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[General Article] Firefall: Review in Progress #1

24

Comments

  • RamadonisRamadonis Member Posts: 18

    I really wanted to like this game. Loved the graphical style, the atmosphere and the gameplay was rather addicting as well. It's like Borderlands and Guild Wars 2 mixed up a bit. Yeah, the game is in it's infant stages, but I will grow into something decent with time.

    However, I cannot and will not stand behind a game that allows item degradation. The fact that all of my gear, weapons and even skills will degrade with time, usage, and even more so on deaths, is something I can't work with. Knowing that my Tier Four Plasma Cannon will eventually be destroyed... just doesn't sit well with me, not in a MMORPG.

    This is common place with the genre though. Elsword, Dragon Nest, and so on, all have systems where an item can break if upgraded too high. That I can understand. The player has FULL warning that this could happen. Here, in Firefall, nothing will prevent the eventual wearing down of one's equipment.

    It doesn't help when the Devs themselves say that this topic is not up for debate either...

    Sorry for the rant, but I had to share my two cents.

  • GravargGravarg Member UncommonPosts: 3,424
    Basically, after you create your character, it teaches you how to move, shoot, and about the basic battleframes, then dumps you into an area that wants to kill you all the time...I love it!
  • blbetablbeta Member UncommonPosts: 144

    Lost, confused and intrigued for the first few days.  It has been so long since I have played an MMO that I had to learn.  I was following Firefall and Planetside 2 when they were first annouced.  Planetside 2 came out and I mostly forgot about Firefall.

     

    Open beta hit and I didn't really care, but decided I should at least give it a go.  I am so happy I did.  Love the game thus far.  It has probably been since Asheron's Call that I felt "lost" in the world and liked it.

     

    Reading a few of the posts here and learning that there are other zones makes it that much better.  I see the potential with the melding and everything.  I have put quite a few hours in and just unlocked my first advanced frame with pilot tokens.

     

    As I say with most games, don't listen too much to others opinions and just play the game.  You may be pleasantly surprised as I was.

     
  • IndolIndol Member Posts: 189
    Originally posted by Razeekste
     

    All there is, is crafting and barely any PvE gameplay. The other option is PvP but you need to spam the thumpers to get good gear for PvP... It gets boring fast to do the same thing over and over.

    None of this is even remotely true. You either haven't played the game or you didn't know what to do and gave up right away.

  • DarkGulrakDarkGulrak Member UncommonPosts: 6

    I am not a frequent poster on this site, even though I read a lot of the forums. Let me tell you this, plain and simple. Firefall is a good, different game. It's got good concepts and a good studio backing it, and it has some great stuff on the way.

    Meaningful crafting, amazing open world with no loading ( outside of the 4 instances ), best way to travel - gliding! The shooter mechanics are done quite well, the Battleframes all feel different and are fun in their own way, even the starter Accord frames are good.

    At the very least try the game out, give the game a chance after the tutorial since a lot of people might feel lost on what to do at first. Remember Red 5 is a small studio, little issues here and there might pop up but they deal with it in very timely fashion.

    Lastly, the game is not p2w at all, the advanced frames can be unlocked via playing the game. You can make unlimited avatar cosmetic changes, even sex, for free. Also Firefall supports some amazing addons ( and curse support ), so you have some good customization options.

  • ShrillyShrilly Member UncommonPosts: 421
    Let me get this straight you cant wait to buy more frames with your real money???...what is there to gain doing missions and holding back chosen etc. if you just BUY all the content in a lump sum? What is the achievement? the progress? what will you do with what you earned killing everything if your dumping real funds for everything they churn out? you turn into a mindless drone doing missions here thumping there killing chosen tornadoes rinse and repeat.....
  • SlayblazeSlayblaze Member UncommonPosts: 24
    Good game, feels very unfinished (which it is) and very much like a beta but what is there so far is strangely addicting and can be really intense at times. Took me a couple days to figure out the crafting and I'm still not fully up to speed on battleframe progression, but I'm getting there.  If the devs can manage to regularly trickle out frequent updates and content then this'll hold my attention for quite a while.
  • DamonVileDamonVile Member UncommonPosts: 4,818
    Originally posted by Indol
    Originally posted by Razeekste
     

    All there is, is crafting and barely any PvE gameplay. The other option is PvP but you need to spam the thumpers to get good gear for PvP... It gets boring fast to do the same thing over and over.

    None of this is even remotely true. You either haven't played the game or you didn't know what to do and gave up right away.

    He probably played over a year ago before all the pvp changes. Either way it that's all he see's the game isn't for him.

