the numbers are inflated. maybe deduct 10-30 hours from AFKing. might be more might be less.
anyway.
Story
its real interesting, theres actual cutscenes and the characters are identifiable/memorable. each have their moments. Tho I feel that its criminal that LARA was not given more focus in earlier parts of the game so that we feel more attached to her.
an idea i have is she can provide a repeatable quest which can teach players about the minimap as well as cooking. where she can have the player kill some enemies “further up north” of the map. due to distance, they could be respawned. this allows newer players to be able to “farm power” without creating a new realm. her rewards could be a few ingredients for mushroom soup, as well as the recipe for first completion. this can help newer players a huge bunch as they’ll likely be gatekept by the firstboss. they will learn to love lara as the person who they worked with to gain enough power to finally take him down.
granted its in early access, despite being “very little”. the journey to fight the bosses feel epic. its a struggle. when i revisit earlier areas, i can see the power i’ve gained where i more or less one shot everything. on new realms even one shotting the gatekeeper boss (first boss).
Navigation/traversal
i dont know how to feel about this too much since the game is not too straight forward. on one hand i WANT a minimap icon/direction pointer. but on another i know it can be confusing to newer players where the direction showed by a pointer would not be direct, where they might need to make a huge route around an obstacle/terrain in order to reach certain areas.
perhaps a compromise is allowing a direction pointer to be toggled from the options menu. it can get tiring, opening the map once in a while.
Artstyle
i really appreciate it. truth be told, when i was younger i wanted to come up with my own version of this “huge arms” style, modelled after megaman series. megaman pulled it off well because the idea is all of them were robots so the arms/legs needed to be bigger.
but that said, after playing for so long, all it made was want a mod that can change the humans back to proper proportions. i normally dont roll female characters but i actually rolled one in NRFTW as i got to the point i didnt like the huge arms my guy had.
i would emphasize that the artstyle is NOT BAD. it is instead divisive. either you like it or you dont. i can appreciate it a great deal. but i’ve come to terms that i dont. if theres an option to switch the character models to “regular portions” i would turn it on in a heart beat.
i think that tho i can appreciate the artstyle. i believe many might not appreciate it enough to like it. as for the rest of the game. its gorgeous. every area looks like a painting.
Visibility
Some areas such as winding stairs or areas with verticality needs some reworks. tho it may look cinematic, sometimes i feel pissed when an enemy attacks me while being obstructed from view, making them practically invisible. this can feel unnecessarily frustrating. players can get around this by slowing down whenever they see an area that obstructs views, but why do players have to deal with this shortcoming?
Melee Combat in general
holy fucking shit. its the best deliberate combat i’ve ever had the enjoyment of playing in years. originally i had some gripes with this game due to the stamina system. i originally prefered POE2’s take. but i have learned to appreciate the stamina system. theres a lot of learning to be done but dayum. unlike other d-likes i m actually PLAYING the game instead of just deleting everything without skill.
there are some bosses that feel bullshit (mainly the twins with their purple area denials and “entire screen” spinning attack that goes on forever).
i also feel that the certain ranged enemies can feel unfair if you dont have enough poise, as their attacks simply interrupt your entire attack/movement. the only fix i can think of is to make ANY melee attacks that the player performs give them poise by default. this bonus only applies while the attack animation is playing.
on another note, i feel that all attacks/actions (even non melee) should be animation cancel-able. i would reason that we already “paid” for the stamina/rune costs either way. so we already lost resource for cancelling the action. on top of that, to cancel, the action, players have to use dodge. which requires additional stamina cost.
it can feel real bad getting “faked out” or misreading an enemy, thinking their vulnerable, we start a charge attack and we see them suddenly reel back to dish their own attack. impending doom.
Crafting
I do like the simplistic crafting but i feel that it can be improved a huge lot more. the game being in EA makes me feel we’re missing out a lot of options. for example socketables. all the jewels we have are listed as chipped. which in diablo terms would imply better quality versions exist. flawless/perfect etc. this is huge as it makes “normal” gear powerful IF you could socket higher quality jewels in. but as it currently is, it’s much weaker than a regular “enchanted” item.
also i feel that purple gear tends to be simply superior. unrepairable+indestructible cancel each other out. whats left are 3 mods that usually are superior than the blue gear version. there are extremely rare mods that exist only on blues tho. i think more of these need to exist or else 5/5 purples will dominate. perhaps make it so that blue items let you apply 2 infusions instead of just 1. it will make blue items be competitive but “not free”. getting items to slot in is still something you need to worry about.
