Before I get hit by all the Fanbois cannons sitting on these forums here is the bottom line the fact I can be bothered to write on a forum about the issues I am having means I haven't given up on this game. The fact I am writing this rather than playing is saying something else.
This is a Hyperbole free zone, I am just telling it how it is. Any calls of they are a small studio, they took a large price tag off me so I expect a large product.
The good
The Bad
The missing
I have obviously only been playing for a couple of weeks and can see how awesome this game could be but it just isn't and I want to see it awesome
Anything I missed, remember all those fanbois out there if people are moaning they haven't given up on the game, when they stop, they stop playing so let them moan.
This is a Hyperbole free zone, I am just telling it how it is. Any calls of they are a small studio, they took a large price tag off me so I expect a large product.
The good
- this game is massive
- the economic aspects of the game are truly epic the way what we do effects the world just a little
- The graphics are impressive
- The sound effects are amazing (when it works see below)
- The fights are punchy and the mechanics for them are very well put together
- The insurance system ensures there are relatively small loses from dying but not so much it keeps all but the most dedicated of players from playing, so basically it forces you to want to take off again rather than keeping you pinned in station spinning your ship (Yes I used to play that game)
- There are lots of customisation you can do with your ship without it being spreadsheet territory
- trading is good and works how you would expect it too
- Interdicting feels right it's a good mechanic that is well thought out and lets a fight carry on for the right duration.
- The experimentation is good, I don't mind games that don't wipe my backside and this doesn't discovering that you lose hull when you interdict is fun, I love this bit of the game
- online purchases are only for eye candy, a good way of me keeping the game going by putting money in without it being buy to win, which would kill this game for me personally.
The Bad
- The way the client connects with the server is fundermentally flawed, I don't have the expertise in this area but it just isn't working right. I have a mid level internet connection and have very silly lag issues when I play in the open world, When I first installed the game on launch day the download was very slow so I left it over night expecting to be launch day server overload woke up in the morning it was downloaded started it and played the training game. I then went to work and left the main game to download. It didn't when I got home it was 30% complete with an error the DL speeds were very silly slow compared to the rest of the bandwidth I had available. I was obviously upset as I had been looking forward to playing all day and was now stuck. When I did download it the next day I was even more annoyed as the tutorial was in the game itself so had wasted time downloading that separately, there was obviously an expectation that I just 'knew' this. On playing the game it randomly kicked me off due to poor connection. I had been playing games like BF4 on this machine with no issues so knew it wasn't my connection, I VPNed with a mate to try and get rid of this problem but that didn't fix it and eventually reinstalled my machine(shows how much I WANT this game to be good). The game DL was now running at 0.8mbs (about 20x faster than before) and when I got into solo play it didn't keep trying to disconnect me. Separate issues maybe but still not good at all.
- Sound issues, The game before and after I reinstalled crackles all of the place to the point I turned the whole thing off for a while which is a massive shame. I have contacted tech support who do the usual tech support thing try and blame me for it. (all tech support do this to be fair) but the inability for them to scroll down and look at my DXDIAG rather than jumping on the first thing I am not putting a lot of faith in them finding and sorting the issue. This is my biggest complaint TBH, I do not have this issue in other games so I don't see why I have it here. I have ran the machine at min graphics spec and highest with no audible difference in the stuttering so I can't see that being the issue. I ended up turning off the 'effects' which leaves me with the music and ship computer which is a shame because the sound is so much of the immersion.
- Open play for me is unplayable due to the lag, let me give you a couple of examples. a) I was trying to interdict a ship but it was jumping around so much by the time I got behind it had gone somewhere else by the time I got it tethered it was still jumping around to the point I didn't see it, the message then came up saying I was successful (can't remember which flavour) and when the spinning stopped there was nothing there b) Lassoed an adder pulled it out of SC and started fighting. It was master level so he was good and it was a long fighter (but awesome) then all the system Authority ships turn up and bought their lag cannon, I had control of the ship say 1 in 3 seconds, my guns randomly didn't stop firing when I fired them and he was a good pilot but I was slowly beating him before and then I had to jump out because it was far too dangerous firing guns off when I had no control of them around the system Authority ships - basically what should have been good risk, reward and fun turned into a totally poo experience. (incidently the music and computer voice started stuttering when it doesn't before as it says above.)
- Release date was poor, before Christmas when they haven't got their dev team in patching it up (and it needs it.) I understand why they did it but that was a PR vs Engineering failure.
- online comms doesn't work and text is VERY unreliable....... basic stuff people (not a massive moan as I have other options but still poor having to waste time finding this out)
- Railguns, when are they supposed to fire after I hold down the fire button?
(probable user fault)
The missing
- I have said it before there is no skill to bounty hunting past the actual combat. If you get it from a station to kill someone it's basically are you going to be lucky enough to find him/her before you get bored. Compare this to trading where there is a lot of intricacy in getting best prices and the such it just feels like something is missing.
- No coop, for this reason alone this game shouldn't have been released until it was finished, I mean seriously, a friend can't even see the USS' I can let alone all the basic things you expect from an online game. (online only remember?)
- More voices, this is a preference but I think we need more audio from other stuff. like that text the guy you're attacking comes up with should be read out, I think you should be able to talk to other pilots in super cruise NPC or player with default responses it would make habitated systems seem more full feeling and empty ones more well empty. (this is a small thing but I do think it needs something)
- more ships always more ships
I have obviously only been playing for a couple of weeks and can see how awesome this game could be but it just isn't and I want to see it awesome
Anything I missed, remember all those fanbois out there if people are moaning they haven't given up on the game, when they stop, they stop playing so let them moan.
