SUGGESTION: Archwing mission improvements.

[Gargoyle Girl]

I just got my archwing last night... and I almost didn't. Who in the dev team thought it was a good idea to throw someone blind into a directionless mess with one shot kill capital lasers firing at them almost constantly from... where? I still don't know... and figured it would be a *good* idea?

I want to point out that I really don't remember much of that mission. If there is an HUD, I couldn't see it, or was too busy trying to find cover and not die over and over to spare a look at it. The entire thing was a nasty, confusing mess to me, so I'm going to offer a few suggestions based on what I can recall of the mission. If I suggest something that's there, please let me know... as it would be nice to actually know what's going on!

1. WTF IS HAPPENING?!

Everything is bright and glaring and everywhere at once. Some of it is shooting at you and you're supposed to dodge some of it, and attack some of it... but mostly it's just hard to see. The enemies don't stand out from the background which doesn't stand out from the foreground which all is shrouded in glare and reflection and not only confuses the eye, but also makes the HUD ineffective since you literally can barely see it, and focusing on it distracts you from those enemies and surfaces you need to avoid.

All of these things need to appear more separate and less blurred into a single, shiny mess. I've played with my screen settings; it didn't help. I know there's no protection from the glare of nearby suns or what have you in space, but I don't really enjoy you trying to simulate me staring directly into the sun on my laptop screen.

In short: 1. Reduce glare; 2. Differentiate the background, foreground, obstacles, enemies and the bullets visually from each other; 3. Make the HUD more visible and viable.

2. WATCH OUT! SOMETHING SOMEWHERE IS ABOUT TO KILL Y....! <dead>

If missions are going to ahve things of major threat in them that you need to dodge, the LEAST you can do is let the player know which direction that threat is coming from. In the first mission, they shoot capital class lasers at you that can one shot kill you... but they don't give any suggestion of WHERE the shots are coming from. I hid several times in the curve of debris on the screen, covered on three sides nearly completely, only to get shot from the one angle that wasn't covered because there was no visible indication of what was actually about to kill me.

It was like standing blindfolded in a room full of people with baseball bats, yelling out 'Watch out!' from one side, then smacking me in the back of the head from some other direction... or the same direction. It's not like I can tell, right?

So: 1. The larger the threat, the more obvious the warning should be... and the more helpful. Flashing it in the middle of the screen does NOTHING to tell me where the threat is coming from. There should be an HUD mark (highly visible) at the least.

3. WHICH WAY IS UP?!

I know this is a mechanic of being in space, free floating with no 'down' or 'up' to fixate on... but here still needs to be some sense of normalization to things. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how this could be established, but when you're floating in the void with things shooting at you from every direction, you need a bit more than the HUD (maybe? I really couldn't see it) saying 'you're being shot from this direction'. Especially since 'direction' is more or less being discarded at this point. Maybe what you could do it make a more truly 3D HUD to go with the 3D gameplay?

I can't think of anything else atm to suggest, but I hope this gives some idea of how it felt to play that mission... terrible. I couldn't really define anything, tell where attacks were coming from, or maneuver well when those kill-shots seemed to come from whatever direction they felt like.

[KuroVersal]

No improvements are needed. Devs just need to revert back to old archwing controls. Current situation is what happens when they decide to ''improve'' things for no logical reason.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by KuroVersal:

No improvements are needed. Devs just need to revert back to old archwing controls. Current situation is what happens when they decide to ''improve'' things for no logical reason.

...aaaannnd that's *your* opinion. My experience with the Archwing was horrible. Congrats on having played it when it was 'better'. I didn't get that. :P

[Charmander787]

Originally posted by Gargoyle Girl:

I just got my archwing last night... and I almost didn't. Who in the dev team thought it was a good idea to throw someone blind into a directionless mess with one shot kill capital lasers firing at them almost constantly from... where? I still don't know... and figured it would be a *good* idea?

I want to point out that I really don't remember much of that mission. If there is an HUD, I couldn't see it, or was too busy trying to find cover and not die over and over to spare a look at it. The entire thing was a nasty, confusing mess to me, so I'm going to offer a few suggestions based on what I can recall of the mission. If I suggest something that's there, please let me know... as it would be nice to actually know what's going on!