as for rings. i really like the idea of rings. its actually “passives/uniques” hidden in plain sight as a ring. more unique game changing rings needs to be introduced that grants things from the crucible. for example using all focus but focus attacks deal more damage. more unique game changing rings need to be introduced, such as pure melee builds that focus on having low to zero focus. or disabling block/parries to gain more offense/defence. give players a reason to want downsides on their gear.
also i would add, we severely need a way to “scour” our gear. getting a specific item base and then slapping it with an enchant and getting 1/3 or 2/5 just feels bad.
the game needs more ways that the player can get certain items more deliberately.
stats/attributes
i think the current system is flawed. granting damage from attributes indirectly hurts build variety. players would be heavily encouraged to dump as little points as possible into everything else, then dump everything else into damage.
i would instead suggest that all item base damage be increased significantly. but to balance, each weapon has an increasing stat requirement, based on the tier of upgrade. i understand that this would mean we can no longer get fresh rerolled characters twinked with t16 weapons. but if this gives us greater build variety i feel this is better in the long run.
this can also be applied to other pieces of gear.
the question would be, what happens to stats since they’re no longer providing direct damage bonuses? the answer is MERGE stats together. for example
STR, merged with carry load. the stronger you are, the heavier gear you can wear without getting unencumbered.
DEX/AGI, merged with stamina. this one is a little illogical but “close enough”
INT, merged with FOCUS. your intelligence grants you the ability to use your skills more frequently
WISDOM merged with HP. your knowledge not only grants you favour with the divine but knowledge on self preservation (think of druids/rangers)
also i would very strongly recommend gear attribute requirements never go “too high”. the current system has the highest at 42, or 26+26. roughly 12 levels worth of attribute dumping. i find this is quite reasonable. thats 1/3 of your level progression. if the attribute requirements are high, all it does is encourage min maxing, which is happening right now due to stats granting damage. you put the least amount of stat points to get your build working then dump everything else into damage.
Damage
One thing i find interesting about NRFTW is the lack of direct damage buffs. i actually like that damage is not easy to come by. but that said i feel that the rune that gives damage buff is a mistake. players would always want to keep it up all the time. one can argue “its easy to keep 100% uptime AND use runes”. the counterpoint is, if 100% uptime is easy, why not make it a permanent buff and cut out the hassle? also why i would say its a mistake is because, this damage buff is simply TOO GOOD not to use. you simply SHOULD use it if you can. when i m playing crucible for example, i would try to make sure i have enough focus to cast it right before going into the next echo. another reason why i feel its a mistake is from a balance perspective. rune attacks already give players an avenue for big damage. giving players a “free” damage buff, means the devs need to balance the game based on the fact that this damage buff should be used by all players. when something exists, the devs always have to balance around the existence of that thing. if players have 50% movespeed, bosses will start to have larger attacks aoes and/or attack faster to give players with 50% movespeed. if you have 30%? sucks to be you, 40-50% ms starts becoming a requirement rather than a buff. this will happen with the existence of the damage buff too. this also leaks into buffs from food/consumables. players would inevitably feel the need to always have a “buffing phase” before going into a boss battle.
i’ve played anarchy online in my youth. theres a buttload of buffs that players would go through before even STARTING to go into a dungeon. even back then i felt its… tedious.
and it introduces a problem for the devs. do you balance the game around players having buffs or without?
if the devs make it balanced around players having buffs, players with less skill may feel the game is not for them, since they need to spend a lot of time and effort to farm up consumables. dying in this game is TOO easy. and when you die, you lose all the buffs.
if buffs is the way to go, i would suggest making buffs last 10 minutes and persist thru death. players will feel more inclined to use them up rather than hoard, and spam it before boss fights. but is this what the devs want.
also thanks to these buffs, players can get a big bump to power/defense, arguably bullying the bosses.
as mentioned, i also think damage from stats is a mistake. another angle is because the damage bonus given is FLAT damage. any flat damage from a source OTHER than on weapons can be a mistake. why? this quickly introduces an unfair advantage for 2handers. if a 2 hander has 20 damage and attacks once a second, they will do 20 damage. a 1 hander that does 10 damage 2 times a second also does 20 damage. its equal. if you introduce 30% increased damage. the damage out put is the same. but if you give 10 flat damage, the 2 hander only does 30 damage while the 1 hander will do 40. this inequality becomes larger the more flat damage you can add.
