Hazard Zone - The Basics

[Captain_Fruits]

Hi guys,

The game's video tutorial poorly explains the mechanics and since I see a lot of people struggling to play this mode appropriately online, I thought I'd share some tips on how to be successful.

 

Here are some basic tips/explanations on the mode's mechanics.

I might share some more advanced tip in a further post.

 

General tips :

Do not rush gun fights, be patient, examine the surroundings and stay grouped up.

Ping enemy position to your teammates (R1).

Don't be greedy, extracting with 1 drive is better than dying with 5.

 

 

Extraction

There are 2 extraction phases that come one after the other (E1 site and E2 site).

The extraction site is revealed on the map when 4 mins are left to the current extraction phase.

 

Getting to an extraction site first often gives you an advantage. So even if your team doesn't have any Drive, you can ambush other players at the site, netting you Drives and a possibility of Extraction at the same time.

 

 

Occupying Forces (AI)

They are bots that usually lurk around Drive Capsules to protect them. They will be either in Light Vehicle (LATV4) or on foot for the most part.

In each game there is a special Drive Capsule area with a tank like icon. This area contains many drives but is guarded by an AI group with a Heavy Tank.

Trying to scavenge this area is especially risky and most of time it is better to ignore it.

 

I suggest you use the AI to your advantage when a gun fight is going on between an other team and bots.

AI is pretty poor in general, so focus on eliminating the other team that engaged the fight against the AI.

 

 

Dying / Killing

When you are downed or if you down someone, it is different from the other game modes.

- When downed, you can crawl, so try to get to safety behind something.

- You can be revived only for a limited time (60 secs iirc), but this timer will go down faster if you are shot again while waiting to be revived.

- When downed you can still ping the location of your killer with the R1 button.

 

When killing ennemies in this mode, make sure you Confirm Kill whenever possible, this means shoot them when they are down on the ground until you get the confirmation they can't be revived (sometimes you might get a Kill Confirmed notification on screen but don't count on that as it doesn't always appear, when ennemies can no longer be revived they will have an animation where they drop dead on the ground).

 

 

Uplinks

These are single use consumables that can help your team, there are 3 types

- Deploy (as explained further down)

- Ranger (an attacking drone that follows you around and can be sent scouting)

- Vehicle (grants a Light Vehicle, LATV4, for quickly traversing the map)

 

 

 

Bringing back allies on the battlefield

When friendlies are confirmed dead (whitened out name) you can use an Uplink to redeploy them (Press L1+R1 and select Deploy). But first, you have to have a Redeploy Uplink (parachute icon) in your squad's inventory to do so.

There are two ways to get Redeploy Uplinks, first you can buy one before the game starts when selecting loadout (costs as few Hazard Zone credits). Second, you find them on the battlefield lying around.

Note that dead squad mates that asks for a redeployment (press square while on Spectate Screen) will highlight the location of the closest Redeploy Uplink on the field for alive friendlies.

 

When calling for a deployment, your location will be given to nearby enemy teams (red parachute icon) and all teams will be alerted that a redeployment is ongoing.

After calling for redeployment, you still have to stay alive for 20 seconds. If you are downed before that, the deployment is cancelled.

 

There is an other way to bring back a squad into a game, it's called Second Chance.

It is an automatic redeployment that happens if all squad members are dead before the first extraction.

Once the 2nd extraction phase begins, you can no longer benefit from this, even if you didn't use it during the first phase.

 

 

 

Examples of Specialists and Gadgets that are particularly interesting in this mode.

Support : can give easy access to Healing and Resupply ammunition/Explosives.

Note that when using the Defibrillator, you can charge them! A fully charged Defib will bring back an ally to 100% hp, while a quick revive will leave allies at low HP.

 

Assault : These specialists all have access to rapid self healing (Med-Pen).

       - Dozer (Assault) : his ballistic shield is very efficient to defend the team during the extraction when you are in the chopper.

