HLL: VIETNAM

I'm all in!

Holy fuck. Can't wait.

Needs some 60's tunes!

Kharzette said:

Needs some 60's tunes!

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Nothing like those Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam days when they had the songs built into the game and people would just hover over their teammates blasting "Bird is the word" on repeat until the match ended. Troll fucking city.

Bandwagon said:

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Thats a helluva playlist. Added, thanks.

Like November release.

I recently got to play the closed beta and figured I'd drop some info in here as I'm generally excited for this one. This is likely riddled with spelling and grammatical errors but I just don't really care to edit something that took awhile to write.


ATMOSPHERE

Top notch in terms of a veitnam setting. They really captured the fear of jungle combat as how my Uncle described it. I really caught myself on edge a few times due to what was going on around me.


DENSITY

The maps are dense, more dense than you could ever expect in a shooter game. At first I was aprehensive of this but it made sense once I started to get a feel for the combat, the sound of the game and the overall experience. Don't expect to be full out sprinting through this one, it won't end well for you.

AUDIO

The ambience and war sounds are very well done, although they could use some depth and I hope they take the feedback I provided in this regard. Due to the density of the maps the sound never truly travels directly to you. You have a general idea where gunfire is coming from but you can't tell how many people or how far. Is it the next bush line or 3 over? Is it 1 guy with an LMG, a tank LMG or 4 dudes going HAM?

At first I was not a fan of this echo'ing and muddled type sound then I realized how it was more realistic this way due to the valleys and dense jungles. Spawn beacons were hard to find, which made you really hunt them out which increased the stress of more fights/etc.

The most terrifying sounds in the game are

US Grenade Launcher
Due to the nature of the sound engine, once you heard this you hit the deck and started scanning as your teammate were blown to bits. It was exhilarating and hilarious. Such a weird sound to strike fear into the heart of the NVA.

US Sniper
Deep, loud shots that made you stop everything you are doing and look around for that fucking sniper. Typically if you hear the shots you were the target. It was terrifying to be around.

US Napalm Strike
Hearing those F4 Phantoms roll in with the sound echoing off the mountains was just amazing. As was teh sound of the poor bastards getting hit by those Napalm strikes. 10/10 would melt my skin off again.


FILTERS

A big complaint was the Orange filter on the map we got to play. I did not like it at first but the more I played the more I understood it's purpose. it was to help mask troop movement at long distances so you weren't constantly getting merked from 200m by infantryman. This improved survivability a ton and people were too busy complaining about it to notice. Most of the time you only have bushes for cover which don't stop bullets. Having everything washed out at 200+ meters was a godsend.

The other hidden perk to this was movement. Due to the lighting effect you could really pick up on movement due to the shadows going through the trees. It was very helpful when you were trying to figure out where all that gunfire was coming from and I ended up loving it at certain points.

I also believe this could have been a time setting (Day or Sunset) and likely due to the latteral location on the globe (I've never been to Nam, but I bet the lighting is orange AF like Hawaii in the afternoon). It needed to be toned down a small amount but nothing crazy. Game looked nice to play but ran pretty poorly during the closed test.


LOADOUT SYSTEM

The game featured a new loadout system which is one of the best I've seen so far for this type of game. You will have a point system similar to BF6 where you pick and choose your loaout options. There appeared to be 8 or 10 different slots for items in the loadout window which you unlocked by playing the game. I only got the Secondary weapon and the first support type loadout spot on 2 classes. So I'm unsure what you can even put in the other slots yet.

You could do many interesting things with this system.

Rifle or Pistol in main hand.
Pistol or nothing in Secondary.
Ammo, Explosive Ammo, Bandages or Supplies could be chosen in this slot. (Some options weren't available to some classes)

I assume you'd be able to main hand a pistol and run faster but it didn't say that anywhere.

You only get 3-4 mags per spawn, so you have to really pick and choose your battles. You couldn't just spray that bush that single guy went in because you weren't sure if you got him. You risked not having ammo when you really needed it. Which in turn added more fear and stress to the encounters.

You can loot a single ammo box ONCE per ammo box, so if another guy dropped one you could loot his once as well. The ammo boxes replenished on a timer, which was nice.


