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It has some serious issues (imho anyway). I just can't bring myself to agree with the ratings of 8/10 and 9/10 that this game is getting. The most I can bare to give it is a 7/10 and even that is being generous when I take some parts of the game into consideration.

Now before you go foaming at the mouth and telling me how I should have just not bought the game, or how I apparently just don't like Turn-Based RPGs or any other slew of rhetorical arguments, please hear me out. Firstly, I love Old School RPGs, turn based and otherwise. Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1&2, Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, etc. I love them all. So I want to preface everything I am about to say with this: I like this game. I really do.

I'm really enjoying it, and I am by no means trying to say that I wasted my money. I didn't. I do not regret spending the money to buy it. I do regret, however, only hearing about this game a few months ago, and therefore not being able to throw money at the kickstarter campaign.

With that said, I still can't bring myself to give this game anything higher than a 7/10 in its present state. And let try and explain why.

The basic design of the game is, overall, very well done. But there are a few major potholes (of the 'so bad they will rip your tire to shreds' variety) that just ruin the experience in many parts of the game.

Tutorial and Introduction

The tutorial and introduction system is, frankly, horrendous. The introduction to combat is lazy at best and the introduction to pretty much everything else in the game feels more like someone standing behind me and asking me why I don't know how to play the game yet rather than a well made tutorial.

Crafting

There is no reasonable introduction to crafting. I had to figure out the crafting system by looking online. I should not have to figure out a core mechanic of your game by looking online. This is bad design -- unforgivably bad, in fact. The 'recipes' are sometimes worded in a way where they are confusing and hard to understand. There is no reason why you had to be special little snowflakes and write your recipes like some sort of silly journal entry. "Wool+Wool=Yarn" would have been perfectly fine.

At the very least, there needs to some sort of tutorial into the crafting systems. Even if it's just a book that explains how cooking works, how potions work, how blacksmithing works, etc. And if you are about to make an excuse about how this deepens the game somehow -- don't. That is an asinine argument and bears absolutely no foundation in rational thought. The way the crafting system is designed is depth. The way it is introduced (Or not as the case may be) is nothing more than needless confusion.

Combat
Combat, at higher levels, is a chore. It is not fun, it is not engrossing, it is boring and clunky. And no, this is not an inherent flaw with turn-based combat. There are many turn based games that have engrossing and fun combat (provided you like turn based combat anyway). Fallout 1&2, Xcom: Enemy Unknown, Shadowrun Returns, Final Fantasy Tactics, just to name a few.

I began dreading combat if there were more than four enemies involved. When a large majority of your game is combat, this is a bad thing.

Puzzle Design
The puzzles themselves are actually very well done. The problem is that they have no introduction and very little clues most of the time.

You wouldn't expect someone to know that you wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if the only thing you said was, "I have a kitchen." Likewise, you can't expect someone to even start thinking about how to solve your puzzle if the only clue you give is "here's a puzzle I made. Solve it."

Some of the puzzles in the game are the equivalent of giving someone a jigsaw puzzle to solve, except 50% of the pieces are missing and the only clue you give them to the location of those missing pieces is that you didn't put them on the moon. They have no idea that they are supposed to figure out that you buried the pieces on a random beach in southern Italy.

I have encountered this, "If we give them a reasonable clue the puzzle will be too easy," mindset of puzzle design before, and it never feels intelligent or witty or well designed. It always feels confusing, frustrating and, in some cases, insulting.

How am I supposed to figure out that the mage buried his magical barrier-breaking spell in a hole next to a box behind a bunch of traps in the forest, which is right behind a bunch of drunken goblins? As far as the game shows, I'm supposed to figure that out just by exploring. That is, frankly, horrific puzzle design. And this is just one example of many.

Story

The story is your run-of-the-mill 'find the magical sword and defeat the great wizard on top of Evil mountain' story. Which is fine. There's nothing wrong with going with the classics, as long as it works. This one doesn't. The story is convoluted, badly written, and feels horribly segmented and broken. There is no well-done conclusion, no well done climax, or really any major semblance of a well-done plot arc.

