Here's my notes on the good, bad, and still nagging outstanding issues with Operation Motherland.
Overall, after my initial disappointing start to the game and my fright over the return of the fly-overs, I am enjoying it. (A special thanks to ArgimonEd for talking me off the ledge a few times yesterday!)
I'm playing very slow and tactical. I've setup Holt and Midas as my team mates and we are doing recon of mission locations during the day, and then running night ops to get them done (where it makes sense). I'm playing as immersive as possible on extreme. All HUD including mini-map and objective markers are off except for ammo/throwable. I'm using the new M110 as my recce/recon rifle or when rucking, and the ACR configured for 300 blackout (in my mind) for stealth night ops. I also carry the Mossberg (survival) shorty shotgun but rarely need it. I'm playing gear score, so I can change my load-out to borrow a team mate weapon or something at my vehicle - when we get a vehicle. Right now, we are still in Liberty and moving around on foot.
I suspect I will get many new hours of entertainment out of these new missions. I love the geographical focused missions - one region at a time - like Wildlands. I like the fact that our actions change the world parameters. Many of us (at least Mike and I) have been doing this on our own where achieving objectives in a province changes the world parameters. It's great to see that now in the game engine. In some ways, this campaign reminds me of the old Operation Silverstone I put together back in May of last year after we long ran out of content to play.
Anyway, I'm still only in Liberty, so my thoughts on some of this might change as I progress, but here's my initial review of Operation Motherland...
Good:
- Great to have Bowman back - love her character and voice - would love to see her in a cut scene.
- The opening mission was a surprise and nicely done - but the insertion was terrible.
- The concept of destabilization is great
- Having new mission content is fantastic
- Having the missions organized by region without having to fly all over the map is ideal and makes it more immersive
- Having no-fly zones is fantastic - we pretended to make Restricted Area 01 a no-fly zone in the Ultimate Immersion Guide
- The fact that player actions affect the world is great - we were already doing this using world parameters after achieving objectives on our own, but having it be run by the game engine is a welcome improvement
- Helicopter patrols flight paths no longer seem to be directly anchored to the player’s position - this is better, but having regular patrol patterns like Wildlands would be better
- I love the Wildlands music that plays during idle times - an epic soundtrack. I wish I could get rid of the Breakpoint music and completely replace it with this.
- The new weapon mastery system is good, particularly mobility, but locking it to a complete skill tree is bad. (See more on this topic below)
- New guns and gun sounds are excellent. I’ve used the M110 and the ACR so far and the sounds are outstanding! Much more impactful sounds. Please rework some of the others.
- The addition of a grip/bipod combo on some longer barrel guns is welcome - it would be nice to see a fully flexible rail system that allows us to place whatever we want on our guns, wherever we want on the rail, but this is a good step in the right direction
- I welcome the weather changes, but so far haven’t really experience some of the more interesting weather
- Enemy skins are good and the fact they speak with a heavy Russian accent is good. At first I thought it would be better if they spoke Russian, and maybe after awhile I will go back to that, but for now, it’s interesting to hear their chit chat.
Bad:
- Insertion - I’m extremely disappointed with the initial insertion - being teleported to a mountain top. Not immersive at all. The marketing team had a great cut-scene teaser that was shown during the 20th anniversary celebration that could have been used with some slight modification to the landing location.
- Fly Overs - In the first 5 minutes after putting my boots on Liberty soil I was inundated with flyovers - 3 helicopters and an Azreal in the 500m from the beach to the Bleak Hill Bivoac. It was just ridiculous. Why?! These mechanics are so cheesy and cheap. Invest in proper patrol patterns so we have to use some planning to avoid detection rather than hitting two buttons every 15 seconds to avoid detection.
- Missions are too Easy - while something is better than nothing, and I don’t want to look the gift horse in the mouth, so far, the missions are very simple and easy. Even on Extreme difficulty. There are too few enemies and they are blind, deaf, and dumb. I hope it gets more challenging in terms of enemy numbers and tactics in provinces with more skulls (difficulty).
- Liberty City - I had high hopes for more urban style combat in Liberty City after playing The Division 2 for the last several months, so was super disappointed to find only a dozen enemies in the Parliament mission. A real missed opportunity I think.
