Tbh I haven't found the game very hard. It's challenging, but as a souls vet I find it a very relaxing experience. Also the healing isn't the worst, you can stack up a near endless supply of healing items to tackle a boss with, or settle for less by not resource gathering. I don't really mind it so much.
I constantly have 20+ of every meal just from normal exploration. Recipes are rewarding to obtain and the food system is great. It will get better over time because you will be able to make small amounts of very powerful meals while basic meals act as your "estus flask".
that on it's own is a problem, it skews either to be too little food which means grinding, or too much so it never mattered in the first place, and it limits the design space for bosses cuz if it's too hard for you now you'll experience the food farm grind, and if it's too easy then the healing system still doesn't matter estus flasks from dark souls solved all these pacing and design problems already and so devs can learn about the issues estus flasks solved without copying estus flasks. if you're going to introduce a new healing system, it needs to: remove the grind (estus comes back after death to facilitate trying over and over, the grind should be the boss itself not the crappy repetitive side content) put a relatively strict limit (anything above 20 is functionally limitless and removes tension; nothing mattes at that point) if it's possible to regain healing, then make regaining healing risky and dynamic (ex: attacking for soul in hollow knight or attacking for the last pulse cell in lies of p)
@juamibenito2558 I don't think Estus Flasks would work for end game content which requires farming large dungeons over and over for the chance of higher tier items dropping. I trust the developers to make their vision and I'm looking for a unique take on the genre.
@@jjlw2378 im all for new ideas as well but this just felt like backwards progress to mi, if there are exceptionally large dungeons then there should be checkpoints that replenish healing to the small maximum as part of the hard-earned rewards in the level design then we can feel the difference between checkpoints placed close together and checkpoints placed far apart so the dungeon crawling feels varied and interesting rather than one really long monotonous slog fest with 30+ healing items u can use haphazardly cuz u got 50 more in your inventory anyway they sorta do that already using the bonfires where u can cook but the max stacks are still far too large for any of it to matter, my experience had been to never use healing early game cuz I was saving them for difficult parts, and then playing just to see the content cuz I knew nothing could hurt mi anymore anyway with the 40+ stacks of healing I had (I had rly shitty unupgraded armor and didn't bother to put on torso armor so I could fast roll) even if we don't go with the estus system because we want new ideas, healing design issues still exist in the action RPG genre, and u have to fix it with your new ideas or else why bother, and this new system didn't fix the issues for mi I mean it's hardly innovative in the first place I didn't even perceive it as trying something new I mean it felt like a watered down breath of the wild (whose healing system I also didn't like) or just a generic arpg healing system
This sounds like an early game problem. By the time you defeat your second boss, you are already acquainted with the game and your character is leveled up with upgraded weapons, etc. this naturally becomes a non issue. You accumulate more than enough stuff to the point that the problem evolves into inventory space management. Repair costs were drastically cut in the first patch and is free until you kill your first boss.
Definitely a problem though. I think that you should have an Estus Flask-like item that doesn't heal as much as food items so you always have a healing item.
No need to make the entire game easier. Maybe just increase food spawns in the beginning areas till the first boss. Repair is already free until first boss. I like the fact that healing is on a cooldown, spells aside which has its own focus cost.
I think that repair cost change in the first patch was incredibly significant (my regular cost went from almost 1 silver down to low-double-digit copper), to the extent that we're almost not even talking about the same game anymore. Had that not been changed I could have absolutely seen a pretty awful negative loop coming.
