It really pains me to leave a negative review of this game, but this last patch has proven to me that this game will be in a weird mix of constant change and stagnation for the foreseeable future.

This game is a glorified public beta test. The fact that the game released in the state that it did is laughable, but even putting aside crashes, the state the game is in now is practically criminal. Every patch seems to introduce more and more bugs, with an ever-growing list of known issues on the patch notes. For every bug that's fixed, one or two more take its place. The bug causing the mere presence of a PS5 player in a lobby massively buffing most weapons most notably against tanky enemies was fixed. That's cool; A bit late though. Oh, what's that? The new ship modules are bugged and like 2 of the 5 or so just don't work? ♥♥♥♥ me I guess. Sickle can finally shoot through foliage? Plasma Punisher shots now instantly detonate when you wear a Shield Generator or are standing anywhere inside a Shield Emplacement causing enormous self damage. It's just so... tiring. I wait and wait and wait only to watch as the developers embarrass themselves further and I feel more embarrassed for buying into this game anything short of a year after launch.

Now comes the balance changes. This is another front that makes this game feel like it's in early access. The devs just cannot for the life of themselves commit to a design or even think of reasonable justifications for their changes. "Slugger was nerfed because it was better at sniping than the actual sniper rifles!" and so they decided to... make it only good at precision fire? Nerfing the damage is annoying but the stagger? That's what makes it a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shotgun. Why not give it more damage falloff or something if you want it to be focused at short to medium range? This just makes it less safe to use at short range and forces you to play at longer ranges. "We want Explosive Crossbow to be more focused on single target medium enemy picks!" But it's an AOE weapon??? Why would you give us an AOE weapon, nerf but not outright remove the AOE, and then say "Yeah use it for single target."??? We have so many medium armor pen single target pick primaries already; What the ♥♥♥♥ are you doing man??? We needed more AOE options.

As for Eruptor, my favorite primary, after a few short sessions with it post nerf, I was mostly of the camp that it was a fairly reasonable change. The aoe falloff nerf didn't really feel too bad at first, but I slowly began to notice it more and more as I kept playing. Now I am constantly frustrated due to mere chaff just walking out of my blast radius completely unfazed. It can even fail to kill a scavenger almost right on top of the origin point of the blast. I still like the weapon, but it's become so frustrating and inconsistent.

This game's balancing feels like it's rapidly devolving into a sort of flavor of the month ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ where anything genuinely good and fun only lasts for so long before the thing gets nerfed or "reworked" to handle juuuuust ♥♥♥♥♥♥ enough that I can't call it an entirely different weapon (except for ExBow lmfao), but it just doesn't provide me anywhere close to the enjoyment I had with it before. It's tiring to keep up with this. I want to be able to just take my time and enjoy the game, but with the unfathomably unpredictable way balancing is handled here, I wind up feeling the need to play with specific items that I enjoy as much as I can out of fear that the devs will nerf it to being too frustrating to enjoy soon. I really think I'd rather just quit and play something else than deal with this constant pressure.

It's especially frustrating considering that I buy these warbonds under the impression that I'm buying say a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ AOE focused Crossbow or DMR that hits like a freight train with some respectable splash damage. Having that changed so drastically soon after release feels unfathomably scummy considering you have to ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ pay premium currency for it and I'm shocked this isn't talked about more. Ah, yeah, probably because "You can get the currency by just playing the game!". Mhm, yeah, tell that to people who have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ life and job and can't play this game 24/7. You collect this premium currency at a VERY slow rate. Only people who play this game like 5+ hours a day will reasonably be able to maintain getting 1000 SC per month and that's not even taking into account the superstore's armor sets you can also spend SC on. It's not exactly a Korean MMO or gacha game, but it's still not remotely reasonable to market the game this way.




Overall, this game is nowhere near ready. Hold off on buying for at least another year. At the rate things are moving, we're a long, LONG way from the game being remotely stable, both in terms of actual functionality and the state of balancing. As much as I enjoyed my time with this game, I'm at a point where I genuinely regret spending my money on this game.

