Pioneers looks better than it plays.

[hunter]

I was surprised at the size of the map for Pioneers mission and was excited to see what it had to offer but it mainly comprises of three types of repetitive quests for very little build progression. Transport passengers 4, 6, 8,12 , so boring , endless mining for very little buying power, and shooting the same types of targets.

I miss the first crashed ship mission where you actually had fun objectives that changed quite early on. You could upgrade your vehicle with ease compared to this new update. You could unlock see and air not too far into it however this one I must have done 20-30 shooter / transport missions and it is so ridiculously repetitive and boring.

Why can't you use a boat / fly early on? Core limitation will still prevent one from creating a very powerful craft to deal with higher level enemies, and you could have made the farther locations protected by AA guns that lower lvl vehicles are no match for or like the pulse miner just make lvl 1 guns not do any damage to higher lvl enemies. Imagine a simple plane in the early starting zone and how fun it would be to fly around it the area and possibly have the same lvl flying enemies spawn as the ones on ground do. Missions that build airstrips after gathering supplies. hiring froglens to be wingmen/ shooters to your party. It's so disappointingly boring to be stuck driving a car for so long. It's like ai was used to make endless duplicate quests that feel meaningless and it's no fun. It's a shame.

[UTMaster]

I built a flier before I faced the first Mega Drill. All I needed to unlock were the Spoilers and Hoverpads.

[♛ExodusNexus♛]

clearly your not very creative i had a plane before the first boss battle. as for the quests yeah i do have to agree they could be better however its a massive free update so i cannot complain

[RemedialAF]

I think my biggest gripe is that there is almost zero reason to explore. There's this huge, awesome world, but nothing interesting to actually find. Once you find resource nodes (which are pretty much everywhere), there's literally no reason to go anywhere.

[VforVeranda]

Yeeeeeahh.. I WAS going to start writing a critique of the 2.0; but since this is here...

I agree with OP. I will not speak of the flying as I never really looked at what I unlocked... which does put a point on my main gripe: Intention versus incentive.

I think that 2.0 steps in the same trap as Airborne did; namely, hard shift in focus from puzzle based game play to combat.
Let me frame the intent:
While having cool designs and cool moves like dipping in and out of water, the few enemy types are very VERY easy to kill. To make it harder, they arbitrarily made it harder to repair. That was the intent.
All this does, is it slows down game play and not just in combat.

Secondly, to support the combat, why not put in missions to arbitrarily slow down the acquisition of blocks for some sense of progression. That was the intent.

Lastly, to support the progression, why not add gathering and crafting? As it is a game about building vehicles, two new parts were made specifically for that. That was the intent.


From a logical standpoint and being somewhat charitable to Flashbulb, this all one logical decision following the next, because the base game had nothing to shoot, yet we had guns.
While I understand it, it turned out... lackluster.

So now onto the intent part: The original campaign had no enemies, but rather simple, yet effective puzzles that kept pushing the player to come up with ever more zany vehicles to get those crazy balls to the goals. As player, you had incentive to be creative.

Tell me, how *did* you get the balls from the cliffs in the base game? You know the ones I mean. Two, set about 5m underneath the top of the cliff, over the water.

There incentive to build in either Airborne and Pioneers is virtually non-existent, bar the incremental iterations of the first vehicle you start with; with either guns, gathering or tractor installed.
Then the same process with a boat.
Then grind for the same airplane/heli/drone that you still have the build plan for from the base game.

All the while, while being arbitrarily given busywork with very little in the way of payoff.


Sorry for the long post.
Here is a potato:
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[roykl]

Sadly, this update is a complete genre shift. The fact that the stranded map is sidelined for this mindless grindfest says that there is no longer hope for this game.

[Tales]

Just finished the new campaign... and yeah. I would agree with OP and VforVeranda on a lot of points. The missions aren't very unique, and there is little incentive to explore. I rather hated the crafting system, as it discouraged me from building anything that wasn't absolutely necessary. Also, the fuel system even furthermore discourages any and all exploration. I miss the more puzzle-box approach of the original campaign, as well as the high seas one. Airborne was passable... but despite the "2.0" hype, this feels worse than airborne.

[VforVeranda]

Actually, I think I can contradict myself and in doing so, nail down why it failed even better: there was no genre shift.

It still is a puzzle game, just that it now has only a handful of simple puzzles that scale: Simple traversal, simple traversal with passengers 1-infinity, shoot at objects 1-infinity (stationary or no; some shoot back, others need a special gun) & push a lightweight box to goal (no engineering needed).

