Plains of Don't Play Together Maybe And With Little Direction

[IEpicWolfI]

Below are my main gripes with the update. I sincerely hope that someone from the development team sees it.

 

So, the update dropped. Great, it's really sweet- the new NPCs, the hub, the map. Amazing. It would have been double that if I could play with my friends. Which I can't.

 

 It starts easy enough- we group up in our Orbiters then decide to go to Cestus together. Nope, can't have that. Even though we're apparently in the same instance, we can not see one another. Okay maybe let's try to go to the Plains and fix that. Nope, can't have that. Just an endless 'Waiting for other players...'. Okay, another try- one of us goes to the Plains then invites the rest. Holy molly, Batman- it works. Okay, let's go back into the hub together. 'Friend disconnected from game' upon coming back. Great start.

 

 Then the biggest issue of all, aside from bugs. The lack of direction.

 We're introduced to a whole new culture of people and a 'new' way to play Warframe by landing in a hub and.. that's it. We're forced to discover the whole place on our own terms, without any sense of direction at all. There are shops, cool. Oh, they require x resource to get anything. Okay, how do I get them. Uh, no idea. Okay let's try the bounty guy. Okay he has some missions, I guess, let's go do those. You come back, you manage to trade some standing for items. Cool, so to get more stuff you need more standing but to get anything you need standing. So you're hampering your progress if you want to buy anything new- kind of annoying. Why can't we use credits, they're meant to be universal in the Origin system. Plus with the presence of the Corpus, you'd think it would be a viable option.

 Next, we're stripped of our Focus powers. Okay, I re-unlocked by school of choice- Madurai. I unlock the first ability and the rest are locked? I'm told to seek out the Quills? What are the Quills? The game doesn't tell you. It doesn't help that the Quill syndicate is not only HIDDEN but also locked behind a bugged wall. I can't get in. I can't progress my Focus tree. My Operator is currently as 'useless' as she was before. There's no introduction to this new system, or the new hub or the new NPCs what so ever. It's like we're back before the tutorial revamp- thrown into the game with no sense of direction, explanation, anything. Additionally, we're not told that in order to use our Archwing on the plains, we have to research a module in the Dojo that takes 72hrs to complete. Cool, only have to wait three days to use one of the main features that the update was advertised with. Ugh.

 Coming to the hub for the first time, we're given a short little cinematic- same one from the PoE reveal. Then we see same NPCs, cutting same piece of meat off the same piece of Orokin rock over and over. Fair enough, but once they cut it off, nothing happens. Kind of kills the immersion, could easily have them at least cut some pieces, show they're doing something but standing there. Following that, we don't know why we're on the plains other than for new missions. The new quest is kind of okay but this place -screams- for a big cinematic quest that would introduce us to all new systems, new enemies, perhaps a new Grineer or otherwise villain, with that big*ss Orokin tower behind us looking like the 'final level' where we would fight them. But as far as I can tell, it's just a pretty piece of background.

( Also, this isn't a huge thing just an idea, it would have been neat to have more animals int he Plains. Like some, big heckin monster buffalo roaming about, antelopes, wolves or something, to make it feel alive )

 

 Overall, the update is great. While I'm not a fan of the new warframe in terms of visual design, the rest is really neat. I just wish that, since a new writer was hired sometime recently, that it would have meant we'd get more immersive, great writing and quests in the game. Despite all the new things, PoE feels hollow right now. Probably not to you, reader, but to me it does. And it falls flat when I can't even have fun with friends or progress when I don't even know what I'm doing. Or the lag, though I presume that will be fixed soon. Hopefully.

 

 And finally (for now) water. Why can't we swim. Why does water drain our energy. What the heck.

 

 

 There, /rant. Well, not really rant, just some (hopefully) constructive criticism of a 4-years-and-going veteran who wants to see the game do the best it possibly can. I do hope someone from the dev team sees it, though I doubt it.

EDIT: Heck, posted in the wrong  section, meant to go to feedback.

Edited October 13, 2017 by IEpicWolfI