On the topic of healing, Remnant II actually had a pretty simple system of potions that offered various ways to replenish hp and chose how that regain will mesh with their build. Ultimately my issue with meals becomes the same as in Valheim. There is one optimal, and having to select it and farm for it every time becomes busywork. What is a meal, but a choice of "archetype", for the next loop? Arpgs (Remnant, Diablo,...) have shown that there are many strings you can pull to give the character survivability and sustain while maintaining the identity that it as the core of replay. Looking at DnD, Godberry is an old example of a way to stagger a healing spell into smaller actions the player can chose to take down the line. Increasing player agency. Ultimately, I think healing shines when it's tied to the core mechanics of the game: Finishers in Space Marine, rally mechanic in bloodborne, defeating enemies, lifesteal/heal on cast/the myriad of other ARPG healing options,... In other words, make it fun, make it more rewarding to heal than it is punishing to fail. Piling up punishing systems (durability AND time) is also pretty risky as they create unecessary frustrations. Yet those systems are also required as sinks - it's all part of the grand design ecosystem. If sinks are required for resources, some form of "deterministic" gambling has been proven to work oh too well in ARPGs
@DesigningPlay pretty much the perfect tool at the right moment. I would be interested to learn what other solutions had been considered and how the finisher came to be. Doom 2016 comes to mind as a spiritual successor
> Ultimately, I think healing shines when it's tied to the core mechanics of the game: Absolver had, imho, the best healing system in a fighting game: use an ability to heal a bit and continue healing if you're dealing damage. This effect is interrupted if you get hit. The initial heal was tiny compared to what you could leech off of your opponent. What I loved about this is it promoted an aggressive way to get health back instead of the usual "turtle down" or "get out of jail free" healing design. And if I remember correctly, these heals were virtually unlimited, as long as you got your ability points.
I think in terms of healing you guys maybe are just not that long into the game? You can make builds in order to gain hp on kill, on guard, or parry, etc. And tgis isn't supposed to be dark souls. If someone isn't too good and wants to instead farm in order to counter their lack of skill, thats an option in this game. We don't need everything to be dark souls. Too many people idolize it. We need more variety. This is fine as is.
I think what is lost in this talk, and was even very specifically mentioned by the Moon crew.... they aren't trying to just create an APRG that we all know. They want to create more than that, it's a multi-genre game really. So I think players would do well to consider it different than the games they already know and play.
Health on kill (gem on weapon), heal aura (1st tier rune) and you're barely using food already. And anyway, I have too much food I'm actually deleting it. But still won't spend any of it, and just die instead if I know I will repeat that boss several times anyway. What does need to get better is the timing of enemy attacks/parrying/evading, which is my only problem with the game combat-wise. UI-wise, they need a lot more descriptions on stuff. Like runes, I'm not gonna spend all the cash to buy all of them then waste several weapons just to figure out what each one is.
tbh I rather have meals instead of flasks because flasks are a very "dark souls" thing that we are used to and having such a hard game needing preparation for the many attempts of a boss fight is fun to me, it makes me feel the pressure to kill the boss and improve my gameplay faster because I know I don't have infinite free tries... what I have been doing is just healing when I feel that a given attempt is promissing, where I could take like half the bosses health before needing to heal, and the feeling of pressure I get from using it makes the game more fun to me
Great video! This game is awesome, and deserves in-depth discussions like these. I do like the idea of spawning after death with a small number of “basic rations”, or estus flask. These would be a non-inventory item, they’d just always be available as a quick select. These could heal for a smaller % of total health, and have fairly quick cooldown. The basic rations would provide no other benefits, and would really only serve to get you through a couple encounters with strategic use. Then also have traditional craftable meals that would provide better healing and added lingering effects like more max health, stamina, etc. It would still be punishing to run out of your good food, but you wouldn’t be completely hamstrung and discouraged from making attempts at progressing without proper food, especially if food can drop off of slain enemies occasionally.
Fantastic video, this game has so much potential and it's easy to see with how much great discourse there has been about its design, this is precisely the direction I would like ARPGs to go, and it feels much more like a successor to the methodical, immersive D2 than the modern Delete 1 million demons per second become giga OP games like PoE/D4. I think an estus system is truly a perfect system, it can have fun twists like remnant 2 hearts, but it is the heart and soul of the pacing and things like expanded your charges through discovery/bosses is just another great bonus, so many things breakdown without it, ex. BotW/Totk you can simply pause the action and eat as many times as you'd like mid combat to brute force through encounters, cumbersome and immersion-breaking. I think meals should function similar to monster hunter meals, and be bonfire events to provide a buff until death that you can cater slightly, eg. Meals for farming exp/money, meals for elemental resists, meals for movement speed etc..
