STANTON

[icycalm]

Official Event Page: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm ... -Of-Orison

Get ready to dive into an action-heavy adventure that has turned the once-idyllic city of Orison into a nightmare.

Opening Cinematic + Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C15alYGFjto

The dreaded Nine Tails gang has taken commercial platforms in the idyllic cloud city of Orison. Rally the troops and take back the city and the skies in the latest pulse-pounding Star Citizen dynamic event.

Took about 6 hours to complete, between deaths and not finding things. Pretty incredible and challenging af. Well done CIG!

Here's some perspective for you guys and gals. Last year we were complaining about frame drops from Crusader's clouds, this year we are doing a full showdown in the clouds of Crusader with an increase in the player cap. Progress.

SoO has its broken moments like the rest of SC (alpha game btw) but this event and its setpieces have been the best stuff added to the game ever. It's been such a blast.

I love these in-engine trailers as they are much, MUCH more representative of the game and gameplay than CGI trailers, and CIG's look very nice indeed. One day we will be watching screens in-game and get news reports about events in the gameworld that we can go and participate it. Can't wait!

Key piece of advice from the official event page: "Ensure your respawn is set to Orison's General Hospital at the Cloudview Center."

Note that this is the debut of SoO 1.1. The major changes are that the unofficial PVP has become official through the Nine Tails Sympathizer mechanic (not sure what it is, but I THINK I heard that they get a god marker on them, meaning they stay on everyone's radar all the time), plus in order to activate the shuttles to the next platform you must get a code from the 9T boss of the previous platform. This stops people from rushing through the event I think. Also I heard that the start of the event is signaled well in advance, and the elevator up to the Crusader building roof only activates at the start so that I suppose players who want to be there from the very start can now do so.

Maybe there are more changes, but these are the main ones I have heard about (and I might be mangling them because I am going from memory and haven't saved any source links).

We've tried this event the couple of times it has been run since we first got into the game a year and a half ago. In fact our first patch, Alpha 3.17.2, was the very introduction of Siege of Orison, and we played it within our first few hours, before we even knew where to get guns and ammo lol or how to heal ourselves. So we walked into the event with next to no equipment and tried scavenging corpses. Didn't get far that time, nor the one more time (or was it two?) that we played in the time since, mostly because the servers lagged like hell and there were tons of bugs (like being killed by the shuttle doors, or falling through the floor etc.)

This time some people are also reporting bugs, but others are reporting tremendous server and AI performance: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... first_time

Just ran Siege of Orison for the first time...

...and the server fps jumped up to and stayed a consistent 20-25. Saw it hit 29 once. Fairly new to SC so I've never ever seen it this high (also playing with Australia internet lol).

All the AI were John Wick and were absolutely laser beaming me from over 100m away through bushes, tiny gaps in cover, it was messed up lol.

Yeah, people complain about the A.I. but their ineffectiveness is mostly due to server performance. On a good server, they are lethal.

Also, this time we have our command structure well in place, and the kickass loadouts of the Cult Spec. Just make sure to fill those backpacks with ammo, snacks and health items.

So I expect us to make a lot of progress, soldiers. See you in Orison. O7

[icycalm]

I copy-paste below a brief gushing review of Siege of Orison, plus extensive critical feedback, and a complete reimagining of it, plus random comments that seemed insightful to me. Don't be put off by the negative comments. Even at its worst, the mere fact that this event takes place inside a solar-system-sized "level", right next to an entire cloud city no less, instead of teleporting you between tiny invisible wall boxes like any given Halo, makes it a special, unmissable experience. If it happens to be too buggy tomorrow, we'll make the most of it for as long as we can, gleaning valuable experience and lessons, and then we'll switch to Stanton Domination and Hull C convoy trading.

My main takeaways after reading all the material below, for the purposes of tomorrow's sessions, are 1) The new NPC combat AI brought over from Squadron 42 is hella fun, and I can't wait to fight it, and 2) The best way to experience the event is to jump on a near-empty server so that only you and your friends are playing Siege of Orison. This is explained in the very last post below, so if you only read one, make it this one. And because I doubt we'll manage to find a near-empty server on a Saturday, I propose that we do our best tomorrow but ALSO try the event at random days and times when we have 3+ players online throughout the next week. The end date is December 7, so we have time for everyone to experience the event at its best, if we put some effort into it. And since it only shows up once or twice a year, I think it's worth it, and I'll do my best to play it properly. (If you do try the mission in smaller groups throughout next week, post some screens and updates in the Discord #stanton channel so we know how everyone's doing, share tips, inspiration and encouragement, etc.)

