Project Winter- A world of Paranoia!

Up today we have a mini review, and rant, on the game Project Winter.

I am pretty sure when the developers created this game, what they intended was not what what we currently have in the game. Nobody would develop a game that would make you feel constantly paranoid. That would just be cruel and most certainly would not last. Considering the game is online only and the goal is to monetize it, you would certainly have what you envisioned to be taking place. I suspect that vision was a laid back detective kind of game. However, what we now have is far from that!

What the game has become is a game where your fellow civilians kill you more than the damn traitors. Sounds kinda stupid,huh? I mean, your Fellow Civilians should be killing the Traitors? Right? By killing another Civilian they are just making themselves easier for the Traitors to kill and win the game!

Yet, this is exactly what is going on in every single game!

The problem seems to be multi-fold. Firstly everything a Civilian does is “Sus”. (For those not in the know, that means “Suspect or suspicious,) If you help them, you are sus. if you don’t help them, you are Sus. If you save their lives it is forgotten in a nano second and you are now Sus. If you kill a traitor,you must be the traitor. If you kill two traitors, granted a rare feat, but possible with bad players, you are then seen as even more Sus. If you attack moose and kill them, then give them food, you are Sus because you need to heal. If you place objects needed with other players supervision, into the radio/power station, and 15 mins later it is Sabatoged you are Sus. If you go out to open bunkers, save your fellow Civilians from wolves and/or bears, then stay back the next trip you are Sus. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES ARE YOU EVER CONSIDERED INNOCENT. A lot of this has to do with problem number 2.

Problem two is the fact players are playing the game with their friends. I understand you want to play with your friends, however, if every game you play is with friends, then you suspect all other players. The simple fact that EVERBODY has an equal chance of being one of the traitors does not seem to sink in. Thus if you save them from the traitors, you are immediately blamed, because you killed their friends. I was litterly named a traitor and suspect because I coughed into my mike. Yes, every one who smokes, has allergies, or a cold, is guilty and must be Sus. Wtf?

The third problem seems to be that none of these younger players has critical thinking skills. It is like when their mother shit them from her woom, they were given shit instead of brains. Let me give you an example, just one of many,so you can have an idea of how adle-brained stupid these kids are today.

I helped craft and opened bunkers for items needed in the first objective, the Power Station, then I went off in one of the 3 possible directions looking for the Helipad. I encountered to two players who shot at me and I ran; they finally managed to trap me in small area and one had managed to cut me off. So left with no chance of flight, I fought. They both had guns but sucked at aiming them. I was able to kill both of them, before one of the others Civilians shows up and downs me. After a whole lot of persuading, way more then I should had to do, after all the help I had been giving the group while the two Traitors had not been helping at all. It should have been a no-brainer and I guess in a way it was. The fellow Civilian had no brain and took a really long time to decide to finally resurrect me.

When we got back to the camp everyone was told what happened and seemed to be cool with it. However, not even 10 mins. later, before I could even heal myself from my fight for my life with the traitors, one of the other Civilians downed me, accusing me of being Sus because I did not go with them when I was almost dead. Then they say they will let me live if the ghosts tell them to do so. They revive me and down me again. The ghosts freeze me because…DUH, I killed them and they were the Traitors. So of course they now, finally, permanently kill me. So let me sum up it all.

I helped with first objective, nearly died trying to help with the second objective. I was killed 3 times by my fellow Civilians, and judged by the Traitor ghosts. I was beaten, humiliated, greifed, and murdered for HELPING them win the game.

Now imagine that similar situations played out in almost all of my games yesterday, because that is what happened. Again and again, I helped and I ended up killed by my FELLOW Civilians. Not once did it occur to any of these simple-minded fools that I had been helping most of the game. I only managed to survive one fucking game, all day, because of this friendship combined with stupidity dynamic.

Project Winter is a game about survival but it is completely going to fail at surviving. The inclusivity and trust only friends mentality will be the downfall of this game. Unless the game developers figure out that they need to separate friends to create a more equal game environment for all players, they might as well kiss monetizing this game goodbye.

