Tier Mode and Hardcore Immersion Mode - Both force a certain play style | Forums

[LaMOi]

I played Tier Mode extensively in Wildlands, and grew to hate it. The insane lethality forced strategies and tactics that ensured you were never in the line of fire. You had to engage from long distances, use the explosive drone, mortars, sync shots, and anything else you could draw on that meant you were never exposed to enemy fire. Because, if you got shot, you were dead, especially at higher tiers. Of course the other reason I hated it was the insane grind, but that's not relevant to this discussion.

People use to brag like playing Tier Mode was super difficult. It was actually stupidly easy to just play Tier Mode through the drone.

I've read some posts here and on Reddit by folks that love the injury system. I also like it, but in order to have decent enemy response time, I feel I need to play with enemy difficulty set too "Advanced" which makes them fairly lethal.

Now if you're truly hard core, you will play immersion mode without regeneration and syringes. Let's face it, both of these are equivalent... one is automatic, the other requires a button press... but both artificially increase your health.

And if you're really hard core, you won't use enemy HUD tags. So you don't know where everyone is all the time.

The problem is, at least based on my experience, if you play this way... Advanced/Extreme, injuries often, and no regeneration or syringes, without HUD... you die very quickly. It's incredibly lethal. Once you're injured it's typically just a precursor to death. And if you're not injured, your health is getting reduced to the point where you're soon a one-shot kill. Add Wolves into the mix, who have increased accuracy and damage, or Murmurs which are impossible to take cover from and hit, and it gets to be extremely lethal. So what do you do? You start to use tactics that minimize your exposure to enemy fire.

So while Tier Mode and hardcore Immersion Mode may be realistic and require a lot more care, is it taking the fun out of the game? What's the point of playing a shooter, if you have to snipe enemies from 300+m or use stealth to the extent that all you ever do is shoot someone in the back of the head with a handgun?

Ultimately, I want to get in firefights and have a chance of surviving. I don't think Hardcore Immersion Mode supports this. You need someway to stay in the fight, which is either syringes or regen. Otherwise, you're just starting over and over again... or playing from a distance,

Thoughts?

I get you.


But syringes for me are only 3. And if I use them all, they are not so easy to come by.

Playing in immersion mode with all the options on hard-core, albeit with syringes/bandages, I do feel gives a ‘sense’ of realism and satisfaction to the gameplay in terms of having to be prepared, only having a finite number of healing options etc. It certainly does change the way you play. Because if I had regenerating health I would play very differently to how I currently do.

Nonetheless you raise an interesting point, where do we draw the line between realism and it being a fun game to play?

I think ultimately it comes from the player finding satisfaction in the illusion of ‘realism’ — a degree of resource management, a sense of having to prepare, and a sense that the tactics and strategy that you chose actively helped you prevail against overwhelming odds.

It’s giving the player a sense of having to manage the different core components of military action without becoming bogged down in the minutia ....

[Hugo-FOU]

I played Tier Mode extensively in Wildlands, and grew to hate it. The insane lethality forced strategies and tactics that ensured you were never in the line of fire. You had to engage from long distances, use the explosive drone, mortars, sync shots, and anything else you could draw on that meant you were never exposed to enemy fire. Because, if you got shot, you were dead, especially at higher tiers. Of course the other reason I hated it was the insane grind, but that's not relevant to this discussion.

People use to brag like playing Tier Mode was super difficult. It was actually stupidly easy to just play Tier Mode through the drone.

I've read some posts here and on Reddit by folks that love the injury system. I also like it, but in order to have decent enemy response time, I feel I need to play with enemy difficulty set too "Advanced" which makes them fairly lethal.

Now if you're truly hard core, you will play immersion mode without regeneration and syringes. Let's face it, both of these are equivalent... one is automatic, the other requires a button press... but both artificially increase your health.

And if you're really hard core, you won't use enemy HUD tags. So you don't know where everyone is all the time.

The problem is, at least based on my experience, if you play this way... Advanced/Extreme, injuries often, and no regeneration or syringes, without HUD... you die very quickly. It's incredibly lethal. Once you're injured it's typically just a precursor to death. And if you're not injured, your health is getting reduced to the point where you're soon a one-shot kill. Add Wolves into the mix, who have increased accuracy and damage, or Murmurs which are impossible to take cover from and hit, and it gets to be extremely lethal. So what do you do? You start to use tactics that minimize your exposure to enemy fire.

So while Tier Mode and hardcore Immersion Mode may be realistic and require a lot more care, is it taking the fun out of the game? What's the point of playing a shooter, if you have to snipe enemies from 300+m or use stealth to the extent that all you ever do is shoot someone in the back of the head with a handgun?

