Bruce Campbell legutóbbi értékelései

This is for the start of Early Access
My plan is to constantly update the review based on continued playing/updates

So for starters, my experience so far has been with a level 24 Warrior, and a level 18 Mercenary. My 1-h Mace and shield warrior was a slow damage experience, going into the game with no build guide. My passive tree is not optimized as I went in blind, and my defense was good, but my expectations for damage were lower than I thought. Getting through act 1 took some grinding to have solid enough damage to take out the end 1 boss. Maybe after I take a break playing other classes, I will adjust my character with a guide. It was fun to go in without a guide, and I would recommend that people try that first.

After that, I pushed into the Mercenary, and that was a much more enjoyable experience. The damage skill choices and progression were fun and interesting, and it felt just like Helldivers 1 except for not having the tedious issues of having to be super careful not to hit teammates with friendly fire. The reason for my hope and trust in GGG is that I believe they will get the balance right between melee and ranged characters.

The best experience I've had has been going through the first Act with a Monk. With good saved up gear from the first two characters, this was very satisfying. The character is very smooth and much more fluid than the Warrior. There are two strong, quick movement skills I am using that are extremely powerful. The palm strike lets me target an enemy and quickly charge into him. Vaulting impact let's me jump over monsters with good distance plus on landing it does a large AOE that feels powerful.

My surprise and disappointment in the obvious imbalance is concerning, but the reason I love GGG is that they have proven over and over again that they will listen to their player base, unlike other companies out there. Now for some likes and dislikes early on. Again this is the third day of early access. My expectations for this being a fun game have mostly been met, and my hope is that GGG will work out the arduous task of fixing the balance of the characters and skills.

Likes:
- Enjoyable skill system really shines
- Incredibly good graphics and character animations
- Campaign so far has been fun and challenging
- First two acts look great, and they feel different due to new enemy types between acts as well as terrain/environmental differences
- Damage effects look great and feel really fluid

Dislikes:
- So far, players including myself believe the good loot drops are a bit low
- Melee characters at least early on are struggling a lot more than ranged characters on damage
- Some bosses are really tough - this feels more like Dark Souls than I was hoping for
- Each class requires a specific weapon for their class skills - if you get a great scepter, you can't use the warrior-specific skills on it, and you need to use that weaker mace until you grind for it
- Item customization early on was not enjoyable due to not only item drops but also monetary/item upgrade currency

12/10 EDIT 1:
Playing the monk using a build guide was next on my journey, and it felt great. The monk feels extremely fluid and strong with the right gear (from grabbing good items with my Warrior and Mercenary earlier playthroughs), and skills. The play-style feels so much better than slogging through with a mace and shield warrior.
Also, GGG acknowledged the poor drop rate, and a patch is coming out today to boost it. It's good to see them listening to what I saw as a majority view looking at other feedback.
12/12 EDIT 2:
GGG put out a big patch addressing many things in 0.1.0d; however, there is a big controversy in the patch notes about nerfing the trigger gems affecting cast on x. Lots of people claim it has ruined their build, and are requesting a free respec. That seems reasonable, and I hope GGG finds a balance for this. Looking at what they did, it appears to be an extremely heavy nerf, and I'm concerned this will continue as opposed to incrementally changing things.
12/16 EDIT 3:
GGG put out new patch notes covering a lot of things that needed balancing especially for the end-game enemy chaos and critical hit damage (both reduced significantly). They will also reduce respec costs by 40-50%. Changes looked very good and thought-out.
1/16 EDIT 4:
Big bug fix patch releasing today, along with other significant fixes. The next major patch will come as a new league with big class balance changes and possibly one or more new classes.

So, with 100 hours into the game, I figured it's time for a review. I had 88 hours in the game from my UBIsoft purchase, and I have about 12 hours in with the Steam edition. The reason for repurchasing the Steam edition is that since it's on sale for $26.00 for the Ultimate edition, I wanted it since I didn't have the Year One Pass. The pass is only available in the UBIsoft store for $20.00, so for the extra price it's in my Steam library. So, now it tracks the hours and when I'm on, but they never allowed for achievements for the game which is a shame.

This game scratches the three itches I have: Looting, Shooting, and Coop. The replay-ability is awesome since I like trying different builds. Also, at 100 hours into the game, and I haven't had any crashes for anyone wondering like I did if that is a thing.

