So let me be the first to say that I have sunk far too many hours into this beta (based on the Service Record timer).
After all the time I have sunk into it I have come across a few Bugs, a few graphical oddities, and a couple of concerning problems which should likely be fixed before the general release of the beta on the 29th. There are likely many threads which will talk about weapon balancing or map-specific concerns so I will try to leave much of that out from this thread.
In order of most critical to least, I will attempt to list everything I can below.
Game Breaking:
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Spectate Mode.
In theory this seems like an awesome idea and a nice evolution from the theater modes of previous titles. The issue with the version I played with today was that the game I was spectating appeared to be glitching out while I was watching and trying to switch between players. Some players were running into walls, some were shooting at nothing, and the camera was unable to consistently switch focus. The worst aspect of this mode was that it did not take into consideration the fact that I was queued for a match before spectating. This resulted in the spectating match to appear to freeze on me for about 30 seconds then kick me to a black screen before loading the game I was in. Furthermore, the game I was placed in appeared to be running at 75% speed at best. I was able to, briefly, communicate with teammates to verify no other lag was happening for them. I tried soft resetting the game through the dashboard but the issue persisted for 2 more matches after this one until I hard reset my Xbox. Spectate would be better left out for general release.Greatly Annoying: -
Kill Cams.
This seemed to come up as an annoying feature from other threads so I’ll make this brief. The kill cams seemed to work fine on day one but day two seemed like I only got to see about one second before my death regardless of the cause of death. This is beyond useless as it generally only shows me that I was, indeed, killed by the grenade as it is about to explode already. If death is going to last several seconds, the kill cam can at least show from the moment of initial damage/ grenade throw. Some people seem to think that the cam cannot be closed and are calling for an “opt-in” for the feature and that is not a bad idea (unless it is a core gameplay element to the full release?). Having to press X to exit just to switch between teammates is a little annoying every time.
It also seems that much of the time the kill cam shows the player shooting a place I was standing almost a second before. Either the cam is lagging a bit or the other player is seeing me slightly slower and giving “benefit-of-the-doubt” to the attacker more liberally than I would have thought. I can handle losing a fire fight but the cams make it seem like only about the first bullet would have hit me.
Also, displaying the killers armor and health at 0%/0% after killing me implies they died too. I have seen this hit 0%/1% before so it is not that. This seems to happen with sword kills most often. - Post-game Results.
The new interface looks slick and it is nice to see shot accuracy stats and whatnot. It is clean and functional for everything but the medals earned. It would be nice to see some of the 51 medals I earned in the previous game (especially as some of them are harder to come by). What would be nicer still would be the ability to access this results page after accidentally pressing B (or having it lag past the results altogether). It is nicely done and it would be nice to enjoy it more consistently.- Gear Unlocks Slow.
Day one was much slower than day two on this front but there is still at least a couple of games between when gear is rewarded and when it available for use. I have not noticed a correlation between type of gear (visor/chest/helmet) as all generally unlock after about 4 games and a soft reset. It is just annoying to be told I have access to something new and be unable to even preview it.- Cannot Back Out of Lobby.
The only time I am permitted to back out of a lobby is when I initially select Slayer and start the fresh queue. After a game it would be nice to be allowed to decide not to play with the guy who was AFK this game (as well as the 2 before it). Sometimes a fresh queue can help keep the game interesting so you don’t constantly play against people who are not even ranked yet.- Rankings Don’t Matter.
Look, I realize this is a beta and all but the rankings don’t seem to make any difference. I have probably played about 5 games with all people at or above my level in the entirety of my preview experience. Otherwise I am lucky to have one or two people who are my rank in the game. Most likely, however, I will have 5 unranked people, 1 person in bronze, 1 person in gold/pro, and myself. This would be fine for an unranked playlist, but this results in a severe penalty for losing. In a game like this I am almost better off quitting at the start. If I win I can receive +3. Losing gets me between -11 and -21 points regardless of my 35/5 K/D. Every game like this I enjoy the game less and less.Graphical Oddities/Bugs: -
Ghost Player Models.
There is not a solid way of putting this and I cannot confirm the exact reasons for the bug but it has happened multiple times in multiple games across days one and two. Essentially an enemy player is killed immediately after clambering and everything is fine. After they, presumably, respawn a few seconds later, a player model of them is in an action pose on the platform they were clambering onto. I refer to this as a ghost only because it does not have a player name above it and it does not take damage, but it is very much an obstacle which stops bullets and may be stood on top of. This bug is viewable by at least the people who participated in the kill. Unconfirmed about the remainder of the team but, seeing as how I was able to stand on top of it and shoot, I assume the rest of my team and the opponents could see it too. Note also that at some point in the game it disappears for no apparent reason.- Post-game Returns to Game.
Occasionally closing out of the post-game report will return me to a “theater mode” snapshot of the game when it ended. This would at least be interesting if the camera was movable but it simply looks like the game is frozen and any other players in my view are just statues. The only way to exit without crashing the game is to wait about a minute until the server tells me there was a problem and kicks me.- Spartan Hub has In-game HUD Underlay.
Immediately after many games, the Spartan HUB will display the reticle and weapon/ammo counter, for the end of the previous game, as I zoom in and rotate the visor customization. While zooming in the HUD becomes visible as the spartan model covers that particular section of the screen.- Pregame Player Names Duplicated.
After playing a game and some players leave during intermission, there are open slots. When new players join in a group, existing player names are simply duplicated and displayed instead of new players’ names. This lasts for about 15-30 seconds.I realize that is a lot to read in a chunk but hopefully it is all clear enough to understand. There are more things I could gripe about, but I wanted to get the bigger stuff out of the way here first.
If anyone knows how to reproduce these bugs consistently please leave a comment below.