Now, before you go all "this is just your opinion," on me, that is not the argument that I am making. I am not saying that, in my opinion, this story is bad. I am saying it doesn't work. it is the difference between saying "I hate the look of that car," and "That car isn't going to work because you put a bunch of bananas where the engine should be." You can claim difference of opinion all day long, but those bananas are never going to turn into an engine block.

The story does have a bunch of very nice kernels, but they don't fit together well. There is no major climax. Where do the characters hit a major block that they must get past? Um.... never. They beat the bad guy at every single turn. Every. Single. Turn. Where do the characters hit the climactic battle in the story where they either feel a momentary sense of false victory, or are beaten severely? Well... never.

Where do they have their darkest of days moment, when everything seems lost and they feel that they will never be able to win? Never.

Where do they have their shining moment of awakening when they finally awaken to merge the thesis world with the anti-thesis world and become something more than they were before? Well.... you can sort of make an argument that they have this when they find out that they are the guardians, but that is not preceded by any major moments of darkness, so it doesn't really count. After all, you can't awake if you aren't asleep.

Where is the final showdown with the enemy, the great darkness? Well... it's there, but it's just another fight. You get a short bit of dialogue that means very little, and then boss battle. That's it.

Where is the final conclusion and the wrapping up of the story? It doesn't exist. The story ends, and then you get a short cut-scene with the imps, showing that Mr. Time Travel was telling the story the whole time. That's it. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Just YOU WIN THE GAME THE END. At that point, you might as well just have a button at the beginning of the game that says, "Press this to win forever."

You cannot have a good story without conflict, and you cannot have conflict if the main characters overcome every single obstacle you put in front of them with ease. Does the magical sourcerer defeat you at every turn? No. Oh, you're burning the temple down? We escape. Oh, you're making a giant blood stone? We broke it. Oh, you're here at the end of the game for our final confrontation? No, here's a magical spell that turns you good again for no explainable reason and removes you as a threat. Buh-bye.

The story just does not work.

These are not all the flaws the game has, just the largest ones that I can see. Again, I do like the game. But I just can't bring myself to agree with the 8/10 and 9/10 ratings that it has been getting everywhere. I just can't.

And that makes me sad because I had such high hopes. Then again, maybe that's why I was so disappointed.

Last edited by DadeLeviathan; 24/07/14 08:20 PM.

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Originally Posted by DadeLeviathan
Crafting
There is no reasonable introduction to crafting. I had to figure out the crafting system by looking online. I should not have to figure out a core mechanic of your game by looking online. This is bad design -- unforgivably bad, in fact. The 'recipes' are sometimes worded in a way where they are confusing and hard to understand. There is no reason why you had to be special little snowflakes and write your recipes like some sort of silly journal entry. "Wool+Wool=Yarn" would have been perfectly fine.

At the very least, there needs to some sort of tutorial into the crafting systems. Even if it's just a book that explains how cooking works, how potions work, how blacksmithing works, etc. And if you are about to make an excuse about how this deepens the game somehow -- don't. That is an asinine argument and bears absolutely no foundation in rational thought. The way the crafting system is designed is depth. The way it is introduced (Or not as the case may be) is nothing more than needless confusion.
I actually agree that crafting isn't introduced well enough in the game. The funny thing is, it is very clearly demonstrated in the release trailer, which I watched about one day after first playing the game... then I was like "oh, that's how you do it." How long does it take to clearly demonstrate in the release trailer? Literally one second. There is a caption which says "crafting," then they should what happens when you drag one item onto another; barely interrupts the flow of the video, it just feels like another bullet point in a list of features, yet it still manages to teach the mechanic as well as it needs to be taught.

And yes, it is pretty bad that they couldn't do something to set up this single second of demonstration for the people who play the game but do not watch the trailers.

