Worth getting now?

[PixelNuts]

I see the game had an update which fixed some issues. Would you recommend the game on its current state for 20% off (gmg)? Or wait for steam sales to maybe get a bigger discount (which I doubt because it's a recent game)?

[jep]

Do you have a pre-Ryzen AMD? They've fixed most of the problems with it but not all. Also, you might want to watch some videos of people playing the first 30 minutes or so of it. For most people, it's good. But it's not some other people's cup of tea (hence the "mostly positive"). And for a bunch of others, it's a chance to give a game that uses a certain kind of DRM a bad review (review score would probably be higher).

It might help if you said what kind of things you like in turn-based tactical games (or if you've not played them). Maybe some games (XCOM, for example) and which parts you liked and didn't like about them.

[PixelNuts]

Originally posted by jep:

Do you have a pre-Ryzen AMD? They've fixed most of the problems with it but not all. Also, you might want to watch some videos of people playing the first 30 minutes or so of it. For most people, it's good. But it's not some other people's cup of tea (hence the "mostly positive"). And for a bunch of others, it's a chance to give a game that uses a certain kind of DRM a bad review (review score would probably be higher).

It might help if you said what kind of things you like in turn-based tactical games (or if you've not played them). Maybe some games (XCOM, for example) and which parts you liked and didn't like about them.

Well I love XCOM games so I immediately got interested in this one, I know this is not a XCOM with animal skins, it's more focused on its story telling, rpg aspect and very linear if I'm correct.
But what I mean is that some people were complaining about some bugs back then and the stealth not being very efficient. Are some of these issues fixed?

[jep]

Originally posted by PixelNuts:

Well I love XCOM games so I immediately got interested in this one, I know this is not a XCOM with animal skins, it's more focused on its story telling, rpg aspect and very linear if I'm correct.

I am also a long-time XCOM fan. This game has aspects of it, but is definitely not the same. In many ways, XCOM is a much bigger game: more missions, weapons, armor, items, soldiers, skills and "balls in the air". There is no base-building and research layer in this game as in XCOM. This is where the RPG aspect comes in. But closer to an action-RPG than a JRPG. I say that because there is no difference between the world of the "walking around exploring" and the "now I'm getting into a battle" mode. As soon as you start a fight, it switches from the 3rd person realtime view to a turn-based XCOM-ish view. It has the "two actions with some actions like shooting ending your turn" approach.

Most of the time, you will plan your attacks by looking scouting the area and finding all the patrolling enemies. You'll try to fight them all one at a time using your "silent" weapons (crossbow and pistol with silencer to start with) to take them out before they can even get a hit in on you. You make sure you are positioned correctly before ambushing them, as the hit %s here only go "no chance to hit", 25%, 50%, 75%, 100%, "out of range" and "no line of fire" depending on cover and geometry. Chance to hit is modified by range (the further you are away, the more of a range penalty you get based on the range of your weapon), cover and height difference. Critical hits are also a big part, with you boosting that % mostly by choosing certain skills, wearing certain equipment and attaching certain weapon mods. For example, one hat might give you +20% chance to crit when you shoot from while hidden (if you hide before you ambush, you stay hidden until you take a shot).

If you don't take the guy down in the first round, they will generally call over buddies from a large portion (sometimes all) of the map. There are no "pods" like in XCOM that you just find, destroy, repeat without worrying about the noise you are making. Sometimes it can be a bit silly because you can silently kill someone just outside his buddy's sigh radius and they never notice. But such is the way of these games that are not very realistic simulations.

So lots of stealth kills. Once you realize what you can do with it, I'd say 90% of your kills can be stealth kills. Which can be totally boring to some people. Personally, I found that I loved scoping out all the enemy patrols and taking them down one at a time. It's more of a puzzle than a battle.

Also, overwatch generally isn't as big of a thing, I'd say. And smoke grenades work more logically (they prevent people from shooting you with accuracy, but they also prevent YOU from shooting out of them because you can't see through the smoke either.) There are some other little things like that but this has gone on enough already.