1. WTF IS HAPPENING?!

Everything is bright and glaring and everywhere at once. Some of it is shooting at you and you're supposed to dodge some of it, and attack some of it... but mostly it's just hard to see. The enemies don't stand out from the background which doesn't stand out from the foreground which all is shrouded in glare and reflection and not only confuses the eye, but also makes the HUD ineffective since you literally can barely see it, and focusing on it distracts you from those enemies and surfaces you need to avoid.

All of these things need to appear more separate and less blurred into a single, shiny mess. I've played with my screen settings; it didn't help. I know there's no protection from the glare of nearby suns or what have you in space, but I don't really enjoy you trying to simulate me staring directly into the sun on my laptop screen.

In short: 1. Reduce glare; 2. Differentiate the background, foreground, obstacles, enemies and the bullets visually from each other; 3. Make the HUD more visible and viable.

2. WATCH OUT! SOMETHING SOMEWHERE IS ABOUT TO KILL Y....! <dead>

If missions are going to ahve things of major threat in them that you need to dodge, the LEAST you can do is let the player know which direction that threat is coming from. In the first mission, they shoot capital class lasers at you that can one shot kill you... but they don't give any suggestion of WHERE the shots are coming from. I hid several times in the curve of debris on the screen, covered on three sides nearly completely, only to get shot from the one angle that wasn't covered because there was no visible indication of what was actually about to kill me.

It was like standing blindfolded in a room full of people with baseball bats, yelling out 'Watch out!' from one side, then smacking me in the back of the head from some other direction... or the same direction. It's not like I can tell, right?

So: 1. The larger the threat, the more obvious the warning should be... and the more helpful. Flashing it in the middle of the screen does NOTHING to tell me where the threat is coming from. There should be an HUD mark (highly visible) at the least.

3. WHICH WAY IS UP?!

I know this is a mechanic of being in space, free floating with no 'down' or 'up' to fixate on... but here still needs to be some sense of normalization to things. To be honest, I'm not 100% sure how this could be established, but when you're floating in the void with things shooting at you from every direction, you need a bit more than the HUD (maybe? I really couldn't see it) saying 'you're being shot from this direction'. Especially since 'direction' is more or less being discarded at this point. Maybe what you could do it make a more truly 3D HUD to go with the 3D gameplay?

I can't think of anything else atm to suggest, but I hope this gives some idea of how it felt to play that mission... terrible. I couldn't really define anything, tell where attacks were coming from, or maneuver well when those kill-shots seemed to come from whatever direction they felt like.

what you describe is called space combat

Which is the point of archwings....

[Wintermute]

Well, point 3 sucks some major balls anyway. It should be possible to reorient yourself without performing some crazy maneuvers with mouse.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by Ratatoskr:

what you describe is called space combat

Which is the point of archwings....

So... you basically didn't read my post; just decided like the other person that everything was fine?

And since when is 'space combat' flying blind and getting one shotted out of nowhere? The 'no down' concept makes sense. The hard to see HUD and excessively bright everything seems like... I dunno... the advanced technologies that allow you to literally fly in space with nothing but a set of thrusters *might* have also included some kind of visor to account for the glare and provide a more detailed, visible HUD? No?

[Air]

Originally posted by Wintermute:

Well, point 3 sucks some major balls anyway. It should be possible to reorient yourself without performing some crazy maneuvers with mouse.

Hold the use key(X by default) and press the left and right movement keys(A or D) to reorient yourself.

Originally posted by KuroVersal:

No improvements are needed. Devs just need to revert back to old archwing controls. Current situation is what happens when they decide to ''improve'' things for no logical reason.

Even at that point, there were still issues of lack of enemy variation and only two tilesets(one of which only being open space with little in the way of interesting level design). It's true that the controls needed no improvements, but that's also not what people were ever complaining about.

[Wintermute]

Originally posted by Air:

Originally posted by Wintermute:

Well, point 3 sucks some major balls anyway. It should be possible to reorient yourself without performing some crazy maneuvers with mouse.

Hold the use key(X by default) and press the left and right movement keys(A or D) to reorient yourself.

Thanks

[Charmander787]

Originally posted by Gargoyle Girl:

Originally posted by Ratatoskr:

what you describe is called space combat

Which is the point of archwings....

