Haven't played this for weeks now due to this single issue. Like others I thought this would be a simple fix but it would seem the dev team consider the base behaviour of respawning all over the place to be better than actually allowing players to clear locations.

This completely ruins the experience.

And for Ubi reps who keep asking for specific examples - as many have said this issue is everywhere. All you need to do is change the respawn distance to between 2 and 5 times what it is now and that would instantly fix the problem. It's a single number that needs changed.

The respawn behaviour in Far Cry respawns and recycles enemies between 50 and 100m away.

For reference, in Ghost Recon Breakpoint the respawn distance is between 800 and 900m.

That right there is the problem and it is staggering that the team can't see or acknowledge this issue properly.

So I've played a bit further into the game and this continues to be pretty much the only main annoyance I have, so far everything else is excellent.

Recently my main irritation has been with respawning hostile animals, I'll constantly get swarmed by coyotes and mongeese that I've just taken care of. I'll constantly be attacked from behind as they respawn. Also I've been killed by a sniper who respawned behind me and shot me moments after I'd taken him down.

It seems that respawning is completely distance based and not time based.

There are a couple of ways to resolve these issues:

• Make respawns time based - one in game day should be sufficient to make progress
• Allow the player to clear all enemy locations - this gives a feeling of progression in the world and rewards player actions. As it stands it's confusing which things can and cannot be cleared.

Now, I know the main worry here is that the game world will become empty and it's something Ubi has been obsessed with of late - I've talked at length about this in games such as AC and Breakpoint - but the problem is that it makes the world static and unaffected by player actions. However for most this simply isn't the case: This called world progression and is something that previous Far Cry games had, clearing areas resulted in reduced enemy presence to the point where entire areas could be cleared. This wasn't boring or empty it was rewarding for struggling through challenging areas and seeing a persistent player impact on the world. For myself the most satisfying aspect of the game is when it acknowledges that I've cleared an area and then rewards the player for doing it well and then being able to observe a persistent impact on the world. Furthermore, there are diminishing returns returning to the same areas to clear them over and over other than to practice or improve their ability to do so, in fact this repetition for most is a sense of great frustration that their actions are meaningless and pointless - even more so when you run 50 yards and the enemies you took the effort to take out are back again. Most players will tackle a location once, be satisfied with how they did and move onto the next location.

Far Cry 5 also offered the ability to manually allow the player to respawn enemy bases at their leisure, giving them control over how populated or challenging the world was - would strongly suggest providing that option here.

And if the world is completely captured and there are no longer any enemies then guess what - the player can start the game over and clear it all again. Games need to have an ending; a sense of closure or completion where the player can look over what they've achieved and the impact they've had.

Anyway, rant over, like I said the game is otherwise excellent and IMO one of the strongest entries - except in the areas mentioned above where it is arguably one of the weakest (it actually echoes FarCry 2 which I couldn't get into purely because of the respawning enemies).

Any ETA on a fix for this? I've now stopped playing and gone back to breakpoint because even as clunky as that game is enemies don't respawn in front of your face fundamentally breaking the core gameplay loop. For all of Breakpoints faults it wasn't as singularly game breaking as this bug!!!

Hi,

Quick one, I'd like to suggest that weapon attachments such as scopes, muzzles and ammo type should be able to be hot swapped on the fly. Ammo type itself should be able to be changed in the weapons wheel or at the tap of a button. You shouldn't need to visit a workbench to use a suppressor or attach a scope either as these things clip or screw on.

The workbench should be used for crafting such things, but once crafted the player should be able to configure their weapons in the field once attachments and ammo types are unlocked.

This would circumvent some of the frustration players are experiencing and make the game and combat much more dynamic and enjoyable whilst still retaining the complexity of the weapon customisation.

I'm a bit confused. Why were 2 single areas adjusted. Surely this is a global issue and needs adjusted across the board.

The fact that individual areas can be adjusted suggests two things:

- There's possibly no simple global fix
- The behaviour is intentional and designed and they don't want to change it globally

If it's the latter then that's extremely disappointing and extremely poor design.

Hi,

When playing with graphics on the Ultra preset I noticed there was a wierd blurriness, softness, outline to everything. I can't explain it, it's quite subtle but just isn't very sharp.

After extensive testing I've discovered that when graphical settings are set to Ultra this issue occurs. It doesn't occur when individual settings are set to Ultra, only when all settings move the overall preset to Ultra.

