When Hell Let Loose first unveiled itself in a genre full of arcade shooters and fast-paced action, it seemed like a niche paradise for those who prefer their war games hardcore. Sure enough, it built up its reputation as one of the most faithful digital recreations that best represent several facets of World War 2.
Ultimately, that means, the game isn't for everyone. For some, it's a little too realistic to the point where it doesn't seem like a game one plays for fun. This, in turn, has resulted in a community with somewhat elitist attitudes. What's more, Hell Let Loose has a few inherent issues that prevent it from gaining a more enthusiastic player base. Fixing the issues below would make the game much more enjoyable, and potentially lead to a better community surrounding the game as well.
9 More Incentives For Playing As A Team
Hell Let Loose is a war game, where players will get themselves killed or jeopardize their faction if they act in their own self-interest. Sadly, this doesn't prevent lone wolf behavior from many squadmates. It's not hard to find some stray or MIA teammates looking to score their own glory kills or just exploring astray.
The game doesn't incentivize teamwork with anything other than with the prospect of victory. It's more of a community problem and not the game's fault, but the gameplay could have presented ways to make teamwork the more appealing mode of play. Even games like Battlefield found a way to make players work for their faction.
8 Friendlier Environment For Solo Players
Tribalism is quite a rampant activity in this title's gaming community. Hell Let Loose is apparently a game of extremes, where a player either plays with friends to get the best communication and teamwork, or they'll fend for themselves in the war-torn landscape.
There are many reports of squad leaders kicking out players they don't know, because a friend who just joined wants in. Other times, some squads are locked and won't let any stranger join, leading to alienating moments and boring gameplay. A simple squad randomization feature would help here.
7 A Solution To Spawn Camping
When it comes to gameplay on the field, one of the most frustrating concerns for many players is spawn camping or killing. Once an enemy team raids an HQ, they can watch over the designated spawn points for the opposing team and simply kill any hapless person who spawns.
In fact, some player statistics display a shortest "alive" time of just one second on average, thanks to spawn campers. This is also present in other games but it's an especially cheesy and cheap tactic in Hell Let Loose because there's not much protection for players who just spawned.
6 Shorter Respawn Times
One of the main reasons why spawn camping is such an infuriating aspect of a match is that the respawn timers in Hell Let Loose are not generous, to say the least. The respawn timers are long, usually 20 to 40 seconds in between at the time or writing.
The idea might be to discourage fast-paced arcade gameplay similar to Call of Duty or other games, but spawn camping is too rampant anyway and ruins the player satisfaction. Any team that camps a spawn point is thus more or less guaranteed a quick victory thanks to the long spawn timer.
5 Less Demanding Gameplay
Hell Let Loose plays tight with its own rules, and doesn't compromise on the game's realism. At least not much when compared to other FPS. Thus, most matches can take at least an hour to finish where most of that time will be spent following orders and building up bases, with scarcely any action.
This is one of the meta ways to win a game, because matches usually involve both sides trying to take each other's headquarters. Truth be told, most people usually won't find this aspect of war, fun but it's pretty close to what infantry actually do. However, Hell Let Loose needs to find a balance between fun and realism.
4 Hit Indicators Or Some Form Of Kill Cam
In the event that players find some action on the frontlines, the most eventful thing that might happen to them is usually getting shot by a sniper or artillery. After that, it's back to their spawn point.
Like in real life, there are no hit direction indicators or even subtle prompts to give players a general idea of their killer's location. Such is the case in early modern warfare. Again, even though that's how people actually fight with guns, it's not an enjoyable way to join fights, and it also offers the victims no chance for retaliation against campers.
3 More Vehicles, Less Walking/Running
To make deaths more disheartening at the hands of campers, most of their victims will have typically walked thousands of meters just to get to where the fighting is supposed to be. The game doesn't give its players many vehicles, unlike in Battlefield where one can hitch a ride quickly to get to hotspots.
Thus, the main mode of transportation is running around. If the players are too slow or too far, then they'll probably miss the fighting or get sniped by the enemy victors. Thus, the majority of a match involves either shoring up base defenses, or long existential walks in the European countryside broken by the occasional artillery echo. Some players even resort to calling the game a walking simulator.
2 More Frequent Action
Granted, the walking wouldn't be that much of a chore if there were more localized or smaller actions happening around the map. Unfortunately, the maps are typically too big to let players clash often. This main issue is also in conjunction with the ample amounts of uneventful walking in the game.
Out of one or more hours of gameplay, only a few minutes or even seconds comprise actual combat. The ratio is certainly more relatable for anyone who's joined an army, but Hell Let Loose is, first and foremost, a game where no lives are at stake. At the very least, smaller maps or more combat opportunities would break the monotony.
1 Optimization Fixes
Last but not least, the game is quite a technical mess on many systems. Some players who have good gaming PCs report the usual graphical issues such as stuttering, low framerate, andquestionable CPU and GPU usage leading to increased performance costs.
The game spent a long time in early access, but it still has a lot of bugs and graphical anomalies that can hamper gameplay. It's fair to say that those who play the game on consoles should also expect similar issues. As time goes by, however, they'll likely get ironed out.