Walking catastrophe if not averted

А вот, кстати, мой никому ненужный комментарий по Helldivers 2 написанный на Английском — не спрашивайте почему так вышло — для Steam.

Чтобы никто не жаловался, что вместо давно ожидаемого некоторой публикой Талмуда по Dead Space Remake| The Callisto Protocol, я занимаюсь какой-то чепухой, скажу: я просто немного простыл. У меня где-то неделю держится жар и нет особенных сил, и живости ума, дабы всё уже точно завершить. А это я набросал за пару часов.

I don't think the developers are fully understand what they had created and what to do with it, just like they cannot adjust to the tempo of the situation. And I doubt that they can support such product at least in a current state: nor they have resources for that, just like a certain competence (as a matter of fact, they are literally somewhat indie studio and this is their somewhat first BIG try, even if it was lucky and promising). Again, second month after the release date and it is still barely playable, — due to the technical issues — and the recent patch made it literally unplayable for the most of audience. And if Sony would not do something about, this potentially great game, with true live-service capabilities as they always wanted, will be buried by it's own success. Just like the opponents, with more qualified or abudant teams, will, eventually and even soon maybe, try to recreate it, but with the bigger budgets and more expertise.

First of all the game must be patched, in terms of stability, and servers must stopped being an issue: this is critical and first to be made. Absolute priority. The bluescreens, requirement to restart the game, or PC itself to reconnect to someone or become host again, just like disconnects and game-crashes in the beginning/middle/ending of the match with all your resources and time gone — are not acceptable, no matter what. Even if it is early access. Because this means — that product isn't working and it is not suitable to be fully presented to customers. At least, without raging negative and emotional response.

Besides of that, the game need more content just like expansion of the ship and activities on it, — maybe some kind of team minigames — because, right now, your are doing nothing, but wasting your time, quickly becoming bored, by staying there while someone get prepared or simply «cryosleep» in the pod while waiting other teammates to be ready. To summarize: there is no common activities besides being in battle altogether, and social part is basically not functioning yet, and you can't even make friends or easily play with them, or create groups, teams, clans etc. Just like more interesting cosmetics needed, because, right now it looks very cheap and not even stylistically good, so people cannot present themselves via them.

I would say, the game also needed several additional bugs and automatons, because there is simply not enough units between «middle weight» and «ultra high weight», and thus, while rising the difficulty, there is almost no quality, but always quantity, which is repetitive and potentially irritating. Just like nests and automaton bases need to be remade, for example: add tunnels, underground halls with eggs, other details and expand robot facilities in size, scale them with variety of buildings, fortifications respectively. Maybe instead of several small interest points, create the specific type of map with one, big location in the middle that have complex structure and several layers, grounds.

The progression system must be updated too and filled with new weapons, armour, just like weapons and armour must be renovated and be more flexible, having actual mods and perks. And stratagems must be revisited, because, even to the fact that they are great as an idea, most of them simply useless especially on higher tiers. And players, as i see it, are tend to sit somewhere between tiers 5 and 7, where are simply not enough good and reasonable weapons and support for them, just like there are, basically, few builds to play with on last two tiers (that's why, BTW, people got so much pissed off after railgun nerf, 'cause it is simply essential to high-tier gameplay, and cannot be equally altered with something else). Altogether, I think divers must have capabilities to bring more types of assets, modifiers and stratagems with them one the battlefield, and have additional clothes, ammunition places besides backpacks: of course, after developers will invent something new and more.

Also, my honest opinion only, I think that maps must become bigger, — except for the game modes that are concentrated on a single and key point of interest in the center — with more different grounds and landscapes, and be a little bit more tactical like, at least minimally rewarding for pre-battle or in-battle planning, with more possibilities for smart and maneuvering gameplay, providing more time to spare. Maybe several squads deployed on the same map with the common goals, but without direct communication?

I want to admit, that Sony had made a huge mistake. For them it was just one of the low-risk, low-budget, but maybe promising live-service projects, out of several another in the development and not even the most important, that they had mentioned in a different presentations previously. But that had achieved stanning, surprising and totally not anticipated success. And thus the project itself had metaphorically and psychologically (into public opinions eyes) transformed from one of the B-class tier games — without that much demands and expectations from customers — into full AAA-games, where people tend to be intense, hyper critical, noisy, and Arrowhead Game Studios had smashed in a such situation without necessary resources, road-map, plans etc. And, looks like, Sony was caught of guard simply because, they had no expectations whatsoever too. Mistake that can spoil the future of the whole project.

Anyway, I really like the basic, core gameplay, just like I am actually exited that someone decided to use the practical physics and ragdoll models from Metal Gear Solid 5, which is, simultaneously, one of the my favorite games with one of the best movement and control settings among all Third Person Shooters. At least for me. But, lack of content, out of touch support, awful servers, — including constant black screens, connection problems, almost all social activities are not working, but, strangely, with absence of any critical problems on a net code side — and my personal inability to play Helldivers 2 without game-crash till the one or two hours max of being somewhere besides main lobby — destroying all immersion and experience to me, and I simply can't give positive review.

At least right now.

But it has potential and I am actually waiting when the most important issues, stability associated, will be fixed.