Endless Paths of Od Nua

[Jojobobo]

So I was pretty pleased with how the Endless Paths were implemented - I had zero interest in the paths during the backing phase but Obsidian thought of a clever way to incorporate it. The fact that they're underneath your very stronghold almost incentivises you to get to bottom of the whole mess and drive the evil from your house. This instantly ramped up my interest, and now I can't help but explore.

 

Did anyone else think this was a nice way to implement it? Beyond that, use that as a way to discuss the Paths in general (I'm only just touching the surface).

Edited April 5, 2015 by Jojobobo

[LadyCrimson]

Yes, I like the way they implemented the backer dungeon.

I've been using it to gather coin inbetween questing stuff, or a break from the regular questing. I'm probably a wimp, but there's one level before too long that gave me a heck of a time. Tougher than anything else topside so far. Dunno if it's like that on all the levels, but it was refreshing.

[Lasci]

As someone who plays these games for the story, a huge dungeon crawl has never appealed to me. But damn did I get wrapped up in the Endless Path.

[Sonntam]

As someone who plays these games for the story, a huge dungeon crawl has never appealed to me. But damn did I get wrapped up in the Endless Path.

 

Yep, same. 

 

Back when I first heard of Endless Paths I was like "hell no, I'm not even stepping a foot inside that place".

 

... 15 levels later, I wished there were more levels in there. 

 

Absolutely unexpected. There was just so much lore and it was truly neat how every level kept surprising me. Especially the one with the Vithraak was cool! I was so surprised I could do quests for them. It really warmed my heart. I have a weak spot for all kinds of monster thingies and this part was my highlight of Endless Paths.

 

... no, scratch that, because then I met the Master Below and THAT was the highlight. 

 

It was great to help her out and to have this great and terrible adra dragon be like "well, it's time to stretch my legs. see ya". She doesn't even go off conquering countries, she just wants to be off and discover all she has missed while living under Caed Nua. Good luck to her!

[aluminiumtrioxid]

As someone who plays these games for the story, a huge dungeon crawl has never appealed to me. But damn did I get wrapped up in the Endless Path.

 

Ditto.

 

Although I think it suffered from being unfocused, and I could've stood more puzzles, interconnectivity between the levels like the sacrifical pit, more problems where violence isn't necessary the best solution... basically, it could've been more like a "proper" dungeoncrawl from the heyday of D&D.

[Starwars]

I liked the Endless Paths, it's a pretty... huge task to pull off to put it mildly, hehe.

 

My criticisms of it would be:

 

-I wish it had a slightly more doom-y, evil, rotten, ancient, eldritch feel the further down you got. There is *some* of that, but I think the progression of how the dungeon *feels* could've been done a bit better.

 

-Some of the encounters were pretty lackluster. I think there were some levels where it really felt like they had just copy-pasted creatures into the various rooms. "Oh, yet another room with ghosts and the like... *sigh*" For me, it was a problem in some of the middle levels.

 

-It would've been really nice if there was something unique about the creatures there. All creatures there exist somewhere else in the game-world. The Vithrack are the best ones (and to be fair, I think there's only that one in La Rhemen outside the Endless Paths?). The animats are boring. I dunno, it would obviously a be a huge undertaking and completely out of scope of the project but it feels like it really deserved its own "ecology" of monsters to keep surprising the player. It sometimes feel more like a showcase of "hey, welcome to the monsters of PoE showcase! On *this* level we have..."

 

-Needed more non-combat stuff overall. Again... it's a huge undertaking as it is but I would've loved more interactivity.

 

But yeah, I think they did a pretty good job in making 15 levels of dungeon feel pretty manageable and not boring. I think it helps a lot that it's always there, and you can sorta plink it down level by level and then... you can go out into the rest of the gameworld for a while and then come back when you feel like it again. It feels surprisingly good in the game (I was pretty worried about it before the game came out to be honest).