A very harsh but realistic criticism of TWW.

[(PSN)Tenchi145]

DE Devs as much as you hyped this quest what you delivered is far below what you delivered with The Second Dream.  I honestly in good faith can not sit and let some of the people who are just glad to have it let you guys think that this was a good thing.

First lets tackle some really frustrating things. People have complained time and time again about people going a AFK and/or using cheese tactics to clear missions. This is cause by the use of passive objectives known as DEFEND X. literally instead of making some new action oriented mission types you instead added more of the DEFEND X mission types with a few more steps in between or other DEFEND X objectives in between.  This was a perfect oppurtunity to showcase more talent and creative ideas than just the same recycled missions that lead to the same meta setup.

The quest itself, although pretty vague and lacking in both directives and storytelling, did have great voice acting and pretty solid cinematics, but this quest felt more like a tutorial mission than a quest. by the time you finish the opening sequence you are at the end using everything you just got to finish the quest.  There is no time to master the technique as your operator literally Yugi Moto/Rey(Star Wars) the heck outta it. If neither example helps you understand the problem then I suggest you look them up and watch these 2 scenes Yugi playing dungeon dice monsters vs Duke Devlin and Rey piloting the Millennium Falcon for the first time ever.

Next we tackle those tutorials as they did not even prepare you for what you would be doing outside of this closed space. Kuva siphons do not function in any similar way and are very difficult compared to this 'Tremors' mechanical worm. These tutorials were exceeding frustrating by a lack of direction or instruction as to what to do. This just might have something to do with my bias toward puzzles.  Regardless these tutorials need to be a bit more player friendly and guide the player a bit maybe even dropping hints after X amount of attempts.

Honestly this last part has been addressed by the community long before console got it. WHO THE BLOODY HELL THOUGHT A BLACK AND RED COLOR FOR THE KUVA WOULD BE GOOD TO HAVE ON AN INFESTED CORPUS SHIP?. The ship is literally black and red, barely has any light, there are infested everywhere(also Juggy), Kuva guards are wearing black and red so you barely see them. O-M-G to the double G trying my first Kuva Siphon on the Eris infested ship was a mistake.

All in all after all this wait and the diligent dodging of spoilers I feel let down.  There was no fully fleshed out story.  Just 2 short missions, a long tutorial and a very frustrating or easy boss(?) fight. Nice try but you guys really oversold this as it just did not go above The Second Dream. The storytelling was very shoddy, the interaction was minimal, there was really nothing game changing about this installment. When you guys come back from break please work on fixing some of the broken things in the game, balance the focus schools, add side missions that give you chunks of the focus points since you continue to nerf any reliable farm we create.  First deception, then spy, then enemy line of sight and spawn teleporting, then draco, now enemies become alerted by seeing corpses(bout time tho), but you never give us anything back to mitigate the grind because otherwise its about on average 4,000 a mission(if you have a lens on all your gear). Hopefully the next quest actually stands up to the second dream and has some very unique missions that doesn't rely on DEFEND X.

[taiiat]

people playing abusively in the game has no relevance to this Quest. why did you even bring it up here? there's exactly one Objective that has you defending an object during this Quest. and it's Solo.

why do you need 5 hours of handholding tutorial to understand how to use Tools you're given? those situations are things Players complain about in all kinds of games. 'i know how to use this already why am i still doing more tutorial'.

you were sufficiently prepared. shown how to use Tools, given space to experiment mixing them. and Kuva Siphons explain what it is you're supposed to be doing.

i blame Color Correction as usual for this problem. for Infested Ship it probably paints everything red, meaning unable to see anything, even the ground in front of you as literally everything is red.

 

you're free to like or dislike the Story setup in War Within. though War Within has much more to say as Story than Second Dream did... Second Dream had a one sentence story to say, only that 'you' aren't the 'you' that you thought you were. while War Within introduces Story Characters and universe building.

[Zhoyzu]

16 minutes ago, taiiat said:

people playing abusively in the game has no relevance to this Quest. why did you even bring it up here? there's exactly one Objective that has you defending an object during this Quest. and it's Solo.

why do you need 5 hours of handholding tutorial to understand how to use Tools you're given? those situations are things Players complain about in all kinds of games. 'i know how to use this already why am i still doing more tutorial'.

you were sufficiently prepared. shown how to use Tools, given space to experiment mixing them. and Kuva Siphons explain what it is you're supposed to be doing.

i blame Color Correction as usual for this problem. for Infested Ship it probably paints everything red, meaning unable to see anything, even the ground in front of you as literally everything is red.

 

you're free to like or dislike the Story setup in War Within. though War Within has much more to say as Story than Second Dream did... Second Dream had a one sentence story to say, only that 'you' aren't the 'you' that you thought you were. while War Within introduces Story Characters and universe building.

^ pretty much this.

[Zrugel]

46 minutes ago, (PS4)Tenchi145 said:

...by the time you finish the opening sequence you are at the end using everything you just got to finish the quest.

...Regardless these tutorials need to be a bit more player friendly and guide the player a bit maybe even dropping hints after X amount of attempts.

 

you're complaining that the tutorial portion is too long and also too short?

46 minutes ago, (PS4)Tenchi145 said:

Nice try but you guys really oversold this....

 

 

how much did you pay?

 

okay, criticisms aside. I think what I disagree with most is your use of "realistic criticism" in the title.

 

I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just saying your conclusions are inaccurate.

[(PSN)Tenchi145]

12 hours ago, taiiat said:

people playing abusively in the game has no relevance to this Quest. why did you even bring it up here? there's exactly one Objective that has you defending an object during this Quest. and it's Solo.

