An open talk of the War within

[Ronger97]

I shall start this with a warning. I do not have perfect English, I will never claim nor achieve perfect English due too thinks of my past and things out of my control, so I have a request and please ask everyone to at least read over what I am about to say with consideration too someone who will forever be a subject to "Grammar Nazi's". 

If you understand what im saying enough too know how to correct it at a grammar level, then please just move on. Arguments over spelling and such are useless otherwise. If you cannot legitimately understand what im saying, point it out and I'll work on it. 

Now that that's over with, on with the show

Sorry to say the start is a bad start indeed. "Your somatic readings are high"...? Ok, does that mean something bad?...do we have a reason for it? Is it a Reference too the Day of the Dead event? We never get an answer too these questions at any point. The opening honestly seems more to hype the player than anything, and otherwise seems like a useless line. Just starting with "Tenno, we have a mission at Lua" would have been just as effective, have led right into the quest fluently, and not seemed like a confusing intro that never gets followed up on.

Onto Lua, we find teshin and hear the twin queens talking too him. we get some dialogue thrown back and forth including a scene where the tenno knocks teshin's sword away and says. "Don't call me that" in response to being called a child...lets put a pin into that shall we? we will get back too it when we have more information 

After that we get what I can only call with bluntness...shameless filler. The Mission where you have to track teshin's second duplicate is entirely unnecessary. The dialogue given between the tenno and lotus could easily have been put into the Liset between finding him on lua, and our next mission. Lets also put a pin into this ok? Get back too it at the end.

Next comes the real meat of the quest. The first part I admit is rather clever, hiding on the sides of transports to avoid "Grinner death beams" is effective enough...unfortunately the hitboxes are a bit wonky so sometimes you get hit when you think you are safe. Yes this is minor, but given this is during the big reveal of the fortress, Such moments need to feel like You messed up...or else the event in question is hampered by an easily fixed technical problem.
Trust me, we will get back too that later.

Now here we are, at the fortress. We find that we can't contact the Lotus for some reason, the transference signal was disrupted...put a pin here for later. We go in step at a time and eventually end up in the main chamber...bang bing boom, story stuff, back into gameplay with...music...Something. This section of the game I must give you props for...from the beginning of this mental journey too the end, the atmosphere is amazing and immersive.

And then this area brings you too the morality questions...which is where we get pin number one back. One of the first Scenes in the game and we don't get a choice like we do here? we COULD have knocked the sword out of Teshin's hand...or maybe we could have said something like. "I can take care of myself" or "Is something wrong? let me help." it honestly feels like you didn't know you were doing morality until you were, and didn't go back to fix the problem in earlier scenes. Normally I could let this slide do to time and such...but seeing as you postponed this quest for so long, Time is not an excuse you may take here.
 

Anyway, moving on passed morality, lore, and freaky bone worms...we end up back in our liset, in one piece, and overall unharmed! then we get some epic music as we realize the powers that Teshin helped us relearn are not just mental, but physical...including being able to transference from everywhere, not only a pod or link. We are fired up and ready for action again to save teshin!...but lets put a quick pin here for later.

So now we appear in all of our power to save teshin. The younger queen is terrified at the sight of us, and elder queen triggers the biggest failure of this quest...the boss 'fight'. Its no fight, its nothing but pain and anger here. As you are all aware (if you have played the quest...theirs a spoiler tag you know) you must combine the powers you learned from the torture the eldest queen stuck into your head and use it to defeat those which had the power to defy your normal means of engagement. The problem is this new system was clearly tested incorrectly or minimally, if at all. The powers you need to use all draw from the same TINY pool which only makes you able to effectively take out one of the queens personal guard at a time, let alone the braid it was defending. But no, this quest takes it up a step or three further and puts you and your inefficient powers against 2, and even 3 of them at once! the result is you WILL get your &#! handed too you by these Grinner which you have been improperly equipped to fight, and you can do NOTHING about it minus run and hide, hoping the AI either doesn't see you, or has a brain fart long enough for you to take down at least one of the super guards baring down on you. That is bad design.

