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View Full Version : Why is the Mines free field so plain compared to the missions.



Agitated_AT
Aug 9, 2012, 11:45 PM
While the missions have all these interesting level structures and the moving floor(or whatever it's called, excuse my english), the free mine is just a plain mine with... nothing interesting.

Why would they make the field that people are likely gonna do more often, so plain compared to the missions one may only do a couple of times? I almost feel like it's an early state that's mistakingly still in the game.

Sp-24
Aug 9, 2012, 11:50 PM
No idea. In Mines' "Defense", though, all free fields are like that - 2nd and/or 3rd quests of that area always have something that makes them more memorable than free field (except for the Iceberg area, I don't remember anything at all there).

MAXrobo
Aug 10, 2012, 12:56 AM
yeah desert was like that too, it is kinda disappointing. i think the idea is to try and give players a reason to go back and do the other missions, instead of just spamming free missions. But looking at the list of parties for one second will tell you that it doesnt work.

Shakuri
Aug 10, 2012, 01:17 AM
Angel Islands are plain too.
So is Sandopolis.
Ice Cap and Planet Wisp ain't too bad though. Planet Wisp is Day 1 content though.

Digibilly17
Aug 10, 2012, 01:26 AM
Angel Islands are plain too.
So is Sandopolis.
Ice Cap and Planet Wisp ain't too bad though. Planet Wisp is Day 1 content though.

I lol'd.

Coatl
Aug 10, 2012, 01:59 AM
The free desert looks like [REDACTED].
The last ark desert mission looks just so much better..the two aren't comparable at all.

It's just that one where I notice a huge difference.
Free tundra, forest, and caves look pretty similar to their ark mission counter-parts.

Agitated_AT
Aug 10, 2012, 04:09 AM
Yeah i'm very dissapointed about it tbh. Free fields are the ones who should feel unique the most because they are the ones who are gonna get replayed the most.

EXPFULL
Aug 10, 2012, 06:22 AM
Yeah i'm very dissapointed about it tbh. Free fields are the ones who should feel unique the most because they are the ones who are gonna get replayed the most.

A very good point. Especially as it's what you unlock after doing the missions.

Agitated_AT
Aug 10, 2012, 06:56 AM
A very good point. Especially as it's what you unlock after doing the missions.

Sadly making any good point is kind of useless and means nothing if our word doesn't get read. So far all the feedback i've seen getting adressed is that the game is too hard. Yeah...

I didn't notice this untill mines because the movign floor was a very striking gimmick that made mines very unique to me. In the free field there is nothing left of that.

NoiseHERO
Aug 10, 2012, 07:10 AM
I think they should bring in more static level designs in the future...

It's all fun in games running around in the out doors and thinking you're in a random part of the forest, immersion wise(did I just say immersion?) at least until you realize all the landmarks just get rearranged or something.

But if they plan to make more indoors like places... it can't just be a randomly generator field with only 5 memorable landmarks in it.

Or it COULD be like that anyway... I guess... /worried


example: I can't just walk into an office building and all the rooms are the same with the furniture rearranged and there's re-skinned employees everywhere till I get to the boss portal- I mean bosses office. Even though this is a bad example because office buildings do look like that. D:

Agitated_AT
Aug 10, 2012, 07:31 AM
I really like the random generated nature of the levels, but perhaps it does result in alot of lifelessness in the levels. Especially tundra suffers from this. But It doesn't nesceseraly have to do with the random generated nature. Because even if that were the case, eventually they would have to become better at this, as im defenitly convinced it is possible to have stages full of life even though it's randomly generated. The unique stuff that are there are quite good in themselves allready. Big trees, waterfalls etc. There can defenitly be improvements in the random generated levels.

I think it perhaps makes more sense when you look at the last few games. The standards have just been set to the PSU standards instead of PSO1. PSO1 levels aside from a few, were full of life, PSU however, allthough not having the random generated nature, was even more lifeless than pso2.

NoiseHERO
Aug 10, 2012, 07:37 AM
I think we'll be fine though, if we get a lot of variety in general.

staring at the same few levels all day (tundra and mines being the newest not helping much) makes you feel like you're just running through an endless randomly generator maze with nothing memorable in it...

But it always feels like a breath of fresh air running a mission I haven't done in a while, as rare as that feeling is when we only have 7 different areas. Haven't gotten sick of skyland yet.

Omisan
Aug 10, 2012, 08:27 AM
In pso or at least psobb, the levels were more unique than this so far. Caves had a very different look as you went deeper, so did mines. I enjoyed forest because although it was static, it felt like it was very detailed and i enjoyed its static design.