Ultimately, I want to get in firefights and have a chance of surviving. I don't think Hardcore Immersion Mode supports this. You need someway to stay in the fight, which is either syringes or regen. Otherwise, you're just starting over and over again... or playing from a distance,

Thoughts?

I agree totally, which is why we both have said they need to split enemy detection time from damage output. Also, syringes should act as adrenaline shots only recovering health temporarily. The improvements brought with the immersive experience are good, but not quite there yet.

[Virtual-Chris]

I agree totally, which is why we both have said they need to split enemy detection time from damage output. Also, syringes should act as adrenaline shots only recovering health temporarily. The improvements brought with the immersive experience are good, but not quite there yet.

Yeah, very true.

One of the things I'm getting at with this thread, is that a lot of us, me included, want a more challenging and realistic game. But how challenging is too challenging? How realistic is too much?

I think when you drive up the settings to the point you're playing a style that you don't find fun, you've gone too far. That's what Tier Mode did to me. At first, I relished the added challenge. Then I started dying quickly and often. Then I adapted. Then I realized I was playing the game through the drone. That's what I'm getting at.

Hard-core Immersive Mode is great at first. Then you start dying and being a lot more careful. Then you realize you're not engaging enemies, you're popping targets from a distance and using more cheating magic items to compensate. The fix maybe worse than the problem after a point.

Fortunately, we have the ability to fine tune the settings to balance it for our own style. I would be curious if anyone who celebrates no health regen still uses syringes... because that makes no sense to me. And those that use neither health regen nor syringes may be falling Into this trap of changing their play style to the detriment of having fun.

I'm wondering if anyone else has backed off on hard-core immersion mode because it's impacting your fun factor.

[Virtual-Chris]

I get you.


But syringes for me are only 3. And if I use them all, they are not so easy to come by.

Playing in immersion mode with all the options on hard-core, albeit with syringes/bandages, I do feel gives a ‘sense’ of realism and satisfaction to the gameplay in terms of having to be prepared, only having a finite number of healing options etc. It certainly does change the way you play. Because if I had regenerating health I would play very differently to how I currently do.

Nonetheless you raise an interesting point, where do we draw the line between realism and it being a fun game to play?

I think ultimately it comes from the player finding satisfaction in the illusion of ‘realism’ — a degree of resource management, a sense of having to prepare, and a sense that the tactics and strategy that you chose actively helped you prevail against overwhelming odds.

It’s giving the player a sense of having to manage the different core components of military action without becoming bogged down in the minutia ....

Ok, this is interesting... I think I recall you saying that you were happy there was no health regen... but you use syringes. To my mind, they are largely the same thing. In fact, syringes can be more powerful than regen because it's instant, on-demand, full health restore... not a wait for regen to kick in and top up. I guess what you're saying is you like three chances not to die?

While I was playing Episode 2, I was using hard-core Immersion Settings and found that I needed to do something to save my sanity from getting killed by attrition as a shot here or there without an injury will soon have you dead. I either needed to use syringes or turn on regen not to have to restart missions and get frustrated. To me they are the same, and they are essential to having fun.

If I want the super hard core experience, it's there, but I don't actually enjoy having to be so careful, I never get in a fire fight. That's not why I'm playing this game. If I wanted to avoid fire fights, I could just play Tetris.

[vahndaar]

I like the idea of syringes being temporary adrenaline shots. Was also thinking they could temporarily negate the effect of injuries as you kind of power through. Maybe for a few seconds to allow you to get to safety and bandage up.

[vahndaar]

I play with no HUD but on arcade or normal because I need aim assist on controller and for some inexplicable reason it's tied to difficulty and I honestly cannot aim for the life of me using a controller but I like all other aspects of using a controller.

It's also brutal without the detection gauge as enemies give no cues other than turning their head if they've noticed you.

Aim assist needs separated out as it kind of defeats the purpose of having a setting for it in PVE at least.

And definitely need to separate detection distance and damage or accuracy.

I'd like to crank up detection distance, maybe slow detection time to give you a chance to clock who has noticed you, keep damage reasonable so that you can actually get injured.

I'd play on advanced ideally.

V

[martbloke88]

I play no HUD except the compass, Advanced difficulty, 1 weapon, several bandages (5 I believe it is), often injuries and partial regen. Is bloody good!

I don't like the syringes and was playing through without them but then I found dying all to often and then that started breaking immersion for me as there's no penalty for dying and it then falls into a trial and error game considering nothing changes in the objective or patrols. It was also no fun.

