Ghost Recon: Wildlands - Catch All

Big big thanks to Dakhath for giving me a PC invite. Much appreciated my friend.

I also received an Xbox invite and can invite 3 people. Let me know if anyone needs a Xbox beta.

So having "finished" the beta, here are my impressions... It's ok. But if you compare to other open world games such as the latest GTA, Saints Row, Red Dead Redemption, or Just Cause, it lacks any actual story or character. The weapons are all serviceable and get the job done. But when your opponents are all brain-dead AI, the minor weapons differences aren't important enough to make a difference.

If you want to just play this game solo, I'd say it's not worth it. The other 4 I listed are better and more memorable. So the only thing this game has going for it is the 4 player co-op. Haven't spent a lot of time in co-op yet so I'll save judgement. But I'm tempted to say it'll be like the Division co-op. Except there's no PvP and you're exploring a much larger area that's also less dense (Urban vs rural countryside). Now that I think of it, this game is exactly the same as the Division except no PvP, no loot grinding, and you have vehicles and some AI companions.

So I'm a little underwhelmed. It still has all the fun "get every upgrade on the map" feeling that feeds my compulsion, but I've done all this before in more interesting environments. Maybe the final game will have a lot more. I get the impression that they've only shown a tiny portion of the overall map.

Who wants to get together sometime this weekend to try out the co-op? Curse or Discord?

Oh boy, this thing is not ready for prime time.

If I had a key I'd play with you Edwin

Edwin wrote:

Who wants to get together sometime this weekend to try out the co-op? Curse or Discord?

I'm down as always. Just ping me.

I know it's beta, but couldn't run on my PC without crashes.

I am playing the Xbox version now. Graphics is so so. Feels like a third person Far Cry.

Dakhath wrote:

So having "finished" the beta, here are my impressions... It's ok. But if you compare to other open world games such as the latest GTA, Saints Row, Red Dead Redemption, or Just Cause, it lacks any actual story or character. The weapons are all serviceable and get the job done. But when your opponents are all brain-dead AI, the minor weapons differences aren't important enough to make a difference.

The game world is massive, and need to try at a higher difficulty to get better AI. We saw only 6-8 weapons once you have everything unlocked. There's more like 30-40 available. We only saw a very small slice of the game.

Still there's work to be done. Environment bugs, party bugs, mission bugs. Even so i think there's a lot here to have fun with and i definitely think it's worth it.

ranalin wrote:
Dakhath wrote:

So having "finished" the beta, here are my impressions... It's ok. But if you compare to other open world games such as the latest GTA, Saints Row, Red Dead Redemption, or Just Cause, it lacks any actual story or character. The weapons are all serviceable and get the job done. But when your opponents are all brain-dead AI, the minor weapons differences aren't important enough to make a difference.

The game world is massive, and need to try at a higher difficulty to get better AI. We saw only 6-8 weapons once you have everything unlocked. There's more like 30-40 available. We only saw a very small slice of the game.

Still there's work to be done. Environment bugs, party bugs, mission bugs. Even so i think there's a lot here to have fun with and i definitely think it's worth it.

Yeah I agree. I had a lot of weird graphical issues but most of that was resolved by turning off motion blur and tightening up the sharpness. Beyond that the worst stuff I saw was that sometimes NPCs and enemies would be in different places or flat out not there from one player to the next. And there's some audio bugs where if you die you sound like you're underwater with everything being muffled. All stuff that can be resolved with a patch or two.

You should try zooming out on the map, it's insane how small the beta area is compared to the rest of the map, specially considering that it it's like a 3000m square area.

I would like to see some AI improvements but I'm not sure if that'll happen this late in the game. They don't quite react in any smart way and it's mostly easy just wiping them out. If this was the game that I got at launch I would be mostly happy with it. But if they can fix some of the bugs and maybe tighten up the driving I would be happier.

ranalin wrote:
Dakhath wrote:

So having "finished" the beta, here are my impressions... It's ok. But if you compare to other open world games such as the latest GTA, Saints Row, Red Dead Redemption, or Just Cause, it lacks any actual story or character. The weapons are all serviceable and get the job done. But when your opponents are all brain-dead AI, the minor weapons differences aren't important enough to make a difference.

The game world is massive, and need to try at a higher difficulty to get better AI. We saw only 6-8 weapons once you have everything unlocked. There's more like 30-40 available. We only saw a very small slice of the game.

Still there's work to be done. Environment bugs, party bugs, mission bugs. Even so i think there's a lot here to have fun with and i definitely think it's worth it.

This pretty much sums it up for me. Yes, there are bugs but overall it's a lot of fun already and the beta is a small sampling of a much larger game with a ton more content. It leaves me wanting more.

*Legion* wrote:

Oh boy, this thing is not ready for prime time.

SO MUCH JANK

I played one tiny short bit of co-op with Ranalin and company, but at one point our helicopter was clearly going to crash, so I bailed. I got to the ground ok, then the helicopter landed on me and I got kicked from their game.

Then there's the weird graphics thing that started up the second time I played where any time I switched to the drone the screen was sort of blurry and smudgy for a random amount of time, and would then eventually clear up if I stayed in the drone view long enough.

And then in co-op there's some kind of weird laggy detection going on with the drone view if you aren't the host, because I can instantly tag a bunch of guys in singleplayer, but in someone else's game the drone works correctly about a third of the time and the rest it's just useless. You can just stare at a guy for full seconds and... nope. No tag.

