The prologue quest was a disappointment

[(PSN)Stealth_Cobra]

I'll admit it was a pretty unsatisfying update that probably should not have been hyped at Tennocon, hoping "Unnanounced Update" will be more substantial (Please be a Samurai Frame for Tokyo Game Show !!! ), otherwise it will be a long way till 1999. Doesn't help either that we've been in a kind of content drought since the Christmas update (8 months) and it's awesome new Tileset, with the only real notable updates being the Deep Archimedian update which I kinda hated and refuse to run weekly and the Jade Quest , which was a fine hour long experience that came with a clan event, but yeah as a warframe fan having 8 months with almost nothing to chew on does hurt. I mean we do get the usual stuff like new primes, deluxe skins , new Intermissions with a couple new things, but yeah, hard to keep this game as your "main live service" game when the content is so far in between and it takes mere minutes to complete. There's this old formula in game design that's basically "Time / Money spent on game development versus the number of hours on average the users get out of the new content"... And I feel we've been in a spiral lately where the dev teams takes months delivering ambitious new stuff that doesn't have as much staying power as it should... Waiting six months for an update then finishing it in a single sitting never feels good.

Hoping 1999 will have some lasting potential and it won't be like three weeks of maxing syndicates gameplay folllowed by another 10 months of waiting for content. Also hoping the lower cadence of updates is not because Soulframe took alway most of the devs that were working on Warframe and a skeleton crew is left running the live service stuff... I'm looking forward to Soulframe being it's own game and all that, but I really hope it doesn't mean Warframe gets shafted in terms of development time and staffing because of it...

Edited August 21 by (PSN)Stealth_Cobra

[prodi1600]

I do agree this update feels kind of pointless, I know DE wants us to be hyped but this was just a wrong turn into it, the whole scene feels like it actually belongs to 1999 update, I hope the next "unannounced" update its not us getting into the railjack and going to the location were one does access 1999 to just end as the drifter try transference with Artur.

[RafMatador22]

Despite some welcome corrections in this update, the content drought is so great that it is unfair to receive something so insubstantial. DE is a developer that I admire in many aspects, but the slowness and some decisions, such as pausing hotfix for this, bother me greatly.

[NightmareT12]

2 hours ago, RafMatador22 said:

Despite some welcome corrections in this update, the content drought is so great that it is unfair to receive something so insubstantial. DE is a developer that I admire in many aspects, but the slowness and some decisions, such as pausing hotfix for this, bother me greatly.

To be fair they didn't pause hotfixes to work on this as much as to make sure that everything is bundled and all platforms are on parity. The update having Sevagoth Prime alone would have required exactly the same. The quest probably required less resources than other more gigantic updates. They're probably deep into the "Unnanounced 2024 Warframe update" xD

With this out of the way, I have three qualms:

• The whole Lotus is here to appetitize Wally wasn't very well executed. There was nothing that really showed how she is being affected by him, which is what we'd expect (ie: Erra and Ballas throwing Lotus to reignite Phragasa).
• The reward is cute and I have 0 doubts the pager will have something to cue in 1999 later this year, but given we've had various other prologues and we've been even given a weapon before, I think a few of us expected something a bit more.
• I don't think it was very well explained what the heck we were doing on the mall at the end of the quest.

Overall I feel the idea is good, but the execution was lacking probably because of the efforts done towards TennoCon, and given we all already were waiting for 1999 since Whispers, I wonder if it was the right move.

Edited August 22 by NightmareT12

[matt11mz]

8 hours ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

This quest didn't even explain jack, all we did was pick up a phone call, get yeeted into the Mall without NPCs, walked around a bit and then picked up the same call and got zipped back to the Lotus.

 

That's it..

It actually explained a bit:

1. Operator is too closely connected to Wally to confront him, so Drifter has to be the one to do it.

2. There is an implication that Lotus may, in fact, be void-attuned. Loid said he didn't hear the pager, or even realize it was there, we've heard it the whole time. To be fair, not 100% confirmed, but pretty much as close as you get.

3. The real Albrecht is in fact in 1999, and Wally is in fact chasing after him. (Assuming we can trust the Lotus, Elanor seems to know about her having a "shadow," so this could be setting up a decoy from Wally)

Not a whole lot, but apparently Lotus has voice lines in the Sanctum now, so there might be more info like how the Jade Shadows mission was explained more in event and relay lines.

[Alpha_Tango]

I'm just surprised there is even a feedback section dedicated for a three minute ad.

[stash777]

10 hours ago, -Domi said:

It is the orbiter decoration item

Now I think I understand the Quest Thank you!!!!

[PollexMessier]

The other prologue quests all actually added something to the story and felt impactful and important.

It was cool to see the operator and drifter in the same place again. And lotus out of her chair again. But really, we got next to nothing. Except lotus being seemingly impacted by void madness which is... an odd decision.

