Recent reviews by Yanga

So I gotta be honest here and make it clear that a lot of the changes Airship Syndicate has made for this game is a strong attempt to keep it from going out entirely and at least leave this community SOMETHING rather than having it just vanish to the winds due to the... problems with Digital Extremes. I appreciate the dedication to keep something afloat for the community even after the harsh criticisms from those that are somewhat ignoring the reasons these changes are happening to begin with.

Wayfinders is a pretty nice Dungeon Crawler game with a layout that had the intention of being a MMORPG, but had to downgrade to something more akin to Borderlands with its lobby settings (Invite up to a party of 4 to do missions together). It doesn't suffer that much doing this as the servers would most likely cap around 20 people max and chances of having all 20 in one spot were extremely unlikely so maxing it to 4 on a peer-to-peer network works well enough.

During the Founders Programs, the game had its ups and downs in trying to fix bugs while making the balancing doable without the game full crashing and has been improved heavily since. With it now being Peer-to-peer, there isn't much worry of Network problems occurring (on your PC rather than server), it's easier to find any problematic bugs knowing it's not a latency problem, and less likely to have stuttering enemies from connection problems. Although you'll have to make sure to give your PC some time to render certain areas just to avoid it possibly 'skipping' frames in combat.

Most of the Founder stuff has been compacted into coins, personally not too big on it but it's their way of try to sort things and make things somewhat fair as they're cleaning up the mess DE has left them. At least when it comes to the 'High value' items such as Heroic Kryos has stayed with those who didn't refund and kept faith in Airship Syndicate. If this game manages to make a comeback, it's definitely going to be because of you guys.

Now my personal opinion, is it worth playing really? Up for debate, really. I enjoy it because I just like Dungeon Crawlers in general and 'Hero Shooters' is just an added bonus. From my time in the Close Betas before the Echo update, I honestly enjoyed my time on the game before I got too busy to get on (and before DE decided to drop AS). I do plan on enjoying this game further on and off, and if you guys find games that match the description of 'Borderlands' and 'Dungeon Crawler', you might enjoy this game a bit. Art style is different for sure and the amount of guns might not be the same, but AS is definitely trying their best to make the most out of a bad situation.

If this game remains free, would definitely say to at least give the game a chance, and not to hold the whole thing against Airship Syndicate too much as again... they didn't exactly have much choice in how this played out. There is a reason this game is still up on Steam and hasn't been auto-refunded like... certain other games... It's not intentionally ripping people off and they're still working on patching the game of breaking bugs where they can as of this message.

And to clarify, I had spent around the minimum entry price of $20 while it was still in it's Founding state, around the time it had first started its Founder program. I had debated the choice of getting the highest as I had done so for Warframe, but given the internal problems, thought it would be best to abstain until it had resolved. However the moment things were considered 'resolved', the Founder program has ended and any content from it is no longer accessible. Even though it disappoints me on that front, I will respect their decision as I know chances are they have a similar contract not to re-release content from the Founder Program to Warframe.

I do hope this game continues to improve and eventually find its own place on Steam. There have been other games that had a rough start only to flourish years later and I have hopes this game does the same. Just got to push past the Gloom so to say.

I cannot, in good faith, give this game any positive review with the way how this game is made. And with all the ways this game has been updated (have taken a look at its history), it is crazy how little care they have for balancing a game like this.

Regular gameplay, and games without an Antagonist in the match, it's fun af. I cannot lie about that much at least. Diverse characters, variety of missions to play, and if you have friends to play it makes this a very enjoyable game. But the moment an Antagonist (The PvP aspect that is purely random if someone just queues in as that role), all enjoyment is thrown out the window as just the presence of one makes the game unbearable.

How so? Well lets see. If they are a PvE player that's just there for Antagonist standing, most you get is less rewards overall in your rewards as there is less to kill troop wise. Maybe sometimes the mission completion speed balances that out at times but nonetheless.

If they're a PvP player that's actually trying hard af to kill you? Generally this is a player who knows most of the game and knows the best counters for each map at this point. They'll also abuse the living ♥♥♥♥ out of the exploitable melee system as Melee is the Meta with half the characters. Once you get melee'd once, if you have no one around to stun them, you're basically dead as they combo and execute you in 3 seconds flat. Think that's bad? There are some characters with guns that can kill 80% of the characters (most of the accessible ones at the beginning) in 1-2 shots. Harec and Shae being the two most accessible 1-shot kill Raiders who, if they have a map that is wide open, makes it too easy for them to just execute your whole team while you have no cover.