The number of different things to do is very solid from doing the campaign (and redoing if wanted) with main and side quests, to roaming the world and farming different events, to a 100 story farming building (called Ascension), etc.

The gunplay is awesome with a massive number of attachments and weapons, you have rifles, assault rifles, shotguns, sniper/marksman rifles, pistols, and SMGs.

There are 6 specializations which give a special weapon along with special perks/stats for each. These include Survivalist, Demolitionist, Sharpshooter, Gunner, Technician, and Firewall. You need the Year One pass to be able to use the Gunner, Technician, and Firewall specializations, which is my main reason for the repurchase.

You can also have two different tech "skills" at your disposal with varying cooldowns. These include drones (that can heal or attack), turrets, a decoy (of yourself - think Loki or Quaid in Total Recall ), flamer, pulse (to locate enemies), Seeker mines, Ballistic Shield, Chem Launcher, Firefly (targeted drone), Hive (nanobot attackers), sticky bombs, and traps. These have roughly 4 variants per skill, so finding the right tool on the right skill is on the menu.

There are also a lot of sets for armor in the game which really allows for a massive number of builds. Just google "reddit Division 2 builds" and knock yourself out.

Finding people to group with has not been any problem for me using the in-game call to an "agent". After you have one person join, you can rinse and repeat until you have 3 or 4 players in the group. Friends and clans also allow people to join you on the fly as well.

With 5 years to refine the game, the many additions to the base game (including seasons) will keep me going for a while.

Update #3 So, after taking a break from my zealot at level 20 using a support build with the flamethrower, I came back with an autogun instead of the flamethrower. I am using a crit build with it, and it plays great, kind of like a vet but still having the stagger, armor up ultimate. My other three classes are level 25+, and are all really fun. My ogryn with a minigun is my favorite right now, but the vet with a high rate of fire lasgun is fun as well. There are a ton of builds out there right now, and patch #14 appears to be a strong update after reading people's comments about it.
Update #2: 36 hours into the game, and i have two characters at level 20+ and enjoying both immensely. I have a support zealot, and a strongly defensive Ogryn (but still solid offense). Looking over the upcoming Patch #14, they are tweaking a lot of things. It looks like good balance changes, some nerfs, and other buffs. This is a big patch, and hopefully it won't affect the stable game play I have had so far. Random teammates have been very solid overall, so it looks like a lot of FPS veterans are flocking to this bad boy.
Update #1: 12 hours into the game, and this puppy has a lot of awesome coming at me, with feels like LFD2 gave me back in the day. I found a strong support build for the zealot, and I couldn't be happier with the game play, getting the hang of controlling the battlefield. The game provides ample opportunities to make important quick decisions, and it feels great to hit the right skill, be in the right place at the right time, and successfully respond to the anticipation of what situation the enemy is setting up. At level 16 right now, I already want to get to level 30 on all the characters, and try out a lot of different builds. Solid graphics, and interesting map layout are easily apparent.
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Four hours in but the game has been fine. The starting tutorial gives you enough to get going. The missions are interesting so far. Will update after more gaming.

Solid game with lots of adventuring, quests, etc. It's good, so just try it for yourself for free!

My time spent in the game has been overwhelmingly worth it. This baby is going to be a long-term relationship. I just completed the first area, and I'm excited to push further. With 15 characters to try (and I will most likely try them all like POE and other games I've played before it), saying I've just scratched the surface is an overstatement.

So, for some gold purchased in game, you can get any alt to level 50. I don't have a lot of gold, but I just got my first alt up, and the new character makes this game feel like another brand new experience. You can share daily quest resources among characters, so this was a great way to strengthen my account, and have a blast doing it. At this point, I cant recommend it enough.

They said within two to three months they will be adding a summoner, a space marine-type scout (who looked like Iron Man in the Korean videos), and a weapon-wielding monk (who I will definitely be using along with the scout).

They had some initial hiccups in the game, but with all the entitled whiners, the developers doubled the founders rewards, plus gave a lot of rewards to FTP players. This is an amazing and community building gesture. I also saw a video yesterday about one of the developers on the Korean site stating that they were adjusting the gold/gem issues that were going on. People estimated that they were going to lose 17% profit for this, but it was going to be a big public relations showing. This showed players that they were willing to do what was the right thing even if the (what I would call) short term gains were less. This is the kind of move that, IMHO, will bring in lots of players in the long term. Could you imagine Blizzard or Microsoft doing this? Color me highly impressed so far.