But it did feel really lackluster even for a prologue quest. Almost like they just took the opening of 1999 and cut it off to gives us a teaser, instead of actually making one.

Hopefully this means more effort put into 1999, and not foreshadowing that DE has lost their drive and the whole quest is gonna be a disappointment.

[Aerikx]

1 hour ago, matt11mz said:

1. Operator is too closely connected to Wally to confront him, so Drifter has to be the one to do it.

Which is non-sensical. If the reasoning is: "Going after The Indifference could cause it to take your powers" then the fight is already over. The Indifference can strip the Operator of their powers at any time. 

All she really did was confirm that The Indifference isn't happy with us anymore.

1 hour ago, matt11mz said:

2. There is an implication that Lotus may, in fact, be void-attuned. Loid said he didn't hear the pager, or even realize it was there, we've heard it the whole time. To be fair, not 100% confirmed, but pretty much as close as you get.

This much the Quest very poorly alluded to. I think Lotus can see into 2 realities/timelines at once. As Drifter and The Operator spoke to her but they didn't directly interact with each other.

She effectively just said: "You take care of this, Drifter. You're the Main Character now."

1 hour ago, matt11mz said:

3. The real Albrecht is in fact in 1999, and Wally is in fact chasing after him. (Assuming we can trust the Lotus, Elanor seems to know about her having a "shadow," so this could be setting up a decoy from Wally)

I did not get this from her at all. She gave a word salad version of what Loid said at the end of Whispers. "We have to find Albrecht on time." 

The only interesting line from Lotus was that she is willing to give/hand/sacrifice The Operator to The Indifference.

The Kalymos part...

Honestly so don't know wtf that was supposed to relay narratively. 

I suppose they are alluding to Kalymos trying to save Albrecht as the Kavat seems to always be guiding everyone to Albrecht/Helping in some manner.

[OniDax]

I think y'all rather quickly tried to downplay expectations of it being a long quest. I think even Rebecca said "It's just a prologue" in one of the devshorts. So, I think for those who paid attention to your communication, you made it pretty clear it was comparable to previous prologues.

My issue is that the storytelling was only surface-deep and I think that's not an outlier for Warframe's story. This particular story feels out-of-the-blue and it doesn't really add anything. I don't think the story does a good job of involving the Lotus (I think she should've had a role before now post-New War). I personally feel the same thing about Jade Shadows. Yes, you show the spoiler thing you wanted to show, and that was the focus, but there was zero depth to Stalker and Jade's history and relationship in the quest itself. No character development with Stalker and why he was the way he was. No exploration of their time together until they become Warframes. The stories need more depth. I wasn't disappointed in the story in the short Lotus Eaters prologue because I'm at the point where I'm nearly apathetic about the storytelling. I don't expect much depth from Warframe storytelling. I look at how the prologue has nothing to do with the concept of "lotus-eaters" (it's a negative concept and the Tenno are the only lotus-eaters in this story like Teshin implies); I'm not disappointed that it doesn't explore that idea in any shape or form, because at this point I expect that Warframe storytelling won't do that kind of exploration.

With the upcoming Warframe 1999, I get you all are excited about the romance system, but I really hope that and On-Lyne aren't the main things WF 1999 is about. I hope there's some depth to the Hex, not just stating how they come to need Entrati, how they meet him, why these mostly Brits are in Hollvania, how their lives have changed, and what they're fighting for, but actually delving into their non-romantic relationships.

Right now, everything DE puts out feels like a tacky gimmick and I want something more from Warframe's story. I can look at Spider-Man, God of War, Ghost of Tsushima, Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order and Survivor, even Call of Duty, and I can find a story with deep character development, emotion, and interpersonal relationships. I don't get that in Warframe. I get something that tries to suggest those things, but ends up being surface-level.

I don't know why I'm saying this here, but I just want more depth in Warframe even though I don't expect it.

[TeaHands]

I feel like the biggest reveal was Loid's email afterwards saying he's sending us to 1999 with our weapons. So that was neat, wasn't really expecting this to be more than a glorified Prime Update.  

Since Lotus is now in the Sanctum Anatomica, can we hug her too?

[powerofvoid]

I think it's not made clear exactly why the Lotus believes it must be Drifter, just that she thinks Operator going would have a bad outcome.

* It could be that Operator going would allow the Indifference to reach whenever Operator goes
* It could be that the Lotus thinks the Operator would be more likely to give in to the Indifference
* It could be the Lotus being more protective of the Operator, and assuming the Drifter can handle herself better
* It could be something about how she replaced Drifter's hand in Duviri
* It could be that Hoellvania has strict school attendance laws and Operator would be constantly chased by truant officers trying to drag them to school

... or it could be something completely (in)different.

