Okay this is going to be my last post on F&F now that I've gotten to sit with it for a little and take everything in
This is going to be long, and I mean LONG, so be warned!
Disclaimer before we start: I don't want anyone coming in here and hating on the Kim system as a whole or trying to give me lectures on ADHD/Autism
I have AuDHD, I know what it's like to have overwhelming heaviness and guilt and fears and what it is like to be crushed over and over again over something you care about and so on and have breakdowns from stuff that overwhelms you. I have psychologist family members who I've had long conversations with about ADHD, rejection sensitivity, and mental health in general. Please do not lecture me. There is a reason I reacted so deeply to this update in particular.
I've ALSO been a DM for multiple years and have been in a five year campaign with a DM in similar situations.
I love these characters very much, especially Amir, and have gone into deep dives about *all* of them and their stories, I have explored the KIM trees well and the Kimulacrum is my bff. This is not a case of me not understanding the characters/lore, which is why I am still into this game, that's what drew me in. I have media literacy, don't try and come in here and treat me like I can't read.
Lastly, I try to keep my opinions to myself about the game or at the very least, try to keep it light. This is still a positive blog about Warframe and my love for it, which is why I am reacting the way I am. I have had problems with the pacing of stories post Round Table, this is not coming out of no where. This is said with love for the game and the characters and not out of sudden anger. Do not come in here to spread your hatred of warframe or whatever, I still like the game.
Everyone is allowed to have their own opinions and just as you are allowed to have yours, I am allowed to have mine. If you enjoyed the update, I'm happy for you, genuinely! I'm glad you enjoyed.
After this post, I might reblog a few F&F related posts that others made about their displeasure with this, but this is my last personal post about it.
Okay? Okay. Thank you.
Here's the problem with this update.
At tennocon, this was shown and teased as an update that was supposed to be a six long day adventure with the Hex and a love letter to us, the players, for loving the Hex as much as we do and still sticking with them and being loyal and also a love letter to D&D.
There was beautifully made art for the characters, character sheets, an entire room being redone and filled with personality at each of the Hex's spot and you could pick your class and enjoy the game with everyone AND new voice lines recorded just for the room.
This was not that.
And the thing is, I wouldn't have a problem with it if it wasn't promoted as "oh you're going to play F&F with the Hex but something weird is happening..." or anything of the sort
This was promoted as a big, fun, relaxing thing and it just... wasn't. Arguably, you hardly played F&F! Day one where you can't even play because Arthur has to run off simply shouldn't have counted. That was not a six day adventure, that was maybe two and a half.
So the promotion was misleading. I think that's also why a lot of people reacted so strongly to the sudden 'Amir being upset about the loops' storyline because no one expected it.
And that's not to say unexpected things aren't good and can't be fun, of course they can be! But for it to be this... extreme? Was a swing and a big fall on your ass miss.
This could have been a fun 'here's a sense of well deserved normalcy amongst the horrors' thing, and it wasn't.
During our time with the Hex and their first chats, we were introduced to the Kim chat as a way to learn about not only the Hex characters and who they are and their backstory, but about Drifter themselves. You could be mean, you could be snarky, you could bite back when people said something mean, you could make jokes or you could be kind, but you could pick and get those consequences from that.
Then the Triad released, and instead of getting bite back responses or getting to really pick different faces for the Drifter's personality and character, you became more of a helping hand than anything else.
Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, we had it with the Hex and you could kind of get it with the Triad. You could pick religions, beliefs, fears, and even disabilities. But the problem becomes the Drifter wasn't as much of the focus with their relationship to the characters anymore, it was mostly about the Triad and just about the triad.
And then this released.
This is supposed to be post Rank 5/Close rank with Amir/The Hex, post finale, post and or in the middle of the Round Table, so you are coming right out of the chats with that big Drifter exploration and helping the hex one by one to... this.
You get strong, confident Drifter who is very personal with the Hex and now has the established character arc and personality you picked while also helping the Hex with their characters arcs to... what?
Drifter is so incredibly passive in this. They just sit there and take it as Amir digs into the worst of their trauma and uses it as a revenge in a way against them for the loops. You can pick some of these 'stop' options, but even then before that, it's what? You just Go 'Amir... Amir talk to me... Amir...' and it does nothing. You're just filling in space and being given something to do without it actually effecting any of the chats from the start.
I counted it, in my chats alone, your able to ask about Amir to try and see what the hell is going on or to try and get his attention EIGHT different times, only to be ignored or for the chat to continue on as normal without any actual affect on the dialogue.
I am also romancing Amir, have been since the start and have never reset. Why does my Drifter get NO option to say "hey, let's talk about this later. You weren't this angry last night, what happened? You're my partner, you can talk to me."
