5+5 (five good and five bad)...

[Tekkor]

Hey everyone. I just wanted to give a few thoughts on the game launch and some things I have seen so far. I run a Youtube channel and do alot of previews and quicklooks. I am currently starting a series for Defiance as well.

However one thing that puzzles me is how many people come into the forums and put up complaints on the game in regards to things that were made completely obvious in pre-release videos and previews. I find it so hard to believe that people just blindly spend $60 on a game and then come here and post threads complaining about how they feel ripped off because of things they could have found out by watching a few videos prior to purchase. But....anyway..

Here is a list of my 5 things I like and 5 things I dislike about my first 2 days of Defiance. Feel free to add your own lists and perhaps it will help the devs to focus on the areas that need more work.


Likes:

• Vehicles. I see people complain about the handling and whatever. I dont agree. I think they handle fine and are fun to use. I would like to see regular motorcycles at some point.
  
  
• Gunplay. I think the action of shooting and the combat "feel" is excellent overall.
  
  
• Environment. Well done. Again I see people complain but I love the look and feel of the game world. Beats the hell out of standing in one place in Wow and queuing instances for 70 levels.
  
  
• Shadow Wars. Excellent idea and setup. Needs some tweaks to player to player damage perhaps and some weapon "tweaks" but the concept is great.
  
  
• Questing Style. I have to say Im a fan of the way they did the whole questing system being based off the map the way it is. I like how it encourages you to move about the game world and do different challenges and missions. I hate the standard MMO systems of "Go to this town..grab these 5 quests...finish..move to this hub...then next one...". I know it sorta progresses the same way but the layout of it is much better I feel.

Dislikes:

• The UI. I know this has been discussed alot. I know I will eventually get used to it. I already am in some ways. I just feel Trion could have made a bit better effort to customize the UI a bit to the PC players.
  
  
• Chat. It sucks. They need to make a more standard chat window down in the bottom right. Make it easily collapsible if people want. But I want a chat window that I can leave up that displays around 8-10 lines of chat. Make it happen.
  
  
• Voice comms. Something is whacked.
  
  
• Arkfall rewards. I guess they are still disabled. This needs to be fixed. The reward for doing them is very close to not being worth it. I expect them to fix this as they did with Rifts in the other game. But they need to be more worthwhile in this game. Its the backbone of the entire game. If you get people avoiding them there will be a huge problem.
  
  
• Inventory. Needs to be some filter options added or something. If I want to just see Assault rifles there needs to be a way.

Anyway...overall I think Trion has done a great job. I really look forward to the future for this game and the tie to the tv series in a few weeks. I have confidence in Trion to continue to work at making the game great. I hope they come through.

Feel free to add your shortlist as well.

Also for those interested my channel is at:

Tekk's Tavern: http://www.youtube.com/user/TekkorGJC

[Dustin1280]

I like you good sir... Constructive criticism and I agree with all your points...

[RedSparrows]

A thoughtful post! On an official forum? Whoda thunk?

I like the UI up to a point, and I agree that the Arkfalls need spicing up. Also, voice comms. On 360 they just don't seem to exist... (outside of 360 parties)...

[Tekkor]

Thanks for the comments. I think there is a great game here that just needs some really focused fixes to happen fairly quick so they dont lose to many players and potential players from complaints etc.

[bleuzarro]

all of these are great points.

biggest concerns: weapons/loot/outfits.

It may just be me, but a simple cosmetic change can do a world of difference when sitting around killing the same mob of enemies. I have been enjoying the story missions though.

Not a huge deal, but kinda weird. Falling - can fall from any height and you live, no damage. yet you try to swim a little bit from one bit of land to the next that you can clearly see, instead of driving, and you die. Water is lava? Alien races cant swim? Seems silly.

I enjoyed my first couple of arkfalls, and then realized they take forever, and you get practically no benefit from doing them. So I am already shying away from them. They just become another nuisance. If they added rewards, I would be all into it. Especially cool achievements that got you some cool gear (I know sounds a little WoW-y.) But something that SHOWS that I've done something. Since everyone already looks exactly alike as it is. Sigh.

[dreadburn]

Thanks for the comments. I think there is a great game here that just needs some really focused fixes to happen fairly quick so they dont lose to many players and potential players from complaints etc.

I like your first post constructive criticism that was well presented.

just to link from a Defiance dev that posted about what is getting fixed

http://forums.defiance.com/showthrea...-of-ours-it-is

This day has been long coming. Sometimes you hear sayings like “it takes 9 months to have a baby” and “9 women can’t make a baby in a month”. Those more familiar with the matter have pointed out to me that this was closer to “9 months of giving birth”, hit me over the head and said I should stop using sayings I don’t really understand. It’s the Icelander in me, sorry.

This first day of launch of Defiance, a PC-PS3-XBOX360-massively-online-tv-show-connected-third-person-open-world-shooter, has been as awesome as we expected it to be. And by awesome, I mean we’re neck deep addressing all the issues that come up when you scale something up to a million people from a test environment of thousands.

And we expected to be doing that. All our team is here, 150 people, all on it and will be in the next weeks because that’s what you do with massive online games. Keep the team, update, patch, fix, improve. We notice, we listen, we honestly do. Of the issues that we are working on right now, these are an example of the highest priority for us.