on top of that 1 handers can be paired with another weapon, giving them more versatility. they can benefit from 2 infusions too compared to 2 handers which can only benefit from one. not only can they benefit from 2 infusions, they can benefit from 2 same infusions, since they’re on 2 different pieces of equipment, they are not bound by the “you cannot use 2 of the same kind of infusions” rule.
one thing that i find has always been the bane of balance in arpgs/d-likes is always multipliers. it is by far the hardest aspect of the game to balance. i do not envy the devs. how much dps are players expected to deal at a certain level? i cant answer lol
Elemental damage
infect/plague damage feels useless. the key benefits of plague are to prevent monster healing and to make enemies stagger more easily. when monsters stagger more easily you get to do more damage as theyre disabled. but all these benefits can kinda be replaced by fire damage. burning damage counteracts regen and if its strong enough can actually deal more damage then the enemy regens. as for staggering enemies. you dont need to care about staggering enemies if the amount of dps you can output is high enough that you dont need to rely on staggers.
lightning damage is cool AF BUT, i think the effect needs to be changed. it can feel erm… epilepsy inducing? or jarring as the impact of an electrical effect triggering happens fast and is very bright.
i also like the idea of weapons having a single element. weapon conversions are a mess. i would suggest that bonus damage should always be specific and never converted. for example, if your physical weapon is imbued with fire, and you have a glove that gives you 10% increased physical damage, this bonus should be ignored in the calculation.
Weapon classes/movesets/bonuses/identity
i would also say some weapon classes feel so damn superior. for example scythes. they just feel so good. the basic claymore also is quite an outstanding weapon where even as a basic weapon, it has a lot of versatility where you can charge attacks from the get go, and have a decent dash attack for opening. but scythes go far beyond that. it has speed, it has range, it can be charged. i feel like i m missing out for not using scythes.
i can see that the devs have a long term plan to add more content over time. perhaps each weapon would have its own unique moveset. personally i feel this is a mistake. i can appreciate how each weapon can feel different and give you a reason to look for a specific weapon. but i dont think this model is sustainable. in the end the devs need to create a buttload of different combinations of weapon attacks for each weapon, while some sets are simply stupidly overperforming such as scythes.
my suggestion would be making players have a dojo where they can talk to a trainer to make their own custom moveset.
some weapons look awesome but i refuse to use them because their moveset is not to my liking.
that said, each weapons types can regain their identity by having unique abilities tied to the weapon. for example, some weapons can have mods that do something special. such as a pair of daggers has a special mod that damages any enemies nearby if the player dashes accross them. a certain 2 handed sword could gain an empowered buff after using a rune attack, a certain hammer could use up all focus on a single rune attack to deal a devastating blow. theres tons of interesting ideas that can be implemented.
i’ve read that bows and wand are getting ways to have basic attacks using stamina. this is a win. i do know that this game seems to be balanced a huge lot around melee, but i would say forcing players to go melee in order to cast spells/fire off ranged attacks can feel bad.
but on the flip side, anytime you introduce spells and ranged attacks into a melee oriented game, theres going to be a huge headache balancing the game. i will say that and not elaborate as i enjoy melee a huge lot. anything further will be biased towards my love for melee.
Bossing
I feel that a lot of bosses are fair, tho i feel that the riven twins in particular is bad. i whole heartedly believe that there is a bug which causes it to repeat certain attacks over and over again such as shitting area denials a huge lot covering the entire arena or spinning its stick 12 times in a row. i say that because i refuse to believe the devs made this intentional. if it is. then its bad design. area denials can essentially make the entire arena unplayable. as for attacking multiple times in a row repeatedly non stop and more than we expect is a weird thing to do. it makes the boss unpredictable and takes away from the joy of duelling a boss. dancing with them and taking turns attacking each other.
soulslike games have always been turn based games disguised as an action game. similarly monster hunter is like this too. monster can have long attack chains, but usually after dodging a chain. at the end, players have a chance to deal damage. you tried slapping me, now you’re done, its my turn to slap you. spinning 12 times in a row takes away expectation. how can i allocate my stamina wisely to attack when i dont know if i have to dodge 12 times in a row. is the monster done? is it my turn to attack? there is a balance between a challenge and a game being difficult. i like a challenge. but if its just difficult for the sake of being difficult? i ll quit the game. in my country, spicy food is abundant. some places make spicy food for the sake of making it spicy. i never eat at those places. instead i prefer places that balance the spicy to make it a pleasurable eating experience.
