Anyone feeling a bit let down?

[slackhideo]

31 minutes ago, Krubble said:

The game ended for me after Episode 1, got credits and then main menu. I asked Hinterland when Episode 2 will be released and they said "this fall".

I had exactly the same feeling, but I knew Hinterland would ship both episodes so I fiddled with the menu to start episode 2.
I must say I found this way to present things extremely confusing (maybe because I usually don't play episodic games).

On the thread topic:

On 07/08/2017 at 6:28 PM, Tbone555 said:

when are we gonna get moose? a revolver? primitive firemaking? interactive NPC survivors that wander the world like us that we can trade with, be attacked by, or attack? How about some meaningful choices that change our game and have an effect on us as a player?

Well, I guess we all know the answer.

On 08/08/2017 at 8:41 AM, abacusjax said:

"How far will you go to survive?" is an interesting question, but it hasn't been presented in an interesting way in this game, and for me, that's the biggest let down. 

In my opinion, this question is not being explored at all.

For me, the story mode is not really bad, but nothing special so far.

[Thrasador]

Episode 1 is supposed to continue into Episode 2, but it was not functioning as intended on XBOX....

I am disappointed by the number of bugs across all platforms. They are not little bugs either....they are gamebreaking "I can't continue playing now bugs." 

Quest items are disappearing from inventory if you die before turning them in. Like the bear ear....and there is a bug with the bear hide too....

Regular items are simply disappearing if you put them down in the wrong place....Somehow this appears to be happening now in the Sandbox too....that had never occurred to me before Wintermute....

Wolves are respawning instantly....not in several days. Wolves are despawning before you can harvest them, if you quit out of the game.

The aurora borealis wasn't appearing at all, and it was necessary for a quest...

People on XBOX couldn't seamlessly continue from Episode 1 to Episode 2 with the gear they collected in Episode 1. They had to start Episode 2 from the menu with very few items...

These are not tiny little bugs....these are," Sorry we didn't even try playing the game all the way through one time on all platforms, we expected you to play test the game for us and report all the bugs..." type of bugs....at least they appear that way to me.

I don't see any way they could have NOT noticed some of these bugs unless they didn't play test the game at all....

I mean it's great they are at least throwing patches out left and right as fast as possible, but much of this could have been completely avoided by play testing Wintermute BEFORE releasing it...

[Mel Guille]

Yes, we did do play testing before release. The entire Hinterland team, myself included, has put long hours into into playing the game before launch to help identify and patch as many issues as possible, so please don't make posts suggesting we didn't. It's just a very big job for a small team: Wintermute contains lots of brand new content systems and any patch carries the potential to introduce other issues, especially if people are tired, under tight deadlines, and spread across multiple platforms and configurations.

I'm not saying this to make excuses for problems, just to provide more context and help address any concerns that the team doesn't doesn't care about bugs or are not doing everything possible to address them.

Thank you everyone for you feedback, we appreciate your posts and are monitoring comments from players closely, even if we are not always able to respond like we have been able to in the past.

[JAFO]

7 hours ago, Mel Guille said:

Yes, we did do play testing before release. The entire Hinterland team, myself included, has put long hours into into playing the game before launch to help identify and patch as many issues as possible, so please don't make posts suggesting we didn't. It just a very big job for a small team:

Might I offer a suggestion then?

Hire a couple of professional playtesters. These are people that are highly skilled at doing their best to break games (and at reporting on the bugs found in a way that's more meaningful to coders), rather than simply making sure the game can be played through from A to Z. The problem with playtesting by a dev team, is that they all intimately know how the game is supposed to go, so they don't put enough time into deliberately trying to do the wrong thing in the game, just to see what happens.

Also, take a leaf from the book of other small Indy developers. Squad, of KSP fame, is a great example. They identified those reporting bugs who gave the best bug reports, with lots of information that made it easy to replicate and trace the bug. They also identified some of the best and most experienced players on their forums. They approached all these individuals, and used them to form a core team of playtesters.. with NDA's in place to ensure that nothing would be leaked ahead of official releases of new versions. It has worked beautifully.