Well, that took longer than I thought. Sorry, if I ranted too long. I do truly hope that this honest review will be helpful to some people out there in their deciding whether they want to play this game or not. You can either bring a lot of friends and never get better at playing because you are only as good as your friends are or you can skip the headache. Do you really want to be paranoid every player outside of your group? Your choice and good luck!

Axe

#Paragon:#Epic fail-Part 2

When I finished my previous article on this game, I was pretty damn disgusted with the game but did not bother uninstalling it. I felt like that was just a waste of even more of my time. Thus the game remained and then I noticed they had updated to version 28.2 and thought ” why not check it out and see if they fixed anything in the game”. I even have some pics as proof of the some of the games flaws, so let’s get started!

Much to my ill-fated belief, they proved my previous article, right. The game had not improved. In fact, I was stunned that they somehow managed to make the game considerably worse. The more I viewed and learned, the more I began to question the sanity of anyone working for Epic games.  They had not done anything to the travel mode/auto-sprint mode. ADC’s were ganked even sitting under their tower, with the gankers being able to get away alive or destroying the tower too. The games were filled with more and more enemy teams just choosing all fighters(melee) because they were able to do everything, and the adc and caster heroes were too weak, to stop this kind of team.

They also managed to ruin the game matchmaker even further. It was not bad enough that you could wait 2 or 3 mins for a game to even get to the “Ready Phase”, then you had to wait for the ‘draft phase”, which dropped every player from the game and match, if even one player did not lock-in the hero. Then if you actually made it past the “draft phase” you got to wait for everyone to be connected the game and the countdown. All told this was a 10 to 15 min. process. With v.28.2 they managed to mess up the cue timer. It was making you sit on average 6.mins. before actually trying to find a game. Then it got to where it was about 8 mins in cue. Remember now this is just the first phase of the matchmaking process. With special events causing people to decide they wanted to play a certain hero, a lot of draft dodging was going on, thus you would get thrown out of matchmaking and have to restart that 8 mins. + cue again.

Now you would think with all the other problems, this one is a ”’ no brainer “. Nobody, no matter how big of a fan they are of a game, is gonna wait that long for a game that has terrible matchmaking to begin with. Sure, we all realize this game is in early-access. But the game should be improving but it is not. It is systematically getting worse, almost as if someone working them, is actually working for the competition and deliberately sabotaging the game. How could you possible explain how they made this game EVEN more of a disaster with version .29 released today?

Somehow they overlooked the 3 most obvious things they needed to do and completely did the opposite of every community suggestion. They did not buff the casters, this has been a huge complaint of most of the game players. They did not remove the travel mode/auto-sprint (slow mode). The fact that you actually slow down if you run away is beyond stupid. Every time the enemy hits you it breaks the countdown for the auto sprint mode to kick in. This is terrible gameplay mechanics for everyone except the fighters. They already have a faster movement speed. Clearly they wanted all laners under towers, so the melee heroes get fed quicker, no matter where they are at and they can dive the tower, where you are supposed to be safe. This is no MOBA game. It is fighter team death match. Just people running around ganking. Actual strategy seems to have no bearing on this game. Just build a five fighter team and you will win every time.

Lastly, with the latest patch(v.29) they somehow managed to mess up the cue timer even further. Now it refuses to find a match at all. It will “Search for players” but never find the tenth player needed to get to the “ready phase”. If it “connects to the lobby” it will lose all players you had in cue with you. Then you start over with “searching for players”.

So basically they did not to fix any serious issues (in version 29) and did everything they could to make it harder to play casters, adcs, and the game in general. So now you tell me, who would do such a thing to their game unless they were out to destroy it? Either Epic has someone working for them who is trying to sabotage the game, or they have one hell of an #Epic dumbass making the decisions. I don’t know which is the case but I do know one thing; I won’t wait over 15 mins just to cue, if it even does go through, after that time. That is as long as I wait for any game. Especially when you consider that if I actually got into a game, it would be with a bunch of no-level idiots. I have included in the screenshots, just one of many screen shots I could have taken. In fact, despite me playing games like the game end screenshot down below, I have a losing record. Yet, am not nearly as mad about that, as the fact that direction Epic is heading, is one of total fail.

