Well I racked up a little over a day of play time this weekend on my main character. Pretty much cleaned out the area outside the DZ and then either farmed the hospital or ran the DZ for the rest of the time.
PVE zone:
Feels like a large city with good scaling. Good initial amount of quests/encounters but once finished there isn't much to do. I do like that the main story quests are repeatable for more gear but lot of the outside enemy spawns are tied to the quests and don't re-appear after you finish them. Hopefully this was mainly due to the stripped down beta. Speaking of the enemies, I completely agree they are dumber than dirt. They may hide behind cover but are mainly happy to eat headshots all day long. I hope this gets improved. Collecting phone records and viewing the holo recreations didn't seem to do much but I think they are used for things not in the beta. I like the idea of building a base but I need to see more of it. Visual customization of the character with gear was good.
PVP Zone:
I am not a PVP oriented person therefore I try to avoid it in most games. DZ was interesting, sometimes you would get in one where everyone was just farming PVE content others it seemed like half the people were rogue and each half was farming the other. Rogue hunting was fun and helped pass the time while NPCs respawned. Gear is much better here but getting it out is tricky. More than a few times I'd try to extract and then get mowed down by unflagged players at the last second while attaching the loot to the drop line. Occasionally other players would come to my aid but it was a rare occurrence. Running in a group curbed this behavior but did not completely eliminate it.
Things that bugged me:
No trade system. What the eternal f***?!? How do you build a game based around drops and group play and not have a system for trading or sharing loot? I like that each player gets their own drops but more often than not we'd get drops the other needs and couldn't swap.
Civilian npcs. You're supposed to be the good guy, they know you are here to help, and they run off as soon as you get near them. You just cleared out a street gang, whats your reward? Civilians screaming in terror as they flee from your sight. There are some beggars who give you loot for food/drink but wait too long and they will shun you forever. Out side of the beggars there seems to be zero interaction with the population large. I feel this could have been done better such as people giving you clues or tips if you talk to them.
Buildings. You can go in some pre-determined structures that have the same basic layout but thats it. Needs more variety. We're in a city where most of the population has been decimated. Why can't I break in any random building and search for things to aid myself and the people still living. Locked door? Can't shoot it open with a high-power shotgun, gotta loot a lock pick kit. Stupid.
Cars. I can close the doors but not open them? Huge missed opportunity for random, hidden loot stashes. Could have also used them for hiding/ambushing in the DZ.
Lastly, I know its a lot to keep track of but it irks me that I can't knock out any glass or lights. You can shoot them all day long and make some holes or dim the lights for a few seconds but you can't knock them completely out. I wouldn't even mind if it only worked outside the DZ and reset once I got a certain distance away.
I needs more work/content and I'm still not sold on the whole "a gun can't kill in 3 headshots or less" but overall I enjoyed playing it with my friends and I plan on keeping my pre-order.
