Ready Or Not - edgy tactical SWAT FPS with school shooting level

[Child of Malkav]

This is supposed to be SWAT or COD? Highly confused over the sound of gunfire, explosions and soldiers running around. You know, like in SWAT......not.

 

[anvi]

I'll get it sometime, I love the SWAT games.

 

[karoliner]

 

[anvi]

I need a review vs SWAT 3/4.

 

[ADL]

it's the SWAT 5 everyone hoped it was going to be. Very happy with it aside from the way developers abandoned the supporter branch.

 

[Haba]

Is there a Twitch streamer mission?

 

[ADL]

Yeah it'll be in the 1.0 release and I have the suspicion that it'll be the opening mission serving as a tutorial for the commander mode campaign which has permadeath/injury/stress management mechanics.

 

[anvi]

it's the SWAT 5 everyone hoped it was going to be. Very happy with it aside from the way developers abandoned the supporter branch.

Is multiplayer fun? I only ever played SWAT single player.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I've been holding out for 1.0 release before giving this a real go, I'm looking forward to tomorrows release. Seems like they are making good changes. There really hasn't been many SWAT type slow tactical shooters since like SWAT 4.

 

[anvi]

Especially since Rainbow Six turned into COD.

 

[ADL]

Is multiplayer fun? I only ever played SWAT single player.

I've already spent over a hundred hours playing mostly custom maps with friends. Multiplayer is a lot of fun but the community was hoping we'd be able to do AI teammates+online cooperative multiplayer but they're not doing that as of right now. I'd imagine it will be the biggest post-launch request by far.

1.0's teammate AI looks exponentially better compared to what we have now so I'm looking forward to singleplayer too.

 

[karoliner]

1.0 Launch Major Feature Changelog, 1.0 Out Now!
Make entry, officers!

1.0 has finally launched.
Make entry, officers!
In the changelog below we will cover most of the major feature changes that have been introduced into Ready or Not 1.0, although not exhaustivedue to changes spanning almost 12 months.

Bugfixes are not listed — rest assured that there are too many to count here.

We will continue to hotfix the 1.0 update in the coming days and look forward to far more updates in the bright future for Ready or Not!

Gameplay

• Commander mode: “Commander mode” is our immersive Ready or Not single player experience. The mode acts to tie together all elements of the game’s existing design, as well as introducing new features centered around progression and replayability. We will be heavily monitoring feedback surrounding this mode.
  
  • Ironman Mode: A permadeath-style option for hardcore players. Once you’re dead, your save is deleted. There are cosmetic rewards for completing this mode.
  • Exfiltration Mechanic: In order to quit a mission early without accruing as much stress to their officers, players must exfil from their spawn point, being sure to first backtrack safely.
  • Save Slots: 3 save slots have been added that will allow players to experiment with different runs, or for multiple users on one PC.
  • Stress System: A meta-game stress system that punishes the team for acting outside of the Use of Force continuum, or otherwise putting lives in danger. Officers at high stress will have to be benched and put on therapy, or be at risk of leaving the team permanently.
  • Officer Traits: ~12 modifiers that affect your officer or team composition to benefit your select playstyle. Traits become available for each respective officer as you play missions with them.
• New SWAT AI: A remarkable next-generation AI system capable of clearing rooms in a truly lifelike fashion, built from the ground-up by working closely with our SWAT advisory team.
  
  • New AI and Team Commands: A number of new commands are now available for ordering AI (and now your friends) around.
    • Officers will be able to order surrendered and arrested targets to turn around, move to a marked position, or move to the officer’s location.
    • AI can be told to run to the nearest exit and flee the location. They will be automatically arrested upon arrival there.
    • Commands are now able to be used in cooperative, so players without microphones can communicate a little easier with other player teammates.
      • This system is pending some QOL improvements such as UI elements to help see what has been marked. Some commands will also default to Judge’s voice.
  • Police Trailer Units: Automated trailer units have also been added, which are police units that come in after a mission to collect arrested contacts and any relevant people or items. This will occur when “bring order to chaos” is completed.
• New Tablet System: Objectives and other elements of the UI that were previously non-diegetic have been moved to the Tablet, which is able to be opened by pressing “TAB” by default.
  