And yes, there are chats before where you try to talk to him and he continues to tell you nothing's wrong before exploding on you, but you know what you can at least say?
And that comes before you're even in trusted with Amir.
This whole F&F thing is supposed to be Close rank or above with SPECIFICALLY Amir, and you are more a watcher than an active player in his life, especially as his partner.
I'd also like to point out how confusing this would be to new players. Again, you would get this after close rank with Amir, so it would be the normal hex chats, then this WHILE the round table is happening, and then you get the isleweaver chats where he's... roleplaying and basically one person game of F&F DMing you, after he just claimed to not actually like doing that.
Which leads me into the next part.
I am not going to come in here and say that Amir hasn't used Drifter's stories of their past as a roleplay mechanic before to try and make sense of things.
Again, In the Isleweaver chats, he has a one on one roleplay session with the Drifter. Actually, he even calls it F&F!
(Isleweaver chats, which again are supposed to be AFTER/DURING F&F for new players)
And his *many many many* voicelines about F&F and being excited for it, coming up with ideas....
The chats you have with each hex member to get them to play with Amir originally....
(Arthur's is missing for some reason, but I promise I got it, as you can see I got ALL the hex.)
And Amir was out of his mind THRILLED about it
And Amir even says that they've played campaigns before this one, so obviously this chat seemed to work.
So how do we go from all of that to...
Really?
He has all these lines about loving F&F and telling stories and you even have a full mini F&F thing with him in Isleweaver to distract him from audit and he just... suddenly doesn't like it anymore? But then continues to do it again in the Isleweaver chats which are supposed to come AFTER F&F?
And you can argue it's an ADHD thing, that he got burnt out, but really, it's not. It is a core part of his character. Characters have certain things they repeat over and over to make stick to your mind to make you remember things about them. Likes, dislikes, phrases, who they are.
That's like saying Lettie doesn't care for her rats anymore, she wants to move onto Kubrows or Quincy doesn't like photography anymore, he's into journaling.
It's like saying that Aoi suddenly doesn't like ONLYNE and going, "actually I don't like onlyne and hearing them kind of annoys me!"
Are they going to get rid of these lines like they did for Arthur's "I'm not worrying. Honestly. But sometimes I think... what if, one day, you just punch the floor again and all this goes away? Like a dream that I don't even get to remember?" like they did after Isleweaver, when some of the Hex talk about being okay with the loop idea and losing memories?
And let's go to the whole Amir not talking about stuff thing and the poorly written apology after.
And usually, I'd accept that as an apology... If it was about anything other than Amir using Drifter's own trauma, deaths, and the entity that's threatening them and everyone they love constantly, even when he asks them to stop.
Drifter doesn't get an apology. The Drifter he might be dating, who you tell about your own shit in Duviri and trust him with it?
It feels like this was written in such a rush, they forgot about DRIFTER. You know, one of the main characters of the game?
Why does Drifter not get an apology? Why does Amir not send, at the very least, a DM after being like, "Hey babe/friend, I'm so sorry for what I did and I feel terrible for using Duviri against you.
That was really messed up of me, especially after you trusted me with all of that."
And I understand that Amir was on the brink of a WallyRusulka situation, he wasn't in full control, but he wasn't entirely NOT in control from the last few sessions.
At the end, Wally's been shooed away. Amir won't even date you if you mess with him/make fun of him and his past too often. You get a NoDate check. So why the same hand not extended?
This doesn't mean I want it to be a Drifter centric update, but this update was about the connections you made with the Hex and the Hex made with YOU. The connections Drifter helped strengthen?
Nevermind the rest of the Hex, who at this point, also know of Drifter's Duviri/Zariman trauma. Aoi says one thing, ONE, and the rest of the Hex are silent. No one's going to stand up for the Drifter at any point?
Not even Quincy or Arthur who have both been the biggest prodders of Drifter's trauma, enough to get them so snap and get aggressive, both of which show immense regret for such, and they don't speak up?
You can say Amir has muted them, but he hasn't. Just no one else is talking. You know how we know that? Kaya wouldn't have been able to do this. The only thing that's censored is her saying fuck/fucking.
Where's the breathing room for any of the info given? To tell Amir to come to them when he's struggling or to be like okay how do we deal with it now? It's oh anyway, onto the ending, haha!
Drifter, who is very familiar with Wally/Apathy didn't see stuff right away? Eleanor, who also briefly met Wally? Lettie who talks about her fear and depression of the loops in her KIM chats?
Okay, let's go into Amir holding everything back. I understand that he is the youngest, that he feels like he doesn't belong, that he's not a soldier, but Amir literally comes to Drifter for.... everything.
Drifter gives him the push to talk to Quincy and fix their relationship. To talk to Arthur about his nightmares and guilt for the scars he's given him.
