Note: This is part 2 of 2, with the first part being “The Magnum Opus of Breakpoint and Wildlands” please go read that first (link at the bottom), for the context is important to understand, as the purpose is not to say Ubisoft can’t make good missions at all, or just to be another “BREAKPOINT BAD” echochamber. It’s to say there is a MASSIVE discrepancy in mission quality, to acknowledge that is the number 1 issue with mission design in this game, to constructively critique the issues of this mission, and finally to crowdfund solutions to fix mission design.


Abstract:

Now that I spent the last post talking about how standout the “Enemy Within” mission was, and how much of a delight it was to playthrough that, we’ll now move on to the complete opposite of the spectrum with the “Spirit of the Hive” Mission, and I’m going to flat out say it, this mission is awful, no ways around it, it wastes your time, it has no innovation or original ideas to it, it feels lazy, it’s badly designed, and I can go on and on (which I will). It’s a perfect showing of the core mission design flaw of base Breakpoint, and it’s just so Jarring, when it seems like this DLC was trying to do some new stuff and has some great new ideas, but this mission is also put into the story, which just reeks of the extremely lackluster mission design (particularly the side missions) of base Breakpoint.

Part 1: The Start



The start is decent actually, investigating a home finding it ransacked, and finding the scene of Wym’s wife after she was killed by Sentinel, gave me feelings of Wildlands’ world building, in regards to it being gritty with bodies around and the showings of a group of people being oppressed by a regime, and I have to say more of this please, while I’m not saying that as some sicko who gets off at the thoughts of killing and what not, but I’m asking some grit in my gritty military shooter. Ransacked homes, destroyed and bombed buildings, no man’s land, and I can go on, but give us more of this, and show us the true horrific impact war can have on even what’s essentially a first world country. However, this is where my praise ends, completely.

Part 2: Timewasters





So, for the next section, I want everyone to take a look at the first four pictures, look pretty similar right, Yep! Because they are, it’s the same Objective 3 times, with nothing but an open field in between, and you want to know the distance between them? Well, from Point A (The start) to Point B= 100 meters, Point B to Point C= 220 meters, Point C to D (The end)=337 meters, that’s about 637 meters…...of walking. I have one question, WHY? This is downright insulting, and while yes, you can take a vehicle, that's not the point, the point is, what is the point of this? Besides wasting everyone’s time of course, and it’s not like the guy can’t be tracked, he has a laptop on his person that got him tracked by Sentinel. This gave me so much reminders to the side mission from launch where you had to fly your drone into drone holes along with aimlessly following totems, and even the mission with the awful Punk Rocker girl had you interrogating soldiers to find her location, and note my problem is not with the beehives at all. My problem it's slapping the same objective 3 times with an arbitrary 600+ meter walking distance. We're not playing Death Stranding, we’re playing Ghost Recon.

Part 3: Boring, emotionless, Errand running Characters


One of the biggest issues with me narratively is besides the central A-list characters (Bernthal’s Walker and Ironside’s Fisher) who are both excellent in the roles they provide, For every one to two interesting or good NPCs you get like the General Paxton, the Ex-Bodark member Karel, Sigrid Bloom, Captain Gibson, or Paula Madera, you’ll also get about 5 to 10 uninteresting and emotionless NPCs who drone on and on about nothing of value other than some Errand to run(Cough cough Fishing guy), and Wym is the latter. Wym just seems so fake to me, especially given the circumstance of his Wife, the love of his life being murdered right in front of him and he’s about to be gunned down himself, for I understand that different people would react in completely different ways to such a tragic event, but I don’t believe anyone in this exact circumstance wouldn’t be balling their eyes out, pleading for their life, accepting their fate, having a moment of god, or at least showing some kind of emotion, ANYTHING (And I would like to note, that I’m not trying to be offensive here when I say this, If I’m wrong please correct me on this specific point). Instead he shrugs it off in 30 seconds, and goes to tell you about his job and gives you an errand. The worst part is, he’s not even an original NPC, he’s a swarm specialist, the same as the mother with her brat daughter. Him and Holly are the same NPCs minus a British accent and one deals with Bees while the other studies Birds. Finally I want to be clear, this is not an insult against the voice actors, the issue is the voice direction, as it feels like these voice actors aren’t getting the context to their scenes, almost as if they’re being told to simply speak their lines and not act their lines out, that's the root issue with the NPCs and storytelling, and why I think many have issues with them. There was a great forum topic about this called “what they could say instead” by Bonefrog, and I will quote AL Bluefox here as he says it best.