- Enemy Archetypes - Rather than heavy tank enemies and invisible enemies, I’d much rather have more responsive and tactical real enemies that flank, use ordinance, mounted guns at defensive positions, etc. The AI in TD2 is far more interesting and dangerous than in Breakpoint.
- The Outcast/Bodark fights are stupid sponge fights… make them more realistic.
- The cost of items in Maria’s store is insane. An immersive mode character has no hope of obtaining those items. A gear score character has a better chance, but the total cost of all new items is over 600K credits which will require thousands of pieces of gear to sell or thousands of daily faction missions. In addition, it seems the credits dropped by enemies has been reduced and the best credit farming methods (gathering precious stones or Behemoths) have been nerfed. It’s so obvious you want people to buy credits with Ghost Coins, why try to fool us into thinking these cosmetics are free in Maria’s Store? They are clearly unobtainable through a reasonable amount of game play and so may as well be for sale in the MTX store for Ghost Coins
- One of the additions was noted as being birds flying around. The ones I’ve seen look very random and fake, they don’t seem to fly like real birds. Don’t waste time on trying to do immersive stuff if you’re going to do it half-assed, it actually become un-immersive.
- I cannot get objectives to show on my tac map. Not sure why, but they just don't appear. It means the only way I can remotely figure out what to do or where to go is via the HUD markers, which I want to turn off for immersion reasons. Basically the whole objective thing is broken. The descriptions are also not helpful. "Find a technical location at Eternity"... was literally the description/briefing for my last mission where you go to the Eternity cryo centre to recover the Optical Camo and hack a system to find someone's location. C'mon!
Weapon Mastery:
- This is a welcome new mechanic. The improvements to mobility are the most welcome, however, high mobility should probably not be part of this… it should be how the game works without having to invest in mastering it.
- Not including reload speed is a major oversight in my view - that’s perhaps the easiest attribute to improve with training and mastery.
- The recoil on many weapons is already very mild compared to reality, so reducing it even further with handling/accuracy seems unnecessary to me… especially in gear score mode where most people are rolling guns with +30 handing and accuracy already.
- Having to complete the main skill tree as a pre-requisite is a major detractor to this. Many of us avoid certain skills on the tree that are unrealistic or not immersive, which makes this new weapon mastery system out of reach for us
IR Illuminator:
- This is a nice addition but it appears bugged for many
- The light fall-off or range of it seems very limited - in real life these reach out much further. As it is, it’s hardly helpful or very circumstantial as too when it is helpful.
- Overall night vision is flawed in this game as it has very limited range. Stuff that is 20m away is still pitch black.
- It is on all the time. It should not be on when not ADS, and certainly not when the weapon is holstered
- Ideally we have a way to activate and deactivate it
- The laser should also be visible when viewed through NODs
Optical Camo:
- I personally don’t like it as it’s not authentic or realistic but I understand a lot of people like it, so as long as I don’t have to use it, I’m fine with it
- So far the enemies using it that I’ve encountered in Liberty are plainly obvious. In fact the shimmering optical effect makes them easier to spot in the dark than other enemies… at least for me. In daylight its a bit more challenging but still fairly obvious.
Character XP Progression:
- I’m hoping the new XP progression system is bugged. I’m nearly finished Liberty and not yet level 31. At this rate of one level per region, I might be level 40 by the time I’m done playing this game. I think the pacing is off. I can’t see myself playing this campaign 7 or 8 times to get to level 99. It’s either bugged or someone was very optimistic with how much people would play after this update.
- Having skill points that can only be acquired by PvP is a bad idea. Many solo players despise PvP, and from what I hear, the PvP in this game is particularly bad.
Outstanding Issues:
- Enemy detection - The whole enemy detection system needs an overhaul. Nighttime, enclosed faction vehicles, camo and grille suites, and vegetation should reduce detection while the default detection on open ground in daylight should be dramatically improved. It’s odd because I believe Wildlands already had some of these systems like faction vehicles nerfing detection.
- Enemy response and lethality - These settings that are currently linked via enemy difficulty, need to be de-coupled so we can have higher response enemies that are less lethal so we can better enjoy the injury system without compromising on detection.
