Picked up this game recently and have been playing through the story, have mostly been enjoying the game but I think I'm gonna quit at this point mainly due to one issue, which is the prop hitboxes in gun play. I can see a lot of effort has gone into creating these story missions where you storm bases and ships, which would be fun, but the gun fights are super frustrating because you can't shoot through the huge gaps in and around half of the environment props which fill every room. Not every prop is a problem but enough that it becomes a problem in maybe half of engagements. Like every time I try to aim from cover I'm looking around for things which could potentially block my shot despite having perfectly clear line of sight. I take a shot but instead of hitting the turret I'm aiming at, I hit an invisible wall which extends 2 meters around a plant, console or cabinet nearby. Often it's hard to tell whether your shot connected or not as there's no decals or feedback against turrets besides a split second particle effect which is difficult to judge spatially, so I end up wasting bullets until I realise they're not landing. Or I might make a twitch shot against a creature that's running towards me but it gets blocked by an invisible wall instead of hitting the enemy. This seems like something extremely basic and fundamental that I might expect in an early pre-alpha version, not a finished product. Why has this not been addressed? It's fine to have wide clipping volumes for player/enemy/vehicle movement, but weapon fire needs to use proper tight mesh collisions. It's incredible jarring, really breaks immersion and makes the game feel super janky and unfinished. Are hitbox fixes at least planned for a future update? I hope this gets prioritised because otherwise the game is good
Well I decided to stick with the game as this issue wasn't as bad in later missions. I'd say it's worst in two sequential chapters, which is around the point at which I made this post. The first is chapter 4 where you attack the COM ARRAY on Sienna and everything that comes after that. The second is chapter 5 where you attack the Ilmarinen in Symos. The bases/ships in these chapters are particularly filled with deco props, which look great but seriously hinder the gameplay. In later missions the issue wasn't as prominent but still present. I ended up reaching the end of the story. Overall I enjoyed the game and the story, and I'm not dissatisfied with the length as I have sunk a decent number of hours into the game, I'm just a bit disappointed that it ended so abruptly, with a lot of loose ends, since one big reason I bought the game was that I saw it was out of early access, so I expected a finished game. Besides the issue I mentioned in the OP, there are two other issues which I'd say hindered my experience the most playing through story missions: The first is, that enemies very frequently get stuck in the environment and can't move. I've especially noticed this is a problem with curved props or shapes. There was one base I think on Masperon where a large underground section has tubular walls and it seemed like half the enemies would get stuck on them. Also a number of times Zirax would get stuck inside tubular props but could still shoot out of them, and it was difficult or impossible to shoot them back due to the original issue in the OP. I've attached two screenshots of this happening. The second issue is just that enemies can't reliably use elevator blocks, nor can they shoot directly up or down. This means if you meet an enemy in an elevator block it becomes a ridiculous dance of them running around in circles unable to attack you while you take pot shots at them from below. I'm sure I saw some enemies using them correctly but this was a rare exception. I've also attached a screenshot of this. I probably won't play more for now as I need an objective to work towards, but I hope to see these issues resolved and for the story to continue soon.
Sadly, the entire POI experience is lessened due to the issues you mention, as well as others. It seems that no matter how well-designed a POI might be, things regularly go wrong - at least, that's my experience. I've been playing a while and I'm just tired of doing POI's and having something go screwy, be it the inaccurate collision meshes of objects as you mention, "delayed" spawning - where an enemy is designed to spawn in front of the player as they walk down a corridor for example, but actually spawns on top of them or behind them - which frustrates no end. There are issues where enemies get stuck and don't move - no challenge - there are others where they get stuck behind blocks and are able to shoot the player with impunity. The game certainly needs further refinement here. My biggest frustration at the moment, because it happened during my last session and I was like "nope" after that, is when melee attackers are still able to damage the player even when the player isn't strictly near enough to ever be in danger. I.e. I was approached by a melee attacker, that attack never at any point got close to me. I jet pack jumped over them, turned to face them - they're facing away from me at this point - and shoot them in the back from ten metres away. As I'm safely shooting them from a distance, their "attack" animation plays, with the enemy striking forwards, aka, away from me, and I suddenly take MASSIVE damage and pick up various infections. At that moment, I just lost interest and exited the game. I love the building in Empyrion, I love the initial survival vs. the environment, building my first shelter, HV, SV and CV. I like the design of the various POI's but the AI (if it can even be called that) controlling the various enemies in POI's is TERRIBLE. Out in open terrain, so roaming critters and Zirax patrols, things work a bit better, but it's still possible to be surprised by a "melee" attack damaging you a dozen metres away. I cannot stress enough how much this impacts the game for me. I simply don't want to do POI's any more, and they're such a massive part of the game. I should find joy in doing a POI I know well, but glitches and an overall underdeveloped AI really hinder things. Thank you for this opportunity for a mini-rant. I do love this game, which is likely why it can frustrate so much at times. It's difficult to see issues from the Early Access days still around, long after release. Thankfully, the devs do seem to remain invested in the game, I just hope they work to address these core issues. The FPS element is weak due to them.
