Vanguard seems to run well, but there are a few issues with game mechanics and gameplay I would like to provide feedback on.
- Weapon Recoil and damage.
The primary weapon has all the recoil of an automatic .308 without the damage. NPCs take multiple hits before going down, even with head shots while the weapon wants to jump all over the place in ADS.
It’s actually easier to hipfire than ADS in Vanguard, which is somewhat counter-intuitive as ADS should stabilize the weapon and reduce recoil. Instead it is jumping around and harder to control shot placement. Meanwhile hipfire just dumps shots into the target out to around 25 yards.
TTK isn’t bad, but I would recommend upping damage slightly and reducing recoil slightly for this weapon due to the fact it is fully auto. Or alternatively, you could give players the ability to select fire between 3 round burst and single shot, retain recoil, and up the damage about 30% while adding a 2x Zoom to the Holo, which I assume is possible given it’s in UE
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It’s difficult to identify players from NPCs. Once you’re close enough, with higher graphics settings it becomes somewhat obvious, but more due to the fact they are travelling alone or in pairs and behave differently than NPCs as they look around and don’t follow a patrol path.
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Players don’t appear to use Find Group. This may be due to the limited number of players in the test environment.
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Crafting. This is interesting, but it requires a fair bit of material to do anything and the loot boxes are scattered around and typically in patrol zones.
That’s not a bad thing, but it’s pretty inconvenient trying to loot boxes just so you can reload your weapon and Nanites are either rare or only accessible through recycling E. Components or I. Components, or finding a Mining Stash.
Material requirements for Crafting necessitate a significant amount of looting, and while the mechanic is welcome, the regular encounters result in a deficit of materials. Part of this is due to the somewhat wild recoil of the gun and lack of recoil control.
The environment is also exceptionally hostile, and gameplay seems to revolve around running and gunning more than anything else, which makes crafting somewhat obstructive. I tend to feel like it should either lean towards more loot, or less crafting to make it a functional game mechanic.
- Dead NPCs drop Biomass and nothing else. They should be lootable. They have weapons and ammunition, and potentially other useful items and crafting components, yet they simply turn into a box of biomass.
I feel like there’s a good opportunity to provide some useful loot and prop up crafting there, and maybe make it so players do not have to continuously scour for mats just to make ammo.
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Ammunition. The Automatic fire of the weapon chews up ammunition fast, especially when combined with the inability to maintain accurate fire and low damage. The player starts with just enough Nanites and crafting material to craft to batches of ammunition, while having very little ammunition to start with.
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Players KOS. They don’t even bother with attempting anything else, and yet, there should be some advantage for them to work together, or some interaction which allows them to team up.
This may be in part due to the inability to immediately identify a player and lack of available interactions besides shooting first. One thing I can think of to facilitate less hostile interactions is to show players in yellow instead of Red if they are Neutral, and blue if they are friendly, (Squad mates).
Another thing I can think of is to add in an interaction which allows players to Invite other players to team up, which if accepted would flag them blue or green, even if they are not technically a squad member.
This may at least encourage player interactions other than KOS.
- There are no clear mission objectives. I’m not sure whether I like this or hate it, because the Map is completely open and filled with clutter.
I assume once you get familiar with the map it will be less of a problem, but at that point you’ve probably run the same map too many times to be interested anymore.
While I don’t think I want clear mission objectives, unless it’s something like a clearly defined and identified target relayed through Intel from Comm Satellites, it might be helpful if the HOLO Sight AR could provide clues to objectives locations from a distance.
This might involves something similar to detecting EM or Thermal signatures consistent with the objective and highlighting the location with a glow when your HOLO sight passes over it.
- Player Movement. The player can only temp crouch hitting Left-CTRL. This should be toggled, allowing you to crouch and move in ADS or crouch behind barriers.
ADS automatically slows down movement, even at a light jog, (standard movement). This is inconvenient and coupled with weapon recoil quite problematic when engaging enemies.
- AI Zerging. This is what it is. Every NPC rushes you. They use cover, and they actually act fairly intelligently, but they rush you constantly, even taking them out of cover and running over open ground.
They also seem to loose track of you if they run behind a significant enough obstacle. Like, “Hey, I forget you were there,” *wanders-off. Kind of weird.
Otherwise, it seems good. The environment is quite well done, though obviously it is just one map with limits on player movement