Parrying
I’ve mentioned this is other threads. we need clear indicators of parriable attacks and unblockable/unparriable attacks. players should not need to memorize 1001 different parry timings. if you force this on players, MOST of us will ignore parrying. based on the poll, last i saw around 50% users who polled do not parry/parry less.
parries should always feel good enough that players are rewarded for parries, but never so good that players who dont parry feel punished for not utilizing parries. consequently bosses should never be balanced around players parrying their attacks. if you force it, players will simply learn to cheese the boss or learn to tank the hit rather than learn to parry. worst to worst, players would just realize the game “is not for them” and just quit entirely.
When Video Game Enemies Intentionally Make It Hard To Parry Them
if i m being honest. my time is precious. i dont play soulslike games and one of the reasons is i dont want to learn 1001 different timings/tells for parries, nor learn what attacks are parry-able or not. i can easily admit i m lazy. but i am all up for learning boss attack patterns.
Even learning how to parry against a regular mob i tend to fail a lot. my success rate is highly variable, where sometimes i can parry 5/5 attacks, but sometimes i parry 0/5. why is there such a disparity? it the same mob. same attack pattern yet i succeed and fail seeming randomly. i know of course its likely my timing is off. to me all that i learned is that i m not good enough to use parry reliably, so i simply ignore it entirely.
Dodging
the existence of dashing using “light” loadout puts players in a weird spot. personally i love dashing a huge lot but i do recognize that it can be bad for the game.
whenever a mechanic exists, a counter point is introduced. its like how in poe1, bosses have telegraphed attacks that have a short split second to react and have a huge ass aoe and hit for a gazillion damage, its because players have 1000% movespeed, and have a dash skill which can teleport them more or less across the entire arena. and some players have tons of damage mitigation.
in poe2, for the most part bosses still have huge ass attacks, but the attacks feel slower, and in most cases a dodge roll away could be enough. they dont need to make the attacks have as large as poe1. they dont need the bosses to be on steroids. the game is balanced around players having pathetic dodging ability and having around 30-40% ms. the damage isnt necessarily stupid high as players are expected to have around 3-4k HP (ES is a mistake and GGG still hasnt balanced ES lol).
in that aspect, how does NRFTW balance the game to accomodate both dashing and heavy roll? heavy rolls in an essence are sufficient enough to dodge enemy attacks but require players to be very good with their dodging. the skill level required is very high. dodging the echoknight’s triple teleport slams require a very high level of understanding and skill to time the dodges. i would argue he needs to teleport slam because “light dashes” exist. weaker players would prefer to dash a good distance away from bosses so the devs are forced to give the echoknight huge ass aoe attacks/teleports/his own dash attacks to counter this player tactic.
in a way the echoknight feels epic because of these attacks. but on the flipside, the echoknight will alienate weaker players as dodging/parrying/blocking becomes the only way to deal with his attacks since you cant simply “run out of his attack radius”.
poe2’s campaign bosses can feel very epic and not rely on huge ass attacks and mostly give players ample time to get out of the way because it’s balanced around players not having too much MS and their dodgeroll doesnt make the teleport to the other side of the map. if i m being real, poe2’s campaign bosses feel significantly superior to nrftw, as certain nrftw bosses tend to hit very hard to sell the idea that “you’re not meant to be hit”. my fav poe2 boss is balbala. sometimes i do get hit by her attacks but most of the time, i really feel like its a dance as i know how to avoid her attacks. her attacks were strong but were very well telegraphed. the AOE was decent. everything felt just right. she didnt need huge ass aoes or attacks that required split second reaction nor perfect timing. the only campaign boss that dropped the ball is the silverback qudrilla boss. most players including myself call his slam a bullshit attack since it comes out of nowhere and 1hko’s most players.
nrftw bosses on the other hand tend to have huge ass aoes from the start. many require precision timed dodges to avoid.
if bosses are to remain the same then dodges need to have more i-frames. based on what currently is in the game, i m imagining the game will simply increase in difficulty in the future. without more i-frames, this can cause players to be skillcapped and will simply be unable to go further in the game.
On another tangent. i like playing melee, but the ranged enemies tend to be a huge nuisance. i find myself utilizing dashes to close the distance. which honestly is fun. dash-slam. in fact i find it simply too enjoyable that i find it very hard to play a none “light” character, as i love dashing too much. using heavier gear simply feels bad as i get a puny heavy roll instead.
