.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=120&h=80&dpr=2)
Quick Links
The new shooter on the block, The Cycle: Frontier by German development team Yager, is a massively multiplayer first-person shooter located in the far future on the tumultuous planet Fortuna III. You find yourself in the shoes of a Prospector, a Scavenger profession adopted by colonists onboar♉d the orbiting Space Station above the planet, which serves as your Hub and is run by resident fixer Badum.
The game itself is fairly straightforward, but there are a lot of moving parts that can make it a little jarring for first-timers looking to try out something new. To make those first few drops into danger a little easier, here’s a brief beginner's guide to The Cycle: Frontier.
The PvE
Your main focus in The Cycle is grabbing as many resources as your bag can handle before dumping it all in your evac ship as you leave the planet. To make your job harder there are♎ various deadly aliens of different types, sizes, and𝐆 strengths patrolling the abandoned ruins of the lost colony you find yourself exploring for treasure.
Items can be gained from various boxes and cupboards dotted around the map, from the corpses of creatures you cut down or if you’re brave enough, the pockets of other players. Either way, the end goal of every drop is going to be to get in, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:get lots of loot, and get out alive.
The PvP
The Pv🅺P in The Cycle is the other part of the game you’ll have to regularly contend with and it’s pretty easy to get to grips with. It’s your basic Escape From Tarkov-Esque setup where players are dropped into a massive map that’s left open for hours, with the number of bodies running around regularly topped up with new arrival🎃s.
Because the Bright Sands map most people play on is so large, you’ll often wander without encountering anyone for a while, only to be clipped by an ambusher or dropped by a sniper in an area that was empty only minutes ago. So tactical thinking instead of sprinting around like it’s a 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:COD: Warzone match is actively encouraged. Though if you’re after that type of gameplay, check out the Crescent Falls map. It's smaller, has a higher difficulty, more exotic gear and combat is much more frequent.
Item Insurance And You
It’s never too late in your life to think about insurance, and in The Cycles case, this is something you’ll need to consider from moment one. Insurance is a system that you shouldn’t overlook. It makes sure that should you die in a drop, you’ll at least be adequately compensa🦄ted for your lost gear.
Though it can get a little expensive in the long run, on average it’s pretty cheap to insure a few pieces of crucial gear like a rare rifle or a scanner. Plus, if you lose it you’ll be given a couple of credits to put towards buying another one. You can also completely recover lost items instead of getting cash by payiꦏng with Aurum or Insurance Tokens.
The Crafting
There is an element of crafting in The Cycle, and it uses the gear you gain from drops either scavenged from containers or the gooey special bits you carve out of aliens on the planet below. But unlike the crafting in other games, and because it’s free to play, there is a paid element to it to be aware of.
Gear ranging from weapons to tools, consumables, attachments, and beyond are all made in the Fabricator and they all cost credits, or a few extra exotic parts to make them. Building each item also takes real-time, with most low-end parts taking a few minutes whilst higher, rarer items can take hours. This can be sped up though by paying, you guessed it, with currency. Using Aurum, which is the premium credit acquired through the microtransaction store, and a couple of Krypto Marks, you can make the process instant. Though the cost of this also decreases the longer you wait to use this option.
Beginner Tips
Finally, there are a few tips for beginners that are worth knowing before you load yourself up with꧒ weaponry, climb inside that drop pod, and fire yourself at the planet below.
The Cycle can be quite the trial by fire ﷺfor first-timers and i▨t does create a wall that some people will undoubtedly bounce off if they go in with the wrong mindset. So to make those first few minutes a little easier as you run around avoiding monsters and homicidal players, here are a few tips worth knowing.
Do Not Over Prepare
First things first, the best tip for The Cycle you can have is not to overprepare if you’re new to the game. Unless you have enough pocket space, all those items you shove in your luggage whilsꦏt hanging out on the Space Station will disappear if you die.
Only take what you’re willing to lose. Because it’s incredibly easy to get gunned down or mauled within the first few minutes of the game. This also applies🍷 to tools, armor, and consumables, so if you’re running low on credits to replace them, maybe leave them behind for the next drop.
Focus On PvP Or PvE
On the topic of items, before you go into a drop decide whether you’re going to 🦂focus on PvE or PvP when making your loadout. If you’re going for resources, bring along scanners, armor, and a little ammunition to ke🍬ep you alive as you hunt bugs or break apart rocks for resources.
For those looking to get their murder on, focus on bringing much more ammunition, grenades, combat stims, and maybe an extra weapon or two to shore up any weaknesses in your loadout. The majority of other Prospectors in the game tend to use a mixture of both. So they’re often not expecting co�ღ�mbat and you can catch them out for easy kills and whatever loot was on their corpses.
Get Out Of The Landing Zone Immediately
After you drop it’s worth getting out of w🐻herever you’ve landed as quickly as you can. The drop pods screaming entry into the atmosphere can be seen by other players and if you’re not quick someone can get the drop on you whilst you’re still going through the animations for getting out of the pod.
Moving away from your spawn is also pretty much mandatory as often the game will drop players in the same areas again and again. This in turn leads to most of the resources in the immediate area being routinely and quickly stripped out by people that were ahead of you, leaving a long trek to the nearest node. Usually halfway across the map, or in High Danger rated areas.
Be Wary Of Other Prospectors
It’s kind of an obvious tip considering the type of game that The Cycleꦑ 📖is, but it’s worth knowing as the game tries to imply that communicating with other players is often more worth it than a firefight.
Unfortunately, though this is often the case, the majority of other people you run into to share that same vibe of camaraderie. Everyone you run into will treat this like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Call of Duty: Warzone and will shoot on sight, loot your gear and then run off without so much as a peep on the voice chat. Unless you’re playing in a group or get that ve💛ry rare unicorn of a player that’s willing to talk things out, it’s best to pop everyone you see before they do ♛the same to you.
Don’t Get Greedy
If there’s one thing that will get you killed quickly it’s greed. Though getting items and resources is the name of the gam💯e, loading up your pockets with tons of 🐼loot before calling in the evac can be quite a dangerous gamble.
Getting in and out with a handful of stuff is an easy way to grind up credits and averages out in the long run over a big payday from one singular drop. Plus, the longer you’re alive and running around on the planet, the higher the chances are you’ll run into someone that’s better equipped. If that happens they could just take all your hard sought items for themselves in a few lucky shots.
Beware The Bugs
It really cannot be stressed enough how prepared you have to be for bugs. The Cycle hasn’t been out for long and though its Beta did iron out a lot of problems, it’s still prone to the occasional little meltdown. The bugs in question can range from the mildly annoying kind to the unfair and broken type.
For example, monsters can randomly turn invisible or reset with invincibility after death before mauling you to pieces. Your entire inventory can completely disappear when you load into the game with their insurance reimbursement not counting as the game thinks you’ve gone in without items. Some areas will also fail to load textures or collision boxes, causing the old falling through the world trick. Occasionally item descriptions and images will fail to load, so you have no idea what you’re grabbing from boxes or how heavy it is until you evac. These are just a few encountered in a handful of brief sessions. Hopefully with how active the developers are these bugs will be squashed soon with further patches.