Why I refunded the game

[TheKazz]

Just wanted to leave some feed back to explain mostly to the Devs why I decided to refund the game after about an hour and 40 minutes with the game.

1. I understand that you want to have the procedurally generated maps to make it different every time you load into a new match the down side of that is that is obviously affecting the load times which are fairly extensive often 1-2 minutes which does feel a bit excessive at times. Any optimizations and improvements that can be made to these load times would be amazing.

2. While my buddy and I were playing we had at least 10 rounds (again in just an hour and 40 minutes) where either one or both of us were dead within the first 10 seconds of the mission starting often as a result of an RPG that would kill both of us before we'd even have a chance to take cover and on at least 2 occasions one of us died during the mission opening cinematic literally before we even had control. Coupled with the issue number 1 this makes for a very poor gaming experience. I understand this is project is intended to illustrate the realities and unpredictability of war but there is still a fine line to walk here where if I am spending more time looking at a loading screen than playing the game because I died instantly then IMO it's kinda missing the mark. If this sort of thing was a fairly rare occurrence just to create a level of tension knowing that it COULD happen that would be one thing but when it is about every 2nd or 3rd round it gets pretty grating and starts to feel more like a loading screen simulator than an mil-sim shooter.

3. Not having any control or understanding of my load out before the mission start is a problem I know there is a role selection in the lobby but the 4 roles do not adequately explain what is in each kit as you really only get a symbol. Some sort of load out manager were I can at the very least view my load out while in the lobby would be great and reduce a lot of frustration regarding figuring out what is in my kit before I am being blown up by RPGs in the first 10 seconds.

4. Please for the love of god have support for FULL keybinding including contextual and multi-key inputs. Personally I play with ESDF instead of WASD. This means my "Interact" key gets rebound from F to A. So when I need to breach a door and need to press [SHIFT + A] it makes things a little awkward and my choices are to either completely alter the control scheme and move the interact key to something other than A or shift my whole hand to the left for that one action. Neither is really a great option. So it would be much better of you listed these contextual controls in the key binding options so that the very least people like me are aware of those when altering key bindings.

[♂TheBlasterMaster™✞]

There are many free and paid rebind utilities that will allow you to rebind WASD to ESDF. Procedurally generated maps are crucial to this game, this (among other things) sets it aside from the competitors and greatly improved the replayability.
Maybe you don't understand that this is early, Early Access?
There are things I am waiting for also like better optimization. This is all part of EA.
It's nice you spending the time for all this information but leaving rather than waiting seems to contradict Early Access.

[AmperCamper]

Thanks for taking the time to write this up for us. Some thoughts:

1. We've made huge improvements to our load times since we launched into Early Access, and this work is ongoing.
   
2. We've collected this feedback before, and I'll update the community wishlist on this one. This is good feedback for us.
   
3. There are many improvements we want to make to our onboarding and systems, too. Thanks for raising this one.
   
4. I'll take this to the team, too. We've had discussions on keybinds in the past, and we'll revisit.

[Mudroc]

I've read multiple gamers address concerns of losing before the simulation even begins. I think it's important for the simulation to begin with the player's themselves establishing their own situational awareness that way the onus of their survival is on them.

To be fair, when I first booted up the game in July I fully expected for the simulation to start us in a "safe" part of virtual Fallujah away from the established front lines. I was expecting there to be a portion of ingame time for the TL and others to get their bearings and establish what the FRAGO is and delegate responsibilities accordingly.

Maybe if possible, you can have the simulation start one block away from the frontlines. Maybe inside this safe zone game time doesnt begin until the first person crosses beyond the safezone (line of departure). Assuming that the AI doesn't already know where the player's avatar is the player's will now have the opportunity to feel the tension of what its like to walk into contact, by always keeping their head on a swivel.

Just an idea... thanks for all your hard work HW! Im looking forward to the future updates.

[yuki]

Sometimes in the Jolan mission i sometimes immediately get killed by an rpg before the game even hands controls over to the player, leading to another long loading screen.

