Anyone feeling a bit let down?

[SnowWalker]

On 2017-08-11 at 4:54 PM, Biohazardprincess said:

Speaking of Bethesda, it's a running joke that their launches are riddled with bugs.

I always feel that Bethesda allows for modding so that modders will go in and fix all their problems for free, and to also make a lot of it better. For eg. there's a mod which fixes 'Floating Razorgrain' for FO4. You'd think something like that would get fixed by Bethesda. Dishonored 2 was pretty good though. People complained about it too but I had very little problems with it on launch day for PC.

[Thrasador]

1 hour ago, JAFO said:

Huh? I've gotten almost as far as you.. (repaired the rifle, but not back with it yet) and I've yet to start a fire to scare a wolf, or kill anything except rabbits. The wolves aren't hard to avoid, and when you can't, you can almost always just employ the 'walk away' tactic on them.

Well, everyone plays differently @JAFO at points when you chose to simply walk away to avoid wolves, myself and @SquanderBotmay have wanted to stay and loot whatever we were trying to loot instead. Which may have required starting a fire there. The wolf by the first bridge in Episode 1 is pretty unpredictable. I've slept and had him go up the road away from the bridge twords the dead end. I've had him stay around all the cars on the bridge I was trying to loot, and I've even had him go the long way around the bridge and up the river to try to get to me. Sometimes I am not willing to walk off yet, I am a man and he is a wolf. I can make fire and he cannot, therefore I win! Lol....

[Mikeyd0577]

On 8/7/2017 at 5:28 PM, Tbone555 said:

Okay. so let's get it out of the way. show of hands, who else feel a little let down about the first two episodes of wintermute?

 

 

 

For myself, the feeling of being a little let down is accurate.  I'm not disappointed in what we have been given.  Perhaps it's because we all had our own vision of what we would get and the end result differed from that.  

I love how story mode feels different from sandbox.  To me it feels almost like a new game; the two (story mode and sandbox) are the same but very much different.  However, I do wish it would have been a little more survival than "go and fetch it".  I thought we would actually be learning more from the NPCs on how to survive rather than helping them survive.  It's a minor irritation that my character can mend his clothing but is unable to make a fishing line?  

I still think this is a very good game with an original concept; which is what I like most about it.  

[Fuarian]

I am a bit let down by the animation and voice acting not being complete. They can totally do this and if they do it'll so damn immersive. 

I am also let down at how the NPC's are a bit bland and unrealistic in terms of how they're quite stationary. The whole fetch quest thing is understandable and they said they'd make it more meaningful in the future. Maybe make it have some impactful choices. 

Impactful Choices, How Far Will You Go to Survive? The big slogan of the game only made it into Wintermute once in the form of a character quote. We NEED choices that matter and make a difference. NPC Quests shouldn't ALL the optional but you should have a choice to follow them or not. There should be multiple ways to get to the main goal. Help Out the NPC to get Knowledge about Astrid's whereabouts or take a long time to figure it out for yourself. 

Pacing didn't feel right enough, you can sleep 30 days in Milton. Seriously? I mean, Astrid could be dead at that point. It's a bit immersion breaking but sadly there's no way around this. 

Too Easy, I feel like there should be a harder difficulty mode for Story to make the whole "How Far Will You Go?" thing more meaningful.

Not all the interiors were updated at launch, only Mystery Lake. Which I wasn't promised.

 

But that's about it really. I think they can do better.

[RossBondReturns]

I wouldn't worry about How far will you go just yet.

We have 3 more Episodes to come which will probably all get progressively more difficult.

And on top of that we have a great many newer players complaining of how difficult it (especially Milton) already is. Milton was a challenge for me as well.

All said I think the difficulty was pretty well balanced and I either died or got mauled by wolf or bear often enough.

Um that's exactly what they promised updated Mystery Lake interiors...nothing else needed to be updated. They never said they needed to update anything in any of the other regions so I don't get that argument. Not to mention that there aren't really any true interiors in FM that they could've updated. A broken barn is a broken barn is a broken barn.

 

[Simulacra]

I recently started playing the story mode, and I have to say, after playing Stalker and even Voyageur modes in the sandbox, it feels more like 'easy mode'. I was kind of disappointed to find how the first few days of the character's interaction with the landscape are basically a tutorial about how to play the game. In addition to that, the exclusion of elements such as intestinal parasites has made the world much less harsh, and I found that the only time I really struggled was the initial trek between the initial starting area and the town (while I obsessively looted every single carcass and tried to fight all the wolves). I've also found that some habits gained in the sandbox are potentially detrimental because the aim of story mode is basically just to complete certain objectives instead of planning for the long haul. 

What we should keep in mind, though, is that many people who have been around for the early access have had ample to develop and hone our Long Dark survival skills, and already know the basic mechanics or even pseudo-exploits that we've discovered after many hours of play. I think that some elements of story mode are really useful in introducing the game to a larger player base who know close to nothing about the game.

