making the game 2.5D just ruining everything about this game. making it hard to traverse, hard to fight, even hard for developement. It could have been an beautiful 3D game surpass Dark Souls or even Elden Ring, but sadly It’s 2.5D with no way of changing the viewport. ARPG does not need to be 2.5D, diablo is 2.5D because the hardware is not powerful enough for 3D.
you want to see the beautiful world? here is a blob of black occluted by foreground structures. you want engaging combat? here is the fixed viewport with hard control movement directions. you want a immersive experience? you can’t zoom in to npc to see their appearances. You can’t put more content in the scene because the mountains only have frontside visible. all can be solved by just making it a simple 3D game.
I think it’s a matter of preference and I prefer 2.5D.
I loved games like TUNIC, Death’s Door, Hyper Light Drifter, and COCOON I’ve never had any camera issues with these games, and NRFTW has given me very few camera issues (most have already been fixed).
I find 2.5D clearer than 3D in every game I’ve played, Especially in the same genre, in Elden Ring and Dark Souls there are always camera issues against large enemies.
The difficulty you have reading attacks is due to a lack of familiarity with this view or perhaps personal differences (or from specific enemies that don’t have very clear animations), as my friends and I have never encountered these problems in any 2.5D game.
Another person on the forum said that he found 2.5D to have less atmosphere and immersion than 3D, but again I think it’s a matter of personal preference, and I don’t think the game would have been any better if it had been in 3D.
Yes, but keep in mind that 3D is being treated as something completely marginal and secondary.
The developers intended to make it “playable,” not “polished,” and essentially, it will always be something converted from 2.5D to 3D, so some things like some enemy attacks will be poorly telegraphed because they’re hard to read from the character’s perspective.
not if you do not lockon. every automated camera feature is more or less crappy. in those games it also helps to turn stuff off like auto camera wall recovery etc.
i had really bad camera issues with monster hunter until i turned off all automated camera features, like “follow target” etc.
edit: but i do partially agree with op, that not even having a pan camera option is really not the best choice.
In my experience, if you don’t lockon, the problems are reduced but don’t disappear, In Sekiro these problems are not present or are minimal, so in my opinion it is a mistake by the devs who should have worked more on the camera. They know it too, in fact, I don’t know if you noticed, but Messmer has a gap around the arena so that the camera doesn’t get jammed because of the wall, If something similar had been done for the Divine Beast Dancing Lion it would have been a good idea, but instead
Players are left with three options: playing without lock-on (which for most players also means using the “claw grip” which is not an ergonomic grip); positioning themselves in such a way as to avoid walls (essentially acting as if there was a gap before the wall); or letting the camera jam and dodge intuitively based on the sounds and what little they can understand xD.
I played DS1 entirely without using lockon, and I did some bosses in Elde Ring and DS3 without lockon (I also played them with mouse and keyboard so it’s easier to control the camera), but in any case, I find 2.5D and 2D games more readable than 3D, as I said, it’s largely a question of preference.
And I forgot to say That @dark_souls is objectively right about something: 2.5D games are more difficult to develop than 3D and 2D games, But still, I wanted to specify that playing in 2.5D is not intrinsically more difficult or less intuitive or more janky than 3D.
I have two lvl 96 characters in Path of Exile 2 and 15k hours in Dota 2. I enjoyed 2.5D for a long time. But they are all flat visible maps with competitive combat systems. WoW also have free camera for exploration.
in No Rest for the Wicked, the level design is like dark souls where the world is vertical, with many shortcuts and loops. these kind of discovery is best served with 3D. It hits different when you open the tiny secret door from Catacombs of Carthus to Irithyll of the Boreal Valley or when you explore Blight Town back to Firelink Shrine.
It is also a waste of so many good art design when you have a fixed camera from so far away.
Games like TUNIC & Death’s Door have a map quite similar to NRFTW and I really enjoyed them and I don’t think it would have been any better if they were 3D.
There are similar moments in NRFTW too, like when you first arrive in Marin Woods. Exploration and the element of surprise in a 2.5D game are present, but they work differently.
Look, I understand you don’t like it, but it’s not a waste of artists like you say.
The artists are working on this game with the understanding that what they do will be seen by the isometric camera, you lose nothing, what you see is what the artists planned, not a version compromised by 2.5D as it was planned to be 2.5d all along.
It makes sense to say that 3D is more immersive than 2.5D, but it doesn’t make sense to say that immersion doesn’t exist in 2.5D.
I think 2.5D was a good choice, for me (and also for many other players I think) 2.5D is a selling point, not a flaw.
And I want to specify that I don’t hate 3D, I just like 2.5D and 2D a little more and I somewhat dislike first person.
But I think that outside of personal preferences they are equivalent to each other if developed correctly.