I Think I Might Be Done
It had to happen sooner or later, but I just don't feel like playing anymore. There just is not anything to do except repeat content. I was content for a while in WT5 because my build was such that I was not able to do "Challenging" mode, and on Tidal Basin I wasn't even able to do "hard". Just to clarify, in my view being "able" means completing without any deaths.
But after playing and grinding and min/max'ing my build, I can now get through all missions and strongholds on "challenging" mode without even using one armor kit. I do CP4's all day and "Heroic" bounties without dying.
But missions and strongholds are not balanced for solo in "heroic", and the only conceivable way I can see a solo player doing heroic is with a strong skill/explosive build. That just isn't my thing. I suggested that they consider making heroic missions scale properly for solo, but that thread got trolled by players that primarily play in groups because they thought what I was suggesting was somehow going to affect their game.
So with no more growth on the horizon where I can see doing heroic missions with an AR/MMR build, and don't feel there is gear out there that will push my build higher, there just isn't anything to do.
And before people chime in and say "its your choice to not build a skill/explosive build", just like the players that wanted to play with skill builds were being locked out of a lot of the games the games content, that is how I now feel.
I can literally walk the open world and take out patrols and events for literally hours without getting killed. I did the commendation objective last night where you have to photo hostiles and they have to be engaged with you for it to count.... and you can't die. So I'm able to engage a group of enemies, pull up the camera, and frame a shot and take it all without getting killed.
I am not going to dramatize here because this isn't the first game I have "finished". Most AAA games that I have bought have a finite start and end. You do the story and then there is nothing left, except redo'ing the game. Ah, that reminds me, yes I spun up an alt and did the level 0-30-WT5 thing twice.
But great games with a finite story line, like AC Origins and Odyssey, take 250-350 hours just to finish the story. Then a DLC drops with another significant chunk. Then another.
But this game had only about a dozen main missions, and so far for my "first year pass" I've had 2 more missions drop.... and I didn't need to buy the pass for that. The expedition was a breath of fresh air, but they gaveth and then taketh away and it is some kind of time locked thing.
The classified missions (exclusive content to pass holders) is underwhelming.
Control points were a great idea and addition to the game. Kept me entertained for many hours, but as soon as I had done each enough to know the best way and the blueprints stopped dropping, and of course the gear in reward crate is stamped GS500 but is never worth keeping, there just isn't really any reason to keep doing it.
Not sure who came up with the idea that you can't get all blueprints because they stop dropping, but that was a mistake. I used to get blueprints from projects and CP's. But no more. I spun up the alt and that let me get up into the 200's -- and it was a good idea to allow your alt's to share blueprints. But I shouldn't have to spin up a 3rd character.
And the P416 apparently is not available at all as a blueprint. WTF? So someone who has played the game enough to earn the full 229 (IIRC) shouldn't be able to craft any weapon in the game? That would have made the loot issue a little easier to live with.
And don't get me started on the recalibration station. I'll just say it is a good thing, but the limits are a bad idea. Why the heck we can't earn more perks, and one of those being "no more capping when recalibrating an item", and another being "the ability to recalibrate two stats to up to 3 gear pieces", etc.
They don't seem to want to fix the loot problem, which causes players to hit a dead end in this game, and they also don't seem to want to provide any things to allow us to work around that. Something has to give.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know they have said they are working on loot next. Well, it's about 3 months too late. You can't expect gamers to stay and keep investing time in your game while you try to get it right.
PvP is really not my thing in this game, and the 30 some hours I've spent in the DZ don't make me want to invest time in it. Its another game that has a fad build that you have to play with if you want to do well. I have to say though, I played in the DZ more in TD2 than in TD1. Yes, ganking still happens, but not to the degree it did/does in TD1.
In closing a few positives that I can't not acknowledge:
1) The best tactical shooting mechanics I've ever seen in a video game..... and that is coming from a dude with about 4 decades experience playing. Sometimes I wish this game modeled ballistics such that wind and gravity affect the shots, but I think that would be too hard for the type of game this is.
2) Hands down the best open world in terms of size and level of detail and realism. The entire artistry team deserves a big bonus.... and don't forget to include the sound engineers and animation team. I sometimes wish that we could use the cars or a helo, but I know that would make the world seem much smaller.
3) Game stability gets an A grade from me. Yes, there have been some issues with disconnects (after patches) and false positives from Easy Anti-cheat, but overall the game is rock solid stable. I've literally played it 12 hours straight with no issues. No CTD's and no symptoms of memory leak, etc. It utilizes my systems compute resources appropriately, e.g. uses all 8 threads, uses more memory if you have it, etc. Yeah, I wish DX12 was stable too, but that isn't a game breaker for me.
4) It is great as a Co-Op game and pretty darn good as a solo game. But at the end of the day they put more into the co-op aspects of the game. From a business perspective, I can see why -- friends will urge other friends to buy the game.
5) Enemy design/archetypes are fantastic. A good variety, each needs to be fought in a certain way to be most effective, etc. Very happy that the outcasts are the cleaners v 2.0. It never gets old shooting those flamethrower tanks and making them blow up. Well, I guess it does get old -- hence this thread. I still laugh every time that thrower says "I have to keep my head down!" in that whiny voice.
And black tusks are perfectly designed. Hands down the most fun to fight, and in most cases the hardest. Anyone that is reading this thinking "your nuts, they are too hard!" should read some of the treads on that with all the great tips from the community.
6) Level designs are great. The levels offer you many different places to attack from, cover, etc. I just wish there were more of them.
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