Think you can just kill them out before your lives run out? Nope! Antagonists have INFINITE LIVES where as Raiders have 16 with a full party and less if anyone is missing. Someone rage quits because an Antagonist exists? Well expect a fast lost and next to NOTHING for rewards as you get basically 10% of rewards you normally would get (no matter how far progressed you are in the mission) if you lose!

So you may think "Okay, then just disable the mode."... Surprise! There is nothing to disable to mode. If someone decides to play PvP, YOU are subjected to whatever ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ they decide to pull if they get added to your lobby! They get THIRTY SECONDS to connect to your match after however long it takes for you to connect as there is hardly ANYONE playing this game to begin with. Even less as more and more people realize how unfun this game is once an Antagonist appears in match and makes your match just un-enjoyable to play.

This game has existed for YEARS, people have asked for a way to TURN OFF the Antagonist encounter for those who just want to fight the AI. Hell, the AI is tougher without the Antagonist, they go full brutal if none exists, but it's a lot more enjoyable that way since at least you know it's a skill issue on your part, and not a SKILL GAP between you and a META ♥♥♥♥♥ who has most of the endgame stuff.

What about matchmaking? Non-existent. Due to the lack of players, you either get 3 AI that are absolute garbage and will be next to no help (them dying doesn't impact the mission thankfully)... or you get 3 people who are just grinding the game casually, only try-harding the moment a Antagonist shows up since it means far less rewards if they lose too. This also goes with Antagonists too as those who hit Lv15 can either connect with random low level players... or endgame players. Game is too dead for the Matchmaking to be effective.

What can really fix this game? Make a option to toggle the ability to encounter Antagonists, if there isn't a lobby for Antagonists to find, they fight against AI that can be just as brutal as the AI vs the Raiders. If people who main Antagonists specifically play this game to ruin the playerbase further, ya'll need to find a different outlet.

As for those who just play the game to enjoy it as I am sure there are those too, please acknowledge that if you are going against a 4 man of new players and you have end-game equipment and it's clear they don't know what they are doing, go easy. Don't ♥♥♥♥♥♥ demolish them in minutes since that'll just discourage them from playing any further and basically make a giant wall of anyone ever coming back, thus killing this game off.

It's clear the Devs aren't going to listen to feedback given it has been begged for to have a non-pvp mode. Vets should at least make the game a bit more bearable for new players so the community for this game can actually recover. Lot of people here are not for the PvP. They are not going to know how bad the gap is between new players and vets of the game with the card system and gun builds.

Short of this review, case of good game, severely bad PvP balancing.

Okay honestly wish I didn't have to keep swapping this back and forth and I will explain why I'm going to set it to No.

You all know how Sony tried to force people to use their PSN ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and we got them to revert their change? Yeah, now since they can't exactly go the way they want to, they're actively RESTRICTING which countries can buy the game to begin with, can easily check the Steam Changelist to see Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia (As well as 170+ other countries) are on the chopping block.

Honestly if THIS is how they react to not being able to handle valid criticisms, honestly think of not touching another Sony product again after this. Why limit who ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ buys your ♥♥♥♥ after it's out there for long enough and people are still trying to buy the game in those areas, only a moron would actively try to stop customers from getting products like this.

Legit the only reason I can see them pulling this is they plan on going through their whole list of PSN Banned countries, and then attempting to pull the same "PSN Mandatory Link" again and argue since the list of countries are already purchase banned, they can do whatever they want afterwards.

Well I'ma call that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out early and ask others to keep the reviews negative until Sony removes themselves from influencing Helldivers 2's marketing. It's really obvious they don't know what they're doing and chances are their Investors are probably going to start losing faith on them with the direction they're going currently. Fighting your customers isn't the strategy since we've shown we're more than willing to strike back.

So to put it bluntly, Matchmaking has basically made this game just un-fun to play.
You can read a lot of these comments about how good the gunplay is or the graphics, but the only people who approve the matchmaking is those that are unaware of how bad it is (Casual players who aren't actively trying to get a high K/D), or trolls who think it's funny the get people who are mad about the Matchmaking even saltier.

Old style matchmaking prioritized Connection to ensure a good uninterrupted gameplay without too much of an issue. With the 'SBMM' stupidity however, if you play too well, say goodbye to playable gameplay as it actively keeps pushing for people around your exact (or higher) skill level. This can hit Casual players too if they got that one '30-4' K/D as they suffer for 5-10 matches of sweaty lobbies with horrid connection.

