In this thread I’m going to review the bundles in the shop, and the Cyber Showdown battle pass and talk about what’s working, what’s not, and what still needs to change.
For starters, since this is an event, I’m going to start with the event pass. So far this is the best event pass we’ve seen. No repeat emblems is a good thing, but there are still headscratcher items in here, and much more can be done to improve the system.
The Expecting Trouble stance, Kukri weapon ornament, and Hunter Blood items have NOTHING to do with Cyberpunk aesthetics and should not be in this pass. There are other items sitting in the store right now that would fit better, such as the Juice Visor, Synthwave Sasquatch emblem, and Will-o’-Wisp visor from this week’s major weekly bundles. Everything else about this pass is solid. Good show.
Sidenote: during an event the weekly challenge reward should also be an event item. In this case, it would be great if the Neon Beat Armor Effect replaced the Rampant visor. This would turn the event’s weekly reward into an event themed final reward for “completing” the week’s event, which you need to do as part of reaching a weekly ultimate challenge in the first place.
Now to the shop.
I’ll start with the most expensive bundle on the shop, Neon Resupply. 1200 credits is a huge improvement on 2000. Just have to get that out of the way. While I’m glad to see a BR stance finally make it’s way into the game it has literally nothing to do with the bundle, a BR stance should be part of a bundle featuring only Battle Rifle customizations, or should be sold individually. The theme of this bundle is Cyber Showdown themed colors, and the BR stance should be replaced with the missing Mark V[b] Neon coating. I don’t understand why there isn’t a Mark V[b] coating in this bundle, both Mark VII and Yoroi are in it. I’ve also already stated that the Will-O’-Wisp visor should be in the pass, preferably replace by another Neon Superfly coating for one of the weapons or vehicles that didn’t get it. But if it needs to be in the bundle instead of the pass, this is a good spot for it. It does match the color scheme of the bundle’s coating. That said, a bundle like this should have the visor color and coatings for literally everything in the game, not just a selection of them in the future.
The Neon Beat bundle is the 1000 credit bundle and is again a solid price improvement on what would have been 1500 before, but not by much. While I wish this bundle was broken down into rewards for the pass and Ultimate Challenge, this IS a solid bundle of thematically matching cosmetics so it gets a pass. Good bundle, might even buy it as-is.
Zodiac River is a weekly 500 credit bundle, which is a first as weeklies were traditionally no cheaper than 1000. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Cyber Showdown event, which is a shame but it’s also a sign that much less event-themed cosmetics were held back for the shop. That’s a good thing. As for the bundle itself it’s fine. The colors are not my cup of tea but we have a Warthog model piece paired with coatings for all the Warthog variants in the game. Thematically appropriate, decent bundle.
So before finishing up I just want to talk about a change I want to see happen to the Single Week events that I haven’t mentioned already. Make them 20 tier events, and have ALL of the weekly challenges progress the pass. This helps funnel more gameplay into the event playlist, since every challenge that week will trigger in it. This will also give us just that extra bit of free loot we’ve been craving for since Infinite came out.
All in all I’d say this is the best the shop has been, the bundles feel the best put together yet thematically, which means we are more likely to want more of the items out of a bundle that appeals to us. Before it always felt like the bundles had one cool thing mixed in with a bunch of random junk. Good job this week 343, keep down this road.