Terrible maze mission

[ubica]

Ok...so I can live with all the bugs, tbh nobody expects a polished game from Ego, but still implementing such a horrible mini game like the maze is just an insult.
It amazes me that anyone could think this was a good idea. All it does is adds unnecessary frustration into a game that is anything but short on those. It breaks immersion when you have to go and bounce off the all-identical walls for at least half a n hour, reload 4 times on account of clipping thorugh the walls...I quit after not being able to find the exit after jumping through the hoops for such a long time without seeing any sense to it.
I mean...HOW???
How anyone thought "YES, this is it, we are going with this, it's sooooo great"?

[ubuntufreakdragon]

teleporting to you ship helps.

[Socratatus]

I actually really hate the Teleport. It`s like a cheat. It`s even worse than Star trek the way it just works everywhere with no real logic. I refuse to use it. The thing where you go underground to get to different parts I treat as a fast subway pod, not a teleport. I`d much rather take the maze any day.

In fact I wish there was a "No teleport" mode of the game.

[Gregorovitch]

All it does is adds unnecessary frustration into a game that is anything but short on those. It breaks immersion when you have to go and bounce off the all-identical walls for at least half a n hour, reload 4 times on account of clipping thorugh the walls.

The maze puzzle itself is pretty good and I'd say it is expected by design you will use teleport to get back to your ship for another tank of air when necessary. I'm guessing from what you say the main cause of frustration is the difficulty of navigating around in the space suit. I felt the same way until I discovered the space suit has a boost which, when you get the hang of using it effectively, has the effect of making getting around a snap. The secret is leaving the throttle a little in reverse whilst using boost exclusively to move forward. This means as soon as you release boost you glide quickly to a halt from the reverse thrust and you can then turn 90 deg for example and boost along another passage. A little puff on the boost cancels out the reverse thrust if you want to stay roughly stationary like riding the clutch on a hill in a car. The boost also has the effect of stopping you revolving around and generally stabalising you. Once you can fly around the maze comfortably solving the maze itself is far more tractable and enjoyable.

[Imperial Good]

Main difficulty with the maze is that the passage ways are visually confusing due to their repeating and uniform patterns. Especially when there are branches it can be hard to know which one was already taken. Turning auto roll off makes matters worse since then you do not even know up from down.

[Raevyan]

Main difficulty with the maze is that the passage ways are visually confusing due to their repeating and uniform patterns. Especially when there are branches it can be hard to know which one was already taken. Turning auto roll off makes matters worse since then you do not even know up from down.

Isn‘t that part of a maze that corridors look similar to get confused?

[Gregorovitch]

Yeah, I had a helluva time with this until I discovered how to keep stable in the space suit. You absolutely have to stay upright and stable to work out and memorise the topography. I found it speeded things up when I backtracked and redid sections a few times to get them nailed before continuing, it gave me a much clearer idea of where I was and where I had to go. It did take quite a while though, but I learned that I could go damn fast under boost and stop quickly with plenty of reverse throttle applied which eventually made it quite quick towards the end.

[Admiral Sausage]

It's easier to find your way around once you notice that the red/green glow of the switches illuminates the whole side-corridor, so you can see which ones you have been down from the main corridors by the colour of the glow.

[Imperial Good]

It is easiest to go out of bounds and look how the maze is constructed. With improved thrusters (sold practically everywhere) one just needs to fly full tilt into any flat wall and you will phase through it. Once inside all the path tubes are easily visible.

Got to give it to the developers involved. They did consider this a possibility so there are checkpoints to prevent one from sequence breaking via out of bounds. One has to toggle all the switches to "complete" the maze before entering the pod chamber counts.

[krlc]

I can relate to the OP feeling about the maze. It was the only time I rage quited in this game: almost there almost done... stuck in a wall load save 1h before... Restart, boost to go fast to get it over with - stuck in a wall... again... again... and again... now the maze looks all the same, bloody hell.

[Berhg]

For a game with such expansive scope it amazes me when the devs think its cool to do some tedious demeaning busywork like navigating a maze in a space suit or crawling through air vent shafts to steal someone's hidden safe box.

I mean, do they think X players play children's games????????? ? ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? ? ? O.0

[grapedog]

I wasn't a fan of the maze because of the time constraints and that going back into the maze picks for you automatically once you reach a certain point.

But i like that it's in the game, i like that the option is there. It's an incredibly tiny portion of the overall game, but it is something different. I used to like finding wrecks and navigating wrecks for loot.

[KiwiNZ]

I also had my moments of frustration but they vanished quite quickly when I figured out a few things for orientation.

1. remember that, when you enter the place, you are looking straight into this 'elevator-like thingy' in the centre, the one with the beam of light in it.
2. make sure to always retain the attitude of your character, meaning don't rotate upside down. that way you always know where is up and where is down.
3. keep telling yourself the direction you turned off the main path in order to turn in the correct direction on your way back.

I actually left the way I entered, no teleport needed.

Now there is something off with the end of the mission. It tells you to make a choice but the resolution of the choice is ambiguous until you actually happen to get to the point. So the ending of the mission could do with some TLC.

[grapedog]

Now there is something off with the end of the mission. It tells you to make a choice but the resolution of the choice is ambiguous until you actually happen to get to the point. So the ending of the mission could do with some TLC.

That is what got me, i was just finishing the end when i was almost out of oxygen... and that pretty much decided the mission for me, because i teleported out to get more O2, and going back in made the choice for me automatically.

[mr.WHO]

Main difficulty with the maze is that the passage ways are visually confusing due to their repeating and uniform patterns. Especially when there are branches it can be hard to know which one was already taken. Turning auto roll off makes matters worse since then you do not even know up from down.

Same here - the mission was great, but corridors and branches were looking the same, so I wasted 80% of time flying in circles.

[KiwiNZ]

Now there is something off with the end of the mission. It tells you to make a choice but the resolution of the choice is ambiguous until you actually happen to get to the point. So the ending of the mission could do with some TLC.

That is what got me, i was just finishing the end when i was almost out of oxygen... and that pretty much decided the mission for me, because i teleported out to get more O2, and going back in made the choice for me automatically.

Ys, I initially left without placing the bombs but could not determine whether this was an option despite the option to 'just leave'. So I went back in, placed the bombs and made the effort to follow through to the exit and that also didn't resolve it until I went back and landed on the Gorgon. This is strange because if I choose "Leave", I would not expect having to land on the Frigate. Bottom line there, the mission point reticules need to be re-worked to reflect the two choices and then resolve the mission accordingly.

[Gregorovitch]

Ys, I initially left without placing the bombs but could not determine whether this was an option despite the option to 'just leave'. So I went back in, placed the bombs and made the effort to follow through to the exit and that also didn't resolve it until I went back and landed on the Gorgon. This is strange because if I choose "Leave", I would not expect having to land on the Frigate. Bottom line there, the mission point reticules need to be re-worked to reflect the two choices and then resolve the mission accordingly.

I would agree with that. I had no idea I had any sort of choice let alone what those choices where, partly 'cos NPCs (Busta, the Boron, Grida, sundry Paranid) where jabbering at me left and right whilst all hell was breaking loose with me in my space suit surrounded by potentially hostile warships and I couldn't work out WTF they were saying. Stuff just....happened, and it is what it is now I guess.