And if budget is a constraint here, perhaps spend less money on famous names to promote the game (heck, Agnes Obel was used to promote a patch update, for crying out loud!) and more cash on the things that really matter, like proper testing.

[stan_marsh]

Broken game released on consoles, simple as that. No console testing and excuses upon excuse.

Game saves are still broken after seven patches or so? What a joke.

Yea speaks for itself. Irresponsible developer, the bad reputation they have among the industry is rightfully so.

[Yolan]

In a word, yes.

I've got 315 hours down playing TLD on Steam. For the last few years it would rank in my top ten games of all time. And I've played a few games over the years... This game... was in some ways just about the best gaming experience of a certain kind you could find. So, let me just say that I've well and truly "got my moneys worth."  But then, I never purchased at full price, and I never purchased because I was interested in storymode. It was always about sandbox for me.

Sure I was curious. Heck. New map to explore!

I have to admit though, I was getting very frustrated and bored half way through chapter one, and I couldn't keep playing once I hit chapter two. I would be interested in seeing steam statistics on how many players actually complete both chapters.

A few basic problems for me.

1. No challenge. I couldn't choose the difficulty level, and the base difficulty is -extremely- forgiving if you are experienced.

2. The story arc seems to be in conflict with the kind of game that this is. Quiet/pensive/drawn out survival, vs. searching for somebody.

3. The quest mechanics (fetch this, go there).

4. Aggravating UI. I've warmed up a little to the new icons and style, but the inventory is so much harder to use and more complicated than it used to be. And the little wheel that pops up every time you interact with everything. Even when automated so you don't need to hold down the mouse button, the wheel remains. That damn wheel just cheapens the experience so much for me.

Still love the survival core of this game. For now though, I am giving it a rest. Maybe I'll try it again next year. I wish the team the best, and hope they have time to rest after the crunch. 

 

 

 

[RossBondReturns]

47 minutes ago, stan_marsh said:

Broken game released on consoles, simple as that. No console testing and excuses upon excuse.

Game saves are still broken after seven patches or so? What a joke.

Yea speaks for itself. Irresponsible developer, the bad reputation they have among the industry is rightfully so.

Erm except that they don't have a bad rep in the industry so I'm not sure where you're getting that from.

On the other hand I'm not disappointed at all I've loved every moment of playing Storymode and before that had over 600 hours poured into sandbox.

I can't actually wait to finish story mode, but everything so far is boss. Perhaps a few too many items in the early going but I loved how unpredictable the wolves were in Milton.

[mrrrmrrr]

I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said, but yes, I personally found Wintermute disappointing, for the following reasons (ordered from most to least important): 

1) The overarching plot or storyline felt disconnected from the actual gameplay. In other words, the stakes of the story that played out in the cutscenes felt unrelated to the immediate challenges and rewards presented by the in-game experience. Or to put it differently once again, there seemed to almost no concrete/tangible link between a) the accomplishment of navigation and survival based tasks and b) progression towards finding astrid/learning about the apocalypse. 

2) Lack of major choices/linear gameplay. Like others, I was very excited at the prospect of having to make "difficult moral decisions" in order to survive. This seemed like a great, obvious way to integrate in-game actions with the overall narrative, as well as to accommodate various playstyles by facilitating different approaches to survival situations. While the choice RE looting the gas station in episode 1 did come close to this idea by providing the player with paths of varying difficulty and diegetic outcome, I think the implementation was poor: both mechanically and morally speaking, the choice is not a difficult or consequential one (resources are already plentiful and the game normalizes looting by making scavenging a fundamental survival mechanic). 

3) Static NPCs with limited interactions. Lots of people have already mentioned this, but I found the amount of unadorned fetch-quests to be a bit tiring.

4) The dialogue seemed awkward and cliched. Conversations between characters always felt extremely circumspect and utilitarian, in so far as they usually served to provide either exposition or specific tasks. 

All that said, I can't really complain. As a sandbox player, I've received more than my money's worth from this game already. And maybe the negative aspects of story mode will easily be mitigated for newer players by the sheer joy and awe of exploring the world of the long dark for the first time. 

[JAFO]

8 minutes ago, mrrrmrrr said:

As a sandbox player, I've received more than my money's worth from this game already.