That said, I emphatically disagree with the idea of displaying recipes as equations (ex: yarn+yarn=rope). There's a completely different feel between being spoon-fed your recipes and actually having to read something from the world of Rivellon and decipher it. In other words, that part of the whole crafting thing is something which deepens the game somehow.

The one thing which doesn't, is how there isn't a good tutorial for the core mechanic of the crafting system itself.
Originally Posted by DadeLeviathan
Combat
Combat, at higher levels, is a chore. It is not fun, it is not engrossing, it is boring and clunky. And no, this is not an inherent flaw with turn-based combat. There are many turn based games that have engrossing and fun combat (provided you like turn based combat anyway). Fallout 1&2, Xcom: Enemy Unknown, Shadowrun Returns, Final Fantasy Tactics, just to name a few.

I began dreading combat if there were more than four enemies involved. When a large majority of your game is combat, this is a bad thing.
The really funny thing about this is, I was reading another post where the OP said the combat is boring. Then I played for a bit and I realized that, sometimes, it actually is. However, these "sometimes" where whenever there were less than four enemies involved. For example, you're making your way to Luculla Mines and you come across an Armoured Goblin Sentinel. Not multiples, just the one; he's been separated from his friends. Obviously, you pulverize him, he never stood a chance. Boring. If anything, I think it's vital that, once you get out of Cyseal, monsters always have a way of alerting their friends and working together as a team to create large combats with multiple actors.

In other words, even though I agree with you about it sometimes being boring, I feel you couldn't possibly have it more wrong. It's the big, messy combats which are actually the most interesting, because there are so many more factors to consider.
Originally Posted by DadeLeviathan
Puzzle Design
The puzzles themselves are actually very well done. The problem is that they have no introduction and very little clues most of the time.

You wouldn't expect someone to know that you wanted a peanut butter and jelly sandwich if the only thing you said was, "I have a kitchen." Likewise, you can't expect someone to even start thinking about how to solve your puzzle if the only clue you give is "here's a puzzle I made. Solve it."

Some of the puzzles in the game are the equivalent of giving someone a jigsaw puzzle to solve, except 50% of the pieces are missing and the only clue you give them to the location of those missing pieces is that you didn't put them on the moon. They have no idea that they are supposed to figure out that you buried the pieces on a random beach in southern Italy.

I have encountered this, "If we give them a reasonable clue the puzzle will be too easy," mindset of puzzle design before, and it never feels intelligent or witty or well designed. It always feels confusing, frustrating and, in some cases, insulting.

How am I supposed to figure out that the mage buried his magical barrier-breaking spell in a hole next to a box behind a bunch of traps in the forest, which is right behind a bunch of drunken goblins? As far as the game shows, I'm supposed to figure that out just by exploring. That is, frankly, horrific puzzle design. And this is just one example of many.
Well, when it comes to that particular puzzle, you're preaching to the choir. On the first playthrough where I made it to level 17, I didn't even realize how to get into the White Witch's cabin until level 16. Which, of course, led to a rather unsatisfying trip of quest completions where I was hideously overleveled. (It did, however, explain why things were so hard at level 13.)

However, I also think this game has some very good puzzles, many of which are rather tricky to figure out. For example, I consider the puzzle for Mangoth's basement completely fair. It actually does have a hint, even if it is very well disguised as an irrelevant decoration. It features a switch which is devilishly well-hidden and thus only likely to be found if you saw through the disguise and got the aforementioned hint. It's borderline rage-inducing... but it's fair.

Why is it fair? Difficulty isn't the issue; instead, it's bounding. You know Mangoth went into the basement. You have all the exits covered. And although you have a devil of a time accessing it, the central room you're trying to get into is prominently displayed, so you know your objective is to get into it. Even though it's very challenging, the objective is clear, and this sets up rather clear boundaries in terms of where you need to search.

