Ghost Recon: Breakpoint discussion

Making this thread to discuss Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, so people who bought it can share their impressions of the game and people who are curious can discuss it.

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I have Uplay+ so I am lucky enough to play it a few days early. After having spent a couple hours with it, I am pleasantly surprised. Leading up to the release, there was this swell of criticism and frankly I was getting worried, but so far the game seems like a huge improvement over Wildlands...for the most part.

First, the one thing I don't like:

• Gear leveling and Looting. While I understand why they did this (to keep things fresh and new, like "ooh new gear yay!" rinse and repeat), it just feels like it doesn't belong in the game. After looting crates and getting one "mark 1" gun after another it just seems like a lot of filler.

Now, with that out of the way, let's move on to the good stuff:

• Environment and Atmosphere: simply incredible, best combination of atmosphere and environment I've seen since The Witcher 3. Wind whooshes through the tall skinny mangrove trees in the swamp biome creating a spooky environment for which to stalk my enemies. Bright sun shines down through a beautiful glade of flowers in the middle of a redwood forest where a high-tech factory sits with patrols and autonomous robots. Wildlife scurries about. It's just a really well-done open world so far.
• Visuals: pretty outstanding, I don't think anyone will be disappointed.
• The Enemies: so far, they are pretty good. I won't say it's the best AI, but it caters towards creating a really great player experience. In most games, if you down someone, they can generally find you. But in Breakpoint, you can stalk, take down one dude, lure other people in to look for you, take them out, then resume. Enemies alert eachother. It feels appropriately challenging, and not in a frustrating way. Really fun to stalk your enemies.
• Story: only an hour in, but it feels a lot better than Wildlands. In Breakpoint, it's soldier vs soldier, it feels a lot better. In Wildlands, it was soldier vs cartel sicario, which felt a little slimy and, frankly, ridiculous.
• Gameplay: feels very similar to Wildlands, which makes sense, and is not a negative. Guns feel a bit better imo. There are lots of gadgets, tools, and weapons to suit your play style.
• Skill tree: I thought I'd hate this, but they've incorporated a bit of "The Division 2" class system into the game and it works very well. Choose from medic, soldier, panther, and sniper each with a class ability and a couple passives (panther, for example, specializes with stealth and pistols/smgs).

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Anyone else try it out yet? Not the beta but the actual game.

Played the beta. Just feels like more of the same. Don’t know if it’s worth buying day one for $60. How does everyone else feel?

I played the first couple hours of the full game last night (via review copy)

I agree, the loot stuff is annoying. It feels like they put it in there not because they thought it was fun but so they can sell you "time savers" which let you buy skill points which is ridiculous. The game lets you spend real money on everything which is pretty gross. You can definitely "pay to win" but I don't see why anyone would since that would just break any sense of progression. I can't say how the pace of progression is without spending any extra money yet. All their games are full of microtransactions but I have never spent a cent on them and usually don't feel the need to. still feels slimy as **** looking at that store page.

I agree with your positive points as well though. I love how you can press a button to turn off most of the UI, really helps with immersion. I'm also interested to see how hiding bodies plays into the gameplay. The story does seem better than Wildlands so far, though that isn't saying much because the story in that game was actively awful. I did notice that you can't skip cutscenes which is dumb, and the one time I died, the game restarted me before a fairly long cutscene it forced me to rewatch - that could get super annoying if it happens frequently.

I'll be trying out the co-op tonight

Pre-ordered at Game Stop, won't be able to play early like some, I'll be checking back to read impressions.

Damn my love for physical copies

Ghost Recon died right about.....

Here.

All them microtransactions and no ability for Epic supporters to comment on it via forums or review.

Enjoy.

I played and enjoyed the beta.

Seems to be more focused than wildlands, which I like.

We will see if the Division-esque additions prove to be worth it.

I really enjoyed finding loot in the beta but it kind of goes against the idea of a Tom Clancy game............or even the idea that you are an elite military soldier sent in to topple a PMC.............but you have to find your gear when you get there lol

Still fun game though

@uninspiredcup said:

Ghost Recon died right about.....

Here.

All them microtransactions and no ability for Epic supporters to comment on it via forums or review.

Enjoy.

GRAW 2 was pretty damn great, can't argue with that. Loved the slight strategy aspect to it on the PC version, being able to open an overhead map and command your squad.

I think Future Soldier was pretty good too.

Funny, it seems the series died [to you] when they went third-person. I do wish Breakpoint was first-person, to be honest, but third-person isn't terrible.

@uninspiredcup said:

Loading Video...

Ghost Recon died right about.....

Here.

All them microtransactions and no ability for Epic supporters to comment on it via forums or review.

Enjoy.

No not really

we got a great PC game.

For those able to play right now:

Is it easy to ignore all the micro transactions in the game? As in, is the game still fun once you're in the world playing and it isn't a forced grind fest to get new gear?

Try turning the difficulty to the hardest and play it.

Yeah that's how I am doing it. No HUD, either. It's a lot more immersive that way, more sim-like. Gotta keep your ears open as well as your eyes haha.

We've become so loot-crazed in our games that, as players, we are obsessed with finding that rare or legendary (aka the purple or gold) equipment, we forget that the stock equipment is just fine.

I've only encountered common items (no color) with maybe a few green items every so often and honestly I don't care, it's fine, just give me a gun to shoot and a sandbox to play in.

Developers aren't blameless, but it's pretty much our fault for demanding our games are filled with loot these days.

Just chill, stop buying DLC.

I didn't even know the game had micro-transactions (though I could have assumed).

So they are obviously easy to ignore.

And the gear is fine, this isn't a "pay to win" type of deal. This is a singleplayer/PvE game, there is no real advantage to gain here by paying for better equipment.

One bullet to the head kills, and it only takes a few to the torso to kill.

Weapon level drops scales to your character level. Every gun I got at level 1 had a gear score of around 5, my character is level 10 now and is getting gear score 25 equipment.

Yeah that's how I am doing it. No HUD, either. It's a lot more immersive that way, more sim-like. Gotta keep your ears open as well as your eyes haha.

Played a couple more hours tonight in co-op.

honestly, the loot/leveling/gear score mechanics in this game are absolutely bizarre. It feels like they designed the game without that stuff then shoe-horned it in late in development or something after some Ubisoft exec decided every game needs to have Destiny style loot drops.

it feels totally pointless and out of place in a tactical shooter like this. You end up wasting so much time opening crates and fiddling around in your inventory. including it seems like a terrible and awkward decision on their part. just totally fucks up the flow of gameplay.

it feels like there is a decent tactical shooter in there somewhere that was bastardized with layers of bullshit that get in the way of the actual gameplay.

Played the open beta. Setting it to extreme difficulty with guided mode off is definitely the way to play it. Will be picking it up on PC Friday with my buddy.

Also what I have gathered from other forums is that the loot in this game is pretty meaningless. Gear scores amount to almost nothing as enemies will be dropped with one shot to the head. So use the weapons you like and wear what looks good.