A Look At The Gradivus Dilemma

[ScorpDK]

Reading through all this, I can say that you're certainly right by pointing out the plotholes and inconsistencies.

Plot and gameplay need to go hand-in-hand. Here's hope that DE will see this and try their best to keep things more closely together as we progress further :o

 

As for the gameplay flaws, yep. AI getting stuck in vents or falling off platforms to get stuck in areas where you can't find them easily, AI failing to kill enemies because they see walls as no issue (Corpus Elite), massive groups of Napalms rocking your screen and wrecking your sh*t... and don't get me started on running back 4-5 rooms to find some roller that doesn't know what to do with its life...

Edited October 30, 2013 by ScorpDK

[EinRyu]

Kinda tired of seeing the "Beta" excuse so much... the games been out for a while now and has plenty of feedback from the community to know what to fix on almost all areas of the game. Yet they rush content, make grind heavy events that they said they wanted to reduce and avoid, allow power creep to continue, have a large pool of guns with only a select few being viable, having MANY worthless mods and a small amount of useful ones, giving off the imaginary choice of "Options" yet we have nearly none, I mean I can go on and on here. Just because the games in Beta doesn't mean that it justifys a complete lack of lore and grind heavy gameplay to the extent that you're falling asleep on your keyboard, Bugs are the only thing that I am able to justify when a game is under the pretense of "Beta" and maybe even a somewhat lacking of content, but Warframe isn't exactly lacking "Content" if you look at the game and haven't played it, you have Derelects, Varied Mission Types, Void, A Large Pool of Weps, Many Planets to Challenge yourself on, Clan Dojos to build and *maybe* showoff, yet all this content is wrapped up in such a huge amount of grind that it makes you question whether or not they really even want to change that aspect of the game. Beta is Beta but using "Beta" as an excuse to lack major content that has been being talked about for months is no longer a viable excuse, Bugs? Sure. Balance?... In Warframes case?... Questionable. Gameplay?... again considering how much feedback comes in for this DAILY and nothing has been done... Questionable. You can't just use the "Beta" excuse for every slip up or major mistake we all know DE has/had made. That's like saying a murderer isn't a murderer because he never admitted to the crime. Look at the big picture and not the 2 words said once in the forums as a thread.

Edited October 30, 2013 by EinRyu

[LukeAura]

the game is in beta of course this was a test... why read into it so much... ppl are losing there minds over this event.... the game is still in beta... please stop

I was going to say this to for a moment, but no, OP is right about this one. 

Those spawns were way too buggy originally to be let out, there is no way they should have allowed something so basic like enemy spawns to be what went wrong with this event. They've only been doing spawn points since the very start of warframe. It's not like these were new maps either, just two tilesets mashed together. 

[Arunasoul]

While I do admit the lore surrounding the event had holes, I do have to point out a few things.

 

In Defense of DE,

-Beta Baby, everything changes faster that rich girls change clothes (and you know they change em' for tea time, let alone everything else)

-Lore stated in anything other than in game areas is garbage because it's not official till it's a cut scene or text in your game. The only remaining exception is if they've developed a 'library' or some similar site and or sub-site that functions as a lore house.

-The community has been SCREAMING for involvement, meaning, purpose, ANYTHING that even RESEMBLES a plotline, and this was their first attempt to do just that. Answer us. Don't burn the hand that tried and failed, give them something they can pull creative direction from. You have some valid points, but it's not going to be seen around the venom in your massive statement.

 

Now, more in line with what your initial statement seemed to suggest...

 

Against DE

-Where the F is the Lore? Game's been rolling for almost a year and we have roughly 10 tabs in the lore button with about a paragraph of story. It's in beta, there's things to stamp out, yes, though I doubt the people on your story board were programmers. It takes a while to code a story, sure, but what the crap.

-Vor's Prize has been sitting in our faces for what seems to me to be about two months. I don't know if Alad V's cutscenes that we've seen council posts on are critical to the existence of Vor's Prize, though I'd imagine it's really not. Which leads to the next point...

