Junior Member
Once again, thank you for giving us access to this beta. Hopefully the following feedback will be helpful. I'll split it into two lists; one of new issues I noticed during the open beta, and one of issues that haven't been resolved since the last closed beta (copied from here).
List of New Issues
- When I first launched the game, it installed DirectX. The only version of DirectX that Microsoft currently offers as a download is DirectX 9. DirectX 10 and newer are bundled with Windows, and updated via Windows Update. There are no downloadable installers for DirectX 10, 11, or 12. If this game is using DirectX 9, then that's... weird... However, if this game doesn't use DirectX 9, then installing it along with the game is a waste of time and disk space (especially since it's a very slow install).
- When I first launched the game, it tried to install Visual C++ 2015 Redist. I already have 2015-2019 version 14.22.27821.0 installed (obtained here), which is the latest at the time of writing this, and presumably due to this the installation of Visual C++ 2015 Redist failed, so every time I launch the game Uplay tries to install it again, requiring a UAC prompt every time I try to run the game.
- When first started, after the game shows you a bunch of videos, it takes you to a "press a key to continue" screen. From the perspective of gamers, such screens are pointless, and only serve to slow us down from getting to the main menu and the gameplay. Gamers don't want to have to click/button-mash through a bunch of unimportant stuff just to get to the menu and start playing the game, and a "press a key to continue" screen is even more worthless than the ads you like to show for the companies involved in the creation of the game (as if I didn't already know who made it).
- When you first start the game, you are not allowed access to the main menu or the settings before you are thrust into the gameplay. This means you have no opportunity to adjust video and audio settings to your preference before starting the campaign, which is extremely inconvenient to gamers, and can be rather painful when you're wearing headphones. It's also particularly rude to streamers, as they have no opportunity to fix game volumes before they start streaming gameplay unless they've already created and deleted a character. Players also have no way to start a party with friends before starting the game for the first time.
- It isn't possible to turn your character's head to get a better idea what they look like during character creation.
- Lighting during character creation is dark, and tinted red, which makes it difficult to tell what your character will look like when you're done in the character creator.
- After the helicopter crash at the start of the game, when you bandage your wounds it doesn't cover the wounds on the arms despite the animation starting with bandaging the arms.
- In this beta, every time I open the menus, the mouse pointer moves to my second monitor, and I have to drag it back to my primary monitor where the game is displayed. I have the game running in borderless windowed mode in 1920x1080 @144 Hz with custom graphics settings.
- Almost every time I tried to get in the driver's seat of a Path Keeper, my character would get in the passenger's seat instead.
- After the tutorial on selecting mission objectives, the menu remained "grayed out", and I couldn't select anything or close the menu.
- There are a ton of errors in the subtitles. Sometimes it seems like there's an error in every sentence, especially early on in the story.
- Josiah and my character poured the rum on their noses when they were sitting on the mattress in the fishing shack trying to drink.
- The Firespin bounces too much when driving it.
- Standard vehicles can spawn in with a winter camo pattern.
- Vehicles seem to skid/spin out too easily, and have trouble climbing hills.
- If a motorcycle is under your truck (was driving Blaze Mk I Standard at the time), and you try to get in your truck, it's possible to get on the motorcycle instead (motorcycle was laying on its side under truck at the time). If this happens, you get stuck on the motorcycle. I had to fast travel to fix it.
List of Issues From Previous Beta That Were Not Resolved
- The only blur effect that can be turned off in the settings is Motion Blur. Options to turn off Depth of Field, Chromatic Aberration, Vignette, and any other blur/distortion effects are missing. For those of us who love crisp and clear visuals, these graphics features do nothing more than distract us from seeing the beauty of the game, and also tend to drive us crazy. When the final game comes out, I'm desperately going to want a way to turn these things off.
- At certain times (such as when hiding in bushes), the game narrows the FOV, drawing black around the edges of the screen. This is what I am assuming most games would refer to as "vignette". While this feature may be there to alert the player to a change in gameplay conditions (such as being harder for NPC's to detect), it is also extremely distracting, and reduces the player's ability to see. The effect in Breakpoint is particularly bad, especially since hiding in brush is already obscuring your view, and this effect is far too obtrusive to (in my opinion) be useful. If it is necessary to signal to a player a change in their stealth status, then doing so in a way that does not obscure their vision would be best.
- The only available form of Anti-Aliasing appears to be Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA). Aside from FXAA, TAA is one of the blurriest forms of Anti-Aliasing. I have really bad vision in real life, and playing Breakpoint with the Anti-Aliasing on is like trying to play a game without my contact lenses in. Even with all of the sharpening effects in the settings, the Anti-Aliasing is so blurry that there's no point in having it on. Fortunately with the Anti-Aliasing off and the resolution scale at 200, I was able to get nice crisp and clear visuals (and yes, with contact lenses my vision is 20/20, so I was able to enjoy those crisp and clear visuals). I guess what I'm trying to say is, please give us MSAA and perhaps SMAA as well, so that we can have good alternatives to TAA.
