Breach Patch 1 Sneak Preview

[Sir_Vive]

Personally, I think that the fast travel, and anything that takes away from the alive world systems or original design concepts for the sake of saving time for people that like to replay the game 100 times, want fast target farming and ways to fast travel to those areas, and don’t want the more emergent systems that the game seems to be directed towards; is going to dumb down the game overall.

I want to see an emergent (alive) world. I want many reasons that benefit me traveling through the world. I want dynamic events happening in the world to make it feel alive. I want to be rewarded by random loot as I’m doing my explorations through the world. I don’t want area target farming and fast travel.

For this reason, I don’t like the fast travel idea, and I hope they put the fast travel in a separate mode that doesn’t commingle with the original flavor of this game for the sake of speed running and multi-realm target farming like some Korean grind game.

I think it’s good that there are options so people aren’t forced to play without fast travel, but for the sake of community in games (when I talk about playthroughs with others), I want to know if they are playing normal mode, hardcore mode, or speedrun mode. This way, if I want to develop a group that I talk with about this game, I know we are on the same page with our experience. Otherwise, I’ll have some target farming, fast traveling gamer telling me how easy it is to do this or that when he’s playing a totally different game.

I hope they keep fast travel out of hardcore mode.

Also, the concept of “if you don’t like it, don’t use it” doesn’t fix the fact of “if the game has a mechanic, then self-imposing difficulty by not using it isn’t as rewarding.” It’s like saying here’s a game with weapons and armor, but it’s a choice if you use weapons and armor. We play the game by the mechanics they give us. If those mechanics are cheap and easy, then the overall experience of the game is cheap and easy. It doesn’t matter if we can play the game with a dance pad for extra difficulty.

[Chemile0n]

i think this could also be shared here, for visibility/cross-linking: Updates and discussions from the official Discord - #224 by coi1

[Erowid]

Yeah, this was confirmed by Thomas in an interview

[Adrian_Hartanto]

finally this is what i’m asking.
i literally ask this in discord and get kicked for it.
lmao
do this you will get positive review.
stop blaming gay and trans cancel culture

[Erowid]

What are you talking about?

[Wintermute67]

Fast Travel

I think there is a happy medium in here somewhere. One of the things I love about the game is the level and world design. I still find new hidden areas and paths when exploring old areas, and that is exciting and satisfying.

But also I do have trouble finding my way through zones a bit. There are many paths and shortcuts and I find it a bit frustrating running around a zone trying to get somewhere specific but have no idea how I got there… so it does feel alive and unique on subsequent visits but also a bit tedious when I need to get somewhere and I don’t know how to get there again…

Perhaps creating a separate checkpoint for fast travel options? Reduce the amount of whispers and let them still only teleport to Sacra and the last visited whisper, also they stay your respawn point. Then have several ‘checkpoints’ that allow you to travel within a zone. So it would look something like this -

-1 Whisper per zone
-4 Travel Stones

The travel stones will be activated once you visit them and can de-activate after a period of time away from that zone. (Fog of war related maybe?)

My idea is that these will let you quickly travel within an already explored zone, making repeated trips to the same areas a bit quicker.

So gameplay flow would be something like this

-Travel on foot to an area from Sacrament.
-Encounter a checkpoint near the Whisper
-As you explore, you can activate additional checkpoints in new areas within the zones

-Example: I scale the mountain in Nameless pass and there is a checkpoint at the top of the zone. If I die, then I can jump back to the top of the mountain, past all the already explored territory where there are no enemies and I’ve already looted resources. (I’m running by all this anyways)

-Once you teleport back to Sacra then enter a different zone, the previous checkpoints start deactivating. Allowing you to activate new ones in the new zone.

This probably isn’t perfect, but is essentially adding a few more shortcuts within a zone. I like going through zones when there are new enemies and loot to gather, but re-treading already explored ground can feel like a bit of time sink.

I’m hoping this addresses a few things-
-Make exploring still necessary and rewarding
-Cutting down on parts where the player is just running
-Allowing some agency over a zone
-Making subsequent visits a little smoother

I still have to explore these zones on repeated trips, but once I’m there and have revealed areas of the zone I can move a little bit faster through them. Ideally, I am still feeling the living world and also spending more time playing the more engaging and rewarding gameplay loop.