-Story missions. Yes, I'm talking about something that doesn't exist because it was teased and talked about for likely upwards of six months. COME ON! In six months I write in my spare time over 500 pages of standard sized Word Doc (8.5 by 11) which is more than enough to start filling book shelves. If you have even one person, ONE PERSON, dedicated to writing lore, they should be able to accomplish in 8 hours per day, 5 days a week what I do in maybe 2-5  hours every two days across a hole month. Which means someone's dragging their heels, and it's getting excessive.

 

 

My major complaint is simply the lack of story missions at the moment, not with the event's implementation or errors. What they did was similar to my Tenno Merc's post with a community involvement twist, and allowed them to test the new Invasion game mode. DE, I know you actually read what we're saying because of this event, and I want you to know this.

 

I WUB YOU MAN, THAT AIN'T CHANGING!

 

But please, God, do something about your story missions. The lore junkies need their lore crack fix and it's making them angry at events made to appease them until you can pass them their next hit of the good lore stuff.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Arunasoul

[BladeMaverick]

Did read. Definitely have some good points.

 

One thing that's rather concerning besides just the lore aspect, is that new players just joining after the Lore Events won't be able to participate and, I suppose, "play the lore" - to which in the end while yes the player has a wonderful wall of text of Lore, they don't get the ability to be able to submerse themselves into that event, nor reap the rewards - or at least -a reward of any kind- in general from the event.

[theGreatZamboni]

Did read. Definitely have some good points.

 

One thing that's rather concerning besides just the lore aspect, is that new players just joining after the Lore Events won't be able to participate and, I suppose, "play the lore" - to which in the end while yes the player has a wonderful wall of text of Lore, they don't get the ability to be able to submerse themselves into that event, nor reap the rewards - or at least -a reward of any kind- in general from the event.

 

Here is where another hot issue comes into play. But let's start with a direct addressing of your points, which are fair. Is anyone going to be upset they missed out on the Informer Event, because of the event itself; or are they going to be upset they missed the reward? This is something that is addressed in WoW (this is what I meant by hot issue). Blizzard made a point of creating an MMO that could evolve and better tell the story of an interesting world people wanted to explore. The point being to evolve, the game would change with time to tell new stories and showcase the impact they had. People were upset for a lot of reasons with Cataclysm, for both good and selfish reasons. But what it did was stay true to what they promised of an evolving world that reflected the changes of said world. So here is another question:

 

If in your mind, you do not like that people can miss out on lore based events; why are we having them in the beta? It is just a beta after all /sarcasm. But really, because this game didn't have the lore to support the idea of people missing lore based events, creating one did nothing to alienate people who would be upset by it. Events as they exist now are a means to deliver content in the form of weapons, something that could be a point of contention as I stated above.

Edited October 30, 2013 by theGreatZamboni

[BETAOPTICS]

Wall of text level: Overkill

[Blatantfool]

 This is actually a pretty bad &#! thread.

[theGreatZamboni]

 This is actually a pretty bad &#! thread.

 

90% of people are choosing not to read it. They are forming inaccurate opinions on the content/context of what is said, their justification for doing so is "lel2long". Even after I edited the post to deter people from S#&$-posting about "2 long, cry moar" they are still doing it. I can and will accept people not agreeing with me, but most of the posts here are useless drivel.

[Taranis49]

Likewise,  OP raises some good points. Incidentally, my own personal theory is that the Grineer were cloned and used as slave-labor by the Orokin akin to The Time Machine's Morlocks and Eloi (since the Orokin obviously had fairly lavish lifestyles and didn't value free will, given that the Neural Sentry in the Void Towers forces newcomers to defend it) - would also explain why the Corpus refers to the Grineer as "dogs" as well as the Grineer's penchant for conquest and enslavement: little man's complex. Anyhoo...

 

The main thing I agree with is the repetitiveness - getting those 100+ runs wasn't particularly difficult (in my case, about a couple hundred total runs), but it was tedious since there was no real gameplay or mission variation. We were also guaranteed things on twitter that never happened, e.g. twists like the Infested getting involved in the event.

 

It's a big issue in general when grinding for something and it's no less true here; you typically end up having to run the exact same mission over and over, which really sucks the fun out of it. DE has claimed in the past that they don't want us to rush through missions, explore, etc. yet, in the case of this event in particular, there was zero incentive to explore and there was a time constraint to get your 100 runs in, regardless of whether you think it was plenty of time or not, the fact remains the constraint was there (and if you were in a clan working for a statue, there was no reason whatsoever not to speedrun).

