The Sacrifice (Review, SPOILERS)

[Faerren]

After we got done with Second Dream and War Within, we had a feeling that the story was "complete for now". After Apostasy Prologue and The Sacrifice, the feeling is more like each installment will continue to have an awkward cliffhanger (especially when the dialogue implied we were about to go on a chase).

This could "necessary" if the story arc is a long-game thing, but it certainly does dampen the hype. I was also amazed with the ease that umbra fell into our laps (minus his attack spam). I think more story and struggle could have been bound up in us rebuilding and calming him, which also would have helped build out the story that was in the quest. Yes, we can only get so much story, but there's also the opportunity to pause and flesh that story through the combination of gameplay, dialogue, and scenes.

And we'll get Komi in our clans, right??

[Godin_The_Killer]

3 hours ago, Shoelip said:

Just since you genuinely seem not to realize this from how consistently you've misspelled it, they're called Sentients, not Sentinents.

I must've spelled it wrong in autocorrect, I got tired of seeing the red bar whoops

 

 

Fixed 😄

[RacerDelux]

They specifically said this update was for the quest, and was not a "content heavy" update. They said this MANY times. The content you want will be revealed in a month at tennocon...

[Godin_The_Killer]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Warframe2052018 said:

Wait,

  Hide contents

I thought Ballas just got wounded. He died?! Really?! He was JUST introduced into the game! 

 

Ballas has been in the lore for a while, we just never saw him.

And as far as him being dead, we don't know. Probably, that body is, but Ballas himself, I doubt it.

[Godin_The_Killer]

Just now, RacerDelux said:

They specifically said this update was for the quest, and was not a "content heavy" update. They said this MANY times. The content you want will be revealed in a month at tennocon...

They also said things like "ayatan sculptures would become more important come this update".

[RacerDelux]

1 minute ago, Godin_The_Killer said:

They also said things like "ayatan sculptures would become more important come this update".

That could have been scrapped, or been delayed, or maybe they are considering I need to go buy 110k endo worth of sculptures now.

[Perisie]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Warframe2052018 said:

Wait,

  Reveal hidden contents

I thought Ballas just got wounded. He died?! Really?! He was JUST introduced into the game! 

 

He is Orokin. Even if he died from the sword wound (which it isn't perfectly clear he did) he's still not dead. There is a certain lore you can access that describes someone slaughtering a room full of Orokin and the reaction of the survivors is to laugh at him, because since they're Orokin, they'll simply move on to a new body.

[(PSN)Warframe2052018]

15 minutes ago, Croix_Bartel said:

He is Orokin. Even if he died from the sword wound (which it isn't perfectly clear he did) he's still not dead. There is a certain lore you can access that describes someone slaughtering a room full of Orokin and the reaction of the survivors is to laugh at him, because since they're Orokin, they'll simply move on to a new body.

 

20 minutes ago, Godin_The_Killer said:

Ballas has been in the lore for a while, we just never saw him.

And as far as him being dead, we don't know. Probably, that body is, but Ballas himself, I doubt it.

Thanks for the replies. Yeah I am aware of those parts, I just hope they stick to it! We'll see how it goes. 

[RazorTip]

1 hour ago, (PS4)Warframe2052018 said:

Wait,

  Hide contents

I thought Ballas just got wounded. He died?! Really?! He was JUST introduced into the game! 

 

Don't think he died, folks are just jumping to conclusions. He was stabbed, fell down, and for all we know, passed out from shock and blood loss.

I've got a feeling this isn't the last we've seen of him.

Imho, the quest was okay, nothing amazing from a gameplay point of view, yeah, but lore-wise it did answer some questions we've had for a while now, also raising some new questions, so the community can discuss and come up with their theories.

Could it have been longer? Definitely. 

Could it have been better? Probably.

Is it a disappointment? Personally, I'm okay with it. If others are not... well, that's them. It's subjective.

[NecromancerX69]

5 hours ago, PapaWeeb said:

The mods work on all frames/weapons, you just can't forma for them. Will take a lot of forma to build around them, sure, but definitely a power increase

Well I didn't knew at the time since I tried to forma on another warframe, still maybe DE didn't wanted these mods to be shared on other warframes or they forgot to add the Umbra Polarity.

[Neferatem]

Without make any spoilers , I have to say , the lore is totally a 10/10 , very very appreciated the fact of getting all you get crafted and potatoed already, and can't wait to see what you got for us after the tennocon DE 😄  , keep up the good work please ❤️

[Koshxs]

So I was pretty excited when I found out The Sacrifice would be the last quest in the trilogy (The Second Dream, The War Within, The Sacrifice).

This is me at the end of The Sacrifice:

And this is DE:

 

Now don't get me wrong. I love DE and Warframe. Like OP said, this is my #1 game... but... come on people... You can't do this. 