I am highly unlikely to give this game a 3rd try, seeing the direction they are going in. It is rare that I give a game a second chance, I have never given any game a third chance. There is no sense in wasting time on game that is going in reverse direction.

As promised, here are some screen shots to back up my long cue times and the game end screenie that shows just how bad most of the players I get teamed up with. (In the screenie, I am player named Axewielderx, duh!) The cue time screenes were taken from version 28.2 and v.29. It should be noted the last took was 15 mins. with v.29 installed this morning. That one was finally taken after 3 previous attempts to get into a working cue and after I closed the game and reopened it. In all fairness, I did get to play one v.29 game before this began happening. In-game is seemed pretty much the same as v.28.2 which most definitely was not good.

It should be noted I played the only class of hero unaffected by the badly chosen nerf and buff bats. I used Steel who is a Tank and does not use damage cards. As a tank I can only say that the hits did not seem any softer and the movement was exactly the same.

For now, going to let the pictures do the talking, I hope you found this review informative and like, subscribe, and share! Take care fellow gamers!

Axe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

#Epic Fail: #Paragon

I should have known after playing the gears of war franchise for so many years. While Epic games always succeeds in delivering great looking games, they are no good with fixing them. The never did fix all the bugs in their first Gears of War game and now we have Paragon, a MOBA which apparently they know nothing about.

After looking at the forums and seeing all the complaints about the last update, I should have listened to those complaints. The players had part of it right. What they have done to this game is just beyond terrible. If you play anything besides a melee hero in this game, you will die and die a lot. The melee characters just attack whenever they want, without fear of reprisal because they can just run away. They have better base speed than all the ranged heroes and there are no speed items in the game.

They just go up and dive towers and destroy them, while you are firing away at them. Then after they finish the tower, they finish you, because you cannot run away from them. Every ranged hero in the game usually comes out of games with a negative kill/death ratio, because wards don’t matter when they can just run up to you and hit ya a couple of times and that is it. You go sit for another minute contemplating just what you did wrong.

Fact is, the flaw is not you, it is the game design. All anyone has to do is sit in the hero section 5 minutes and see that every ranged hero is slower. That is ass backwards. The ranged heroes all wear less armor,why are they slower? I have never seen this lame of a thing, in ANY other MOBA. How well do you think you will do against any foe that has pretty much the same range by jumping, has more armor, more speed, and more powerful attacks? You will die a lot!

Unlike GOW, this game is absolutely no fun if you like to play a character that requires a little skill. Aiming requires skill. Running up to a foe and beating on them until they die, a child can do. This is absolutely the worse MOBA I have ever played. This game may still be in closed beta, but it is nowhere even close to where it should be by now.

I have deleted the game knowing Epic’s track record for fixing games. I truly feel sorry for all those who paid money for this game and are only now, beginning to see that Epic is really shorthand for EPIC FAIL.

Need further proof that Epic does not listen to customers and fix issues in their games? Here is a post on Reddit where people complained about melee heroes chasing them down and killing them.- https://www.reddit.com/r/paragon/comments/4ayj5f/whats_everyones_first_opinion/

It is beyond stupid that they have known about this all along and have not fixed it. I am sorry, if I am running away and not attacking them, I should be going much faster than them constantly attacking me. Oh well, just chalk it up to more lost income by a video game company. Is it no  surprise so many are failing?

Until I type again…

Axe

#Overwatch updated. A chance to impress is a fail!

With Blizzard’s high standards and good reputation(in-general) I decided to give Overwatch another chance, after the new updates that came to the console today. Sadly, their game has not improved even one tiny bit.

With this update they were supposed to nerf one hero and beef up another. They were also supposed to release the competitive mode. Let’s talk about the character improvements first.

