Fallen Earth has been a fun game to mess around in. But lately I’ve not been interested in it. And here is what I feel is the reason it is not keeping my interest.
There is plenty to do as you work your way towards top level. I currently have 2 mid level toons level 32 out of 50 and a 25. There are many quests that I could do…PvP…achievements…harvesting. The big downfall is what everyone calls Spinning the Wheel. It is a wheel that shows the 6 factions in the game, and any faction on the opposite side of the wheel of the faction you are, is your enemy…along with the 2 factions on either side of that opposite faction. The two factions on either side of you on the wheel are your friends. See below.
In this shot, I am Allied with the Techs, and friendly with Travelers and Enforcers. Basically, you cant go into towns that you dont have positive faction with or they will shoot at you, and merchants and quest givers wont talk to you. All makes perfect sense! Now there are several mutations (powers) in the game, and certain faction towns have quests to obtain them. Some are available in 2 towns – some only one. So if you want to train all 10 abilities – you are going to have to be positive faction with 5 of the 6 factions at some point in your leveling.
ALSO – Each faction town has quests that give you points that you can use to train abilities, mutations and stats. If you dont do those quests, you are missing out on some points that could improve how good you are int he game. So now you want to be friendly with ALL 6 factions to get the max amount of points to train with. So what can you do? You start out becoming friendly with the opposite faction that you want to play in the game. Does this sound right? No – it doesn’t.
Here you are, level 20 to 25, coming out of the first big zone and excited you will soon get some special abilities to heal or do damage. You have decided to become Vista because they have the same philosophies you hold and seem like the type of people you want to be – and do you go to their town and say HEY, I wanna join? NOPE, you go to their enemies the Techs and tell them you want to join. And you do all their quests that give points, then you go to the Enforcers and help them out…then the Travelers and do their quests. You are playing the game the opposite way you want. And it doesnt end there…now you have to level up by grinding so you can move to the next zone and do those same 3 faction’s towns to get the points while you are still friendly with them.
After you have now obtained the all points from those 3 factions that you didnt want to have anything to do with in the first place….you start killing those 3 factions members to lose faction with them and eventually gain positive faction with the one you originally wanted. Hours and hours and hours, and days of killing to lose rep and gain their favor. You spent 90% of your life leveling in the opposite faction you wanted to be…PvPing agaisnt your true intended faction the whole time you leveled.
Now that you have positive reputation with your intended faction, you get to backtrack and do the towns you had to skip in the 2nd zone then move onto the 3rd zone and do those towns.
It would be like starting World of Warcraft and thinking…ok, I want to be Alliance, but I need a special Horde ability…so Im going to level from 1 to 75 as Horde, then spend levels 75 to 78 killing Horde so then I can become Alliance by the time I am 80. Thats just crap. No one would go for that….so why are we having to do it in Fallen Earth. I know we are not FORCED to do it…we can skip spinning the wheel and not get those mutations or points…but then at end game, people that did spin the wheel will have a bunch of points you dont…so basically better skills or an extra mutation line, which isnt fair.
For Roleplayers I can see this being a HUGE turn-off. For me, it just feels like I’m working towards something i’m not going to enjoy at all…which is grinding away faction. I Don’t want to be killing Vistas….I want to be their friends! Not pretending to be a Tech for 4 months as I level. I can’t gain any friends this way… what if I do meet someone I enjoy playing with that is a Tech? When I get done my point gathering, I turn on them and cant play with them again unless I make a new toon or decide not to be Vista and give up all the point from the other side of the wheel.
It just makes no sense to make a game like this! Here are my thoughts on fixing this.
1) If there are 30 AP points you can get if you do all 6 factions…double the amount of points for each quest and put a cap of 30 AP points that a player can get from Faction Town AP Quests. Now players do not have to spin the wheel unless they want a special Mutation.
2) Dont put any AP quests in Faction Towns. Move those NPCs just outside the town.
3) I kinda like that some factions have certain mutations. It makes the sides a bit different. But either make it so everyone can get them all without spinning the wheel (Put them in non-faction towns) or make it so if you aren’t that faction, you cant use the mutation. Then people wont feel that they NEED to spin the wheel. To handle Balance – Make a few mutations available to ALL factions.. Like Empathy and Nano.
Another gripe I have is getting around. The world is huge. And I like the realism of having it take a while to cross the zones. But if you want to help someone with a quests and have Clan bonding, You cant do it in a reasonable amount of time. I love to help people, but not if it is going to take me 40 minutes driving there only to have to drive 40 minutes to continue where I left off. Fixes for this….
1) Rebuild the train route or monorail to travel from Sector to Sector…put the main station in the middle of each zone…now it will only take about 10-20 minutes to help someone – still not ideal…but a little better.
2) Use the LifeNet stations. We are all clones…why not be able to visit your closest LifeNet station, hop into a death chamber….and get resurrected in another sector’s Main LifeNet Station. Maybe have 2 or3 Main LifeNet stations per sector.
Fallen Earth isn’t a bad game…it does need a bit of adjusting though for me to feel like I’m progressing on the path I choose…not the opposite path to so I can be equal to others. I will probably stop my subscription for a bit. I even started up my EvE account to go mine cause I was bored…And I upgraded UO to see if that would grab me again…I dont think has the power it use to. Too much to relearn for an old fun outdated game.
Tags: Fallen Earth, Gaming, MMO, Review
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