For others wondering about this, try the following:

• Set your graphical preset to low
• Move every setting except one to Ultra, so that the preset moves from Low to Custom (I use either texture filtering, shadows or fog)

The game will then be in high fidelity and sharp without the wierd outline/softness to everything.

If you want to test the issue then observe the sharpness of the scene with these settings, go into the menu and then move that last setting to Ultra and you'll notice the whole scene becomes softer and more blurry. It's like antialiasing is doing a second pass or the whole scene is being reconstructed when the Ultra preset is selected.

If you're on the Ultra preset, changing one setting won't disable this odd effect, you need to move the entire preset to either Low or Medium and then move your settings back to what you want, being sure not to trigger the whole preset as Ultra.

By the way, after testing further this happens with the High preset as well, and only when the entire preset becomes High, so a mixture of High and Ultra won't trigger it. Low and Medium are unaffected.

Hopefully this helps others!

Cheers.

Ok I've done some extensive testing on how the spawning is working:

• It's completely distance based, time isn't a factor. Tested by waiting in the middle of a cleared location for several in game days and no enemy respawned, whereas when testing distance they respawn as fast as the player meets the criteria below.
• The despawn/respawn distance is the same and it's about 100 metres, in fact it's basically right at the edge of the player's radar. Tested by dropping a body and then measuring the distance for spawn and respawn.
• Enemies will not respawn as long as their bodies exist. Tested by taking out a sniper and carrying the body about half a mile away, then returning whilst carrying them and the enemy did not respawn.
• Bodies will not despawn whilst the player is looking at them. They only despawn if the player is further than 100 metres AND looks away.
• Once a body despawns, the original enemy will respawn once or if the player is > 100 metres away from their spawn location. This can happen the instant the body despawns.
• Enemies will respawn out of thin air in front of the player, no need to look away.

On this basis it is quite possible they haven't implemented time based respawning at all. Therefore the solution here is to extend the despawn/respawn horizon by a considerable factor. At least a factor of 5 IMO to cover the size of some of the larger bases.

It is highly likely, although I haven't tested, that this 100m distance is global and so affects spawning of random events as well. So if a roadside patrol spawns, the player kills them, runs 100 yards their bodies will be cleared and they'll spawn in exactly the same location again if the player runs back.

Also tested with animals, unintentionally when I was doing my testing I kept running into the exact same pack of coyotes as I ran back and forth. They spawn in the same locations all the time. Alpha animals also randomly spawn, they're not set, they appear very occasionally in any animal pack.

On reflection, I can only think the spawn/despawn distance may be so short for performance reasons, that's the only thing I can think of.

Ok I'm on mission Napoleon El Pequeno, exploring the little island and the spawning is really falling apart here.

Went to explore roncali lighthouse and got noticed, then ran away about 50 feet and the enemies chasing me had all despawned and when I went back they were just wandering around as normal. I can literally see unmarked blobs appearing on my radar as they reset.

Then I did some more testing, behind the lighthouse there's a bunker with a guard. Take out the guard, then go up the steps, past the lighthouse and down to the bar at the other side with the balcony. It's about 50 feet away, half the radar. Turn around, walk back to the bunker and a blob appears in the middle of the radar. Repeated this several times, the spawns rotate between a single enemy, 2 normal enemies and 2 armoured enemies, but they just keep respawning. It's truly awful. This is actually worse than my previous testing as it makes hiding bodies completely and utterly redundant as they just despawn and respawn.

Honestly this is really, really broken. I've never seen anything like it in any other game, and needs a fix asap. I honestly can't quite grasp how this made its way through QA or testing its blindingly obvious that something is fundamentally wrong here.

It really should be a top priority. Any kind of stealth is completely pointless.

Ok, let's be absolutely clear here - the respawning of enemies has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with difficulty, it's do to with assessing whether or not this is expected or intentional behaviour and whether it works.

The question to Ubi was - is the short respawn horizon producing intended behaviour, particularly with regards to bases and the clearing thereof.

We haven't had a direct response to this but we have had Ubi looking at specific locations which suggests they accept that the default behaviour isn't ideal in some scenarios.

The reason this was raised was that for several years now in open world games, areas can be cleared either permanently or for a short period of time, for example until player death or they move far enough away. This is specifically important for fixed locations such as bases/camps/facilities. As a result, it is common to expect to be able to clear areas without enemies respawning half way through or when the player turns around. Clearing half a base only to watch it respawn is extremely demotivating and renders player efforts and planning largely pointless. If playing as a straight fps shooter then this might be acceptible, but even in FPS shooters enemies do not respawn. Being able to temporarily or even permanently clear locations is important as it gives the player a moment of respite and achievement as well as allows them to then loot and focus on mission objectives. It is also important for stealth and tactics both of which are redundant when enemies just pop right back up.

