There is a lot to improve about The Dark Areas

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This discussion started here: Whos idea was to put pestilence boss in a pitch dark room?

But this Topic is more oriented towards general criticism of all the problems regarding the Dark Zones, and suggests some ideas to improve them.

I personally have found myself exploring the dark areas less and less as there is no incentive to do so and they are annoying to deal with.

PROBLEMS

QoL:

  • Every time you pick up something or interact with something in a dark area the light produced by your weapon or the Torch disappears, and this greatly ruins the immersion which should be one of the important features of dark areas.

Inadequate Light Sources:

  • Torchs are a terrible solution for lighting, mainly because they cannot be used if the player uses a two-handed weapon.
  • Infusing the weapon to make light is cool but it makes no sense that only Ice and Fire illuminate (the Area illuminated by lightning is very small) also Infusing the weapon only to illuminate an area is a bit strange because if your build is based on a type of damage such as physical or electrical damage, infusing the weapon with a different element makes the build weaker.
  • The rune to illuminate is the only option that is always viable, but since it uses focus, if you die and return to the dark area you cannot use it. , But if you if the duration ends during a fight, it is impossible to cast again because the animation is Super long. Furthermore Taking up a utility rune slot just to use it in a couple of small areas that could easily be avoided seems like a waste.

Other:

SOLUTIONS

Area lighting mechanics should be part of level design (like Ori)

Through interactable elements already present within the dark area,

It could be a magical object that when you interact with it, you get a small light that chases you for a certain amount of time (the light is similar to the rune), and then you have to find the next one before the first one dims.

It could be bonfires that light up when you activate a lever or when you defeat enemies in the previous area.

There could be friendly creatures that illuminate and you have to follow them if you don’t want to be left in the dark. Or it could be glowing enemies that you have to defeat to collect their light.

They should ensure a large chest or a large amount of material to be collected somewhere deep in the dark areas.

The plague bosses are already engulfed in blue fire, when they should illuminate their surroundings.

Obviously since having things that illuminate already available to the player would ruin the level design the torch and the rune would have to be removed, and the weapons infused with Fire and Ice would have to provide little light (like electricity).

IN CONCLUSION

It is important to take the mechanics to illuminate the dark areas, so that they are an interesting variety of gameplay and not just a nuisance.

Otherwise players explore dark areas only a few times out of curiosity and then avoid them because they have no reason or desire to explore them again.

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Personally, I enjoy the dark areas. As for focus, you could eat food that restores focus, or just go attack some enemies along the way to your destination to build it back up (or parry once). You could have a secondary weapon with the element you want, or use the utility rune. You could also bring spells that light up the ground for a long time (like the fire mage spells).

There are multiple ways to deal with the darkness. I hope the devs don’t remove it or trivialize the game too much, like they’ve already started to do. I know the game is popular in China (and their audience is very casual as a whole), so I understand why they’re doing it… but they’re losing players like me in the process :frowning:

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I’m not suggesting a simplification, I wish the dark areas were more interesting.

Maybe you haven’t played Ori 1&2 in both games there was a dark area and to cross it you had to use the tools you find inside the area and that’s what I’m trying to propose when I said “Area lighting mechanics should be part of level design”

Interesting interactions increase, and in a certain sense it is more difficult not less.

The problems I listed with the light sources in the game don’t make the game more difficult. It’s very easy to use items to infuse your weapon with fire or ice, it’s really simple to have a weapon already infused with ice or fire or to have the rune or the torch.

The problem is in the execution, which is unpolished. Using these tools isn’t difficult in the best cases, you don’t have to do anything, but it’s often unnecessarily tedious.

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my take on dark areas is the devs indeed need to make them more interesting/more rewarding or have unique rewards that entice players to do dark areas.

but that said, RANDOM event such as breach should not interact with dark areas, as dark areas is a special event in its own.

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