Thunderbear said:
Isn't that the case with every single MP game out there? You are going to get raped by people who have played the game more than you.
Also, hate is exaggerated in this thread. It's a game...
No. Or, atleast, not to this extent.
Take a game like, say, Halo Reach. It is very accessible. There are reflexes and coordination, which CAN be practiced and improved, but are kind of innate abilities. In other words, they are not game specific. If you have good reflexes in Halo, you'll have good reflexes in Uncharted. There is also a knowledge of mechanics. This can be a nonfactor if you simply play the campaign. Some things may change, like a weapon doing more damage in the campaign than in MP, but this is negligible. Lastly, there is map knowledge (where power weapons are, what is a safe place to hide, etc), which is just learned by extended exposure. Broadly speaking, these 3 things determine how good you are at Halo, more or less.
Uncharted has far more factors in play. On top of everything that Halo does, are also boosters, kickbacks, weapon loadouts, weapon mods, and paid boosters. It would be less of a problem if everything was balanced to a T, where the weapon you unlock at rank 50 is no more or less effective than the weapon you start out with. It'd still be annoying, because the player wouldn't have the same options the other player has, but it'd be manageable. But this is clearly not the case. All the extras you get later on all have significant advantages in some ways. For example, I heard lots of horror stories here about the Kal 7, especially when modded with an accuracy booster. An AK 47 simply cannot stand up to that in close range. It'd be nice if other options were available, such as long distance combat, but one of the major complaints of this thread is how long range weapons, unless their power weapons, don't seem to work well. The best effective method is to get close and blind fire. What is a poor noob suppose to do against that?
And this is not something the player can improve on his own. Lets say that a high ranking player lost all his data somehow and now has to start from scratch. He goes up against his old friend, who played with him as much as he had and is his equal in skill, but he still has all his data. The first player is going to get destroyed simply because he is ill equipped. He simply would has no counter.
And to make it all worse, ND has decided to have people transfer all their data from this beta next month to the retail game. I've seen people who have leveled up to Rank 35 within a few days of the beta's release. If you play casually, you'll probably hit rank 35 within the month before UC3 released. Not only that, but while there may be a rank cap, there is no money cap. Meaning you can save a ****load of cash. So, the game releases, and there is a flood of new player.
What are they up against? People who know the mechanics, the maps, the power weapon locations, superior coordination from the time playing, have superior boosters, superior kickbacks, superior weapons, and superior weapon mods. Oh, they can get paid boosters as well, which is an steep advantage, but the high cost can be neglected by a dedicated beta player because he'll be overflowing with cash.
These advantages are
staggering. There is NO WAY new players can possibly compensate for all this with sheer reflexes and they will be lambs lead to slaughter. They'll get a few points, rank up a bit, and as they go along they'll die less and less, but the more experienced players, giving that they are getting most of the kills, will still get FAR more points, so they'll rank up even faster than the new player will, getting access to even better things, and if the new player wants to play ball, he has no choice but to endure it until the game finally decides to throw him a bone.
So, no, it's not like this in every game, and with all the systems working against new players, I honestly don't see this game being accessible in the least after maybe 2 months. You can still go on right now and play Halo Reach. If you never played before but have decent reflexes, it'll take maybe an hour or two to learn the basic mechanics. Maybe 5 hours to learn all the maps. After that, it's all you. You can go up against a person who has played the game since launch but maybe has bad reflexes, and get the better of him. And that'll be HIS fault. With uncharted, god knows the hours you'll spend getting raped by players who have been playing longer, not through any fault of your own, but simply because the game doesn't let give you want you need to win.
Most new players are not going to take that. They especially won't take that with Modern Warfare 3 coming out literally the next week. Uncharted is unbalanced, modern warfare may not be, but even if it is, atleast then they'd all start on a level playing field, so they have the opportunity to remain on equal with everyone else.
Edit: I should mention that the noobie character will often experience the benefit of having a power play, but this isn't much. Or it's too much. I've never had a game where a power play made any difference at all unless it was exceptionally broken, like double damage. There is no middle ground, their either useless or overpowered.