It's not about difficulty - it's about the game working as intended or expected by gamers with respect to modern gaming trends.

I expect the respawn distance was originally intentional because of a knee-jerk response to FC5 where the world would become empty after conquering areas. However, using a distance or visibility based respawn where the horizon is too short results in the behaviour we've been observing where it is impossible to actually clear any area ever. The workaround is to either expand the respawn horizon globally or configure the respawn for each and every location, possibly enemy in each location. The former is fairly simple but affects the whole game, the latter is onerous and labour intensive but gives better results.

The best solution is a time-based respawn system where enemies respawn after a period of time, say one in game day. However, we won't see this as the system hasn't been designed this way. This is a design flaw.

I will repeat here - this absolutely should have been picked up in QA. Anyone with experience in modern games could spot this as an issue within an hour or so of playing. I think they were likely aware, but did not expect the scale of push back, or it didn't warrant the effort required pre-launch.

Seems to be a gaming trend amongst western studios these days. Simplify and dumb down to cater to younger audiences and to avoid offending anyone.

Asian studios tend to respect the intelligence of its audience and embrace complexity, learning curves and difficulty. There's simply no tangible reward from candy coated hand holding. It's just a sensory enslaught and not in a good way as it breeds a generation of gamers and developers that haven't the faintest idea of what a good, quality game is.

I see Battlefield is getting torn apart right now by gamers for the very same reasons.

I don't know why but there seems to be a bit of an identity crisis in gaming these days where studios want to chase trends and will use brands to do so even if completely mismatched rather than innovate on their own terms, resulting in progressively destroying any goodwill and loyalty the customers and community have.

By way of example: gore, politics and anything topical is typically avoided, however in M rated or adult titles these things are expected, particularly here where the subject matter is war and warfare and should be treated with the weight and respect it deserves. Tone is very important and this is a grim subject, but that's no reason to avoid it.

If you buy a Ferrari, you don't expect it to drive like MarioKart. If you watch a horror movie, you don't expect it to be a Disney animation.

Ubi needs to stick with the identity the community defined in the charter and work towards that at the exclusion of everything else with regards to this franchise.

New forum interface is terrible.

Yeah more than happy to have a chat, just ping a link to the discord or whatnot.

Haven't played Arma since it was Operation Flashpoint

I have a vision of a game that offers endless content through dynamic strategic AI.

Say we have a map, full of locations etc. Each location offers a strategic benefit such as resources, tactical options or impeding the enemy.

The territory would be split into regions, each region has a main strategic purpose or objective. Within those regions would be several facilities or key locations.

Enemy or faction presence is determined by the % of facilities held by different factions and would influence what faction troops spawn in random patrols.

Once a facility is cleared, it can be left empty or given to the players choice of faction.

The strategic AI factions will target facilities based on their own strategic objectives.

The AI will issue missions to the player dynamically based on the players relationship with that faction.

As factions loose territory they become more aggressive and we'll defended, responding to the players tactics.

Facilities and locations generate strategic resources that the AI can 'spend' when sending reinforcements and upgrading defenses of facilities.

The player would air drop into the map and is free to tackle the whole thing in any order. However they start off with nothing but the equipment they take and have to establish their approach, which factions to support and set their own objectives.

For me, something like that layered on top of the deep tactical and minute to minute gameplay would be the holy grail.

If you're doing a part 3 can we have some questions about things like:

- Should we be able to capture and clear locations and have dynamic territory.

- Do we want dynamic factions that will independently take territory and generate dynamic missions based on faction objectives.

- Faction relationships and benefits, ie doing missions for factions improves relationships, turning them from hostile to neutral to friendly which changes the way they respond to the player and gives unique benefits.

- Should capturing facilities offer strategic benefits, ie reducing enemy presence, offering tactical options like air support, supply drops, vehicle dropoff etc. for capturing things such as airfields, depot's etc.

I have more ideas but I'd really like to see some development in this area to offer replayability and emergent gameplay.

I'd love to work with them on design if the option was there. I can code and have modded several games, with gameplay systems and design being what I'm particularly interested in, but GR is my favourite franchise alongside the souls games.

