1 gem only and destroy the gear to replace the gem?? How is that fun? I made the mistake of putting a bleed gem in Lacquered bow and now I have to destroy it unless I want to play with a bleed gem? How is that a fun experience? Stuck forever with one gem?? Do you want people to read guides and watch videos before ever exploring this game lest they make a petty mistake they cant change? That IS the way it is. I didnt think such a simple thing would make me quit this game after getting to level 27 but I cant get past it. It just ruins it.
Also, having to stand still while attacking with a bow⌠Seriously, they cant move and shoot in this universe?? Only elves can do that? manâŚ.
Thank God I didnât buy the game at full price or Iâd take this pretty personally. This isnât 2004. Youâve had 22 years to learn from other dungeon crawler/MMOs whatâs fun and what sucks.
You can move and shoot a bow, it just depends on the bow. Rapid fire for instance can be held while moving. There are even dodge and running attacks for some of the bows so you can gain space while attacking.
As far as gems, keep on playing and you will find more, and even the better mottled versions. I get that it sucks, but it gives value to both the gem and the equipment. Which will you destroy? There are also a few vendors that sell gems, like grinnich general goods, Finley, or the crucible vendor. Iâve held on to gear with good gems until I can find a replacement for the gear. Once I do, I take the gem out, destroying the item, and then put it in the new one.
I see that now, itâs not very obvious. Lacquered bow, stand still to shoot. Im not a tank, I should never be standing still. I understand this thing used to have homing arrows? Now its just 4 arrows that spread out and by the time it hits the enemy its doing 12 dmg per arrow and only 2 of the 4 hit the target. Its a terrible way to nerf it. It made it worse than a blue bow at the same level.
Lacquered bow still has homing arrows if you donât use a quiver. All the bows change shot trajectory when using a quiver. I never use a quiver with it because of that. Itâs also the only bow that shoots four arrows, shoots fairly quickly, and is basically stamina neutral with jade ring (assuming all four arrows hit) even without the buff it can give you, so loosing mobility seems like a fair trade off. I went max movement speed for that bow and it works just fine. If you want a bow with lots of mobility, try the patience bow (dex faith). Its running attack launches you in the direction you run while also shooting at the enemy. Great as a dodge, though Iâm not sure if it has any iframes. Balak talon is pretty cool too, shooting 3 arrows much faster than sirenâs call. Answered prayer pierces enemies which is also cool. I would have expected full agility to have the best bows, but faith has pleasantly surprised me. Makes me wonder about the int bows.
I agree with you that the gem/infuse system is a little cumbersome and needs a bit more tutorial onboarding or a lock/favorite system or maybe an extra warning prompt to keep people from accidentally destroying an item they have spent time upgrading and customizing.
âŚbut also I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of what Early Access is. This entire post reads like the game is feature complete and no more adjustments are expected - but what weâre here for is to offer constructive criticism. You can definitely be upset about how a system works, but perhaps suggest an alternative (or take another look at the thing youâre complaining about and make sure there isnât a button prompt that does the thing youâre wanting to do that you just didnât notice).
On revisiting my agility bow build, lacquered bow has a running attack which can go in any direction and shoots one arrow. Short bow has this as well. A lot of the bows have the mobility you are looking for.
Making anything into a resource as opposed to something permanently reusable is something that I always dislike.
If itâs premanent, and you can apply and unapply things as you want, itâs completely open to experimentation.
Once itâs a resource you can waste, I go from excited to concerned.
Even if Iâm happy with the result I have to have the niggling suspicion that I mightâve wasted it because thereâs a better combination out there.
Itâs really weird to me, thereâs almost always a cost, though, even when itâs functionally pointless like 100G respecs in baldurâs gate 3. if you play it long enough, you realize itâs not a significant amount. But in the beginning when you should probably be experimenting the most, you donât know that, so it just feels bad.
I think people get caught up in trying to min/max their entire build to play the game. You donât need very optimised gear to play the entire game at the moment. A decent weapon and good rings or one or two good enchants and you will be fine. This may change as we get into the later areas. If youâre digging and fishing, you will find plenty of gems to replace any that you think you might have wasted.