  • After selecting a mission, players can: Listen to a situation briefing and 911 calls
    • Receive a list of objectives relevant to the mission
    • Preview images that might provide some insight into the threat level
    • Read through a list of known suspects and civilians
    • Access whatever maps the LSPD has available on the location, with the ability to draw and make plans with your team
    • Players can also preview their team cameras and loadouts in this tablet, as well as chat with other players using a built-in screen
• New level selection screen with updated visuals and entry point selection.
  
  • Ability to pick which mission type to play a level on has been removed due to limitations with design and testing, and to avoid narrative conflicts.
• New Evidence Locker: Collectibles in the Evidence Locker will become available as different missions are completed. Each mission has three: one for B, one for A, and one for S. The collectibles will often point to elements of the story or allude to other details.
• 15 Steam Achievements: 15 challenging achievements are available to completionist players upon release.
• Replay Viewer: Missions can be replayed using a viewer that is accessible in the main menu. This viewer allows for players to change camera aperture settings, color grading settings, focal length, spline paths, and speed. A timeline also exists which can be scrubbed back and forth.
  
  • The selection UI for replays is currently WIP, but can be used.
  • Replays are accessible from commander, cooperative, and practice mode gameplay. Will also work with mods.

Visuals

• New Character Customization: Allows players to change boots, shirts, pants, armor, gloves, wristwear, heads, tattoos, voices, face-wear, NVGs, gas masks, and helmets (along with mod support for players).
• New Characters Added: Over 175 new characters have been added to the game for suspects, civilians, and other NPCs.
• Overhauled Visual Effects: All visual effects have been completely redone. This includes 3D muzzle flashes, impact effects, spalling, destruction, flashbangs, cs gas, pepper spray, OC launcher impacts, tracers, C2 breaches, and much more.
• Tip Screens for new players in the Los Suenos Police Station. Information about new unlocks will also be able to be seen here.
• Replaced a large number of placeholder assets with more bespoke, custom assets with better optimization.
• Headcam perspective now includes the officer’s helmet.
• Low Ready Toggle: New options to set high and low ready.

Animations

• New Death Animations: added 100+ death animations (different limbs, arterial bleeds, etc.)
• General animation improvements for footsteps, polish, removal of some sliding.

Audio

• Quantum Sound Manager: New system that supports accurate reflections for sound and better simulated occlusion, leading to a more realistic experience when trying to locate targets.
  
  • Audio will also sound different when behind an open or closed door, or when behind a window depending on if it is broken or not.
• New distance layers for gunshots: Allows for a nicer transition as enemies get closer while shooting.
• New OSTs added: Plenty of new soundtracks for your listening pleasure.
  
  • Hospital
  • Coyote
  • Streamer
  • Importer
  • Sins
  • Gas
  • Farm
  • Beachfront
  • Valley / Dealer / Penthouse have all been updated so their OSTs are more dynamic (combat comes in more gradually / certain sections “unlock” once certain things happen)
• New Sound Design Pass: All levels (old and new) have received improvements to their sound design
• New SWAT Voices: 13 uniquely voiced, studio-quality voice lines for different tactical officers operating in the LSPD.
• New Suspect and Civilian Voices: Fully added all remaining voice lines for key characters across each level, with over 50,000 voice lines across more than 120 characters.

Weapons

• New MCX Assault Rifle
• New LVAR Assault Rifle
• New F90 Assault Rifle
• New SuperbNova Shotgun
• New UMP-9 SMG
• New TLE-1911 Pistol
• New TPL Less Lethal Launcher
• New X2 Taser
• Overhauled 870MCS Breaching Shotgun
• Overhauled UMP-45 SMG
• Overhauled M45A1 Pistol
• Overhauled MPX SMG
• Added MK18 Training Version for Tutorial Level
• Added G19 Training Version for Tutorial Level