Ok you already did it.. but please at least end the story!

Oh I know.. I know..! This was just part 1 of the Sacrifice right? Or maybe you plan to release an equivalent of Apostasy Prologue like a "Apostasy Conclussion" or "Something Ending"... right? Probably within a month...? Before people start lighting up the torches and sharpening the pitchforks.... right?

 

... right?

[RacerDelux]

2 hours ago, Koshxs said:

Oh I know.. I know..! This was just part 1 of the Sacrifice right? Or maybe you plan to release an equivalent of Apostasy Prologue like a "Apostasy Conclussion" or "Something Ending"... right? Probably within a month...? Before people start lighting up the torches and sharpening the pitchforks.... right?

Warframe's story isn't about to end... They are setting up for the next set of quests. My guess is that they are going to explore a new aspect of warframe lore, hence the end of the trilogy.

[Astrokhan]

To be perfectly honest, when compared to the actual mechanics of the previous quests, TSD and TWW, I felt this one was inferior to them. To me, lorewise, it was quite interesting, learning about Ballas' transgressions, the origin of Umbra and more. My gripe is that it sort of feels like a sped up highlight reel. Whereas I vividly remember the burrowing moster with the orokin mask in TWW, The fight with the Queen, The trek up the mountain. In this quest, it seemed to be a little sparse with only the final part (the weird colour filter they applied when you advanced towards Umbra under that tree on that floating island) sticking out. To be perfectly frank, I perhaps hyped myself up a little too much, seeing as they had so much time to get it all done, I sort of expected a little more, maybe? I'm definitely not saying it was terrible and that DE are the worst devs ever and that I'm boycotting Warframe, but I did come to expect a little more from DE. Hopefully the announcements at Tennocon will make up for it.

Also, the Umbra feels like a reskinned Excal with a gimick. It's really not that interesting. Almost as if DE had to stick the Chinese Excal Prime somewhere and decided that "hey, let's make a whole quest about it".

[(PSN)Silverback73]

21 hours ago, ShinTechG said:

Sigh...

I don't normally do reviews but figured I would do a quick one since I was so hyped for this quest. The reason for this not being long is NOT because I am excited to get back to Warframe, but because I want to just go sleep with disappointment now.

 

The lore was great. Never saw that coming! I am glad we got answers to a lot of questions. Also, a lot of new doors opened that foreshadow the future of Warframe lore. 10/10 for lore.

However, unlike the Second Dream and War Within quest, after the Sacrifice quest was done for me, I am feeling very empty, like not much was given to us out of this. Yes, we got the exalted weapons and new Umbra mods and a weapon but, where is the rest of the content? Or at least, that is how I feel.  For the FINAL cinematic quest in this trilogy, I just feel like we could have gotten more out of this as far as features after the update. The quest is not even replayable for now to at least go over the lore and data that new device installed in the orbiter gave (ballas logs), or at least I am not aware of any way to listen to it again. 

 

I am actually really sad to write this review because Warframe is my number 1 game, and I love it so much along with the wonderful community and dev team. I guess I just expected more from The Sacrifice. 

 

It feels very much like Apostacy Part Deux.

Having said that, I believe this is only half of the actual Sacrifice Quest, with the Second part to be teased at Tennocon.

I watched a Twitch-partner literally freak out at the ending.

DE MUST know that if there is no follow-up surprise at Tennocon, the disappointment will be severe.

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

22 hours ago, ShinTechG said:

Sigh...

I don't normally do reviews but figured I would do a quick one since I was so hyped for this quest. The reason for this not being long is NOT because I am excited to get back to Warframe, but because I want to just go sleep with disappointment now.

 

The lore was great. Never saw that coming! I am glad we got answers to a lot of questions. Also, a lot of new doors opened that foreshadow the future of Warframe lore. 10/10 for lore.

However, unlike the Second Dream and War Within quest, after the Sacrifice quest was done for me, I am feeling very empty, like not much was given to us out of this. Yes, we got the exalted weapons and new Umbra mods and a weapon but, where is the rest of the content? Or at least, that is how I feel.  For the FINAL cinematic quest in this trilogy, I just feel like we could have gotten more out of this as far as features after the update. The quest is not even replayable for now to at least go over the lore and data that new device installed in the orbiter gave (ballas logs), or at least I am not aware of any way to listen to it again. 

 

I am actually really sad to write this review because Warframe is my number 1 game, and I love it so much along with the wonderful community and dev team. I guess I just expected more from The Sacrifice. 

 

Its because of all the hype. No matter, the quest or rewards could never top the hype... Or the long wait.