The quest brought with it an entire tileset and instead of making entirely new missions they created missions that still use the same formula and therefore kept the meta relevant.

why do you need 5 hours of handholding tutorial to understand how to use Tools you're given? those situations are things Players complain about in all kinds of games. 'i know how to use this already why am i still doing more tutorial'.

Never said you needed 5 hours of hand holding. Just more than puzzle space and the back of your ship to utilize your new powers.

you were sufficiently prepared. shown how to use Tools, given space to experiment mixing them. and Kuva Siphons explain what it is you're supposed to be doing.

You'd be surprised how many people finish the quest and have no idea what they should do. I literally just got done teaching 3 groups what to do in the Siphon mission because again the instructions are vague.  People see the activate transferrance prompt and are blasting the thing and going 'wtf'. Others are fighting the guards and seeing the number going up thinking 'yeah I'm getting this right' only to be scratching their head as the little one keeps chattering on happily.

i blame Color Correction as usual for this problem. for Infested Ship it probably paints everything red, meaning unable to see anything, even the ground in front of you as literally everything is red.

My color correction was off on the first go and it helped me out none.

 

you're free to like or dislike the Story setup in War Within. though War Within has much more to say as Story than Second Dream did... Second Dream had a one sentence story to say, only that 'you' aren't the 'you' that you thought you were. while War Within introduces Story Characters and universe building.

The Operator, Teshin, and the Twin Queens(admittedly absent visually from the game until now) aren't really new. All the lore that was exposed was good, but it should have been presented better imho. Light figures!? WTH? Why?

 

12 hours ago, Zrugel said:

you're complaining that the tutorial portion is too long and also too short?

how much did you pay?

Never said anything about it being too long. Obviously you just think I'm complaining just for the sake of complaining, but you are wrong.  My issue is with how this quest was just a tutorial mission on our new abilities and that's it. Sure it gave out some new lore, filled in a few blamks, but it never really preprared you for the kuva siphon missions. The transferance ability is such a weak form that a stray bullet in kuva flood missions destroy it and also damage the frame as well. In the pocket tutorial the lack of all the excess enemies leves you completely unprepared for Kuva missions thus making completing  them solo a semi-impossible task to just barely doable in randoms because of extra enemies and vague hints on how to complete it.  Had I not checked the wiki after my first failed attempt I would have never known what to do.  That's with 2 people who play the game watching and not seeing anything due to colors of eris tileset.

Also that has absolutely nothing to do with this as they ask for feedback and the players are free to provide that feedback.

 

okay, criticisms aside. I think what I disagree with most is your use of "realistic criticism" in the title.

 

I'm not trying to insult you, I'm just saying your conclusions are inaccurate.

Well even if you didn't try to insult me you did by saying that all of my conclusions are inaccurate without providing a shred of proof or rebuttal as to how they are inaccurate. After waiting a year for this update due to constant delays I expected no less than The second dream caliber work.  Again Yes the cinematics and voice acting was great, but outside of that you know reclaiming memories that were only light figures. Could no one draw some highly detailed stills, create a cinematic scene to showcase those 'horrors'? Almost an entire year and that's what we got....light figures. The end product felt rushed, incomplete, almost as if it did not belong. 

Draco, Viver, E Gate where host to AFK Farms and now Akkad/Berehenia(?) are the new spots almost same meta setup. Like I said above this was the perfect opportunity for them to showcase some really great talent and creative ideas.  I want to see this game grow and evolve, but it can only rely on the same formula for so long.

This criticism is realistic because I gave my views and stances on the aspects of said quest and they are just as valid as anyone else. Again provide evidence for my inaccuracies if you wish to sway my opinion.

 

Edited December 11, 2016 by (PS4)Tenchi145
Clarity

[Snib]

Speak for yourself, I always solo Kuva Siphons and Floods, they are trivially easy and the mechanics just replicate what you already had to do in the quest itself, there is nothing surprising there (also I have no trouble seeing in Eris, maybe check your monitor's contrast setting, might be a bit high).

In other words, your criticism isn't realistic, it's entirely subjective and most of it isn't even about the quest but rather about your trouble grasping the new mechanics and general player behaviour.

The quests in the Kuva Fortress are already more complex than their counterparts on other planets, and the result is that few players ever go there. That's expected player behaviour in a game where time is your main commodity. Nobody forces you to partake in it though, you are free to play the game your own way.

[(PSN)Tenchi145]

I am speaking for myself, but instead of adding anything of substance to the conversation its a 'git gud' response.  Hell I'm already 'gud' as it were I'm just pointing out what I think are flaws with the new quest and a lack of creativity with the new missions that they created. Stop with the attacking of the person who posted and attack the argument.  Sure fun is subjective, but can you really call this a quest at all? Jeez for the simple fact that from the time of my typing this 7 people somewhat agree with some of the things I said proves that others though a minority see this as a problem. I love this game. I play it like everyday, but I'm not allowed to have a problem with the presentation of a quest that spent almost an entire year in the making.

[Snib]

I'm not sure I'd call it a quest, as you said it's mostly a tutorial. It also advances the story-line a tiny little bit and introduces a bunch of new mechanics and systems. It's not fair to say they spent an entire year just on this though. Don't forget that update 19 was split into several parts and TWW was just the last of them. 

I can see why you're disappointed after the massive story-line advancement that the Second Dream had been but I don't think it's that easy to replicate every time. Second Dream was a huge turning point in the game's story-line whereas TWW is just a continuation of that. I agree with you that showing us some of those memories of the Orokin era rather than just giving us those spectres and voice overs would have been nice but it would have made it more expensive and cost more time that they probably didn't have (it's not like they just worked at those cinematics - the guys doing those also had to animate a bunch of new frames, weapons and stances in the meantime).

Last but not least, if you see a personal attack in my post that's a problem with your perception. I don't see one and I didn't mean one, either.