Feedback: "Who Will Die?" Part 1

On the subject of the fake exit in the first mission, this was actually something I noticed immediately as I came in. I wondered why a pink cave entrance was doing in Oranbega, and inferred that either it's just decoration to depict where the monsters came in from, or I would have to use it at some point later in the mission.

So the counter started and I skipped all the Minions of Igneous on the way, believeing I didn't have time to fight them, unaware that they gave a time bonus. How I was supposed to infer that with no instructions, I do not know, but 2 minutes is not enough to fight four spawns of 5 Pimicites. I ran back to the entrance, noticed I had a minute and a half and decided to fight the last spawn there. In the process, Caption dialogue happened that I couldn't read because I can't fight AND read fast enough to beat the caption fade. However, upon checking my NPC tab, I found that it said the Igneous had blocked the entrance. "Aha! So THAT'S what that tunnel entrance was for!"

I made it out of the mission with time to spare, about 30-40 seconds or some such.

I'm finding that while there ARE instructions, they show up in captions that appear when I'm fighting so I can't read them. Here's a pro-tip, guys: Caption boxes ARE NOT a form of voice over. They're not a source of information I can absorb into my brain without taking time away from what I'm doing, and when I'm fighting for my life, I can't do that. Don't treat caption boxes like you're putting voice overs that take no extra attention to listen to.

In fact, when giving instructions, put them in clues, if possible. Just short, simple clues of a single sentence across two lines of text. I don't need to sitcom levels of conversational discourse because I CANNOT READ FAST ENOUGH.

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Overall, upon reflection, I found the "SSA" to be too short and WAAAY too gimmicky for my tastes. It's a decent distraction, make no mistake. Definitely something I'll do again on both sides. But as something I have to PAY for? I'll stick to World Wide Red, the Eternal Nemesis or Division: Line. Or if we want to be fair to the SSA's expected level range, I'll stick to Mercedesh Sheldon and Keith Nancy or alternately Dean and Vincent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Just played the mission Villain-side with my level 22 Stalker. Had a *much* better time. (Previously I played Hero-side on my level 10 Scrapper.) I loved getting the speed and powers of Synapse, and the ambushes were far more manageable. Also, being a Stalker, I was able to creep up and do an Assassin's Strike on Statesman! Yeah, I faceplanted a half-second later, but that was so worth it. I think I'm going to run the arc one more time, stand in the middle of the Phalanx, and hit Self-Destruct just to see what happens!

Then I'll go back to Hero-side and play the mission again from that perspective, see if it's any better now that I know what to expect.

Heh, the Devs just can't win.

Put out a new mission with familiar mechanics, and it's "nothing new".

Add new mechanics and you get "how was I supposed to figure that out; it's new!"

Put in instructions, and you get "I can't read all that while playing!"

Just have fun making your game, Devs, most of us will have fun playing it (most of the time ).

Yeah, I'll echo some of the previous comments and reactions in the thread.

Ok first thing, I've only run it twice, once redside with a plant/fire dominator and once blueside with a ill/rad controller.

I ran into it first getting the ping from Alastor when I hit the right level. Ok, new contact, neat. I'd seen him before on the mini map and the name made sense now.

Now the first nitpick came when I *met* Alastor. I'd read that Task/Strike forces will override all other missions, you can't do anything while you're on one. However, I didn't know you couldn't cancel out of one. I checked him out, poked at what was up, didn't mean to accept then was slightly miffed to find I couldn't back out and decide to do it later. A slight warning would've been nice, but I am just a newbie and a solo player so maybe someone else would've known better. It was also made better by the fact that the arc is only 3 relatively short missions instead of the 7 I was expecting at first XD

Ok so First mission, yeah, it goes smoothly up until you meet the Circle of Thorns dude you talk to and suddenly you're mobbed and have a timer and you're not really told what to do. I completely missed the 2nd exit and it left me kind of flustered, to the point I took a break for the night after finishing it (So, first run took 15 hours unintentionally).

Things went *much* smoother with the controller, once the cave in started I just hit my superior invisibility and scurried past all the mobs. I found the entrance to the alt exit, but I guess I took a wrong branch because I never did get the actual exit, I hit a dead end and by then time ran out. Is there any extra reward or anything for getting out in time? It didn't seem to make a difference, I just got auto ejected out and all that.

Second mission was better, though my dominator died a couple times when I had to run through all the mobs to get Alastor to teleport the MASSIVE mob of PPD (Lack of Seeds of confusion, that'll help next run >>). Controller had little problem, though it was the mission I learned that clicking on glowies will blow your invisibility XD Still, no deaths that time, just a bit of scuffing.

Third mission, I had agreed to help the Circle member so he tagged along with my dominator. Helped out considerably, though there were plenty of minions to get my Domination up, so he was more just icing, I just breezed through it and got all the nice rewards etc. On the other hand, facing an elite boss with a squishy controller with no immobilize... muuuuch harder, I died nearly half a dozen times, just running in, throwing everything I could, hosp, stock up on insps and back. Course popping up a full level regardless of all the debt was well worth it. I plan to run it again now he's a considerably higher level and he'll have Phantom Army >>

overall it's not bad, for a first try it's pretty interesting and I like the story well enough, it's a decent hook and has me curious for how it's going to evolve. The third mission map is *gorgeous* and a pretty suitably epic battleground.

Problems are pretty much as cited. First mission is probably the worst offender, once you hit the cave-in start you just hit panic mode and it really does not tell you what to do properly. had I known beating up pumicites would've extended the timer I would've probably felt better about it. A marker for the 2nd entrance wouldn't hurt either.

Second mission is pretty ok, the big mob villainside is a bit annoying but eh, if you know to expect it its not that bad.

Third mission is fairly solid, though I can see it being a bit of a brick wall for newer players trying to take down the elite, especially hero side where there's no help solo and, again, you can't back out of the arc at all. Really, first time through is probably just the 'scariest' because you've no idea what you should really be prepared for, after you know what to expect it's not so bad. In retrospect, like my Controller, I'd have waited til I hit 18 to have a better power set to deal with it all, so that's more on me, not the arc itself. Honestly same with my Dominator, though to a lesser extent, because I'd have had more group mitigation powers for those big mobs in mission 2. Really I don't see experienced players having any major problems with any of these.

So yeah, I guess overall I'd rank it like a B in general for both sides. It's got it's kinks, but in general, looking back, it's pretty fun and interesting and I'm looking forward to running it more with my other characters and trying again with the first two and bringing a friend along, and I'm looking forward to the next 6 installments.