My only issue with the Estus Flask solution is that souls games usually balance this by having its limited uses replenished on the bonfire which also respawns enemies. If the Flask was implemented in No Rest for the Wicked and nothing else changed then players could easily just charge at the enemies, kill one or two with the help of the free flask heals, die and then repeat the process while progressing, as currently enemies respawns are a bit weird. It's okay to spend resources to repair/replenish supplies but currently IMO it leaves a bad taste by being punished twice. As you said, in most Soul games people are not afraid to keep trying a boss to see where the openings are etc, while in NRFTW this would mean not spending food, still having to pay repairs or having to go farm more food components.
When i farm things (even really easy enemies), I also get XP and crafting materials, which supports the use of better equipment to improve my relative survivability and damage (enabling combat against stronger enemies). The issue i have come across in the game is that I got up to a particular zone (The Black Trench) at a very low level (6) and my defense and offense was abysmal against the new enemies. Theres definitely a balance issue here, but i dont think it is necessarily the healing system. Flask + meals is a cool idea though, which would enrich the current system, rather than detract.
Interestingly enough, other than the first few hours of the game, I really was never pressed for food and the cost of repairing integrity was always trivial. If anything I was able to tank bosses that I shouldn’t have due to the amount of healing I had since, unlike a set resource like Estus Flask, there was no cap. My thoughts on meals are two: -farming plot. Sure you can’t “farm meat” but for the veggies, having a town improvement you can make that gives you a farm plot would help give you a consistent base amount of food that would scale up with upgrades and be relevant long term with your progress. At the same time, I’d like them to be a resource you can use outside purely eating. Maybe something to do with feeding the town/guardsmen ? It can then become a resource drain for any food surplus down the line and still give you a reason to farm and cook even if you’ve gotten better/strong and isn’t healing as much
My thought on this when I first started was that I didn't like having limited crafting food to heal during fights and would prefer a flask or potion system like POE or Diablo. My thought on this now having reached level 11 and fought a few early bosses is that the system is perfectly fine. At least in this stage of the game the crafting and harvesting is easy and doesn't feel like a chore, there are several options and routes you can go if one mat is in short supply, there are healing runes to help top you off during or after fights. My only slight complaint early on is storage space. It wouldn't mind if we started with one more row of storage to start and our chest storage at our base had more slots available and maybe crafting mats could stack higher than 20.
Great video man, I love the dark souls games and fully agree on the last option of having the flasks be there with meals backing it up. The problem of having to farm for heals reminds me of blood vials from Bloodborne as well.
I think making estus flasks would make the game harder because you would be limited to like 3 for say in the early game so good luck killing that 1st boss if you're new to the genre... Would take hours.. where as you can make 20+ healing items in the 1st zone alone if you just explore.. I think maybe make the whispers heals some HP back while you're exploring so the normal enemy's won't take up all your healing items if you're not very good.
@@_xMiru_ Fair point about the limited healing, I saw it from the perspective of someone with more experience in the genre and didn’t have a problem with the 1st boss so I hadn’t thought about new players maybe struggling with limited healing. I do agree that the whispers healing like bonfires would be a good addition as people wouldn’t feel worried about wasting heals for exploring if they knew they could always go back for a quick heal.
Nice and concise, and a super clear breakdown of the interconnected systems decisions and their impacts if changes were made. I also found the cursed items too punishing for whatever they offered as a positive. Many of them a punishment to your healing, health, or gold economy which furthers the negative feedback loop. Still obsessed with the art and levels
As it stands healing is definitely the most broken system, I'm totally behind this idea. Theres not even a healing potion item, which kinda surprised me. I spent so long waiting to see something like that at least, and life steal ended up being the only other way. Which, isn't even really possible at the start and building a kit around it is very difficult with rng guiding alot of your choices.