Bland. Boring.

I've not finished the last boss yet but I got a drone like I built in Stranded and even though it only has 1 smart gun, it might even do for the last boss. If not (if it has shields, for instance), then I'll just not finish it and move on, or go help people in Stranded.

[Nuggs]

I enjoyed it but agree that the mining for resources was too much of a grind and took away from the overall experience

But I did like how it forces you to be more creative like Stranded as in you can only work with what you have blocks wise

[TZODnmr2K5]

Originally posted by VforVeranda:

Yeeeeeahh.. I WAS going to start writing a critique of the 2.0; but since this is here...

I think that 2.0 steps in the same trap as Airborne did; namely, hard shift in focus from puzzle based game play to combat.

THIS!

This times 895% I was literally addicted to this game pre-pioneers, I played every day for over 600 hours from the day I bought it from Jan 7th to Mar 6th, yet all motivation for this game ceased as I was bored even before I could finish the tutorial...

There is no more motivation to explore, create, or even play, they modded the fun right out of this game, I say modded because that's what it feels like, as it is no longer a game of deduction, creativity, and ingenuity, it is now yet another grind-fest, with artificial difficulty in order to block progression too soon.

They attract us with a compelling game, and ruin it with fetch quests and artificial difficulty, now the only incentive to explore is hunting for a grind-spot to mindlessly spam battles for resources, that's the new core of the gameplay now... Grinding for resources.

There are still "balancing" left to be done, judging from their road map, and I can surely guess how they're going to mod it, bolster the enemies and nerf the player to the point of turning this game into a pure slog-fest, modding the fun right out of the game completely!

My suggestion?

Quite simple, use the same map/game, and split them into modes, one called original mode, the other, grindfest mode, keep the enemies/storyline/RPG elements for the grindfest, and just the map with cleverly placed blocks/salvage for Original mode!

That way you can please the MMO crowd and those of us that was first attracted to the game in the first place!

And not only that but it makes the game much more fulfilling for when you've played the original mode to death and want a little RPG, and vice versa, when you tire of grinding and just want to build that perfect craft to finally get those bloody rocks off that cliff!

Sorry I have no potato, but I do have a tip to finally snag those rocks! ;^)

Might I suggest a possible solution for those rocks, take those hover-pads, reverse them, put them in a sturdy off-roader, and wall climb to them, better yet, retrofit underwater engines/floater to your wall crawler and that way you can approach/transport those rocks from the sea!

You see, THAT is what made the game so compelling, not grinding for bloody resources, as that is the bulk of the new game now...

[IceSentry]

Quite simple, use the same map/game, and split them into modes, one called original mode, the other, grindfest mode, keep the enemies/storyline/RPG elements for the grindfest, and just the map with cleverly placed blocks/salvage for Original mode!

The new map is not designed to have the same hard to reach spot that the old map has. You can't just make it a new mode and call it a day. They would need to rethink the new map completely if that was the goal.

[SimpliG]

my biggest gripe with pioneers is the resources. you gain levels and unlock new stuff far quicker than you can craft them. like i already was level 7 before i had enough mechanical parts to craft 4 suspensions. i never even dreamed of crafting a bike despite having the parts unlocked because of the resource cost, and i was in a situation where i had to consider if i wanted to waste rubber on off road wheels or hoard my rubber for truck wheel, this despite the fact that i was collecting every resource node i came across between missions. and don't even get me started on the repair tokens and fuel. they are kinda annoying and useless at the same time. you constantly has to repair your car before you can edit it, and it gets damaged every second from an enemy or a bigger jump, yet you never run out of repair tokens because settlements and pickups are so common. fuel is just straight up pointless, i don't know how long you have to run out of it, but i never even was below 50% ever.

[TZODnmr2K5]

Originally posted by IceSentry:

The new map is not designed to have the same hard to reach spot that the old map has. You can't just make it a new mode and call it a day. They would need to rethink the new map completely if that was the goal.

CRAP, you got a point, I admit that I lost interest as I'm simply focused on building and did not play this new map past the tutorial, in fact I got bored during the tutorial itself!

I bought this game, and played the hell out of it because it was so compelling as one could actually use their deductive and problem-solving skills to overcome obstacles rather than some idiot boss...

But now, it's just another MMO mindless grind-fest where you have to deal with artificial difficulty impeding progress, such as unbalanced resources/mechanics instead of overcoming obstacles using your brain...

I still hold out hope, in the road map they stated that they will be balancing the game and opening up the map for the sandbox, though I would have to play the main campaign before then as I don't want to spoil it for myself.