I dont know how much of this is already waiting for full release, or planned, so im just gonna babble on for a bit and ignore the irrelevant bits.
This post is more about look and feel than mechanics, bugs and balance… which is important but not what im making this post about.
Melee generally feels good, obviously would given FS’s vast experience from vermintide.
Grenades, cool.
Warp f*****y, fairly enjoyable, looks good, chunky effects, thumbs up.
Guns however…
I would say the audio design is mostly pretty damn good, MOST guns sounds are nice and rich and complex and feel good… personally i think the autoguns could use a little improvement, but thats minor.
The animations are worse.
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Guns, ballistic ones anyway, providing they are loaded and ready, already have a round in the chamber. You do not rack the bolt when a weapon is ready, that would eject a chambered round and load a new one. What you do is present the weapon in aiming stance, or at ready, and flip the safety to the desired fun level.
I understand FS wants to have a delay on ranged weapons - this is fine, just make the animation do something else. Like grabbing the weapon and shouldering it correctly and flipping the safety (this does take some time too, as all shooters know).
You only rack the bolt when you reload on an empty chamber (expended all ammunition) because reloading on partial magazine still means you have a live round in the chamber, or when there is a malfunction. -
I have a gripe with the player hand riding the bolt forward on reloads. You dont ride the bolt. You pull it back and let the fairly hefty spring slam it back forward (unless its a bolt-action, obviously). If you ride the bolt forward, you risk causing a malfunction. Not to mention it sounds way cooler.
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The autogun… oh boy… aside from what i said above, first of all, the current reload animation is basically a broken MP5, or G3, or whatever. The hand grabs it, moves it back, and then up. Yet there is no bolt handle catch groove. Setting aside why would a “space gun” need such a system, which is both old fashioned and inconvenient today - if there is nowhere to catch the bolt handle, you cant catch it anywhere. Second, if you insist on having an animation like that, please have a groove for it.
Also… opportunity missed… if you HAVE to have that… why not animate the iconic “HK slap” ?
Most guns would obviously just have a last round bolt holdopen, and then a bolt release button after replacing the magazine… but if a longer reload animation is desired on the “DMR” autoguns… why not the 'ol HK slap with a malicious smirk. -
the revolver… frankly didnt try it since closed beta but its animations were exquisite back then, so im guessing theyre still there, and the gun feels appropriately chunky.
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one of the lasguns, apparently the Lucius one (? - i only have this second hand and from videos) basically has what looks like exceptionally terrible pistol style sights, into what is called “combat hold” by some shooters - which means you have to “cover” your point of impact with your sight so its not visible. While this would be realistic on a pistol in real life, at least for some shooters, games traditionally since times immemorial, use the “center hold” - this means the point of impact is resting on the top edge of the front sight blade.
For a relatively high powered, relatively long range precision rifle, its completely unacceptable. And most players will never “really” be comfortable with this. There are better rifle sights available since… well, the invention of the rifle really.
Yes, you can get used to it, but after you do, what you are left with is uncomfortable annoying sights and i would bet that most people will just ditch it in favor of something with a better sight picture just because of how annoying it is.
These are my most serious complaints about how the guns feel. Most people have SOME idea how guns work, and while i may be a bit of a gun nut, im fairly confident that this is enough of an obvious realism breaking annoyance that MOST players will notice and complain about it at some point or another. For me its something that actively annoys me every time i pull my (digital space) gun out and its fairly distracting.
I understand that many things are subject to change, some might ALREADY be changed and just not implemented yet, but i also feel this is important to me enough to make a post about it - just in case.
This game is, after all, equal parts shooter and hack/slash game… both weapon groups should have their proper representation. And the “feel” of a weapon does a lot for me personally, often more than the stats.