Ghost Recon Wildlands - Ghosts say no to drugs

Ok, so my uplay is JVMcMaster

I have to admit, I’m really impressed so far.

The physical layout and geography of Bolivia feels different from every other open world game I’ve played. At first I thought it would be like Far Cry 4, but the sense of scale or something feels way better than in that game.

I was playing on extreme difficulty, and I kind of like it. I’m lethal and the enemy is lethal too. So as long as I get the drop on people, it’s really satisfying to wipe them out with the help of AI teammates. Just sync up two targets and then shoot a third target. That way the fight starts with three dead enemies. But sometimes things go south and the enemy gets reinforcements from unexpected directions, which can lead to a quick death.

Vehicle handling does seem very floaty. But at least handling sucks more in the same direction that it sucks in GTA V. In other words, it sucks in the favor of players being able to magically make the vehicle do what they want, despite physics. That’s at least preferable to the Watch Dogs method of sucking where the poor handling works against the players.

I did enjoy the helicopter controls. Intuitive. When I took off and flew around in a plane though, it was a lot harder to line up and land in a plane. I crashed it and failed that secondary mission. I had a lot of laughing at my own hijinx though.

Played some more, finally the helicopter control clicked, I was able to fly it with ease, but the control for plane is really bad, as there is no rudder to change direction, so you have to bank the plane, unless I miss the rudder key somewhere.

It has been fun so far, and the new area is very tough especially if you are playing solo and play it at highest difficulty, but when you pull the mission off, it feels very satisfying, I love the sync shot skill from the AI teammates, auto kill FTW.

Performance wise, I get around 50-60fps on very high setting with couple features turn to ultra, playing 1440P (i7 5820K, 16GB RAM, 1070GTX), but I noticed that every time when the game auto saves, it just microstutters, also the game auto saves a lot when you travel around the map.

This is the worst voice-acting I’ve heard in a AAA game in a really long time. It’s goddamn embarrassing.

Also, this may literally have the worst in-game radio station ever. I can’t even tell if it’s supposed to be bad on purpose as some kind of commentary on media control in a criminal oligarchy or if Ubisoft Paris just stopped giving a shit.

Also, Bolivia is amazing. I never knew they had helicopters every few hundred feet just scattered around the countryside.

I think my favorite part so far is just crossing the countryside on foot instead of taking the roads and encountering all these footpaths and seeing those locals use those footpaths to travel from place to place. It really makes even the countryside seem very lively and real.

Tried it on the PS4.

  • Helicopter controls are … are there even controls? They felt just… almost random
  • Camera jumping from left to right shoulder at ‘random’ was really annoying
  • AI team mates doing who knows what at times, seems like it could make for a really terrible singleplayer experience
  • “Leaving MIssion Area”… Maybe a DEMO thing, or is this how the open world shooter is?
  • “aiming” controls seemed a bit off… Maybe just need to get used to it, but the aiming in Destiny seems more smooth

Nice graphics and explosions I suppose.

  • Returning to an area you had already been only to see the chopper on the top of the gas station + the station itself have respawned with enemies … Oh well, nothing we haven’t seen before… and maybe it respawns when you die (cant remember if I did or not… so many times).

Probably a nice playthrough game, but you’ll probably have to resort to doing it online or your AI team mates will get you killed - and with all the extra crap on the PC title, no way I’ll get it on that platform.

TL;DR; Recommendation to Ubisoft - Delay the release to fix these issues - Throw in some extra dlc shit to appease those who WANT IT ON DAY ONE GOD DAMN IT.

Finished open beta story missions, overall feeling is meh…

Co-op is fun, single player not so much. Shooting part is good, driving and flying not so much, as in you can drive van up a steep hill fast, so no vehicle physics. AI teammates are OK only because the sync shots. otherwise, they have no clue, especially in the confined space, due to you can’t really use sync shots in CQB, but they are good for distraction, all you need to do is send them to lure enemy fire, and that will let you flank. Enemy AI seems to be reasonable if you don’t abuse the system, as they will investigate the shots if bodies are found, but due to bodies disappears after few seconds, many times the alarm will not be rised, in open area, you can abuse this to line up sync shots, then scoot to another hide spot and sync shot again, rinse and repeat, you don’t even have to fire a shot, you can clean out stronghold with AI sync shots only with this.

I’m starting to think extreme difficulty is just a tad too hard. The fact that you can spend half an hour to take over a base, and then get killed by the single guy left in there, only to have to start over from a checkpoint with the whole base repopulated, it’s nice and hardcore, but a little frustrating.

I tried this in co-op last night. The comments upthread about this being a different game in co-op were spot on. Sadly, I hated the co-op experience. Basically, your 3 highly competent and obedient AI teammates are replaced with one (to three) much less competent friend who is not going to follow orders. At all. And you’re both going to die repeatedly.

So yeah, I had a terrible time in co-op overall. I much prefer the single player.