List of things I like so far in the game:
1. Multiple characters to try out providing massive playstyle options
2. Love the combat
3. Graphics are good with some really impressive cut scenes and lots of variation on world environments
4. Commitment of developers to add additional content like the upcoming new characters.
5. Impressive ways to tailor your play style with engravings, choice of awakening skill, etc.

There are so many things that I like about this game, and I'll start by boldly saying that after 50 hours, this may be my favorite ARPG of all-time, and I've played Torchlight, Diablo 1, 2 and 3, POE, Grim Dawn, and others. The way missions are laid out is unique from all of them, with similar mission customization to POE.
The campaign got me to level 60, and I got to about level 65 with the Prophecy add-on, which is a break from doing new game+ type of formulas like the others. Like POE, you can hone a custom map to your liking with added difficulty for more reward. The loot in this game is an excellent part of the fun. As you get not only better gear, but different weapons, you can customize your character without having to start a new one.
The requirements for this game seem to require a beefy machine, but it looks amazing on high settings. From what I've read, the dev team has but a lot of work into updating/fixing this after release, and from my perspective, it has paid off.
There are lots of different types of missions, lots of different enemy types, huge numbers of weapons that each can be tuned with different skills/perks. It also has Psalm Doctrines, which are like Diablo's Rune Words. Their are a ton of them, and they have amazing abilities which can be flexibly used in gear. This game has a huge amount of replay-ability which is one of the best reasons that I highly recommend it.

Today is the day the KF2 armory pack comes out which includes all paid DLC weapons until the end of 2021. This is a great decision by Tripwire to expand an already solid game with multiple classes each with their own solid array of weapons. This DLC looks like it will bring new life into an already solid shooter. As long as anyone in the game you are grouping with has the DLC, all participants will get the ability to use them for that current game.
There are really good DLC weapons to include the Moser rifle, dual-wielding Glock 18cs (which is what I really want to try out), and a host of others like bows, frost weapons, and even a minigun. They have plans to release more weapons packs quarterly.
I've always liked the fast-paced gun play, and the variety of enemies is good. If you like to blow enemies up, the demolition is your goto character. So you like sniping, yeah there's plenty of weapons for that. Commandos bring on the assault rifle style in abundance. There's even a close combat brawler. These classes level up with an experience point system, so there's a solid feeling of progression to them.
Tripwire has lots of events that help to keep the game interesting, and it appears they are listening to the community after a lengthy time period where they were doing their infamous cash grab of weapon selling.

This is such a cool game. It's one of those babies that you can only imagine how fun it would be with multiplayer. Teammates designated as your orcs would be epic. I captured a solid collection of orcs and enjoyed watching them in pit fights. The strong survived, and then they were ready for the open air of middle-earth. The open-ended environment was a blast to play. It just hit me that it is kind of the middle-earth equivalent of the zombie affair of Dying Light. Riding dragons, upgrading your character's powers, capturing cities, this game has so much to do. The Batman Arkham series fighting style worked for me, but it may not be everyone's cup of tea.

I loved this game until they started updating it without fixing what they broke. Weird hit boxes, silent enemies that spawn behind you, stagger mechanics, massacring the whole combat style from fast-paced to sleepwalking, horde clipping, etc. just ruined the experience for me.
There has never been a game I've played that has devolved with such sweeping changes to a game like this ever. I'd love to say count me in for their upcoming new game, but unfortunately for them, they will have a hard time earning my trust.

Update for 10/2023 - This is regarding my thoughts on Fatshark's follow up game to VT2, Warhammer: Darktide. It looks like a year after Darktide came out with an overall score of 59%, they look to be turning it around with their Class Overhaul with a recent review score of 78% from about 2700 reviews. Looking at some gameplay footage, the game looks appealing to me, and I would like to look at purchasing it, but the negative changes from VT2 still loom in my mind. My decision right now is to reassess where Darktide is when the winter sale hits to see if they are still enhancing things as right now there is another game that has my attention.