From having played Hundred of Hours in MWII(2022), a few hours in Warzone, and a bit in DMZ... I've honestly gotta applaud Activi$ion for absolutely ruining the name of the old MW2 and soon to be MW3 since they're reusing the same SBMM between them. You sweat every match in MWII(2022)? Well expect the same in MWIII(2023/2024). From my first match to my 3rd, I legit spend more of my time getting spawn trapped by sweaty players than actually enjoying a single match. If it wasn't for the skin for playing the beta to lv30, I wouldn't even touch MWIII(2023/2024).

I would also like to add that having this all tied to Warzone... having 3 games in one like with the previous bundle of games, I thought it was pretty clear that not everyone has the storage space for holding 3-4 games (500GB) in one...
Edit*: To fix this a bit, you can uninstall which ones you don't play, but the fact you have to install all of them at once to start still should not be an issue.

Honestly from seeing the beta in its current state just basically being an obvious DLC to the MWII(2022) just with another 70$ price tag for like what... a few features that SHOULD have been in MWII(2022)? Ya know... Perks that are all available at the start of a match when you equip them, a working Minimap rather than a sticker to use only until you're used to the map before gluing your eyes to a compass, a working ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suppressor when using a Ghost Perk, and Dead Silence as a usable perk rather than a Field Upgrade.
I understand the Devs under Activi$ion are trying their hardest to applease both the community and the higher ups, but at this point I'm seeing Call of Duty becoming more like a sinking ship than anything salvageable as things progress.

When I played this kind of game back in CoD4 and MW2, I was garbage at the game and got better over time by having my ass handed to me so many times that I got a handle of how certain places work and what angles were horrid to hold. There was no 'overpowered SBMM protection' for people back then, nothing to keep sweaty players from just demolishing people, but they were so few and far between because there are a lot less sweaty players than casuals... and because of that, you were more likely to get a match where things were even because people were all there specifically to have fun. How high was my average back then and did I sweat? Like 15kills a match but just as many if not more deaths... not going hard into trying to get kills. Nowadays? I'd be lucky to get 10 without 40 deaths because I had 1 match of 20-18. SBMM isn't something protecting players, it's honestly doing more harm than good. Casual players can't learn tactics without getting swamped hard for 10 matches after doing well in 1, sweaty players legit act as if it's ranked mode 24/7, and those of us who got good overtime from learning? Well, none of it means jack now because if we preform well once, we get thrown into a blender and dumped down the garbage disposal for a week. This is not Call of Duty, just a stupid Micro transaction hell copy of it.

So this is just a casual review from someone that does not overly take the game serious so don't try to use this as a "This is 100% the reason I'm getting/not getting this game".

From a Casual stand point where you just play this during those hours where you got nothing much else to play. This game can be pretty fun, but also can be very annoying to play. It's a mix bag of good and bad points that you can probably easily read from other reviewers out there. The only 2 key issues to be perfectly frank is slight balancing issues (you need specific perks if you want to get very far) and some of the community toxicity (which is to be expected in practically any Player vs player game).

As long as you don't take most of the people that just start randomly cursing you out, it only really leaves one issue of certain killers being better than others and specific perks being ran because they're practically required most of the time.

Now then, my perspective on both playing Killer and Survivor...

Killers tend to be more entertaining to play as since if you play well enough without actually sitting 2 centimeters next to the guy you just hook to have a staring contest with, it can be satisfying to actually get a win out of it, or at least be happy with the points you get after the match finishes. As long as you get enough separate hooks out of all of them, it can usually be more than what you can earn as a survivor. Just be sure to face a wall when you pick someone up and avoid trying to do it near a pallet if you can.

Survivors on the other hand, in early rankings you can have a somewhat easy time since some killers are either just doing their dailies or just getting used to playing something new. Mid-ranks tend to be a tad more difficult as to be expected and High ranking being near impossible for someone that doesn't have all the high ranking perks.
[Most of this however can be made indefinitely easier with the right Survive with Friends group which can be easily found on the Dead by Daylight Discord or with your own friends that may own the game.]

All in all, the game can be really fun. Just some people rather ruin the fun for others with petty insults. Just ignore those kinds of people and always be sure to at least drop a gg.

A game with several community game modes with so much that will keep you playing especially with friends. Once you find a game type like Trouble in Terrorist Town or Prop Hunt that you like, you'll be up all night playing this game.