Melee VS Range
One thing that non melee-ers hate is that if you have no focus, you need to melee to get focus. From a design pov it creates an interesting dynamic where people are forced to melee.
the devs have mentioned that they plan to allow ranged attacks to utilize stamina instead. honestly i dont know if this is going to be a good thing. on one hand, it makes sense. if a friend of mine likes playing ranged, why is he forced to play melee? but on the flipside, how will the affect melee? melee needs to feel rewarded for the risk they take. if ranged combat becomes too strong, melee-ers will feel bad that they’re not rewarded for their risk/reward. on the flipside if ranged combat was nerfed so that the “basic attacks” are significantly weaker, players might not find ranged combat appealing, but i think thats the best way to go about it. some damage is still better than no damage. in fact being able to deal damage and gaining focus while a boss is spinning non stop is more dps than melee’ers who are stuck with ZDPS since they’re busy avoiding the attack.
Crucible
In one word. unrewarding. Theres so much effort to be put in but the rewards feel so lackluster.
For starters, lets talk about the echo bonuses. I’ve mentioned how i feel about damage buffs. its a very tricky situation where every source of damage, can get multiplied. having large amounts of damage can cause players to simply delete content.
there’s many echo buffs that provide damage, or trade damage for defence. the total amount can go quite crazy when all the damage buffs stack on each other to the point that players are trivializing the echo knight.
in a way it can make players feel fomo too as playing ranged/spells allow players to take risky buffs such as double damage but damage taken is doubled. they worry less as they’re ranged to begin with. this actually creates a nasty meta where using ranged is rewarded greatly since by the very nature of “ranged” skills go, they reduce the chance of being hit. trivializing the defensive penalties.
the next issue is the fact its a “one try, you die, please retry” sort of deal. which to be honest makes me DETEST the content why? coz i suck ass. i cant remember the amount of times that i dash off a cliff and just fail the entire crucible. should i have been more careful? yes. but at the same time accidents do happen. sometimes enemy placement is also a large contributing factor where they are placed on narrow walk ways. if you try to dash thru, one small mistake could see you falling to your death.
most of the game is all about trial and error. if you fail, you can just try again. but crucible introduces a soft hardcore mode to the game. theres a reason why i dont play hard core. dying is a big reason. this actually takes me back to POE crucible/heist. in both, players have just ONE TRY. fail, and you lose all possible rewards. as such i avoid such content. negating large amounts of progress is a form of player punishment. punish them enough and they will resort to start using meta builds or overperforming builds.
a huge problem are echos that are narrow and players have to jump across while a ranged enemy is waiting on the other side. one wrong move and you’ll plunge to your death or just eat attacks for no reason.
speaking of “no retries” a HUGE offender is the echo knight himself. this is the exact problem that POE1 has where powerful bosses are gated behind keys/content and only given “limited” tries to kill the boss. whatever happened to the concept of learning? we’ve been dying and retrying through out the game except for now? that’s quite a change in systems. as such this punishment will teach players to watch YT tutorials and to min max their builds. the more you punish players, the more players will put in effort to avoid getting punished.
and even then, even if you learn his moves etc, if you make too many mistakes in a row or just get pushed off the platform. its all over.
the ability to continue and retry are paramount. unless you want only the top players playing this game then please continue with this “single try” content.
Breach
I like breach. I can take my sweet time to run it and get rid of excess materials that i have. a few suggestions:
- Re-eveluate boss arenas. Some boss arenas are cramped, some are far from “savepoints”. At worst some are in DARK areas which require illumination/elemental weapons to actually see the arena.
- Perhaps increase monster density but remove all “side areas” such as going into the cellar in the beginning area. Its annoying to clear the map only to realize you need to hop into a side area to get the last few kills.