 

Finally, yeah, there's some issues lore-wise with the event in my view: the ingame lore tells us that the Queens (the apparent head honchos of the Grineer Empire) have pegged it as a vital objective for their most trusted underlings that Tenno in their pods never wake up... and one would assume Ruk's one of these trusted underlings, considering he's the Grineer with the highest pay grade we actually encounter.

 

Likewise, considering that Alad needed to win to recover the cache of pods for his project (which is supposed to result in the 'zerker frame), DE kinda wrote themselves into a corner in that regard... unless they basically nullify the stated reason for siding with the Grineer in the first place :-/

[SnaleKing]

Ok, I'm getting sick of the "it's a beta!" cop-out. This game will be in beta for one more day, they will not fix all the problems by then.

 

I have faith in DE, but please, don't dismiss every problem as it being in Beta.

[theGreatZamboni]

Likewise,  OP raises some good points. Incidentally, my own personal theory is that the Grineer were cloned and used as slave-labor by the Orokin akin to The Time Machine's Morlocks and Eloi (since the Orokin obviously had fairly lavish lifestyles and didn't value free will, given that the Neural Sentry in the Void Towers forces newcomers to defend it) - would also explain why the Corpus refers to the Grineer as "dogs" as well as the Grineer's penchant for conquest and enslavement: little man's complex. Anyhoo...

 

The main thing I agree with is the repetitiveness - getting those 100+ runs wasn't particularly difficult (in my case, about a couple hundred total runs), but it was tedious since there was no real gameplay or mission variation. We were also guaranteed things on twitter that never happened, e.g. twists like the Infested getting involved in the event.

 

It's a big issue in general when grinding for something and it's no less true here; you typically end up having to run the exact same mission over and over, which really sucks the fun out of it. DE has claimed in the past that they don't want us to rush through missions, explore, etc. yet, in the case of this event in particular, there was zero incentive to explore and there was a time constraint to get your 100 runs in, regardless of whether you think it was plenty of time or not, the fact remains the constraint was there (and if you were in a clan working for a statue, there was no reason whatsoever not to speedrun).

 

Finally, yeah, there's some issues lore-wise with the event in my view: the ingame lore tells us that the Queens (the apparent head honchos of the Grineer Empire) have pegged it as a vital objective for their most trusted underlings that Tenno in their pods never wake up... and one would assume Ruk's one of these trusted underlings, considering he's the Grineer with the highest pay grade we actually encounter.

 

Likewise, considering that Alad needed to win to recover the cache of pods for his project (which is supposed to result in the 'zerker frame), DE kinda wrote themselves into a corner in that regard... unless they basically nullify the stated reason for siding with the Grineer in the first place :-/

 

I made the point in leaving personal head-cannon out. We all have great ideas, but in order to explain the lack of common sense in both design and lore, personal interpretations had to be left out. I do mention something with Alad V, but am sure to state that this reasoning should not hold weight because it is an interpretation.

Edited October 30, 2013 by theGreatZamboni

[Blatantfool]

90% of people are choosing not to read it. They are forming inaccurate opinions on the content/context of what is said, their justification for doing so is "lel2long". Even after I edited the post to deter people from S#&$-posting about "2 long, cry moar" they are still doing it. I can and will accept people not agreeing with me, but most of the posts here are useless drivel.

 

 I've got a question.

 

  You mention that this event was created to lead to Alad V and the Berserker. This is a seriously popular reoccurring thing. I'll admit even I like to think Alad V is likely to be the source of our up an coming ill-tempered femme fatale. 

 

 But putting story aside for a second to look at the situation the game is in - Zerker is still just concept art. When we got to see hints of Nekros at first like that it took a good while before DE turned back up with a rough model to tease us with. Doing an event just to ramp up to her big debut now seems like poor timing considering she is still massively incomplete. 

 

 More then that - the Design Council community has been aware that Alad V will be getting his own trailer eventually and that still ain't quite done yet either. 

[theGreatZamboni]

 I've got a question.

 

  You mention that this event was created to lead to Alad V and the Berserker. This is a seriously popular reoccurring thing. I'll admit even I like to think Alad V is likely to be the source of our up an coming ill-tempered femme fatale. 

