The Update def. isn't the absolute Armageddon a lot of the Community makes it out to be, but it's also just not very great either.
Just to get it out of the way, the new weapons are really cool (Billhook might be my new favorite Saltz weapon), the new Map is also pretty good, even if I feel like some of the Ambush Spawns are a little unfair.
But then the new stagger meta, it just feels clunky. I get that there was a disdain for the dodgespam, but now it feels like any weapon that does not stagger is too weak. It's comical how much worse the dual axes are than the dual hammers for example. I don't enjoy being forced to use a certain type of weapon to not feel like I'm fighting with cardboard. The idea is probably to encourage more teamwork, and employ a sort of 1 guy staggers, 1 guy kills tactic. But expecting that in Quick Play is straight not happening. And even then, there is still little to no reason to not just take 4 stagger-heavy weapons and then go nuts. A lot of what used to be my favorite weapons are straight up bad now.
The AI changes are a mixed bag. I like that they are smarter about trying to encircle you and that they have tracking. The problem is that, especially for the latter, it's a little too much. I've seen enemies do straight 180 degree turns to acquire new targets, and they seem to have inflated range compared to before. It pushes the game more towards the VT1 tactic of picking a corner and then just mashing M1 until the Horde is over, especially considering how strong stagger stacking is now.
In general, QP has people dying left and right at the moment. Some of it will be due to bugs (Blocking not working has returned, and apparently there are plenty of other glitches) and some others will be due to most people not having reached Level 35 (Apparently those 50 points of Power make a huge difference), but I'm pretty sure a big part is also the new stagger meta having a bad landing. Considering how negative the general tone is, I'm almost convinced we're gonna see some changes before long.
Talents are in the same boat as before. Some are just straight 100% objectively better than others, there is a weird obsession with giving random classes movement speed (Which does what, let you run away from allies to die alone faster?) and they seem to have removed some of the "infinite ammo" builds that were present before. Just in general, does not really seem like there was much thought put into this at all.
Weaves are just kinda there. Buddy and me couldn't find a group in over 4 hours of playtime, and I've seen lots of people say they can't find a group. I don't see the appeal either way, I was already mad I had to reach Level 35 to get my ult-talent back, so resetting my progress to zero and running around some recycled assets didn't exactly excite me either. The fact that they don't affect the "regular" game at all is just sort of odd.
In short, I was highly excited for the Expansion. That deflated pretty fast. It's... okay? Bad in a lot of ways good in other ways. I def. think simply leaving the combat rework out would've been a better idea. Especially because they didn't listen to Beta feedback, at all. As is usually the case with Fatshark.