- Depth of Field was used at rather strange times, such as when something was in between the player's character and the camera, or when something was getting too close to the camera (or possibly sometimes when something was too close to the player's character?). I know people who love Depth of Field in games, but even they found the random DoF in Breakpoint to be weird and unsettling.
- When playing, my character took up almost a third of the screen. This reduces my vision, and is rather unpleasant. I don't mind seeing my character on the screen, but large player characters that take up too much screen real estate aren't good.
- Whenever there is a menu open, there should be a mouse pointer on the screen, and I should be able to click on any option that I can also select with keyboard keys. Nothing in a menu should be restricted to being activated with the keyboard only.
- When the map is open, it lists the number of objectives (color coded by type) in your area in the lower right corner. As a PC gamer, my natural instinct is to click on this list in order to view the objectives, however this list does not respond to mouse clicks. Yes, you can press "B" to see your objectives, however it would be more intuitive for players if the color coded list of objectives could be clicked as well to see a short list of each type of objectives (of perhaps show them on mouseover and allow a click for more info).
- Texture streaming was much better in this beta, however I would still encounter issues with it when driving. Textures don't always load in fast enough, and the ground especially looks terrible when this happens.
- Some weapon attachments (especially foregrips) have major negatives that almost completely negate the point of using them. Weapon attachments are there to make a weapon handle better, and should never make it's handling worse in any way. Suppressors do cause the bolt of a gun to open with roughly 30% to 40% more force in real life, and this may cause a slight negative effect for handling, however they do not decrease damage or velocity of a shot unless the shooter also reloads their firearm with subsonic ammunition (which doesn't apply to .45 ACP since it doesn't travel fast enough to break the sound barrier). If you want to know more, then contact Forgotten Weapons, as they have extensive experience firing fully automatic and other military weapons for their documentaries.
- The skill tree, objectives, etc. in Breakpoint doesn't appear to have a way to zoom in and out. It would be nice to be able to zoom out using the scroll wheel on the mouse in order to get an overview of all of the skills/objectives/etc, and zoom back in exactly where you want to.
- Requiring activating skills as "perks", of which only a limited number can be activated at a time, makes a lot of the skills useless. In Wildlands every unlocked skill would apply its bonus at the same time, and I expect that most players will stick with only a few favorite perks and never use the rest in Breakpoint due to this unfortunate change in how skills work.
- When moving while prone, your character can only move forwards. This means that if you want to move sideways or backwards, your character first has to turn to face that direction, wasting space and time. This makes it extremely difficult to get into a good position while prone, and the amount of extra time you need to spend turning around and trying again is enough that you could miss a moment of opportunity for a good shot, or even blow your own cover. It's also not very realistic, as even I can crawl backwards and sideways while laying down without needing to turn around, and I sit in front of my computer all day.
- Player character movement in Breakpoint lacks precision. Inertia in human movement is a nice idea in concept, however it can't be represented accurately in a video game. As an example, in real life if I want to walk up to something and take cover behind it, I walk right up to it and stop exactly where I intend to. In Breakpoint, since your character doesn't stop exactly where you intend for them to stop, it can be difficult to get them into the cover you want, or even into the shooting position you want. Sometimes you have to fight with the controls in order to get your character where you want them, because they always want to try to overshoot. It would be best if character movement worked more like it did in Wildlands, at least for the sake of the players.
- Gear levels, gear quality, needing to upgrade gear or obtain new gear as you level, a social-hub base where you can see other random players, and the way you pick up loot make the game feel like it's trying too hard to be The Division. Honestly, the way gear worked in The Division was one of the worst aspects of the game. The Division 2 may have actually been playable if it used the gear system from Wildlands.
- Being forced to always play online is going to be unpleasant. Especially if the Internet ever goes out (or if there's any other problem connecting to Ubisoft servers) when I want to play. I think the idea of an online-only game with singe-player content is very bad, and I believe Wildlands was superior in that respect.
- Climbing ladders requires holding down a key to get on the ladder. I believe this would feel more fluid if it could be configured for a single press of the key instead of holding it down.
Member
@GT500: Good list, thank you! Especially this point drives me crazy too:
The only blur effect that can be turned off in the settings is Motion Blur. Options to turn off Depth of Field, Chromatic Aberration, Vignette, and any other blur/distortion effects are missing. For those of us who love crisp and clear visuals, these graphics features do nothing more than distract us from seeing the beauty of the game...
Junior Member
