Ok, It’s come to the point where I have to speak up about this mess of a mission list. The straw that broke my back was on completing To The Lighthouse and pressing Y to read Dr. Håkan Pettersson’s journal and this was what came up:
Wrong mission.
It is not the first time I’ve completed a mission and wanted to find out what happened and end up reading something completely irrelevant, because the game has chosen to pick a random mission text.
Could we at the very least have some sorting functions on the mission list so we can sort by time and date completed as well as some way of categorizin the missions by region, just so it’s easier to keep track of what has been done and what should be done next?
Oh… It seems I misunderstood the “gravity” of the bug. Still, that’s the kind of bug that annoys me, and I still believe in what I wrote.
Well… Considering story-telling, storyline, User Experience and general polish are very important to me, this post is deeply concerning.
I hope Systemic Reaction has a plan for additional QA passes. Apparently, they stepped up their QA processes, but it obviously
missed things with the Radial Menu (I’m talking about feature-parity between M&K and gamepads)
need to make additional QA passes on existing mechanics and features.
Selling your game with frequent 60%-off discount should never be a reason to not invest in robust QA (which should include UX R&D), especially if you choose to add unadvertised game mechanics to your existing game.
I bought the game for cheap, and I feel disappointed. I bet some people who bought the game at full price are even more disappointed, to say the least.
For my sanity, I’ll try to stay away from the game as long as it’s in this state. Yesterday, a developer I like very much announced that the next feature update would be the last, and people in chat were very grateful and nice because their game is polished and because they guaranteed us that they would keep issuing bug fixes if needed. Also, this game studio actually bring the director each week to talk with us.
In reply to Bowi:
I kinda get the feeling that these guys had this brilliant idea for a great game, couldn’t quite sell it and was given a paltry budget to crank out a game between them. Not quite enough to make the game they wanted it to or the game it deserved to be but a game where players would marvel at the environment and enjoy killing robots for a while. A game full of things that could have been a story if the time, manpower and budget had been there, a game that could have had human models to rival the gorgeous environment and the great looking robots, a game with a smooth, intuitive interface like the games it was competing with and a game with a coherent progression guiding players from one objective to the next. In short, a game like the games that experienced game developers churn out albeit at a budget that involves having the courage to take a bit of a risk, showing full commitment and an ambition to create a masterpiece. Because this game could have been a masterpiece and that is what annoys me the most. I almost wish Rockstar or Bethesda or, don’t hurt me, EA had been given the task to make it.
Just imagine having an actual intro video instead of a slideshow. Just imagine never having to see Benny. Just imagine having NPCs that move and have little random conversations with you, the user.
Makes me look forward to the next instalment in the series, Millennials.
I’ll still be here playing this in two or three years though. I’m sure of that.
Jokes aside the team that started Generation Zero were small, and to some extent they still are.
It’s amazing what they’ve accomplished, taming the Apex Engine is no small feat.
To return to topic somewhat, yes, I do think the Missions List needs improving. Like either putting the latest finished mission at the top instead of bottom so one can find it easier, or even allowing for some kind of sorting option.
I think it would also help if they made it necessary to pick up all mission items before finishing a mission, otherwise it’s easy to miss out on extra information and objectives.
Yes, and also some more noticeable end to a mission than the current few second announcement that is almost immediately replaced with a new identical looking objective. I can only refer to other games where you have a list of mission objectives in one of the top corners. Perhaps the UI uses too large text, perhaps is is a bit wasteful with the space. One thing that is clear when I meet new players and that I remember from my first play-through is that the missions are confusing as hell and that completing missions is anything but intuitive.
And yes, I do agree with you about EA, lol. Look, I’m not belittling what the team have done. I do think they could have looked more to what other multiplayer games offer but it is what it is. Perhaps it’s the environment engine that is not suited for nice character animations or smooth UIs, perhaps it’s inexperience within the team or perhaps it’s a result of unfair budget constraints on a game idea that deserved so much more. Either way I’m kinda disappointed that a game with so much potential failed to realiz that potential. It’s still a good game, if not great, and I’m sure I’ll put many, many more hours into playing it and if I think of little things that can put a bit of a nicer finish on the game I’ll suggest them here on the forum. It’s up to the team if they want to spend resources on improvements then, isn’t it?
It has been a long time since I done any missions but last time I looked at my missions log they were in order of the regions. I needed to finish a few, I think a year ago or so, and was very easy to scroll down and look at what region each mission was in.
To find which missions I was missing I counted the number of missions for each region I completed and compared it to what wiki stated the number was.
Sorry, I got kind of lost on what the topic wondered off to. So, hope I posted correctly.
Finishing a mission always makes you loose the tracking of the mission making watching the last mission item you just picked up not possible without extensively searching for it. I think the easiest fix would be to have the tracking still active even if the player finished the mission. It’s quite easy for the player to track a not finished mission to replace the tracking.
Rockstar: RDO, GTA The Trilogy The Definitive Edition
Bethesda: Fallout 76
EA: Battlefield 2042, FIFA, Madden NFL
I think in comparison the dev team for GZ is doing quite well.
Ok, slipping off topic again but wow, that’s selective. Glass half empty for you I guess
You conveniently forget
Rockstar: GTA IV, GTA V, GTA San Andreas (for its time), RDR, RDR2, Max Payne 1&2 (for their time) and Max Payne 3
Bethesda: Fallout 3, Las Vegas & 4, The Elder Scrolls Morrowid, Oblivion & Skyrim, Doom everything, Dishonored 2, Wolfenstein 2
EA: Couldn’t you tell I was joking?
You listed older releases (except Doom) while I was refering to the newer releases. I’m currently playing FONV, so no to glass half empty. And I hope GTA6 will be great
This is exactly why I still play this game despite some bugs that annoy the crap out of me. The basic formula is great although a bit water-down since release. The fight are still addictive. Nevertheless the game could use a lot of care. The team does improve things bit by bit. So I think keeping topics rolling will help prioritization.
Ok. How about on mission completion there is a short debrief? Like an extra note in the mission description. You heard a radio transmission in a police car telling you about X and decided to investigate. It turned out that X was blah blah blah and yada yada yada. In the end you found the lifeless body of two persons in a shed behind the ruined house. Perhaps the story had been true all along.
Something to mark and summarize the end.
