Is is worth buying the EA right now ?

[Flare Gun Marksman]

EDIT thanks for the answers and clarifications. Despite my better judgement I've sprung for it, let's see where this game goes !

I hesitate to buy the full game. I have questions to help me decide and I have some feedback on the demo.

I'll keep my questions short :
1) I know the full game offers 3 more finished maps, alternative player characters, some spooky enemies... but besides all that sweet sweet content, are there notable bugfixes and UX/UI improvements for someone coming from the demo (which came out a month ago I believe) onto the current version ? I found patch notes on Discord that mention "UI fixes", "Scopes improvements" as well as some out-of-bound fixes for the other maps, but it's not very telling. If you've had the game before the demo or even from the start, please give me your impression of the improvements.
2) Is there anything I'm missing/misunderstanding about the water drama or the current state of the AI ? As you can see I have a lot of feedback, but really the water thing and the bad AI are my main problems.
3) If I'm dead wrong about something else in the wall-of-text below, please let me know too (not forum debate bait I promise).


Here's my not-short take on the demo after 7-8h spent on it, basically the review I'll post once I figure out if I'm actually buying this game or not:

The Good

+ The atmosphere is amazing. I could write about it all day. No offense to the game design team, I'm sure they helped equally to set the game's tone, but maaaaan the art direction is incredible! Environments are gorgeous in an "Zdzisław Beksiński meets BLAME!" way that I didn't know I wanted to see. The setting is original enough to stand out on its own, yet Fun Dog went beyond just a cool vibe. Instead they give you mind-blowing landscapes, cool character designs, a solid OST and last but not least, some kick-ass trailers (seriously, go to their Youtube and give their channel a look right now then come back to this ; their media team deserves your views). The worldbuilding reminds me of Akira, Gone With The Blastwave[www.blastwave-comic.com], Degenesis[degenesis.com], and a million other references. I mean it when I say : the demo stands on its own besides all the artists and creations I just mentioned, as a new creative equal. I would buy a concept art book in a heartbeat.

+ The core gameplay is right up my alley, it feels great. As far as win conditions go it's an extraction shooter, like Tarkov or Hunt : but where these two are "PvPvE", this game is instead a self-described "PvEvE" with most of the killcount belonging to the two AI factions. Feeling-wise it's essentially a hybrid between Marauders' gritty scavenger gameplay and GTFO' unforgiving trigger discipline, with a punk attitude on top : it scratches my itch for looting, sneaking, taking opportunity fights, exploring, and finally dying to greed or cashing out in time. Much like the 4 games referenced, playing with friends helps a lot but going at it solo is enjoyable too.

+ The identity is clear and the game does exactly what is says on the tin : you start small as a basic troop in an end-game RTS map full of mechs and armies, you succeed by keeping quiet and smart, all the while feeling like the rat you're supposed to be. If you're a good rat, you go home with rewards. And each time you go back out, you do it with more knowledge and a better kit. Or you go back wih the default free stuff plus a new lesson learned. It's a brutal, tense and in a way, honest experience.

+ There will be a lot of talk below about bugs, tech issues, quality assurance stuff... But as far as performances and stability go, the demo runs smoothly at my screen's refresh rate and I've had only one freeze. No idea I'm lucky or if the multiple reports about poor performances are exaggerated.

+ Speaking of : devs announced very publicly (literally via the Early Acces announcement) that they would never go to subscription-based, pay2win or DLC-abusive financial models. Just cosmetics (maybe season pass mechanics, idk) and a pricetag increase as the early access nears its end were mentioned in their intentions. Classic, ethic, respectable. It shouldn't be rare enough for me to mention, but it is, so I do.

+ The demo gets me in that "one more run" mindset really easily. Even with only one character and one map available, I've found the demo has a respectable amount of content that lends itself well to be played through again and again. Hell, I've got something like 8 hours sunk in a free demo and want to get back to it after this wall of text is done. You can memorize the spawns, learn the trigger caps for Hunter-Killer, trivialize or skip some of the rat routine... and still, every expedition I'm feeling the tension, the rewards, the adrenaline.

---

The Bad

- There are a lot of bugs. Like, an "old-school early access" amount of bugs. Some are okay or even funny, like most patrols running back and forth on the same 4-meter path after their spawn fight is finished, tanks flying across the map like I'm playing Planetside 2, regular helicopters moving on all axis like an FPV drone, a flashlight that reverse-shines at you, ragdolls that glitch and warp... not major bugs, but still surprising to see on a game that's so polished on other aspects.

- Some bugs are really not okay. I've fallen out of the map, got stuck inside hills or buildings a lot and lost all hope of getting that loot back - not great when the whole game encourages the player to hug buildings and move along the edge of the playable zone. I've had assassination targets that spawn on unreachable terrain- not great when you have to loot that damn sniper's rifle to complete the quest but he spawned and died on top of an unclimbable piece of the level. Gun attachments fail to load or to update until you're in the next mission - not great when you want to know what your 20+ optics would look like so you risk losing your favorite rifle by going in a mission for each scope/sight to update. Any unlooted corpse will disappear if you dare to walk away for two minutes - not great on a game that encourages you to take your time, scout your surroundings and manage safe places to circle back to.