 

[(PSN)big_eviljak]

25 minutes ago, Astrokhan said:

To be perfectly honest, when compared to the actual mechanics of the previous quests, TSD and TWW, I felt this one was inferior to them. To me, lorewise, it was quite interesting, learning about Ballas' transgressions, the origin of Umbra and more. My gripe is that it sort of feels like a sped up highlight reel. Whereas I vividly remember the burrowing moster with the orokin mask in TWW, The fight with the Queen, The trek up the mountain. In this quest, it seemed to be a little sparse with only the final part (the weird colour filter they applied when you advanced towards Umbra under that tree on that floating island) sticking out. To be perfectly frank, I perhaps hyped myself up a little too much, seeing as they had so much time to get it all done, I sort of expected a little more, maybe? I'm definitely not saying it was terrible and that DE are the worst devs ever and that I'm boycotting Warframe, but I did come to expect a little more from DE. Hopefully the announcements at Tennocon will make up for it.

Also, the Umbra feels like a reskinned Excal with a gimick. It's really not that interesting. Almost as if DE had to stick the Chinese Excal Prime somewhere and decided that "hey, let's make a whole quest about it".

Actually, DE wasn't planning on this. Founders threw a fit when Chinese build got umbra excal prime. Us console players threw a fit because we weren't given the option to get excal prime... So DE had to evolve on the fly.

As is, steve said they only started working on this a couple months ago. They hadnt had any time before... With poe and the like. Plus there was too much hype... Just too much build up. Nothing wouldve been able to live up to that.

[Ham_Grenabe]

It was about par for the course for a Warframe quest: a couple bits of lore and one solid visual moment. 

[Yarwin]

This quest seemed very well done technologically, but very poorly written. In Prologue, the Lotus just walk away. She had defied Hunghow to take care of Tenno, and now she just walks away? Well, there must be a reason. We'll see in the quest... Nope. The quest fails to address this at all. In the end, Lotus shows up, "This is who I am" to parallel the "this is who you are" - and then says something like "the star awaits me", and is gone again. Thus, the issue raised in a prologues is never resolved.

1. Ballas. So he's the bad guy. Why would Lotus go with a bad guy, especially given that "who she is" is not Marghulis? Not addressed.

2. Lotus sacrificing everything to help Tenno. She says the turned againt Hunghow to become "a mother" to Tenno. Now, she is just leaving without a slightest explanation, twice. This is not only damaging the current quest that was expected to reveal the truth behind the prologue, but it is retrospectively damaging the grandeur of the previous quests. Lotus got "broken", the emotional connection that the previous quests so hard worked on, trashed. Say, you needed to get the Lotus/Rebecca out of the game - there are ways to do it with a tear and warm goodbye, and some damn good reasons, not like "get lost my child, a star is calling me."

3. Ballas helping Hunhow because he wanted Natah to be like Marghulis - how could he at all foresee/influence Natah's choice if Hanghow couldn't? A questionable stretch, also un-answered.

4. Ballas is so evil that he just made some guy into a warframe and then made him kill his own son, so now he is howling at the cemetery... Lotus is in for some twisted personalities?

So in dry total, we have the Umbra, we have some lore, the quest was well executed, but it was very very weak in development. Questions we had were not ansered. Relational issue were not resolved. It is understandable when a quest leaves some open doors, but not addressing the main plot lines set in prologue is just not the same. Sad to see this weakness given the next level of really good execution technically and artistically. 

I am actually in Warframe for the story, not the grind. Sadly, did not feel like I got a good story this time.

Edited June 16, 2018 by Yarwin

[RavenX99]

I have really mixed feelings about The Sacrifice. 

I like DE.  I know they're working hard, and I know they're trying to do their best.  You can't make all the people happy all of the time, and maybe I was just destined to be outside that "happy" group this time.  I hope my feedback is seen as constructive.

I always enjoy seeing more lore fleshed out (though as some have pointed out, if you've read all the codex entries and connected the dots, you already knew (or heavily suspected) that Warframes are people modified by Infestation, etc, so this wasn't a reveal so much as it was confirmation).

I liked the Operator interacting with Ordis... it was a little weird at first, but I'd love to have more of it.  Maybe the best part of this quest was seeing my Operator develop more personality, though temporarily.  (I regret that every voice line has to be recorded four different times... it makes more Operator lines expensive.)

I really think the core of the story was really, really neat.  There's this Warframe in a state of constant torture, and we rescue him, sooth his pain, and give him purpose.  (Let's not dwell on the fact that he was destroyed and we recreated him.)  The *emotional* story of Warframe is a big chunk of what keeps me coming back.