       - Mackay (Assault) : Can easily get the higher ground and scout/attack in a favorable position. Also can access some Uplinks faster.

Recon

       - Blasco (Recon) : Her X6-Infiltraiton Device protects your team from being spotted. Will also scramble the ennemies mini-map and alert you that they are nearby.

       - Casper (Recon) : Both the Recon Drone and Sensor can help in identifying enemy threats.

 

- Smoke Grenade : Makes for great cover when you need to escape, revive an ally or during extraction.

- IBA Armor Plate : Gives you an extra 20 HP that can make the difference between life and death.

• Patch update 1.4 : Take note that Armor plates have been nerfed as of patch 1.4 (march 27th 2023). It will now only offer protection when you are hit on the torso (being shot in the head/limbs will not trigger the protection anymore), making this gadget perhaps a less interesting choice.

 

 

Most maps have large open areas so it's a good idea to have a gun that can be at least efficient at medium range.

 

Hope this helps you out. Send questions if needed.

 

 

Edited March 28, 2023 by Captain_Fruits
Patch update

[Skurkitty]

Here's a question, since you're on NA/Canada time. When were you finding the best times (also what time zone) to que up for consistent games? I'm having an absolute hell of a time finding matches when I play, so maybe I'm just searching at the wrong hours. ?

[Fr_0zt]

5 hours ago, Skurkitty said:

Here's a question, since you're on NA/Canada time. When were you finding the best times (also what time zone) to que up for consistent games? I'm having an absolute hell of a time finding matches when I play, so maybe I'm just searching at the wrong hours.

 

Morning EST is the best to play, with Cross play ON and you will only have 3-4 other teams to worry about.

 

Do go in with a team that's at least decent and with mics, solo is most likely a disaster.

 

All 3 trophies popped fine for me.

[willmill97]

May I also emphasise, ALWAYS pick Dozer if ever possible. When in the chopper, his shield can save you if a dude comes charging in. (I once survived and extracted against a whole squad of 4 alone because of the shield)

[Skurkitty]

3 hours ago, Fr_0zt said:

Morning EST is the best to play, with Cross play ON and you will only have 3-4 other teams to worry about.

 

Do go in with a team that's at least decent and with mics, solo is most likely a disaster.

 

All 3 trophies popped fine for me.

Well I'm definitely doing them alone, my only option (Don't do sessions, no friends playing). It's not completely terrible, I get a couple extractions here and there, unfortunately some I'm in the bleeding out stance and I'm unsure if those count. Xbox forums say they do, PSN guide says they don't ?.

 

But the morning EST is a good note, I must be on TOO early. It's rather dead between 12-5am EST whenever I check in. Guess I'll have to try after the average person wakes up ?. Also I always leave cross play on.

Edited March 23, 2023 by Skurkitty

[Captain_Fruits]

11 hours ago, Skurkitty said:

Here's a question, since you're on NA/Canada time. When were you finding the best times (also what time zone) to que up for consistent games? I'm having an absolute hell of a time finding matches when I play, so maybe I'm just searching at the wrong hours.

 

No matter what platform you are playing, always leave the cross-play ON.

I've tried turning it off and could never find enough ppl to boot up the game.

 

Remember that PS4 cross-play does not work with PS5 cross-play. Cross-play is separated with old gen (PS4/Xbox1) and new gen (PS5,Xbox X/S, PC).

The minimal number of player required to start a game on old gen is 8 (24 player lobbies), but it is 12 on new gen (32 player lobbies).

 

With cross-play on I never had issue finding a game between 10 AM and 3 AM (Eastern Time, GMT-4) either on PS4 or PS5, but it is common to have to wait between 1.5-2 mins for matchmaking.

 

Playing on week days in the morning or early after-noon (10 AM to 3 PM) usually results in less players in the lobbies (which can be an advantage).

