Fun to play (when it works)
Yes its a technical preview so its gonna come with plenty of bugs, crashes, and a bunch of other issues. Basically youre signing up to be a lab rat for 343 to find out what is wrong with the game so they can make it a better and more stable experience for others later.
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Only thing i would complain about a lot is how poorly optimized the preview is for PC. It’s apparently a 2 month old version of the game and yes i understand its a tech preview. I had to fiddle around with all the video settings and read up on threads on how to figure out how to not be capped at 40fps and below (basically unplayable at 30fps) at any graphical preset whether youre choosing Low or Ultra. All you have to do is match your minimum and maximum fps limits to get a stable nice 50-60fps. This was probably my biggest gripe about the preview so far. Also on the topic of graphics and graphical bugs, at the end of some matches the end screen will either have just you and a random player holding an invisible gun in some sort of position (this occurs when a player is on the part of the map where the end game preview is i think) or if youre scoped in when the game ends youll see the outline of the scope or zoomed in feature still on screen when you get to see your team for the last time before a match ends.
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Servers are stable for the most part but can have some moments of bad (what seemed to be) lag where bots and/or players would pretty much teleport to another spot before your very eyes. This didnt occur often though. Other than that it was just every once in a while you wont be able to connect to the server or will be mid game and booted back to main menu for connectivity issues, but those didnt happen that often.
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Menu navigation and such are a little worse for wear. The graphics at the main menu are pretty bad. Trees in the top left are often looking like green static or just watered down in general. Most of the graphics you’ll see in the main menu are grainy and not good on the eyes. Ran into a few bugs where equipping cosmetics (especially armor coatings) would refuse to equip, or even better it would show the check as if its on but once you back out of that setting it reverts back to what was originally on.
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Lastly i experienced some audio bugs when i would join games sometimes. All the noises of gunfire, chatter, or just map noises would be greatly reduced to the point where youd think you were all by yourself on the map. Also had a bug one time where my gun audio wasnt working but a good ol mag dump and reload brought it right back.
Gameplay when the preview is working is very fun though. Guns feel great, announcer is perfect, movement is fine, and kills are satisfying. I can’t wait for the next flight with PvP and hopefully a lot of these issues fixed.