So this game was an instant buy for me after seeing videos that reminded me of the top down team shooter "Alien Swarm" which I played for over 100 hours. This game is a must for those who liked that game.
Now, Helldivers is fun on both single and multiplayer mode for me. For multiplayer, characters must work together since they are tied to the same screen. Multiplayer can be incredibly fun, or incredibly annoying, depending on the teammates.
The number of weapons, vehicles, and abilities (Strategems) that are include provide virtually all types of strategies and play-styles. You want to move fast and avoid damage while using a jet-pack to further avoid damage? Well, you can. You love assault rifles and grenade launchers? Grab 'em and party hardy, Marty. The load-outs have a generous amount of variation, and trying new things out has been one of the best experiences in any game I've played. The mechs, tanks, armored apcs (that all four players can ride in) are stellar examples of the vehicle play-style.
Another very solid design choice was is setting up your gear so that you are always thinking of what to sacrifice in order to meet that sweet spot of player balance so that everything "feels" in sync. Again, the tactical strategy really pulls me in to this game.
Older reviews appear to have gripes with a possibility of one or two of the three factions being locked while there is a campaign mode going on in the background. This was leading to players being unable to fight against the faction they wanted until the campaign was resolved by the three factions being conquered. I believe that would be very aggravating if still going on, but I haven't seen that issue as the devs appear have addressed this.
One of the big questions for newer players is whether to get the dlc for the expanded items or not. It is not required to own, but it makes for a much bigger variety of gear, so it has been a must for me personally. Several dlc items are in my setup repertoire.
Another factor to the game which is really rewarding is mastering the different offensive weapons. Reading several reviews, I've seen a lot of people that like a lot of different gear, and that really boosts the replayability. So if you are not so locked into one style, you will really appreciate the work put in to change things up.
With competent teammates, this game has been nothing less than stellar. The thrill of victory has been very memorable in my gaming experience, and I am still getting into mid-tier rank and difficulty.
EDIT: So the lockout of certain races is still a thing with the campaign, but for me it forces me to get better at all the factions. However, I see why this would aggravate a lot of people.

This is a review plus extra information that I've researched in the later section to hopefully consolidate some Q & A.

After seven hours in, I can say this is a fun, challenging experience. Some monsters can set you on fire, you can get a bleed or get diseased, and two main early mini-bosses can wreck you quickly. This keeps things interesting and challenging early on.

The first boss I had was tough, while the level design is fairly straightforward. I like that the levels are randomly generated. That is always a plus in my book to keep things fresh.

The early base/safe-house you find has some good starting quests in order to acclimate to the game, but the characters there are somewhat shallow.

Regarding combat, targeting is smooth, and dodging is a heavy defensive tactic. One thing that is more of a negative but not too annoying is that enemies can spawn behind you after you pass through an area, so always remember to check your six. You have to keep on your toes as you can get overrun quickly. The sound queues for approaching enemies is a must.

Weapons have add-ons. The two I'm using have been a good boost. My pistol has a heal option which charges after you hit enemies a certain number of times. My shotgun has an ammo type of burn that also charges up from enemy hits.

I got to the second boss, but decided to farm so that I can get more consumables like adrenaline, health "potions", and weapon upgrades. Enemies do scale off your items, so keep that in mind.

You also have upgrade-able traits, like better stamina, quicker experience gain, more health, so that is some decent RPG-lite customization.

The weapons are upgrade-able with "money" + iron that you obtain whether it is from a vendor or from levels. There are a lot of items in the menus locked by DLC, but that is understandable. There are three main weapons selections being melee, mid-range shotguns, and long range pistols and rifles. You can specialize in anything, and you aren't locked to any play style as you can buy any items. You simply upgrade the items you want to, and you can change your damage focus when you want.

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Initial Research:

In researching alternate play-styles in the game I read that Survival is included, which is basically a rogue-like to see how far you can get before dying. It sounds like it has strong rewards so that sounds fun if you want a "hardcore" experience.

Adventure mode allows you to re-roll a world in order to "restock" an area for farming. Survival and adventure modes are the only two I've read of that are included. I'd love to see a survival mode with tougher waves like Left 4 Dead, but that is of course wishful thinking.

My initial research on multiplayer is that it sounds fun, but people recommend not expecting to buy it solely for multiplayer unless you have friends.

Pub games may not be the way to go, so you may want to research that further if you intend to focus on pubbing. Pubbing may not be as "annoying" once you get better experience/gear.

More research from other reviews let me know there are a lot of different bosses, and lots of fun to be had if you like to farm. It sounds a lot like Diablo from that perspective.