- Navigating some of the menus is very rough. Which is a shame, because the actual in-game HUD isn't bad. Some games might have a rigid, opaque, or overwhelming UI style as a choice, but here we just have bad UI/UX practices in the menus. The whole weapon mod & preset menus flow makes very little sense - you need to start a customization in order to reach the presets menu, from which you can then delete a preset (and nowhere else). If you want to see the details of an active quest, you better go into a unrelated faction's quest menu before you can click on the quest you've already accepted. The stash has tabs for object types, sub-tabs for stuff like weapon types, but if you want to browse your weapon mods you won't see them outside of the sell-to-vendor screen (or a compatible weapon, but good luck knowing which weapon can take the silencer you just bought without checking each one). If you want to know how many backups of a weapon or a weapon part you have left, tell me, because I have no idea where that would be shown. The in-game inventory has a capacity and a weight system, but I have no idea what weight does - certainly doesn't stop me from running and looting even more when I'm at 30/26kg. I really hope it doesn't become important because the tooltips will describe an item but not tell me how much capacity and weight the item has. I've never had a box of 9mm in one hand and a luxe brandy bottle in the other and have no idea what would be lighter.

- Despite the very cool-sounding assurances of Fun Dog, it's still a 30 buck pricetag for an early access game with no estimated release date and with as much work left as it has potential. That price is what i can pay for a fully finished game from last year : it's not a dealbreaker, but it's still a serious bet to place on an EA game developed by a new studio. No one should forget the Zombie Survival War Z epidemic that plagued Steam since last decade and so I'm automatically sceptical when I see those kinds of prices.
Especially considering the three clownpoints below.

---

The Silly

· I praised the soundtrack earlier, but I'm looking at the overall design audio I have to say it's pretty bad. The mixing is largely the worst part (a helicopter hovering above me is barely audible even if there isn't a patrol on the other side of the plains whose radio chatter is louder than gunfire), with unpleasant volume changes and unrealistic distancing. Every unit has their own SFX (good !) that constantly play with little variation (less good !). The spatialization also feels all over the place, confusing and less than helpful.
Now this game isn't trying to one-up audio-centered games like Hunt 1896 or GTFO in terms of "seeing with your ears", and that is fine. But it feels like there is a lot more post-production needed before the audio comes close to the rest of the game's quality. It's not a catastrophe but it's just very, very bizarre to have such a vast quality gap between the visual and the audio experiences.

· Most of the recent negative reviews are only talking about one thing : the water supply system. Which is a valid concern : even if water is easy to acquire and stockpile, requiring players to log in twice a week or lose their personal progression is a very weird thing to ask. It's already a niche game, with a lot of qualities that makes you want to come back, why graft such an artificial system that makes me feel like my rewards are held hostage ? Water already feels important to find and hoard as most progress is tied to how much days' worth you can bring back. At least offer up some second chances, like a hard objective that you need to complete with beginner gear in order to restore your hub to its previous glory. The Early Access decision has me fearing progress wipes enough as it is, please don't make me fear going offline for a week. I haven't seen any reasoning or response to this understandable player reaction, in the public part of the Discord or over here. There's enough games out there that hound their players to grind weekly or be left behind. No need to add to the pile.
That being said, I also find it silly that people leave a negative review that focuses only on this one thing and turns people away from even knowing how cool the game looks and feel. It's a fresh early access, don't bash a single element that might the same in 6 months. Deep down, we all know some of those reviews will be forgotten and unchanged by their authors once the devs fix this absurd feature. Id' like to mention that the previous main concern was the spawn rate and conditions of Hunter-Killers, which devs have addressed as a priority.

· One of the game's pillars is the promised experience of a scav life : to make your way through a terrifying AI vs AI battlefield, by being a good rat, rewarded for being smart and fast. This narrative is a core element of the game's identity, but boy oh boy is that immersion quickly broken by the lack of I in that AI. Opposing infantries sometimes shoulder-check each other without opening fire. When they do engage each other, they either run in a straight line or freeze in place and shoot until they're dead. Squads work as hive-minds that follow the same focus at the same time, reacting and changing their minds as a mindless group. Those groups also have the pathfinding of a Skyrim companion NPC : they climb up and down boxes, get stuck, and suddenly spin around moonwalk-style. Patrols spawn and despawn around you so fast you never know what will happen if you look behind you. The most common infantry are melee cyborgs or rifle footsoldiers, only dangerous when you let them get close (and there's too many to shotgun-stunlock) : too bad that the enemies most commonly spawned in my face without warning are 3 to 5 of exactly those enemies. I've seen lonely soldiers fire their basic rifle of infinite ammo at giant mechs in the open with no cover, waiting for a merciful end. Squads sometimes walk on your foot without noticing you and sometimes they spotting you through cover from a dozen meters : on average, they still have amazing senses when they're looking for a player, but not when looking for enemy AI.
All those AI issues really screw with the expectation of being rewarded for going slow and predicting the enemy's objective. Thankfully in the demo, the balancing is mostly on the player's side for now, so running away while spamming heals is often enough to survive.


