IMO The Sacrifice is insanely unfriendly to a new player.

[CirrusPix]

I've marked spoiler since I don't know what counts as a spoiler in this game and want to talk freely about a specific fight.

Following no guides at all and going through quests to get from point A to point B, I've came to a point in The Sacrifice where the difficulty suddenly spikes dramatically and I'm not sure why.
All of my friends who play the game say "I'm sorry, that segment isn't that great" and mention some side content that I was barely aware existed.

The first Excalibur Umbra fight was okay. I just had to void sling once and transfer.
The second Excalibur Umbra fight was very annoying. I kept getting killed as operator and booted back to my frame, and I only dealt a minimal amount of damage when a critical hit occurred. otherwise I just saw a cloud of 0s fill the screen.
I quit the third fight since I died every 4 seconds to every other attack from Umbra while ticking off a thirtieth of his shield bar. He also sees you when you're supposed to be invisible.
The game never told me what an Amp was, nor where to get it. The game never showed me anything about focus besides a personality quiz during a previous questline that said that I'd be tanky, and I have 10,000 focus points and no clue how to gain any more. I only know these terms from going to outside sources and tips from friends.

My main question here, is why does Umbra have such an intense scaling that it requires you to die a million times in a row? I'm actively interested in the story as it is, but my patience is limited. I can only do so much grinding.

[Chewarette]

That's a cool quest but those fights are absurd. I already said so at the time - of course most of us vets were breezing through considering the Eidolons were peak content at the time, so having powerful amps was pretty normal. But it was obvious that for someone going from quest to quest, this would be terribly difficult and/or painful.

I'm afraid there isn't so much that can be done here except grinding for a better amp, it's unlikely DE changes anything in regards of this specific questline

[TeaHawk]

Well, this game teaches you almost nothing about its mechanics and synergies. You have to dig through wiki and other external resources to get a proper understanding of all the available instruments.

You practically have to grind for the best gear if you want to be able to play the main story at some point. This game is about optimizing your farm. Thus if you want to enjoy it, you must have a clear vision of progression path you're about to take. I would suggest asking your veteran friends to help you with the gear and especially with the progression plan.

It might sound a bit discouraging. But don't get me wrong. This game offers an immeasurable amount of fun if you invest a bit of time and patience into building.

Good luck, Tenno

Edited January 17 by TeaHawk

[RLanzinger]

To @CirrusPix,

"My main question here, is why does Umbra have such an intense scaling that it requires you to die a million times in a row? I'm actively interested in the story as it is, but my patience is limited. I can only do so much grinding."

The short answer is The Sacrifice was the best/biggest/hardest Quest of it's Time akin to The New War.

 

The Long answer is : The Sacrifice²⁰¹⁸

... was made to match old players level and the constant whining about "Quest are too shorts, too easy". So not hard but Emotional Damage Level.

....was so hard that some players could not do it even when Empyrean (U27) was out.

... I did start playing it far after most bugs was fixed^{After 1 year} and end up Speed-Run it by triggering an Exploit^{fixed 6months later in U27},

⬆️ Could never hope to finish with my Zero-Skill anyway...

I will try fight my fear and redo the quest to help but my usual tactics :

1/ Prepare 200 Pizza (Restore pads) of each (Energy, Health, Shield, Ammo)
2/ Prepare your best Tenno Specters (Gold*** or Platinum****) and Drone Shield (20 each, can insta-regen you shield)
3/ Prepare to redo the mission a few times...

Edited January 17 by RLanzinger
forgot a word "fixed"

[jerryjealously]

2 hours ago, CirrusPix said:

The game never told me what an Amp was, nor where to get it. The game never showed me anything about focus besides a personality quiz during a previous questline that said that I'd be tanky, and I have 10,000 focus points and no clue how to gain any more.

Yea you are used to these "modern" games that tell you exactly what to do and when to do it so you can turn your brain off and be controlled instead of being in control. I don't really like it this way. The thing that helped me most getting along with games like Warframe and Path of Exile was my curiosity. "What does this do? Where do i get that? How does this work properly? How can i be more efficient?" are things that i have in my mind constantly when approaching new content. I remember doing that fight with the regular AMP and it was a tiny bit horrible. It's not supposed to be a casual game, never was. In conclusion: You have to put effort in this game to make it fun for you. You can always get into the Q&A chat and ask for stuff if you don't know what to do next.