*spoilers* Plains of Eidolon is a confusing, frustrating mess starting out

[MCPShephard]

Lemme just be clear that I've been playing about six months, and have loved the game throughout. I just finished The War Within, got an even higher appreciation for this game, and decided I'd give the plains a look. Major whiplash.

Right off the bat, there's a ton of NPCs giving me access to tons of crafting systems with no explanation of how to pursue them; a few hours on the plains didn't tell me how to find even half of the components needed for these vendors.

The next thing I did was play Saya's vigil; which just... felt like the middle of a larger questline; I had no context for any of the characters involved or what Cetus even is. The mission just ends without any real sense of anything happening, nor any pointers of what to do next.

As I was experimenting with my Operator, after the quest, I inadvertently found the doors to Onkko right after beating the quest; he put something on my arm and said bye, leaving me without any idea of what the item was, beyond being some kind of weapon.

Now, I just got done with my third attempt at a 5-15 bounty, and I can't understate how frustrated and upset I felt by the end of it. For starters, there was no warning I was going to be matched with other players, when I took the bounty, and they were almost all massively overleveled, leaving me nothing to do. Two seperate attempts ended prematurely because enemies stopped spawning in the middle of kill objectives, forcing us to quit out. The slooow trip back to Konzu after loading Cetus, then loading the Plains, was maddening.

My third attempt, we were told to finish eliminating nearby enemies in the second stage; only the objective marker was underground, and none of us could find a cave to go below, until one of us found a cave entrance around a wall we couldn't pass due to the boundary ring, which we circumvented by sliding between them. All of this took about ten-fifteen minutes and I was steaming.

To top it off, after finishing the bounty objectives... nothing happened. No rewards screen or anything. Lotus just told me to go somewhere for a new objective; I left the group, and reloaded into the plains in the middle of the mission, but failed it because I wasn't in the start location. I just wanted to go back to Cetus at this point, but I was worried that if I quit, I'd fail the bounty. I checked mission progress, no clues. I quit to Cetus, and almost every component and mod I'd gotten in the whole experience was no longer listed in my rewards.

 

There's obviously a lot going on here that doesn't happen to most folks, since this is a really popular expansion, but holy moly. No other part of the game has frustrated me to any extent like this, for nearly as long. Topping it off, I have to switch to 720p to get a decent framerate in the plains, and I have no clue what graphical features to turn off for it. I'm more than open to advice to improve my experience, if that's what it'll take.

[NekroArts]

I don't mean to be condescending, but unfortunately what I'm about to say sounds like it: did you really put effort into figuring out some of your problems you stated?

11 hours ago, MCPShephard said:

Right off the bat, there's a ton of NPCs giving me access to tons of crafting systems with no explanation of how to pursue them; a few hours on the plains didn't tell me how to find even half of the components needed for these vendors.

When you browse through their wares they have price values with a little symbol next to them that represent "syndicates". When you go to Konzu and checked the bounties, not only does he show you what rewards you can get but also the amount of standing you get from completing them.

This is an example of exploring the world around you. Don't just look at the wares but also the other options they present, revisit them back later after getting "resource" associated with them. The fish vendor has a "fishing service" option and selecting it opens more options of what you can do. It keeps mentioning fish so come back with fish and try out those services.

Do what others did when PoE first came out, explore the plains and try to memorize as much you can; while you're exploring you'll eventually come across some of these resources. The only time I experienced "didn't tell me how to find" resources were the fishes, specifically the ones with unique baits to them because there was no in-game information on where to throw them when PoE first launched.

11 hours ago, MCPShephard said:

The next thing I did was play Saya's vigil; which just... felt like the middle of a larger questline; I had no context for any of the characters involved or what Cetus even is.

Did you not pay attention to any of dialogue in that quest? It literally provides context to them. And what do you mean you didn't know what Cetus is? Assuming you didn't skip the cutscene when first landing in Cetus, the cutscene literally has a fade-in title of telling you what the place is called.

11 hours ago, MCPShephard said:

The mission just ends without any real sense of anything happening, nor any pointers of what to do next.

That's how some of our quest ends up, but it's not a problem because they have a beginning and end. Saya's Vigil is it's own story, it is not like Natah, Second Dream, War Within, and Chains of Harrow where they are parts of the main story.

11 hours ago, MCPShephard said:

As I was experimenting with my Operator, after the quest, I inadvertently found the doors to Onkko right after beating the quest; he put something on my arm and said bye, leaving me without any idea of what the item was, beyond being some kind of weapon.

"He put something on my arm and said bye" . Again, did you not pay attention to the dialogue?

11 hours ago, MCPShephard said:

For starters, there was no warning I was going to be matched with other players, when I took the bounty, and they were almost all massively overleveled, leaving me nothing to do.

That's how all our missions are like, if not possibly; the only time where you can potentially expect to play solo is in quests.