McCree was supposed to receive some kind of nerf to his flash bang stun. I did not play him and in fact, saw nobody playing him at all. I am certain that was not the intention. When you nerf a hero, you want to make him useable. That is not what Blizzard did. Oh well, I never cared for the idiot cowboy who was a one trick pony bitch anyway.

The other hero the were supposed to beef up was D.Va. They again failed at this task. In fact, when I played her I actually felt weaker. She was so bad to play with  that it only took one try to figure out this was a terrible change.

Lastly, they released Competitive play. At first upon playing a match I thought this must be some kind of joke. In a way, I suppose it is. Not one single suggestion made on the message boards was used. Blizzard COMPLETELY ignored the players. Hero stacking was still in the competitive mode.  Obviously nobody at Blizzard can read and those that can, do not understand how unbalanced this type of behavior is. Competitive games will be filled with nothing but Torbjorn teams. Hey Blizzard, I have to ask just how fucking stupid are you? There is a reason nobody else allows hero stacking. It makes for unbalanced play and a competitive game, it not competitive, without balance.

Here is a video of someone pointing out the flaws of competitive play. Even though he does not mention such issues as hero stacking, it still goes to prove this game is not worth your time or money- https://youtu.be/krZtUqNx6i8

So is guess, the joke was on all those suckers that paid money for this shit game and how this ultimately will affect your reputation as a game developer. I know I will never invest my money in any game made by Blizzard. I feel sad and sickened, for all those poor suckers who invested money in loot boxes, to end up with a game that is so unbalanced as to be a complete waste of time and money to play. Good luck in all your future endeavors Blizzard, you are gonna need it. You can most definitely count me out. This is the last game review of a Blizzard game you will ever see on my blog. Hope the readers enjoyed it and heed my words.

Until I type again…

Axe

#Overwatch should have been named Underwhelmed!

Now don’t get me wrong when I state that. The game does have some good qualities. However, it completely lacks any kind of depth and after playing for awhile, you will come to the same conclusion. If you are looking for a game to waste a couple of weeks on, then this is the one. But, let’s get into what is wrong and right about this game.

On the bad side of things, this game is not nearly as polished as reviewers have stated. It freezes up in the middle of a match and kicks you out of the match. The estimated cue time is not even close. It was closer when I started playing a couple of weeks ago, but now as I leave this game behind, the cue times are not even remotely close.  It often says 15-30 seconds. What it really means is 2-3 minutes or more. The game will finally put you into a game, only to have the game not fill up, supposedly, and then you will have to go back to cue. If this was a smooth design decision, then obviously previous reviewers have no concept of what smooth, slick, or polished is. Because the cue system alone is fucked up!

The game also likes to keep you limited to a 50% win ratio. That means when ever you get to 50% wins, it will put you in a game with totally sucky players. It even goes to the point of throwing you into a match, and before you can even move your hero out of spawn, the game is over with a defeat for you. How the fuck is that fair? Basically is punishes good players. Thanks Blizzard, that is just what good gamers want. To be screwed over for being good. To further exasperate the situation, as a side consequence, this keeps your k/d (kill/death) ratio down too! It is hard to get a lot of kills when your team members spend most of their time in spawn.  A 6 vs 1 is not a good situation for even a great player. Now don’t think this means I have a sucky k/d. I do not! It is  2/1 but if I played with decent players all the time, it would be at least 4/1. The games where you are stuck with bad players just to keep your win/loss ratio even, really do affect much more than just that. They completely affect your kill/death ratio too!

Another small issue is the lack of variety in the game play. While there are maybe 6 maps (not a lot but certainly more than Battleborn’s 2 maps per mode) there are really only two modes of playing in this game. You either are attacking or defending. Trying to move a payload or to defend a capture point.  That is it!