  • kaiser3282kaiser3282 Member UncommonPosts: 2,759
    Originally posted by Shrilly
    Let me get this straight you cant wait to buy more frames with your real money???...what is there to gain doing missions and holding back chosen etc. if you just BUY all the content in a lump sum? What is the achievement? the progress? what will you do with what you earned killing everything if your dumping real funds for everything they churn out? you turn into a mindless drone doing missions here thumping there killing chosen tornadoes rinse and repeat.....

    1) You dont have to pay to unlock frames, you can also unlock them through earning Pilot Tokens for reaching certain goals with the free frames.

    2) Unlocking a frame is only the start. Its basically like unlocking a new class / job. You still have to gain XP (which starts at 0 again for each new frame) to level up all of its stats (Mass, Power, CPU), unlock the weapon & ability slots with XP, and craft all of the gear & abilities just like with any new class.

  • SilynseSilynse Member UncommonPosts: 19

    THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW BY A VETERAN PLAYER AND FOUNDER PACKAGE OWNER FOR A YEAR OF PLAYING NOW. (POINTS AT END ARE GIVEN ON SCALE OF 1-10; 10 being highest)

    I've had the most expensive founders pack on this game for a year now. I logged in to play and pvp last night...

    Honestly I can say this game HAD promise. But I went from being excited to log in much as these reviewers are now, to absolutely being BORED OUT OF MY MIND playing this game after only 3 months after the founders pack was purchased. And if these reviewers had 3 months to play this before reviewing, the terminology of their reviews would be quite different I am sure.

    First off the game is repetitive as heck. There is nothing original to do in the game after you've completed each kind of mission, and there's only about 11 kinds I would guess. Each mission asks you to complete a task, which is mundane and does not effect the world, because the same task will be available again, just in a different location in a few minutes.

    The players are a friendly community, but they are all about themselves for the most part, not selfishly, just that there is no real reason to group up other than to gather resources from thumping.

    Even mission objectives for AERES missions can be completed without forming a group, you just have to be in the vicinity, same with thumping for that matter.

    The xp expenditure system for new abilities is overinflated and though new suits look cool sometimes, the abilities, (the best part) is exclusive to the suit in PVP, and interchangeable in PVE, which is confusing and completely takes away from the feeling of being a unique individual, especially in PVP. These upgrades are expensive and require hours and hours of grinding. Which this site degraded other games for, but seems ok with on this one for some reason.... (probably since Mark is a contributor)

    The game is not very detailed graphically so after a couple of hours of playing, any humanoid enemies all begin to remind the player of Wolfenstien where there's 5 different kinds of enemy all wielding the same five weapons in the same manner. BORING. But wait! There's alien animal looking bugs attacking? Same 4 of them all the time. BORING. But wait, there's different animals in different zones? nope.... same animals, different colors... BORING.

    There's no levels or level cap, GREAT, I can live with that, I love RPG's like the elder scroll series, and EVE online, so what is my drive to play? If a game does not use levels and achievements, then it should have a story or universe that envelops and pushes the player to further his character.  Red 5 didn't implement this... what they did was implement never ending BUSY WORK called AERES missions, in hopes that you'd spend money trying to buy suits of armor that don't even protect you any better as the game goes on, you are spending money and XP for aesthetics... Or even worse, they ask you to be wrapped up in a trying to get into a SHORT five man instance that, even to take part in getting to,  takes a group and a lot longer than needed to get to being able to enter it, with a storyline that frankly, the player could care less about, because they created a violent, destitute, and empty environment that leaves no reason for the player to be EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED to the land or its people. There is no hope, the invasion is never ending, and the melding never truly moves in or out really...  So really, who cares about saving anything other than their own skin?

    This game HAD potential, as I stated first. HAD. But its old news now. There are much better products, with much better storyline, music, graphics, emersion, and the ability to make a player interested in furthering his character and grouping with players to accomplish GOALS. Red 5 needs to step back from the design table, and take a look at things besides PVP, and cell shading.

    This game is something to pass time during 30 minute breaks between classes. Not a game that is worth investing months worth of time into. This is a stolen idea from PlanetSide, pasted together with cell shading styled, cartoon graphics, and the ideas from a disgruntled World Of Warcraft employee's revenge against leveled gaming.

    There is nothing wrong with leveled OR unleveled gaming Red 5... the problem is that no company yet, least of all you, has done it right since WoW Vanilla, because every company thinks being called a WoW clone is bad. The mistakes of WoW were that it was too easy and gear dependent after Vanilla, period. Not that the leveling system was the problem. Different areas of fundamentals all together. And frankly, No company has had the balls to create a leveled or skill based game in the IMAGE OF GREAT RPG's. I haven't seen a game since, (for myself), WoW vanilla that actually engrossed me in any kind of story or world. You've taken the RPG concept, and trashed it to push FTP money into your accounts. Learn to immerse guys. IMMERSION.