11 hours ago, MCPShephard said:

To top it off, after finishing the bounty objectives... nothing happened. No rewards screen or anything. Lotus just told me to go somewhere for a new objective

This one I give a pass because there's no in-game information that tells you that if you finish some of of the objectives but didn't finish the entire bounty itself, quitting prematurely, the next time you do that same bounty you won't be rewarded on the number objectives that you did in you last attempt, but you'll resume getting rewards from where you left off.

Confused? That's understandable, here's an example: you're doing bounty number #4 and have finished 2 out of 4 objectives and got your rewards, you leave early. You take that same #4 bounty and did the first 2 objective, you are not given rewards for those objectives because the game keeps record of your previous attempt. You will get rewards from objective 3 and 4 since you didn't complete them in that last attempt. You have to complete the entire bounty before you can get  rewards from doing objectives 1 and 2 of that same-new bounty.

11 hours ago, MCPShephard said:

Topping it off, I have to switch to 720p to get a decent framerate in the plains, and I have no clue what graphical features to turn off for it. I'm more than open to advice to improve my experience, if that's what it'll take.

I turned off/set to the lowest to most of my graphic settings except for volumetric lighting, high dynamic range, ambient occulsion, and dynamic lighting. If these don't get you good frames rates or turning it all off, then that's a sign of needing upgrade.

Edited November 3, 2018 by NekroArts

[Karalexia]

Hmm... The only real problem with the plains is that you can't activate new bounties while out on the plains. There needs to be a mobile communicator or something that you can purchase with standing points, that you can equip to your gear. Finish a mission... Use the item to communicate back with Konzu (whom seems to be telepathic as he can communicate with you regardless), and then use the said item to start another bounty. Shouldn't be too much of an issue to implement such a system, surely?

[MCPShephard]

Okay, a lot of what you said works as surface level justifications, but that doesn't change the fact that these elements were vague and/or problematically designed. I appreciate you taking the time to elucidate me, but it doesn't feel like you took the time to look from my perspective at all.

If nothing else, six months of play has taught me how the game's standing system works, for example. My problem with the shops is how obtusely information is relayed to you about them. One vendor sells "Zaws", but there's no given detail as to why I would want to pursue crafting one over the vast, seemingly more accessible weapon selection from the market. The ore miner doesn't reccomend you purchase a tool, and it's easy to miss you can buy one off him since the other vendors don't really offer anything to you without materials/standing. It's not like I think it's "bad", but it does feel poorly conveyed.

Yes, I do understand what Cetus is, and it's a bit disingenuous to imply I literally did not know what it is on a surface level; considering I referred to it as a location and its function in the game. With some good faith you can then also interpret that I was speaking in an esoteric sense; such as "What makes Cetus so special compared to other human settlements, why is it available now compared to before, how dire is the situation, and why aren't the enemies sending large scale assaults to take it down?".

Regarding the quest; compared to others within the game; the ending was really deflating. The primary goal resulted in the two NPC's reacting to the flower briefly, and then it suddenly ends. Lotus messaging afterward to also say their near-worshipped Warframe's blueprint in their feels so offputting when they had nothing to say about it. It felt like the briefest, breesiest introduction to something, without anything to follow it up with beyond the bounties.

Which, moving on; I'm not complaining about for lacking a solo option, in fact I thought I saw the usual option for solo lobbying in the pause menu afterward. My problem is that there was no warning or description of the bounty process; I was preparing to go into the game's free-roaming area to explore at my liesure, only to be locked into a session with three other people suddenly waiting for me to do specific content with them for upwards of fifteen minutes. And that's before that fifteen minutes consisted of following them as they one-shot everything, only for the mission to glitch out and leave us to quit.

The problem on leaving wasn't just ambiguity on resuming bounties, it's that it didn't tell me how many objectives there would be before the bounty was complete. There was no indication I'd finished anything, it just started me on another sequence of objectives, and didn't tell me how to end the session without it being considered a mission abort, which apparently involves running back to Cetus.

Lastly, Saya's vigil. The only details the story tells you are some specifics of the relationship between three friends; nothing about their roles in Cetus or about the town itself, such as how it has an energy shield, or whether the small enemy militias are a threat to it. The Quills are only described as serving the Unum, which is only detailed/elaborated on by mentioning Gara was its champion. Upon meeting Onkko, all he says is that the Unum sees us fighting Eidolons in the future, that he's giving us something to help that, and "I know our conversations well." No details as to what the Unum is, what the Quills are/do, what he does for them, if the Eidolons are a priority threat or that the town just doesn't like 'em, etc. I learned nothing about the setting or the organizations that drive it.

I'm not trying to hate on the game, I'm merely reporting the perspective of someone new to that part of it to aid in constructive criticism. It's confusing, buggy, not very informative, and I'm providing this feedback her in the hopes it helps devs improve things for future players.