How Do You Feel About The Current Balance of the Game?
Before I get into my inevitable rant I want to clarify the point of this post is to vent about some of the things bothering me with this game. If it comes across as "whiny" sorry.
I am also curious how the rest of you feel.
I am a long time Destiny player and I *had* a pretty fair tolerance to the BS that AAA studios love to put us through these days: half-finished content, bugs, micro-transaction-hell, etc. And Destiny certainly had some bugs but holy moly 76 is impressively worse.
I played this game back at launch for a good while, then got sucked back into Destiny forever. I started playing 76 again right on the tail-end of the Dom Pedro being avaliable. The bugs were annoying but mostly okay. And honestly I was happy with the sheer amount of content and story missions. (Destiny has been DRY for a while.) I also liked that a lot of the weapons felt pretty viable. Even if there were some obvious "meta" weapons. That's inevitable ofc.
Fast forward to the last few weeks here and we come to the 2 reasons that have gutted the fun for me. Bugs. And game balance.
The TSE bug exposed some issues with how the numbers have been working for some time, and obviously that wasn't intended. But man oh man since that was fixed a lot of weapons feel like crap now. The same "meta" weapons that melted enemies before are still melting them, just a bit slower. But anything outside those few feel like a slog to use now.
This is a Bethesda game. And its MOSTLY pve focused. It should be perfectly okay for us to be op with a variety of things. Instantly deleting everything? No. But feeling very powerful? Yes. Part of the fun of an rpg is build crafting. I have tried VERY hard to make the variety of weapons I like end-game viable but despite the endless attempts I simply can't hold a candle to someone using a gauss mini. The same meta weapons from before really don't kill that much slower. But everything else feels noticeably slower.
Destiny pulled the same crap. Stuff took longer and longer to kill until only the meta wasn't a waste of time.
This is NOT a trend I have been enjoying. A lot of devs don't seem to grasp the concept that lengthening enemy health bars does not equal actual challenge. Games like Dark Souls I thoroughly enjoy because the combat can be pretty hectic but you learn the patterns and you can succeed. And im allowed to build to the point I smack the bosses pretty good just like they do to me.
It all seems designed to lengthen playtime because "hey the longer we trap then in game the better our metrics look! Also hey that's more chances they'll get bored and wander into our store and spend money!"
The SECOND thing driving me nuts: the bugs.
Last night during ONE instance of the raid:
-We got stuck getting in and out of power armor several times
-3 times one of us were killed by some invisible force. Still not really sure what. Screen just goes black and we are gone. Erased.
-During dps phase on en06 my vats became disabled. No audio cue. No AP drain from pressing the button. Nothing. It went back to normal when he died.
-During the crystal run a mole got stuck in the floor so that was a free wipe after the run was otherwise complete.
-The snake roared and pushed me straight down through the floor. Instant death.
-I crashed during the snake fight ofc. First time in the last 10 times or so killing it.
- At one point both myself and a team mate lost the ability to look up or down. Could move and look side to side and everything else. Couldn't look up or down.
There were a few more but you get the gist.
After (yet again) spending hours yesterday build-testing and THEN having the buggiest raid run ever - I realized I wasn't having fun anymore. Its a real shame because I WAS. Its rare I find a game that my wife and my close friends all enjoy together. Usually im the one who sticks it out the longest because im holding on to playing with them.
Anyways. If you've read this far, sorry for the novel I just wrote. I tend to flood.
Im just sad its so hard to find a game that my group can/will all play together. Especially one that values our time. That is far more precious than money.
End rant. 😔