Agitated_AT
Aug 11, 2012, 09:20 PM
Not gonna lie that this irks me to a great extent. I think this is some terrible decision there. Giving us plain free field experiences in contrast to unique small missions is fucking stupid.

Vashyron
Aug 11, 2012, 09:28 PM
Yeah it's pretty bad, Imo the Free Fields should of used a combination of random map pieces from the previous Missions. Would add way more variety.

Macman
Aug 11, 2012, 10:48 PM
Same reason Free Field Forest doesn't have those awesome river blocks that are seen in Dagan Extermination: I have no idea, and it sucks. :(

Agitated_AT
Aug 11, 2012, 11:59 PM
Same reason Free Field Forest doesn't have those awesome river blocks that are seen in Dagan Extermination: I have no idea, and it sucks. :(

Omg, you just reminded me. Those waterfalls and streaming rivers in dagan extermination are nowhere in the free fields. I remember moments in that mission where i'd stand still under a shade and just look ahead into the beautiful views in those parts. And I have no reason whatsoever to join these missions anymore

NoiseHERO
Aug 12, 2012, 12:07 AM
I like forest free...

It has that giant tree.

ShadowDragon28
Aug 12, 2012, 01:31 AM
to the OP...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

Agitated_AT
Aug 12, 2012, 01:38 AM
to the OP...

Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c)

So yeah... like uhh, what is your opinion then

ShadowDragon28
Aug 12, 2012, 01:47 AM
I think all the areas WIPE the floor with PSU's areas (except for Haibaro forest and the mystical looking Seed areas), every damn area in PSO 2 I've seen has been bloody brilliant in level design and it's visuals. My favorite so far is the Snowy forest & tundra areas. I've not been bored with anyone of them yet. I switch off which missions I play so I never get tired of only one area.

I love exploring the free missions; for an hour I was killin' things in Hard, just racking up Exp and items to sell off for meseta. I killed like 4 Forest Banthers with Japanese player in multiparty yesterday in free forest it was awesome for me.

Agitated_AT
Aug 12, 2012, 02:26 AM
I think all the areas WIPE the floor with PSU's areas (except for Haibaro forest and the mystical looking Seed areas), every damn area in PSO 2 I've seen has been bloody brilliant in level design and it's visuals. My favorite so far is the Snowy forest & tundra areas. I've not been bored with anyone of them yet. I switch off which missions I play so I never get tired of only one area.

I love exploring the free missions; for an hour I was killin' things in Hard, just racking up Exp and items to sell off for meseta. I killed like 4 Forest Banthers with Japanese player in multiparty yesterday in free forest it was awesome for me.

Yeah but why set such a low standard to the one of PSU? PSU's fields are plain to any standard. What we are playing is an HD game now, which doesn't look more rich then a game made in 2001, you know the game that shares the same name.

But that's beside my point. I think indeed that PSO2 looks astonishing and has amazing level structures.... in the missions that is. The free fields while sharing the same high quality visuals, miss some of the great structure and elements found in the missions. I just don't get why.

As I may have mentioned before I think the reasoning are the huge bosses that are able to appear on these free fields. I personally just don't think it's worth it to give up variety.

Now it is just like every single free field is the same with different enemies and aesthetics. If a ragne appears in tundra or mines, you're gonna have the same experience anyway beside how the background looks. It isn't something worth giving up to that imo. I really think this isn't the way they should do things and consider it such an awful descision

ShadowDragon28
Aug 12, 2012, 02:32 AM
whatever. I'm not playing the game to analyze the design and layouts of each area. I'm having fun, and thats all that matters to me.

Agitated_AT
Aug 12, 2012, 02:37 AM
whatever. I'm not playing the game to analyze the design and layouts of each area. I'm having fun, and thats all that matters to me.

Lol yeah, and I appreciate that. I can do that as well when I play. But yeah this is a message board and no message board is a message board without some discussion. That was the point of this thread. My actual point would be hoping that the game eventually fixes this but untill then it does kind of annoy me how samey a free field is to the other. Well i'd give credit to the floating island lowering platform code's are awesome and well different from the other fields.

thematesV2
Aug 12, 2012, 10:05 AM
I think that due to the fact that PSU has been played now for a few years, and PSO2 has now been played to death by tons of people here, our comparisons may be a bit Jaded. go look up some screens for PSO forest to compare to PSO2 forest. same with BB desert/crater to compare to PSO2 desert. Sure, the general complexity of the map's layout has not changed a great deal, but the overall detail is worlds better.

depending on what we're comparing, things have both gotten alot better, and stayed the same a bit.