• Connectivity – Being able to connect, patch and play. This has a number of things that can be plaguing you depending on platform and what version of the game you have. We’re on it like a shark during winter solstice.
  
  
• Pre-order items – WHERE ARE THEY?!?!? We have a number of cases where they aren’t being delivered to you. We know. They haven’t disappeared nor will they. They might pop up suddenly over the next hours, the next time you log on or tomorrow.
  
  
• Bosses and Arkfalls – They might be very difficult as they scale and the rewards not in any sane correlation to what they should be, being this difficult. You’re right, it’s not right. On it.
  
  
• Chat and VOIP – This isn’t broken, we just believe people should use their psychic abilities more. Can you hear what I’m saying to you right now? Yes, exactly. We’re working on it.

But one thing which you may or may not be accustomed to. We may take down our servers to deploy patches or improvements to them. We do this far more frequently than others. This may be frequent and annoying during the first days of launch but believe me when I say this, we’re doing it to make your experience better.


You may ask yourself, “where is my issue on this list of yours you inbred viking trying to fool me with humor and shark?” Don’t worry, we have a long list of issues logged based on your feedback through Customer Support, Forums, stalking you in-game and server data. But those four are an example of those that are affecting the largest number of people.

At the end of the day – which btw, our day never does, we’re here 24/7 – we reach around each other and are happy. Happy that our voyage is just beginning, from today, with you onboard. We appreciate the trust that you are showing us by coming with us and we will address all these issues.

Ave Arkhunter,

Oveur

So as he said they are getting sorted and not just the ones he mentioned

[Neokro]

Environment. Well done. Again I see people complain but I love the look and feel of the game world. Beats the hell out of standing in one place in Wow and queuing instances for 70 levels.

Yea, ever since they deleted all the quest zones in WoW.... wait they didn't, no one is forcing you to do 70 levels in dungeons

Other than that, well written post, I agree on pretty much everything, and I have hope that your dislikes will be improved / fixed in future patches

[Tekkor]

Thanks Dreadburn. The link/quote is appreciated. He actually covered a few of the items specifically in that post. Great to hear. I was always impressed overall with Trion in regards to updates on Rift. I also liked the willingness to try new things in Rift. Not to just copy every other MMO out there. I hope they continue that.

Im really excited for the future of this game. I just hope they can push quickly through the early bumps here. As everyone knows...you only get one launch on a MMO (unless your like EVE I guess) to make an impression. Many that trip at launch never recover. I dont think that happens here...I trust Trion at this point.

[Tekkor]

Yea, ever since they deleted all the quest zones in WoW.... wait they didn't, no one is forcing you to do 70 levels in dungeons...

Yeah I know....but in truth people playing Wow now...thats what they generally do. You can get to max level in half the time by just running 5 man instances. It sad but most people do that. But point taken. =)

[Wreknar]

I'll join in on this....

Likes

• Open World - I love that I can start running around the world shooting and advancing my EGO rating anywhere I want. Add to that if I want to go back to the beginning areas and level mutants or hellbugs, I can, and still be rewarded for it.
• Flat-ish Power Curve - I absolutely have to salute Trion for flattening the power-creep here. Nothing is more frustrating than not being able to do a damn thing to that max level player, when starting the game. And with that I don't mean he isn't noticeably stronger than I am starting out, but at least I have a chance.
• Random Events - Coupled with an open world setting, roaming around aimlessly is fun. Like an open box of "arm and hammer" in the fridge, when there's an element of unpredictability, the content stay fresher, longer.
• Simple, but Strong Mechanics - Nothing makes balacing harder than a convoluded web of complicated powers and mechanics. The 4 powers we have are plenty, esp when you start factoring in the 80 some odd passives.
• PVE/Shadow War Focus - I was a big fan of the APB style of gameplay, but absolutely hated that there was no PvE and PvP was completely focused on small group warfare. Defiance takes the opposite approach to content, but keeps a similar approach to gameplay and I enjoy it thoroughly. Large PvP battles, PvE content for when I feel like not competing with my fellow man, what's not to like.

Dislikes

• UI - Console port to PC, just seems lazy not to adjust it for the PC. At the very least, open up the LUA API so we can modify ourselves. Rely on the creative genious that is the creative community.
• PC Specific Options - Again, not opening up advanced video settings is just lazy. Being bottlenecked to pre-2008 graphics like the consoles is a bit of a downer.
• Insufficient Tutorials - Salvage matrix, need I say more? Ok, how about I got more information out of Grimwyrd's Defiance Beta tutorials than from the game's tutorials should say something.
• Small World - The world itself is a bit small, I can forgive this because I understand the amount of work required in creating these areas. However, I will not be so forgiving in a year if there isn't at least an equivalent amount of launch areas added to the game.
• Lack of Character and Vehicle Customization - I'm a big fan of games where I can tweak every last detail of my characters and vehicles. I suppose I'm spoiled with games like APB, Skyrim, Mass Effect(s), Dragon Age, etc., but I really like being able to fine tune and really make my character my own. The same goes with vehicles, again, really just go back and look at APB for a perfect example.