    Overall:

    Graphics 6

    Music 2

    Gameplay 7

    Difficulty 8

    Originality 7

    Immersion 2

    Replay-ability 3

     

  • TheocritusTheocritus Member LegendaryPosts: 10,014
    Sometimes the graphics work and sometimes they are a real hinderance in this game.....Im still ahving a ahrd time getting into it...The 3rd person view is jsut awful...Who the heck decided to put the avatar way to the left like that?...Im not sure I have ever seen that in any game before...Also is the game open world or instanced?....It seems to be split half and half on that though I havent seen much of either as Im still new....The game sounded liek it had alot of promise but now that I've seen it I dont think it does....i'll give it a few more days but its going to have to blow my socks off to stay.
  • BelegStrongbowBelegStrongbow Member UncommonPosts: 296

    The next big content patch is what will make or break the game for me.  Open world PvP.  They can go either Sandbox or Themepark route,  or a mix of both. 

     

    Depending on how much control they give the players is what dictates if I will play it.  If we get player built and controlled bases,  Risk vs reward pvp.  Im hooked forever.  If not,  I will wait for the next game that has it. 

  • spidiispidii Member UncommonPosts: 143
    It's decent for sure but combat is pretty boring and progression feels non-existent even with the crafting. Here's a few skills, go shoot at things. Not a whole lot to it. Thumping/Crafting is definitely where this game shines so hopefully things will expand in the future and there will be more to do. Definitely worth a try though guys.
  • jackocompjackocomp Member UncommonPosts: 50

    I have been playing FF long enough now to fully upgrade my base Assault frame & think that gives me a pretty good idea of what the game is like.

    Firstly, the game has a lot of very colorful  things for eye candy & it does in a way add to the game experience.

    Now as for things to do, hmmm if you don't like having to do the same thing pretty much most of the time then FF is not going to be very appealing to you. the main things to do in FF are:

    1). chasing ARES missions around the map which are more or less all the same just in different parts of the map. They usually involve having to kill any number of spider like MOBS & Human LIKE MOBS. these pretty much do the same thing every time however these MOBS will travel a long way to get you if you happen to hit one at a distance.

    2). The Tornadoes. these are probably the hardest part of the game & are good for dropping lots of loot of all kinds. The MOBS that accompany these are a little harder than normal MOBS to kill but not much. Basically you shoot set targets around the Tornado & that causes it to collapse which opens a portal to another smallish map that mainly drops minerals.

    3). defense of Watch Towers & SIN Relays etc. these can be interesting if there isn't a 101 people waiting for the MOBS to arrive. The MOBS basically attempt to take over towns around the map to make them their own & players are able to TRY to fend them off with their own personal weapons OR weapon turrets that are placed around the town that become active when an attempt is in progress.

    These turrets require players to activate them & each tiem a player does this they get a certain amount of EXP which is used to upgrade Frames with.

    there is also a way to build stuff, & there is a PVP arena players can use.

    ATM the biggest issue in the game for me is the fact players can't sell off rubbish loot to any of the NPC shops & although ATM the players inventory is unlimited in size in the future they have said it will be limited.

    Also most if not all the equipment a player uses on their frame that isn't the basic stock level stuff wears out in time & ATM there really isn't a way to repair those items as the repair function in the frame garage only repairs basic level stuff.

     

  • skepticalskeptical Member Posts: 357

    This game is fun in short bursts but it gets old pretty fast. They have the foundation and mechanics to do a lot with this game, but I don't know if they will be able to keep people interested long term. The pve content is limited and not very challenging. If you like to play all the different "classes" and you don't short cut the progression by paying to unlock frames you could stay bust for awhile, but if you stick to one type of frame you will max out pretty fast and reach a plateau. Then all there is to do is work at farming enough materials to keep making the same gear since all gear is throw away and can only be repaired for a short time before it breaks and becomes useless. If you are very cautious it's not terrible but if you like to take risks and charge in head first you are going to find it rather difficult to maintain a high lvl of gear. 

    Don't expect to play this for hours a day for years to come but if you want something to play around with that is a little different this game is perfect. If you are bored with the MMO you play now and are waiting for something new this is a great game to kill a little time with imo. 

    The major downside right now is server lag during high traffic times makes the game literally unplayable. They need to upgrade the servers big time because it makes a really bad first impression on new players when they can't access anything because of the massive lagfest.