The other good puzzles of D:OS share this. The matching caves with the elemental switches (which might be confusing were it not for the signs making references to doubles, so that you find both caves). The trap house in eastern Cyseal. Even Jake's murder investigation follows this pattern. Unlike the White Witch barrier spell, which is totally confusing when it comes to boundaries and pointers.

But I can't think of another example of a bad puzzle other than that one. Thus, I don't think it's fair to go on about how bad the puzzles are in D:OS; instead, it's fair to go on about how bad that puzzle is.

As far as story goes, I'll comment on it more when I beat the game. (I'm a reroll addict.)

Last edited by ScrotieMcB; 24/07/14 09:00 PM.
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I'm not going to get into the end of the story, despite having beaten the game last night because spoilers. I thought it worked out well enough and made sense in context. If you didn't like it, well, differences in opinion are just fine.

I also disagree that combat got boring at high levels with more than 4 enemies. Heck, with too few, it was all one sided and my rogue could one-shot many of them anyhow. That's OK, though, since sometimes it'd be a long battle with annoying mages buffing baddies and such.

My only major issue with the puzzles is how hard to see the buttons can be, especially with the camera being limited in movement. I learned, eventually, to toggle to overhead view, but all too often, it was a bit hard to find those things. WHen I remembered to look for them, at least. smirk

Crafting does need a bit better introduction, but that can be added, I am sure, if the devs agree. As it is, it's a minor issue.


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It's really only a "minor issue" for players who have outside information reading a bunch of forum posts, or watching the release trailer. If you exclude that and look only at the game itself for information, it's a major issue, because the ball is completely dropped.

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I came into the game without prior knowledge. My perspective:

I found the introduction to crafting to be fine. I immediately understood the principle. However once you get past the basics, crafting is RIDICULOUSLY hard to figure out. The recipes are all over the place, and I can't imagine trying to figure it all out on your own.

Combat was fine. I had no problem with its introduction. I do agree though that combat at high levels is tedious. And large-scale combat is incredibly tedious. The showdown in Hunter's Edge was awful for this reason.

I find most of the puzzles to be overly opaque. I frequently have to look up the solution, only to learn that an unrelated item I found 30 minutes earlier gives me the solution, in a way I would never expect.

Last edited by dirigible; 24/07/14 10:09 PM.
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Originally Posted by ScrotieMcB
It's really only a "minor issue" for players who have outside information reading a bunch of forum posts, or watching the release trailer. If you exclude that and look only at the game itself for information, it's a major issue, because the ball is completely dropped.


I disagree. First of all, the game has a manual that covers crafting:

Originally Posted by The Manual
Ingredients: Many items in the world may not seem to have an apparent purpose, but they can be combined with other items in order to craft or improve potions, scrolls, arrows, food, weapons, armour, and much more. Some books will contain recipes, but you can experiment to see what you can discover on your own. To combine or craft items, simply drag them on top of each other. Some combinations may require Crafting or Blacksmithing abilities.
Creating your own skill books requires the related magical ability. There are immovable objects, such as ovens and forges, that you may need in order to craft certain items. Drag an item on top of the immovable object to craft with it.


A more explicit tutorial may be "normal" now, but it hasn't always been in games and, frankly, needn't be.

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I'm sorry, but no, you can't just say "read the manual" anymore. Not with digital products where there's no printed product in a box. Manuals for games are a dead technology at this point.

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Originally Posted by Nilt


A more explicit tutorial may be "normal" now, but it hasn't always been in games and, frankly, needn't be.


...

no.

Just.... UGH.

There is a reason, a very good reason, why games have switched from the game manual to putting tutorials (or even the manual itself) within the game.

Firstly, tutorials within the game are good design. Tutorials not in the game are bad design. The end. Finite. To argue that not teaching the player to play your game without having to read something THAT IS NOT IN YOUR GAME is asinine. It is the stupid, "It's better because older games did it," argument, and it's one of the stupidest arguments I have ever had the displeasure of witnessing the birth of.

