some ppl seem to be having lots of trouble with the game, which is fine but it seems many immediately just complain instead of changing their approach

so i wrote this early-game guide for such ppl who are open to change, since the early-game is where people find the most friction in

(im gonna be assuming youre using the default class the recruit)


first off, if you complain about getting oneshotted all the time, then you are DEFINITELY not wearing good armour

prioritise getting the "ESO Level IVA Body Armor" early into the game

the game tries to emulate real-world NIJ body armour classifications, so this armour will tank shots from most kinds of rounds for you and won't even take damage if the round is weak enough

helmets will block shots before breaking, the "Standard Composite Helmet" will block 1 shot, while the "Silver Total Protect" helmet which you unlock through the lost dog quest will block 3 shots

(your health, armour, and helmet will regenerate for free whenever you go through a loading screen)

if all that armour slows you down, then level up your strength until you are below 75% equip load (probably at least 12 str for the IVA armour)

you should also level up perception which gives you faster weapon handling

"oh but how can i even afford all of that!"

you get a lot of money very early into the game:

• you start the game with 5k
  
• you can kill the passport guy in the hq lobby for 1k
  
• you can kill one of your smg-wielding neighbours in your apartment for 15k (kick down the locked door)
  
• you can finish the noise complaint quest for ~7k
  
• you can finish the lost dog quest for 50k
  
• you can finish the bernardi quest for ~25k
  
• you can squish respawning civilians with your mech and get ~40 cash for each one (you can kill civilians unaligned with any faction with impunity)

when you have a lot of cash on hand, then either put it in stocks or immediately go back to hq to spend it

as for your mech, you can find a really great armour part very early on in phc free city: either kill or sneak past the big mech and grab the part from the top of the structure it's guarding


keep this in your head: you cannot play this like cruelty squad, you cannot play this like ultrakill, you cannot play this like doom

use your lean keys to check around corners, this is practically mandatory, never take corners blindly

don't let your guard down even in friendly areas if you don't know for sure that you have cleared the enemies

this is just the way it is, you are supposed to stay alert, you are supposed to get paranoid, and this is not a game design mistake: it's intentional

"it's not fair that enemies have perfect aim and can see me from dumb angles"

then don't play fair: shoot enemies from behind, use every advantage you have

the way stealth works is you have a visibility bar that tells how far enemies can see you (same units as the distance measurement on your crosshair)

visibility is affected by crouching and also by how illuminated you are, which includes sunlight, indoor lights, and even your own flashlight (default key to toggle is N)

you should pie corners so you can shoot enemies before they can see you (look up "slicing the pie")

basically, just never blindly walk past a corner or doorway without knowing if you'll get exposed to an enemy, just take it slow and be patient

finally: read everything

read what unique npcs are saying to you, read your quest logs, read your journal, read the ynet

the text tells you where to go and what to do, you shouldn't be getting lost if you pay attention

if you can't find an npc, then track them through your database

there is no time limit, you can just read, the dialogue is fun

btw, a lot of the structure of the game is shooting/sneaking through a faction's hostile members until you reach someone that isn't hostile who gives you a quest that turns that faction friendly, so be careful not to just kill unique npcs and don't be afraid to savescum when you do accidentally kill one