This post shows what the mission is like at its best: https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/co ... as_amazing

Free fly player here, Siege of Orison was amazing.

Despite being stuck on the first boss for so long (I mean the first elevator going to the roof, of course) I finally managed to beat the elevator and get in and instantly died to an enemy while I was trying to loot. I was really close to quitting because it was hard enough to gather my equipment and find a server where the elevator worked in the first place. But I kept trying.

And it's a good thing I did, because the second time that I went in, I survived all the way until the end, and it was one of the most immersive and cool experiences I've had in an online game. Star Citizen's way of handling everything in a realistic and authentic way really pays off. When the event started it was daytime, by the time we got to the end it was night. Fought beside many different groups, many people fell behind but we few made it to the end. I think the best part was where we jumped out of a Crusader C2 driving a tank onto a platform, right before the ship was blown up by AA guns. The tank got disabled in the fall and we walked out and went on.

And of course, in true Star Citizen fashion, at the very end we were going through the containers in the barge, we all blacked out and woke up in jail. (As one other thread on this sub also mentions).

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... feedback-3

Siege of Orison feedback...

Ok in no particular order


1. Get rid of the video message popups. They rarely work and often leave the black square stuck on your screen. Audio is fine and maybe a text message or some kind of timer to let us know how long til the mission fails. The music, oddly, is louder here than almost anywhere else in the game. Turned mine off.

2. This event has been out a while now and bugs that have been a part of it since the beginning, are still present and have gone completely unaddressed. I get it - there are LOTS of other things to do getting the game ready but, this is a showcase event. Lately it's been run during or immediately after a free fly. Meaning its usually a first impression for new players of how the games big events go. It's not a good look. Led a couple of brand-new players through it a couple of tries and the level of frustration and confusion was palpable. In part because...

3. Instructions and goals are not clear and, not able to be referenced. For example. If the first island receives an unlock code for its orange boxes, but someone comes afterwards, short of begging in chat there is no, to my knowledge, means for players who come behind the initial group, to get the codes. Once the code is unlocked - just unlock the crates or update everyone's mobiglass as you go. The mission is already set up to update the mission details in progress- give us all the info we need.

4. Similarly - loud gunfire, absolutely blaring background music, explosions etc etc. and hearing the directions are often impossible and, even when given, for newer folks, unclear. Hard to see where to go or know what to do. UPDATE in more detail . New players are not getting it.

5. The new AI upgrades - are GREAT. The opponents are much tougher, and harder to kill but, the severity and frequency of player wounds is incredibly frustrating. This is especially true because not only are med beds rare, but the few that exist don't fix anything but light wounds. And there are no med beds at all on the final island. Me and a squad mate spent 40ish minutes fighting our way to the end boss, with multiple tier 1,2 and 3 wounds... heavily drugged and no longer able to recover and limping with no means of winning. The end boss is behind a bizarre series of climb and jump puzzles and, if you're wounded - you cannot get to him, nor can you heal the wounds on the fly or get to a med bed. Because if you are limping there is no way to make the jump. It's a LOT of work only to discover that the game has roadblocked you and not given you a solution. My suggestion, keep wounds as a possibility but maybe tone them down a bit, and the constant wheezing, blood on your face is neat I guess but, if I cannot fix it, it just induces frustration. Make the med beds able to heal all types of wounds. Add one to the final island.

6. All of the above issues are not going to deter me, and I'm sure others, from attempting the event. I'm all for challenges - but don't put me in a position where victory is based more on luck (hoping for only t3 wounds so i can heal em) than on skill or strategy.

7. When the lieutenants or the leader spawns, the event sometimes shows you an icon indicating where it's been found. Sometimes. Often the icon . In universe we should be sharing info via tech. That's what the game seems to want to do - it just doesn't execute it very well.

8. Fail conditions - if you fail the event - you are not given nearly enough time to get back before you are teleported to jail. That, its ridiculous. Just teleport the players, win or lose, back to a shuttle. Again - create all the challenges and problems you want... but give us a solution. If you're in the final cargo area and the event fails... and you are wounded (and with the new AI you almost certainly have reduced speed) getting out without jail is nearly impossible.

frequency of player wounds is incredibly frustrating

This is something that has been received positively with how often we trigger them in the contexts of things such as bunkers/outposts.

