Recent reviews by SmudgeEz

TL;DR Game is fun, community is incredibly toxic, EXBO aren't prioritising help for newer players.

Let me start off by saying this game is fun.

That being said as the game currently stands I cannot recommend anyone to play this game.

There are a few systems that are fundamentally flawed that gets more and more noticeable the further you get into the game.

The biggest issue for newer players is 'Matchmaking'.
The matchmaking system is a hidden system in the game that you cannot view, your gear score is irrelevant.
Whenever you leave the safe zone the game takes a 'screenshot' of your gear. You will be match made to what the game believes is your highest level gear you have ever worn.
If you get a Purple or a Red quality item from a loot box or the Season pass and go to take it for a spin, you will suddenly be fighting people with Purple/Red gear. Even if you go back to your earlier gear you will still be facing people that heavily out gear you.

Sealclubbing/Gatekeeping
Eventually you will reach the Bar. Regardless of which side you are on, Stalker or Bandit. There will be other factions camping your locations just for the sake of PvPing or ruining your day. They usually have zero reason for being there, sometimes they will steal your resource bag and sell it back to you via the Auction House OR drop it somewhere. Sometimes they will drop it somewhere easy to find, sometimes they will drop it in a impossible location. If they die, they can be back within minutes while you can lose all of your farm. They also usually will outclass you in equipment and artifacts.
This both gets better and worse in the North.

The North:
You've finally made it to the end game. Both Bandits and Stalkers both get split into 2 Subfactions each. The game is now a four faction game instead of two.
Each subfaction has their own 'Safe Zone' (Note other factions can walk to the safe zone) with access to the very basics. The resources you can gain from these safe zones are much lower than the conflict zones, but generally speaking it's a much more pleasant time farming in your Safe or the Conflict zone next to you compared to the Bar areas. It's a lot faster to run back if you die as well.
That being said, the camping and gate keeping gets a lot worse, expect to see the same names pop up over and over again at the entrances and exists to zones in the North. At this point they don't even try to hide it. Some people even have alts in other factions so they can scout the areas safely and worse, trade your dropped loot over to a alt that is friendly to you so you can't get it back. (Which according to EXBO is a perfectly legitimate strategy)

Clans:
So you have either saved up 10,000,000 and decided to create a clan or you are applying to join one.
It's worth noting that established top clans typically control most of the market for high quality artifacts and equipment and have high KD and gear requirements. But my recommendation is to try to get into a top clan rather than creating one.
First off congratulations, you have made it to the very endgame content.
If you decided to make your own clan, in order to promote anyone to any sort of administrative position you will need to level up your clan. Else your clan has three ranks, Recruit, Trooper and Leader.
How do you level up your clan?
You need to recruit 30 members.
You need to perform 10 (very easy) special deliveries (Capped at 3 a day)
You need to win 5 subdivision battle stages.
The problem is with the subdivision battles. They are a mess.

Clan Subdivision Battles:
Every day at the same time, a Clan Subdivision battle can occur. Either a Brawl, a Tournament or a fight over one of four locations on the Map at Forge-11. If for whatever reason you cannot make that specific time of day, tough luck, you can't participate.
Clan Subdivision battles are the only way to obtain Crimson Casings.
If you are a new clan, you will struggle to win any of these unless you can get all your members online and geared up in +15 Master gear and have a decent artifact build.
As a Brawl is a 4 way fight, where alliances is allowed. Typically speaking the top clans will try to 'buy' the lower clans out so they can get a free or easy win. You will either need to get lucky and hope you get matched against three other even clans or just try again another day.
A Tournament is a 1v1 fight between two clans, that only happen on specific days of the week. The easiesst way to level up your clan to level 2 is to win at Tournaments as it's less chaotic. But then again you have to get lucky one of the 10 clans that signed up is at your level and you get paired with them. (Not many people actually sign up to Tournaments)
Basically subdivision battles come down to how active your clan is and how much money you can invest in your clan mates.

RMT: (Real money trading)
Did I mention this game can be considered completely pay to win?
On the surface, there isn't too much to see. You can buy a Season Pass and Premium, both offer slight advantages but both can be easily obtained using in game currency if you wanted. It's not the worst thing to farm and if you sell the non bound items from the season pass you can expect to make your money back.
You can buy Season Passes/Premimum to sell on the Auction house for in game money.
You can technically buy Barter resources from the Auction House however usually it isn't worth it.
It's worth noting that there are 'crates' in this game that can drop equipment such as weapons/armour/scanners/backpacks.
Most of the items you get from crates are tradable and sellable on the Auction House.
That being said, there are several websites outside of the game where people will trade real money for in game items/currency. (Like most games) As far as I can tell nothing is done about this.
People will try to buy the items for cheap by advertising in discord or scanning through the auction house and then resell those items at huge markups on RMT sites. RMT is against TOS but nothing is done about the sites doing it and I have not heard of people being banned for it.

Lack of Guides/Information about fundamental systems:
While there are lots of quest guides on youtube, various features such as how to hunt Artifacts, how the clan system works, Hideout guides amongst other features have their information gatekept by the community.New people coming into the scene won't be able to easily find this information. The main forum for this game is Discord and it's terrible to search through. You can find 5 people asking the same question but no one offering an answer.

No PvE or PvP endgame. PvP is a lagfest of unbalanced rubbish. PvE is one dungeon over and over to grind the gearscore of which you need to farm the keys. Good luck if you even have a job.

BETTER THAN DIABLO 3

Amazing Sandbox for all those who love building Vechicles and Bases.