Screw it I'll jump in.
Yes I've played it.
No won't be sticking with it.
5 vs 5 improved things but man the game has issues.
So they've put in a new character, he's bugged and broken to an OP degree so far, his active ability he's meant to send out a wolf spirit thing that finds injured players and marks them for your team. It doesn't work it finds any player and the game considers them injured even at full armour and health I'm guessing due to a bug thinking unless they have endgame armour they're not full health so every enemy gets marked and thus he's a better version of an existing character whose detection ability only works if enemies move and it tells them when the scan happens so they know to stay still.
The gear up stage gets boring if you end up relying on mining the gems to get currency to trade with it feels like we at least need to be shooting enemies carrying the crystals or something.
They either need to make walls harder to break (Reinforced walls just take 2 hits or a thumper charge to destroy normal walls 1 hit or can be destroyed via multiple melee strikes or one of the characters who has as his active ability the ability 2 charges where he can smash walls) or easier to repair. It shouldn't be so quick an enemy can 1 shot the wall you spent 15 seconds repairing.
Weapon balance is still an issue. Some weapons are just useless or inferior to others it's not different usage cases it's just inferior like the burst fire assault rifle either of the others is just outright better. Or the auto shotgun, I've not got 1 kill with the thing but the pump action Kraken I can devastate with.
The community. Oh man I've played Dota 2 and I've been playing Rivals a lot. I've not played a game with a community this in need of some Chlorine in the pool than this one. It's like being back in the old COD Lobby days, only this game requires some teamwork and co-ordination so Johnny 12 year old on about how much of a 1337 sniper he is who couldn't hit a bar with a nuclear explosion and keeps dying then ragequits but to avoid leaver penalty AFKs at the spawn and the game takes 5 or more minutes to remove them isn't great. Nor the people who apparently don't understand basics like actually getting armour in the game or being so stupid I swear this happened, one dude didn't know how to open the chests to get items. It's 1 button press and he followed me round all game waiting for me to open the chests then running over to try and grab stuff. I've had mic spam, people yelling about Noob team (the guy had least kills and revives all game). The matchmaking doesn't seem to fix this either I've had few close games and far more absolute stomps or been absolutely stomped. Oh and with crossplay on I'm pretty sure I've run into hackers too.
Gameplay wise it feels like a rougher Apex Legends. In Apex I wasn't bad but here because there's no restoration items it's trying to be more tactical but it often comes down to whose got the most people nearby in a fight than some skilled battle. It's like congrats you killed the enemy, you have no armour and probably only half health hope you can hide in cover before one of his team mates comes in and kills you anyway. Oh but you can restore health and armour if you banish the enemies soul gem........ which is now in the wide open in perfect sight line for the enemies team mates so even if you do it you'll be getting shot to pieces and lose all the restored armour and health so hiding for it to regen is somehow the best option.
kotaku.com
