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Constructive feedback for Mirror's Edge Catalyst - Parkour skills and the beginning of the game
June 16, 2016 8:03AM
edited June 2016
Dear EA, Dice,
I loved the Mirror's Edge (2008) and I'm extremely happy that I can run in Faiths shoes again. So thank you for releasing Mirror's Edge Catalyst (2016). But without further ado lets get to my feedback.
With ME Catalyst there are things I love and things I don't. First of all the character skill progression: you decided to remove basic parkour functionalities from a perfectly healthy professional runner. You start the game without abilities familiar from ME1 such as quick turn and skill roll which I find essential in the world where Faith lives. I would understand this if Faith was battered during the jail time and she needed to rehabilitate her parkour abilities. But at the current state lacking these basic abilities makes no sense on perfectly healthy Faith.
The conflict comes when you enter to the open world and bump in-to a time trial challenge that needs a fluent parkour. To complete the challenge you need to have some skills - but they are locked under character progression. Why are these challenges showed to the player if his/her current skill-tree progression does not allow completion? I would love to see more dynamics in this part of the open world environment.
After purchasing the game it took a week that I really started to play it. My first experience with the open world was aversive once I realized that I cannot do some of the basic maneuvers with Faith. And whole thing made me not wanting to explore the world or start the game.
I like the idea of character skill tree and progression. And I think you could have done slightly better: For example, you could give all basic abilities for Faith that we are accustomed from the first Mirror's Edge -- instead of withholding her basic and essential parkour skills. And you could focus on upgrading and boosting her parkour abilities with speed and height and length: you could skill roll swifter and you could wall climb longer distances and so on.
With gear progression it makes more sense. You know: you buy new shoes that have better grip that you can perform longer distance wallruns. Not to mention that Bionic Commando arm aka MAGROPE. The progression with gear and combat is something new with Mirror's Edge and I like it.
I loved the Mirror's Edge (2008) and I'm extremely happy that I can run in Faiths shoes again. So thank you for releasing Mirror's Edge Catalyst (2016). But without further ado lets get to my feedback.
With ME Catalyst there are things I love and things I don't. First of all the character skill progression: you decided to remove basic parkour functionalities from a perfectly healthy professional runner. You start the game without abilities familiar from ME1 such as quick turn and skill roll which I find essential in the world where Faith lives. I would understand this if Faith was battered during the jail time and she needed to rehabilitate her parkour abilities. But at the current state lacking these basic abilities makes no sense on perfectly healthy Faith.
The conflict comes when you enter to the open world and bump in-to a time trial challenge that needs a fluent parkour. To complete the challenge you need to have some skills - but they are locked under character progression. Why are these challenges showed to the player if his/her current skill-tree progression does not allow completion? I would love to see more dynamics in this part of the open world environment.
After purchasing the game it took a week that I really started to play it. My first experience with the open world was aversive once I realized that I cannot do some of the basic maneuvers with Faith. And whole thing made me not wanting to explore the world or start the game.
I like the idea of character skill tree and progression. And I think you could have done slightly better: For example, you could give all basic abilities for Faith that we are accustomed from the first Mirror's Edge -- instead of withholding her basic and essential parkour skills. And you could focus on upgrading and boosting her parkour abilities with speed and height and length: you could skill roll swifter and you could wall climb longer distances and so on.
With gear progression it makes more sense. You know: you buy new shoes that have better grip that you can perform longer distance wallruns. Not to mention that Bionic Commando arm aka MAGROPE. The progression with gear and combat is something new with Mirror's Edge and I like it.
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Comments
I'm a 2008 vet, and welcome it.
In Catalyst we are introduced to a vast world of rooftops and the first thought I had was: "I want to explore this city!" - which is a good thing. Then you bump in-to first couple (non dynamic) NPC characters and you cannot deliver the package because you don't have proper skill set to complete the run under the given time.