User Interface and Experience

• New Main Menu presentation
• New Settings Menu presentation
• Customization and Loadout Screen Overhauled
• Pause Menu Overhauled
• Mod.io changed to use a native explorer which has more options (e.g. search by categories)
• Added support for subtitles: Shows real-time transcripts of voice lines said in-game.
• Colourblind options for protanopia, deuteranopia, and tritanopia.
• Item Highlight: Item highlights can be enabled for an easier time when finding evidence
• Localization additions: New language support for in-game texts.
  • English
  • Chinese (Simplified)
  • German
  • Spanish
  • French
  • New Zealand “Kiwi” Dialect

Levels

• New Map: “Elephant”, an active-shooter mission at a college campus.
• New Map: “Rust Belt”, a raid set on the border of Los Sueños and Tijuana.
• New Map: “Sins”, a high-stakes hostage situation in the upper floors of an old hotel.
• New Map: “Streamer”, a hostage situation occurring in an apartment complex.
• New Map: “Beachfront”, a warrant service on a house near Los Sueños' coastline.
• New Map: “Training”, an introductory space to players new to Ready or Not or who need a refresher
• New Map: “Station” has been completely recreated from the ground-up. It includes new spaces such as an improved training area, shooting range with working targets, evidence room, and minigame (although you’ll have to search the halls for this one).
  
  • Station will progressively change as you complete commander mode missions.
• New Map: “Carriers of the Vine” has been completely recreated from the ground-up. Raid a cultist compound and uncover its secrets.
• New Map: “Hide and Seek” has been completely recreated from the ground-up. Go head-to-head against a large international criminal operation.
• Complete Redesign: “Buy Cheap, Buy Twice” has been recreated almost entirely.
• Gameplay Improvements: Level design across all levels has been improved, fixing holes in walls and navigation for AI which would often lead to players being shot through walls and floors. Similarly, navigation through some areas has been adjusted so that it becomes more obvious where players need to go.
  
  • “Thank You, Come Again” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “Twisted Nerve” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “Relapse” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “Neon Tomb” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “Ides of March” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “A Lethal Obsession” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “Greased Palms” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “Sinuous Trail” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “The Spider” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.
  • “Valley of the Dolls” has received gameplay improvements to spawns, civilian and suspect AI, objectives, collision, performance, and visibility.

Improvements

• If you are running mods, there will be a new “safe launch” option in case any existing mods are crashing the game.
• Overhauled all suspect and civilian AI: This has been done across all levels to make them feel unique to each situation. There are many new details that should allow the AI to appear more intelligent, as well as some unique tells that may give players insight into a situation before they spot any threats. Some of these include:
  
  • Suspects making less noise upon hearing the player, opting to try and surprise players
  • Suspect repositioning in combat to take up unexpected angles or corners of rooms.
  • Civilians surrendering more easily, and occasionally surrendering when suspects are within sight (depending on the level).
  • More sensible changes to decision making when it comes to surrendering, fake surrendering, fleeing, or initiating combat.
  • AI flinching reactions have been improved: AI can still return fire and move while lightly flinching, and can move while heavy flinches are playing, but cannot return fire.
• Optimization Pass: Many levels have received a pass on their optimization, which should result in a solid FPS on most hardware. Other optimizations include:
  
  • Game size has been slashed in half from almost 100gb to ~60gb.
  • Improved settings efficacy: View distance will now cull objects correctly. This is still a work-in-progress, but there are some improvements made.
  • Dynamic shadow improvements and reduction: Reduced the number of dynamic shadows on some levels, and where appropriate changed these to spotlights, which are generally more ideal for performance.
  • Visibility culling pass: Many levels have received a large visibility culling pass to improve FPS in areas that are dense with meshes.
  • Note that optimization changes are ongoing and there are still many improvements to be made.
• Ammunition Overhaul: Ammunition has been updated for all weapons, and numerous bugs have been obliterated in the wake of this new set of changes:
  
  • Slug rounds for shotguns will now penetrate most surfaces, as well as up to level 3 armor. They will also ricochet more.
  • Buckshot and some other rounds will have a chance to severely dismember targets.
    • Players will not be able to arrest a suspect/civilian missing an arm or arms.
  • Some rounds will now have a higher change of causing arterial bleeds.
  • Fixed issue where some weapons had the wrong ammunition tag, causing it to use default penetration values.
  • Re-balanced the damage and armor penetration for each ammunition type to make them more logically consistent and each round more uniquely purposed.
• Armor Improvements:
  
