I'm changing my review from positive to negative in the hopes that some of the asinine changes will be reverted so that the game becomes the game I once recommended to my friends again. I've had it since launch, and I used to enjoy it a lot. There were a ton of perks and airdrops, each with their own associated strategies. I booted it up to play with the one guy that I always do today, and everything has changed. There are extremely streamlined perks now, and they're very limited. I can no longer choose to mix and match from the large number of wacky perks to create a unique playstyle. Now it's just "Um, I guess I'll take a backpack and some bonus damage from backstabs."

What's more, the airdrops are goofy now. They appear to have removed a large number, as when I loaded it up today I noticed that all of my airdrops that had guns are gone now, along with some others. The thing that bothers me the most about how they changed airdrops is that they're now broken into stages of early, middle, and late game. It used to be my preferred strategy to select a very expensive airdrop and attempt to blitz it to get a leg up. This meant that I was really weak in the early game, because almost anything of value that I managed to find was quickly recycled in an effort to save up for my powerful gear. It's not like it was something that could be done within seconds of starting the game, either. It was usually a little bit into the game before I could afford a drop, and during that time everyone else was naturally upgrading themselves with gear from players they'd killed early on or gear that they'd found, so it isn't like I was an unstoppable killing machine or anything by the time I got my drop. There used to be funny airdrops that were unique and provided cool things based more around concepts, like "Dwarf" which gave an axe, a stick of dynamite, and an endurance buff. Because dwarves are stout and hardy and like to dig. Makes sense. But now you just select a drop where the only difference is the primary weapon. You get the primary, some armor, and a random stim. And it's just named after the weapon you get. Instead of getting to be a Dwarf, your options boil down to which primary weapon you get. Also, the airdrops used to spawn at the edge of the map and travel to the pad you ordered it to. This added a fun layer of tension. You sat at your pad with your fingers crossed that for the next 45 seconds no one was watching the sky, because if they looked up and managed to chuck a spear or waste a precious bullet on the drone, it dropped and they could loot it. Now the airdrop just spawns directly above your pad. I assume this choice was made because they wanted to make it so you were guranteed a reward for your hardwork, but it was just so exciting waiting for your package and added an extra layer to the game having to watch as it slowly drifted towards you from the horizon with nothing to do except take off into the forest to try and get to it or pray no one else managed to hit it. Not to mention that it gave a fun way to outdo your opponent from the opposite perspective. Lastly for the airdrops, the early game airdrops are now literally free. They cost nothing. You can just order them off the bat. This makes no sense. Airdrops are meant to be this elusive thing that you have to make an economic choice on. Now you can just get a free one (albeit full of garbage gear) the moment the game begins.

The last things I noticed in my two games today were that it now costs nothing to craft a spear for some incomprehensible reason and you appear to spawn way closer to other players than you did before, which means that there's more death right out of the gate before anyone has a chance to even gear up. That last point may just be some poor luck on my part or an incorrect observation, but it's worth mentioning because of the seeming purposefulness of it.

Like I said at the start, I hope that this game returns to essentially how it was at release, because it's almost dead at this point, and I can completely see why. They've gutted it in the name of balance, which no one seems to be calling for if the reviews that went from, I think, "Very positive" to "Mixed" can be believed. If you read the reviews, almost all of them are lamenting the "balancing," and yet they keep releasing new patches that remove things so that it's more "balanced." I mean, I'll probably play this game occasionally still. It's fun to a point. But it seems at every turn in my brief return today I was just left exclaming over Teamspeak to my friend, "What?! They removed that too?! Why?"

I'm changing my review from positive to negative in the hopes that some of the asinine changes will be reverted so that the game becomes the game I once recommended to my friends again. I've had it since launch, and I used to enjoy it a lot. There were a ton of perks and airdrops, each with their own associated strategies. I booted it up to play with the one guy that I always do today, and everything has changed. There are extremely streamlined perks now, and they're very limited. I can no longer choose to mix and match from the large number of wacky perks to create a unique playstyle. Now it's just "Um, I guess I'll take a backpack and some bonus damage from backstabs." What's more, the airdrops are goofy now. They appear to have removed a large number, as when I loaded it up today I noticed that all of my airdrops that had guns are gone now, along with some others. The thing that bothers me the most about how they changed airdrops is that they're now broken into stages of early, middle, and late game. It used to be my preferred strategy to select a very expensive airdrop and attempt to blitz it to get a leg up. This meant that I was really weak in the early game, because almost anything of value that I managed to find was quickly recycled in an effort to save up for my powerful gear. It's not like it was something that could be done within seconds of starting the game, either. It was usually a little bit into the game before I could afford a drop, and during that time everyone else was naturally upgrading themselves with gear from players they'd killed early on or gear that they'd found, so it isn't like I was an unstoppable killing machine or anything by the time I got my drop. There used to be funny airdrops that were unique and provided cool things based more around concepts, like "Dwarf" which gave an axe, a stick of dynamite, and an endurance buff. Because dwarves are stout and hardy and like to dig. Makes sense. But now you just select a drop where the only difference is the primary weapon. You get the primary, some armor, and a random stim. And it's just named after the weapon you get. Instead of getting to be a Dwarf, your options boil down to which primary weapon you get. Also, the airdrops used to spawn at the edge of the map and travel to the pad you ordered it to. This added a fun layer of tension. You sat at your pad with your fingers crossed that for the next 45 seconds no one was watching the sky, because if they looked up and managed to chuck a spear or waste a precious bullet on the drone, it dropped and they could loot it. Now the airdrop just spawns directly above your pad. I assume this choice was made because they wanted to make it so you were guranteed a reward for your hardwork, but it was just so exciting waiting for your package and added an extra layer to the game having to watch as it slowly drifted towards you from the horizon with nothing to do except take off into the forest to try and get to it or pray no one else managed to hit it. Not to mention that it gave a fun way to outdo your opponent from the opposite perspective. Lastly for the airdrops, the early game airdrops are now literally free. They cost nothing. You can just order them off the bat. This makes no sense. Airdrops are meant to be this elusive thing that you have to make an economic choice on. Now you can just get a free one (albeit full of garbage gear) the moment the game begins. The last things I noticed in my two games today were that it now costs nothing to craft a spear for some incomprehensible reason and you appear to spawn way closer to other players than you did before, which means that there's more death right out of the gate before anyone has a chance to even gear up. That last point may just be some poor luck on my part or an incorrect observation, but it's worth mentioning because of the seeming purposefulness of it. Like I said at the start, I hope that this game returns to essentially how it was at release, because it's almost dead at this point, and I can completely see why. They've gutted it in the name of balance, which no one seems to be calling for if the reviews that went from, I think, "Very positive" to "Mixed" can be believed. If you read the reviews, almost all of them are lamenting the "balancing," and yet they keep releasing new patches that remove things so that it's more "balanced." I mean, I'll probably play this game occasionally still. It's fun to a point. But it seems at every turn in my brief return today I was just left exclaming over Teamspeak to my friend, "What?! They removed that too?! Why?"