They could add a weak "boss only" "estus" flask that you create using one of the plague ichors. For RP reasons the flask only "activates" when in the presence of creatures with plague ichor (that is when doing a boss). So you still retain that survival style cosying feeling of collecting and using food out in the open world and cooking at campfires. But also solve this problem of beginners getting totally stuck on a boss. Whilst it making (some) sense in terms of the story and setting. There would also be a cost involved as you would be slower in getting your extra resource inventory or ring slots Thoughts?
I think another good idea would be small passive healing when out of combat (would stop in combat). And i would also increase that passive healing while resting by a campfire. This would allow a player to refill to full HP between fights while saving their food fod the actual fight.
One way to make farming not a chore would be to treat it more like an unlock mechanic. (I think that's partially what Valheim does with it's literal farming. You get new seeds as you explore new areas and the act of planting and harvesting consumes very little time afterwards. But of course, Valheim also wants you to spend time at your base because it's such a beautiful part of the game.) This would of course still require a limit on how many you can use in combat, with some sort of Estus Flask/food charges/whatever system.
Ive been able to fight Warwick over and over with different gear including nothing, respawn close by and get my gear fixed for nothing at this stage. I don’t heal at all. This way I can practice different approaches, weights, equipment and weapons (albeit a limited set currently ) and parry’s to see what works and how mechanics and speed are affected . I haven’t beat him yet as my character needs a few improvements plus that not entirely my intention, but in trying to work out what I missed on the map, I found a whole other area. I like that the weapons handle differently and that you have to be more considered than a hack and slash in your combat approach. I’d like better performance at 1440 on a 3070 but it’s not impeding me. I’d like it playable on a SD but I can see this might be a challenge not least the size of the menus and text. The meal approach at this stage is OK. I expect later on that recipes may also provide buffs. I’m ok with the systems overall at this stage but I suspected there may come a point where I run out of food and money hence the focus on getting good 😊
The game feels over punishing and reliant on food for the first hour or two, though once you slap on a healing rune and get some life steal you really break away from needing food quite a bit. I think the main issue is getting through the grind of early game where you are overly reliant on food and gimped when it comes to the amount of stamina you have. The game gets way easier when I got to town and upgraded some gear too. Truthfully my main two complaints are inventory management and having dash, jump and vault all on the same key. Which will hopefully be fixed when they put in key bindings.
Would another option be to give a healing boost that has consequences after the fight? So like, you restore your health during the fight, but for a short period after the fight, your health is reduced somewhat, depending on how much of the “temporary healing” you dipped into? Could that also offer interesting choices knowing that it could compromise your safety for a time, after the current battle?
I think that the main problem is that developers have to decide how many times they want players to heal and use various vials and so on in any given content: open world, boss fights, pvp... and they have to decide how long players should farm in order to use those heals and vials. I don't own the game so i dont know 100% of the experience on the field but... for example .. in the crucible i saw a guy bringing 30 meals and 40 vials of focus so he can finish the think spamming fireballs all day long from 20 meters if he wanted xddd but he did not do that because he was really strong. In order to do that this players had to farm countless materials in ways i dont know and i hope it was not boring ahaa but his farm outside the dungeon gave him the chance of a way easier experience inside the crucible. IMHO meals should be a buff of a set duration (1h maybe?) that gives Health regen and Focus regen out of combat and act as a flask modifier in combat, flasks should refill after death to full charges or overtime out of combat or can be refilled at bonefire using meals. So after drinking a flask you heal and get a additional effects based on the food buff: can have melee oriented food bonuses that gives stam regen or damage absorbtion for few seconds, ranged food that gives focus regen or movement speed or casting while moving modifiers and so on, hybrid foods too.
I have so much healing mats is crazy.. in the 1st 6 levels I got over 20+ healing items.. if you actually explore you can find sooo many mats for healing.. I've never had to use coins to buy healing items.. there's sooooo many around the 1st area.. and if you some how ran out you can make a new world find all the healing mats then go back. He seems to only talk about early game. Once you learn enemy attack patterns you can farm all the healing mats in like 10min. Meals that give buffs are in all games like wow you can eat food and buff yourself at the same time healing your hp. the estus flask from dark souls is okay until you fight the same boss over and over because you ran out of those flasks think about it.. you would have maybe 3 at the start its going to take you WAY longer to fight that boss.. I can bring over 50 healing items in a boss fight and make it easier. I think they should just make an Easy mode for beginers so the Whispers heal you when you use them a little bit so for new players exploring wont take all your healing mats(fighitng non boss mobs) beacuse youre not very good yet.