DE, this is supposed to be the big reveal of the quest. This is the new power you are offering, the new way we can make whole this shattered world we were given...and when you finally let us have free reign over it all, you do it in such a way that makes any average player feel frustrated and confused as the whole hype you set up with the scene prior leads your players right into unavoidable asskicking. 

The second half...or last quarter of the fight is you waiting for the queen to give you an opening to steal the scepter she has...once again waiting for your energy to work right and now waiting for the right time...you save the day, Teshin is free, the Grinner may or may not be down a queen, and its time to escape...which you can just do. Wait, I thought that younger queen was saying stuff on the projectors throughout the base?...at least I think so, cause on my run I missed them all because of the objective you had me do. A good way to have the quest go on a bit longer without feeling like padding? Survival mission right here. Queen locks down the place tight, Teshin/Ordis/Lotus (who is now back...get too that later) has to bail you out by hacking though the security to eventually let you out, Queen gets to run her mouth for...whatever she was supposed to say...and then you can escape just that bit more informed. 

Now we are safely back into our liset where Lotus and the Tenno have a back and forth about a mothers duty to protect and someone needing to know the truth...my question is how the F*** was she still blocked back there? to be specific, when transference was entirely cut, the tenno was back in the liset figuring out his/her powers were real and effective, and...since they were in the orbiter compartment...the entire place should have been WELL out of range of the Queens interference? Part of the lotus's dialogue after the main events says the tenno was "changed." Well because of this oversight, we never can hear the Lotus's reaction to us REVEALING said changes, which would have led into this back and forth with us knowing personal experience from both sides.

Speaking of bad dialogue, what about ordis's "you can help me clean up that infested door" comment? That is directly drawing attention too something we can do nothing about at the current moment. Yes thats teasing for future events...but to do it directly like that is about as gentle and leading as "teasing" means arousal than your partner walking out the door

And then we get too the end...we find teshin on the mountain, get some more lore stuff, references too future quests potentially (which is handled much better and thus gets a pass) and end quest...pulling back another pin...that was it?! this big quest that took nine months to get out was that short? Sure it revealed some new stuff like the tile-set...oh wait, no...because everything else is shoved by the wayside! the new resource? no mention of it...and ESPECIALLY the new Riven mods..where did they even come from? its just...thrown at you when all is said and done like, say, the new melee weapon you get from the quest itself and is a big symbol for the end scene? its out of place, entirely unexplained, and just...expected to be accepted?

What makes that all the worse is that this update gives a ton...like the new Riven mods, A new Tileset, New Tenno powers, new Resources, and upgrades to all sorts of stuff already in the game! but...only a fraction of it is given in the quest that was this updates figurehead. The new stuff is short, blunt, and incomplete. The new tileset's big claim to fame is that it has a new makeover and more stealth elements...unlike the moons which had a fuckton of lore, new mods, a new faction to fight, and overall felt more complete and motivating even though the moon itself was broken apart.

The new powers are nothing more than just weak toys to play around with for 5 minutes before you get bored. They can't move fast, they cant do much in groups, they die if you stub your toe on something which drains your warframes energy to 0...and speaking of energy, the Tenno have none. The only claim to fame is its ability to extract the new resource...other than that its nothing but a pretty face.

To put this whole thing blunt DE

You failed

but don't worry, its neither a Total failure or a failure you shouldn't embrace. My goal here was to point out everything I could that you did wrong...so you don't do it wrong again. We know that their are more quests on the way of this scale, and even larger. Take what I Say here and learn from your mistakes. Or...you can listen too someone closer too your heart, and knows that Failure is not something bad.

To the writers

To the programmers

To DE

"You have lost… yet you learn. Developing your skills is key to future victories."

Edited November 13, 2016 by Ronger97
Apparently I was false advertising with the title

[_Azeizel]

Half the things you mentioned I would completely disagree with.

[RawGritz]

Yea kind of underwhelming. I liked the lore on the Queens, Tenno and Teshin but this update didn't offer much for me personally. I thought all this was supposed to reveal who/what/where the Umbra frames are. And it seems like there are only a couple new enemy types.

Riven does seem to be completely out of nowhere. Also, I thought we were going to make our operators as skilled as Teshin. This seems like a forced way to make the operators more interesting. But didn't quite work...

