Detritus
Sel-requested Deactivation
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2016
- Posts
- 1,084
- Avatar Name
- Detritus the Troll
I've now put in about a month of active duty, I have mixed feelings about the game. What follows are my initial impressions so far, I would be curious to hear others opinions. My activity is hunting. Sorry for wall of text, just skip this thread if you don't want to read.
The bad:
1. This game is expensive AF.
A coworker (who's been playing for a very long time) got me into it, and gave me ample warning about the cost, but I was still surprised. I don't see how anyone can deny this is a pay-to-win game. I depo'd a decent amount to cover initial equipment costs and getting my feet wet. I've now managed to level up to almost lvl 20 laser pistol, and I'm discovering that a) any decent weapon setup at that level is going to run about $500, b) I also need to throw a few hundred bucks for rings/buffs if I want to stay competitive with other players. It's becoming a pretty big turnoff for me. If I decide to bite the bullet and invest in my player now, then in another 20 levels I'm looking at 10x that investment to compete at the next level.
As a side note, I also think MindArk has set you up for failure to some degree. In the developer notes they explicitly warn against using unmaxed weapons. Ok, so go look for UL guns, about 95% of them are maxed at level 100. My mentor explained that these are largely legacy items. Ok, so where are the new ones to replace them?
2. This game is buggy AF.
As a software engineer, it's hard for me to even believe this is now over a decade in development. MindArk's QA team must be absent from the equation. Honestly the game feels like an early access beta to me.
The pathfinding and raytracing are terrible. Mobs frequently become "Unaccessible" even though they are 1 meter away from you on flat ground. Conversely, I have frequent issues "moving into range" of a mob if there happens to be a tiny bump in between. Mobs going into that weird circle thing around you. Lag that allows the mob to hit you but you can't hit them. Don't touch that wall or plant, you'll get stuck and have to TP! The shops that keep vanishing while you're in them. It goes on and on....
The physics are ridiculous. Why does my 35ton VTOL bounce around like a beach ball? Why can't I spawn my fighter jet if there's a small pebble in the way?
Let's not talk about the shaders...
I will stop talking about the bugs since I could probably just go on forever...
3. The mechanics are extremely dull.
There's no positional damage, you can't evade through movement, etc. "Combat" amounts to just standing in front of the mob and hitting the auto-tool and watching the graph go down. It's really just glorified dice combat. The animations are not synced with the actions, and there's no damage stickers or blood or anything. Shooters from 1995 are light years ahead of this.
I tried mining, it's very boring IMO. It amounts to long amounts of time spend just running and dropping probes, then spending a very long and boring amount of time picking up the loot. I didn't enjoy it at all. I understand there's a lot involved in figuring out the right area/depth to get the best ores and watching the market and all that. For people who like extremely tedious activities, I bet this is the greatest thing in the world.
I would have thought crafting would be creative and interesting, but it's the worst of them all. There's no discovery through combining parts, there's really nothing to it at all. You just load a bunch of mats into the machine and then walk away for a couple hours, then come back and see how much you've lost. It's the first time I've seen a "game" where you go do something else while you play it. I can't fathom why anybody does it, tbh.
4. The missions feel like an after-thought, and are mostly meaningless and disconnected. 99% of them are just "kill xxx of this mob.... hey great job, now kill xxxx more". There were a few so far that were mildly interesting, but mostly not so much. I hear RT has some fun noob missions, but I haven't made it over there yet.
The good:
1. The players.
Almost everyone I've met so far has been really cool. For the most part everyone is very helpful and welcoming towards new players. Also, the player base is spread all over the world, and I've really enjoyed meeting people from different cultures. Hands down, the players are the best part of this game.
2. The avatars are pretty neat.
If I could pick one component that MA did well on, it's the avatars. They are better than any other MMO I've played. They look pretty good, and there's a huge variety of actions/emotes available; and the customizing of various clothes/armor/accessories is well done. I don't really care about playing dress-up, but everyone wants to be able to create something unique for themselves, and I think MA has provided a good system for this.
3. The reward feedback.
All game developers know the key to engagement is rewarding the players (e.g. achievements, prizes, etc), which is known to trigger dopamine release. The only reason I think many people are still playing this game, is because MindArk has hit this one out of the park. Yes, I'm talking about the golden swirls.
It doesn't take much insight to quickly see this whole game is a thinly veiled casino. As I mentioned in the "bad" section, the game itself is super boring. If you removed the real-cash component, I doubt anybody would play it at all. The reason I'm still playing, and I would guess most others, is the damned swirls.
When I first started playing, my initial impressions were "what the crap is this? this is stupid". Then I got some green particle effects and applause when I leveled up and was like "hellz yea!". Even understanding the psychological process at play, I still wanted more. But then, when I got my first global, I was like "holy balls, I need more swirls in my life!!". When I looted my first ring from a box, I lost my shit.
My mentor described it best as "MindArk's golden carrot" that they dangle in front of you. But damn it, it works.