  • RattenmannRattenmann Member UncommonPosts: 613
    Originally posted
    Red 5’s freshman entry into the MMO space is both taking money, and no longer wiping progress for its players. For all intents and purposes: it’s live.

    I skipped the whole review just to say THANKS.

    Seriously, this is what i have been thinking about "open betas" and even some CLOSED Betas that take money already. The word "Beta" is just being misused to have an excuse because games hit the marked unfinished nowadays and WAY more often then not.

    Thanks again for stating this in an official article, i love you guys.

    MMOs finally replaced social interaction, forced grouping and standing in a line while talking to eachother.

    Now we have forced soloing, forced questing and everyone is the hero, without ever having to talk to anyone else. The evolution of multiplayer is here! We won,... right?

  • darkheartsdarkhearts Member UncommonPosts: 159

    I tried the game out a couple days ago and didn't like it.

    Combat was ok

    AI was stupid (mobs would stack on top of each other),

    But by far I hated how I spent most my time running to an event to find it was completed when I got there.

  • TheHavokTheHavok Member UncommonPosts: 2,423
    Originally posted by darkhearts

    I tried the game out a couple days ago and didn't like it.

    Combat was ok

    AI was stupid (mobs would stack on top of each other),

    But by far I hated how I spent most my time running to an event to find it was completed when I got there.

    As the game progresses, I can see this being a common complaint.  I have a bike and I get to places much, much faster then I did on foot.  It is frustrating heading to an event or mission only to come late, but thats the trade-off of having an open-world, free to fall type of system and not individual instances.  As Firefall becomes more and more popular (Yes, the playerbase is growing every night!) this will start to become a bigger and bigger issue for Red5.

    Just want to add that i'm enjoying the game and crafting is extremely rewarding - especially when its an item i've worked hard to get like a thumper 3 or arcfold modulator.  Will I stick around once i've hit full tier 4?  Only time will tell.

  • tank017tank017 Member Posts: 2,192


    "Now then... where to begin? Let me put it this way: Firefall’s the kind of game that doesn’t hold your hand, and it requires a good bit of self-experimentation. Red 5’s crafted some tutorial videos, and there’s a decent very basic introduction to the game and how it works after you create your character, but by and large you’ll only get as much out of Firefall as you put into the game. For some, this will be a glorious callback to the days of MMOs' youth.  For others this little facet will likely drive them away."

     

    This is probably why Im enjoying Firefall so much.

  • BuddyDudeBuddyDude Member UncommonPosts: 52
    Originally posted by Razeekster
     

    All there is, is crafting and barely any PvE gameplay. The other option is PvP but you need to spam the thumpers to get good gear for PvP... It gets boring fast to do the same thing over and over.

     

    My guess is that you are used to companies holding your small hand and pointing that itty bitty nose to the next quest. As the review says, you need to get out and explore.

  • WolfsheadWolfshead Member UncommonPosts: 224
    you are joke that tutorial was to long it is short tutorial i have every play in mmo and some tutorial in other mmo keep go for few lvl before it is done some come man dont lie that it was to long
  • TaotavTaotav Member UncommonPosts: 14
    GREAT game.
  • ShortyBibleShortyBible Member UncommonPosts: 409
    Originally posted by Silynse

    THIS IS AN HONEST REVIEW BY A VETERAN PLAYER AND FOUNDER PACKAGE OWNER FOR A YEAR OF PLAYING NOW. (POINTS AT END ARE GIVEN ON SCALE OF 1-10; 10 being highest)

    /snip

    Thank you for your review.

    It encouraged me to try this game. I don't like fps , but will give this a try.

    Thanks.

    Edit.

    How is the game economy? Can anyone describe?

    Are the best gear crafted or sold in Cash Shop?

    Could a dedicated crafter enjoy this game and prosper?

    Thanks

     

     

  • Carnage2K4Carnage2K4 Member Posts: 8

    Pre-Alpha - Alpha - Beta (open/closed) - RC - RTM - GA - Gold (live release)

    If a company has "beta" still attached, it's not a released game, when people like Billy here start making up their own rules on what progress in development mean to them as the standard, then why bother with a system?

    You play with a semi-working printer UI, drop ships that don't land, constant server drops, and warping invasions and then tell me it's a released game for all intents and purposes, and I'd tell you to pull your f*ing head in...

  • KaosLegionKaosLegion Member UncommonPosts: 79
    It's coz of money grubbing games like neverwinter that this mentality exists carnage, spend a bit of time on the ff forums and you'll realise that it's not the case here.
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