Edited November 13, 2016 by RawGritz

[MillbrookWest]

This isn't so much a critique as it is nitpicking.

Some of your points are fair enough, but by and large, your critique is that the quest wasn't made for you personally. Which isn't how critiquing works.

A critique would be calling out the insanely fast walk speed of the Operator through the ice caverns, or indeed, the pacing of story points through that entire section. Specifying singular lines of dialogue and stating they were redundant is neither here nor there. It's a story, it can be as flamboyant as it wants to be.

[RawGritz]

1 minute ago, MillbrookWest said:

This isn't so much a critique as it is nitpicking.

Some of your points are fair enough, but by and large, your critique is that the quest wasn't made for you personally. Which isn't how critiquing works.

A critique would be calling out the insanely fast walk speed of the Operator through the ice caverns, or indeed, the pacing of story points through that entire section. Specifying singular lines of dialogue and stating they were redundant is neither here nor there. It's a story, it can be as flamboyant as it wants to be.

I think his point is that TWW didn't progress WF gameplay and lore as much as TSD did. It's an opinion but I would agree honestly. The new gameplay elements are arguably less interesting and too nuanced than the Focus abilities introduced. The lore additions, I welcomed. But the community spoke already... The Operators aren't exactly big crowd-pleasers among the community.

[GinKenshin]

12 minutes ago, RawGritz said:

. I thought all this was supposed to reveal who/what/where the Umbra frames are. And it seems like there are only a couple new enemy types.

 

they never said TWW would talk about or discuss Umbra, that's for the next quest 

[Delta17.05]

teasing us for the infested door was low tho

[MillbrookWest]

2 hours ago, RawGritz said:

The new gameplay elements are arguably less interesting and too nuanced than the Focus abilities introduced.

This should have been expected. From a story perspective, the goal with TWW would always have been to be a sidestep of TSD, and to never compete with it. If TWW was bigger and better, then the onus is on the next one to be bigger and better rinse, and repeat; Expectations would always put DE on an ever increasingly difficult pedestal, until such a time as it became unobtainable. TWW sets a good base for DE to continue with more story quests. The next one can be a shorter, more intimate affair, or it could simply be longer, the option is there for DE to experiment.

I personally like the operators, and the way they function after the quest. They are squishy (and quite rightly so), and they give perspective to your Frame. A Valk can stand in the middle of a room filled with enemies and laugh at their bullets, but bring out your operator and its good night sweet prince.

Edited November 13, 2016 by MillbrookWest

[CY13ERPUNK]

+9999 OP 

srsly 

i wasnt exactly blown away by the 2nd dream, but at least it was a fairly huge surprise 

the war within is just short and entirely unclimatic, its like a complete snoozefest... =/ 

and that 'boss fight'... ugh, come on, srsly... =[, plz someone at DE take some lessons in boss fight design... [like why? introduce a completely new character and kill them within 1 quest cycle, every other character got a ton more development before we got to face to face with them, and arguably any other boss fight is a better encounter]

and then everything is just thrown in with no explanation 

wtf is a riven mod and where did it come from? what's with the black/neutral/white choices and what purpose do they serve? no explanation of kuva ingame... just the list goes on... =/ 

this is exactly why i dont get hyped for anything from DE these days, all this waiting and its just like, 'meh' ok whatevs... =/ 

more powercreep for a PVE game that's already too easy? but why?  

FWIW at least the majority of the quest unrelated new content is decent, ie new tiles/enemies/weapons, even if a bunch of them are boring 

Edited November 13, 2016 by CY13ERPUNK

[LAWD]

I think at the point you start the quest, you've pretty much figured out the gameplay mechanics and how mods work. SO the introduction of the Riven mods was quite clear, you equip it like no other and read the text. I personally love the idea, it brings much more variety to modding and playstyle.

As for the Orbiter, it could use some sort of meters showcasing the cooldown of abilities, as far as im concerned they seem to share a pool, but im not too sure. And why does the energy get depleted?

This is a subtle story of the characters we've come to know from The Natah quest, so i say it did well and definitely a good sequel to TSD.

 

Edited November 13, 2016 by LAWD