Suggestions for gameplay improvement

[Wikyle]

I am mostly enjoying the game so far. I play on xbox one S with game pass and currently have 3 hr 37 min playtime. My feedback is all gameplay related and is stuff I have been able to clearly see in this amount of time. 

The biggest issue I have and the main reason why I said “mostly enjoying” is the bad framerate and constant dips/stutters. It is very noticeable and quite annoying and does significantly affect the gameplay experience making it not smooth. It even happens when simply walking/running and looking around. I turned down my settings to 1080p and 120 Hz but it still happened. Hopefully this can be fixed in a patch because it is the number one thing holding the game back. 

Something that irks me and I think can be easily addressed is the ability to keep your weapon stowed away when pressing X to speak with someone. Right now every time I press x to talk my guy pulls out his gun and then I have to put it away after every conversation. This also applies when I’m opening doors or interacting with containers any time X is used. If I’m in a town I prefer to keep my weapon stowed at all times.

The next thing I hope to see improved is the controller sensitivity options. The aiming is ok and serviceable but I am a hardcore fps player and very picky about this stuff. I believe that two things should be added to drastically improve the shooting experience. 1-Have separate options for tuning vertical and horizontal sens. 2-This one is more important to me, separate hipfire sens and aiming down sight sens to allow for more precision when ads. 

The last two are much more minor but I still believe they would help the game get better. First I think the marker on the map screen moves way too slow and takes incredibly long to drag from one area to another. It should either be sped up by double or give us an option in settings to increase it if we want to. 

Finally I think the ability to dash forward should be added into the game. Every other direction works so this would make sense to me. If I’m using a melee weapon or shotgun and want to close the gap I’d rather dash in than sprint for a second it would just be more fluid and satisfying to do. EDIT: During my time playing today I noticed this is already in the game but needs to be unlocked so it’s not an issue.

Hopefully the developers can implement all my suggestions, but really the one thing I believe they absolutely must do is fix the framerate. I looked online and many other people are having this problem as well so it is not an isolated incident/something wrong with my setup. Thanks for reading and I hope to see these changes soon. 

Edited November 26, 2019 by Wikyle

[Force58]

On 11/26/2019 at 3:00 PM, Wikyle said:

I am mostly enjoying the game so far. I play on xbox one S with game pass and currently have 3 hr 37 min playtime. My feedback is all gameplay related and is stuff I have been able to clearly see in this amount of time. 

The biggest issue I have and the main reason why I said “mostly enjoying” is the bad framerate and constant dips/stutters. It is very noticeable and quite annoying and does significantly affect the gameplay experience making it not smooth. It even happens when simply walking/running and looking around. I turned down my settings to 1080p and 120 Hz but it still happened. Hopefully this can be fixed in a patch because it is the number one thing holding the game back. 

Something that irks me and I think can be easily addressed is the ability to keep your weapon stowed away when pressing X to speak with someone. Right now every time I press x to talk my guy pulls out his gun and then I have to put it away after every conversation. This also applies when I’m opening doors or interacting with containers any time X is used. If I’m in a town I prefer to keep my weapon stowed at all times.

The next thing I hope to see improved is the controller sensitivity options. The aiming is ok and serviceable but I am a hardcore fps player and very picky about this stuff. I believe that two things should be added to drastically improve the shooting experience. 1-Have separate options for tuning vertical and horizontal sens. 2-This one is more important to me, separate hipfire sens and aiming down sight sens to allow for more precision when ads. 

The last two are much more minor but I still believe they would help the game get better. First I think the marker on the map screen moves way too slow and takes incredibly long to drag from one area to another. It should either be sped up by double or give us an option in settings to increase it if we want to. 

Finally I think the ability to dash forward should be added into the game. Every other direction works so this would make sense to me. If I’m using a melee weapon or shotgun and want to close the gap I’d rather dash in than sprint for a second it would just be more fluid and satisfying to do. EDIT: During my time playing today I noticed this is already in the game but needs to be unlocked so it’s not an issue.

Hopefully the developers can implement all my suggestions, but really the one thing I believe they absolutely must do is fix the framerate. I looked online and many other people are having this problem as well so it is not an isolated incident/something wrong with my setup. Thanks for reading and I hope to see these changes soon. 

All great suggestions.  I play on Xbox One X and haven't experienced any stutter or lag as of yet and have about 40 hours into the game.  

I think the Obsidian team was going for a more Fallout look/feel so the combat feels more like that than Destiny or The Division.  I like it that way as the main focus of the game is the RPG  and story element.  Looks like they did tweak combat a lot from the Fallout New Vegas days.