- Enemy behaviour - enemies are still not very tactical and don’t use cover properly, always leaving some part of them exposed, not using cover to cover moves, and not trying to use other small unit tactics to shoot, move or fall back. Enemies also don’t get injured or react appropriately at all to getting hit with gunfire. They also give themselves away so easily due to their constant chit-chat, even when they've been attacked, they keep yelling stuff which tells me exactly where they are. STFU once in awhile!
- Weapon damage - there’s a bizarre damage disparity between weapons firing the same cartridge. Some 5.56 weapons do nearly half the damage as others. There’s absolutely no justification for this. The MK18 is a perfect example - being a victim of this silly and arbitrary system.
- Attachments - Why can’t we put any scope on any firearm? So what if I want to put a T5Xi on an SMG?
- Weapons - G28 is modelled in game using a 5.56 mag, the belt on the Stoner doesn’t feed, there are numerous other things that need to be fixed.
- Changing Load Outs - Being able to change load outs at any time should not be tied to Gear Score Mode, it should be an immersive mode option to enable or disable this.
- Team Mates - We really need some added commands - like take out targets of opportunity stealthily and/or some option to keep them close in a fire fight and not running off. Also Vasilly’s SRS-A1 is constantly visible.
- War Belt - I really shouldn’t have to say this by now, but while I like the belt for my operator characters using the Crye JPC, it lacks pouches or items when paired with many vests (AVS) making it useless. It should have more stuff on it, like an IFAK, mags or a dump pouch when paired with any vests. Also, many of us want to play characters that are not fully equipped, such as civilians or operators attempting to blend-in as civilians where the belt is not appropriate. It would be great to have an option to turn off the belt.
- Female character hair and faces - As with the belt, I shouldn’t even need to mention a braid, hair styles or the state of female faces by now.
Chris.
I was trying to find words to make my full after action but was having troubles and you perfectly summarized everything I wanted to say, even the popular saying (Cavalo dado não se olha os dentes/ You don't look the mouth of a gifted horse).
But to answer or complement a few things you said:
• Yes it will get harder to see the Seekers in other provinces, I thought it would be super easy at first, but they don't appear on thermals, when going loud they get even harder to see during day time, there is literally zero distortion on them.
They will stop shining at night.
• Every AR10/SR25 rifle in this game is modeled with 556 magwell and magazines, this includes the new M110 and this is sad, so I pretend they are versions of the Mk 11 or 12 don't recall which one is 556.
• I agree with what you said about the battle belt and I think the new AVS is an experiment to see if a lot of people will buy so they'll add others.
• We have very different experiences in combat, in the second hardest difficulty they flank me and do other things, but it is not happening for others, the same way I'm not having glitches with the IR illuminator, but I am with the new heavies.
I wonder if we could collaborate in making a thread of what we would like if they decided to continue supporting the game until they are ready to release the next GR.
Of course we understand this means they they would be charging for DLCs, as with this one they achieved to leave the game at 70%, of what it should have been since the beginning.
hi, I've tried some OP motherland missions, I've roamed Auroa, I've done stealth and assault. I have to say that the trailer was more impressive than the update itself:
- Same mediocre AI.
- Auroa changed with Russian symbol in bases and ports destroyed but without a soul and just as empty.
- Equally repetitive missions (messenger back and forth)
- Optical Camo, why didn't you make a space on the selection wheel? Do I have to activate it by superimposing the selection wheel? it is poorly implemented in HUD.
- Progression level for weapons, ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GIVING ME ONLY THOSE THREE ABSURD MODIFICATIONS? Do I have to "buy" all the skills and classes for that? NOOOOOO !!!!! it damages the perspective of creating an immersive character.
- New bugs and other uncorrected more than 1 year old ...
To highlight:
- Tactician enemies already call for reinforcements more than once.
- Patrols now if they bring the correct amount of enemies. (4-seat car, 4 enemies).
But why do the OP Motherland missions take you to the same places as the story missions, having so many empty locations and islands?
Really re-exploring the same empty, soulless Island? When in a first game of episode 1,2 and 3 every corner was explored, Ubisoft returns to send us to the same locations as always? As if the island were small and there were no more bases and desolate areas? I tried to give it a try but it is more broken than before.
the moa island?Originally Posted by ArgimonEd Go to original post
a big transport ship docked somewhere as a base of operations instead of a god damn volcano?
a new underground area?
there could be many solutions instead of heaving the same areas again and again
My biggest immediate gripes are conquering a region doesn't actually, you know, conquer it.