Something that I really would have liked, however, would be fully-voiced dialogue, because I think it would really affect immersion.

Overall, I'm still really liking the game, and I feel like I've already gotten my moneys worth during exploration of the sandbox and alpha playtesting. I think that the Long Dark is a good example of a successful early access game, and regardless of whether the story mode meets absolutely everyone's expectations, I would still eagerly await future projects created by the same developers.

[Fuarian]

20 hours ago, Mikeyd0577 said:

For myself, the feeling of being a little let down is accurate.  I'm not disappointed in what we have been given.  Perhaps it's because we all had our own vision of what we would get and the end result differed from that.  

I love how story mode feels different from sandbox.  To me it feels almost like a new game; the two (story mode and sandbox) are the same but very much different.  However, I do wish it would have been a little more survival than "go and fetch it".  I thought we would actually be learning more from the NPCs on how to survive rather than helping them survive.  It's a minor irritation that my character can mend his clothing but is unable to make a fishing line?  

I still think this is a very good game with an original concept; which is what I like most about it.  

Except it IS learning to survive. From Mackenzie's POV that is. The Knowledge you gain from Jeremiah allows you to do new things like Make shelters, craft new items and such. I just wish that maybe you could learn certain skills on your own but have it take longer. But they said they'd improve the whole fetch quest thing in the future. 

[JAFO]

6 hours ago, Simulacra said:

I've also found that some habits gained in the sandbox are potentially detrimental because the aim of story mode is basically just to complete certain objectives instead of planning for the long haul.

Agreed.. there's also the opposite side of the same point, namely, that Story Mode doesn't teach habits that are essential for Survival Mode.

[Mikeyd0577]

4 hours ago, Fuarian said:

Except it IS learning to survive. From Mackenzie's POV that is. The Knowledge you gain from Jeremiah allows you to do new things like Make shelters, craft new items and such. I just wish that maybe you could learn certain skills on your own but have it take longer. But they said they'd improve the whole fetch quest thing in the future. 

I agree and understand that it is Mackenzie's POV.  My point is that there is a different survival feeling from sandbox to story mode; at least after you get to the first town.  

I'm with you on wanting to learn certain skills on our own.  That would add so much to story mode.  

Still very much enjoying it.

[Fuarian]

16 hours ago, Mikeyd0577 said:

I agree and understand that it is Mackenzie's POV.  My point is that there is a different survival feeling from sandbox to story mode; at least after you get to the first town.  

I'm with you on wanting to learn certain skills on our own.  That would add so much to story mode.  

Still very much enjoying it.

I think that might be what they mean by making the missions more enjoyable. 

[The Boy]

I can't say I'm disappointed. I still enjoy playing TLD.
But....I am not really interested in the story. I really just want to play, not get told a story. That's just me 'though, maybe.
What is annoying is the bugs. Here we are more than 2 weeks after launch and after a 1 hour nap in a fishing hut, nothing works on the radial. Luckily I had the flare gun out already so I can take on the wolves. 3 in quick succession which was exciting. But I had to leave my bedroll behind, couldn't pick it up and re-equip the flare gun afterward. I'll stop there about that because this is really a different matter, but for me is the only disappointing facet of the release. 
The most important thing 'though, is, I will keep playing.

[ernestww]

With over 1000 hours in the game it would be foolish to complain too much about the development.  I have had my early release purchase price value many times over and will happily purchase future episodes.

We all have our own imagined aspirational roadmap for the game and it will differ from Hinterland's path.   I suppose we could open our own game development studios and build the game of our dreams.

The nearest I will come to complaining would be to say that of my 1000 hours of play, maybe 10 of those hours were in Story Mode which I have completed to date.  I enjoyed it but my main interest is sandbox, as I think is most players main enjoyment.  It concerns me that seemingly most of the development focus is being consumed by Story Mode.  I understand that there will be benefits to survival mode that spin out of story development.

The Hinterland Kickstarter launched with the promise of Story Mode and Sandbox was simply going to a temporary test bed.  At some early point it was clear the player base loved sandbox in its own right.  Since that point it was like Story Mode became a metaphorical Mystery Lake railroad of development in a world that had organically emerged from dev/player feedback to go in a different direction.  My own imagined aspirational development for the game never cared about story mode and more closely resembled Hinterlands roadmap representing an ever evolving open world sandbox.  

It is my hope the Kickstarter promise of Story Mode gets delivered without using up the studio like the last can of lantern fuel, and the development focus shifts to something resembling the last roadmap: seasons, animals, more craftables, etc..

I hope they can do both.

 

[JAFO]

3 minutes ago, ernestww said:

I hope they can do both.

That's pretty much what they've stated as their intentions.