u/SquaddieNotDead

TL;DR down at the bottom.

As the title says I wanted to share my thoughts as a new player who started shortly after the June patch that added a bunch of QoL things. I wanted to write this up to maybe give a bit of help to those who come here looking for, "Is this game worth it?" answers.

Firstly this game was gifted to me. However at that time I have a Ryzen 7 1700x CPU and a 1660 Super GPU and 32GB of RAM. The game was able to run however it was not playable in any reasonable fun capacity. I recently upgraded to a Ryzen 7 5800xt and a 9060xt 16GB with the same amount of RAM. I'm able to play on the higher setting and it runs like butter outside of the upper area of Stairway and Downtown LA where I suffer from 60FPS down to around 40-45FPS.

With the PC specs out of the way I want touch on the mechanics and gameplay since I think that the art design and atmosphere is touched on so heavily elsewhere though I still have thoughts on it but I want to give more thought outside of letting the game exist fully on "It's good art bro that's enough for the game.".

So when the game released with its initial water system it.. It did turn me away a fair bit. I avoid games like Rust or Conan and other games where it's, "Hey if you don't play in X amount of time we're just gonna delete what you worked for.". I grumbled about Escape from Tarkov because the wipes felt rough though I get why they happened since eventually you'd just have everything you wanted and it can kill the joy. But in a PvE game (Which I do quite prefer, I'm not much of a PvPer outside of War Thunder nowadays) it bugged me. So I like how it is now, though I wish I could use X amount of extra water instead of a fast travel drone.

Gunplay feels fine, but I know it's getting reworked soon. But what drives me CRAZY is when enemies are up in your face (Look at you feral cyborgs who run on all fours at you and sometimes brawlers) in the first person it just completely screws up the camera and makes getting shots very difficult. So I use third person, easy swap right? But then the third person shooting keeps the camera way to close to really look around comfortably. I'd like to see this tweaked a bit or at least customizable. The FoV slider helps slightly. The guns across the board don't feel very different except for .45 ACP, I tried to use the SCAR and it felt so weak. As did .308 and 5.56. Again I know there's a gun rework up and coming but I wanted to mention it as it is a rather common topic I've noticed. SA58 my beloved I hope you get over your illness.

Characters all feel good, they each play differently and have different upgrades. I mainly play Scav Girl since I just really enjoy how quick she is. But not having access to heavy weapons at all just kills so hard when you need to hurt tougher stuff. Which I know I can just play Mask Man or something, but it still hurts. I know there's a grenade pistol somewhere but I have yet to find one. I'd like to see something tweaked here but I might just be whining. I know I've seen complaints about Gunhead healing and such, I also think that generally all the characters need a bit of an overhaul but I suspect it'll be its own full update much like how guns are.

Prestige is.. Annoying? I get the idea behind it but it's quite literally just like leveling up in a standard RPG except I'm locked to auto leveling. I'd really like to see it just replaced with a normal leveling system from 1-50 and just make the different perks cost more XP. Or lock certain perks behind full prestige (For example with Scav Girl making prestige levels 1-5 and you can't get the medium rig until prestige 3 but then you have normal leveling of 1-50). It'd feel more impactful but I get this would end up needing a full rework. It's OK as it is now but just not meaningful to interact with and just leads to me getting annoyed when I realize I need to prestige, even a little notification that I'm maxed would make me happy.

The general gameplay loop of going in, getting loot, and getting out is fine. It's an extraction shooter so it's going to do what it does. I get that the AI isn't the best, it's not quite what the devs envisioned, it has issue because of the engine, etc etc. However, the battlefield feels life-like enough for me to think it's real enough. The AI does seem to somewhat pick its fights and to take cover, I think it's funny how they try to shoot mechs and what not. They'll investigate areas they see you in if you're there long enough (Which has gotten me killed a few times). I think it's rather fine for the stage of the same. I can say sometimes trying to get specifc loot just.. grinds me. I spent three days to get two metal sheets, I know there's mods to change loot spawn and stuff but man, I don't wanna mod the game to make it easier or something. I like it as it is, just a little rough. Like I haven't seen a single precision kit but now I need like 5 of them.

Innard Upgrades are.. Fine I guess? It's like any other extraction shooter where you need to just save EVERYTHING you collect and sell alcohol for money (Until you need it later woohoo?) because stuff is just needed in so many things. I find myself a little frustrated with the time needed to not only collect everything, but then to wait for stuff to build. I want to hope it's all just a bit of place holder but eh, we'll see.