I remember the release of Fallout, of Baldur's Gate, of Planescape Torment. I remember wishing that all of the insane amount of information held within the Baldur's Gate 2 manual was in the game so that I didn't need to whip out my BRICK SIZED GAME MANUAL and look it up.

The Baldur's Gate 2 manual is 241 pages, not including the credits and index. OVER TWO HUNDRED PAGES. THAT IS THE SIZE OF A SMALL NOVEL. That's only 79 pages less than the rulebook of the PnP game that it is based upon! THAT'S INSANE.

Now granted, I loved having a manual that large that had so much information. But I HATED that the majority of that information WAS NOT IN THE GAME.

Back in YE OLDEN DAYS, there was only so much space you had to work with. This is the reason why games relied upon manuals as their tutorials. They wanted to make the game the best it could be, but only so many megabytes to do it with. As such, they relegated tutorial and nonessential information to the manual, so that they could devote more of those megabytes to the game itself.

Nowadays, however, we do not have such a space limit. Sure, you can't release a game that's 250GB without looking like a bunch of weirdos, but for the most part you don't have a set cap on how big your game can be. Tutorials are put in the game in order to make the experience between learning the game and actually playing the game a fluid experience.

So I'm sorry, but no. There is no reasonable excuse for them not including a better tutorial.

Last edited by DadeLeviathan; 25/07/14 05:07 AM.

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Well, "better tutorial" is definitely a matter of taste. For some, the taste they are looking for is "minimalistic." I do believe, however, that there is an important and very real difference between a minimalistic tutorial and the absence of a tutorial. The former is about giving the player the least information possible to have a reasonable chance of deducing everything they need to learn; the latter is about giving even less information than that.

Me, I'm a big fan of the minimalistic tutorial. Seriously. Huge fan. When I think of "good tutorials," I think of the first few test chambers in Portal. But minimalist isn't the same as nothing-ist. Earlier in this thread, I was requesting that Larian find a way to squeeze one second of crafting tutorial into the game. Seriously, I think one second would do it. But zero seconds does not do it.

The one thing which is utterly silly is the suggestion that we should read manuals. This isn't the 90s. Hell, even if it was the 90s, if you downloaded the entire game and never put hands on a physical copy, it would still be ridiculous to expect users to read a manual.

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I miss manuals...

I agree that tutorials are a very important part of games. I have learned, and loved games which had neither a tutorial nor a manual, but it's rare that I am willing to put that much effort into a game which I don't even know if I'm going to like.

That said, I hate compulsory tutorials in games which I wind up replaying. The tutorial dungeon in DOS is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I like that you can skip it. On the other hand, I hate that you need the XP from going through it.

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Regarding BG2 manual, even with all that size a lot of useful information is missing.

One thing I dislike about D:OS is the complete lack of information about the various skills belonging to the skill sets either in game or in the manual (which I did actually look at). One of the first times I leveled up and had the option of putting a point into Witchcraft or Scoundrel I was left puzzled because I had no idea what skills those would give me access to. Technically I still don't as I haven't found whatever vendor happens to sell Scoundrel skill books.

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@tarasis
There is a woman in the top floor of the inn in Cyseal who sells both Witchcraft and Scoundrel skillbooks.

Last edited by dirigible; 25/07/14 06:11 AM.
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I'm afraid I have to agree with you DadeLeviathan. I too like the game, but it has some serious issues that drag it down.

The biggest issue for me is the combat. I really don't like it. Fortunately, I think mods will be able to improve this in time.

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Not a fan of TBS combat...
X-Com: Enemy Unknown was a good example of combat that bore me quickly. Endgame it just got extremely tedious and unfun, and I was thinking about switching to super-easy just to get it over with.

D:OS... not the case.

I do agree about the crafting. I suppose adding a small segment to the current tutorial of adding half a key A + half a key B to make key to critical door you need to go through would be enough. Fortunately, if it's a very tiny thing to do it's more likely to happen than entire new rooms and mechanics needed to be added to the dungeon. Hopefully it happens, but it's not something I would list as critical.


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