An uncommon characteristic of Sony’s new hero shooter, Harmony, is that deployable gadgets—therapeutic pads, shields, partitions, that form of factor—are persistent between rounds and respawns. If the opposite staff does not destroy your stuff, it stays the place it’s throughout a complete match.
I preferred the thought after I heard it only for its novelty, however wasn’t certain how massive a deal it could be in observe. Now that Harmony’s first beta has began, I can say it is undoubtedly not a trivial quirk: It is actually goofy in a manner that I’ve to this point discovered lots of enjoyable, although which may simply be as a result of my staff completely killed it with the deployables technique in my final match.
One among Harmony’s modes is a no-respawn mode the place rounds are gained both by eliminating the opposite staff or capturing a single level within the heart of the map. The primary staff to win 4 rounds wins the match.
I’m not fairly as intelligent as my teammates, who spent the primary two rounds loading up the seize level with therapeutic pads, shields, and privateness partitions, constructing us a fortress of glowing power fields which we sprinted to and huddled in for the following rounds—we gained in a clear sweep.
The opposite staff was possible nonetheless attending to grips with the sport: They may’ve centered their hearth on our shields to take them out so they might bust up all our therapeutic pads. However since they allow us to have our particular little well being spa proper on the purpose, we had been fairly unstoppable: I would come out, shoot at one in every of them, after which run again inside to heal up, and repeat.
In one other mode, one the place the aim is to seize an object on the heart of the map and extract it at one in every of two factors, the persistency of deployables could not be exploited in such an apparent manner, however I did stick a therapeutic pad behind a half-wall close to our facet of the pickup level for the extraction merchandise. That proved to be an enormous assist, since there was at all times a brief skirmish there earlier than one staff grabbed the merchandise and made a run for it.
My therapeutic pad stayed put for that whole match, which pertains to one other notable impact of deployable persistence: It helps you to profit from a particular character’s capacity with out having to play them each spherical. It is one of many methods Harmony encourages character switching, which it’s totally massive on.
After each respawn or spherical, you are introduced with the character choose display, and choosing various kinds of characters offers you “crew bonuses” over the course of the match. For instance, when you choose Daw, the character who drops these therapeutic pads and shields, future characters you choose could have sooner reloads because of his Tactician crew bonus.
It is potential that massive deployable forts will not make it to the high-level meta, however the notion that you just should not persist with the identical character for a complete match looks as if it may be embedded deep sufficient in Harmony to stay round even when folks get critical.
The present Harmony beta is barely open to pre-orderers and PlayStation Plus subscribers, however subsequent week there will be an open beta—listed here are the complete particulars from Sony. For those who’re leaping in, too, I can not suggest sufficient choosing Daw within the first spherical or two. Simply drop these therapeutic pads and shields in protected and handy spots, or when you’re courageous, stick them immediately on the purpose.