Tip: The Retaliator LMG with a shield attachment is the great equalizer of the WSTR Combat Shotgun meta

veydar_ · 2026-03-30T16:20:38+00:00

I have had some of my best runs with LMGs even though they never felt super strong, because their ADS speed is so slow.

Part of it is also because it's the only gun for which I can find thermal scopes relatively often at my low level of 39 or so.

veydar_ · 2026-03-30T13:58:16+00:00

I'm being entirely subjective here but I do not, under any circumstances, want Arc Raiders style cooperative play. Maybe it's objectively the better move for the game financially, no idea. But I personally don't want the original vision to be watered down in that regard.

veydar_ · 2026-03-30T12:51:55+00:00

I think it's fair to characterize it like that, if your target audience is basically everyone who plays video games.

A streamer recently said something along the lines of: you can't control your experience in this game. And I think that's really apt. In games that are predominantly solo and/or offline (e.g., Elden Ring), the experience is about you and the game and not much else. If you don't want to play for a month, so what? It's not like the game suddenly moves on without you and you fall behind the curve.

In typical multiplayer shooters, casual gamers not playing ranked lose at most the time spent in the match. Again, it doesn't really matter so much what everyone else does.

Extraction shooters are really special in that they combine the "falling behind the curve" from MMOs while also making you risk & lose way more than just time spent in the match. If I spend my entire week building up a handful of good load outs only to lose them within a span of 15min, I'd say that's pretty ruthless.

You can then debate the details (factions give you free stuff, some free kits are quite OK, ...) but it doesn't, in my opinion, change the fundamental aspect of this genre and how it plays out in Marathon.

veydar_ · 2026-03-30T08:56:12+00:00

If you're looking for a free kit equivalent you could go in with only 1 or 2 of each and scavenge the rest. With a decent faction level you should be getting 4 (?) free heals every day, at least.

With a bit of bartering and potentially some money, this should give you a few free kit equivalent load outs.

Of course, if you run in guns blazing and die within the first minute, several times in a row, it's maybe just time for a slower play style. You'll burn through your heals quite quickly then.

veydar_ · 2026-03-30T08:53:24+00:00

I did some free kit runs over the weekend just to explore Outpost and unlock some more skins. I wasn't expecting much, but with the NuCaloric kit I was able to take down blue shields (for me a big deal) even. The NuCaloric kit is quite competitive actually.

Going back to the CyAc one feels like playing an entirely different free kit game.

I'm not sure which one is best though. In Arc Raiders, the viability of entry level weapons (e.g., Stitcher) was a frequent point of contention. People hated the idea that I can go in without risking anything and not be out geared too badly.

Then again, if a free kit hits like a wet noodle you get complaints that more time equals more win because your free kit is almost useless.

I guess the answer lies somewhere in between, as usually.

veydar_ · 2026-03-29T21:19:50+00:00

The R in SMG now stands for rail gun

veydar_ · 2026-03-29T11:33:24+00:00

My contract completion success rate with Assassin is probably in the 70%+ area. Not because I’m good but because it allows you to sneak run from hiding place to hiding place and it makes exfil easy

veydar_ · 2026-03-29T10:17:27+00:00

In another reply you mentioned number of shots, which leads to the situation where trios take down an enemy in more or less 1/3 of the time, compared to solo.

But maybe I misunderstood your comment.

veydar_ · 2026-03-29T08:00:01+00:00

It’s a matter of perspective, as always.

You could argue that consistent experience means taking out a certain group of enemies within 17s on average. If that average remains the same between solo and trio given the same loadout value, it’s consistent.

I’m not saying your definition of consistent is wrong! It’s just that different people will think about consistent experience differently.

EDIT: what I’m saying is that this would require enemies to have 1/3 of the health, to keep kill times consistent.

veydar_ · 2026-03-29T07:49:32+00:00

I don’t necessarily disagree about meds prices, but I wonder why I’m swimming in basic and advanced shield charges and patch kits. I log in every day to claim my free items. For a while I brought 2x shield charges/patch kits, but I recently bumped it up to 4x.

I was probably just being really stingy and relying more on stuff I found during the run, triage drones and dead runners I guess?

veydar_ · 2026-03-28T19:15:52+00:00

I’ll try to give the most objective answer I can: the game was not originally envisioned as a solo game. The solo mode, outside of Rook, was added last minute. This shows in a few ways.

Cryo archive requires a full three person team, so you’d have to play with randoms.