Seems to happen every now and then when playing solo but rarely happens playing with a squad

[tandeb99arg]

That´s AI (like real life)

[Lukas]

Originally posted by Mudroc:

To be fair, when I first booted up the game in July I fully expected for the simulation to start us in a "safe" part of virtual Fallujah away from the established front lines. I was expecting there to be a portion of ingame time for the TL and others to get their bearings and establish what the FRAGO is and delegate responsibilities accordingly.

Maybe if possible, you can have the simulation start one block away from the frontlines. Maybe inside this safe zone game time doesnt begin until the first person crosses beyond the safezone (line of departure). Assuming that the AI doesn't already know where the player's avatar is the player's will now have the opportunity to feel the tension of what its like to walk into contact, by always keeping their head on a swivel.

I agree, I hope we do get something like this. Sounds realistic and better for gameplay overall. It also reinforces that feeling of heading into the unknown and crossing that line into danger.
Even if it's not a block away, I'd love to have that whole idea integrated in some way.

[Pofkeh]

I only play this game with 1 buddy and every map is nearly impossible to finish. i get the realism but it also needs to be fun and its lacking that. the intense shaking of the screen when getting hit is horrible.

[♂TheBlasterMaster™✞]

Originally posted by Pofkeh:

I only play this game with 1 buddy and every map is nearly impossible to finish. i get the realism but it also needs to be fun and its lacking that. the intense shaking of the screen when getting hit is horrible.

Try it solo. It's a beating. I bought this for solo play and with the team ai pushed back, it looks like I will have to put this away for 3-4 months. Sad :(

[Just Juicy]

Why ESDF ? Just asking.

[Blue]

Originally posted by Just Juicy 你好烂:

Why ESDF ? Just asking.

Because he wants to?

[Lukas]

Originally posted by ♂TheBlasterMaster™✞:

Originally posted by Pofkeh:

I only play this game with 1 buddy and every map is nearly impossible to finish. i get the realism but it also needs to be fun and its lacking that. the intense shaking of the screen when getting hit is horrible.

Try it solo. It's a beating. I bought this for solo play and with the team ai pushed back, it looks like I will have to put this away for 3-4 months. Sad :(

I play solo on train station all the time and beat it numerous times, it's not that punishing when you remove time limit. As for the other missions, the only other one I've beaten solo was the convoy.

[HardStrike]

Im in the same boat, i had also planned to grab it again this december or during the current sale actually, because of the single player update, but now thats been pushed back to Q1, which possibly means 4 months from now.

I tried it with my friend, the game is fun, although lacking in some areas, but with only 2 people it is very difficult and i feel like you dont get the full experience.

Matchmaking with randoms is overall a bad experience and you sometimes get people that likes to work together but usually half the team splits up and do whatever they want, then die, hot mics with background noises, people watching ♥♥♥♥ on their phone, idiocy, people insulting each other.

With the already low and decreasing player count this makes it so you often end up again with the same people.

[♂TheBlasterMaster™✞]

How is the pub community for random coop games?

[Cosmic]

Thanks for letting everyone know full keybinding is an issue.
I'd refund once I find out any game thinks their keybindings in a FPS is universal.

[Bullet9578]

Originally posted by Pofkeh:

I only play this game with 1 buddy and every map is nearly impossible to finish. i get the realism but it also needs to be fun and its lacking that. the intense shaking of the screen when getting hit is horrible.

I've played all 4 maps with just my buddy the only one we can't beat is the convoy mission. We treat it like army of 2 and win the majority of the time. It's all about communication and taking it slow. Gotta have a decent headset so you can hear the enemy hopping walls and defenses so you can determine if they are trying to flank you or not.

Usually we stack up and breach together so we can establish fire superiority and one of us will cover the rear once we enter the building. We try to make it a habit of leaving the building the same way we entered so we don't engage the enemy directly. It's doable, you just need to work together.