Originally I posted that I would recommend it. It is a very fun game by design. The survival aspect of it pulled me in quickly. I think most of the mechanics are well thought out and fun in theory. Thrall breaking, thralls crafting special armor, climbing, special foods, etc. Really imaginative. GREAT atmosphere. Immersion is up there with the best of them.
However this game is 2 years old since release and is riddled with so many game breaking/and or frustrating bugs and/or glitches that I can’t conscientiously recommend it to friends because I know the state of this game will leave them scratching their head at me.
I am yet to sit down and play a single session of this game on Xbox One or PC that wasn’t littered with bugs. It’s 2 years old and not one play session in this entire time I’ve been playing it have I managed to play without a bug rearing it’s ugly head. I would consider a play session anytime I spent 15 uninterrupted minutes or more engaged in the game, regardless of activity.
I commonly encounter when playing this game:
-Inventory cursor disappearing
-Stamina continues to drain for several seconds after I stop sprinting ( also happens on horse randomly)
-Equipping a bow from the hot wheel/bar with a random delay that keeps me from shooting for up to 4 seconds
-Random delay in even equipping a bow from the hot bar/wheel
-Knocked out thralls falling through the terrain
-Knocked out thralls standing there like a statue and being unable to be captured
-Building pieces won’t place at all. Sometimes a restart of the game or simply replacing a random piece will cure it. Sometimes not.
-Building pieces that won’t face a particular direction for no apparent reason. Such as putting a slanted piece (ramp, sloped piece, etc) on a block or wall piece.
-When crafting multiple items often times the “max” icon will be greyed out or when activated it won’t actually craft the max possible. I’ll have to craft 1 item, or 10 to get the “max” option to unfreeze so it can be used.
-Stamina not regenerating. I’ve had my stamina bar frozen at empty for 10 to 15 seconds before while standing still and it doesn’t regenerate at all, even with the increased regen perk.
-The target lock on feature will randomly switch targets. Often times it will even select a target that is farther away than you could lock onto intentionally.
-Entire food randomly cooking in an instant. ( Doesn’t hurt the player but is clearly a bug)
-Crafting stations randomly stopping without running out of materials/fuel/etc.
-Intense stutter/freezing/delay when opening containers/crafting stations. (on Xbox One)
Combat glitches are numerous and terrible, here is the SHORT list:
-Attacks don’t give a hit indicator despite passing right through a target
-Enemies completely out of range or facing the wrong direction get a hit on your avatar
-Rolling creates a rubber band effect that puts you right back into the path of a hit.
-Rolling/dodge rubber band effect can trap your character between multiple enemies or terrain and get you killed in a situation where recovering your time consuming to acquire items can’t be recovered.
-Invisible enemies attacking your character, sometimes they are completely invisible, sometimes you can see their weapons.
-Healing arrows not healing your thrall
-Poison arrows that no matter where you aim will hit and explode in the same exact spot your last arrow was fired.
-Thralls not engaging in combat at all.
-Thralls disengaging in the middle of combat.
-Thrall attacks so severely delayed that they can’t effectively get off an attack even on a slow moving/crippled target.
-Thrall attacks not making contact with enemy because the enemy’s movement is glitchy/bugged.
-Thralls falling through the terrain and not being able to attack enemy or enemy disengaging as a result.
-Enemies fall through terrain but still being able to attack. (Had a locust queen wipe out an entire base that would have destroyed her in 30 seconds but none of us or our thralls could attack her as she decimated our base from underneath the mesh)
I can’t even list all the Purge glitches and bugs. Purges never happening, purges starting but never actually taking place, purges under the mesh, purges that disappear between rounds, etc, etc.
These are just the common, consistent and recurring bugs and glitches that are a daily nuisance and “fun” killer in the game. This isn’t even taking into account that the game experiences random, often times game breaking (crashes) or mechanic breaking (thralls not attacking, purges being broken, thralls not having their recipes, for example) that occur with updates/patches etc.
I would call this game a Ferrari with serious engine issues. Great, great design, nice looking car, all the bells and whistles, lots of horsepower, sweet transmission but it can’t be enjoyed because someone used a rubber band as a timing chain and the engine jumps time every driving session. There is so much creative and imaginative design in the game (a penis slider not being one of those things, WTH Funcom? How much time did you waste on that?) that is over shadowed poor, poor execution. I don’t play video games out of moral obligation, responsibility to society, to support a good cause, etc, etc. I don’t play them professionally to earn a living. There is no reason to “tolerate” anything when dealing with a video game. Video games are a hobby that I do for fun, to relax, to unwind, to do something that doesn’t require me to sacrifice anything of myself to enjoy such as an overly expensive car hobby, physically demanding sports, time consuming hobbies like gardening, or hobbies like fishing/hunting that require planning/travel or time management.
So why would I want to experience consistent and constant frustration when trying to engage in a leisure hobby?
I started out on a public server on Xbox One. I tried for several months but couldn’t deal with the ridiculous decay rate and constant onslaught of bugs and glitches. So I got my own server through gportal and figured I’d use the admin feature to get around some of those annoyances, such as the decay rate and bugs. Heck I’d have to spend 20% of my allocated play time in admin mode just to over ride a death due to falling through terrain or restart the server to get my thrall unlocked, etc, etc.
I made the swap to PC to see if it was better here. Nope. It’s not exactly the same bugs but the quantity is pretty much there ■■■for tat. Once again I find myself having to keep the admin password handy ( I prefer to play without it at all if possible but it’s not even remotely) to keep bugs and glitches from killing a game mechanic, from destroying a time investment, etc.
It’s time for you to pick up the slack Funcom. You should have learned your lesson with Age of Conan and the bummer of a launch it had due to bugs and glitches. But if you didn’t learn from it you should have learned your lesson with The Secret World as well. You can’t expect to keep rolling out BETAs and keeping them in what I would call a newly open beta state at best for the duration of the game. Competition is stiff and there are too many games out there to try and stay relevant when a really interesting and creative game is ruined by technical problems. The people in the coding department need to bring their A game to the table just as much as the artists and writers, etc.
At this point in the games lifespan with as much bugs based in the most basic and essential of mechanics for the game I’m not sure I can continue to support your product financially by renting servers, buying DLC, etc. There comes a time when one has to do the complaining with their wallet. I really hate to do that because I COULD be enamored with this game for years yet. But I can’t have my “favorite” way to unwind and relax leaving me frustrated and annoyed every other time I play, especially when I don’t see significant or steady progress in the games competence.