The map is incredibly slow to move around.  I found if I zoom all the way out and then move its faster, but then you have to zoom back in to see details.

The main reason I wanted to reply was dash forward ability.  I've seen game hints during screen reloads but haven't come across it yet in any skills or perks.  The hints suggest a quick dash forward/backward, etc., to close the gap, as you suggest, but where do you get this ability?  All I can do now is double jump and sprint, no dash is available to me.

The other thing I've noticed loading screens are taking way longer than they did right after launch.  Not sure if something was patched that caused this but it seems I'm experiencing more wait time between actions than actually playing the game.  Have you noticed this?

[Ommamar]

Look into dodging Froce58.  I had several builds going each with their own hard save and then the quick and autosaves, I noticed a slow down once I deleted saves for builds I had already taken past the no return point TOW seemed to return to its previous performance for cut scenes.  No idea why but there might be a memory leak related to a high number of saves for the game.

[metalworks]

You can dash forward, its unlocked at dodge 20 I think

[Wikyle]

On 11/29/2019 at 7:52 AM, Force58 said:

All great suggestions.  I play on Xbox One X and haven't experienced any stutter or lag as of yet and have about 40 hours into the game.  

I think the Obsidian team was going for a more Fallout look/feel so the combat feels more like that than Destiny or The Division.  I like it that way as the main focus of the game is the RPG  and story element.  Looks like they did tweak combat a lot from the Fallout New Vegas days.

The map is incredibly slow to move around.  I found if I zoom all the way out and then move its faster, but then you have to zoom back in to see details.

The main reason I wanted to reply was dash forward ability.  I've seen game hints during screen reloads but haven't come across it yet in any skills or perks.  The hints suggest a quick dash forward/backward, etc., to close the gap, as you suggest, but where do you get this ability?  All I can do now is double jump and sprint, no dash is available to me.

The other thing I've noticed loading screens are taking way longer than they did right after launch.  Not sure if something was patched that caused this but it seems I'm experiencing more wait time between actions than actually playing the game.  Have you noticed this?

Thanks, I didn’t start playing until a while after launch so I can’t compare, loading times have been consistent since i began the game. Xbox one X is much more powerful so i would expect no framerate issues on there but i’m on the one S and I think the hardware is not strong enough hopefully they can fix this. 

Good point about the map I noticed that too but it would be easier if they just made it faster. As the person above mentioned dash is unlocked at dodge level 20 I didn’t realize this until i started reading all the abilities. 

Edited November 30, 2019 by Wikyle

[Force58]

18 hours ago, Wikyle said:

Thanks, I didn’t start playing until a while after launch so I can’t compare, loading times have been consistent since i began the game. Xbox one X is much more powerful so i would expect no framerate issues on there but i’m on the one S and I think the hardware is not strong enough hopefully they can fix this. 

Good point about the map I noticed that too but it would be easier if they just made it faster. As the person above mentioned dash is unlocked at dodge level 20 I didn’t realize this until i started reading all the abilities. 

I experienced my first lag event last night as I was doing the final mission.  I was running around and the screen froze for about 10 seconds and then was fine.  Didn't do it again but I was only playing for 30 minutes as I beat, you know who, finally.

The other major issue for me, and it became seriously apparent once I just wanted to do side and faction missions simply to level up.  Seemed like there was double the amount of loading going on based on actual game play due to all the fast traveling I was doing.  Granted, I could have simply walked to each location on a particular planet, but, I've been through all those areas previously, so...  It would be interesting to know if this happens on PC or is just due to playing on a console.

[Force58]

On 11/29/2019 at 5:13 PM, metalworks said:

You can dash forward, its unlocked at dodge 20 I think

I'll have to check as I thought I was well past 20 on dodge.  Is GB calling dash where you press A twice?  If that's the case there's not much dash there, at least as far as what I'm seeing.

Edited December 1, 2019 by Force58

[Force58]

On 11/29/2019 at 12:29 PM, Ommamar said:

Look into dodging Froce58.  I had several builds going each with their own hard save and then the quick and autosaves, I noticed a slow down once I deleted saves for builds I had already taken past the no return point TOW seemed to return to its previous performance for cut scenes.  No idea why but there might be a memory leak related to a high number of saves for the game.

I thought the same thing as I had a lot of saves built up.   I deleted all but 3 of them and the slow down did get worse, especially when trying to open the map, it'd hourglass sometimes for up to 20-30 secs, yep, I counted the time it took, hahahaha!!