 

 But putting story aside for a second to look at the situation the game is in - Zerker is still just concept art. When we got to see hints of Nekros at first like that it took a good while before DE turned back up with a rough model to tease us with. Doing an event just to ramp up to her big debut now seems like poor timing considering she is still massively incomplete. 

 

 More then that - the Design Council community has been aware that Alad V will be getting his own trailer eventually and that still ain't quite done yet either. 

 

Where is the question?

[KONAir]

Where is the question?

 

Do you really think the Gravdivus Dilemma really lead up to Alad V and Berseker as shes revealed to be without chaning the story bit behind it?

 

jeebus mang...

[theGreatZamboni]

Do you really think the Gravdivus Dilemma really lead up to Alad V and Berseker as shes revealed to be without chaning the story bit behind it?

 

jeebus mang...

 

KONAir, there is not a question there. He is begging the question with statements. This isn't a knock against you or him, you guys are cool doods; it's just there really isn't a question there.

Edited October 30, 2013 by theGreatZamboni

[Blatantfool]

Where is the question?

Hurp. My bad. That thought didn't quite complete the way I wanted. Tired I guess. It is less of a question and more me bringing up that it seems funky to relate this event to Alad V and Zerkers eventual debut.

If anything this was just to get some action going in the world and maybe build up who Alad V is more.

[Destro6677]

Beta is beta.

 

How long do you think the console crowd will swallow that excuse once Warframe goes live for the PS?

 

Without a story to draw them in and engage them, after 10 hours of farming, they will leave for the other, non-beta, better mechanics games in the market.

[theGreatZamboni]

Beta is beta.

 

How long do you think the console crowd will swallow that excuse once Warframe goes live for the PS?

 

Without a story to draw them in and engage them, after 10 hours of farming, they will leave for the other, non-beta, better mechanics games in the market.

 

To play devil's advocate; the PS4 launch line-up and the Xbox One's for that matter are threadbare. Some things never change, console launches being vapid of games is one of those things I guess. Without going to far off topic, the fact that there are no games of note coming out on the PS4 will highlight games like Warframe. When people like Yahtzee, Angry Joe, Total Biscuit, Adam Sessler, regardless what you think of them, they will have little to say that is positive about Warframe. So Warframe will get attention, albeit negative attention. This is something that drives my criticisms. I want it to succeed. I feel that together DE and ourselves are wasting ample time that could be used to rid the game of glaring issues. It's this notion they want to walk into the spotlight before they are ready, instead of biding their time and appreciating that the lack of coverage is a blessing in disguise.

[Nohra]

Wall of Text crits Master Zalm for 9999. Master Zalm has fainted.

emm you forgot that its super effective.. :(

These are not productive to the discussion at hand. This is about as useful as those jackholes who put "FIRST!" on every patch note thread. If you have actual constructive criticism or a point to make beyond "I can't take a few minutes to read a long post," feel free, otherwise stop inflating your post count.

 

"beta"

"beta"

beta

"beta"

"beta"

That would be why this is the perfect time to discuss the failings of the game and how to make it better. Additionally, this is past the time where DE should have a very clear vision for their game and what direction they plan to take it. Something that has not been shown at all, with the complete lack of lore beyond a handful of paragraphs here and there.

 

The only "vision" I can see behind Warframe is constantly releasing new weapons and warframes that are either irrelevant or completely overpowered, continually making crafting more and more of a chore to deplete the resource stores of everyone who has been playing long enough to have considerable reserves, and making the game more difficult for the upper echelon of players, while continually screwing over the new player experience.

 

There are serious problems with Warframe that most people with a near maxed damage and multishot mods might not notice very readily.

 

God, this community is full of cry babies. I'd like to see you do a better job.

We'd like to see DE do a better job. It's why we care enough to share our thoughts on the game.

[General_Krull]

the game is in beta of course this was a test... why read into it so much... ppl are losing there minds over this event.... the game is still in beta... please stop

THIS MEANS WE HAVE TO BE MORE CRITICAL! F***!

[Sitchrea]

Wow... this was the most proffesional and well-said post i have eveer seen on these forums. You sir... have earned my respect. Well done!

[General_Krull]

Wow... this was the most proffesional and well-said post i have eveer seen on these forums. You sir... have earned my respect. Well done!