Most facilities are still overrun with enemies. For example after taking down Liberty parliament, it's still full of Bodark right afterwards.
Some locations do convert, such as Auroa Hospital and the Detention Centre and some checkpoints. But others remain occupied.
Now I know this was likely done to prevent the world from becoming empty but in my view, after conquering a region we should be able to actually then capture individual locations.
So, a step in the right direction definitely but I'd like to see them double down on this.
My second gripe is the multiple headshots thing even after removing helmets. But not only that I gave feedback that shooting these dudes in the head, helmet or not, with an unsuppressed TAC50 would turn their head into a cloud.
The only way to do this currently is with the sharpshooter 'special ability'.
If it were changed so that high damage unsuppressed snipers can one shot these guys it would then give the player the tactical choice of going unsuppressed for reduced TTK.
I have a couple of instanced of emptying mags into heads and it's a bit much.
Also, can we please, PLEASE, remove the feature of enemies getting magically buffed when alerted to the player. This is nonsense, the unbuffed TTK feels right.
Also, can we also please, PLEASE, remove the feature of the player moving at snails place whilst indoors. I don't know why this is a thing but it's an Ubi trademark. AC also has it where riding whilst in towns and villages slows the player down. This should just go. Apply common sense and consider what these features add in gameplay value instead of just adopting by default because it's there.
It's an excellent update, they just need to keep going and run with the direction they've now taken. If the suits have lost interest then hopefully we can see continued experimentation and evolution of these systems.
And for the record I would very much like to see these systems rolled out and extended in Moa island. I'd be happy to shell out for a future expansion which provides this content.
Good review, Chris! 👍
* I’m still lvl 32 as well, and don’t have much to say about XP and skills yet. Also not a fan of the Optical Camo, and have been just completely ignoring it.
*re: Azrael, it started out really bad for me with multiple flyovers on the first mission, but now I’m thinking it’s totally manageable.
* Really digging the weather effects.
* Like you, I’d love to have seen Bowman and at least a couple of cutscenes a la Wildlands. Also, going forward, maybe recording a few teammate comments about the missions and some banter, could be really cool.
* Needless to say, I totally agree about female hairstyles and faces. The Alicia Diaz icon looks great, however. That hairstyle, the ponytail + hat combo is such a quintessential look in shooters and I’d literally love nothing more than to see it added to our character customization pool.
I think that going forward, expansions (i.e like Fallen Ghosts) in this format could potentially really really help Breakpoint. New locations, new enemies, new story and missions… the response has been super positive. Motherland’s set the course, all they need to do is keep following it.![]()
Cavalo dado não se olha os dentes... indeed!Originally Posted by ArgimonEd Go to original post
I'm glad things will get more difficult as I get deeper into it. I had a good look at the M110 and wasn't sure if it was undersized or not but the G28 definitely is and I believe you which is a sad state of affairs. So far the enemies are too far and few between to be a problem, so maybe as I get deeper into it, I will start seeing enemies flank. Right now, almost all are dead before they know what hit them. The only firefights I've had are with roaming truck patrols and especially convoys with two escorts, as those are unplanned adhoc fights whereas in missions, I'm just walking around capping guys without a fear in the world.
As for what we would like, if they continue supporting the game, I will always choose more missions and locations first because without something to do, the rest is irrelevant. Then enemy AI improvements because if it's not fun shooting or trying to avoid getting shot, why bother. And then mechanics would come next on my list to make it more realistic... detection, damage, lighting, night vision, etc. Last on the list would be more realistic cosmetics and weapon attachments, because what we have now is perfectly fine, even though I'm a gun enthusiast... adding more rich cosmetics without addressing the other things is like putting shiny new wheels and tires on a car that doesn't start.
Super happy to hear about the reduced Azreal flyovers... It was a terrifying moment where I pondered if I was really going to be able to play this in the first 5 minutes of being on the main island.Originally Posted by Ice-Quinn Go to original post
I'll have to give Alicia a slot on the team and see how she does!![]()