I'm happy I thought of the same solution. But at the same time, I think it might not be ideal... At least this makes meals look like common consumable items (except you use them at the same time as a healing potion), and for me as a player, I rarely ever use consumables because I keep hoarding them for "when I need it". Which means the meal system becomes rather pointless to some people.
I agree, I think the "meal-enhances-estus" is a great approach. The only issue I could see is that it quickly leads to the consumable item pitfall. Sekiro's candys come to mind. Or perhaps Witcher 3's decoctions. I feel like these system needs an extra step, to really signify to the player that it is okay to use them. Sure, we can just throw tons of them at the player and if they are smart they will use them, but that never helped Skyrim and it is not good game design. They should also be stupidly easy to use - a quick bar like in fromsoft games might be a good first step - but that still requires set up and a lot of menu maneuvering that the player has to do themselves; and in / before combat it takes some time; often when I play fromsoft games, sure I could buff myself with 3 items before a difficult fight, but that takes at leas 10 seconds of animation and kinda gets me out of the usually flowy experience personally. We could make the meal selections more mandatory; like every time you rest or die there is a screen where you can slot in a meal if you want to. Lastly, while I like this approach I think it goes a bit against the grisly and hopeless theme the game portrays otherwise. I think this is why they took their approach in the first place. Scrapping together everything you can find to barely get by as a mechanic is a powerful feeling and is in tune with the world. Just having an upgrade essentially with no drawback (or something that causes dread in the back of the player's mind) doesn't necessarily communicate the situation you are in correctly.
Totally agree with you, i thought the same when playing the game! For me the solution of implementing health flasks (estus) and meals for the buffs is what would best suit the game, although, how would you recharge your estus? As the bonfire system works quite differently from the Dark Souls series and there is no enemy respawn.
That's a good point. With enemies not respawning the player having access to a regenerating health source like estus might be a bit OP. Someone else suggested that it could only work when the player is in a boss fight, the estus-like item only working because of the player's proximity to the boss' plague ichor. I think something like that might work.
@@Nodiee1 That would be a solution, but you should make sure the boss is a closed level or players could come close to the area just to refill the potions and then go back to the open world. A solution that I think would work is to place around the world a few NPCs that refill the health potions for example 3 times, and then disapear until you die a couple of times, that way you couldn't abuse the system by refilling your potions constantly, but you could restock them if you have died. @DesigningPlay What do you think about this idea?
honestly the biggest problem in the game is theres no way to reset the zones. you cant (from my knowledge) force the loot, monsters and resources to respawn. you can do a bounty, then accept a new one to get more monsters in there, but once those daily ones are done ( and they arent replaced once one is completed) theres no way to reset the world so you can just keep playing (apart from just either stop playing for an hour or take some time playing in another area for a while.
Hey dude. Great video... I think you were recording gameplay with HDR on. Recording the screen with HDR makes the gameplay look greyed out. At least that is my experience. Cheers
I have a different solution in mind. Let me know what you think of it. Keep all the systems exactly as they are, but make the Cerim Whisers function more like manual save points. Upon death you respawn, but so do your meals consumed between saving and death, your weapon durability resets to where it was when saved. and the enemies you killed respawn too. This allows for an ability to save by interacting with a whisper before going into a tough fight or a new area, and when you have made sufficient progress to your satisfaction, save again. You always start the realm back at the state you saved it in. There is no way exploit the systems, but the progress you earned, you get to keep if you choose. There will be no punishing downward spiral of resource and durability loss that requires you to farm and repair to get back to fighting shape.