  • Armor is now more consistent in gameplay. Incoming rounds will be blocked based on the direction the player is facing, not their 3d model.
  • Ceramic now has higher durability, but can still break and loses effectiveness with repeated impacts. Don't get blasted by a shotgun.
• Penetration Overhaul: We have now made several significant improvements, including:
  
  • Bullets will do less damage depending on the amount of energy left in the round (eg. shooting through several sheets of plywood will reduce the bullet damage)
  • Flesh is now less easy to penetrate so JHP rounds are more likely to function as intended.
  • Shooting an enemy through two legs used to do the same amount of damage as the bullet made two different impacts on the same target. Now, it will do reduced damage on the second (and third) hit.
  • A large number of bugs related to penetration have now been resolved, as well as several large oversights to do with materials that could not be penetrated.
• Overhauled Loadout Menu: The new loadout menu provides more insight into item selection, less nested menus, and a simpler way of navigating around different areas.
• Ready Up is now done through pressing “Y” by default.
  
  • Players no longer need to stand in a specific area, and can be anywhere in the station when readying up
  • A majority will start the countdown timer
  • If all players ready up, the timer will cut down to 10 seconds before starting
• Chemical Agents Improvements: Rebalance, redesign, and refactor of the chemical-based weapons and tools in the game to be more fun and in-depth. Chemical Agents refer to all chemical-based weapons and tools and grenades in the game: CS Gas, OC Balls, Pepperspray.
  
  • AI will attempt to flee areas that are affected by OC.
  • AI will stumble and move away from OC when hit by it.
  • Suspects that are pepper sprayed can still shoot you, but are blinded.
  • CS Gas will seep out of open doorways and around corners.
• Fine tuning of “stress” system: allow for positive feedback loop when playing using less-lethal weapons. Suspects (on levels where appropriate) will be more likely to hesitate at low stress levels. Stress increases as more firefights and other loud noises occur.
• Use of Force Continnium (aka RoE in-game) has been made more lenient for hostile situations.

Other
Literally hundreds of bugs that have been resolved. Too many to list here.

Known Issues

• We noticed some issues with localisations for the French, German, simplified Chinese, Czech, and Korean language updates and are still diligently working on a fix which will be included in the upcoming hotfixes
• Changing language requires game restart
• The mission end screen upon death currently prevents the player from spectating their SWAT AI
• Comprehensive language expansions for Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian and Turkish are due to temporal constraints not included in the 1.0 release but will be included in the upcoming hotfixes tweaking the wording here a little bit?Are we considering to include more known issues?

 

[Konjad]

So it's out... I've been waiting for it for years... then I forgot about it long time ago and since then stopped playing FPS altogether. Now idk if I should get it or not.

 

[randir14]

My favorite thing in the new update is the ability to order hostages and surrendered suspects to crawl towards you. Now they need to get to work on overhauling the animations, SWAT still looks like they have a stick up their ass when running around.

 

[Modron]

Can you tell them to stop pulling up their shorts as they crawl and write slogans on the side of your rifles?

 

[Luka-boy]

Now idk if I'm Ready or Not.

Fixed that for you.

 

[Avonaeon]

Was finally able to play some this evening. Performance is pretty dogshit and I'm gonna wait for some patches before I continue. I like the gunplay though, feels good. Generally feels like the SWAT 5 we never got.

 

[ADL]

Typical shader compilation issues but gets significantly better upon second entry of a map (observed PD/missions).

No harm in waiting but it does eventually resolve itself. They should really just compile shaders at runtime.

Also game'e good. 1.0's suspect AI is brutal, in a good way.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

Ah, I see ADL is shilling another piece of crap. No surprises here.

A reality check for those of you who have been following the game only loosely: The 1.0 release, as expected, is a desaster. This guy from the Steam summarizes it pretty well: https://steamcommunity.com/app/1144200/discussions/0/4035852333631979728/

So, where do I even start about this so-called 1.0 update...

