SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising

Let me preface this review by saying that I have over 1.5k hours, but most of them are offline or played on the GOG version. [h3]Possibly the worst netcode ever written, rife with exploits and bugs[/h3] [list] [*]Upgrade terminals often go missing for the client [*]Poor lag compensation - enemies take longer to kill and damage is delayed with higher ping. [*]Both players can use a single use chest if they start opening at the same time. [*]Extremely strange interactions when both players pick up an item [list] [*]Rings are completed when the other player just walks over it [*]Whether buffs from weapon attachments are shared is highly inconsistent [*]You can get a 8 attachments on a single weapon with an arcane sequence of upgrading by both players [/list] [*]Crashes. Tons of crashes. [*]Indestructible, hitboxless enemies that do nothing and persist through levels. [*]All dropped guns teleport to dropped timed weapons when they explode [/list] [h3]Gamebreaking bugs in general[/h3] [list] [*]Crashes, again. [*]Your item bar can freeze and become uninteractable [*]The entire game will often freeze for seconds at a time on windows (fixed on linux??) [/list] [h3]Poor balancing[/h3] [list] [*]Item balancing sucks. Item rarity seems to mostly based on how cool the name sounds, rather than their actual utility. Around half of the red (legendary) are completely unusable or useful only for their recycling bonus. [*]Plasma guns are awful. Not because of their gimmick, but simply because they do 0.3x damage to shields [*]420 Sniperdragon, commonly memed gun, is actually ♥♥♥♥. Having to make a full turn every shot will just screw you over. [*]Most modules are unviable. Raider has, like, 3.5 viable modules. 60% of modules would be better on another class. Unceasing, the best Raider module, is only available to specialists. [*]Sniper is not actually good with sniper weapons on higher difficulties, as slow-firing sniper weapons simply cannot deal with the extreme enemy density. You need to just hit headshots with regular guns. [*]The lithium shotgun ammo mentioned earlier takes the two laser shotguns from overtuned to the overpowered. [/list] [h3]Many tooltips are completely wrong or missing crucial information.[/h3] [list] [*]The effects of different ammo types are unexplained. [list] [*]Dumbfire missiles have higher base damage than homing and cursor seeking ones. [*]Lithium shotgun ammo negates all damage falloff and range penalties compared to regular laser shotgun ammo with NO DOWNSIDES. This is never explained, and is probably a bug. [/list] [*]Item/module descriptions and cooldowns are mostly wrong. Many effects are rounded to the nearest percentage, which especially hurts on modules such as Routine, which show either 1 or 2%, but can occupy many values in between. [*]Tons of hidden effects - elaborated on next. [/list] [h3]Numerous exploits/quirks/bugs you can only figure out after 100s of hours, or digging through old reddit threads.[/h3] [list] [*]On the item trade terminal, you can simply drop all items and get an item for free in coop. [*]When you pray at a prayer terminal and get a blood rite, if your inventory is full it will be automatically recycled, but you will not gain a healing bonus. [*]Dashing with raider with the Charge module does not set iframes to a certain number, but rather adds to them. Therefore, if you dash fast enough with dash cooldown reducing items, you can accumulate iframes, becoming completely invincible permanently. [*]There is a small cooldown to the dodge mechanic. [*]Upgrade kits can be stacked, increasing the amount of damage they provide. However, this does not increase the chance to conserve them, despite the "extra kit chance" increasing in the item description. Kit conservation is based solely on luck. [*]Merging upgrade kits in co-op mode is broken; if you pick up the more upgraded stack with the less upgraded one in your inventory, you lose the upgrades on the more-upgraded stack. [*]Powershot reduces heat by 5 when activating. This undocumented effect makes it one of the best heat control items in the game. [*]Does an item's recycle effect scale with the item's power? Who knows? [*]Glider, phaser, and raider's dash invincibility are implemented differently. [list] [*]Glider invincibility makes them invincible to every source of damage *EXCEPT* damage-over-time status effects. [*]Phaser invincibility makes them absorb shots (which makes no sense, especially given the graphics), but they are still vulnerable to explosives, Raider's Reverbing Blade, and damage-over-time, making it extremely useful to carry a weapon that can deal with them while invincible. [*]Raider's dash invincibility makes you invincible to nearly EVERY SOURCE of damage. This includes damage-over-time effects, explosions, DONATING BLOOD????, and NEGATIVE HEALTH REGENERATION FROM ARMAGEDDON SHARD. It's so broken, Raider might even be able to dodge the IRS. [/list] [*]Uncharged items secretly have a invisible charge count, stored as a signed 16 bit integer. This means that non charge-based items, such as Powershot or Fangs of Mordigan, can only activate 2^15 times before becoming dead weight. Bruh. [*]Crux of the laser caster, likely due to being the last item, is bugged to never drop after a few runs. [*]Fragile is a buff, as you can gain more HP from medical chests than you lost. [*]And many, many more... [/list] [h3]Terrain hitboxes are extremely janky. It is hard to tell whether you can fit through a gap. Often you will get stuck and have to slowly wiggle your way out.[/h3] [list] [*]This makes the Z1 shuriken extremely unpredictable, which is a shame, as it would otherwise be a very fun item. This also affects ricochets in general. [/list] [h3]The screw/heart core pickup system is horrible.[/h3] [list] [*]You will accidentally run into a heart core with a full item bar and no more enemies in the level, and have no choice but to waste it. [/list] [h3]Loop is poorly balanced. All it amounts to is simple stat changes for you and your enemies, while cranking enemy spawns extremely high.[/h3] [list] [*]Builds that can reach late iterations of loop are rare and rely on abusing unbalanced mechanics, rather than skill. The only two I know of are abusing shaker (a synergy item that grants charges on items) and unidentified potion (which can grant random buffs on usage) or iframe stacking on raider. Reaching deep loop without these methods is near impossible, as the moment you are noticed, you will be dogpiled by enemies in under a second. ([url=https://old.reddit.com/r/Synthetik/comments/16boh5j/the_loop_20_experience/]See here.[/url]) [/list] [h3]Boss fights are poorly designed[/h3] [list] [*]Most bosses are single target bullet sponge bosses. They are simple DPS checks with attacks that are not fun to dodge. [*]The conveyor level is an excellent idea with horrible, horrible execution. Even on max difficulty, there is no challenge at all. [*]Armored transport is an amazing boss. You have to balance fighting enemies with pumping lead into the transport, and has excellent rewards. Unfortunately it's the only boss of its type. [*]Synthetik 2 seems to have the same problems. Boss attacks are more telegraphed, but are still fundamentally flawed in that they don't fit the rest of the game. [/list] [h3]Enemies are stupid and easily exploited[/h3] [list] [*]Gliders will stack on top of you, where they can't hit you [*]Enemies do not use interesting tactics. They do not flank you, and simply charge at your location. I would expect more from future murderbots. [*]You can cheese encounters by hiding inside a slow, tanky enemy, like a Breach Ceta. [/list]