But I have a lot of the issues others have, with my own twist:

This doesn't feel like part of the trilogy.  TSD and TWW were about *us*, as the Operator.  TS was only marginally about us... it was about Ballas, whom we just met, and the dude who became Excal Umbra, whom we just met.  It told us almost nothing about *ourselves*, except that we can control the warframes because, basically, we have compassion for them.  And that little tidbit I *really* like... I've only been playing for 3 months, so all of it is very fresh for me, and I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about "what is going on in my Operator's head, what is her life really like?"  Telling us that we're *better people* because of what we've been through is good character building.

I think we were led to believe that we were going to rescue the Lotus.  The Prologue was us losing her, this quest starts with us visiting her helmet, so I expected this follow-up to *explain what happened* and get her back, or if we don't get her back, I expected *her*, and our relationship to her, to be the focus and to understand, at least a little, why we didn't get her back.  Not have her appear at the end for (apparently) no reason and mysteriously disappear with no explanation.  This is part of why I don't feel like it's part of the TSD/TWW story arc.  At the beginning of the arc, she helps us rescue ourselves... the end of the arc is when we rescue her, and learn more of "who we are" (emotionally, I think) in the process.  Or we don't rescue her, and we accept this and move on, and learn more of "who we are" with the apron strings cut.  But either way, this story was, in my mind, supposed to be about the Lotus and our Operator, with Ballas as a foil to create tension.  Don't get me wrong, the story of ExUmbra and our Operator is one worth telling, because it also tells me more about "who we are".  But it was not the story I was expecting to get here.  I feel like this was a bait-and-switch of sorts, and even that wouldn't be so bad if I didn't expect to wait 12 months or more for the "Lotus and Me" story.

Something I've not seen anybody point out here... the quest was annoyingly repetitive and grindy.  It started with something new... Ghouls in an Earth forest.  But then it was just "fight sentients, fight umbra, fight sentients, fight umbra, fight sentients alongside Umbra".  And for someone with just a Mote Amp, that's tediously slow.  And then the final fight against Umbra... it loses all tension when you realize you *can't lose*... you just keep getting reset.  And I couldn't find any real strategy for the EU fights... he keeps stun-locking you, you can't block his attacks, etc.  So the strategy just seems to be "beam him until he kills you, rinse, repeat" The other two cinematic quests had a lot more varied and interesting battles.  I pretty much found zero of the fights *interesting*, which I think is really critical in the cinematic quest... the fights have to be important and interesting.  I know Warframe is a "grinder" but I expect something different out of cinematic quests, in part because that's what we got in the past.

I feel weird getting Excal Umbra at max rank.  I feel like I didn't "earn" it.  Honestly, when I realized I had control of a max-rank Excal Umbra, I told my wife, "They're not going to let us keep him like this."  I full expected it to be taken away so we could properly earn it.  (Though, THANK YOU, DE, for not making building the frame take 3 days, or 12 hours, or whatever, and slow down experiencing the quest.)

Overall, I can't say I *disliked* it.  But I feel like I could have liked it a whole lot more if, basically, it'd been either: the story I was expecting, or had really engaging fights.

 

[(PSN)cjdreadful]

I bet DE has made a string of quests related to the current situation in the warframe universe and are getting ready to release them all this year. Maybe just wishful thinking but....I think they gave us the sacrifice as is cause they said they would before tennocon. Then Meg said we'd have it that week so they pushed to get it out that week. At least they try to stick to their word. It'd be better to release smaller quests throughout the year IMO than once a year. Theyll tease something cinematic for Tennocon and solar rails is in the talks again and the kingpin system as well so. Like ballas' sword?? The one they teased in devstreams? Where's that? They're sitting on it for something. They didn't just scrap that beauty. Don't worry tenno. Its just beginning and I don't think we'll have to wait another year. 

[Aleksi134]

I was expecting personally some new focus tree upgrades to have something to farm...but i guess not. Also they said ayatans would play a big role but in the end they didnt play any role in the quest or after it.

[Yarwin]

Maybe they are planning to continue this later and answer what happened to Lotus that "broke" her. It's just that they said they were doing this quest as a final third in the series, and that does presuppose some finality. We will now be left with the blue replica Lotus... I would rather have it off or have Ordis speak that text rather than have that replica for gods-know-how long more.

[Yarwin]

6 hours ago, Aleksi134 said:

I was expecting personally some new focus tree upgrades to have something to farm...but i guess not. Also they said ayatans would play a big role but in the end they didnt play any role in the quest or after it.

They made a lot of work, and they are still working on Venus at the same time. So they have been doing very well in efficiently making new cool stuff.

[Vosik_Blood_Of_Oryx]

This is how I think it will work. This trilogy is over but they are setting up a whole new trilogy that will be going over many things I have theorized. 

The homeworld theory. I believe that we as teno will be heading soon to the orican homeworld to face whatever evil is there and either get back our lotus showing once and for all that we have grown up or we will be there to fix the orican homeworld and save the human race.

 

(sorry is i spelled anything wrong im dyslexic)