Critique nr. two. Short dungeons.

[Aleh1811]

I understand your point of view. I do agree to an extent that the way that resting is applied in IE games is really not that good. Or pillars for that matters.

 

But I would still like a mechanic that resets the characters stats to its more ideal state that is not fully automatic and that  involves a cost. I think that makes each fight mean more as you are left with this figurative scars in the form of loss stats for the comings fights.

 

Perhaps it should not be resting, or perhaps resting should only be allowed inside of towns and the only way to recover abilities or health outside of towns should be through expensive potions that also have secondary negative effects.

[Zaris]

 

In my opinion shorter dungeons and almost no per-rest abilities are both great changes since in PoE all expeditions quickly changed into camping trips with more time spent around campfire than exploring/fighting. If somebody likes mindless grinding of mob after mob there are plenty of nice MMORPGs for them, but isometric RPGs should allow for a smarter (or at least more varied) approach; Fort Deadlight and Arkemyr’s Mansion are two prime examples of a clever dungeon where you can just have a number of encounters and traps but also can solve it a number of different ways. So I can’t thank Obsidian enough for making the regular fighting dungeons shorter, since they have always been the worst part of their games: Endless Paths in PoE, Oldwalls in Tyranny and those motherf***ing Vaults in New Vegas. Many times I was inches from just lowering the difficulty to breeze through that tedious parts and go back to having fun and doing interesting quests.

But as I said at the beginning that’s just my opinion.

I'll never understand the criticism "more time spent around campfire than exploring/fighting." It's completely untrue from any player's experience. Camping in PoE or any of these games takes seconds.

You should really avoid words like „never” in such trivial matters: what if I explain my point and you’ll suddenly understand? Maybe you won’t share it but understanding is pretty easy, so brace yourself: it may take seconds in real time but it’s a huge immersion break when your party has a couple fights and then go to sleep for 8h. And again. And again. Hence a comaprison to camping trip. It’s not something you could really show in any other medium, or even in any normal RPG.

If devs want to give us long dungeons and some sort of per-rest/atricion mechanic they should just take a clue from Darkest Dungeon and their sanity meter: that’s an awesome mechanic, especially when your character reaches breaking point and can either brake or become stronger. And guess what? That game is 90% long dugeons but they are done in such an awesome way that nobody minds. I’d love to see THAT in PoE or some other isometric RPG. Otherwise keep to short dungeons and no per-rest stuff.

[Taevyr]

Overall, I fully agree with what Algroth said on this.

 

BOW, Nemnok, Deadlight and Oathbinders' sanctum are all enjoyable dungeons in my opinion, even with the (in my opinion) sorely missing resting mechanic. Sure, there are no Endless Paths, and I'd love to have another Durgan's Battery, but it'd be lacking an important part without proper resting mechanics. Shorter dungeons with inventive use of gameplay elements or multiple resolutions are a pretty good replacement of these, and Deadfire certainly delivers on them.

 

Though I wouldn't mind to have a classic, lore-exploring dungeon crawl when Forgotten Sanctum hits. The last ones that really scratched that itch for me were The Descent in DA:I and Tyranny's Oldwalls.

[uuuhhii]

most map in poe1 base game are meaningless

with basically no difference to the one island with one script event point in deadfire

only thing missing in deadfire is 15 level massive dungeon

maybe that's a good change

[cokane]

 

You should really avoid words like „never” in such trivial matters: what if I explain my point and you’ll suddenly understand? Maybe you won’t share it but understanding is pretty easy, so brace yourself: it may take seconds in real time but it’s a huge immersion break when your party has a couple fights and then go to sleep for 8h. And again. And again. Hence a comaprison to camping trip. It’s not something you could really show in any other medium, or even in any normal RPG.

If devs want to give us long dungeons and some sort of per-rest/atricion mechanic they should just take a clue from Darkest Dungeon and their sanity meter: that’s an awesome mechanic, especially when your character reaches breaking point and can either brake or become stronger. And guess what? That game is 90% long dugeons but they are done in such an awesome way that nobody minds. I’d love to see THAT in PoE or some other isometric RPG. Otherwise keep to short dungeons and no per-rest stuff.

 

 

I fail to see how it's "immersion breaking" at all that your party needs to rest AND heal its wounds after taking on several groups of dangerous enemies. It's certainly no more immersion breaking than the fact that you or the monsters can take multiple axe swings to their bodies before going down.

Edited September 29, 2018 by cokane

[hilfazer]

Well, dungeons need to match players' attention span.

[Lexx]

My problem with the stream of very short one-map dungeons is that they feel like a checklist you're working through on future playthroughs.

Edited September 30, 2018 by Lexx