We need yaw controls for airplanes, and helicopters should perform more like helicopters (we should have the ability to strafe).
5) Targeting reticle HUD for armed aircraft.

[Machitos-01]

...

Great ideas! I do hope more solo players chime in over time and share their ideas with the devs so that they indeed shape this game into something wonderful

...

Thank you for the kind words. I truly do hope more of the community is able to share their ideas and opinions so we can help guide the devs as a whole.

Those are all great points you bring up. I too have been annoyed at times with the bushes, especially in the lush jungle type biomes, where I cannot see in front of me, yet the enemy is alerted by me.

I have also been frustrated when I accidentally pickup an enemy weapon whilst trying to press E over something, only to find that I've replaced my primary weapon and cannot pick it back up. I then have to scurry about finding a safe spot to hide so I can access my "invisible yet infinite armory for storing weapons - aka Machitos' magical weapon Emporium".

As for the targeting HUD, yes please. I have at times reenacted the typical action movie scene where the bad guys are giving chase to the good guys, shooting down pretty much the entire city, causing massive chaos around them, only to miss every time so that the protagonist may yet live to fight another day. Only difference is that the roles are reversed and I'm the one wrecking the city and missing every time. Just not sure who the bad guy is anymore...

[kitkins11111]

2) Players should drop their weapon on the ground when picking up another. This way it can be picked up again if needed without having to locate an ammo crate in order to retrieve it

Just realized all weapons u unlocked can be equiped from loadout in pause menu, just fyi, kind of weird your rolling around with quite an arsenal. I'd settle for working drones, all good points but drone bugs gotta be fixed asap.

[kitkins11111]

Oh yeah and the radio missions just have no place in the game. Ubisoft you need to create ways to achieve difficulty other than endless waves it honestly comes off as lazy.

[Machitos-01]

Oh yeah and the radio missions just have no place in the game. Ubisoft you need to create ways to achieve difficulty other than endless waves it honestly comes off as lazy.

Although I agree with you, if the devs were trying for something different paced to appease the broader playerbase, I am OK with it, given that they make it more well-rounded.

i.e. requiring car barricades as a viable strategy is not very fun, nor is the paper-thin quality of the radio emitter.

Thus why I mentioned the possibility of scaling that mission up or down according to the number of actual players.

Hopefully that makes this mission more viable for a lot of solo players who have been having issues with it thus far.

[MechaG2]

2) Players should drop their weapon on the ground when picking up another. This way it can be picked up again if needed without having to locate an ammo crate in order to retrieve it

Just realized all weapons u unlocked can be equiped from loadout in pause menu, just fyi, kind of weird your rolling around with quite an arsenal. I'd settle for working drones, all good points but drone bugs gotta be fixed asap.

Oh man, I've been playing since the open beta, and I didn't notice this fact until today. lol I thought the loadout menu was only to customize your weapons and equipment, but players still had to get to an ammo crate to equip them. *facepalm*