c-x-b  5d ago

So FBC: Firebreak is officially dead in the water. Servers will probably stay online for... indefinitely? But no more content updates.

As cool as "Helldivers but SCP" sounds on paper, you do have to actually make satisfying gunplay/enemy design for it to work. Unfortunately we actually have

  • bizarrely direct ports of enemies designed for a completely different plane of player power (Hiss Distorted)
  • respawn rooms that are always choke points
  • actually just a lot of chokepoints in general
  • status effects that are just "you will die in X seconds" (radiation/"glowing", on release. there is some nuance here, but it doesn't help Remedy's case)
  • guns just don't feel that great
  • lack of objective/map variety (still)
  • that fuckass Hiss Breaker that I hate

The best case scenario is that Remedy's management has gotten a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the phrase "core competency" and won't try going this far out of their comfort zone (at least for a while).

#FBCFirebreak

Show threadc-x-b  5d ago

IDK how "the class that has a Comically Oversized Wrench as their signature part of their kit, that they are encouraged to have out instead of their gun in order to Do The Objective, also does zero damage with aforementioned Giant Fucking Wrench" got past even a single minute of testing. even if you're "just" a gameplay programmer who isn't running full-scale playtests you should notice this

but uh. no prizes for guessing how much damage the wrench did on release day

#FBCFirebreak

Show threadc-x-b  

"hey what if we had an enemy that was functionally invincible except for a floppy weakpoint on its back, so one player needs to bait it (with extremely limited mobility) while the other kites it and gets damage in (tying up two out of the three players, maximum, in a squad, also you're just fucked if you're in an incomplete group for any reason)"

"cool idea, let's make it so that it can appear when the entire group is clumped up in the respawn box trying to fight their way out of a horde of mooks"

#FBCFirebreak

Mar 18 at 12:19amWeb
Show threadc-x-b  5d ago
oh i forgot also if the third player goes off to like, progress the objective or something, that reduces the effectiveness of "resonance" so the other two players are now working with weaker shields and possibly losing out on a perk. resonance is a mess overall, it's pretty easy to see how a mechanic that encourages players to stand shoulder to shoulder all the time might have Issues