Of course you can return to these NPC missions at later time - when you are ready, but for me the first impression of the game was pretty bad during the first couple hours of gameplay (which took over 3 days cause it made me not to play the game). I was literally expecting something different from Faith who is the best runner in the city and in perfect health after jail time (she can vault over stuff, eliminate enemies and do other stunts but not a skill roll).
i.imgur.com/8Rf0biE.gifv
i.imgur.com/EHWcZs8.gifv
She's not run anywhere in 2 years. At all. She's not at the peak of anything, other than the desire to leave the penitentiary.
As you play the game one of the tip's you'll see while the game loads says - after you've unlocked things go back and explore old area's in a new way -. I think the DEV's wanted you to feel your progression so that if you decide to play a time trial or delivery as soon and the intro levels end you will find them to be challenging but when you come back after upgrading various thing's it gets easier and easier. And it's pretty easy to get the first three upgrade points need to go about normal speed.
What I wanted was to play the main mission along with side missions and challenges and enjoy the world. This kind of solution in an open world world game tells me that it lacks mission dynamics -- which in my case greatly reduces the immersion.
Yes, I've played it through but now that I have all skills upgraded there is no progression and basically nothing to aim for. The side missions and challenges are similar to each other so it gets boring pretty fast. This is the reason why I would love to have more dynamics on the side objectives: you could complete them successfully while doing the main campaign from the beginning.
I'm not asking for a complete rework, just a tiny adjustment on the beginning which would make the game even better and the single player gaming experience more fluent and immersive.
Just wanted to add that you don't NEED to upgrade moveset at all to 3 star the first dash.
*flies away*
Naturally while progressing the main campaign I want to go through the side objectives that are on my route -- just to discover that some of them are not completable. So instead of enjoying these small objectives alongside with the main campaign renders that I don't want to discover stuff cause I know I cannot complete them. The game doesn't even tell you when you are ready for those small objectives. At this point it's not fun but rather frustrating and waste of time.
So what I've been reading: the right way to play Catalyst is to complete the campaign and return to enjoy the fruits of rooftops. And this is what I did. I beat the main mission, and now I can complete side objectives with ease -- which I don't find dynamic regarding the nature of the game.
My playing style is to postpone the main campaign as long as I can cause completing the campaign the game ends. Usually in the gaming world after completing the main story the game tends to become hollow. And this is the reason why I want to save the main campaign as long as I can and enjoy the world and side objectives that developers have created. And on the contrary: hiding areas behind a gear update is always a brilliant decision -- you know that you need to progress with the main story to get the gear update and to gain access to the area that has been locked. And usually at this point you are ready to face the challenges the new area throws at you. This is something I find awesome, immersive and dynamic and pretty fun in Mirror's Edge Catalyst.
#2 mastering the basic landing: before you can jump or do all sorts of stunts or maneuvers you need to learn how to fall. So basic landing and roll are extremely important skills to master and they will save your joints and protect your body from further damage.
#3 Than comes the safety vault where you have many points of contact that give you proper control while vaulting over an obstacle. And of course you need to master the turn vault which is the safest way to vault -- specially on an area or a route that you are not familiar with. Basically the safety vault is vaulting over the obstacle and stop there hanging on the ledge. At this point you can perform a safe landing or cancel the initial vault if proceeding seems to be dangerous.
#4 Vertical wall run to climb up. With this you can vault over high obstacles that are in front of you where you transfer the momentum upwards and stabilize the momentum impact and the initial vertical wall run with your hand.
#5 Precision Jump - which is the basics of free running/parkouring: precision jump makes you understand how far you can step or jump and evaluate - on the flow - is the initial distance safe for you. With precision jump you learn some cool stuff about your limits.
From here you can proceed with more advanced skills and stunts. So, he was pretty amused that Faith couldn't handle the basic landing and specially the roll: if you learn how to swim or ride a bike or drive a car, you wont forget it in 2 years. It's programmed in-to your body and spinal cord. And I agree with him. Besides, if I'm going to a cyclocross competition or taking a challenging route, I do a-lot of mind training - you know; I go through the track, every bump every curve, every bike carry scenes, the gears, the technical difficulties and so on. And I believe if you are in-to sports, you do also in some level some kind of mind training. May it be body pumping, aerobics, joga, martial arts....