Last thing in terms of gameplay I'll say are the mutations. As you kill enemies, you quickly "level up", which really just means you get points to spend on mutations. These are like the skills/perks you get in XCOM. Except it's not so much a choice between one skill or the other. You can spend your points however you like, but there are choke points where you have to get a certain mutation before you can get others. Also, just like you choose weapons and armor, you choose the specific mutations you want equipped as a kind of loadout. You don't get all mutations all the time. You choose one that is a passive (like the XCOM "half cover is full cover"), one that is a "minor" and one that is a "major". The last two aren't really all that different like the passive is. Basically, it means at most you will have two skills to choose from in battle. And these skills aren't on turn-based cooldowns like in XCOM. They require a certain number of kills to "unlock". In Hard mode, they always unlock after the battle is over. But in Very Hard mode (what the devs say is the intended mode, and what I would recommend an XCOM player choose), they only unlock after you get those kills. All kills are shared kills for unlocks and leveling, btw.

But what I mean is that some people were complaining about some bugs back then and the stealth not being very efficient. Are some of these issues fixed?

The worst bugs were on pre-Ryzen AMD chips (and older model) and consoles. They fixed most of the former but I hear there's still some minor issues. I'd say the console experience is still a problem for a lot of people and would avoid it for a while. But you're saying steam so PC, so that's why I ask about your CPU.

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Okay, I hope that was helpful and not just a whole wall of text.

[PixelNuts]

That was really helpful indeed. Thank you very much!!!!
And I don't use a ryzen cpu so I think I'm fine without those specific issues haha

[jep]

Thanks! But just to be clear, it was a PRE-Ryzen AMD cpu. If you're on an intel CPU or a Ryzen AMD (which it seems was the AMDs introduced around early 2017), you should be in the clear for the widespread issues. But if you've done much PC gaming (and it sounds like you have), you know there's always plenty of weird random crap that can rear its head!

[jep]

Oh, I just remembered you asked me about how linear it is. There is one single plot mission and no side-plots. It's a shortish game (15-20 hours for most people), so there's only really maybe four or five "you must go here now and have this fight" parts. But there are a lot of side areas with enemies and fights that are completely optional. Mainly they're there so you can scavenge scrap/gun parts and get loot. Some loot is out in the open and some you must defeat the enemies to get.

There aren't any "branching paths" or "your decisions make a different" parts (well, there is ONE like that, but they kind of dropped the ball in one ending which makes it kind of feel that it ultimately didn't matter). But that's not different than a whole lot of RPGs. A lot of them give you the feeling that you're making a choice, but really the same thing was going to happen in the end. :D

[dominuskevin]

I'm running an AMD Phenom 2 X4 840T and I haven't noticed any problems with exception for one logo at startup, which I couldn't care less about.

[jep]

Originally posted by dominuskevin:

I'm running an AMD Phenom 2 X4 840T and I haven't noticed any problems with exception for one logo at startup, which I couldn't care less about.

They did say it was some combination of video, audio and CPU, so not every pre-Ryzen would be affected. But that was a big part of it.

If you're interested in didn't already know, you can skip the logos by deleting the movies. There's still a decent startup time, though.

[PixelNuts]

Thank you guys! I might buy the game today. Also, 20%off worth for the game content right?

[jep]

I'd say so, but some % of people say not. I'd say from the steam reviews, the majority say it's worth it. But you can never know these things for sure.

[dominuskevin]

Originally posted by jep:

Originally posted by dominuskevin:

I'm running an AMD Phenom 2 X4 840T and I haven't noticed any problems with exception for one logo at startup, which I couldn't care less about.

They did say it was some combination of video, audio and CPU, so not every pre-Ryzen would be affected. But that was a big part of it.

If you're interested in didn't already know, you can skip the logos by deleting the movies. There's still a decent startup time, though.

I thought about doing that but after many years of playing I don't let it bother me. The one thing that still irks me is having to press a button to get it to go to the main menu. Why? Whom may ask came up with the silly idea of making me push a button when I already made the effort of clicking the mouse to start the game in the first place? Doesn't make any sense. Not on pcs or consoles. Someone needs to be pulled out by the ear and given a swift kick in the rear to the curb.And, yes I know this started a long time back. Why is carried over from consoles to pcs?