@@galotta8475 For me, the fun in the souls like games resides in learning how to beat the enemies and feeling how you improve after each try. The meals system in NRFTW slows down the tempo between each "run" and in consequence you have less fun.
best feature is the one thats being talked about a lot really. the whole interconnected world and exploration. its fun, its interesting and a lot of other game design aspects get in a way of that.
I’m a little surprised the physics system in this game isn’t getting more compliments. Little rocks get kicked around and fall off of ledges and narrow walkways. Breakable scenery sends debris flying when you or an enemy hit it with a stray attack. The head of a decapitated enemy flies and rolls down a flight of stairs, while the body stumps and tumbles off a ledge. These things all make the game world feel so much more visceral, interactive, and grounded in reality. Awesome.
Hi Andrew! Great analysis. I love these ideas for solutions and I really like your game design videos. I just yesterday stumbled upon this issue where I got kind of stuck in this weird loop of not progressing but having to farm for meals all the time. What makes this a little bit worse is that the resources take quite a while to replenish in the world which forces you into risky combat as well. As a another solution I would also want to see a system where you could simply cook 1 ingredient such as roughcut meat, mushroom, fish etc. on its own without any special recipes. My inventory is currently full of a lot of ingredients that I would love to just simply cook and have a standard baseline healing that gives me a baseline Heal over time or something. so I wouldn't need to afford a great meal but could simply also kind of clear the stash a little (which is another system that currently is a little bit lacking in terms of being "full" all the time ) Would love to hear your thoughts on that!
The devs clearly put a lot of love into this project and I understand they might not want their game to just be called "Isometric souls". But most of the design choices that are getting a lot of criticism during early access (healing, low stamina, item durability) were present in older From Software games as well. In all the souls games leading up to Elden Ring From Software realized there is a differece between dificulty/chalenge versus something just being anoying, and all of those systems either got scrapped or replaced by something better while still keeping their games challenging and engaging. From all the problems the players are reporting what anoys me the most is running back to where you were after dying. Since enemies don't respawn and you probably already gattered all the resources in the first run, why not revive me on a closer checkpoint so I can get back yo the fight as soon as possible? Maybe I got spoiled by stakes of Marika, such a good and quick "retry" mechanic
Couldn't disagree more. This game has souls elements, but it isn't a "souls" game at heart. It's an ARPG that's learned lessons from every great game that's come before it and is unique for this reason. It does NOT need to do what every other souls game does.
add estus flask to heal,make meals a consumable that still gives buff but that buff lasts for a certain amount of time only.Limit number of food items that can be consumed at the same time.
The problem with your theory is if you didn't actually play any of the game beyond the early game The Crucible that you have to play is a gauntlet system that requires you to actively fight a lot and if you limit the hills there is 0% chance you'll be able to complete The Crucible . The reason why the hills are structured the way they are is because they actually help with the systems in the game why don't you actually get through a good portion of the game you'll understand why your suggestion just simply doesn't work
@@SagaDaGamer then have the enemies drop heals,having to grind for food items and durability when youre constantly dying is just cumbersome and unnecessarily tedious.Estus system is already a proven mechanic that works why reinvent the wheel,besides they can just make it upgradeable to make it do more healing.Crucible is what like 10 rooms,they could easily balance it accordingly.
@@MrPangahas because the game isnt dark souls i dont understand why players keep trying to push that narrative. why even play this game if you want the same exact systmes. you claim its reinventing they're reinventing the wheel but clearly they arent you jsut want things to change without giving the game a chance. i know this because you rather them change something that very much work if you put a small amount of effort into. CHnaigng whole systems so it can be easier when in reality if you jus tplayed you know your solutions make thing much harder.
@@SagaDaGamer estus system isnt a dark souls exclusive mechanic.Coz having to craft food is unnecessary tedium,those whisper/bonfire should also refill hp and focus.Crafting healing items that isnt readily replenishable just doesnt provide any substantial unique gameplay benefit.
