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Trion forgot how to develop ?
Let me preface this thread with the comment "I enjoy the game Defiance"
This is not a hate post or a rant against Trion.
But....
WTF happened to Trion's quality control that they have shown to be so stellar in Rift, and so dismal in Defiance.
Yesterdays patch was 4.2 gigs, and it did very little to change the game. Prior to that the patcher, which was reported as defective numerous times in beta/alpha, the patcher is terrible.
New player experience is very underwhelming, if my 14 year old kid started this game without my assistance she would be completely lost, same with others who are not huge MMO veterans. This game is on both consoles btw, so i am pretty sure there are alot of younger teens playing this game, and alot of them are not "in the know" about some of the games very confusing concepts (think weapon leveling for example).
I really feel the development of Defiance was pushed by SyFy and it had at least another 6 months of cooking before it was to really be released.
Another thing that really confuses me, who releases a game that they want to be considered a MMO, without a useful and working chat interface for the PC, you can make all the excuses you want for Defiance but the fact that the chat is so obscure, and limited just pushes this game towards more of a non MMO. Maybe a Co-opORPG should have been a better description for the game, and could have been focused more, with less bugs. Of course i would probably not played it then.
There is a game i have been playing off and on recently (other than Defiance) it is called Warframe, while there are some minor issues with that game the developers really show a nice attention to detail. This is not really an advertisement, but more of a comparison to Trion's game, since they both are new 3rd-person shooters.
While i am thinking of this, i think retooling and refining Tabula Rasa and then SyFy making a T.V. show based ont hat would have been 100% better then what the game Defiance has given us. I still will play it and i will still support it, it is just really jarring how Trion has gone down the "Shit Brick Road" when it comes to QL for there new game.
Lolipops !
Comments
I have heard that Defiance suffers from multiple design choice failures. There are so many games out there that do third person and first person with integrated chat well. You would assume that the game developer would have researched these systems prior to the release.
On the other hand if they were forced to launch early, that could explain why some of it seems unfinished or suffers from minor bugs. I guess we just have to wait and see how Trion deals with these issues, hopefully they do Defiance justice like they did for Rift.
You care about leveling your gear right out of the box. If your 14 year old is interested in doing that, I'm quite sure she could figure it out. I think you're under-estimating her ability. My 6-year old had no trouble with the tutorial or in understanding and checking his weapon levels.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe. - Carl Sagan
Sorry there are numerous references to MMORPG by Trion when they are talking about Defiance.
I strongly doubt your 6 year old sat down with the game and had an epiphany about how you need to replace weapons once they max out the individual weapon xp in order to increase the weapon type xp.
But we will have to just agree to disagree that our kids are different. No i was not caring about leveling my gear out of the box, i read the forums and found out about this very odd mechanic in the game. If you think this is a normal mechanic and it should be duplicated in other games... well i dunno, i won't say what i want to because its offensive.
No matter, i continue to support the game, but i will not blindly support the extremely oddball decisions that Trion has made about this game.
Lolipops !
Even Trion admits their chat interface , particularly on the PC side is horrible and needs improvement badly and quickly.
Why would you try and defend them on that point ?
Thats very simple, i did not think Rift was a complete ripoff of WoW, yes it was a technical clone of WoW, but jeesh how many new MMO's are not ?
There are several things DefTrion can do to fix Defiance, i just do not see them doing it, and crap a 4.2 gig path that did nothing to change the game significantly ?
Lolipops !
- TRION added lot of flavor and slight differences, but at it's core besides WildStar it is the closest videogame to WoW, and i mean WOW. not "thempark", not EQ clone(none of these current themparks play like EQ, nto even WoW did which is why it was such a big deal). specifically it is WoW with a few fringe differences. because the total lack of discovery or risk in development they have been put on a pedestal as heroes(just followed the script perfectly, this is what the 70% of customers who left realized), but it's bunk and always has been, because there's not a single good feature in RIFT that isn't native to EQ 2 and/or WoW.