The game seems like it could be fun, and there's some chance this is an already weeks old build and some of this stuff has been ironed out, but man, I dunno.

If anyone has a spare PC key laying around, I would hate to see it go to waste

Turns out if you jump out of the helicopter as the pilot, and hit your parachute, you can glide down while watching Escher spiral out of control and crash, unable to switch into the pilot seat.

Sold!

It's definitely rough around the edges and could use more time in the polishing oven, but I had fun with it. I love the weighty feel of the guns and the customization is pretty crazy. I'll still wait for reviews but this may end up being an impulse buy for me.

I made a Ghost Recon folder in Curse and added 3 channels inside of it. That way multiple groups can be doing their thing and not be overlapping other team's conversations.

Thin_J wrote:

SO MUCH JANK

This.

The game is completely unplayable for me if my rudder pedals or HOTAS are plugged in. Or steering wheel. I haven't been able to budge from the starting point.

I'm not tearing apart my setup for this piece of crap. I'll be back in 9 months when maybe there's a working game there. The Ubisoft way.

I can confirm that my character says, "S**t balls."

I didn't play a lot, but I'm not feeling it. It's pretty ugly. Aiming the rifle aims around cover, but not the handgun. Also, in the intro: "the job comes with a chopper" - correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most military folks refer to a helicopter as a "helo"?

Playing solo, the orders I could give to my squad seemed extremely limited. Maybe I'm missing something there. I'll give the beta a little more time, but my first impressions weren't good.

Tried this solo and wasn't feeling it but gave Rave80 a friend invite and once I played with a real person it certainly felt more meaty. Chasing down a convoy in a helicopter while sniping at the driver hanging off the runners was pretty damn fun. Now if they can get the optimization locked in before launch I can see myself getting it because the fps right now on high end systems is poopy. Looks and plays way better than I expected it to from what I saw early on with the console streams on YouTube.

Balthezor wrote:

Big big thanks to Dakhath for giving me a PC invite. Much appreciated my friend.

I also received an Xbox invite and can invite 3 people. Let me know if anyone needs a Xbox beta.

If you have an extra key I would love to try it out.

I have 3 keys left. Add me to Uplay: whispa07

Edit: This is for PC

I enjoyed Ghost Recon: Wildlands and I ... might not buy it? I don't think it differentiates itself enough from Far Cry and the rest of the Ubisoft gang. I like the one-shot-one-kill kind of gameplay, but it's pretty fluffy. I miss the days of fixed maps with randomly spawned enemies instead of trying to slap it all in a big, open world. You rarely feel constrained or particularly tense during your approaches. I need to try it on a higher difficulty I think. AI was pretty dull on normal.

The friction-less movement and driving through the woods with a sports car that can climb rocks kind of clashes with the (near as I can tell) realistic weapons and sounds. The tone in this thing is all over the place. Why are the locals cool with a crew of geared up maniacs driving around their region in broad daylight killing people? It's called Ghost Recon. Where's the ghost part?

I guess I'm just shaking my cane at the clouds. I miss the original.

Anybody have an extra PS4 invite?

Certis wrote:

I need to try it on a higher difficulty I think. AI was pretty dull on normal.

Yeah, I think players and the AI teammates are too resilient to ever feel any of the tension of the older games. Even after the old ones went third person and transitioned to console they were still much harder than Wildlands is on the default difficulty. I can't even imagine it qualifying as an actual game if you drop it down to the easiest one.

Certis wrote:

I guess I'm just shaking my cane at the clouds. I miss the original.

Probably, but you aren't the only one.

Certis wrote:

I enjoyed Ghost Recon: Wildlands and I ... might not buy it? I don't think it differentiates itself enough from Far Cry and the rest of the Ubisoft gang. I like the one-shot-one-kill kind of gameplay, but it's pretty fluffy. I miss the days of fixed maps with randomly spawned enemies instead of trying to slap it all in a big, open world. You rarely feel constrained or particularly tense during your approaches. I need to try it on a higher difficulty I think. AI was pretty dull on normal.

The friction-less movement and driving through the woods with a sports car that can climb rocks kind of clashes with the (near as I can tell) realistic weapons and sounds. The tone in this thing is all over the place. Why are the locals cool with a crew of geared up maniacs driving around their region in broad daylight killing people? It's called Ghost Recon. Where's the ghost part?

I guess I'm just shaking my cane at the clouds. I miss the original.

Totally agree on the tone being all over the map. If you want to make it more "realistic" though, it probably means making the game harder, the AI better, the HUD less helpful, and overall the game less accessible. So... I'm not entirely how to fix this either.

I just know the other open-world games I've played (realistic or not) were more fun.

Also, I thought it was hilarious when someone joined my game while I was mid-flight in a helo and ALL my AI teammates suddenly jumped out. " Like, "Was it the bean burrito I ate for lunch?".

Thin_J wrote:
Certis wrote:

I guess I'm just shaking my cane at the clouds. I miss the original.

Probably, but you aren't the only one.

Clearly the solution here is a co-op night for GR 1 + expansions.

whispa wrote:

I have 3 keys left. Add me to Uplay: whispa07

Edit: This is for PC

Added ya, redhwk25

whispa wrote:

I have 3 keys left. Add me to Uplay: whispa07

Edit: This is for PC

Whispa, I've sent you a friend request and would appreciate a PC code.

Hedinn? Didn't I send you an invite already?