All in all, I do enjoy it so far. I'm not sure how long I'll keep playing, since as I mentioned in the first part, it's quickly pricing itself out of my budget. I know I can just stay at my current level and keep going indefinitely, but then, what's the point?
The bad:
1. This game is expensive AF.
A coworker (who's been playing for a very long time) got me into it, and gave me ample warning about the cost, but I was still surprised. I don't see how anyone can deny this is a pay-to-win game. I depo'd a decent amount to cover initial equipment costs and getting my feet wet. I've now managed to level up to almost lvl 20 laser pistol, and I'm discovering that a) any decent weapon setup at that level is going to run about $500, b) I also need to throw a few hundred bucks for rings/buffs if I want to stay competitive with other players. It's becoming a pretty big turnoff for me. If I decide to bite the bullet and invest in my player now, then in another 20 levels I'm looking at 10x that investment to compete at the next level.
As a side note, I also think MindArk has set you up for failure to some degree. In the developer notes they explicitly warn against using unmaxed weapons. Ok, so go look for UL guns, about 95% of them are maxed at level 100. My mentor explained that these are largely legacy items. Ok, so where are the new ones to replace them?
2. This game is buggy AF.
As a software engineer, it's hard for me to even believe this is now over a decade in development. MindArk's QA team must be absent from the equation. Honestly the game feels like an early access beta to me.
The pathfinding and raytracing are terrible. Mobs frequently become "Unaccessible" even though they are 1 meter away from you on flat ground. Conversely, I have frequent issues "moving into range" of a mob if there happens to be a tiny bump in between. Mobs going into that weird circle thing around you. Lag that allows the mob to hit you but you can't hit them. Don't touch that wall or plant, you'll get stuck and have to TP! The shops that keep vanishing while you're in them. It goes on and on....
The physics are ridiculous. Why does my 35ton VTOL bounce around like a beach ball? Why can't I spawn my fighter jet if there's a small pebble in the way?
Let's not talk about the shaders...
I will stop talking about the bugs since I could probably just go on forever...
3. The mechanics are extremely dull.
There's no positional damage, you can't evade through movement, etc. "Combat" amounts to just standing in front of the mob and hitting the auto-tool and watching the graph go down. It's really just glorified dice combat. The animations are not synced with the actions, and there's no damage stickers or blood or anything. Shooters from 1995 are light years ahead of this.
I tried mining, it's very boring IMO. It amounts to long amounts of time spend just running and dropping probes, then spending a very long and boring amount of time picking up the loot. I didn't enjoy it at all. I understand there's a lot involved in figuring out the right area/depth to get the best ores and watching the market and all that. For people who like extremely tedious activities, I bet this is the greatest thing in the world.
I would have thought crafting would be creative and interesting, but it's the worst of them all. There's no discovery through combining parts, there's really nothing to it at all. You just load a bunch of mats into the machine and then walk away for a couple hours, then come back and see how much you've lost. It's the first time I've seen a "game" where you go do something else while you play it. I can't fathom why anybody does it, tbh.
4. The missions feel like an after-thought, and are mostly meaningless and disconnected. 99% of them are just "kill xxx of this mob.... hey great job, now kill xxxx more". There were a few so far that were mildly interesting, but mostly not so much. I hear RT has some fun noob missions, but I haven't made it over there yet.
The good:
1. The players.
Almost everyone I've met so far has been really cool. For the most part everyone is very helpful and welcoming towards new players. Also, the player base is spread all over the world, and I've really enjoyed meeting people from different cultures. Hands down, the players are the best part of this game.
2. The avatars are pretty neat.
If I could pick one component that MA did well on, it's the avatars. They are better than any other MMO I've played. They look pretty good, and there's a huge variety of actions/emotes available; and the customizing of various clothes/armor/accessories is well done. I don't really care about playing dress-up, but everyone wants to be able to create something unique for themselves, and I think MA has provided a good system for this.
3. The reward feedback.
All game developers know the key to engagement is rewarding the players (e.g. achievements, prizes, etc), which is known to trigger dopamine release. The only reason I think many people are still playing this game, is because MindArk has hit this one out of the park. Yes, I'm talking about the golden swirls.
It doesn't take much insight to quickly see this whole game is a thinly veiled casino. As I mentioned in the "bad" section, the game itself is super boring. If you removed the real-cash component, I doubt anybody would play it at all. The reason I'm still playing, and I would guess most others, is the damned swirls.
When I first started playing, my initial impressions were "what the crap is this? this is stupid". Then I got some green particle effects and applause when I leveled up and was like "hellz yea!". Even understanding the psychological process at play, I still wanted more. But then, when I got my first global, I was like "holy balls, I need more swirls in my life!!". When I looted my first ring from a box, I lost my shit.
My mentor described it best as "MindArk's golden carrot" that they dangle in front of you. But damn it, it works.
All in all, I do enjoy it so far. I'm not sure how long I'll keep playing, since as I mentioned in the first part, it's quickly pricing itself out of my budget. I know I can just stay at my current level and keep going indefinitely, but then, what's the point?