- What you're seeing with Defiance is their true nature as devs(it was apparent with EoN beta). they're little better than Funcom and this product shows it.
Defiance is easier to understand than practically any MMO I've ever played. You only start with one power on a longish cooldown, you pick a perk (the first are always related directly to that power), and you go shoot stuff. I agree that the way weapons work, how their quality is determined/displayed, and how to figure out which one is best to use for your playstyle is pretty opaque. But I've had a much trickier time understanding how to play any of GW2 classes than figuring out how to play Defiance.
As for your issues to the patch and how you perceive Trion, I don't know what to say. It would help to know what you would regard as "significant" in a bug-fixing patch, I guess. Or why the size of the patch has to relate somehow to its content. In looking at the notes themselves, it looks like a lot of areas got a pass. In truth, things have been buggier than what I would like to see in any launch but Trion has been responsive, apologetic, and quick to provide fixes for the most gamebreaking ones.
I kinda agree with this, I play defiance myself and started warframe recently too, I actually find progression in warframe a hell of alot better than in defiance, In warframe you actually get stronger where as in defiance its kinda horizontal and you never really actually get any stronger, due to the weapons not really ever having diffrent base stats, and the mods just do not add enough to them. Nevermind the fact that once you fill the weapon you are using's xp bar, and it unlocks a bonus stat (which tends to be something fairly worthless anyway) you no longer can use that weapon towards earning skill levels in that weapontype, it just stops giving your character exp towards it, forcing you to switch to a crappier non-modded weapon instead.
I especally agree on the devolopment part, Trion has really dropped the ball with defiance, Look at the one new bug with the new patch, where players were finally given the option to mute voice chat (no one wants to listen to some damn annoying teen yelling into the mic) But they somehow screwed it up and when you hit mute all, it mutes yourself, but no one else. How did something like this get past internal testing?
Also I never knew that patch was that big, what the heck did they add that made it that big? I haven't heard anything. They still have not fixed the UI so its actualy useable on a pc, I heard they actually broke the ui, where the salvage matrix no longer works at all on the pc version, when it was fine before the patch hit.
Then, after in Rift, they had it setup so they could have 2 versions of a skill, 1 for pve and 1 for pvp, but in defiance, they got lazy and just nerf stuff due to whiners in pvp without remotely considering what it'd do to the pve side. For example, rocket launchers and detonators used to be great pve weapons, till it got nerfed and their damage was set pretty low, and now they arent worth using, Only exceptions were Mass Cannons and the Ground Pounder, but oh look.. they got nerfed into crap too.
Bah this kinda turned into a Rant, the game had alot of potental and it just didn't utlize it well at all, worse part of defiance is the progression itself, and how it feels like no matter how high your Ego level goes, your gear really never gets better.
Though I do admit, the game is pretty fun to login to for an hour or 2 and just shoot stuff. Though I've pretty much stopped playing defiance for now to focus on warframe, because warframe is just more rewarding to play. Hmm.. Defiance with warframes Mod system.. that would be glorious. The weapons in warframe themselves do not get better in base stats with ranks, however each rank=1 more mod slot, My Assault rifle in warframe has 26 mod slots, and I got 2 that take 8 slots, and the rest other stuff, and its turned a pretty low damage weapon into a killing machiene. Each weapon/warframe can have 8 diffrent mods in them, adding up to whatever rank you have in it, with rank 20, u could have 2 5 point mods, and various 2-3 point mods. The mods are also upgradable by fusing them with other mods.
I also stopped defiance for now because I knew judging from the launch of defiance they were going to screw up major with the 1.0.1.0 patch, and I was planning to wait till they roll out some fixes for stuff they will break after the patch hits.
Being a pessimist is a win-win pattern of thinking. If you're a pessimist (I'll admit that I am!) you're either:
A. Proven right (if something bad happens)
or
B. Pleasantly surprised (if something good happens)
Either way, you can't lose! Try it out sometime!
my theory is they have little in the way of QA and in order to test RIFT changes they just logged into WoW/EQ.