So... you basically didn't read my post; just decided like the other person that everything was fine?

And since when is 'space combat' flying blind and getting one shotted out of nowhere? The 'no down' concept makes sense. The hard to see HUD and excessively bright everything seems like... I dunno... the advanced technologies that allow you to literally fly in space with nothing but a set of thrusters *might* have also included some kind of visor to account for the glare and provide a more detailed, visible HUD? No?

getting oneshotted?

Lol thats endgame in a nutshell
if you dont like getting oneshotted

dont play RPGs like this


Wait till you get to the JV raid/trial


Also there is a HUD

it marks enemies out for you.

I see any glare when I run archwing missions.

[Hyper Realistic Blood]

Archwing started out iffy, and quickly turned into a trainwreck. Current solution for archwing missions is "don't do them"

Trying to find anything in most of them is a headache, and they're really not fun.

[MystMan]

The part I have to agree with OP are the frist two paragraphs explaining the quest that unlocks AW, it lacks any form of explanation.

When AW was released, first thing I did was go to the codex to see if they added a training page for it or something. It's always the first thing I do when trying something new, what are the controls, etc etc. The codex lacks this and obviously it was brand new so no wiki/youtube guides existed yet. So I thought it is probably simple enough.


Suddenly I'm in space with a massive Fomorian that cripples my shields and takes most of my health in 1 shot. A 2nd shot will obviously kill me. So I see in my HUD to fly to a specific point, ok I do that and fly there, while getting hammered by a Fomorian laser. I try hiding behind space objects but that doesn't seem to help.

And yet another suddenly! moment happens, I'm in a big red transparent globe that blocks me. Lotus tells me to destroy some thing called a "Zeplen".

"Ok, what is a Zeplen, what does it look like, where do I... *ZZAAP*"
Fomorian kills me again.

I had to abort at this point after 3 deaths and select another frame. Back then, we had a limited 4 revives per frame.


That introduction quest was definitely poorly presented, throwing the player in such a deep end with easy death moments.


Right now, I'm an ace at AW. The old system or the new 6D movement, I can handle them all fine. But that's because I learned by doing the low level AW missions (and we had more AW nodes than now as well) . That quest was way too hard due to zero explanation and you have no mods equipped and you get 2-shotted by a Fomorian...... that was too extreme an introduction to a new game system.

[GrumpyBadger117]

first off, I agree with alot of what's been said. There's zero tutorial, and the HUD is pretty much nonexistent.

second, I was there when archwings were first implemented. That was on Xb1, on a different profile (can't go from Xb1 to PC)

Originally posted by MystMan:

I had to abort at this point after 3 deaths and select another frame. Back then, we had a limited 4 revives per frame.

yeah, when I started out, I almost quit playing because it was 3 revives for the whole freaking day.

I'm mainly a solo playing type person. I don't mind opening up what i'm up to, to "public" and meet cool random people, but I have a clan dojo of one and I like it that way. So back then, it was brutal. Nothing like now.

and yeah, I tried flying with m&kb first, since I'm trying to adapt to that, because my m&kb are epic and I feel retarded not using them lol. Got blasted 4 times lol.

then I tried again, controller, using Steams "big screen mode" or whatever that's called. Got blasted 4 times...

and I used to enjoy Archwing misisons back in 2015. So yeah, I feel ya. And you ain't alone.


as for people who go "welcome to space combat"

go fly DCS, check out Star Citizen, or heck even Empyrion and Interstellar lol. Notice a trend?

situational awareness is key to understanding the battlefield. Good SituA = dominance
Bad SituA = death screens

This I put on DE

[primobrainlet]

I just think that if they gave us a real hud and made space black instead of the silvery blue like its supposed to be, it would be a lot better.

[Cype9k]

There was a time when you could map the crouch button to another key so you could roll in place by holding crouch + left and right . And then they decided to ♥♥♥♥ with that as well , by creating separated buttons for rolling to each side .

Also yeah , they REALLY need to bring back the old archwing controls .

[Fishyflakes]

Just turn off bloom.

[Gargoyle Girl]

Originally posted by Fishyflakes:

Just turn off bloom.

Would it surprize you to know it already is off?