Hey guys this is w4sted and today I’m bringing you a first impressions and new player guide for Phosphor’s new survival FPS – Nether.
The game is currently in early access beta via Steam and playnether.com using the increasingly popular approach of paying for the final release in order to access to the beta. As you might expect with a beta, the game is still suffering from some teething issues especially with connectivity resulting in quite a laggy experience at times but with a lot of improvement made recently to server stability and lowering pings this will hopefully soon be a thing of the past and the overall impression is that Phosphor are working hard to address issues from the community. In the 2 weeks I’ve been playing they have introduced 4 major patches to the game with a lot of changes coming from community suggestions which is refreshing to see – the only potential danger being they become too obsessed with community feedback and end up struggling to move the game forwards.
In the current build of Nether you are immediately put into the server list and asked to pick a server when you launch the game from a list of servers that appear to have been named using the Diablo loot generation system… Hopefully this is something they will change because while far from gamebreaking it leads fairly often to people accidentally joining Golden Saviour when they meant to join Golden Hunter and so on.. although the Hungry Allies server is perhaps a prophecy of things to come..
Once you’ve picked a server you begin with some basic character customisation, which at the moment is limited to 2 models, a few skin shades and the colour of your clothes although further options have been promised in future and you have the ability to purchase cosmetic items from the in game shop, which I’ll cover a bit later on. Of course anyone who’s played a survival FPS prior to this will immediately choose the darkest skin colour and clothes possible in order to hide better which means everyone ends up looking much the same regardless. Given characters in Nether are persistent it seems a bit weird to pick a server first and then select your character, but again with a beta it’s likely things will be polished once they finish off the game client.
Your first life in Nether is likely to be pretty brief… it’s hard to see stuff amongst the city ruins, there are mutants around every corner and that kitchen knife you salvaged is starting to look like the wrong tool for the job.
Whenever you spawn in regardless of new or old character, the game will find a random place on the map away from other players and dump you there as a deterrent to the problem of people jumping between servers to move position and gain advantage. It’s a temporary fix according to Phosphor that while inelegant and problematic when it comes to grouping up with friends it also does a pretty good job of dealing with what was one of DayZ’s biggest issues so until they find a better solution it’s preferred to spawning where you logged out like in other games.
Your first concern should be and will be finding a weapon to replace the woefully inadequate kitchen knife you start with. When faced with your first glimpse of the world and spy the first nearby nether there is a pretty palpable feeling that the knife is a pretty small blade against some very scary situations but fortunately finding something to replace it with is fairly simple. Hunting for loot in Nether is fairly random affair, with very little stake being placed on specific locations and instead encouraging you to explore the surroundings, searching ambulances, makeshift forts, tents and all sorts of different city buildings. A lot of emphasis is being put on the vertical nature of the map, with most buildings being accessible often upto 20 stories high and offering some amazing views over the city as well as some pretty mean sniping locations. The Nether also seem to prefer to roam the streets unless they spot you and so they offer a temporary haven from the dangers of street crossings.
There is a definite horror vibe running through Nether that helps separate it from the competition and delivers a very satisfying feeling of tension and nervousness whether you are running alone or grouped. The Nether creatures have traits that mean you will learn to fear the siren cry of the Shrieker that brings any nearby Nether running in your direction while it sprays you blocking your vision, or the deadly Hunter that fires multiple spines at players foolish enough to stay near for too long often killing them outright. Combine this with the Nether’s ability to teleport to you once aggro’d and you quickly learn to respect and fear them in equal measure, escape is near on impossible so once you have attention someone is going to die, you or them. So far there are only 4 types of Nether in the game but these are enough to add fear and excitement to combat situations and keep you nicely on your toes and the developers have already said they plan to increase the number of different Nether in the future. They have also said they intend for the Nether to be dangerous enough that they should be the players primary concern and that is definitely true at the moment and adds to the whole atmosphere of the game in a very positive way. The NPC’s are SCARY.
After a while searching about you are likely to have found at least a better melee weapon but probably also a gun or two with very limited ammo which leads nicely onto the next problem you will face – keeping yourself sustained. Every movement in Nether lowers your food meter at a surprising rate, increased even further if you are running or jumping a lot, and much like ammunition, food in Nether is scarce. This forces you on an endless quest to sustain yourself where even staying in one place too long has consequences on your food levels and means that even once you are familiar with the game and have spent a while equipping your character you rarely feel comfortable. Ways of regaining health are also slim with meds hard to find and at most only restoring half off your hitpoints and are very rare to come across and so avoiding encounters also remains a priority no matter how well equipped you are.