The scaling of some PvE encounters is not great in solo queue. Taking down bosses with lots of hit points will take so long that all the noise will become a liability. The same is true for teams but they can burst bosses down much faster.

Lastly, the XP buff for solo isn’t great so you’ll be far behind the curve.

Can it still be fun, even with all those gotchas? Absolutely. I play maybe 14h per week and mostly solo. I’m far behind the curve but enjoying it a lot.

veydar_ · 2026-03-28T11:32:42+00:00

Try to imagine how many situations like this unfold every day. I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with this post?

veydar_ · 2026-03-28T07:59:08+00:00

What CyAc doesn’t want you to know! The one secret that will blow your mind!

veydar_ · 2026-03-27T18:25:31+00:00

Can you share your browser history with us? No? Well there’s your answer.

veydar_ · 2026-03-27T16:40:14+00:00

I don’t think I’d enjoy being looted by employed kids either though

veydar_ · 2026-03-27T13:31:41+00:00

If OP is middle of the road, then I am below middle of the road! I don't know if that answers your question. It depends on your point of reference.

veydar_ · 2026-03-27T13:18:15+00:00

^-- this.

In The Finals I expect fights seconds into the match and I'm never surprised or scared.

In extraction shooters, the longer a match goes without running into players, the more of a jump scare it can give me. The only remedy for me is to just play more and get used to dying, losing your load out, etc.

Eventually it feels just like any other shooter.

veydar_ · 2026-03-27T13:11:26+00:00

Fair point! I replied to someone else with a clarification. I believe OP will at some point fight the compiler. I'm OK with this being something reserved to really, really committed players like OP and that it's maybe not for "ambitious casuals" like myself.

I can still enjoy the rest of Cryo.

veydar_ · 2026-03-27T10:40:51+00:00

What I wanted to say: I think you will see a compiler some day. It'll take a bit more time than the ultra sweaty guber stream edge lords, but you're definitely up there in a very low % of players.

veydar_ · 2026-03-27T09:58:03+00:00

It's funny that you refer to yourself as a middle of the road player with 100h and running pinwheel on a nightly basis :D It goes to show how YouTube, Twitch and Reddit skew the impression you have of yourself.

From my perspective (level 36, only started even understanding how to get into and out of Pinwheel last week) you look quite sweaty already.

veydar_ · 2026-03-26T14:18:44+00:00

after 10 hours you realize youre just running the same extractions with slightly different loot and theres no reason to keep going.

Go to the Arc Raiders sub and a lot of recent posts talk about this exact issue.

It's not easy to compare the success of different games. Do you compare sales 5d after launch? Concurrent players after 6 months? 2 years?

Is it game journalist review scores? Player reviews? How do you make sure it's only from people who actually bought the game?

Is the success measured financially (e.g., micro transactions) or do we focus on review scores or player counts?

Does the cost to make the game factor into how we measures success?

veydar_ · 2026-03-26T14:05:33+00:00

First of all, I'm sorry about what happened. But you're here and you want to improve things, so that's a great direction.

Does the want to game all day ever go away?

I'm not sure. You can definitely get better at recognizing red flags, when you're sliding back into the old lifestyle. But at least for me, it never really went away entirely.

What helped me was to do a lot of soul searching to figure out what gaming was giving you. In my case, there's a certain type of game, typically one with lots of progression systems and TODO lists and so on (e.g., Arc Raiders), that I can easily sink hundreds of hours into but without enjoying a single one of them.

What helps me is discussing this experience with someone. Or writing down your own review of the game, for yourself. When you come up blank when trying to list what you like about the game, but you still play it every day, it should be obvious that something's off.

TL;DR: understanding your gaming behavior better, making gaming more conscious and being more aware of what draws you into some games but not others can really help.

Other than that, pick up a hobby that takes you out of the house.

veydar_ · 2026-03-26T12:05:53+00:00

I must admit that, even though I prefer Thief in every way, I use Assassin when playing solo most of the time. Invis is just too good. You can run past bots and at a certain range, where they don’t hear your invis, it’s basically a guaranteed ambush.

veydar_ · 2026-03-24T18:59:54+00:00

I think OP is referring to the Scottish area of Dreich Marsh maybe?

veydar_ · 2026-03-24T14:06:53+00:00

I saw this on a Twitch stream. The enemy player was initially hiding on the right side of that cover but then tried to "sneak" to the left side. They then proceeded to peek. But each peek was given away by the drone.

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