I played the beta on the PC (personal computer). I just couldn't sit back without providing my impressions and I want this game to be something my friends and I will come to enjoy. Unfortunately, with the release of Apex Legends, I didn't get to play the private beta as extensively. I played around 25 hours for Apex and 10 for Division 2 private beta. Simply, I wasn't enjoying this game as I thought I would.
Playing the early game felt great and immersive, aside from how clunky manually operated skills felt.
Playing the late game was a mixed bag of reactions.
I have exclusively played the PvE (player vs environment) content and have not touched the DZ (dark zone) and probably never will. Take it as you will and I understand these guns have to be balanced for PvE and PvP (player vs player). All I have to say about Apex Legends is that it fills in my PvP fix. Yes, the DZ is more than just PvP, but it just 'pbbts' for me personally. These are just my impressions (reactions from my friends) and of course everything is subject to change.
The negative/mixed reactions:
- Guns and gun-mods: as an example the default survivalist loadout. Oh my. The D50 vs the revolver the sharpshooter gets. How different can those guns be? D50 was out of control and does less damage while the revolver was accurate, controllable, and deals more damage per shot. DPS (damage per second) doesn't matter if I can't hit the target.
Overall, it basically felt like choosing between an accurate gun or a stable gun. And only a select few weapons sat in the middle. Heh.
The amount of "REEing" for gun mods was hilarious. "WHY DOES THIS MAKE THE GUN LESS STABLE?!" -squadmate. I have heard that they are going to rework the mods for guns, but I found myself just stripping the guns naked. Looking at you scopes and scope sensitivity.
"Why is there so many semi-automatic guns now?" -squadmate
With the removal of balanced (yes, the old and overpowered balanced skill from D1 [Division 1]) semi-automatic weapons felt tedious. For example, the LVOA was fully automatic in D1 now it's a 30 round semi-auto weapon in D2 (Division 2). I am all for variety - just fell back to using fully automatic weapons or a bolt-action weapon. I guess the damage boost is worth the muscle exercise.
- TTK (time to kill): Won't touch TTK now as this felt nowhere near the actual end-game. (as 70%+ of the skills were locked and no gearsets)
- Special weapon ammo: "Is it just me or am I carrying dead weight on my back?" -squadmate *sharpshooter laughing in the back*
- Gun sounds and sounds in general: some things sound great, some things sounded dull. Overall, my friends complained about this more than I. The things I could hear, I thought it was great overall ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
These futuristic suppressors are amazing - can't hear a thing. *cough* Suppressors sound amazing, if the sounds actually worked. 80% of the time, I could not hear my squadmates shooting. But, closing doors and hearing it slam - I can do that all day long. 10/10
- FOV (field of view). When I ADS (aim down sights) in third person, my character takes 40% of the screen and I can barely see my target. Motion sickness intensifies.
- The skill's AI: the Seeker Mine pathing and detonation timing was simply saddening. (Was trying to get demolition specialist ammo) I watched my little guy chase an enemy and had enough time to load in Benny Hill on my second monitor. I died a little inside when it didn't "one-shot" (explosive seeker mine with the demolition default loadout) a regular enemy npc or the enemy npc escaped the detonation radius. TTK btw /s.
And, the turret is great 100% of the time, 60% of the time. At least it has 100 in intimidation and takes enemy fire away for a second. There were times when the turret clipped into the cover and had no line of sight of anything.
- Enemy skill spam: I felt like this was in a good area. Remote controlled robots? thicc hitbox. Flying drones? thinn hitbox. Grenades? RUN. No matter what I did - lead, shoot directly at it, I could not consistently hit these little buggers. I don't know if it's a combination of inaccurate guns, server latency, and etc. But, grenadiers can respectfully eat my bullets.
- Optimization: my only big issue was going from >100 fps to <40 fps during gun fights.
Overall, exploring New York and Washington feels amazing and immersive. But, playing the beta left me confused as it is playing out like D1 all over again. Starts off great and thought out while the end game is confused and is playing tug-of-war with itself. There are all these good quality of life changes, yet things that were solved in D1 were reverted back in D2. And, I respect the teams decision to give us a glimpse of the end game. My only major concern is with the new TTK and with current D1 mechanics - like carrying a heavy *** battery while trying to fend of an endless horde - how will this get balanced out for the end-game. I have some hope and my fingers are crossed, but I am not holding my breath until proven otherwise. I will be picking up Anthem and continue to play Apex Legends. But, this did not give me the confidence I thought I would have for Division 2.
Thank you for the hard work and best wishes to the teams.