Feedback for the mode "Dead Out Salvation"

[Unseen Unit]

EDIT: (October 2023).
The problem mentionned in this first post is fixed, since the gamemode was updated.
So this irrelevant now, you can skip to third post for more feedback.
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I've a problem with the mode: Dead Out Salvation.

It's not possible to flip your car back on the wheels if it lands on the roof (it happened since you updated it in February).

It was working previously (when you released it for the first time). I know that because I tried the first iteration. Then you retired this game mode and reintroduces later (after you worked on it for few months), but you forgot to add the abilitity to flip your car. You removed the "mighty foot" feature and replaced it by a janky melee animation. And to be honest the melee system is kinda pointless anyways (the hit registration was a bit better with the kick).

So I wasn't able to finish this mode back when this mode was released for the first time (mainly because of time constraints). But now this mode is nearly impossible to finish because you've no way to flip in back on wheels (bosses or others things can flip your car very easily) and so it's ruining your progression during your playthrough.

Because:
1- You've to return to your spawn on foot to get a new car and not die in the process.

2- Even if you reach the spawn you'll lose your money, upgrades and waste lot of time.

3- Most zombies you killed will respawn on the path you already cleaned previously to reach each bosses.

And to think you've to finish this gamemode 2 or maybe 3 times (if i'm right) to unlock 3 rewards make the experience very frustrating, I tried multiples runs already an I gave up because this is just sheer dumb luck to stay on your wheels for a long period of time. Most people will need like around 40 min to be able to complete this game mode for the first time.

I've also tried to press every keys with my keyboard and I even tried to play with an Xbox One controller (and also try to pressed every buttons) just in case I miss something but I was never able to flip my car ever again on this gamemode. In fact the HUD indicates: "flip your car with your feet", but since the update, your character only uses melee attacks instead (so using his arms does nothing to flip the car).

I know you want to move forward with your team after this 1 Year Anniversary Update but I do hope you can take the time to fix this because without it, this gamemode is kinda broken and all the work and efforts you put in it, will be somehow wasted for the people who want to complete it without losing their mind.

Thanks in advance.

[Unseen Unit]

Using both light and melee attacks.

On the roof:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039001282

On the side:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3039001347

Still impossible to flip the car to this day.

[Unseen Unit]

Well, the problem in my previous post is now fixed since the last big patch about this gamemode, we're now able to flip the car back on wheels with the melee attack.
Better late than never, I guess.

Finally I was able to fully complete Dead Out: Salvation for the first time !
But it was hell for me because this game mode took me literally 2 hours to complete. Yeah 2 fu.cking hours for a single run (after many attempts months ago as explained in my initial post).

I suck at this gamemode (no doubt), especially considering the current best times in the leaderboards.

I was close to die (like 10 times) during this successful run, because my car was destroyed several times.

After my battle against Joe Boomer, I almost lose 90 min of progression:
I collected his soul and on my way back to the spawn, my car exploded when I left the suburb area because of a smaller zombie boss died on me, so I escaped on foot to get a new car.

When I was about to collect the container again, I suddently realised the horror I was facing, that container landed right behind a "decorative" military truck due to the explosion of my car (at this point it was my boss 4 out of 5) as you can see here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3070834807

And I quickly realised than I can't get it back on my car's roof !
At this point I was thinking: "Fu.ck me, this container is stuck, it's game over man".

But I got the idea to push it with my machine gun (but it didn't work):

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3070834989

And so I tried with the melee weapon and this time it worked after few hits !
But I think I hit the military truck while doing so, and suddently this truck exploded along with my car parked next to it.

I almost died in that huge explosion.

Thanksfully I survived somehow and I managed to join my base to spawn a new car (again) and get that soul container for good this time !

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3070834575

What a fu.cking relief to not lose all my progression here.

At least I'm glad I completed this gamemode and got all 3 rewards in a single run. Instead of having to do it 2 more times to get others bonuses for the main game (like it was previously the case).

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Now I wanted to share my opinion and few suggestions:

I think you should nerf the difficulty of the bosses in general or offer the possibility to choose a difficulty level.
It takes a lot of deaths to know how to play it. Since there's no detailled tutorials and you can't change your keys which is kinda annoying and quite brutal when you're not familiar with that thing.

My 2 cents about the bosses:

Big Cheese:
-This is the best boss to me (not too hard and easy to understand how to beat him).

Frau Uber:
-Hard to shoot because she's fast and invisible most of the time (unless you've a few Flexnight in your arsenal).

Yuji Than:
-Too fast and you need to land multiple "Valkyrie missiles" on her for heavy damage. I finally got it but by pure luck. She died in my car explosion. And I almost died with her. I just hate that boss.

Joe Boomer:
-Same as Yuji Than but worse, since the area is crowded with zombies and smaller bosses, my framerate was tanked at like 20 fps or something for few seconds due to explosions and gibs everywhere (when I'm usually above 60 frames).

Sonia Mass:
-Also requires "Valkyrie missiles" to hit her while she's was flying. I guess others weapons are useless against her in final form.

The Robot (new "boss"):
-This robot is kinda annoying because he can do a lot of damage and he'll follows you on a great distance, even if you start to fight one of the 5 big bosses above. Looks like you need a ton of bullets to take him down (haven't tried Valkyrie missiles on him), but the double shotgun upgrade for your car totally worth it imo.

Overall my experience was quite stressful and for bad reasons:

I disliked almost every bosses due to the lack of aimlock or something belong these lines with "Valkyrie missiles". If you miss your shots, you just lose a ton of money and potential damage.

And it's hard to judge the correct distances between you and your target.
And since most of bosses move really fast, you'll miss a lot. Especially while you're under heavy pressure (from the boss itself + the crowd of zombies around you) and when you've sudden and massive frame drops for the reasons I mentionned above.

The fact you can't also rebind your keys can also screw you up sometimes when you're under pressure of course. Like if you want to get out of your car because immediate danger (and then you press E) but you land a mine instead and some zombies next to you can trigger it and you'll explode with them.

Because yeah pressing "E" make sense to "Enter" or "Exit" a vehicle while reloading you weapon with "A" is really counter intuitive. Especially since most FPS, FPS RPG and Open World games that use WASD/ZQSD layouts use the key "R" to Reload and "E" for almost every main interaction to enter something (open a door, enter into a vehicle, etc...).

I also think the respawn of zombies for some areas tha you already cleared to reach a boss are kinda annoying (or at least their respawn are too fast). And when bosses can regenerate a good chunk of their health pool if you return to your spawn to repair your vehicule and reload your weapons.

At the end I still feels this gamemode is half baked and runs even worse than the main game in some occasions. But I also think this gamemode is a cool addition for Trail Out and despites my pain, I kinda enjoyed some parts of it. I might replay it because I certainly missed few things in the map.

So with few tweaks (and a good optimisation pass), it will be less frustrating and repetitive, and surely a better experience for the people like me who don't want to invest too much time to learn everything and get a time under 30 min or less to complete it from start to finish.

I know for sure I will never have the patience to get into the leaderboards here, this is kinda strange because outside of this gamemode, I think Trail Out is very easy even in maximum difficulty as soon as you unlocked some decent cars and components (which happens quite soon in the game). I'm often way ahead of the AI cars after just 1 lap. Dead Out: Salvation is less more forgiving to me.

Anyways I hope this feedback will be useful for you and hope this can leads to few adjustements for the near future.

And thank you again, Trail Out is really a super fun game despites few problems. I play it since a year now (and on a regular basis) and everytime an update drops, I feels this game gets better and better.