WEAPON BALANCE

US
M16
4 mags
More recoil than AK. Less bullets per mag but more damage (Frequent 1 shots).

NVA
AK
4 Mags
Less recoil than M16. More bullets per mag but less damage (Less frequent 1 shots, a lot less frequent).

Headshots were still One Shot Kills and they cannot be revived.

Odd for the AK to have less recoil but I think it's the right choice with the larger mag size and better Iron Sights.


TANK GAMEPLAY AND SUPPORT

This was a cool aspect to the game that I had never seen happen before. Typically tanks are unstoppable power houses where your team just kind of has to half ass protecting them, typically a good tank team can do it themselves.

This game however forces the infantry to cover their tanks if they want them to live. The Jungles are so dense it's very easy to flank around just about anything if the other team isn't mounting a defense. you can just slip on through.

Once I realized this I would often setup our squad to just chill around the tank. We ended up getting tons of Infantry kills from people trying to take it out. If you didn't provide this kind of support the tank was typically dead instantly from sappers flanking.

I really hope they stick to their guns on this one, it was nice to see actual tank support roles being played out.


TUNNEL SYSTEM

The NVA get a tunnel system to help counter the Hueys. In it's current form it's too strong so I expect some tweaks, but it basically worked like this.

You could connect up to 4 or 5 tunnels across the map every so many meters. You could place Garrisons on these In/Out locations and teammates could spawn on the Garrison and then instantly teleport to another entrance/exit of a tunnel on the map. You could instantaly traverse the entire map if you needed to under the right circumstances (Enemy Territory, Garrison locations, etc.).

It needs to be reduced in some way (Likely the number of nodes so it doesn't stretch as far and maybe put a minimum distance for the next set of tunnels).


Everything else was basically HLL. If they don't listen to the people crying for the sake of crying and stick to their guns on how they want it to play this will be a masterpiece and it's something the FPS genre desperately needs right now. I typically cannot play these games solo as it's frustrating to run around with retards but I found myself having a great time running around solo during the beta.

Open beta will be sometime this month, I'll post up when they announce it. Hope to see you in the game (FWOOOMP).

Hekotat said:

I recently got to play the closed beta and figured I'd drop some info in here as I'm generally excited for this one. This is likely riddled with spelling and grammatical errors but I just don't really care to edit something that took awhile to write.


ATMOSPHERE

Top notch in terms of a veitnam setting. They really captured the fear of jungle combat as how my Uncle described it. I really caught myself on edge a few times due to what was going on around me.


DENSITY

The maps are dense, more dense than you could ever expect in a shooter game. At first I was aprehensive of this but it made sense once I started to get a feel for the combat, the sound of the game and the overall experience. Don't expect to be full out sprinting through this one, it won't end well for you.

AUDIO

The ambience and war sounds are very well done, although they could use some depth and I hope they take the feedback I provided in this regard. Due to the density of the maps the sound never truly travels directly to you. You have a general idea where gunfire is coming from but you can't tell how many people or how far. Is it the next bush line or 3 over? Is it 1 guy with an LMG, a tank LMG or 4 dudes going HAM?

At first I was not a fan of this echo'ing and muddled type sound then I realized how it was more realistic this way due to the valleys and dense jungles. Spawn beacons were hard to find, which made you really hunt them out which increased the stress of more fights/etc.

The most terrifying sounds in the game are

US Grenade Launcher
Due to the nature of the sound engine, once you heard this you hit the deck and started scanning as your teammate were blown to bits. It was exhilarating and hilarious. Such a weird sound to strike fear into the heart of the NVA.

US Sniper
Deep, loud shots that made you stop everything you are doing and look around for that fucking sniper. Typically if you hear the shots you were the target. It was terrifying to be around.

US Napalm Strike
Hearing those F4 Phantoms roll in with the sound echoing off the mountains was just amazing. As was teh sound of the poor bastards getting hit by those Napalm strikes. 10/10 would melt my skin off again.


FILTERS

A big complaint was the Orange filter on the map we got to play. I did not like it at first but the more I played the more I understood it's purpose. it was to help mask troop movement at long distances so you weren't constantly getting merked from 200m by infantryman. This improved survivability a ton and people were too busy complaining about it to notice. Most of the time you only have bushes for cover which don't stop bullets. Having everything washed out at 200+ meters was a godsend.