In soulsborne games, revisiting areas is always risky because you have something to lose if you die. Your currency is ALWAYS at risk, making revisiting areas tense. In NRFTW I can’t really lose anything upon death, so there’s really no tension there. Instead, all I’m really doing is using time retracing my steps.

[rabb1t]

On parrying; pre-Breach I used to use a shield all the time. Now I’m pretty much specifically ignoring it due to the weight. Yeah, I get that it can have stats if enchanted, but it doesn’t really seem worth the weight since the armor isn’t also added unless I’m blocking.

Having an increased parry window for shields (with a visible stat on how much it’s increased), as well as an increased parry window rolling with enchantments (obviously much higher for shields, much lower for weapons and armor, unless it’s something specific like a parrying dagger) would, I think, help encourage people to ‘build into parry’.

(Along with stronger ‘on parry’ effects. I’ve barely seen any with Breach, whereas with the previous patch I got a shield around level 10 that had like 2 very strong on parry effects which made me fall in love with it. I’ve had zero desire to have shields in Breach.)

[msoltyspl]

Plagued and enchanted gloves/shields have nice on parry bonuses, the regular infused gear - not so much.

Big no to increasing parry window.

[lvluptrain]

I agree with you as loot in easy mode should stay there as it would help keep pvp/mulitplayer balanced. Like in Elden ring…getting the best gear took a little bit of time and had to be earned and yet pvp was thriving in there despite it all.

Honestly realm tiers help satisfy both sides as the casual player wants a easy game, can just chill, and enjoy the story. As for the soulslike player we can ramp up the challenge since the game has been getting easier since the hotfixes

I hope the difficulty realm changes are more like smarter AI, new moves, more enemies, and maybe new hidden bosses…or maybe harder realms mean more loot like high risk for high reward too?

Kind of reminds me of Baldur gate 3 when in honor mode bosses would have new legendary move set and everything.

I also think they they should give achievements for those that beat the game on different hard realm difficulties as well to spice things up.

[Gylbard]

Hello there, the game is feeling really different after breach. It doesnt feel bad but on some points pretty different. Good thing i got stuck at the same point like last time. That crucible kills me.

But i would like to ask in case there are plans to tackle the UI somewhen. Any possibilty we get some informations in terms of numbers for example current/maxhealth on HP bar. After regen only kicks infight so you cant check how effective it is and im to lazy to put much effort into masochistic attempte of letting me beat myself up to check how the bar behave. I mean ofc if it doesnt kill the charme of the game.

Also some information in character screen, for example point defense. until today i think stagger and point are not that much related like brothers more sort of cousins… maybe one of them is adopted i dont know. since i dont know i avoid those on echant if its possible ofc rng gives sometimes not much 1 echant out of 3 or 2 of 5 (with one negative) happens pretty often. Or you get Something good but then there is a instakill negative enchant on or the rare 3 others are not thaaat good… you could ignore them, gonna live better but thats rng i think (maybe hope ) others share same luck onto that but its ok.

So some more available information for stats and so on, if it isnt to much to ask Otherwise nothing to complain except that knightrider but thats my own battle

Doing good guys

[amanomai91]

If the main issue for you is farming materials (wood,ore,fishes) and not fighting enemies.
Would a solution to those farms work for you?
Lets say, If they implement a farm house system that solves material needs, would you still need the fast travel whispers?

[fugixi]

I second this. I loved the Gordon mission when first arriving in Sacrament.

I would like to add that it would also be very nice, not just with more variations of daily/weekly bounties/challenges which seem to be addressed with the Patch 1, but I would like to see simply bigger daily/weekly bounties/challenges. Currently all of them are quite small/quick to do.

[Imperator_Sam]

The difficulty setting for each Realm is what i look forward to the most. By simply letting players adjust the Realm to their preference, i have no doubt it will open the doors to much more players.

Please add the Option to enable Respec without completing Lvl 5 Crucible. This is a very crucial option that is overlooked.

[lrbanthony]

Any chance of a dedicated jump button so that we don’t fling ourselves off of ledges on hardcore mode accidentally upon a perspective shift? I’ve beaten the game on Hardcore, but I get PTSD every time I walk a ledge. I know that the idea is be careful right? But there are several areas of the game where the camera starts to shift while you are transitioning on a beam or are invisible to you when the camera pans down because you are panning down and the direction you are going… you get the idea. Camera perspective plus Hardcore equals lots of frustrating deaths.