» Mon Feb 25, 2013 8:55 pm I’m absolutely gutted and abhorred at the current state of the multiplayer. If compared to the SP campaign and C2 SP & MP, it’s barely playable.
This will be my review of the retail release of C3 MP on Xbox 360. I have played the MP for around 20 hours and so I believe I have an informed opinion of the game.
Please find below my 7 Blunders of Crysis 3?:
MatchMaking and Connections
- Host Migrations fail majority of the time.
- If cooking a grenade, while host migrating, it will explode on resuming the game and kill you.
- Failed host migrations cause you to lose perk and weapon attachment unlock progress. Annoying!!
- 10-15% of games all players are on red bars except Host.
- Most games the connections svck for everyone with 1-3 bars.
- NO REGIONAL FILTER (unbelievably MASSIVE issue) THIS IS ESSENTIAL!
- Infinite searching sessions bug
- P2P = sketchy hit detection but nothing worse than most p2p games.
- Players from China, Brazil, Africa, Europe, America... all in one lobby.
Console Freezing
- Host Migrations can cause console freezing.
- Freezing while loading up games.
- Freezing while entering Multiplayer if you are in an Xbox Live party (I have no personal experience in this. Whenever I play with friends I took their advice in advance and don’t join parties until I am already in Multiplayer)
Spawn system
This is not the worst spawn system, it is a hell lot better than C2 on day 1 (worst spawns in FPS history). It is also not as bad as the random spawns on COD. However there are a couple of issues;
- Spawning next to the enemy at the beginning of the game LOL! This is literally right next to 4 enemies or in the middle of them.
- Predictable spawns
- The enemy spawns are too condensed together thus causing the “Death Train Effect”
The Death Train Effect... have you ever noticed that a good amount of time you kill an enemy you get killed immediately afterwards? This is because enemies spawn so close to one another. Not only is this a frustrating experience but also no good for the opposite team as it creates a yo-yo effect; players run from one end of the map, wipe them enemy out, run to the opposite side, rinse and repeat.
Hit & Miss Map Design
- Many maps too large for 6 vs 6 - thus too much downtime searching for the enemy and running from one end of the map to the other due to the spawn system.
- Tight corridors, too many rooms – enables extreme camping in MP especially on Hydro and Brooklyn Bridge where the enemy will camp in their spawn all game.
- Poor texture quality - due to the limited VRAM of the Xbox and the the large maps, the overall resolution and texture quality of the game has suffered. Textures are more washed out than in C2 and fuzzier. BF3 did a good job with even bigger maps and look better so I don’t see why C3 could not be the same as C2. Some of these issues are probably due to the massive increase in foliage and trees in the MP as well as the size of the map.
- Maps not as iconic as C3 such as Terminal, Impact, Skyline, Parking Lot... funnily enough, 2-3 maps in C3 are reskins of C2 maps.
Campfest
This is caused by;
1. map design,
2. predator bow
3. being able to shot from stealth (couldn’t do this in C2 and do damage)
4. stealth being extremely difficult to see.
Camping was almost non-existant in C2, however it is a plague in C3. Stealth bow users are one hit killing here, there and everywhere. Campers sitting in stealth in corners...
I believe most of this is caused by the fact that stealth is so difficult to see in C3 compared to C2. I have literally ran around the same spot for 10-15 seconds with my proximity alarm going off and the enemy appearing on the radar and cannot find the guy walking around or sitting/standing in a corner.
Gameplay Balance – Overpowered weapons and modules limit class setup diversity.
I will breakdown for you the worst modules and weapons and give reasons why they are a nuisance and OP.
Typhoon – No recoil, insanely fast time to kill, fast reload, good at close to medium range, not too loud, large clip and infinite ammo as many players use Typhoon as well. There is no way you are beating someone with a Typhoon 1 vs 1 frequently if you don’t have a Typhoon as well, especially if the user has AA or their armour up and you don’t. If you are flanked you will die before you can react.
Slap RAPID FIRE on this module and you have a monster. You SHOULD not be able to combine this module with the Typhoon. Some may argue that it uses ammo fast but so what? That is the abusers inconvenience, not mine. All I know is that I am getting killed with little chance to fight back plus the abuser can get plenty of ammo off all the other players with a Typhoon.
Auto Armor – These are the problems with AA;
1. It makes everyone take ages to kill. Couple with C3's terrible connections is a recipe for disaster. You have to deplete their armor and health, as opposed to just their health if they didn't have AA. So yes it does take ages because it takes twice as many bullets to kill most people
2. Makes the game less of a tactical, skill-based shooter because players don't have to activate it themselves when appropriate, the game does it for them. This is taking a significant dimension of Crysis taken out of the game.
3. Not using it gives others an advantage over you. This cannot be mitigated by using armor yourself because you don't always know when you will be shot, may not be able to react fast enough or simply forget to use it.
4. Lessens diversity of class setups as almost 'everyone' runs AA and Maneuverability this with Typhoon is a common and annoying combo.
Stealth – This is inconsistent, sometimes they are easy to see from a distance and sometimes I can look for the guy on my radar for ages looking for him.
Predator Bow in Stealth – The bow is overpowered when the user can kill while in stealth with low profile, you can’t see them and they have no drawbacks as stealth takes a long time to drain while motionless.
Maneuverability – The ability to get kills and survive encounter are dramatically increased with this perk making it almost mandatory if you want to do consistently well. I do well without this module but do much better with it.
Proximity Alarm – Footstep sound being reduced from Crysis making hearing people very difficult to hear so you need this to know where people are if you don’t have a radar up or the enemy has Low Profile. This module is not OP but extremely useful, they need to buff footstep to make this module less useful.
In conclusion, there is a lack of class diversity as a lot of people are running around with AA, Maneuverability and then the 3rd module of their choice.
Solutions;
1) Increase default movement speed by 10%, reduce maneuverability movement bonus by 10% so users of the module would get an extra 10% not 20%. This will make the game more playable for non users and give less incentive to use the perk. It’s still good but not as good.
2) Remove AA or allow the first bullet to hit the target and then the AA to activate.
Dumbing Down
The cumulative effect of;
- unbalanced weapons and modules
- little to no energy management
- AA
- stealth bow users
- predictable spawns
- enabling of camping rather than fighting like a man
- inconsistent and frequent completely invisible stealth users
- death train effect
- typhoon
- Maps design to encourage randomization so everyone gets easy kills one each other by “just being there at the right time”.
There you have it, the 7 Blunders of Crysis 3?.
Hopefully they will fix these all. If I had to prioritize any of these I would look into these issues in the following order
1. MatchMaking and Connections
2. Gameplay Balance
3. Console Freezing
Feedback is welcome, however if you are going to troll or bring up arguments I have already addressed in my post I will ignore it.