Oh well, turns out I had a lot more to say than I thought. Feels kinda dumb to do a writeup for a demo from a month ago. Tried to do some markup format to make it easier.
If devs read me : sorry for the Skyrim NPC joke (: and thank you for a superb if frustrating demo.

[Chibbity]

1. There have been a few improvements/bug fixes, and they added DLSS/FSR which helped performance quite a bit, but this is still a VERY Early Access title with lots of bugs; rough around the edges is an understatement.

2. You seem to have misunderstood the water system since you say you need to login "twice a week"; which isn't true at all. 1 water = 1 real time day. You can store 55 days of water by default, and more with upgrades. Water is awarded from repeatable quests, and found in levels as loot; amassing a large stockpile of water to last you months is not very difficult to do. There is also now a second chance mechanic when you run out, requiring you to defend your base from water thieves; if you manage to defeat them you can loot some water off them and continue playing without an equipment/base wipe.

The AI is functional, but not terribly impressive; definitely has issues that need polishing. One thing you might have misunderstood is that two of the three factions are actually allies, which would explain why you saw troops not engaging each other.

3. I think your review is mostly fair, TFW is a promising concept of an experience, that is currently a very bare bones skeleton of a game; however that's to be expected for an Early Access game. If you aren't here to play the game as it evolves, give feedback, and report bugs to the dev's; you should prolly wait for the game to get more updates before purchasing.

[Sleepy]

Honestly, give it a year. Right now it's super bare bones for $30. You'll be pretty bored with it in a week or two. And that's when you'll realize how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the water system is. It creates an ultimatum to do a mindless grind after you've run out of natural incentives to play. And doing that in what is essentially a paid beta is extremely dumb. It's the reason player numbers are super low. https://steamcharts.com/app/2828860

The big reason I say wait though, is because gimmicky stuff like this is a big sign that the dev lacks confidence in their own abilities. And right now it's in a pretty rough state. Time will tell if they are even capable of delivering on their vision. Currently, it does not even come close, and what was added over the last patch was pretty sloppy. Which tells me it's probably going to take them a while to get it right.

There's a lot I like about the game, and I want to see it deliver and do well, but this bun isn't even close to done in the oven yet.

[Panther]

Originally posted by Sleepy:

And that's when you'll realize how ♥♥♥♥♥♥ the water system is. It creates an ultimatum to do a mindless grind after you've run out of natural incentives to play. And doing that in what is essentially a paid beta is extremely dumb. It's the reason player numbers are super low.

Isn't that just attribution theory, like instead saying the reason the player count is so low is because everyone feels so comfortable waiting for an update as water isn't an issue.
It's just me arriving at some causal explanation.

Think it's more likely players are taking breaks between updates, minecraft early alpha style. Imagine getting pedantic about player counts when there was nothing to do but drop a block, considering the overwhelming success it became afterwards.

It's a niche but there are still a lot of players who enjoy the these types of mechanics, enough to experience the real issues the game has. Could it fail, sure, but it won't be because of the water.

[Flare Gun Marksman]

Thanks for the answers folks, I think I'll just leave a wishlist and check in next update. Not opposed to helping out with QA reports and line design feedbacks but that price stings.

Although @Chibbity could you explain a couple of things to me ?
■ I understand I can acquire water pretty easily, maybe quickly, and that I can stock up to have a lot more than a week since the inventory has no limit that I saw. However I thought that water sitting in your stash doesn't count and you have to manually add it to the Innards' water system, which can't take more than 7 water at once (4 in the demo anyway, that's why I said "twice a week"). Is this not correct ? Can the player actually go AFK for a month and the hoarded water will be used normally ?
■ So the water thieves shown in the october trailer are the second chance mechanic I was hoping for. Without spoiling the mission itself, would you mind telling me how much of a second chance it really is ? Do I have to do it the day after the water runs out or will it "wait" for the player to return ? Is there another catch to it besides "if you fail, now you've really lost it" ?
Thanks for fact checking me on the rest, I appreciate it (missed the alliance between Euruska and Eurasia like you said).

[Panther]

Originally posted by Silent Bill:

■ I understand I can acquire water pretty easily, maybe quickly, and that I can stock up to have a lot more than a week since the inventory has no limit that I saw. However I thought that water sitting in your stash doesn't count and you have to manually add it to the Innards' water system, which can't take more than 7 water at once (4 in the demo anyway, that's why I said "twice a week"). Is this not correct ? Can the player actually go AFK for a month and the hoarded water will be used normally ?

Can hold 50 initially, 99 with upgrades, and unlimited in your stash to move over once that runs down.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3364367696
Scrapyard farm can earn around water 1 per minute without picking up any at all, just farming quests.