The new campaign story unfortunately sucks

[Capital 0]

Edits are down the bottom

So usually I don't really post things, and even less negative things, but man, this has just been a huge let down. And it makes me really sad to write this, since I absolutely love the rest of this game, but this S3lf - Eater update has really left a bad taste in my mouth. I'm just writing this to get everyone else's opinion on how good this update is. I've finished it, at least I think I did (I killed the s3lf eater and put the sword back, and it said it was gone).

So first off, the Pros. (not many)

1. The final fight against the S3lf - Eater in it's final form was pretty cool. Bit hectic, since I fought him in the science tower district, so him and a whole bunch of nexus agent and cyber bandits, but hey, it's called Madness Combat for a reason.
2. The prime sword is a cool weapon, and it's kill effect was pretty nice.

Cons.
1. We waited quite a while for this update, and instantly couldn't progress through the first part because of a bug. Pretty annoying when you've been waiting a long time. Even more annoying when you're like me and didn't realise it was even a bug until about 45 mins of trying stuff later. I'm not a game developer, but don't you play test to discover things like this? Oh well, mistakes happen, and it's a very small dev team. Also the fact that for all the extra time taken to release it, it's incredibly short. I wasn't expecting even half the time of the base campaign, but if you know what you're doing, you can be done in about an hour, possibly even less. Seriously, I wasted more time on bugs than actually progressing through the game.
2. The point where I started to get actually really angry. So if you've been looking in the discussions, you'll see a bunch of people are stuck on how to progress through finding the markings, and people can't find them. And that's because the game LIES TO YOU!!! I found the first 4, which was already tedious, since you need to kill the s3lf eater (well you don't have too, but it's quicker) to get the clues to which district the next marking is in. This is made worse by the fact that he's just an absolute bullet sponge (more on this later). So I do the first 4, ok, and then I get told that the last one is in the industrial district. Easy, right? Well, I check the whole area half a dozen times (not an exaggeration), can't find it. Exit into another district, and come back. Check again twice. Exit into another area. Check again. Try dying. Nothing. Exit the campaign. Nope. Restart the game. Check twice again. Verify files. Nope. I'm actually questioning if my eyes work properly.
I'm literally nearly about to just quit when I decide to look in other districts, so I go to the commercial district. Lo and behold, there it is, on the other side of the commercial district, on the statue. So thanks for wasting an hour of my life...
4 correct clues, and so you'd think that pattern would continue, right? Well no. And the game gives no indication that it's a lie. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, either way it's one of the dumbest things I've seen in a game. This experience alone basically ruined my perception of this update, but it doesn't stop there.
3. The S3lf - Eater. Not very interesting. First time you're like "Okay, he' pretty strong". But if you have any skill at the game, he's just annoying if anything else. Not really scary to fight, or fun for that matter. He's just a bullet sponge, that you either have to shoot a bunch, or melee a bunch, and dodge every few seconds. Not too bad, but the fact that you have to do this potentially dozens of times, it gets real annoying real fast. Also, he isn't that unique as an enemy:
. He's big
. He has a wide melee attack
. Tanky
. Charge up grab attack
Traits shared by a bunch of other enemies, a bunch already share all 4.
His only unique traits are that if he grabs you, he'll instant kill you (all corpus) if someone doesn't help you in time. It's pretty easy to dodge, however if it does happen, you're dead 9/10 times, because the AI team mates are brain dead, and are never in range even if you instantly switch to them. Also, he comes back like 20 seconds after you kill him, which seems like a cool idea, a hulking behemoth chasing you down through nexus city as you look for items, but in practice it just gets annoying.
Cool looking design though, so add that to the pros if you want.
4. The already short campaign is only even made as long as it is by just reusing the same concept multiple times. "Find 5 markings" just turns into a game of running in circles until you spot a blue glowing thing. Finding the components to the sword is just the same room, fighting slightly more difficult enemies each time. You can't even do it on any difficulty above normal (at least I didn't find a way). You end up gong back to the same shrine room like 3 or 4 times. It's not too bad, it's just that I was hoping for something more, or at least different.
5. We're supposed to be learning about the origins of the cyber bandits and Dr. Gonne. Do we thought? Like seriously, tell me what their deal is, where they came from, what they want? I mean, we do find out some stuff, but it isn't anything slightly interesting. The cyber bandits worship Dr. Gonne, or whatever tech he's made. Why? So they're basically just the cultists from the mines. Dr. Gonne doesn't show up, at least not in person. He works/ed for the nexus core, and was making some stuff. Okay, he's basically Crackpot. Where did the S3lf - Eater come from? Did Gonne make it? I don't remember ever finding out. To be fair, I may have just forgotten what I read in all the files, but the fact that I barely had any interest after all the other issues is telling.

I might add more stuff if I ever do a replay, just to try it again, and see if I like it better the next time around, without the bugs and stupid time wasters, but I'm not very excited.
Again, it makes me sad to write this because I love this game. It's one of my favourites, and I know that the guys have put their hearts and souls into it, and what they've done with how small their team is is very impressive, but this just went wrong in so many ways. And I don't like criticising people who've tried their best and have a great track record, because for a long time this has been one of my most anticipated things, and I was so excited when I saw the update was live after literally checking everyday for nearly 4 months.
But I just can't get over how much I disliked this. When the game you're playing makes you feel this way, more like a chore than relaxing and having fun, then it's done something wrong. Anyways, sorry for the extremely long rant. Tell me what you thought, and maybe I'll read somethings that change my mind and make me like this a bit more :)


Edit:
. Another con is the fact that the cyber bandits are barely a part of it. I mean, they show up twice to fight you, one coming out of the portal in the ground and there's a few of them in the weird portal place with the shrine. But there's only like a dozen of them, and if you're using laser weapons from them, you can kill them all in 5 seconds, no kidding. It was stupid easy.

