YMMV / Freeman Guerrilla Warfare

• Broken Base: The game spent 1.5 years in early access, and has received numerous updates since its full launch as well, sometimes with major gameplay changes. It should come as no surprise then that the player base is divided over many of the major design changes.
  • During early access, one of the updates introduced vehicles both on the world map and during battles. The former meant that you had to purchase vans and trucks to increase your movement speed, while the latter allowed you to buy anti-personnel and light anti-armor combat vehicles. These have been completely removed from the game before the full release, due to severe physics and AI glitches, and basic balance issues. Reactions were mixed at best: those in favor of vehicles argued that they should be re-added as they would enhance gameplay, while those against them thought that the vehicles would have broken the balance of an otherwise infantry-focused combat system, and would have brought in a plethora of new bugs into a game which was not really that polished anyway to begin with.
  • The unit recruitment system also changed notably during early access, much to the chagrin of many players. Originally, we were able to hire specialized squads at once, and when levelling them up, said squads morphed into new fireteams equipped with better weapons and armor. This system was replaced with a new one before release, allowing players to hire individual fighters and fully customize their equipment. While many players liked this change (mostly because of the deep customization options offered by the new approach), just as many asked to return the older system, as it was much less of a chore to manage the army.
  • The rework of the battle maps shipped with the v1.32 update also caused this. While many players liked the rougher terrain and the reworked vegetation of the battle maps (preventing excessive long-range sniping, and encouraging tactical cover-based movement), just as many disliked the barren, unrealistic terrain designs and the fact that sniper squads have been severely handicapped because of the limited line of sight.
  • The late-comer Valkyrie Female Fighters also proved to be divisive. Many players dislike them, typically arguing that the faction feels unrealistic in the game's setting, and was implemented solely so that the game's female designers can put their feminist Author Tract across (the fact that the game's Steam Workshop also received filters named "Feminism" and "Equality" didn't help either). Those in favour of them, however, typically cite the Kurdish YPJ as a real-life women's protection unit that could have inspired them, and argue that they don't break immersion, given that the game is primarily an Action RPG instead of a realistic tactical shooter. That said, even players of the latter party tend to agree that the VFA are venturing into Creator's Pet territory, as they are the only clearly good faction of the game, with their generals strongly idealized in lore material, and their army being a lot stronger during gameplay than what their in-game lore would otherwise suggest.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: The early-game phase used to be a lot easier if you have selected the ex-officer past and emphasized your gunfighting abilities, resulting in a relatively good starting gear, a handful of well-equipped troops already under your command from the get-go, and a neutral standing with most factions and villages. This has been averted though with the v1.1 update which introduced a series of in-game tutorial missions that rewards players with additional troops, money and weapons upon completion, regardless of their character's background.
• Demonic Spiders: Oh boy... The Cossack Rebels and the Alpha Forces are definitely this.
  • The Cossack Rebels are the strongest outlaw faction of the game, fielding well-armored rebel fighters who can easily go toe-to-toe with the Free Cossacks Army and the Atov Federation patrolling in their region. Their real strength, however, lies in their numbers: even if players destroy all their camps, the Cossack Rebels have a tendency to spawn an obscene amount of marauder parties (each fielding typically 20-40 troops) which, if left unchecked for some in-game days, can easily result in dozens of their armies steamrolling nearby faction armies and cities. It's not uncommon to have some FCA or Atov cities in the region taken over by them once you level up enough to dare venturing out into their regions.
  • Taken to the extreme with the Alpha Forces who land in Cherniv after the main campaign is completed, providing the endgame challenges. Not only their troops are far superior to the soldiers of any other faction (both gear and skill-wise), they also appear in obscene numbers, so much so that they literally overrun their landing zone in mere in-game hours after appearing. Just to put it into perspective: the largest city of the game, Antopil (the capital city of the Atov Federation who are the strongest faction of the main campaign) is usually protected by a garrison of ~120 men, which when attacked, provides one of the largest battles of the main campaign, with a total of approximately ~200-250 soldiers vying for the city's control. The Alpha Forces land with about 60 parties (each consisting of roughly 80 soldiers), and immediately spam the nearby cities, easily resulting in scenarios where about 400-500 Alpha soldiers attack in a single battle (and which cannot even be handled well by the game's Unity Engine performance-wise).
  • Back in early access, the Uman Brotherhood was also this, as their parties had a tendency to consist of a ridiculous amount of cheap scout cars, often zerg-rushing the player's cities and massacring the local infantry garrison. Even worse, vehicle-only parties didn't drop any money or loot once defeated, making the fights with them especially frustrating.
• Obvious Beta: Being a very ambitious title of a novice indie developer, this should come as no surprise. Although the developers diligently squashed bugs with every update they released, Freeman still suffers from optimization issues (with the fps plummeting especially during city sieges), glitchy AI (which tends to forget its waypoints or get stuck in the terrain), and occasional showstoppers as well (for example, enemy troops shooting at players under the terrain, or retreating out of bounds of the battle map, rendering fights unwinnable). The 1.4 update of the game also brought on a plethora of (sometimes game-breaking) issues, including oversized tree hitboxes (that players can easily get stuck in and cannot shoot through), the player's squads indicated as enemies on the tactical map (making it next to useless for tracking enemy movements), and unbalanced support options (including overpowered, laser-precision artillery strikes and a next-to-useless helicopter gunship option). The developers promised to fix all these issues by essentially remaking the entire game.
• Scrappy Mechanic: As the game was made by a novice indie studio, it comes as no surprise that some of the game mechanics fall into this, mostly because they are either unintuitive, or not really usable in their current implementation.
  • City management is definitely this. Once you take over a city, you can improve the local businesses, agriculture, infrastructure and defense level by constructing various buildings that improve the city's rating in these areas, produce goods for trading, and attract new citizens, thus increasing the daily tax revenue. Sounds good? Well, too bad then that each city has an arbitrary restriction on the amount of buildings you can construct, and that even if you focus on improving the economic sector with the worst statistics, the happiness level of the local populace will still start to plummet after some time (even if you enforce local birth restriction policies to cut back on the population growth), resulting in inevitable riots and damages in infrastructure. The latter also cannot be repaired by companions you appoint as mayors, resulting in the chore of regularly visiting your cities and fixing buildings yourself to slightly improve happiness levels.
  • The same goes for the Trade system for two reasons. Firstly, because you get zero UI feedback if a truck convoy gets attacked, and secondly, because even if they complete their run, they only generate a meager amount of income, which contributes next to nothing to your funds compared to the money earned from city taxes and battles. The fact that the number of trade convoys you can launch simultaneously are also capped out at 5 regardless of the number of produced goods in your warehouses also doesn't help.
  • Update 1.4 introduced the possibility to transfer money between the player's personal account (that you can use to hire troops, buy equipment, invest into cities, etc.) and the faction funds (used by recruited companions to manage their army and cities). While this was a welcome addition, it quickly proved to be a lackluster feature when it turned out that you cannot set the amount of money to transfer between the two accounts: you can only move the total amount of money between them. The developers promised to fix this with the next update.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Given the amount of Dummied Out content and the fundamental gameplay changes during early access resulting in a Broken Base around the game, it probably comes as no surprise that several players hold this opinion about the post-early access versions, compared to the in-development iterations of the game. Players in favor of the earlier versions typically consider the v0.222 release the highest point of the game, given that it is the most feature-rich version of F:GW, and offering not just better overworld map visuals, but also a more detailed inventory system and vehicular warfare as well.