Exoprimal just came out, and I'm sure you're wondering "what is that?". Well, it's Capcom's newest project and on first glance it actually seems really cool. It's a hero shooter where you fight in mini mechas against large hordes of dinosaurs. And they have done a really shit job at marketing it.
Anyway the game plays pretty well, some of the characters are fun AF (Skywave and Nimbus both might be top 10 of hero shooter healers IMO), and the idea of PVPVE racing is cool.
That's it. That's all the good I have to say about it and even more so, there's a reason why I said the idea of PVPVE racing is good. The execution however, is nonsensical and tries to appeal to both PVE players and PVP players in a way that is just unsatisfying for both.
Okay so basically the idea is two different teams race each other in a horde mode, and that means they get an early advantage in the PVP mode later. That sounds like a fun time right? But because they're trying to appeal to both groups, it's just unsatisfying. The catch-up mechanics for the race are ridiculously overpowered, I basically never had any game in any of the betas have a team with a significant advantage over 5%-10% progress at most. This also is not helped by the fact the race PVE is ridiculously easy.
If you look on a lot of forums, a good bit of the feedback is from people who prefer the PVE over the PVP. So Capcom responded to this and now you can enter into a 10 player PVE section at the end of the race instead. At the end of the race.
It makes no sense! PVE players have no reason to want to race then, there is literally no point to it whatsoever. There is no advantage or power gained by winning it, it is simply an artifact of poor design and a clearly forced response to user feedback.
And the PVP mode suffers the same issues but backwards. As I said the catch-up mechanics are ridiculously overpowered, perhaps because they understand people would give up on a match if they were significantly behind in the race. So the race feels worthless for them too!
And then you get into the PVP part, and the mode is random. One of them is the most boring PVP experiences I've ever had. You escort a cart through hordes of PVE dinosaurs, the enemy team does the same, and you meet in the middle. Because the carts move faster the more people are on them you are effectively punished for trying to go interfere with the enemy players until you are both in range at the end.
So if you were interested in Exoprimal (lol, probably not considering most haven't even heard of it), either play it off Game Pass or ignore it. This game is just not designed in a coherent manner and is very likely to die rather fast.
Okay so basically the idea is two different teams race each other in a horde mode, and that means they get an early advantage in the PVP mode later.
One of Destiny 2's PvP modes tries this. The goal is to kill NPC's to summon a boss then melt the boss before the other team does. You can raid the other team's instance in PvP and kill them to slow their progress. During the boss phase killing them heals the boss.
Problem is it's really, really hard to balance. Some weapons and abilities are extremely effective, others are meh, and the RNG loot means that not everyone has access to all the good stuff. For a while one missile launcher shot a salvo of seeking missiles that would reliably wipe the enemy team. Some team comps can nearly insta-gib the boss. A tricked out, skilled PvP player can single handedly shut down the entire enemy team. It's a neat idea but in practice it's a mess.
Oh it released? Didn't even know. They showcased dinosaurs falling out of portals ages ago then I didn't hear about it ever again.
