I'm quite enjoying it myself. It took me 7 attempts, but I'm finally in act III, at like 90 hrs and it's been pretty good times thus far! Maybe I just wasn't all that spectacular of a player to begin with I suppose, but Honour Mode has given me more than a few exhilarating moments these past weeks. Granted, mostly it has just made do lot more camp management routine type stuff hehe, but it does feel like there's more of a payoff for that tedium when the resources matter a bit more as they do here.
I think I'd get more mileage out of added achievements though, as just a simple way to keep it going that's flexible. So for example, you could have a Nightmare on Elm Street achievement for attempting to stretch out the long rests. Maybe an achievement for never using Withers at all. An achievement for not giving any gifts to merchants for approval, stuff of that sort. Just extra goal posts, but which the game establishes like that. If it's all the equivalent of a high score/personal best, then it's cool when the game acknowledges that stuff and spins it back on the player with a nod.
The initiative tweak could be interesting. Most of the weirdness I find seems to come from having split initiative, so maybe a mode where it's always shared initiative for the active party? That would change the game pretty dramatically though, so maybe a stretch there. The wonky stuff I saw seemed to happen when my characters were joining initiative separately, for things like surprise, but then if you play solo or for speed those things are the bread and butter. So I don't know, probably tough to change. They could add yet another difficulty tier, but I think what they have going here is pretty entertaining, so they should build off the single save for it.
I'm not sure I'd stick it out for a even more punishing game mode, like where it can all just fall apart just down to something like a targeting mistake or movement misclick, one little thing turns on a dime and you lose 40 hrs of gameplay to no real purpose. That's why achievements I think are more entertaining in the long run, cause they can be sprinkled around instead of an all or nothing type approach.
You know, like once I get the golden dice, probably it ceases to matter as much, cause you just get that the once. Whereas if there are different achievements for pathing through the game in different ways, or for adopting different comps or whatever, then that can just keep going. Less zero sum that way, where even a failed run can add to the sense of accomplishment. This allows them to also do some silly stuff, like perhaps reward players for doing random things like farming a thousand goodberries, or heroes feasting 100 night in a row, just so there's some absurdity at both ends of the spectrum hehe. Achievements associated with each companion would be cool, or maybe for approval/disapproval or inspiration, but like keeping a tally on it for each character.
I think if they want us to play it forever, then that's more down to party/camp composition. I think for that they should have more recruitable companions characters, but with a limit on the number of total camp followers. What they have right now with the zombies is ok, but they're more like warding bond support than proper bit players.
One thing I don't need in any difficulty mode is for the Scratch or the Owlbear cub to get permanently off'd once they are brought into the camp. It just means that I never want to bring them into combat, because the risk is too great. As a result they don't really get to have their heroic battle moments or the spotlight in combat during the course of normal play. Like just let us resurrect the dog with scroll. We're high fantasy here. If all our companions can be risen, we should be able to do the same for the pets.
Anyhow, that said, I'm still having a blast! Kept me busy all weekend lol. So nice work there!
Happy boxing day!