Don’t sounds like a problem you will have with friends or a problem you may have once the game population know the game better. Like… something like what you describe is probably what happened with Destiny at release. But people where young and naive, in their level 7 character undergeared for sepikis.

Sorry, I didn’t have time to go into details this morning. I will now elaborate.

When I was driving a humvee with a minigun mounted to the top, my friend had a lot of trouble getting in. He could get into the back seat and change seats between the two back seats, but not get up to the top. When he finally did get in the gunner’s seat, on my screen he was just standing on the roof. So when I accelerated, he fell off the roof. Then he would warp back to the roof, standing there, and then fall off again. Repeatedly. This stopped being funny after the first 30 seconds.

Not only could I not see him fire the weapon (though the game occasionally would pop in the results of the destruction he was causing), I also couldn’t see it when he was down and needed reviving. And he couldn’t see me either. None of us got a message or were shown in any way that the partner was down, and we had to do all the work by telling each other over the microphone. Sometimes I would run him over with the vehicle on his screen, but on my screen I just backed up so he was close to me. On his screen I had run him over and he was underneath my vehicle. He finally told me needed reviving and had 5 seconds left. I quickly got out and went to the person standing behind my vehicle and pressed the revive button. Suddenly he was on the ground and I was reviving him. Phew.

Anyway, it was a mess in so many ways that I’m even forgetting right now. It was not an enjoyable coop experience.

Weird, we probably played 10-15 hours over the weekend and never experienced anything like that.

He couldn’t tell you? Co-op in this game without voice chat is pointless.

He did tell me, sometimes. Once we realized that the HUD was not going to tell us, like we had both assumed, we both started telling each other when we were down and we also tried to always stick closer together. But it added to the feeling that coop was an afterthought when you can’t even put a HUD indicator to show your partner is down. From that other thread that Telefrog started, I’m of the opinion that a good co-op experience needs to be designed. Every game doesn’t just become better with co-op.

I don’t know, I don’t want to bring down the party here with too much negativity anyway. The world of Bolivia they’ve created is a very nice one. I love all the foot traffic between little towns as the native civilians walk from place to place. I love the trees and the rivers and mountains. It’s a very pleasant world to explore.

What you describe is a game in alpha state no way near release date.

Similarly to Brakara, we’ve also played over 12 hours of coop with my friends and have never experienced any of the (weird!) issues you are describing. I wouldn’t get discouraged, most likely the servers crapped out on you at the time when you were trying coop or some other desync bug happened.

My friends also played with other their friends and I heard no reports of glitches like that. I guess you are lucky! :)

And yes, there is a HUD indicator that your friend is down. :)

Also, going together in a truck, helicopter or APC raining fire around you (and eventually running away from tons of Unidad helicopters and soldiers) is A LOT of fun in coop.

Coop definitely doesn’t seem to be an afterthought in this game, in fact it seems to be the main feature.

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the case. In co-op, the game can be a crazy multiplayer GTA-style emergent chaos romp, or it can be a tactical, squad comms Arma-lite. In single player the game is a relentlessly boring grind.

Inevitable.

But we do have news about a free PvP update!

[quote]
The Ghosts are ready to take on the Santa Blanca drug cartel on March 7, but their mission in the wilderness won’t end there – a free PvP update (featuring 4v4 team combat) is coming to Ghost Recon Wildlands after launch, along with two major paid expansions: Narco Road and Fallen Ghosts. In Narco Road, you must infiltrate a gang of smugglers and earn their leader’s trust by competing in races and challenges. Yes, you have to take them down…from the inside! Fallen Ghosts, the second major expansion for Wildlands, has your squad running from their downed helicopter to escape some powerful new enemies that are hot on their trail.

Season pass owners will receive one week early access to both expansions, as well as access to The Unidad Conspiracy Missions, The Peruvian Connection Pack, an exclusive Bolivian Minibus vehicle, and equipment packs that include outfits inspired by the Katari 26 rebels, the Unidad, and the Santa Blanca. These three themed packs also include weapons, such as an AK-47 equipped with a larger magazine, a Unidad LMG with a red dot scope and larger magazine, and the Santa Blanca golden M1911, respectively.

Finally, the Ghost Recon Wildlands Season Pass comes with a host of bonuses. Owners will receive a permanent 5% XP booster; a single-use two hour XP booster that gives a 50% boost to you and a 25% boost to players in your session; and a Ghost Recon Credits Pack with 800 credits. Additional credits can be purchased at any time to spend on cosmetic items, XP boosts, and weapons comparable to those you can find through normal gameplay.[/quote]

NVIDIA GameWorks yada yada…

This sort of scratches an itch that isn’t particularly itchy. I like using the drone and it’s sort of fun riding shotgun into some baddies and shootering them up.

There’s a weird place for certain B games where a game that’s just mostly ok and doesnt require you to to be completely invested in it is sometimes fun. Fun-ish. It’s sort of like a decent side game if you don’t want to go all in on a better game.