The worst thing about this was how they designed the game launch for these two modes. The defenders are always able to go anywhere on the map and set up their defenses. This allows them to to spawn camp! Essentially if you are on attack mission, you can expect to die often right outside of spawn. Combine this with the next item I mention (hero stacking) and you have a total stomp of the attacking team. They cannot leave spawn to attack anything with multiple turrets just waiting for them to exit spawn and Repears abundant to make sure nobody can get near a turret to kill it. It is just death after death with no chance for kills. The longer this game has been out, the more I was seeing this in matches. I knew if my mission was attack, that the game was setting me up for a loss.

The last thing this game does, is allow people to pick whatever hero they want. While on the surface this may sound good, but it is so totally not! You have teams made up of the same hero, I.E. 6 Torbjorn. Tell me something, how can this game be balanced if this crap is going on? It cannot possibly be balanced and people who play online shooter games, expect some kind of balance for every player to have a fair chance of winning. Allowing players to do this, is akin to allowing them to freely cheat. I have been in some many COMPLETELY non-fun games because of this one simple design decision. I am guessing every reviewer on the planet forgot to mention this too!

They also included a quitting penalty so if you find yourself stuck in a match where the other team is all the same hero, you get to enjoy that crappy match or suffer a 75% experience loss for 2 hours. Even worse is the fact, if it throws you into one of these games and then you get booted by the system for not making your hero pick fast enough, it boots you from the game and gives you a quitting penalty. I did not quit you stupid fucks! YOUR system booted me and then gave me a penalty. I’ll give you a quitter penalty assholes…it is this review.

Lastly, there is no real hero progression. Your hero has the same abilities and weapons no matter how long you play. Yes, they do eventually get to wear different clothes, but this is entirely based upon luck of the draw, from random loot boxes. How many levels are you willing to grind for a set of clothes you cannot see in game? Of course you do gain overall levels but what does it matter when the game likes to keep you to a 50% win/lose ratio. You are playing with players that are way under your level every time you get over 50% wins. So even that progression is completely useless. It seems this game was nothing more than a quick cash grab, as the only way to feel any accomplishment is to drop more money on loot boxes in the hopes you will finally get that legendary set of clothes for the hero which you like, because you certainly are not going to get it from the level loot boxes.

I played this game to level 58 (could not stand playing crappy matches any longer) and never received a single legendary skin for ANY of my favorite heroes. NOT EVEN ONE! If it even gives you a legendary skin, it will ALWAYS be for a hero you do not play. This is Blizzard’s way of trying to get you to GAMBLE. By forcing you to either wait an amazingly long period of time to spend in-game credits to buy the legendary skin or to spend REAL cash to buy loot boxes which are completely random. This definitely is not incentive to play this game long term. Players expect progression and rewards for effort. This game simply does not have any.

Now onto the good.

It has good graphics and usually plays fairly well. Most of the heroes are fairly unique enough to make playing each one entertaining. some to a lesser degree than others, of course. Not every one of them is going to fit your play style, obviously. The game can be fun when you have two evenly matched teams and no BS going on.

Too bad that is such a rare thing! This is a game that will take some serious work to turn around or there will be a mass exodus in the near future.  The problems with hero stacking, combined with bad decisions in progression and basic attack and defend mechanics, will need to be completely overhauled.

As I played, I found that the good matches became fewer and fewer, and it just grew into a frustrating piece of shit, with no incentive to keep grinding away. I was not going to obtain legendary clothes for my favorite toons and it was not worth going through all the bad matches to even try anymore. I have to wonder if these game designers are brain dead or just don’t check out their games by actually playing them, before they release their crap. They put nothing in this game to make anyone want to play it long term. If you are looking for a game with depth and reason to play, this game is not it. You will be completely underwhelmed inside of a couple of weeks, if you last that long.

Supposedly there is update coming out at the end of June. Hopefully this update will addresses these issues. So many games with great potential fall to the wayside because they simply fail to fix what their customers complain about. I have not been playing as much since my wife deemed worthy of passing on her latest cold to. Not sure, even if I was healthy, how much of this game I would be playing. My recommendation to those who have not played this game yet, wait until July to see if Blizzard corrects the gaping design flaws or not. Until next time I type…take care, thanks for reading, and have an awesome day!

Axe