I have been playing EGS for years or 1800 hours and I thought it was time to have a play through and see what's changed and there are some new guns and changes to old guns. Same old bugs and new bugs. The main thing I noticed is that the power of the weapons is rubbish. This really ruins the game and now I can not be bothered to play, another game ruined by stupidity. The POI's have always been challenging and now they are impossible unless you want to die 50 times to clear one not my idea of fun. For example at point blank on an alien scorpion with a combat shotgun shooting it in the head I have to reload to kill it. A large spider took 2 1/2 magazines from a pulse rifle in contrast its partner retaliated with a lethal single shot and I am in a clone chamber, this was a relatively easy POI and I am dead at the front door on larger POI's when there are dozens of attacking monsters its impossible.
I think there are several factors. Level scaling can certainly turn relatively easy enemies into still-easy-but-tedious bullet sponges. The Enemy Difficulty setting can as well. There's also a clear small arms hierarchy. Low level weapons are efficient against groups of spiders or raptors, but you'll need energy weapons and explosives against legacy mutant swarms and heavy Zirax units. There's basically no reason to keep a shotgun around anymore once you can make miniguns and laser weapons. If you're not already carrying around a rocket launcher as a matter of course, start. The important of armor and armor condition is difficult to overstate. Thick armor in good condition is the difference between withdrawing and respawning from an ambush. Best I can figure is to match the Enemy Difficulty setting to the number of players. The Easy difficulty setting feels like the best balance for soloing enemies that cause ailments and use cheese tactics. Medium and hard seem better for groups of players that need targets worth cooperating against.
The hand held weapons are sort of a head scratcher. A look at the assault rife and pulse rifle stats is a pretty good example. The difference in a 3.5 and a 1.25 head shot multiplyer is a bit... I belive they are suppose to be unique and behave differently, which is why they are all effectively T1 weapons. The epic weapons have not changed so if you consider the T1 weapons as beginning game and the epic as end game it makes slightly more sense ? Sort of?
Until the combat is on the level of at least Halo: Combat Evolved where I can have fun without having bullet sponge enemies I'm going to pass on it. Combat really is the weakest point of empyrion bc it feels like the weapons don't hit anything and "Get gud" is a pretty stupid response for a major issue with the foot Combat in Empyrion.
Here's a tougher on for you: Be intelligent. I've explained and detailed extensively elsewhere on these forums how confusing and counterintuitive the balance of weapons, enemies, and damage is for on-foot combat. To summarize, it's a horrible mess. There's only a small selection of weapons that are useful in their own purposes, and fewer still enemies that are fun to fight. None of the balance encourages players to try different weapons or strategies, and that's a shame as the variety of weapons is great, it's just that only a handful are with touching.
Well the weaker weapons make sense in the larger context of the game. An SMG isn't going to be of much use in a drone base, but it's perfectly valid protection against a few spiders you might run into between a planetside trade hub and your ship. Such fights are actually half decent. You've got lots of room to maneuver, options for evasion and attack. Where it all breaks down is in the dungeon POIs. There is no getting good. You're at point blank range against stealth mode aimbots that take a magazine and a half to bring down. If you're lucky, you'll see an enemy in the next room and be able to shoot it through the door. If not, your drone scouting will be interrupted by an abomination two-shotting you after dropping out of an invisible spawner in a room you though you had cleared. Sometimes I can talk myself into grabbing a rifle and some armor boosters and trying some POI I don't remember clearing before. More often than not, I respawn frustrated and stressed out. Then go to hangar and see my lovingly crafted assault H/SVs sitting there, and remember this is a sandbox game. I'm supposed to find my own solutions to problems. Artillery is a great problem solver.