[ClockworkDirge]

I decided to once again come back from a hiatus, though I’m still recovering from my immense disappointment with how Dante was handled. I wanted to put it aside for one day to give DE another chance. I got to a point this morning where I was almost excited to have a quest I could stream, I have a shiny new rig for it and everything. I’m glad the persistent disappointment in region chat saved me the effort of actually getting set up to stream.
 

That wasn’t a quest. I wouldn’t even give it the credit of calling it a prologue. That was a pointless 2 minute walk through a dark mall.

[Sentinel-14]

Not going to sugar-coat it: this was a disappointment. All exposition, meaningless dialogue choices (we already know from past experience our choices don't actually matter, see sun/moon light/dark alignment) and a reward item that doesn't serve a purpose. Heck, looking at the commentary it seems a lot of people didn't realize the reward was an orbiter decoration. I initially thought it was a gear item to equip on the gear wheel for some yet-unknown purpose to be explained in the main quest, but nope. Nothing in the gear wheel, just in the orbiter decoration menu. That it is a decoration, which the player may not make any effort to actually display, is a solid indicator that it serves no future purpose. If it was meant to do something it would have been an auto-installed decoration like our Somachord, so the quest could point us to it later.

The Apostasy Prologue was less than this, given that we didn't even get to interact in it, but at least it had long-term impact on the game narratively. Space Mom was gone and we were hopefully going to find her in a later quest. And Holo-Lotus wasn't much of a lingering change, but it was there. This prologue actually moved the narrative forward.

The Chimera Prologue at least gave us something to do, having to dodge Ballas while listening to him talk and all. It presented something the player had to do in order to progress, and failure meant starting over and trying again. It was actually interactive. And like before it set up where the story was going, giving us Paracesis in preparation for fighting the Sentients. Again, the narrative was pushed forward a little bit with this.

Lotus Eaters didn't even give us any of that. Just listen to Lotus, touch the pager, follow the cat thru the empty mall, touch the pager again to come back, done. Wow. No one's gone missing (that wasnt already missing), no one new showed up out of nowhere, no "here take this in preparation for the coming mission".... I think Loid's message afterward actually did more to explain what was coming, in that Drifter will be using the Vessels to inhabit the 1999 characters, as first seen/experienced during the 1999 portion of Whispers in the Walls. That's where we the players are finally given some idea of what is to come.

There's no reason this shouldn't have simply been the opening part of the main 1999 quest later this year. As it stands this will be all but forgotten by the time 1999 launches. At BEST, this should have been held back and released a week or two before 1999 and used as a short-term teaser. The fact that there is another update coming between this an 1999 will only serve to further push this out of the collective consciousness before the main event arrives.

• Sidebar: I think the preview of the mall during/after Tennocon really hurt this prologue. For those that explored the mall and listened to the characters talk, not only was this map nothing new, there was less there than before. You had us go back to see less. Instead, you should not have done the Tennocon preview at all and used this Prologue in it's place to preview the new characters and have the player (as invisible Drifter) listen to them talk. That's how you generate interest in what is to come.

The only substantive piece of information we got from this is that Drifter will be the main point-of-view character for 1999, not Operator. Lotus's explanation for why isn't all that clear, it would seem, but the Actual reason is very clear: the upcoming romancing mechanic for the 1999 NPCs. Until reading this thread I didn't consider it but this was actually a foregone conclusion: we have to play as adult-age Drifter instead of child-age Operator to avoid... issues... with the romancing mechanic. In hindsight it's obvious.

And maybe it sets up a few more questions: Why did Lotus say she was inclined to hand Operator over to Wally? Kind of cold of her considering Operator (and Drifter) went out of their way to save Lotus, and it's especially odd given how Lotus seemed to protect Operator from Wally at the end of New War.

But that's basically it. I come out of this with only 2 questions: why does it have to be Drifter (in universe, not the actual romancing reason), and why is SpaceMom willing to hand over Operator to Wally?


DE... my expectations were fairly low since this was billed as a prologue, given how minimal the last two were, but wow. You guys really mis-stepped here.

[Quakeslate]

Even though its just a prelude to 1999, it still  seemed too short.

Edited August 22 by Quakeslate

[Chewarette]

1 hour ago, powerofvoid said:

I think it's not made clear exactly why the Lotus believes it must be Drifter, just that she thinks Operator going would have a bad outcome.

* It could be that Operator going would allow the Indifference to reach whenever Operator goes
* It could be that the Lotus thinks the Operator would be more likely to give in to the Indifference
* It could be the Lotus being more protective of the Operator, and assuming the Drifter can handle herself better
* It could be something about how she replaced Drifter's hand in Duviri
* It could be that Hoellvania has strict school attendance laws and Operator would be constantly chased by truant officers trying to drag them to school

... or it could be something completely (in)different.