Another Edit:
. The fact that a lot of people resorted to cheese tactics to beat the S3lf Eater just goes to show how un-fun it was to fight. I got sick of having to run back to the tower for dissonance or laser weapons, and just beat it in melee most of the time. But getting Sheriff with infinite ammo, isolating it and using the 4 party, or always using laser and dissonance weapons shows that people didn't see this as anything more than an annoyance that they wanted out of the way as quickly as possible. People just wanted to beat it as quickly and easily as they could.

Edit #3:
. It seems most people agree that this wasn't any good. I feel like we waited too long and got too little, and what little we did get wasn't great. It probably would have been better if we waited a bit longer, and the devs worked on some of their older ideas, like Zed survival, or the 'Build your own agency' thing. Honestly, I think what people were expecting is what we should have got; a smaller version of the overworld, like a mini campaign, with level selections and a narrative, linear story, rather than a bunch of fetch quests in places we've already been. More lore and character interactions, and better enemies. Reusing cyber bandits to just be there to die, and adding in a not-so-fun boss wasn't the greatest idea. Another good idea that people have been saying for ages is a workshop. That way the fans themselves can keep this game alive in the meantime, especially if they could create custom campaigns.

[eldobhatós cigányjósnő]

atleast it's something alright?

[Capital 0]

Originally posted by Hekate:

atleast it's something alright?

yeah I know, it's good to see they're still invested in releasing new content. But "at least it's something" could be used as an excuse for any bad piece of media.

[Capital 0]

Originally posted by Hekate:

atleast it's something alright?

And I don't mean this to be rude, but it seems like you agree with my criticisms, since you didn't have an argument against anything I said, basically "yeah it's not great, but better than nothing".

[eldobhatós cigányjósnő]

Originally posted by Capital 0:

Originally posted by Hekate:

atleast it's something alright?

And I don't mean this to be rude, but it seems like you agree with my criticisms, since you didn't have an argument against anything I said, basically "yeah it's not great, but better than nothing".

btw i just didn't like bother to read like the rest i only read the pro's and then saw the cons and was like "i ain't reading that" because i wanted to see the new content update and to see what's the reward

[Capital 0]

Originally posted by Hekate:

Originally posted by Capital 0:

And I don't mean this to be rude, but it seems like you agree with my criticisms, since you didn't have an argument against anything I said, basically "yeah it's not great, but better than nothing".

btw i just didn't like bother to read like the rest i only read the pro's and then saw the cons and was like "i ain't reading that" because i wanted to see the new content update and to see what's the reward

fair enough. Read it after you finish, maybe you'll agree, or disagree and change my mind :)

[eldobhatós cigányjósnő]

hey do you might know what to do after getting 4/5 of those cyber-markings? because i don't know what to do the s3lf eaters stopped spawning and there is no "ding" now and i don't know where the last cyber-marking is.

[Dawido]

I thought that they gonna add new locations and levels, but it's turns out that this DLC is just like side quest to hub locations and you don't even know what is happening actually

[Capital 0]

Originally posted by Hekate:

hey do you might know what to do after getting 4/5 of those cyber-markings? because i don't know what to do the s3lf eaters stopped spawning and there is no "ding" now and i don't know where the last cyber-marking is.

you'll have to search the whole map, unfortunately, and that means every possible location, even inside buildings

[gordon freeman]

Honestly thought it was going to be a new origin when I first saw the image last year

[Capital 0]

Originally posted by Nexus0:

Honestly thought it was going to be a new origin when I first saw the image last year

which image was that?

[BunnyAlex321]

I started taking him seriously when I let him do his grab attack on me and wait until he went through his animation and it turned out that he KILLS KILLS (as in no revives, fully dead).
Then I went to another sector and stopped taking him seriously for the rest of the questline.

[Capital 0]

Originally posted by BunnyAlex321:

I started taking him seriously when I let him do his grab attack on me and wait until he went through his animation and it turned out that he KILLS KILLS (as in no revives, fully dead).
Then I went to another sector and stopped taking him seriously for the rest of the questline.

yeah, if you get grabbed, you can just go to another sector and revive, although with only 1 corpus

[gordon freeman]

Originally posted by Capital 0:

Originally posted by Nexus0:

Honestly thought it was going to be a new origin when I first saw the image last year

which image was that?

the one on the discord server, i think it got deleted at some point

[Capital 0]

Originally posted by Nexus0:

Originally posted by Capital 0:

which image was that?

the one on the discord server, i think it got deleted at some point

ah, that's probably why I didn't see it.

[Unoriginal Umbrella]

Honestly, I one hundred percent agree, this DLC was a major letdown, especially because I love this game. The fact that the main selling point is learning more about cyber bandits and Dr. Gonne is a complete lie made me feel cheated. None of Gonne's reports even talk about how they were created or why they even worship Gonne, and Gonne himself just disappears for no reason, not even in a "he mysteriously vanished" type of way, but like "Oh he's just gone, whatever" way like they don't even bother trying to solve what happened to him. The fact that this entire DLC boiled down to two fetch-quests really set me off. I fully expected a hidden story mission or a set of missions where you explore the basement of the Science Tower about Gonne, and all you get is just a cool sword and a semi-invincible enemy, It's disappointing because this DLC really could've been so much more, but it just feels like it was an afterthought to get a new loadout. Again I absolutely adore this game, but my disappointment for this DLC just cannot be contained.