You should check his other threads too.

[Taranis49]

I made the point in leaving personal head-cannon out. We all have great ideas, but in order to explain the lack of common sense in both design and lore, personal interpretations had to be left out. I do mention something with Alad V, but am sure to state that this reasoning should not hold weight because it is an interpretation.

 

Hey, you devoted atleast two paragraphs in your OP to headcanon, getting one for myself is fair. ;-)

[Silvershadow66]

Huge wall of badly organised text, but some of it needs a reply,

 

This post is about the parallels between lore and gameplay. A game can stand on gameplay alone. Warframe is lacking in core design, therefore standing alone on gameplay is something it is incapable of, currently.

 

In your opinion, however many people seem to think that the core design is fine.

 

This is what I understand given the information I have been exposed to. The Grineer are a race run by a matriarchy. They use cloning and biological engineering to inflate their number and combat their limitations imposed by being formerly human. The cloning technology is supplied to them by the Corpus, which is inherently flawed to keep the Grineer in check. The thought behind this is that the Corpus are extremely lacking in numbers in comparison to the Grineer and if they did not posses this trump card, the Grineer would not stand for their insolence. This is the reason for the Corpus proxy army consisting of drones. The Grineer are a warmongering, militant race and seek to conquer the Origin/Sol System. They currently have Tyl Regor working on a cure for the issues imposed by the Corpus cloning technology, which is causing each generation of cloned Grineer to become more unstable. The Tenno, have assassinated Tyl Regor, millions of times in the meta game. The Corpus want Orokin tech as it is extremely powerful. The Grineer want this tech as well. The Tenno are connected to the Orokin and may posses the secrets to better understand the Orokin within themselves.

 

 

A lot of this is not supported by the known lore in any way, especially the underlined parts. It seems your complaint is that the lore of the game does not match what you think it should be.

 

Let's stop for a second. What secrets? What can taking a Tenno and reverse engineering them do to help them better understand the Orokin? It is implied that the Corpus already have an extensive knowledge of Orokin tech and already own hundreds of Tenno.

 

Where do you get the idea that either the Corpus or Grineer have extensive knowledge of all Orokin technology? The obviously only have knowledge of some parts of it because they in no way match the capabilities of the Orokin.

 

in spite of being a ranking officer in the Corpus army.

 

What army? The Corpus are not a militaristic organisation. And since when was Sergeant a ranking officer?

 

 

So all these flubs and inconsistencies now are tied directly to the Gradivus Dilemma. This is how it initially was played out.

 

1. Help the Corpus, you don't get your fellow Tenno back.

2. Help the Grineer, you don't get your fellow Tenno back.

 

Tenno/Player Motive: get your fellow Tenno back.

 

How did you get to this? The initial assumption would be Help he Corpus and we lose the Tenno or Help the Grineer and save the Tenno.

 

Its not DE's fault that you got confused.

 

 

Nova was hands down the best for this event. Xhris of our clan did a 1:25 run as Nova with a friend. So not picking Nova, you severely limited how efficiently you could complete runs. If you are sane, you would want to get the runs over with as soon as possible, so you'd pick Nova. This all comes full circle. This event failed on every level, because it was more of the same. Because player choice has been removed. Because of limited weapon and Warframe slots, because of the nature of the mod system; there is a right and wrong way to play. You are punished if you play incorrectly. You are barred from experiencing all the game has to offer because of poor practices. Sure, now you have enough materials and new taters, forma, prints; but do you have the slots to utilize them?

 

Don't own a Nova, don't want a Nova. I ran my missions in a Rhino. Was still ridiculously easy to pass the 100 mission mark (I think I did 5 missions on every single invasion bar 2 - I missed Gravidus as it was over before I logged on that evening.

 

There is no right and wrong way to play. You just don't understand that. If you want to top a leaderboard in any game you have to optimise your play, if you just want to play the game there are a huge number of ways to play.

 

All in all your complaints are highly suspect and your supporting arguments mainly personal bias.

 

Edit: And here is something that everyone has to realise, this was an EVENT, not a full update. Its something that will only happen once so don't expect a huge amount of work to be put into it beyond those parts that can be re-used in future events.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Silvershadow66