The fact she saw the Indifference as a version of the Operator at the end of The New War may be why she's reluctant to trust the Operator on that aspect. Maybe she's not sure who the Operator is at all anymore

[(PSN)IdoThea]

Quest was 2 spooky 4 me.

[Incongruous]

Two minutes of emptiness that feels like it could have easily been released closer to 1999—or, dare I suggest something truly groundbreaking, simply included as part of the quest it was meant to tie into.

[0bsi]

What we got wasn't terrible... but... It's weird being promoted as a "quest" with its own name, and so far away from the launch of 1999.  It's understandable that players expected at least a little more, and understandable they would be disappointed.

Especially on the back of Jade Shadows which was complained largely at for being too short, then we get this!

Since Jade shadows was short, when they kept saying Lotus Eaters would be short/tiny I figured maybe a 10 min quest not to get my hopes up.   Now I understand why we got no info on what it was other than the title screen, because there was barely anything there.

It just baffles me why it was done like this since it helps nobody.
- Players unhappy because it's unsatisfying, so (rightfully) complain
- DE put (some) effort in, and have players not liking what they have provided (again), which can't feel nice.

Unless the "any publicity is good publicity" thing is the goal, but 2 back to back unsatisfyingly short quests is surely not the best form of publicity.  Especially not when it's supposed to be hype for 1999.  You don't hype people up by making something hugely disappointing.

There was more content in Loid's email, so frankly, why not just have saved the Dev's time and just done that.  Probably would have been better received than follow the cat "gameplay" in an area we've already seen.  If that was the first glimpse at the mall, then the "quest" would have been potentially interesting, since players would have the first opportunity to investigate that.  But anyone who visited it during Tennocon already looked around - when there was more interesting stuff there too.

 

If it had instead been called a "teaser" (and released maybe a month before 1999) - then I think the community would have been less disappointed in it. 

But honestly, being that short, I can't see why this wasn't just the start of the 1999 quest.

 

They should have introduced it in stages leading up to 1999 release, spaced like 2 weeks apart.
- Stage 1 - the song starts playing in Sanctum without an official update announcement (just noted in patch notes).... getting us all hyped for something new
- Stage 2 - Ringtone starts (again without announcement other than patch notes) and we remember there was a phone on the cliff, so run over there to find Lotus standing there with the phone (OMG, what does this mean!?!)
- Stage 3 - (The "quest" we got) Phone becomes intractable and takes you to the mall with Kalymos, you get the dialogue and phone decorator email.
- Stage 4 - 1999 release.

[igyman]

Pretty disappointing, as others have said. When DE said this would be a short prologue quest, I expected something similar to Jade Shadows - a roughly 30 minute experience. This barely registers as a quest due to how quickly and effortlessly we can complete it. Aside from that, DE continues its trend of convoluted writing where characters talk needlessly  cryptically but don't really give out any new info. As a result of this the player is left with more questions and zero answers to any of the questions posed by the previous story quests. I'm perfectly fine with a good mystery, but even in that you have to have a balance where you answer certain questions before adding new ones into the mix.

[Zz3rkz]

i'm not a fan of being forced to use the drifter, i don't like it and i don't like duviri,so being forced to use it was kind of annoying to be honest,i want to play as the tenno/warframe i choose to use, not the drifter.

edit : i appreciate the efforts put on the facial animations even if it was rather short of a quest/prologue.

Edited August 22 by Zz3rkz
typo

[Circle_of_Psi]

6 hours ago, matt11mz said:

It actually explained a bit

Yeah, this explains jack

[S074]

In earlier stages of Warframe we used to have short events with an email message, a mission to play (to replay 3 times though!) with some lore blurb to justify it, and another email on completion. I think to this day that it worked fine for its purpose.

The story setup for this prelude isn't bad, the problem lies in it being all there is to it. I think having no gameplay at all as part of it is what made it feel empty.

 

Had there been an excuse to run a mission or two in the middle, this prelude would have been received a lot better.

Imagine if after the first part of Lotus' dialogue she stormed off in the depths of the labs to "get a better signal" or some similar excuse.

We could have been playing a Netracell mission to find her, with Lotus locking herself within the final room.

After that we could have withessed the second part of the dialogue in a relevant room (EG: the one with the time machine that displaced a subway train in front of us during whisper in the walls) and then have us follow the cat in the mall.

It would have been a lot more engaging, with the story beats feeling earned.

 

Edited August 22 by S074
typos...

[Circle_of_Psi]

Also, want to point out that Sevagoth Prime did not get a Primed Trailer, so really goes to show you..

[0_The_F00l]

18 minutes ago, Circle_of_Psi said:

Also, want to point out that Sevagoth Prime did not get a Primed Trailer, so really goes to show you..

Oh yeah , guess the update wasnt disappointing enough already.