XDefiant Updated Imressions
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Look alive people, it's a new update on the recently released F2P FPS from Ubisoft. One which I've also put countless hours into playing so far. This is a game that's growing on me, especially with the fixes, life improving changes, and maybe more seasonal content updates as well as the freebies.
By freebies, I mean giveaways like skins and boosters, they have that one day in the week, when you earn double XP too. I do hope they make needed changes on the battle pass. I also managed to unlock the DeadSec faction, and playing them is the easiest way to win, and that is because of one broken ability making it possible. You hated snipers, now get ready to hate these guys.
I don't have a lot of positive notes to add, Ubisoft has a lot of work left to get this game working. Yes, Netcode is better now, which fixed the hit registration problem everybody was complaining despite the misnomer. Snipers got a little nerf, and air strafing is no longer stupidly broken either.
The first, to start with, is the weapons ranking. There's a lot I want to address on this, because it took me till now to realize only shooting others and getting kills get you weapons XP. Why is this so based on COD? You have a game that is designed around mission objectives, with kills contributing nothing to the match, and yet nothing to offer to the weapons outside that method of grinding? You do get points, which contribute to account level, and challenges. But not the guns.
This new update made changes on grinding for weapons, they made it easier by removing 2/10 of the XP needed to level both primary and secondary weapons. But they also upped the requirements for reaching bronze, silver, and gold. Good trade-off for newcomers, not so much for vets.
Also, let's talk about the skins. Anybody played this to unlock skins, also, those who paid to get em, how are you feeling afterward? I'm asking this since I took a look at all the cosmetics, and they look pretty banal to me. Non-enticing to me, and yet they're locked away from paid battle pass. I'm not stating they are all bad, but overall appeal just isn't working for me. Then there's the pricing.
There are a total of five factions. The 5th, DeadSec, becomes available after some grinding, and may I tell you just how broken their one specific ability is; the Spiderbot. I've only managed to repel it off through one timed melee and shooting it down, but this thing is the easiest to use for stunning.
The reliance on skill to counter such a tool is interesting, and day by day, this game is finally making good use of the abilities and different ultimates, but the balancing is still needed badly. If there was a game with six DeadSec players, those bots will ruin the match, I'm not kidding. They're super disruptive to the flow of the game. People are still complaining about the snipers, you know.
Purchasing individual skins and getting battle pass rewards don't leave much to satisfy, don't believe me? Ask this guy. No amount of "it's a new game" defense is going to help, this has been in beta and closed access for over a year now before launching in the mainstream.
You think this is stingy, you're finding out that weapons mastery takes longer than it used to pre-patch 1.04. The XP boosters for weapons help out a lot, so this I believe their way of making people shill cash for more boosters as they continue to play. Which, in of itself, is kind of invasive if you consider just how easy it'll be to unlock weapon attachments, too.
Shotguns are great for close range firing, especially if you're a fast mover and good with flanking. Just be warned, not many people I've seen in the game play with them much. SMGs can easily take out anyone in close range in a matter of less than a second even. And what's even worse, shotgun hip fire registration barely scratches anyone, just why is that the case here? Marksmen rifles from console players are OP thanks to auto-aim. I saw the video clips.
On my last game, playing as a DeadSec, using the Spiderbot, I carried the match to the best and got to be MVP of the game. Though, I've already unlocked DeadSec which was the seasonal challenge only, there wasn't much else to do. I get base challenges, which probably unlocks weapons.
There are seasonal, base, and daily challenges. The latter providing XP after completion, but keep in mind, the battle pass sucks, I've already gotten unlocked the seasonal reward (DeadSec), the majority of the weapons are unlocked of which there aren't many. It doesn't help that players focus on kills than objectives, and then there's damn rage quitters. This is from unranked, btw.
So, yeah, there's a lot to work on. And for the most part, all the other problems they had earlier were fixed, which made playing easier. Now they need to fundamentally rework the progression system to make a game like this really stick. You have Black Ops 6 coming out this fall.
A F2P with the best map design, fun and fast-paced gameplay, amazing mechanics and weapons, only to have those mask the serious problems underneath. It's not an appealing game if you take those away. It has been a month, but they're just only getting started now. I will come back, but not until some of the problems I've mentioned are fixed. At least make progression seem worthy.
A new faction was introduced in Ubisoft's Showcase, called GSK, from the Rainbow Six Siege game. Honestly looking forward to unlocking that. But lastly, I'll also add that you please allow me to choose region matchmaking. I'm getting matched with European players in high latency.
Update: They've just added Team Deathmatch mode, this is a good way to separate the ones looking for killstreaks opposed to playing objective based matches.
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