I’ve been really enjoying No Rest for the Wicked, but there’s one issue that’s been consistently frustrating: stamina loss while climbing, especially on vine ladders.
Right now, if you run out of stamina mid-climb, you drop off instantly and often fall to your death. This feels extremely punishing and extreme frustrating, particularly in these situations:
If you’re running a build that doesn’t spec into stamina.
When you’re wearing purple gear with negative stamina affixes, sometimes the best available gear still comes with (or you’d rather have) stamina penalties, and it feels like I’m being punished for equipping it.
There’s no way to recover stamina mid-climb or even brace yourself to stop falling.
The fact that a single miscalculation or an unlucky gear stat can lead to an unavoidable death makes exploration feel unnecessarily harsh. It discourages experimenting with different builds and makes gear selection feel overly and senselessly restrictive.
Suggestion:
Please consider adjusting this mechanic to be more forgiving, maybe allow players to rest or catch themselves partway through a climb, or reduce the stamina drain while climbing altogether. Even a small tweak here would go a long way in making exploration feel fairer and more fun for all playstyles.
Thanks for the great work so far, really looking forward to future updates.
It doesn’t make sense to limit a fundamental game mechanic to either properly speccing to stamina or using a particular gear / avoiding a particular gear. This makes certain vine ladder heights a death trap to low stamina builds.
Why should players die from simply climbing vines? What is the intended experience? Imo, it’s bad game design, however trivial.
I get your frustration but this is the risk of using plague items. Which makes it more fun imo.
U can also solve this by putting off the item with stamina decrease and put it on after you finished.
Tho base stamina is fine for climbing even for longer climbs there are usually stops between, like some platform or tree branch on which you can take brief respite.
They could simply make the character do a small rest hanging in the vines / laying on his back in the water to recover energy. This would have a penalty (lost time, potentially getting shot) while not killing your character in an anticlimactic fashion
Ever played Zelda BOTW?
Climbing uses Stamina, if you don’t have enough, you will fall - and probably die.
Get that Ring for unlimited Climbing to reach certain areas or spec more stamina.
Easy. You can climb any story relevant point with your basic stamina I guess - that is fair enough.
If you want climb other stuff, spec into stamina or get the ring.
Thanks for the advice. I dont stack stamina negatives. I just have one -18% max stamina affix in my helmet, and it’s enough to cut me off access from most high vine ladders like the one in nameless pass. I’m a mage build so I dont spec into stamina.
That’s why I asked for the intended gameplay experience. Should a minimal negative affix be enough to make normal gameplay impossible? Is this designed such that players are REQUIRED take off gear just to get over necessary progression paths?
Coz so far, the feedback you guys give are band aid solutions to the problem, and yes I did do them so I’m able to progress. But I dont think it takes away from the fact that this is a poorly tuned or designed mechanic.
And no, I don’t think it’s skill issue because there’s no player agency to it. If you dont have the minimum stamina required to climb a vine ladder, you have 100% chance of dying with no way out. A simple way to regain stamina while hanging on should solve this imo.
You can literally remove your negative affixed gear or apply something that has stamina, increase your max stamina via gem. It’s intended that you figure it out if you are not using the ring. The game is early access so the question is understandable. Why shouldn’t players die doing outdoor climbing without harnesses if they run out of energy? This is not a returning mechanic in OW rpgs.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not gameplay. It’s just mindless crunching of numbers. Is my current stamina more than what I think is required to go over the vines? I die if it’s not, I get over it if it is. If midway through the climb it becomes apparent that my stamina wont make it, I’m just doomed to die. There’s no response from player side that can solve the situation.
That is not player agency. That is artificial inconvenience in a game where the core mechanic is challenging combat and active gameplay.
Thanks for the succinct reply despite myself not offering much in my initial reply.
I am a proponent for this now after reading your own reply and then considering the consequences this could have on a hardcore player in an slight moment of negligence on a “heavier” stat spread.
I’m not the best at suggesting ideas but in this instance. After the initial part of entering sacrament. Could an extra equipment slot be dedicated to the endless climbing ring? Say Earring/Necklace or even something silly like a gem/rune that is burned onto the gathering items as there are 6 slots for such?
If you just knew how many times I fell while climbing, when I played the game for the first time lol
It’s allways about try and error, for future you atleast know to be aware of that
I have never once had this happen and was wondering what the point of the mechanic was at all, given it felt so forgiving already. Happy to hear your report that for some players it does have a function LOL. Purple affixes are fun. RIP climbers.
What if they made it so climbing reduces your stamina more quickly (so there’s still benefit for those with higher stamina), but when you hit zero you don’t fall off, instead you move slower and after detaching your character goes down on one knee to recover for a second, this means you are more vunerable to ranged enemies/enemies that might be waiting for you where you’re getting off, but it doesn’t guarantee death.
Never once had I died while climbing. The way I see it - we already have a deficit of attribute functions. Every attribute does exactly one fucking thing. Four of those are basically doing THE SAME THING, just with different weapons. Considering this is a game about progression, I think it’s understandable that the game expects you to put at least some amount of points into everything. So you say you want a mage build. The problem is - you can’t go full mage in this game anyway, but how focus works - is not a substitude for mana. You will still engage in melee combat regardless = you are encouraged to train stamina. On top of that - runes are not spells and they don’t benefit from stats. This is the reason I don’t like specing into “mage”. Relying on rings to level up rune damage is the idea I don’t appreciate - there’s not choice here, you are just required to give up any other ring.
Giving an ability to “rest” on the vines makes no sense, at this point you might as well change it to endless climbing without the ring and not waste the player’s time on pointless waiting.
About the “make players vulnerable if they run out of stamina”… Personally, I’d much rather die instantly than wait for a boring climb to end at slow speed, only to get killed on top.
you can reroll your enchantment affixes, buff your stamina with food, use a ring to free climb, slot gems or just put 1 lvl up in stamina. no need to pump it to 30.
imo that is not an issue at all. lots of ways to work with it.