“it's not just the script for the dialogue, but the situational context that needs to improve. It's almost as if the voice actors weren't told the situation and so the tone and delivery of the lines doesn't fit the context in which they are used. There could be fear injected into the "get out of my space" line by a good actor, instead of the slightly annoyed by drunk-guy-on-bus tone that it currently has. Not that this would make it a good line, it still needs re-writing, just using it as an example.

All in all the voice lines along with the acting in most cutscenes (I suspect each actor recorded their own line separately from the other and they were then just assembled) need to improve. I agree that their overall quality is a distraction.”


Part 4: Forced, Scripted Defense






I think we all agree that a forced firefight is a little overused in this DLC, with at least I’d say 5 or so of the missions ending in a firefight or defense type scenario, which can be fine, but do you know what’s not fine? A forced defense wave with no cover at all, where enemies are just spammed at all sides, and not to mention there’s both a helicopter and an AYM during this at the same time, with nothing but two little barricades to protect you. This right here feels like an encounter taken straight out of the play book from the Division 2, it’s simply not fun, and even during Operation Watchmen in Wildlands with a grueling forced defense sequence, you had a whole building and AI teammates to work with, and when you finish it is the payout worth it, does this action have some big justification in completing the objective of the story? NOPE, not at all, Wym just says vaguely “it helps defeat CLAW” even though he doesn’t say how it does, so it just leaves me with saying after all of that, What’s the point?

Part 5: The conclusion

So, did that mission leave me with an awesome gameplay scenario, an interesting NPC, or even felt like I was rewarded in some way? Nope, to be quite honest, it just leaves me with asking why. Why did I take the time to play that mission, Why did this mission get added to a $40 dollar DLC (I paid $15, but that’s not the point), How could you have such an excellent mission like Enemy Within or the Bodark mission, but have what’s essentially an over-glorified side mission that intentionally wastes your time, is badly designed, brings nothing interesting or innovates in anyway, doesn’t contribute to the story and ends in such an unfun and unspectacular way that feels hollow and soulless to it. So why does it matter, because it’s not the only one….The same exact complaints can be leveled at the Deep State mission involving Karel’s lawyer girlfriend, but that at least leads us SOMEWHERE. It simply reeks of the mission design of base Breakpoint, Ubisoft tailing and truck driving missions, or the Wildlands provinces of La Cabra, El Gato, or El Commandante where they simply just wanted to pad out content without a regard for quality, even the Terminator DLC missions, which was the farthest thing from GR, was at least well designed and fun from a gameplay perspective, and innovated even if in a way that wasn’t true to the core.


In conclusion do I want this mission to be fixed or changed?, NO, that will not fix the issue, No more missions like this should be designed in the first place, each mission needs to bring something to the table whether gameplay, story, world related, or simply stay within what the perceived notion of what a “Ghost Recon Mission” would be, also fun, that too. There is now a template established here with “Enemy Within” and the “Bodark” Mission, please use it.


I would like to note again I’m not trying to attack the developers or mission designers, I just want this discrepancy to be amended, as it’s the main core of the issue with Breakpoint’s mission design, and I want this topic to stay as constructive as possible please, and thank you.

Read Part 1 here:
https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthrea...nds-(Spoilers)

Link to “What could they say instead”:
https://forums.ubisoft.com/showthrea...s#post14833190

Link to the Original Document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...it?usp=sharing