Multiplayer. This one is.. Interesting. When I first started I did probably 20 runs in tunnels just getting past the first group of enemies and killing crawling cyborgs and getting out. Dying constantly if I tried to fight anything tougher (Until I tried an AK and the whole game changed). But when you have even one other person, even if they're poor like you, the whole game is much easier. I'd like to see some kind difficultly increase of adjustment depending on X amount of players. Also, I think that a very common issue is that you can join people and they're just AFK. I personally think that your lobby should be set to Private by default. It's annoying to just people over and over just to get disconnected or kicked because people didn't realize that it was public by default.

Healing feels fine as it is, I like that the different options have different speeds (Like with Stims I can still sprint while using but meds make me walk and food makes me slow walk!).

Next I want to talk about bugs. They exist and are the main reason I wanted to make this post. Why put them here instead of upfront? I dunno just what I wanted.

When in singleplayer the game is 95% bug free outside of getting stuck in some spots (Devman please give me an unstuck button :( ) or some enemies might look funny or mechs bounce around.

Multiplayer is where I see the vast majority. Often times people will spawn in half way in the ground for other players and that person can't vault. Or they might bug out and can't damage enemies, or the guns will bug so you have infinite magazine size and never consume ammo while shooting, or you can't swap guns or shoot at all! Disconnect on entering a raid happens sometimes, but the previous bugs are just so common place. I think it might be a Peer 2 Peer issue (If I remember how the MP is done) but I'm not a devman so I don't know for sure, I just experience it.

Also flying enemies are weird. Drones are mostly fine, but the helicopter needs some serious work. I don't think the normal operation of one involves going through building and the terrain we walk upon. Please God Helicopter bless me with your ability to vibe through the world.

The Wiki is fine enough for the game. I think some of it needs updating but I can't specifically remember what I just recall some stuff not lining up. I do remember that the map for the Frozen Swamp to show where you do the refuel quest was incredibly tough to read and I had to look up a video for it but that's probably a personal issue.

Lastly, I want to talk about the art direction of the game.

Obviously, it's a rather unique type of apocolypse world. I love the idea of "No one know why this war is going on. The AI commanders just know they have to keep fighting to win but we don't know what they're winning for. So you're just a fella who's trying to survive." They want us to think "You're not that guy" but of course with enough leveling and the right guns you can be. I have found though when I get confident I can get dropped pretty quick (Might be a quirk of scav girl there even with like 1600HP..) but even when you can run and run you're still limited by ammo, limited by bag space, etc. The idea is there and I've seen that around release of the game it was more towards that, but I think it'll change for the better.

The art of the world we're in is fantastic. When I came out into Scorched Enclave for the first time out of tunnels it was a bit breath taking seeing the mechs fighting and the shooting and such. Seeing the sun for the first time I could mentally imagine the dusty gunpowder diesel fuel smelling air, but still the freshness of it compared to the stale air down in the tunnels. Every area I've entered has given me fully different vibes, specially when I get the night shift. My first one was with a random and we got swarmed trying to fight our way out and both died it was amazing.

The enemy design also looks great. I know I know, we all love Mother Courage and want her to collect us for her personal (and living) collection. But from the tanks, to the mechs, each infantry and elites of the factions, I love it all as many do. The destroyed world that is being used in this infinite war, how everything is used in the day time then at night it gets collected, recycled, and reused for the next day. If a commander center falls it's simply rebuilt by another group and so on. I've read that the dev team are artists which makes sense seeing the mechanical side of the game VS the art side.

Of course it's an Early Access game and many of these issues can be attributed to that, I'm sure like many EA games they'll be worked on.. Eventually. I'm a very patient person.

But with all that a TL;DR...

The game has a very solid foundation with a very immersive world but doesn't do well on low to low-mid range PCs. I'd recommend it with the normal EA access warnings. I quite enjoy it for all that it is now and I'm happy to see what they give us in the future.

I hope this helps someone get a good idea of what kind of game this might be alongside whatever other media they've consumed, I realize this is a fat wall of text but I've never really typed up something like this but I do quite adore the game.

Also Exo Stamina is best I will die on this hill.

EDIT: I would REALLY like someone to make a loadout for items I take from stash to rig. I'm very tired of having to grab my 200 or 300 rounds of ammo, meds, drills, and whatever else I might want. Some kind of preset system and an option to buy what you're missing like you can with guns would make me happy