Level design wise, it's tons more open, you don't have to unlock a door every 20 feet (level design trick. how they allowed the 3d game to play so well, by only having one room at a time to load and function.) and we have interrupt actions, some of which are bosses in the middle of a misson. (and when you're lucky, code crossovers, with one boss after another.)

environment art wise, it's a ton better than both PSU and PSO. perhaps not as good as alot of the current gen games, but it doesn't look that bad on a nice 23" monitor. perhaps if you're playing it on a 50" screen it would suffer a bit, but thats what you get for playing games on a 50" screen. haha

layout wise, it's simple, and this is where it suffers the most, I feel. although the layouts are very similar to PSO, by not having the doors at every room, most of the time you feel like you're just running through a long, open field. but again, if you're lvl 40 with more than one character, it's probably because you've spent WAY too much time playing PSO in the last 2 months, and any game would become repetitive and overly instanced and simple with that amount of attention.

BahnKnakyu
Aug 13, 2012, 04:55 AM
I think that due to the fact that PSU has been played now for a few years, and PSO2 has now been played to death by tons of people here, our comparisons may be a bit Jaded. go look up some screens for PSO forest to compare to PSO2 forest. same with BB desert/crater to compare to PSO2 desert. Sure, the general complexity of the map's layout has not changed a great deal, but the overall detail is worlds better.

depending on what we're comparing, things have both gotten alot better, and stayed the same a bit.

Level design wise, it's tons more open, you don't have to unlock a door every 20 feet (level design trick. how they allowed the 3d game to play so well, by only having one room at a time to load and function.) and we have interrupt actions, some of which are bosses in the middle of a misson. (and when you're lucky, code crossovers, with one boss after another.)

environment art wise, it's a ton better than both PSU and PSO. perhaps not as good as alot of the current gen games, but it doesn't look that bad on a nice 23" monitor. perhaps if you're playing it on a 50" screen it would suffer a bit, but thats what you get for playing games on a 50" screen. haha

layout wise, it's simple, and this is where it suffers the most, I feel. although the layouts are very similar to PSO, by not having the doors at every room, most of the time you feel like you're just running through a long, open field. but again, if you're lvl 40 with more than one character, it's probably because you've spent WAY too much time playing PSO in the last 2 months, and any game would become repetitive and overly instanced and simple with that amount of attention.

Pretty much this in a nutshell. I personally think a lot of people are nostalgia-ing by saying PSO's levels are better. However, I have to disagree with you on the map layouts. PSO1 had several memorable map layouts that made you go "yeah, this map layout belongs to this area". Remember the double-lined corridor in Ruins where you can fire from across the gap to help your teammates out, or that big arena-like area that drops 190358109358 Sinow Beats/Golds in Mines during i think Mop Up Operation 3? etc.

But I do agree that PSO2 is a lot less "enclosed" - it's wide open fields pretty much everywhere. PSO1's caves felt like you were in a very claustrophobic place - PSO2's cave makes you feel like you're in a giant cavern, for example. I'm fine with that - some of my favorite areas in PSO1 were the Ep. 2 Seashore areas that felt like you were really outdoors, PSO2's areas feel a lot like that.

Also, details wise the reason why they didn't go out of their way to make this game look really good is probably to make it scale well. It looks pretty decent at max settings (nothing like Crysis 1, of course), but it's also VERY playable and okay looking at Settings 1 and it can play at an adaquate framerate on low end systems (I had an i7 965 with a GT 520 for a short period while RMAing my friend GTX 460 and messed up Corsair AX750 PSU).

Macman
Aug 13, 2012, 06:35 AM
PSO2 has to have somewhat wide open areas in general to accommodate the random boss spawns.

Mines is considerably more cramped than Forest at times, though. It's also very easy to get trapped in a corner in Quartz Dragon's lair since the entire battlefield is only one block big.

NoiseHERO
Aug 13, 2012, 06:50 AM
^ Quartz Dragon's boss room reminds me of PSZ boss rooms...

Just run for you life on top of a giant platform...

xhrit
Aug 13, 2012, 07:24 AM
PSO2 has to have somewhat wide open areas in general to accommodate the random boss spawns.

Mines is considerably more cramped than Forest at times, though. It's also very easy to get trapped in a corner in Quartz Dragon's lair since the entire battlefield is only one block big.

In Mines and Tundra free fields you can kite the bosss to map tiles where they can't reach you and kill them by shooting them with your gunsaber.