There are some opportunities in Nether to feel safe though, dotted around the city are marked “Safe Zones” where you cannot fire or be killed and the Nether will mysteriously leave you alone. These allow you to access your global inventory and the marketplace and generally take a breather without fear of a player running into your chosen hiding spot and gunning you down for your hard earned loot. The fact that such things exist will worry some but up to this point I feel they have been well balanced into the game – the store will only allow you to buy cosmetic items for real money and for ingame currency you can buy food, meds, bags and ammunition for some truly extortionate prices meaning the store truly becomes a last resort option and saving up for any of the more powerful items means huge amounts of work. Even the safe zones come with an attached warning, they act as hubs for players and so approaching and leaving a safe zone can be a dangerous endeavour, PVP is alive and well in Nether and a lot of players will shoot, or stab, on sight when they see another player – something the developers are keen to subdue and encourage more player cooperation although quite how they will achieve this is currently an unknown.. My preferred approach is to only fight when threatened but even with that mentality I’ve found myself surprised by a player and shooting before I’d even thought about it, although fortunately that encounter ended with us both alive and apologising for the hasty reaction! One potentially clever solution takes place at the main safe zone, which comes under attack by the Nether every few hours and players are encouraged to defend it and reactivate it’s “protection” however right now it’s so hard to come by enough ammo and supplies to even think about trying this that it mostly just results in the main safe zone being far from it.
Another element of the game best pursued once “safe” is the skill tree, which allows some character customisation if you are lucky enough to survive long enough to more than a few points to spend - killing Nether and even other players rewards a small amount of experience but this resets when you die and you must start fresh. While the first few levels come easily enough you need a minimum of 4 levels to access the first of the notable bonuses which for most new players will be a challenge to begin with. Phosphor intend for the XP reset to be a server option in release and so it will be interesting to see becomes the more popular option but for now it’s the more harsh ruleset only. In my experience so far there are definitely a few skills that you should prioritize to begin with that will have a dramatic effect on how long you survive: 4 points into the “strength” tree will give you an extra 250hp maximum health, and heal you for that 250hp also. Another strong early option is putting a single point into Melee which will allow you to hold the right mouse button and block, which reduces a lot of damage from incoming melee attacks. I’ve included a link below so you can check out the tree for yourself. The survival tree is also a good option to help with food problems.
Melee combat is a little clunky currently, mostly thanks to lag, but has been implemented a lot better than many other attempts I’ve seen. There’s definately a technique to it a little like jousting that will take some practice and is made a lot easier by getting the block skill early, but it’s not required to do so and with experience you will eventually be able to deal with most Nether just with melee and save your precious ammo for when things really go wrong. Using melee weapons also make considerably less noise than shooting, especially with some of the more powerful guns like the sniper rifle which will bring every Nether running from 2 blocks around, meaning you're a lot less likely to attract the attention of further company.
The world of Nether is currently locked to only these blocks in the North East of the map, which already feels fairly large and enough to mostly avoid player contact if you are care, although the full map is already visible and shows that once released the game will offer a huge amount of space for players to explore. Until then however it’s a good idea to be careful about where you travel if you are looking to avoid PvP and potentially losing your character. Areas around Pullman in the North, Museum Outpost in the East and the Main Safe Zone often have a lot of player activity and even people camping the tall buildings looking to snipe at unsuspecting players. It’s easy enough to avoid these areas and keep around the south and west sides of the map, using Riverside Outpost when you need a safe zone as this currently is the least visited of the available zones. If you must venture into those areas expect to run into people who are likely to be aggressive. It’s best to keep under cover if possible and cross open areas as fast as possible, being aware that running will attract Nether quite easily and so it’s best to avoid doing so and save your stamina. Watch the rooftops, try and get vantage points to look over areas before you enter them. The game has a quite unforgiving stamina mechanic which drains when you run or jump and will recharge very slowly if you allow it to become empty. This means it’s best to move slow and quiet when you can to preserve your stamina in case you need to escape. You can also use this mechanic to help you escape other players as the only way to run “further” than someone else is via the stamina skill, which few will have. Assuming you react quick enough and don’t let your stamina drop completely empty you have a very good chance of escape, especially as any shooting will quickly bring the Nether running for the gunman and often means the assailant dies even if they get you first.
Overall the game runs and plays very well especially considering how much lag has been a factor over the past weeks, with that now slowly being resolved there is a lot of promise assuming Phosphor continue to deliver on their promises. Thier response to community feedback has been excellent and assuming they can still continue to deliver updates regularly without getting too tied up in making changes to things already implemented it should have a good future. Vehicles, item crafting, farming and more world objectives similar to the Safe Zone attacks are all planned for the near future and will build on what is already a solid start for Nether.
I’ll be bringing further updates and guides for Nether as the game progresses and certainly playing it a lot more in the meanwhile. Hopefully this helped give you a little insight into what exactly the game is all about and some information to help you survive your first experience with the game.
If you’ve tried the game and want to add your opinion, or have some comments on this review which is my first attempt at writing something like this then please stick it in the comments below. Thanks for reading, don’t forget to check out my stream and youtube channel which is linked below.
Skills Info
http://www.twitch.tv/w4stedspace
http://www.youtube.com/w4stedspace