Likewise..

8 minutes ago, mrrrmrrr said:

And maybe the negative aspects of story mode will easily be mitigated for newer players by the sheer joy and awe of exploring the world of the long dark for the first time. 

The worry is that those negative aspects may cause newcomers to abandon the game before they ever sample the delights of Survival Mode.

[Juxt]

I really miss skills from wintermute, the feeling of my actions improving my character is super nice and fulfilling.  I don't know if it wasn't feasible to take them from episode to episode or whatever, but the gameplay feels cheapened without them. 

[SnowWalker]

3 hours ago, RossBondReturns said:

On the other hand I'm not disappointed at all I've loved every moment of playing Storymode and before that had over 600 hours poured into sandbox.

Got you beat My Steam account says 811 hrs since I bought it in Oct. 2015, and that's not to mention the 500-600 hrs I put in before that on my sisters computer and also by way of means in which I'm not compelled to reveal I'm loving Wintermute as well. I can though, see why some would like a more challenging mode but it is what it is. I'm hoping the fetch-quests will be relaxed a bit in the next three episodes and are just mainly for players unfamiliar with the game who have to also, very much so, be taken into consideration as well. I hope the next three will have some different kinds of challenges to the story but if not, I'll still be finishing this game too, just the same. I have to know what happened to our boy and girl.

[ChillPlayer]

17 hours ago, Mel Guille said:

Yes, we did do play testing before release.

I believe that you did, there's a Testing team in the credits mentioned too. But the feeling I've got from playing through both episodes is that you probably haven't tested enough what happens when players are trying to be clever and veer off the path you expected the player to go. This comes through in various places, for example when a player chooses to go around the two wolves near the church, they end up in the Farmstead instead of Milton. Set aside that the player does not get any clue that he is in the wrong place (he followed the road he was supposed to follow to the end), picking up certain items will break the story.

On a smaller scale the same happens during the hunt for the bear, you expect it to be a cat & mouse play between bear and player but when the player gets too clever and positions himself on a cliff where the bear can't reach him, the bear will vanish without footprints and suddenly having the whole map in a thick fog isn't a good idea anymore.

And Jeremiah, during testing you must have always first build up trust with Jeremiah and then concluded the Bear quest otherwise you would've noticed that it isn't possible to build any more trust once you've given him the ears - something many players felt let down by, me included.

Bottom line is: for further episodes it would help if you wouldn't only test what happens when the player behaves as you expect it but also try to intentionally break the game and veer off the story path, do stuff in different order than expected and see if everything still works, maybe add some pointers to bring the player back on the right track and so on.

[Crimson Foxx]

Hi.

My feeling on Wintermute is this.

Hinterland had this storymode as their main dream. Its what they started all of this for and has always been their main goal. So, sandbox was created mostly for testing and also to give their new fans a taste of what storymode was going to be.

But i honestly do not think they realised just hope popular and loved Sandbox was to become. Over time it grew and grew. People loved to play it, they had so many ideas and passion shown in forums and discussions. Suddenly Sandbox mode became huge! . it took on its own, life. it was regularly updated, built on and conditioned into almost a great game in itself. People could be unique and themselves. Yes they chose either the male or female character and they are very fixed in looks ( no custom player options). BUT people totally loved it! and still do. Its a beautiful world where you soak up its magestic scenery as well as struggle at what ever skill level you choose to survive and you feel its YOUR choices, not soemone elses. And people became good at it. they learnt fast, made important mistakes and was constantly rewarded for that. Sandbox became almost what this game was meant to be.

But in a strange way it almost over shadowed the main story. hehe. ! I personally found that all of that unique experience and time spent in sandbox instantly became a thing in storymode. Almost as soon as i was in control at the start i was collecting sticks and checking my inventory, everything i would do when starting a sandbox game. I so so fell in love with all of the new detail added that i had never seen as well as refurbished locations i knew but had taken on a whole new awesome look. Milton blew me away!! ( i want that town in sandbox Hinterland!!!!!) But i also found i got frustrated. Not at any feelings of a poor storymode or bad pace even. But that i wanted to feel i still had as many options and choices i have in sandbox. I suddenly was  channeled into one path that i couldnt really break away from. But then thats storymode. a Story i follow and spectate. Its not a free choice sandbox. So yes i love the storymode, thats how its supposed to be. I am loving each new moment in it. Yes bugs will appear but i believe Hinterland are fully on it and will always update it as best they can. But i think i am still a sandbox junky.  If they could add all the new locations and detail from storymode into sandbox i would be a very happy bunny. 

