Recent reviews by LukaLuu

I want to love this game, I want to play it constantly. I probably will keep playing it, despite the constant disappointment I feel. On good faith I cannot recommend this game to anyone in it's current state unless you like excessive masochism for the sake of "fun". Let's get into it.

Optimization:
As others have stated, this game has some horrific optimization. It has gotten better, but it's running deeper than just performance at this point. The much vaunted Dedicated Servers start to drool and chug on any difficult above Malice, leading to horrific hit registration issues that can and will either kill you or make you want to tear your hair out.

Loot, Progression, End Game:
(Please wait one hour for review reset, then please wait an additional hour for the content you want, then please wait at least three hundred hours for a good version of it). That's the Loot in a nutshell, and apparently after further comments from community management and some math floating around the forums, it was intended to be this way! "Design Intent" they say. I would rather drag my pasty white ass across a mile of broken glass and rusted nails than continue to deal with this psychologically abusive loot system designed with the sole intention of keeping players chasing that perfect roll forever. This ties in nicely to the fact that it's also your progression too, there you go, that's everything. Level to thirty and chase that roll. End Game, what end game?

Balance, Micro-transactions, Patching:
For the life of me I will never understand why balancing in a PvE game is so difficult. Make things fun, make them work, but don't make them work too well. It's an odd point but I find that Outriders was the best realization of this philosophy despite all of the crap surrounding that game as well. I felt powerful, I felt like I could actually have an impact. Here, my slightly sharpened butter knife is a better pick than a damn sword because ???. But don't enjoy something for too long, with every patch the monkey's paw curls and you get one change you wanted and forty changes you didn't, including this ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ balancing. Why are most autoguns useless, why do the LasPistol and Autopistol have no purpose or decent stats, on and on and on. Class balance is all over the board as well, so much for the highly talked of depth and scope of talents. You've got four classes that are nearly the exact same as Vermintide 2, with small percentage buffs (4-10% being the most common). Enjoy. As for the micro-transactions, I actually don't have a personal problem with decent cosmetics for sale in game IF the game has earnable and well thought out options as well. You don't, you don't get any of that here to earn, and after suffering backlash for their predatory timers Fatshark in their infinite wisdom has just hidden them to give people a twenty four hour random timer to induce even greater fear of missing out. The corporate angle around these decisions has been highly visible in both community engagement posts as well as interviews cycling around the internet (magically forgetting to add different valued packs at exact amounts to purchase something, a shop with all options visible being 'bad for the consumer and confusing'). If you want to be treated like an absolute moron while still being expected to blow money on overpriced cosmetics in a non free to play game, this is it you've found your niche. I've seen Korean Gacha games less predatory than this. Don't worry though, we're in for weekly patches that don't fix the glaring issues and continue to add the missing features that were promised in this game, and with each one you roll the dice as to if it will break things even more. Already the current patch for December 15th (which was delayed by a day, then delayed by hours because Fatshark refuses to shut the servers down when unpatched players are still online) has made numerous people unable to even launch the game while adding numerous features no one wanted or asked for.

Art, Sound, Gameplay:
This is the highlight, and the reason I keep playing this game. The levels are gorgeous if a bit samey, the weapons feel incredible and sound even better. This is probably the best realization of 40k ever seen across any media bar none. This right here, is the icing on the overflowing toilet, the one shining bright spot in it all. If you're that much into Warhammer 40K, or it grabs you as heavily as it grabbed me you might enjoy your time with this game, even if you hate it.

Fatshark and Community:
I can't post this review without delving into this point, because more people really ought to know this if they don't already. FatShark does not like you, they likely don't care about your wants or ideas, they only care about your money. Things that might make massive sense to thousands of players will be quietly ignored, swept under the rug, or if you're really lucky told they don't fit the 'design intent'. I cannot stress enough how insulting many of the community outreach posts or day to day community management can be. They hate you, they think they're funny about it, and they don't care. From obfuscating definitions, snippy passive aggressive posts, or outright lies and corporate speak to shield it (yes I'm talking about you Hedge), you will wonder why you care about this game when they developers don't care about you.

Empty Promises, Missing Features:
Where to start here, the steam page still shows cosmetics that cannot be accessed in the game. I'm sure they'll pop up in the micro-transaction shop at some point. Numerous weapons are STILL missing from the game, the much lauded 70+ number still not having been reached weeks after launch. Performance is still hit or miss, crafting was ripped from the game before launch and is now being slowly added back in apparently with everything to be in by the end of December but that remains to be seen. This game was not complete, and no Hedge you can't obfuscate that fact either. At best this was Early Access, at worst this is still a Beta.

Were it not for the positive reviews during the paid for pre-order beta, this game would have a far lower score, and it deserves it. I hate that I love the core gameplay so much I want to keep playing, that I am one of the people these predatory tactics work on and I want to log in to check my store. Maybe one day this will be worth playing, and will respect your time, but unless you hate yourself as much as I do to match just how little FatShark will respect you, stay away. Stay very far away. You'll be happier, you'll have a full head of hair, you'll get laid constantly, life will be great. Maybe one day I can in good faith recommend this game, but until then the monkey paw will keep curling and every hope and dream in your reality will be done in the worst possible way.