The mode is more populated during week days' evening/night and weekends, so it's more common to have full or near-full lobbies during that time. The advantage is that there is less downtime between sessions.

[RRDude_PBB]

On 3/23/2023 at 11:19 PM, Captain_Fruits said:

No matter what platform you are playing, always leave the cross-play ON.

 

Nope. As a console gamer you do NOT want to go against PC players, even if you have several on your team. Mouse/keyboard gives them a massive advantage over joypads and you'll have a hard time staying alive. When I started HZ I had cross-play on to find matches faster and couldn't reach a single extraction during the first 10+ matches. Then I turned it off and what do you know, got extraction straight away. As I kept playing it became pretty obvious how much more even battles with "console only" gamers are. I'd rather wait a few minutes to find a match where I actually have a chance than waste time with PC players again.

[Riiszk]

Hazard zone is easy even if you're terrible. All these tips are great, but theres one thing that'll make this a 3/10 at worst. If you want to play cheaply just for the trophies, you can put on the recoilless launcher or the cluster grenade launcher (forgot its name) and hide/wait nearby the extraction. Wait until the timer runs down and make a run for it so you get on with no more than 10 seconds left. This means 9 times out of 10 another team would've already ran and got on. All you and your friends need to then do is launcher them while they're stuck in a tiny helicopter. Doesn't matter who they're playing, they'll die. Easy extract for clean extraction and for the 25, and also easy way to get 50 data drives as they'll likely have quite a few on the dead bodies.

This basically negates the entire mode allowing even the worst players to get this done.

Just wait for the extraction location to be revealed, hide/wait out the timer, launch rockets into the back of the heli, get on heli, take data drives from the bodies, wait out the last couples seconds, trophy pop.

 

I had to use a VPN as there was literally never a single person playing this in my region. My friend and I did this at 500 ping each and managed to extract 90% of the time with a streak of something around 15 at one point until we finished every hazard trophy. Only annoying part is hoping the rest of your team doesn't die and gets on the helicopter when you do if you're needing clean extract.

2 people is best for this as one of us would severely damage them, and the second launcher would knock/kill everyone.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Riiszk

[Captain_Fruits]

On 4/9/2023 at 5:02 AM, RRDude_PBB said:

Nope. As a console gamer you do NOT want to go against PC players, even if you have several on your team. Mouse/keyboard gives them a massive advantage over joypads and you'll have a hard time staying alive. When I started HZ I had cross-play on to find matches faster and couldn't reach a single extraction during the first 10+ matches. Then I turned it off and what do you know, got extraction straight away. As I kept playing it became pretty obvious how much more even battles with "console only" gamers are. I'd rather wait a few minutes to find a match where I actually have a chance than waste time with PC players again

 

1st - This was an answer to someone not finding any games in HZ.

It is mostly explained by the fact that cross-play ON is default setting and the average PS+ subscriber will not fiddle with that when starting the game. Being free on PS+ allowed the game to gain a bigger player base, so cross-play OFF might be a viable option for some modes, momentarily at least. 

For HZ, I tried cross-play OFF and after ~10 mins I still had no game going. With cross-play ON, it's a ~2 min max queue anytime of the day.

 

 

2nd - I agree and disagree on this.

Yes Mouse/Keyboard allows for some better accuracy/response but not all PC players are god tier. Plenty of them are not any different than anyone on console. I played over 25 hours of HZ with cross-play ON and I didn't feel this was frequent issue.

The in-game tutorial not being efficient at all and consequently ppl playing the mode poorly, i.e. getting themselves or the team killed for no good reason or leaving the game as soon as they died/not waiting for a redeployment, were much bigger/frequent issues. 

I also found that matchmaking could be problematic. The game starts when a threshold (# of players) is attained but because of an odd number of players or players leaving during match preparations, you could end up starting a match in a squad of only 2-3 players (even sometimes alone...). That is a huge disadvantage when going against 4-players squad in a mode like HZ.