If you get comfortable with parrying some attacks and dodging even the crucible fight gets easy enough. You will die a lot through that process, though, and Iâm sure that discourages people.
Having a cost and having meaning to items and their usage is a good thing. Realising that you wasted a good item is a good thing, but it is understandable why people would then feel frustrated that they did not make an optimal decision. That is part of the learning curve, though.
Itâs how you learn in a game. If you can make the most optimal decision at all times because you can either undo or have all the information available to you. You will end up removing alot of the fun and joy of improvement within the game.
Having a cost gives your choices meaning. Without enough experience in the game you will not make the best choices but that leaves an opportunity to learn and get better and eventually make optimal decisions as you have learned the systems.
If you are given everything or your decision does not have weight (either good or bad) then the game will not feel rewarding when you do the âgoodâ thing. Getting the balance right between frustration and reward is the hard part.
Yes, you could apply this to every aspect of the game but you never would. In your example, the frustration of the cost of wanting to adjust the game audio would far outweigh the reward of higher or lower volume. This would not be balanced or fun.
When we are talking about enemies. There are very easy enemies to defeat, medium and hard. Iâm saying the balance across the board is fairly good at the moment, in my opinion. If this is adjusted, it will have the potential to reduce the threat of some fights and may decrease the level of fun and achievement.
So why are you putting the challenge and punishment on gear crafting instead of enemy encounters?
it makes as much sense as putting it in the UI.
why not?
you seem to think you can just pass opinion as fact and skirt by.
Is still applicable. You can give the player a resource and every time they adjust the audio and donât like it, they have to spend it to change it again. This system is now more meaningful according to your own logic. you havenât given a reason itâs any more frustrating than crafting system. You just declare it and move on.
I thought we were talking about both and about the complexity of systems?
Everything we talk about here is our own personal opinion. Non of it is fact and itâs up to the devs to decide what they want to do based on our own personal feedback and experience with the game.
I guess the point I was trying to get across is that its the balance between frustrating and fun that is important. If people are finding the enemies or any system really more frustrating than fun then it should change.
If people are really getting worried about wasting resources and not spending resources optimally. Why should the devs just not give us any armour/weapon and allow us to put whatever runes, facets and enchantments we want without the need for any resource investment? If not having the optimal result is not fun.
Why not cap out every enemy to only have a max of three moves or less?
The point is you should reduce these to clear metrics to gauge the systems. Thatâs why I keep harping on about the audio adjustment. You bake it down to frustrating, but thatâs still vague, and can then be just as easily applied to your support for the item system.
Iâm not sure you realize that youâre just romanticizing inconvenience, and I think the actual topic of game design youâre trying to get at is âfriction pointsâ.
And some places shouldnât have them, and you should know why. Enemies should have friction points, obviously, because thatâs a worthwhile challenge. But the gear system? Why would I want to deal with the dark souls of gear management?
Iâm not sure what you mean. Are you asking why it is a good thing? I understand being frustrated when you waste something. You could say generally that frustration in a game is a bad thing because it is a negative experience. All experiences should be good. But souls games have shown that this isnât true. Emerging during a time when games were being heavily streamlined and having a difficult game was considered anti-fun, they became famous for their frustrations. So frustration alone is not the measure of anti-fun. I think the key is fairness. When you combine unfair with frustration, you then have anti-fun. A difficult game needs to feel fair. In this case of having to choose between keeping a gem or keeping an item, this is not a case of unfair. It is about stakes and creating value. Itâs the same reason you canât freely respec. It gives your decisions weight. It makes them actually matter. Mistakes have meaning. They have consequences. Not everyone enjoys this. They donât want to carefully consider the choices they are making. They may even feel that their mistakes are being punished. You might be in that camp. For me, I enjoy it. The mechanic makes both the gear and the gem far more valuable, and it puts me in a position to have to carefully consider which one is the best to keep. I might even decide to do nothing because both are too valuable to lose. Without that, I really donât have to think that much about it all, and the game loses a certain weightiness. Itâs like a TV show where your favorite character dies, but then they somehow bring them back from the dead. The death loses all its weight because there was no real consequences. I donât personally like that kind of thing.
