What is everyone’s preferred general weapon loadout before getting the high end tech stuff ( i.e. Laser Weaponary, Bionic weapon, etc…)
Summarised I enjoy using:
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Melee – Loaded Stick ( bludgeon weapon and works nicely with specific weapon martial art) – Kukri ( Cut weapon, nice with a good martial art and decent accuary for “knife” weapon)
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Depending on ammo availability I take 1 secondary and 1 primary
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Secondaries – Glock 19 ( modability, gun and ammo availability) – FN Five-Seven ( good penetration) – Sig P226 (personal preference)
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Primaries – M4A1 (ammo and gun availability, good mod profile) – M14 EBR ( Decent all-purpose Marksman Rifle)
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Throwables – Throwing Knives : 3 to 12 ( depends on loadout, silent, reusable and can cause bleeding) – 2 Molotovs ( Emergency crowd control, building demo) – 1 Grenade ( homemade or military grade, emergency use)
I do use other weapons and switch it up when situation demands, but for general purpose exploration and loot runs I can rely on the above loadout to handle most situations to my personal preferences.
Understandable, that core gameplay loop needs to hook its claws with something that provides a kind of stimulation - like how I would try make a narrative that I need to do something, and until I get that thing done I can remain engaged, but without that narrative I sort of just sit and wonder what to do and lose interest.
Had a quick look at the sky islands, seems to condense that narrative idea into having a base, and then the game will drop one onto some place in the game world with a timer and they need to loot and kill and carry back what ever they have on them.
I can see where the appeal is where there is a need to balance gear with encumberance, while at the same time the game is giving you random locations to engage and test one’s ability within a set timeframe
So it condenses the CCDA experience from looking for interesting stuff once you are set up, to giving scenarios to engage with limited scope and cuts out all the busy work of traveling for hours being murderhobo/truck driving goods relocation specialist
It also makes it so dying is part of the gameplay loop instead of the end of a run, you can still absolutely get shut down by dying too much and losing too much essential gear to field successful runs or stick it out on the island long enough to heal enough (especially once you get past the first couple of runs). It gives incentive to loot duplicates of gear (and I love hoarding) and there is also the need to throw your cards on the table and commit to risky choices reach the portal back home in time where it is too easy in the normal game for me to just slink around aimlessly avoiding conflict and picking up loot from easy locations.
Additionally it makes you realize how evil rivers are.
Seems like a tighter condensed package that cuts back some of the fat and is more focused the gameplay loops and less on survival.
Sounds interesting, like minecraft with an extraction shooter-type twist
You’d probably hate the big labs, ( it forced me to consider making a foldable electric scooter carrier to transport from one entrance to the next in my quest to grab what I find interesting and not spend game days dragging things to be partioned into random piles to be deposited back to home base)
All I recall from my water rides in ampibious vehicle is that it is teaming with frogs, dragonflies and sharks
It isn’t the creatures in the river that kill you necessarily though they certainly will. It is the geography of rivers that kills you since each run you spawn somewhere different and have another random place you have to get to in order to take the portal home. Finding lots of road maps and expanding the road network of your map can definitely get you lucky break if you happen to have to cross those areas to reach the portal but otherwise you are charging across unknown landscapes.
When there are no easy crossings in sight rivers are wonderful questions. Do you commit to crossing now, dump a bunch of gear so you can stay afloat and potentially destroy useful gear in the process or worse get murdered in the water? Do you keep wandering along the riverbank trying to find an easier crossing while the clock ticks down? Do you try to brute force your way through the town and cross the bridge through the inevitable horde?
Yeah I don’t think I will really ever get to the labs and do a full run, best case scenario it would leave me with a bunch of cleanup and I definitely would end up just getting totally stuck in the mud of all the little decisions about what gear to hoard and how to methodically move it out. I’m not hating on that stuff as gameplay it’s just I literally can’t concentrate on it for very long before I lose my desire to play and then my hyperfocus runs off like an annoying little child to something else hahaha
Aah, okay, died to rivers so long ago I forgot. I ended up believing swimming naked is the best although I guess there is the bouyancy problem if you need to return quickly but then you need to dump stuff, but read that your character never returns to the same spot, so risk/reward of deciding whether dropping loot to get to portal quickly or taking a chance there might be an alternative path that risks losing everything anyway when you get overwhelmed because your character is still on a timer.
So ultimately there is always that constant calculation deciding if you really need this loot or if what you have is worth the risk that you can take everything you have but can lose it all on a bad decision.
Most labs are samely, but there are a few labs that are -at least I find- interesting by the enviromental story-telling and it is probably the most combat dense areas in regards to the danger to reward.
I at least have to be vigilant I don’t walk into a “portal room”, a zombie army ( which are usually higher tiered) of what ever weird stuff the lab was used for
Yeah, there is just too much stuff in them, I have to really up my loot hoarding tendencies and have to force myself to take note of interesting stuff, only take low weight items or items I would need for crafting. Still doesn’t stop me from dragging 1000 unit loot piles outside to the entrance of a lab for later loot runs.
Essentially sky islands seems to me the equavalent to me running labs, but you are restricted a lot more to one loot run and have to consider taking stuff and resolving yourself to returning with even less if condition calls for it because if the decision is not made you can end up returning with nothing and not being able to return to collect it as that location will not be visited again.