I now use syringes but have to have house rules to make them feel a bit better using:

1) any injuries have to be healed 1st by bandages
2) once injuries are healed, I have to be clear of danger i.e. no red or yellow alert at all and all clear

Also a general rule for all loot, I do not craft or buy any consumables at all and have to loot the stuff I use from the world.

This I find very enjoyable.

Syringes are a cheap gimmick especially as they are so quick to apply and do so much good, so I feel my rules kind of help with that. Using after bandages takes away the whole easy healing injuries part of it. Using them only in the all clear I see in my mind that I have plenty of time to heal myself and rest which allows the 2 block restore plus it keeps the imminent danger when in a fire fight partially with the partial regen only restoring your current block of health when you can.

Several bandages used because if I get a major injury, it uses 3 bandages and considering I don't craft or buy consumables, I need a buffer until I can loot more. I mean I could do few bandages as if you do get a major injury and still in a fight, you're basically done anyways. So I may test the few option - would also mean more to looting the world.

But yeah Chris, going too far is certainly more a frustration than fun and so a major plus to BP is the number of options we have to tailor the game to how we like it. This must be retained for future games.

[AI BLUEFOX]

As welcome as the immersive settings are, the absence of the AI team mates is further accentuated when you play that way as a solo player. You have to pick and choose firefights carefully, but can't possibly cover all the angles you need to when in a bigger fight. This essentially means for me that a Sam Fisher stealth approach is often the only viable option for anything other than taking down a patrol.

Fine for co-op, but the team mates with at least Wildlands functionality as a bare minimum are needed. I'm hoping for the Wildlands+ version of the AI team and dreaming of something like the original.

[stdape]

I play on Extreme, like the Stealth element, the game should be. When the last update came it altered a few things which i can not change!
The Sniper Rifle HTI my favourire is wicked at distance. Slowly completing the Classes. Did play with others earlier, but it was a nightmare, loud guns, and running in! Guess they were on easy (so boring)
I have seen some play on hard, but was obviously too hard for them, as they now back to their old settings.
One thing that Annoys me though is the bugs, slow response time like Lag, and they seem to shoot you through things sometimes. And 9 times out of 10 know where you are, even though stealthed and moved position from where you fire. But thats down to poor programming.
More want to try and persist, it brings in a new challenge and ways of doing the Missions.

[Icetyger4]

Thankfully we can all find our own balance as you say, but I'm curious to hear from folks that play in Immersion Mode on the hardest settings... do they actually find that fun?

I play in Immersive Mode with the hardest Difficulty and Tactical settings, no health regen, few bandages, always at risk of injury, one primary weapon, no shop or garage at bivouacs and a custom HUD. Playing Breakpoint with these settings is so rewarding and a decent challenge for me.

With these settings I'm forced to pay attention to what's going on around me at all times and use my gadgets wisely. The feeling I get from taking down a base of 20+ enemies and drones, without breaking stealth, is just awesome. It makes me feel like a supersoldier!! If I get discovered, the ensuing firefight and almost certain death that follows, reminds me to slow down and forces me to develop better strategies.

Having no garage at the bivouacs means I have to steal vehicles to get around the map faster. So if I steal a chopper, I have to protect it for as long as possible, or I might have to walk a few kilometres before I can steal another one. And not having access to Maria's shop at bivouacs, actually makes the crafting system useful. If I run out of resources and can't craft the items I need, I have to decide between foraging for resources, returning to Erewhon to resupply, or testing my skills by continuing on without equipment.

Games that have a heavy stealth element like Breakpoint, Wildlands and Metal Gear Solid, really appeal to me, because you're able to set your own pace and play style. These games provide a level of creative freedom you don't find in most games. I guess this is the reason I enjoy Breakpoint's Immersive Mode so much.

As welcome as the immersive settings are, the absence of the AI team mates is further accentuated when you play that way as a solo player. You have to pick and choose firefights carefully, but can't possibly cover all the angles you need to when in a bigger fight. This essentially means for me that a Sam Fisher stealth approach is often the only viable option for anything other than taking down a patrol.

Fine for co-op, but the team mates with at least Wildlands functionality as a bare minimum are needed. I'm hoping for the Wildlands+ version of the AI team and dreaming of something like the original.

You make a really good point here Bluefox. I'm not opposed to having AI team mates added to Breakpoint, but given my enjoyment of stealth gameplay, I don't know that I'll use them once they're added to the game.

Having said that though, if the AI team mates are at the same level as your team from Wildlands (at the very least), it would turn those almost certain death moments, into an exciting firefight and provide some variety to the gameplay.