I think we all forget that they have to deal with the nightmare Xbox is to develop on, on top of PS3 and PC.
While a 150 man development team is pretty good, dividing that up between the three platforms..well not so good apparently.
This would all be worth it if microsoft and sony stopped being nazis and let their customers play with their competition.
Only bright side of all of this is that any future cross platforms games will probably want Trion since they are the only ones right now with actual experience developing a game like this across 3 platforms.
I expected a lot of issues due to this, and it really hasnt been as bad as the doom and gloomers make it out to be.
Certainly a rocky launch thats still being ironed out. Hopefully after the next patch it will be smooth sailing through the DLC.
QFT
TYVM
Defiance is rather enjoyeable, but I would have to agree that Trion made some design choice mistakes; with the vast majority of it being on the interface side. The interface is fluid for controllers, but a little clunky for keyboard/mouse.
I terms of "getting stronger": Defiance, like most shooters in my opinion, have a rather horizontal progression to begin with. While yes, you do see some strength increases with newer or more powerful weapons; the vast majority of your strength is derived from your skill as a player and the tactics you take to complete your objective.
IMO of course.
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
Oh i totally agree also that devloping for three platforms is not going to be easy. Add to all that the pressure that SyFy is not doubt placing on them also.
Even with those caveats, i am not sure i can forgive alot of the poor decisions made by Trion.
Noy even commenting on there terrible communication, which is just the complete opposite fromt he Rift Trion.
Lolipops !
WOW clone this WOW clone that, yeah like WOW was the first mmorpg out there. Sorry to burst your bubble but WOW copied a lot from previous mmo's. Even now they take things others have done and relable it with new words and call it original. Everything has been done, not many new features will emerge in the future, as much creativity was lost with the newer aged mmo's. And most mmo's ignore or obmit old features.
Not sure who this was directed to ?
Or were you just stating how bad WoW clones are ?
Lolipops !
Terrible communication? How so? The game released on the 2nd and since then, there have been 11 blog posts on the game, half of them directly discussing problems and planned solutions at the start. None of that includes the posting on the forum by their CM. Complaints may be warranted for the state of the game but poor communication is absolutely not one of them.
Yes and those Blog posts have vanished after yesterdays terrible 4.2gig patch to nothing.
By Vanished i mean nothing new.
If i released a 4.2gig patch, (thats patch, not update... PATCH) and this massive patch showed nothing new and broke existing game aspects.... i would have more than just a m-tarded blog post up.
But sure go ahead and pretend everything is fine with Defiance, i will continue to support the game, try to enjoy it, and call bad decisions devs make.... BAD DECISIONS.
Lolipops !
Communication has been beyond average for Trion with this game. The developers are constantly communicating. When a thread goes up about issues people have with the new patch...community mod jumps in and says :moar feedback please
Even the silly live stream after the show was some solid communication and developer interaction, despite it wasnt really about addressing complaints
Im not looking for a mmorpg right now and this game has thus far provided me with a solid game that fits my bill. It has issues, despite i seem to be super lucky and dont have any issues.
Biggest complaints are about a lack of chat and the games gear not being wow-like enough...im fine with both those issues never getting fixed. I can now chat with my clan despite im in TS with them...so that got fixed.
My hope is that the next major patch hits in one week and in another week we get DLC with a new massive map. That is what i would focus on. Content makes the little shit seem as insignificant as it should be...
Raquelis in various games
Played: Everything
Playing: Nioh 2, Civ6
Wants: The World
Anticipating: Everquest Next Crowfall, Pantheon, Elden Ring
OP as far as patcher issues goes it is sitll the same as it was on the launch. They should just copy RIFT patcher because right now it seems that devs are in capable of makinga patcher with resume capability.
If the patcher closes down or crashes the entire 61 folder resets and starts downloading from the scratch. This is unacceptable when they are releasing a 4 gig patch which is just for bug fixes.
Hard to believe these people actually have a successful MMO like Rift under their belt.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney