Member
Hi all,
Been a longer while than I anticipated getting back on here. I believe the last time was November-ish of 2019. Had a long list of things to say about fixin things and encouragement to keep it positive/productive out there! I had a list of places that I took several screenshots of cliffs I tripped-over in Auroa that I felt needed some base-jumping attention. Then I had one system crash too many on my PS4 Pro and lost the data!!! I still have a couple spots picked-out that can be found through a few navigational clues I can toss "Un-Guided Mode" style
-In New Argyll, between Kitchener Falls and Carrick Ridge, between the river and the road, facing north.
-In Mount Hodgson, in a Triangular fashion, between the map-texts of; Dove Stream, Forden Wood, and Twin Falls Mountain. Facing south, (like I wanted to base-jump south towards the waterfalls and wrap-around to Erewhon's entrance, due south/southwest in the air.
And one for a perhaps missed-spot on underwater detection in the Shark Base of Seal Islands (Into the Wolf's Den Main Mission for Walker). I noticed I could swim through all the drone/sniper defenses going-into the tunnel undetected, but just after that, the wolf sentries going up and down the port inside could strangely detect me every time I made it past the entrance, especially when still doin the stealthy swim thing. Love that mission by the way! What amazes me with that mission is how multi-layered and maze-like it is in the base. REALLY cool stuff. I love all the mission locations that go deep underground.
Speaking-of, I'm dreaming/frothing at the bit to see what the survival changes are going to be like. Taking several things off the player HUD has continued to impress me with how much more of Auroa opens-up for me, when I don't know when the enemy is at all times, or know exactly where everything is on the map, or on-screen, etc. My genuinely-enthusiastic enjoyment of Ghost Recon Breakpoint is critically-tied to this functionality as my character's currently a level 243 and I have all of my loot markers/notifications turned-off, just because I'm not about the loot-grind and get way more out-of Breakpoint when I'm not even remotely-focused on the loot. But I have seemingly found that magical mix of what's turned-on and turned-off for me to get a lot out of just infiltrating a location. There's a significant increase of situational awareness that I get when I'm not clicking on everything I see without using much else of my brain to find where to go, or where they are, what they're doing etc. That of-course, is where having friends or teammates come into play very well. Though I've been getting-by with the sync drones. I love those things.
Terminator content was very entertaining. It fits the narrative of Auroa. Was super-entertained by the missions and side-missions. Sad that I couldn't talk my friends into playing it with me. Sadder that I couldn't grind through the missions in-time to unlock everything I wanted. I did give it a good go rolling solo for several hours on-end. That's one me though, cause I didn't want to fast travel anywhere. I just love traversing the island that way, forreal. Playing one of the main Terminator missions with the hud off was quite thrilling actually. I recommend playing all that again on Extreme, guided mode off, all locations on the map turned off as well, so no fast travel. I hope the ability to adjust all of the current game settings remain available throughout all the upcoming updates this year. I'll explain that "magical setting" that makes things really shine for me to close this out.
Extreme difficulty. Guided Mode off. All tags on-screen removed (except for Teammates), this means; no enemies, allies, objectives, vehicles, loot, etc. BUT, communication nav points and locations ON-SCREEN are set to Dynamic. Ammo will still have a tiny triangle on-screen to indicate it's there when a downed enemy drops some. Fast-Travel is disabled by-default when all discovered/undiscovered locations are disabled on the map. I LOVE THIS because the map and minimap settings are linked. Set all other map markers to OFF except for communication, teammates and objectives. Objective reminder, crosshair reticle, ammo/class ability and minimap are set to Dynamic on-screen.
Now, how all this works is: Enemies will be seen and heard as they are, without tags, rank, or lifebars. BUT all of the gadgets to use for detecting them with sensor grenades or taking them out with sync shot drones will work, perfectly. The minimap will appear On-Screen when enemies are close, including different color schemes and detection status behaviors (just like TENCHU did in a similar way with their enemy proximity "KI" sensor. Tenchu fans shoutout. Enemy AI adjustments are significantly magnified when you don't know where they are or how many of them are there. Detection status of the player will be more keenly-sensed to the contextual distances between the player and the alerted AI. Hence the AI detection cue of the player is still ON. ALL discovered and undiscovered locations that are not on-screen and not on the map/minimap STILL APPEAR through the directional use of the player's drone and Binoculars. Using the NAV marker in either device will lock directly onto the selected marker of a discovered locations, including the distance between the player and the marker. It works BEAUTIFULLY!!!!!
Especially when fast travel is disabled, alongside vehicle locations that are also not-visible on either the map or on-screen. In doing this, forces the player to finding/procuring vehicles and equipment en-route, and using the binocs and drone to find the nearest bivouac to hike towards. This is where whatever survival features that are almost out of the oven are going to make these settings the cake and then some! Having MORE reasons to use all the equipment (as-intended) as well as completely disabling fast-travel lends to a much-more organic experience to traverse the environment. It feels SO much more-grounded to play this way. Even if it takes significantly longer to find the mission, complete the mission, then find a way back to Erewhon. I look at how finding things on the map is intended to be less cluttered while playing with the Guided Mode turned off. I just want to crank that feeling to ELEVEN and never look back.
I am STOKED to see the improvements made thus far and am holding no shame for putting Breakpoint as Ubisoft's HIGHEST priority towards redemption. I am not going to see this game go quietly into the night, unless it involves more cool takedowns. lol. and shakedowns. I wanna see more of that! The side missions and faction missions are what keep bringing me back. And I'll try to be back here more-often so my posts aren't a mile long!
Cheers!
Member
Oh snap! I forgot to mention about the map settings, anything that's an objective of intel can be detected like it would be if it was visible on-screen, but it won't be on-screen. It will be on the map and minimap, which can still work in-tandem for a quick wrap-around a base with the drone, putting the intel locations on the map, but not exactly where they are on-screen, so you still have to look around that area.
#useyourbrain