Great job Hinterland, never stop dreaming and creating ♥.

 

[ChillPlayer]

Exactly my thoughts @Crimson Foxx, I value the most about Wintermute that it's very close to the Sandbox experience just with some story elements added. From this perspective the bugs and imperfections are almost negligible but I would've wished for a harder setting on the survival side so they wouldn't had felt the need to add so many wolves just to keep the tension up.

[Thrasador]

I miss leveling skills in the Story too...

[nicko]

ha yeah I also seen no real transition from ep1 to ep2 .  well I did see the guy on the bed half dead.

I just figured going through the cave that was it. Ep 2 starts.? well i saved quit, nothing says i am on ep2? playing version 1.07 or what ever is latest steam update

Maybe we lame persons need a title somewhere saying "Your on Episode X"

[TheBugfixer]

On 7.8.2017 at 11:28 PM, Tbone555 said:

Just my two cents. What do you guys think?

I think two Episodes for introducing is to much. Beard-Lichen, Rosehips and collecting of wood, food and whatever, we had in Milton. But maybe i expected to much. The story about the bear made me first time a littele annoyed. But later i found out how to kill the bear without fragmented by his claws ... and was reconciled. But what with the new Players?

What me more makes concerned, we taken two and a half years to develop the skilltree and ... nothing in the final. The circlemenue found the way to the final, the skillsystem not. Thats not what i expected.

The story thats been told - coherent, the atmosphere - great, musik - awesome. But deep in my heart i feel something is missing.

[nicko]

ah i guess its to much of a learning issue? thing, but what ABOUT US new players?

I'm still learning trying to survive. if your so good go survivor (sandbox)?

[hoppyfrog324]

A friend recommended the game to me. He was all, "Survival without zombies, AND IT'S IN CANADA!" and I jumped on it. I love survival mode. I love how it's become fleshed out over the years, and not only has it moved from one map into many, but even the maps themselves have changed a little. It's awesome!

I am feeling a bit let down by storymode. I think there's a bit of a disconnect, both emotionally (I'm not emotionally invested in the NPCs at all), and in the gameplay itself. It's all, "GO GO GO FIND ASTRID GO HURRY GO!" There's a real sense of urgency there at the beginning. Okay, cool! But it doesn't matter if I hurry. There are literally no consequences if I get it done quickly or not. Because I'm not invested, why would I want to load up Grey Mother with 5000 pounds of food if she's only going to tell me about stuff I could have found on my own anyway? I need to eat.

In the second one, I get that there needs to be a mechanism to move the story forward. It just took me right out of the story, though, because I'm all walking along in a dark area, so I have my lantern out. Maybe it's just my PC, but the area had zero visibility in that spot, so I had to have a light source of some sort. And I see the plot device, and I walk up to it, and all of the sudden the cut scene shows that I, for some reason, don't have my lantern out anymore when it would be IMPOSSIBLE to get through there without it. Maybe, I don't know, a bump on the head from falling debris? 

The Big Decision about the gas station has no discernible effect on the story. The side quest in part 2 where you can choose the take the ammo or not, no discernible effect on the story. It makes me feel like what I do has a player doesn't really matter. If the tagline is, "How far will you go?" I expect it to actually matter.

[Simone Else]

both episodes took me about a week or so to do because I took my time at it..and I still did not do all of the side quests.  mostly because the real game is survival mode.

 then I started my brand new game for survival mode, picked random start location and worked my way to pleasant valley and found alot af cool stuff on the way, only to set some of  it down on the ground and promptly lose much of it so yeah I am feel let down

[Tbone555]

Apologies, @Mel Guille. I never meant to insinuate that there was no play testing, and I speak for everyone here when I say we didn't mean any offense to that. as I said, this thread is not to attack hinterland, but to offer constructive criticism so that you'll know how to approach future episodes and content. the point of my statement was simply saying how it FEELS. I didn't mean to point fingers or make assumptions.