- Still no breaching tool, no 9-bangs, no cutting power, no negotiator, no drone or ladders or anything that was once teased.
- Still no NVGs with gas masks, even though it was teased just recently.
- Still not even freaking balaclavas?
- Still zero self-preservation or indeed any other human sense among the suspects, who will readily charge the SWAT team even with bare hands. At this point, Void might as well drop this entire "life saving peace officers" charade and make another generic military shooter.
- "SWAT no longer steps on dead bodies" Well yeah, cool! Now make it so they don't phase through living NPCs or each other while also being completely solid for me.
- Still painfully limited gun customization.
- Still no flashlight and laser at the same time.
- Customization menu still barely usable.
- Optiwand still can't properly and comfortably see around corners like it could in SWAT4.
- Not even custom voicelines for mission specific objectives, just "TOC, bagging evidence"... Really? Again, freaking SWAT4 had these.
- "Sir, you're in my way!" Oh look, now you take a hint from SWAT4!
- Nicely modelled briefing room, nicely recorded briefing voiceovers, so we're gonna have nice briefing cutsc... Oh nevermind, just listen to the audio from your tablet.
- In fact, all the environmental NPC animations are very "immersive".
- The missions aren't even in the right order it seems. Talent agency briefing mentions evidence from our recent raid on the Datacenter. 'Scuse me, we haven't been in any datacenter yet!
- The officers even comment on the poor dead dog... In the place where it laid before the update!

I could go on and on, but you get the point. These are just the things out of top of my head after a few hours of gameplay. It is clear now Void just wanted 1.0 to be out before the holidays but except better SWAT AI and more content, barely anything has improved. It is very obviously still a very early access, except now it's everyone's guess if they will continue to work on it or not.

Unlike many others, I have never given up on RoN when many called it a scam, instead believing it's the SWAT4 successor we've been all waiting for. With each update my doubts grew but I still held out hope, now this "1.0" seals the deal.

Well, maybe Ground Branch will fill the spot on the SP tactical shooter market one day... In a decade or so.

Worst offender is still the enemy AI. If you have a look at the Steam forums or even fucking Reddit, you'll see people complaining about it left and right. And rightfully so. The suspects in every level are terminator zombies with x-ray vision, super human aim/reflexes and no self preservation whatsoever. Random gangbangers or meth heads will rush you relentlessly, shoot you through walls with pinpoint accuracy and full auto weaponry and happily fight your Swat team to the death even if you surprise and have your entire team pointing guns at them from behind. Trying to arrest suspects is a complete waste of time, and you're better off playing this like a Rainbox 6 style game where your mission is to shoot every possible threat on sight.

It is a complete mess. I have no idea how VOID managed to make the AI even worse than in the previous ADAM update, but at this point its either fully intentional or they are just too incompetent to ever fix it.
I expect this piece of crap to be abandonded sooner than later, as this supposed 1.0 release is clearly just a Get out of Jail Free card for VOID to escape any legal obligation of continued development they might have had under the early access banner.

It's a real shame, too, because I always enjoyed the gunplay in this game and the level design, despite VOID's tendency to build ridiciously large and sprawling levels.

Seriously, just play SWAT 4 with the Eite Force Mod, there won't be anything that comes close to it anytime soon, and this certainly isn't it.

 

[randir14]

What makes it even more pathetic is that there are already existing mods that made the AI way better. Even after the initial early access release there was an AI mod that was a huge improvement over vanilla. Void is just determined to have aimbotting enemies like in Rainbow Six 1 - but this time they wallhack as well.

 

[anvi]

The AI is the biggest problem to me.

 

[Tyranicon]

Man, I'm super out of the loop. I thought AI was fixed to an extent the community was okay with it months ago.

Or maybe that's because of the mods.

Is there any point to downloading 1.0 if I last played about a year ago?

 

[karoliner]

he's just like me fr fr

 

[Modron]

he's just like me

Just like you?

 

[None]

Can you spam "TRAILERS!" over and over like in Swat 4?