Armenius
Extremely [H]
- Joined
- Jan 28, 2014
- Messages
- 42,765
The more I've been playing of this update, the more it is annoying me. Both the visual and auditory detection range of the Volatiles is stupidly long, and they will permanently change their roaming area after detecting the player. Multiple Volatiles can gather around the same area, so if you're trying to hunt rare infected for trophies or try to loot a dark area it becomes nigh impossible to do so. They also made the Volatiles much tankier to the point that it is impossible to defend yourself if you get cornered. Their health bar will barely go down when you hit them, and what's worse is that currently none of the boosters or damage bonuses affect the damage you deal to them. The density combined with the detection range of the Volatiles makes the experience more annoying than tense.
I guess in an attempt to balance this, they severely reduced the population of normal Biters on the streets and completely erased Howlers from the game. The one Howler during the tutorial section of the game during the cutscene introducing you to chases is apparently the only one in existence after the update. This oddly makes the nights feel barren and empty compared to before the patch. In another attempt to make nights more "tense" they nerfed Survivor Sense by only highlighting Virals and Volatiles if you have the option enabled. Lootable corpses are no longer highlighted by Survivor Sense, either, making it unnecessarily tedious looking at every corpse to see if they dropped anything after ending a fight. You can walk away to force the bags to replace the corpses, but if you walk too far away they will just despawn completely.
Another annoyance is that due to your damage and damage mitigation bonuses not applying to Volatiles, some of the side quests and story missions that force you through a dark area during the day makes them pretty much impossible. There will be a minimum of 6 Volatiles all standing together in one room of a dark area, meaning you will die in seconds. And this is all on Normal difficulty. Also, if you're in the same sector as the dark area when the sun sets, most of the Volatiles will still be inside the dark area. You either have to quit and reload your save game to get them to leave, or start from a further area and run to it, dealing with all the Volatiles roaming the streets and rooftops along the way.
The game needs some serious tweaking to get it right. Techland is hosting a survey to get feedback on it, so if you have strong opinions like myself and others it's the chance to make them heard.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/534380/discussions/0/3802775659504800674/
I guess in an attempt to balance this, they severely reduced the population of normal Biters on the streets and completely erased Howlers from the game. The one Howler during the tutorial section of the game during the cutscene introducing you to chases is apparently the only one in existence after the update. This oddly makes the nights feel barren and empty compared to before the patch. In another attempt to make nights more "tense" they nerfed Survivor Sense by only highlighting Virals and Volatiles if you have the option enabled. Lootable corpses are no longer highlighted by Survivor Sense, either, making it unnecessarily tedious looking at every corpse to see if they dropped anything after ending a fight. You can walk away to force the bags to replace the corpses, but if you walk too far away they will just despawn completely.
Another annoyance is that due to your damage and damage mitigation bonuses not applying to Volatiles, some of the side quests and story missions that force you through a dark area during the day makes them pretty much impossible. There will be a minimum of 6 Volatiles all standing together in one room of a dark area, meaning you will die in seconds. And this is all on Normal difficulty. Also, if you're in the same sector as the dark area when the sun sets, most of the Volatiles will still be inside the dark area. You either have to quit and reload your save game to get them to leave, or start from a further area and run to it, dealing with all the Volatiles roaming the streets and rooftops along the way.
The game needs some serious tweaking to get it right. Techland is hosting a survey to get feedback on it, so if you have strong opinions like myself and others it's the chance to make them heard.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/534380/discussions/0/3802775659504800674/