That being said looking forward towards more extended fire fighting content like SOO it may need some tweaks to the system with how we handle injuries and how treatable they are in the field.

ORRRRRR you guys could leave the system as is, and go ahead and make a ground ambulance (URSA or Spartan) and park a few of 'em around the platforms. While it might not make the most sense (in lore, not mechanically) to have aid stations all over the place it does make sense to have ambulances and first responders scattered around. It would be lovely if medics had more of a reason to exist than 'point green beam around' and could focus on medical gameplay right around the point where it becomes more relevant (given the increased number of injuries).

And that's the end of my hopium filled request.

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/spec ... is-too-lin

Problems with Siege of Orison - the event is too linear.

Hello!

I don't like Siege of Orison very much.

One of my biggest complaints is that it seems to be designed to be completed by a group waiting for the starting bell, and as a drop-in player joining an event in progress, it's very hard to catch up to where the action is, or know what is going on.

Part of this is due to the lack of a minimap and information on which areas are still hostile, which have been cleared, but this is also due to the map design, which tends to present users with a series of buildings that they clear one after the other, and a series of platforms, which they clear one after another.

What I think SOO should have been aiming for is the classic 2004 Star Wars Battlefront game design. One key thing with this game is that the maps had multiple paths of traversal so players have to defend or attack multiple approaches to succeed. Everyone going down a single path will result in enemies coming in the back way and capturing territory.

Of course there are things that SW:B has that SOO doesn't namely a capture system, dynamic spawn points, and AI enemies that will push locations.

If SOO followed a hub-and-spoke map design, rather than a series of platforms to clear, the event would be much more natural to join as a latecomer, as you just hop on one of the spokes that needs to be completed, rather than sprinting through an empty map to try and catch the players at the lead speed running the whole event.

A key concept here is asynchronous objectives. One team of speedrunners shouldn't be able to clear out one objective after another, all players on the server should be able to work towards simultaneous goals.

Suppose there's two teams at the start and a group of latecomers. There's four spokes. Team A has done SOO a million times and has the objectives all memorized. Team B is a group of noobs that is gung ho but doesn't know what to do. Team A starts on spoke 1, Team B starts on spoke 2. Latecomers arrive and defend enemies pushing spokes 3 and 4 as they show up. Team A clears spoke 1 while B is halfway through and returns to the hub to start on spoke 3. The group of latecomers eventually get the numbers to start on spoke 4. Team B finishes their spoke around the same time that A finishes #3 and the latecomers finish #4. Everyone groups back up to go kill the final boss on the barge, launching together from the hub.

My biggest issue with Siege of Orison, is that it's really a perfect scenario to use the dropships we have paid tons of money for (Prowler, Valkyrie, Vanguard Hoplite and Cutty Steal) and we can't use them?

I mean WTF???

It should be easy to build a map (less exterior and more interior parts of the map) where you can easily shoot a few enemies from the derpships, then implant your grunts and do some support and suppression while the grunts go to do their job.

After they finish an objective, they get picked up by the derpshippers and are transported to the next location.

The current public transport BS is just a colossal waste of an opportunity to finally give those ships at least somewhat a reason to even exist.

Imo CIG fumbled the ball big time on this one. As owner of one of the aforementioned derpships, I will not play Siege again, if it's not improved to a more combined arms approach.

Bring the Valkyries and co into the fray or Orison Security can figure out their shitshow on their own.

I'm just going to put it here...that a competent pilot and fps player can solo rush SoO in less than 15m...

Honestly I expect that SoO eventually will stop being a "Dynamic" Event and most likely be one that an org can pick up to carry out. Something that won't be advertised system-wide but very specifically done by orgs and unable to be soloable.

The absolute most fun I've had with SoO, which I got to experience again just last night, is when the only participants are me and the group I'm playing with. My org managed to get on a low-pop server and the ~10 of us went at SoO and it was a ton of fun. There were a handful of NPCs clipping into the floor that imparted way more injuries on us than they should have, to which few of us did not have at least one tier 1 injury at the end, but managing medical attention and delegating tasks based on who can actually jump and hold a gun straight was a blast at the end.

The quest markers not working for everyone, no-clipping NPCs, and nigh-invulnerable turrets on the Admin platform were the only bugs we dealt with, and otherwise limped our way out after about two hours of great fun.

Its linearity is certainly a thing, but I think it works when it's tackled with a group.