The other hidden perk to this was movement. Due to the lighting effect you could really pick up on movement due to the shadows going through the trees. It was very helpful when you were trying to figure out where all that gunfire was coming from and I ended up loving it at certain points.

I also believe this could have been a time setting (Day or Sunset) and likely due to the latteral location on the globe (I've never been to Nam, but I bet the lighting is orange AF like Hawaii in the afternoon). It needed to be toned down a small amount but nothing crazy. Game looked nice to play but ran pretty poorly during the closed test.


LOADOUT SYSTEM

The game featured a new loadout system which is one of the best I've seen so far for this type of game. You will have a point system similar to BF6 where you pick and choose your loaout options. There appeared to be 8 or 10 different slots for items in the loadout window which you unlocked by playing the game. I only got the Secondary weapon and the first support type loadout spot on 2 classes. So I'm unsure what you can even put in the other slots yet.

You could do many interesting things with this system.

Rifle or Pistol in main hand.
Pistol or nothing in Secondary.
Ammo, Explosive Ammo, Bandages or Supplies could be chosen in this slot. (Some options weren't available to some classes)

I assume you'd be able to main hand a pistol and run faster but it didn't say that anywhere.

You only get 3-4 mags per spawn, so you have to really pick and choose your battles. You couldn't just spray that bush that single guy went in because you weren't sure if you got him. You risked not having ammo when you really needed it. Which in turn added more fear and stress to the encounters.

You can loot a single ammo box ONCE per ammo box, so if another guy dropped one you could loot his once as well. The ammo boxes replenished on a timer, which was nice.


WEAPON BALANCE

US
M16
4 mags
More recoil than AK. Less bullets per mag but more damage (Frequent 1 shots).

NVA
AK
4 Mags
Less recoil than M16. More bullets per mag but less damage (Less frequent 1 shots, a lot less frequent).

Headshots were still One Shot Kills and they cannot be revived.

Odd for the AK to have less recoil but I think it's the right choice with the larger mag size and better Iron Sights.


TANK GAMEPLAY AND SUPPORT

This was a cool aspect to the game that I had never seen happen before. Typically tanks are unstoppable power houses where your team just kind of has to half ass protecting them, typically a good tank team can do it themselves.

This game however forces the infantry to cover their tanks if they want them to live. The Jungles are so dense it's very easy to flank around just about anything if the other team isn't mounting a defense. you can just slip on through.

Once I realized this I would often setup our squad to just chill around the tank. We ended up getting tons of Infantry kills from people trying to take it out. If you didn't provide this kind of support the tank was typically dead instantly from sappers flanking.

I really hope they stick to their guns on this one, it was nice to see actual tank support roles being played out.


TUNNEL SYSTEM

The NVA get a tunnel system to help counter the Hueys. In it's current form it's too strong so I expect some tweaks, but it basically worked like this.

You could connect up to 4 or 5 tunnels across the map every so many meters. You could place Garrisons on these In/Out locations and teammates could spawn on the Garrison and then instantly teleport to another entrance/exit of a tunnel on the map. You could instantaly traverse the entire map if you needed to under the right circumstances (Enemy Territory, Garrison locations, etc.).

It needs to be reduced in some way (Likely the number of nodes so it doesn't stretch as far and maybe put a minimum distance for the next set of tunnels).


Everything else was basically HLL. If they don't listen to the people crying for the sake of crying and stick to their guns on how they want it to play this will be a masterpiece and it's something the FPS genre desperately needs right now. I typically cannot play these games solo as it's frustrating to run around with retards but I found myself having a great time running around solo during the beta.

Open beta will be sometime this month, I'll post up when they announce it. Hope to see you in the game (FWOOOMP).

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Thank you for your service

lets go

Utnayan said:

This looks pretty good.

Sludig Hateyou - Let's get this and we can friendly fire Hekotat

Actually, better yet. We can have Heko use his driving sim cockpit set up to turn left in the jungle all day in an Army truck while we mow everyone down, and once we win he can drop us off in Hanoi - and then friendly fire him as he is getting propositioned for love you long time.

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Also sign up for the beta if you havent

Utnayan said:

Dumb question but is this a standalone product or do you have to own the original?

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Stand alone