@@MrPangahas but you're wrong they are readily available. just because its not just handed to you like in most souls like that doesn't mean its not readily available. You just seem like a player who wants it just want to rush content and have everything just given to you with no effort put in. its not elden ring this is a different game that has different systems. you gotta play the game for what it is rather than wanting to force it to be another lame dark souls using the same boring easy healing system
Hmmm when playing i did ponder if there should be some sort of estus system. I kind of liked the healing system. Early game i felt like the healing was surprisingly well balanced. Food wasnt super abundant and kind of costly. I rarley died but took the fights setiously because i didnt want to waste healing or even worse, have to leave a tough fight or boss to get more food. Made me take the boss attempts very seriously. In elden ring there is barely a cost to losing a boss fight. You die.... whatever take 15 seconds to run back and gi again. In no rest, i was sweating during boss fights which is the feeling i want out of boss fight. I do agree that cooldowns in food made the combat weird. I did find myself running from bosses waiting for food to come off cooldown which wasnt great. Maybe just have a cap on healing items you can bring with you like Bloodborne with no cooldown.
At the moment the game is broken. You cannot progress the main quest. The crane in the quarry mine doesn't turn freely so you cannot jump on the platform....
The materials for meals is readily abundant. Enemies also stay dead for an extended period of time, so the only time you'll really end up in the loop you brought up is a boss fight, and grinding out meals for that isn't a bad idea anyways. As far as durability loss, you get a cubic ass ton of loot, you can equip something else until you can repair your stuff. This game is difficult, and I think items losing durability and breaking after MANY deaths, and breaking not even destroying the gear, is a lot less punishing than losing a crap ton of souls in any of the dark souls games. The penalty for death in this game is very lenient. Money is easy to get. If you're dumb enough to just craft 3 meals and get stomped by a boss then you deserve it. This video was a waste of time. The thing he talks about at the end about fighting the boss and learning the fight before spending meals is legitimately WHAT YOU CAN AND SHOULD DO NOW. Holy shit.
I sure hope it's the video but oh my god, the stuttering. It would be totally unplayable for me, tbh. seems the game needs a ton of optimalisation untill launch. I agree though, Andrew, it looks gorgeous. and i'm pretty sure its a good game, but yeah, it sure needs work.
I have to disagree on almost all the points here The system was bad before the patch because durability was too harsh But now gear durability barely goes down when you die there is plenty of food and during your regular interactions with mobs you can just use the heal rune and never actually touch your food
But learning to parry, dodging and blocking when applicable requires you to die a lot. And every time there's a new enemy you need to learn again, dying is part of the learning in these kinds of games. So fixed heals like dark souls or something like hollow knight makes a lot more sense, it's limited but it doesn't force you to go grind and farm (which is boring and annoying, and it has no other purpose just to waste time)
fromsoftware games have a similar problem with a bunch of items that cant be bought at merchants, same items should be somewhat limited due to their power, however all it does is making them annoying to get. alternatives are usually just as powerful given the right build, and very convenient. so you are very much discouraged from using those items, they end up feeling like gimmicks, and either way you have to go to one specific location to farm them up each time you run out, which might be very very often. calling it a pacebreaker would be an understatement. that is how meals feel like in this game, but unfortunately they are for such an integral mechanic like healing. it wants to do something different, but all it does is add to unneccesary downtime and detours. i want to fight a boss, no i cant. i have to go fishing. lets be completely honest. if healing and durability systems were completely switched to what fromsoftware games do with estus flasks and either no durability loss or it being restored on resting. well... would anyone miss these 'different systems'? do they even add anything to the game other than annoyance? at the same time, due to no respawning enemies, it faces the problem of players going to restore their flasks after each enemy resulting in absurd gameplay and difficulty would be silly, not to mention the constant backtracking. at the same time, going fishing for 5 minutes or refilling your canteen with some magical healing water in 5 seconds arent that different, but one is way more annoying and time consuming while adding absolutely nothing. if you could catch golden fish that give you weapons, then maybe lol.
