Thoughts on the new patch (NOT a whine thread)
So, having spent most of my time over the weekend split between my highest-level char and a completely new runner I can say - the new runner experience is much improved. The missions from the JC are good (although as I’ve said on discord, they'll probably get hella boring to do a second, third or fourth time) but I do really like that they give out level appropriate gear. They did slow down a bit about /20, and by slow down I mean hit a roadblock. I went from one mission supplier to the next seamlessly, but then the last one I had to be /30 for, and told to go kill stuff in Pepper Park, except at that point they're all green and I'm getting sod-all XP off them (even though Aggies in groups of 2 or more were still ripping me a new one) even with the terminal missions this really slowed down at this point. Either way, I’m considering re-rolling my PC PE that’s about /20 just to go through this again with a different char and see how it differs.
I can imagine the game for capped/WoC players, or players with a metric butt-load of high end hear, rares, armour and the like, and/or loads of time to LoM and mess around with armour combinations, OR those that can have a PPU surgically inserted in their anus, the higher-end content is now a welcome challenge, but for my highest level char (/50 ) it’s a nightmare. I’m a casual player who’s only real character they played on doesn’t have the funds to buy every scrap of armour, in its best version, to fit every encounter I can come across, nor the time. I tried the first C_08 pathfinder mission and died multiple times to dragonflies and outcasts trying to do it, it bugged out, I managed to get it again and only accomplished it by ram-raiding through it with my reveller. The XP reward was brilliant, but only for STR, and it seems currently where I’m lacking is CON, so I’m not sure how I’m supposed to level that in the new “mission-based XP system”. The second mission? Kill 20 Outcast soldiers… That wouldn’t be too hard if it wasn’t for the fact that there’s HUNDREDS of Enforcers, Lieutenants and god knows what else surrounding them all, which practically have over the horizon range (no joke, they were hitting me from so far away their sprites weren’t loaded in) hit HARD, and never miss, and this is in the “green” areas of the map.
So, I thought maybe I’m not ready for that yet and went back to the JC to do the highest-level missions there, the “dailies”, kill 5 marsh hippos and 5 marsh saurus, /80 and /85 respectively, but surrounded by higher level mobs. Spec’d loads of poison armour, went out, died once which I thought was good going, was a bit of a struggle but found all 10 and killed them and went back. 5k XP. FIVE THOUSAND XP! I thought I’d found my niche, but when I’m looking at over a million XP ‘til my next STR level 5k doesn’t touch the sides… Unless I’ve missed something here, there’s a disparity between the upper-mid and the lower-high end games, around the /45-/50’ish kinda range, that unless you have the support of years of equipment, or higher level character to drag you through, I don’t really see how you can get from one to the other.
The new textures are gorgeous, and whilst I’d like some new weapon models and sounds (the 8mm Uzi pistols are like BB guns!) I can see that now being something so easily done! Overall, it must have been a massive undertaking to get this patch together, kudos guys on it because it’s a great feat of work, but definitely some holes to plug/tweaks to make.