To be honest most of Delta is aligned on the vision for what the franchise could be, as well as the community here.

What I think would work for the sequel would be a more involved monthly workshop with representatives from the dev team there, showing ideas and general direction so that we could offer feedback and advice.

Hopefully that's a possibility for the future!

The game needs to be hardcore and AI needs to be advanced and dynamic. This is required so that planning and tactics become essential to success, and as a result, rewarding to use. Success should feel earned and player skill and intelligence rewarded.

By all means have difficulty options, but fundamentally the game should be a challenge to bring the different systems to life and give them purpose and meaning.

With regards to strategy, I'd really like to see skills and classes replaced by a weight based loadout system with gear that has a tangible gameplay impact. Class would then emerge dynamically and naturally from loadout choices.

Progression should come from territory and facility capture which then enable tactical options and opportinities. For example, want air support? Capture an airbase.

Want rebel support? Liberate captives etc.

Want to reduce enemy road patrols, capture checkpoints and vehicle depot's.

Perhaps the player can recruit and develop squad members from allied forces, watching them grow and develop, and when they die, they die.

Underpinning this should be dynamic factions which evolve independently of player actions, taking and loosing territory and strength. These factions would have relationships with the player that can be manipulated and exploited.

All that aside, the minute to minute gameplay has to be designed to be challenging so that all of these options and systems have meaning and impact gameplay and the player is pushed to think and use them well.

That would be a satisfying and rewarding experience.

Booted up the game after several months to see if this was fixed.

No.

Enemies still respawn half way through clearing a small base.

This is atrocious, has ruined the entire game, and somehow the devs cannot see why this is dreadful design as it's now clearly intentional.

I was so excited to play this but I simply can't while this issue is a thing. The simple possibility of enemies respawning whilst attempting to complete an activity or objective as a design choice is utterly baffling and completely circumvents any point of stealth or even trying to progress in any meaningful way.

As to the comment that extending the spawn ranges globally makes the world feel dead. Go look at ghost recon breakpoint. That game successfully manages to not respawn enemies whilst clearing locations. The despawn distance is around 800m for that game. At no point does the world feel empty as there's always random encounters in the wild.

Placed enemies in locations don't respawn until the player either dies or is a considerable distance away. This gives a sense of personal progression and accomplishment and meaning.

Respawning enemies when you're 100.feet away from where you killed them does not. In fact it makes pretty much everything pointless. Why kill an enemy when they will simply respawn? Why attack anyone at all? Why engage in combat in any way when the result is completely ineffectual.

Can you see why this is so bad in a game that focuses on combat?!

Even Doom, the most arcade of arcade shooters does not respawn enemies during a level.

I really don't understand these design decisions sometimes, particularly when the team has simply given up and said they're not changing it.

Why is it devs seem to be at odds with players where the community has a better grasp of what the game should be like than the team themselves. Honestly, a 30 minute playtest by anyone would have thrown this issue up. A simple tweak or option in the menu would solve the problem.

To watch the dev team stubbornly refuse to implement something that would clearly improve the game and bring players back - even as an option - is the very definition for frustration.

At the very least, can we have an option in the menu to influence global enemy spawn/respawn distance. That would be the best of both worlds.

I want to play this game, I really do, but I simply cannot until this is addressed because it is such a huge oversight and immersion breaker. I won't invest time in a game that simply reverses my progress seconds afterwards.

Imagine playing chess where pieces 'respawn' a move after taking them and you can grasp the problem here. It renders everything utterly pointless! At no point am I worried that the chess board might start to feel 'empty'. I feel reward and satisfaction at dismantling the opposing side and opening up new objectives and tactics. It would not be a good mechanic to have infinite pawns spawning off board to keep my attention occupied. It is not cool to be sniped by a queen that magically respawned behind me whilst trying to manoeuvre on the opponents king.

This is game design 101 for goodness sake!

Yep, seems to be working ok after a quick boot up. I'll test more thoroughly later today but I can see the pointers are all hooking and no obvious issues.

If anyone does encounter problems, let me know but should be all good!

V

That's it, 3 years later and the game has never been off my system. Granted haven't played much recently but nothing scratches that itch like GR.

@JaRuTo7

I'll have a look in the next day or so and update, will drop a post and link in here when done.

Have to say though, end of an era!

V

Hey folks, hope everyone is good!

Quick question - haven't had a chance to test but there was server maintenance and a minor update recently. For those using the mod - is everything still working ok? I'll test over the weekend but just wanted to reach out.