It really pains me to leave a negative review of this game, but this last patch has proven to me that this game will be in a weird mix of constant change and stagnation for the foreseeable future. This game is a glorified public beta test. The fact that the game released in the state that it did is laughable, but even putting aside crashes, the state the game is in now is practically criminal. Every patch seems to introduce more and more bugs, with an ever-growing list of known issues on the patch notes. For every bug that's fixed, one or two more take its place. The bug causing the mere presence of a PS5 player in a lobby massively buffing most weapons most notably against tanky enemies was fixed. That's cool; A bit late though. Oh, what's that? The new ship modules are bugged and like 2 of the 5 or so just don't work? Fuck me I guess. Sickle can finally shoot through foliage? Plasma Punisher shots now instantly detonate when you wear a Shield Generator or are standing anywhere inside a Shield Emplacement causing enormous self damage. It's just so... tiring. I wait and wait and wait only to watch as the developers embarrass themselves further and I feel more embarrassed for buying into this game anything short of a year after launch. Now comes the balance changes. This is another front that makes this game feel like it's in early access. The devs just cannot for the life of themselves commit to a design or even think of reasonable justifications for their changes. "Slugger was nerfed because it was better at sniping than the actual sniper rifles!" and so they decided to... make it only good at precision fire? Nerfing the damage is annoying but the [i]stagger[/i]? That's what makes it a fucking shotgun. Why not give it more damage falloff or something if you want it to be focused at short to medium range? This just makes it less safe to use at short range and forces you to play at longer ranges. "We want Explosive Crossbow to be more focused on single target medium enemy picks!" But it's an AOE weapon??? Why would you give us an AOE weapon, nerf but not outright remove the AOE, and then say "Yeah use it for single target."??? We have so many medium armor pen single target pick primaries already; What the fuck are you doing man??? We needed more AOE options. As for Eruptor, my favorite primary, after a few short sessions with it post nerf, I was mostly of the camp that it was a fairly reasonable change. The aoe falloff nerf didn't really feel too bad at first, but I slowly began to notice it more and more as I kept playing. Now I am constantly frustrated due to mere chaff just walking out of my blast radius completely unfazed. It can even fail to kill a scavenger almost right on top of the origin point of the blast. I still like the weapon, but it's become so frustrating and inconsistent. This game's balancing feels like it's rapidly devolving into a sort of flavor of the month shitshow where anything genuinely good and fun only lasts for so long before the thing gets nerfed or "reworked" to handle juuuuust shitty enough that I can't call it an entirely different weapon (except for ExBow lmfao), but it just doesn't provide me anywhere close to the enjoyment I had with it before. It's tiring to keep up with this. I want to be able to just take my time and enjoy the game, but with the unfathomably unpredictable way balancing is handled here, I wind up feeling the need to play with specific items that I enjoy as much as I can out of fear that the devs will nerf it to being too frustrating to enjoy soon. I really think I'd rather just quit and play something else than deal with this constant pressure. It's especially frustrating considering that I buy these warbonds under the impression that I'm buying say a fucking AOE focused Crossbow or DMR that hits like a freight train with some respectable splash damage. Having that changed so drastically soon after release feels unfathomably scummy considering you have to fucking pay premium currency for it and I'm shocked this isn't talked about more. Ah, yeah, probably because "You can get the currency by just playing the game!". Mhm, yeah, tell that to people who have a fucking life and job and can't play this game 24/7. You collect this premium currency at a VERY slow rate. Only people who play this game like 5+ hours a day will reasonably be able to maintain getting 1000 SC per month and that's not even taking into account the superstore's armor sets you can also spend SC on. It's not exactly a Korean MMO or gacha game, but it's still not remotely reasonable to market the game this way. Overall, this game is nowhere near ready. Hold off on buying for at least another [i]year[/i]. At the rate things are moving, we're a long, LONG way from the game being remotely stable, both in terms of actual functionality and the state of balancing. As much as I enjoyed my time with this game, I'm at a point where I genuinely regret spending my money on this game.