That being said, this is what I personally want from this game: what was shown, borderline promised to us in the roadmap which for some reason has since been taken down, but MOST IMPORTANTLY I just want interactive survivors and meaningful choices. the slogan of the game is "how far will you go to survive," and imagine how bad that will look when that question isn't even exercised. granted, this game hasn't let me down as much as no man's sky did, but it comes close. really no offense, that is my honest opinion and I tell that to you so that yall can use it to build on the game.

[Biohazardprincess]

The negativity here is stunning, and I can't blame the devs for attempting to explain. 

I understand being frustrated with bugs and other troubles. I understand being let down as long time players that have been waiting for a story mode. That all makes sense. Even I'm sad that stuff isn't entirely voiced  

But it isn't a let down for everyone. I'm having an amazing experience, even with bugs. And they're patching every few days, trying to fix the problems. They're responsive and have even tried to explain themselves.

A lot of what I've seen is "I can do this in survival why can't I do it in the story?" Which is really frustrating, because a lot of new players are coming in that don't know any of the recipes or mechanics. The story mode isn't survival. It's meant to be welcoming to new players, and as a new player, it actually *is.*

Being frustrated and let down is completely reasonable, but accusing them of not doing their jobs to the best of their abilities is unfair. 

[Mel Guille]

No offence, taken @Tbone555-- feedback about how the game made you feel is appreciated, and among the most valuable type of criticism we can get!

My post was simply meant to address a misconception that seems to be floating around. Hinterland does have full-time professional testers who work on both consoles and PC and before a big release everyone on the team jumps in to help, so it's a little frustrating to see comments that suggest testing didn't happen.

[mrrrmrrr]

I think one of the reasons I found Wintermute underwhelming is that my expectations for story mode were shaped by my own experience playing survival mode. Similarly to how the player creates their own narrative while playing in the sandbox, I imagined that the story mode narrative would be driven by the player's actions (i.e., by the choices the player makes in order to explore and survive), and that key plot elements would exist as actual objects or NPCS in the game rather than as information conveyed via cutscenes. I pictured a more bleak and desolate form of storytelling more in line with the brutal, quasi-nihilistic reality of sandbox mode (in which you are going to die, and it's up to you to make the most out of what you are given). Other people have mentioned Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" in relation to their expectations for story mode, and I think that's a great point of comparison. In my opinion, apocalyptic settings are by definition incompatible with conventional hero/quest narratives and happy endings--rather, I think that they are the stage for small quotidian victories. In an apocalypse, things people used to take for granted are magnified into massive triumphs. Obtaining food or shelter becomes meaningful not simply because one needs it to survive, but because one has directly achieved it through their own struggle and effort.  In that sense, sandbox was so compelling because it managed to instil the smallest things with a sense of profound importance. To me, that sense of subtle but satisfying drama stands in stark contrast to the way that story mode attempts to create drama and urgency via the relationship between will and astrid. Similarly, the more haphazard, non-linear and unpredictable narrative generated by playing in sandbox mode contrasts with the goal-directed, linear narrative structure of the story mode. Ultimately, I think that LucidFuge said it best:

On 8/8/2017 at 2:56 AM, LucidFugue said:

I'm just sort of wondering why a team that built such a fully realised simulation that encourages focusing on day to day survival did so to tell this specific story. 

[Monsarona]

I wouldn't say that I am disappointed by the storymode. I just think Will as a person is kind of boring. It is kind of strange that he is willing to do these fetch quests while also missing a loved one but, whatever, the lady has something I need so I'll do it.

Honestly the storymode makes me wish I was playing from Astrid's point of view instead. Her journey is seeming to be much more interesting to me. lol Since I play as the female character in survival mode I like to pretend that I am playing as Astrid while Will is out there catering to the old lady and "looking" . I am just waiting to be rescued. But I spent 200 days waiting cause some old lady needs her firewood lol.