by Flare on Thu May 19, 2016 1:37 pm Genre : Free to Play , Craft and Fight , PvP and PvE with player economy .
Status : Closed Beta - Buy to Enter
My opinion : Not recommended you buy in, and probably not worth even trying at open beta.
Crossout is a new game by the developers of Star Conflict, Targems and published by War Thunder developers, Gaijin.
The game is a promising looking Mad Max-esque romp in the wasteland with the player building their combat vehicles from a array of bits and pieces, and then taking said vehicle into either PvP or PvE battles.
PvP and PvE are linked in that the fuel to run PvE is earned in PvP if you equip a fuel barrel, and PvE earns you craft material needed to craft weapons and equipment (but not structural items).
You can avoid either by using the market to buy what you need, and earning currency in the game is possible by using the market to sell items you craft or loot.
Weapons and equipment are all player craftable, and except for a few of the basic stuff are only available by crafting or buying off the player driven market, and these weapons and equipment have a limited use controlled by a durability stat which decreases when you lose either a PvP or PvE match up, so they need repairing and replacing.
The game looks pretty good with some rather neat little touches like how the exhaust pipes pop when you start stop the vehicle, and it has decent mechanics and physics to back up the looks, your vehicle will react in a manner you would expect (most of the time, lag can cause issues) ... fire a huge cannon and it will recoil and if not compensated your vehicle can flip over and be helpless.
The audio is pretty good with some typical metal music during combat and some smooth guitar when you are hanging out in the hangar, the combat sounds are fairly well done with some decent booms and MG audio, and a close explosion sounds like you have been deafened by the blast.
So where did it go wrong ?
Sadly the developers seem to have no idea of the basic concept of balance, the weapon balance and matchmaking are the absolute worst I have ever had the displeasure of trying to play, and after waiting for a few weeks for a balance the changes were so abysmally ineffective it shows clearly a lack on the part of the developers to see the issues.
The issues are not even subtle, matchmaking is based solely off a aggregate score of the vehicles weapons, equipment and structure (incl. armour) called Power Score (PS), but does not take player level into consideration at all, and the weapon scores are ridiculously unbalanced failing to take critical issues into account.
Weapons and equipment are divided by so called rarity, starting with white basic , blue rare, purple epic, orange legendary and the weapons and equipment scale in effectiveness according to rarity, as you would expect.
The balancing of the rarities is a mess though, so it easy for a high level player to bring epic or even legendary equipment to new player / low level player battles, and for my first two weeks I was facing epic rarity fire and forget guided missiles called Pyres with my light MG's and basic structures.
The long awaited patch from the developers, which many of us had hoped would fix the balances or at least start to fix... was way too weak, and to add insult some of the weapons were in fact buffed.
Currently new / low level players are being farmed by higher level players using the rare and epic weapons and equipment and squeezing them to low power scores, and then stacking reputation (exp) bonus items to farm levels, and generally 'wreck noobs'.
This translates to players with barely white class weapons being decimated by guided missile swarms, cluster rocket barrages with newly added proximity sensors, or being rammed up the arse with epic level chainsaws on stealth equipped buggies, or if that is not bad enough the game even has automated player deployed turrets and drones of both MG and Missile varieties.
The developers have not responded to this situation, and in fact defend the balancing... by claiming the high level players sacrifice armour to equip these overpowered weapons and equipment, but a basic weapon will not do much if the operator is dead in one shot.
This is not helped by the fact that repairing and replacing parts lost due to durability, thanks to losing so many matches, is very difficult as you need to win to earn craft components , fuel for PvE missions and the basic equipment that is rewarded on PvP victories.
In short, a promising game that is ruined by unbelievably poor balance judgement on the part of the developers, and the slow to none existing response to the issue of 'noob farming' in the game.
Should you as a new player now buy in , and try get anywhere will find yourself outmatched in fire power and your 'premium packaged vehicle and components' will soon end up being useless due to durability loss, and your initial 'premium package credit induction' will swiftly vanish as you buy parts to replace components reduced to 0 durability.
I'll let you guys know if and when its playable.
I will be unable to report further progress on this title due to the heavy handed moderation of that developer and publishers moderation team, I wouldn't trust that developer and publisher no matter how good the game turns out as the atmosphere in the forums and chat is stifled by excessive moderation, you could find a account you invested money into suddenly locked out for some minor infraction... or even bungled action by a moderator.
Don't bother with Youtube coverage, the biggest producers of Crossout videos have promotional accounts so they do not reflect the grind to get to max level, they are given max level accounts with every part as part of the promotional account.