Drifter reassures Lettie after the prank gone wrong that Amir genuinely meant the best, Drifter is given more faith for Amir after Aoi talks about how he helped her. Eleanor already knows what's going through Amir's head, she gives him brain hugs when he asks to help calm himself down.
Drifter is the one to encourage him making his game, Drifter is who he comes to when he wants to talk about ideas he thinks are meaningless, Drifter is who Amir seeks when he feels like shit, Drifter is who he seeks when he avoids the inventory audit, Drifter who is one of Amir's main pillar of support.
So he just.... Doesn't come to them about any of that? At all? After everything they've talked about?
And Amir "I still have nightmares about the burned faces of the Scaldra" Beckett and who has multiple lines about how killing still affects him has the solution to just... Kill the eximus he accidentally and unknowingly created? (Don't get me started on everyone blaming him for it over and over... He didn't do this on purpose and he is STILL blamed for it and treated like he did.)
- "WHAT HAVE I DONE? I gotta hide the body - Oh - Ha. Ah Amir, you silly sausage. Everything is murder in a hellscape."
- "Video games. Yeah. Fun to kill there, totally painful to kill the people out there not in the game that want to kill us. Yeah."
- "Violence solves nothing, violence solves nothing, violence solves nothing..." (laughs)
The Duviri lines as well?
The way if you ask to start the adventure again he says "BEGIN AGAIN" in the EXACT way that Thrax does (no seriously, listen to them side by side, he gets it almost exact.) and is said AFTER the campaign ends, so he knows what happened was wrong, or the fact that if you annoy him running back and forth too much for an honoria he goes:
"Is this why you had no friends in Duviri? I think this is why you had no friends in Duviri."
Which is... NUTS for him to say, especially post Duviri talks. What was that for? That doesn't even feel like something Amir would be comfortable joking about.
Arthur? Quincy? Lettie? All the ribs he makes towards them are about attitude, Britannic accents, how stuck up they seem to be, how he wants them to at least chill out a bit.
Not like this. Never like that. Never about their deep trauma.
And Arthur? What is going on with Arthur and this sudden angry, alcoholic dad thing he's suddenly got going on? Between the nightwave thing and the Oops All Scaldra mission, he's got a shit ton of beer bottles hiding under the table at his section of the F&F table and angry at everything Amir seems to do. This one?
Who's more upset you called him broody than he is about the name change?
It's implied through his character progression that Arthur lightens up on his drinking and only socially drinks now. What happened to that?
This Arthur? Who's whole character arc is about how much he loves his friends and wants to show it more, who wants to be a better man and a leader, who tells Drifter he wants to loosen up and have his own 'childish' things again?
At Tennocon, they also mentioned how they were going to add Hex Captura *and* more chats.
As I said earlier, this was advertised to be this fun adventure with the Hex. You could have a thousand percent hinted at Amir's encroaching apathy near the end or somewhere in the middle while keeping it light, THEN explored this break down in the new chats.
Especially since it would make WAY more sense for this to happen one on one and for your choices to actually do something besides be fodder.
I don't understand the decision, and even if it is for set up of sorts, it still could have waited for the chats where you didn't have less than six days to approach a character's developing trauma that literally parallels Drifter's to a T.
Drifter has already helped the Hex with their apathy! Lettie's depression spiral, Arthur literally asking you how to deal with loops without spiraling deeper, even Amir already with the cephalon talk!
As I said in another post before the finale, we only hear about Drifter's downfall, with Amir, we're seeing it. Wouldn't it make sense for them to actually talk about it together, both apathy, conceptual embodiment and the trauma of the loops? Yknow, so they can help and not just brush it off to explain a new enemy?
In Conclusion
I think this could have been an amazing update, and instead we were given a missed ball throw of trying to get across something that genuinely could have waited if Hex chats were coming before the end of the year and before Tau. Hell, even this could have waited.
The chats were so SHORT. For warning that it was going to be long almost every chat, it felt like characters either weren't talking, weren't there to talk, or just gave short replies. They tried to stuff all the characters in and rushed it and it just... didn't work. It hardly felt like everyone was there, even when everyone WAS there.
And it genuinely sucks because people who maybe thought about giving Amir a chance will just... Never do that now. They think he's a total asshole who just hates you and wants to make you miserable, which just isn't true.
At this point I'm not even mad, I'm disappointed. In the writing, in the not so subtle jabs at the people who use the kimulacrum, at the character killing attempts, at the advertising for this campaign, at just... So much.
I love Warframe for it's story and will talk to anyone who will listen about it and if I experienced this early on, especially as someone who was romancing Amir from the start, it would turn me off so fast it's not even funny.
At this point, all I can say is do better before you drive away the same people you told you made this whole thing for.
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