- Make all rewards displayed by default BUT greyed out. Currently I have to gamify this step by dumping 99 items to burn just to see what they give before removing the and actually choosing to burn stuff. Having them be greyed out by default lets me see the potential rewards with out me doing this additional step
- Ensure the following mods are not available: increased speed/aoe/projectiles and regen. Regen is an “anti deliberate” playstyle mod. especially when fighting 2 bosses at once. you need to keep the pressure up to kill 1 boss or else it just regens back, negating all your hard work. but if you try too hard you get smacked around. as for speed/aoe and projectile amount. changing these numbers simply makes it impossible for players to gauge "safe areas. i mentioned balbala being my fav poe2 boss. i know her like the back of my hand. but one time i fought her in a map which gave her increased speed. instead of dancing with her, it became a one handed bully. i have ZERO opening. she was so fast that i really had no openings. her attacks which i could normally avoid at the last second became unavoidable. the game no longer was about skill. instead it was a gearcheck. in poe1, the phoenix guardian has a nova attack where he will charge up. the player has to run away before he fully charges. this is fair and all players should learn to deal with it. UNTIL, he gets an increased aoe mod. having this mob makes the entire arena be affected by the nova. theres no way to avoid it. having increased cast speed is equally tragic where you see him start charging but he charges up so fast that you practically have almost zero reaction time and he blows his nova in your face before you can even react. thus i would strongly recommend to remove these mods from the mod pool entirely. enemy leeching isnt as bad as there is some counter play (dont get hit).
- Playing with mods that LOWER your speed is not only unfun, it can potentially wreck builds. I had once fought the keeper and his dog/elephant. his pet has alot of area slows which was annoying by itself but paired with the “you get slowed by each nearby monster” mod, its simply frustrating. Similarly when i’m fighting a boss or pair of bosses which give me a small window of attack, monster life regen actively punishes me for not using a high dps build to burst down the enemy. enemy life leech is something i m ok with as it punishes mistakes, while hp regen punishes weak players who are doing their best to avoid hits and actually playing the game in a deliberate manner.
Other stuff I want to mention/suggest.
Anti Time based events
- I am strongly opposed to anything time sensitive. In POE2 the game originally touted deliberate gameplay but at the same time has extra mechanics like breach and delirium which are highly time sensitive. Not only that their latest POE2 league, dawn of the hunt also is centred around a timed mechanic. Whenever timed mechanics exist, players are pushed towards hyper optimization. It is also why I am against monster regen as monster regen in itself is a timed mechanic.
Avoid aspirational content or make the content feel optional.
- GGG initially introduced pinnacle content as a way to challenge the best players in the game. A lot of “good” players argue that it is entirely optional. which is kind of a load of bull. some build enabling uniques or BIS items are gated behind pinnacle content. It is to the point that players are paying for carries.
- I used to “love” LE and i was actually playing LE a huge lot before returning to NRFTW. one reason that I returned is because they introduced Uber Abberoth to the game which is a unreachable for the majority of the playerbase, this is backed with data released by the devs. in fact there is a huge disparity where over 50% of the boss kill comes from a single class. Players are really forced to go meta. To make things worst, 1-2 of the best items in game are gated behind this boss. Those who follow the meta can make bank selling these uniques.
- A good example of aspirational content that does not feel forced and totally optional is GD. there are celestial bosses that are stupid strong but can be taken down if you build correctly. the exclusive gear drops can feel VERY powerful but you have a buttload of different gear that arguably can be better than those exclusive drops that you dont feel too forced to somehow follow an OP meta build to kill the boss.
Breach refined feedback
- Anti fall is really good. i like it a huge lot
- The 3 difficulty options on surface level looks good. But to me only the first 2 are necessary. Easy mode should allow weaker players to enjoy the game. Normal well.. its how we’re meant to play the game. As for Hard? I honestly believe that having a hard difficulty is a huge mistake. instead the devs should identify WHY players are finding “normal” too easy. in most cases its due to their build overperforming. rebalance/nerf what ever is overperforming.
- i love the new utility rune slots. such a good QoL. But now we’re on the topic, i feel that 3 runes in particular are just too important to be optional. namely channel, illuminate, and recall (tp back to town). channel is important as sometimes we’ve cleared a huge amount of the area so theres not many mobs left to allow us to get enough to recall/illuminate an area. The other solution is to make illuminate/recall have 0 focus cost. In fact I find illuminate as an extremely gimicky mechanic that i wouldnt complain if it were removed entirely and no overly dark areas should exist in the game. the game is still in development. theres a lot of secrets that can be made with illuminate, but seeing how much the devs have in the game i think, they can make 1001 secrets without relying on such a gimmick. i remember playing dragon age inquisitor. it had a “detect” button where pressing the button will send out a pulse that would highlight anything and everything that could be interacted with. i ended up spamming the button everywhere and all the time. if the devs added more things that relied on illuminate. 2 things would happen. the first is players will be incentivized to illuminate ALL THE TIME. or the second is players will TOTALLY ignore illuminate BUT would possibly go on an illuminate spree but only with an illumination guide where the players will min max their illumination use.