The game is totally ruined by the latest update, it's so awesome I can't stop playing! (The current state of the subreddit)

I have around 1500 hours on Steam in Arma Reforger, and today I finally decided to buy the game. Yesterday I played my first multiplayer game on a server I've been playing on for a long time.

It was so incredibly bad compared to the previous version I couldn't make myself quit for 8 hours. It was a busy day at my office and I had a lot of work to do, so I was lucky to have an opportunity to play for such a long time at work, but I digress.

A little background, I have never played the old version, so I think I'm in a perfect spot to compare the two versions. I play on a PS5 with keyboard and mouse. I don't own a mic and I do my best to communicate and coordinate with my teammates both on the Platoon and Squad channel. I generally hate dealing with other people, and I enjoy playing the lone wolf sniper style, so I mostly play with myself. We make a great team, we play hardcore milsim style, only address each other by rank, "Sir", or by appropriate racial slurs. We have a strict organization and never follow orders.

Firstly, the technical side. The performance is a huge improvement from the old version, I get very stable 20 fps, but it can fluctuate a lot, it's a complete stutterfest, so no complaints here. The new solution for the gamma abuse at night could use some work. Now I can see everything clearly during the nighttime without having to crank up the gamma. The film grain is very cinematic, I totally hate it, it's not a movie, lol. The server performance is also great, I have 1ms ping on all servers and it lags so bad my enemies can never hit me even at point-blnak, so it's a win for me. Yesterday I tried joining a completely empty server and had to wait in a queue for 40 minutes, it was a lot of fun. I played on a 100% vanilla server with a lot of mods. I was surprised to see that the old mods are compatible with the new version of the game and none of them work anymore.

I never play multiplayer, so I decided to try the new single-player campaign for the first time and I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. The plot totally sucks and the levels are well designed and very boring to play. Call of duty and Battlefield single player modes can learn a thing or two from it. The campaign, however, honestly can hardly compare to the Arma 3 campaigns that were one of the least engaging and memorable single player experiences for me.

Well, regarding the main and the most controversial part, the new HQ commander mode I have a lot to say because I never played it, and I was lucky to play as the Commander. This role is only given to the least qualified morons, so it was very easy to get it for me. Playing as a commander is a very fun new way of enjoying Arma and the entire time I wished I was just running in the field shooting dudes in the face without much strategy or tactics. As all of you know by now, you have to build bases now, they only cost 200 resources and take 500 resources to build. I had to strategically select the sites for the bases and my teammates built them at completely random places, they didn't even have to ask me for my approval to build a base, but I had to personally approve the building of each of them. The match was very close, US was leading all the time, abusing the RPGs again. It's great to see that the new kit system did nothing to prevent dudes grabbing 14 AK-47s from the armory and running off to their death. I also like how the new game mode encourages teamwork and cooperation, and you get shoved forcibly into a squad and have to strictly follow orders and you can just shut down the Platoon radio and do whatever the heck you want and enjoy the game your way. The AI supply runs is a great addition, it's very fun to watch the AI get stuck in the middle of a clear field, get out of the vehicle and run for the hills to live their best life. It's safe to say that most of the supplies in that match were delivered by AI. In the end under my incompetent leadership we managed to score a staggering defeat.

Nearly forgot to mention the new map, it's great to finally return to Kolguyev. It's so tiny you have to drive 3 hours to reach the enemy. You also can't really drive around it because it's always uphill.

I want to thank the devs for the tremendous amount of work they've put in this awesome new update. It's definitely a big step in the right direction.

I think I'll just go ahead and refund the game at this point.