I'm a second wipe player, with 1500 hours done entirely on my first (previous) wipe. I really had obscene amounts of fun during that wipe, and especially after unlocking lv4 traders and getting decent skill progression on my character.
Now, I've returned to the game just recently after a long break, and was exposed to the low level experience again, and it's really putting me off from wanting to play. I understand that a lot of people praise early wipe times as fun, and so on, but I'm mostly referring to specifically the experience of being low level on all skills, with no access to decent weapons and mods, and god forbid any sort of meta equipment.
The game literally does not even remotely begin until the flea is unlocked, where any semblance of a fun-to-use gun can be obtained.
What's the point of going through this process at all?
The amounts of fun I had with max strength and endurance with meta weapons is unmatched with ANY fps game I've ever played – it's no incident that I managed to round up 1500 hours in a single (and my first) wipe. I ended up with 2k+ PMC kills and 230+ mil RUB (closer to 300 mil stash value) by the end of it. The vast majority of the hours were already with some decent gear and skills, and those were the actually fun hours. But then, those hundreds of grindy, gimped-feeling hours were atrocious to be fair.
The process of getting to the endgame is just nowhere near as fun to be honest. The best comparison I can think of is that I start the game as a 85 year old man who cannot sprint for more than 30 seconds without going into cardiac arrest, and who cannot hold any automatic weapon without it shooting towards the sky while full auto.
There are ways to play around these issues, but this is just the game enforcing a different style of gameplay onto the player. I have 0 desire to be a mosin rat man, for example.
The thought of having to grind hundreds of hours just to get to a point where I can have some freedom with equipment, weapons and mods, and skills that make me feel like my dude is an actual solider with at least a tiny bit of physical conditioning, is depressing, to the point where I am just not that hyped to play at all this wipe. I'm leaning more towards "wait until the game is released and no-wipe servers exist, then progress again there".
And I must say, the changes they made feel good to me. It feels like a better wipe than the previous one. But the progression/skill system makes you feel so dramatically gimped at the start, that I don't have much desire to start like last time. Even though I have so much more knowledge now (after a few days of playing I am still at 30 KD and 85% survival rate just because I have the slightest clue of map knowledge).
I guess my rant is that the game feels like shit at low levels and it shouldn't.
And keep in mind, I'm not a guy that played a few games and started complaining. The previous wipe pretty much consumed me, I was playing hours every single day just to get better. I'm only sharing my opinion that early game experience is just not as fun as endgame and the gap between these two experiences is massive. I know some people play wipe after wipe and go through this every time, but that is my personal opinion. I think the early level power should be increased substantially. It may even make it easier for new players to get hooked faster.
Some example changes from the top of my mind:
- Completely rework the skill systems, make them progress dramatically faster. Perhaps make them 0/11 systems and make the first 50-60% progress very quickly, and the second half a bit slower, with the last 10% much slower.
- Give players access to viable weapons and ammo from various types from the get go. For example open up an smg like UMP to be buyable with cash right away with FMJ ammo. Open up more ARs with decent ammo. Open up M856A1 from the get go.
- Open up more mods to help remedy ridiculous over-done recoil on weapons, or just fix recoil so that it's lower to begin with and mods affect it less in the endgame.