Biggest problem: Its not an arpg and wrongfully has been marketed as one It fails to properly invoke either genres its trying to but its definitely 801% souls and 20% arpg at most I find it funny how Moon studious had the balls to say this is revolutionising the genrer when this is a glorified and very slow Vrising, and the fluidity of Vrising id say isa lot more enjoyable without forsaking any difficulty on their bosses
This game is unique in its own right . The developers emphatically said they wanted to try something different, and all you doing is putting a very good game onto the mainstream shelf like all the other arpg games 🎮. I really dont agree with you at all. Everything you said about the game is not what it's intended to be and do
i completely disagree that this is an issue. you're ignoring aspects of play that make it not an issue. before you kill warrick the torn, enemies don't respawn but LOOT DOES. that means that you can just go back to loot locations and get as much as you need eventually without threat. also, i SUCK at dark souls and it's MUCH MORE PUNISHING AND RESTRICTING OF EXPERIMENTATION than nrftw. in ds, if you're killed, you have to retrieve your body or else you basically START FROM SCRATCH! and that happens a shit ton with boss fights. also, your respawn point is usually WAY FAR AWAY so that you have to play most of the level again with all enemies respawned. are you kidding me?! THAT. IS. PUNISHING. with the system here, you get the ULTIMATE in trial and error experimentation by just fighting bare-ass naked and not using any food. NO FOOD PENALTY. NO DURABILITY PENALTY on equipment you don't have equipped. and you get a pretty good idea over multiple respawns on what the boss move set is and his patterns. finally, you can create realms at will and play with your leveled up, equipped character in a brand new game. you can farm the heck out of this situation and then return to the point where you ran into issues. it is FAR FAR FAR MORE FORGIVING than dark souls and i abhor any attempt to make this more like dark souls.
I didn't play dark souls 1... But in demon souls, dark souls 3 and elden ring, you don't have to retrieve your body. You just have to pick up your souls or runes. And if yes, at the beginning it's a little bit frustrating, further in the game, you have learned to use the souls/runes to level up (ou buy some items) before a fight to minimize the lost.
7:08 the Estus was made to solve this issue, YOu can refill potions but you need to refight enemies and save more health than last time to get into net hp positive The current iteration is literally the worst potions can be made in any game
@@ekkieck they do look fancy, but if we are being honest, game looks as gorgeous as ori and the blind forest (2015) or something similar in topdown form. it should not run worse than RDR2 or cyberpunk2077 on high settings.
This sounds like a bad player problem. You have no business making a video discussing problems that the entire community was able to overcome within hours. Go back to dark souls or WoW, Ori and the rest of us will adapt and overcome.
It's not hard ! It's not punishing! Once you learn the mechanics and do the necessary upgrading, it is actually the complete opposite. A game is never a true game without the challenge it poses upon the player. Besides, Moon Studios has made a lot of changes to balance everything out that you speak of in this video. So it's all good to go , even in early access. Will just get better and better as we gradually move out of early access.
Exactly, the punishment for dying is extremely lenient. If you're wasting your good meals on regular enemies then you're playing it wrong and that's on you. I swear to God I hope the devs don't pay attention to these people.
He was just suggesting that an estua-like system might help the gameplay loop. Nobody's "forcing" anything here. I think it's a pretty reasonable suggestion too. There's a reason why most soulslikes use some sort of estua-like system for healing.
I think estus flasks make it harder tbh say they only give you 3 flasks at the beginning and your not very good now you fight the boss and use thos 3 flasks in 1min. You'll be fighting that boss MUCH longer than if you could make and bring 20 healing items. I've beatin every souls game and have over 500 hours in the souls game genere I'm always looking for more ways to heal myself besides the flasks. Also in Monster hunter I have the 10 mega pots I can bring also the pots from the chests and all the crafting mats to make more mega potions.
a lot of people say that this game is really hard.. I honestly don't think that and I barely ever play souls like games and I find it quite balancing people just need to learn the attack pattern of different enemies and soon enough they'll breeze through them easy
Yeah no lets not baby proof the game please. Theres plenty of that elsewhere in gaming. Its really not hard to make some food to heal or get some healing stats on your gear. Such an overblown issue.