I like The Epitaph

I find myself visiting there frequently. I've visited many zones, and this is the one I come back to. I'm not sure how many skulls it is - 3? It's lower level to me.. but I still enjoy it.

It feels like the right recipe.

You get reasonable zone rewards for the effort, but there's not a lot of grinding. In fact, it doesn't feel like a grind at all. There's not a lot of creatures. During the last telethon, someone questioned the tendency to cram loads of creatures into a zone, and Darkstar thought this was correct.

My interpretation of that point manifests in the game "Shadow of the Colossus". There's no enemies/creatures in the game, barring 16 (I think) bosses, each of which is essentially a puzzle-fight. It's a question of quality over quantity.

I'd rather fight 1 mega-bear than 20 standard bears. I'd rather fight a cotton golem for 20 minutes, get 100 cotton, than harvest 100 cotton bushes.

With The Epitaph, it's possible to run in, grab the loot and run out, but on my mid-level alt, I had fun challenging myself in fighting the orange-level troll. That was after I grabbed the loot.

I feel like the game often ignores the psychology of the player. It's fine to put the reward behind a challenge, but the delivery mechanisms of work-versus-reward are in question.

I generally enjoy the new zones that are released. I was working on Middle Downs the other week (I haven't figured it out yet). I stopped when it occurred to me that, after a few hours of working on it, the reward (I'm not sure there is one) at the center may not be worth the effort. After the time I put in, I could have gotten 20k-30k grinding. That probably won't be the case.

Maybe quests like that need a good one-time reward for figuring out the puzzle, then medium/low rewards after, so people don't just farm it?

Sequenna Colossus was an example of what felt like a less grindy zone, but the reward at the end was not scaled appropriately to the difficulty level

I guess what I'm saying is, I wouldn't mind if the game had a cotton golem, and fewer wolf hordes... if you catch my drift. I feel like The Epitaph is a good example of a more enjoyable zone.

 

And please no spoilers.

 

I'll also add that I think the basic troll is probably the most fun to actually fight. There's a trick to it, which is no secret... but that doesn't guarantee success. It's not a question of mashing on the glyphs.. it's a delicate dance that requires player skill to execute, over a long period of time. There's lots of room for screwing up.

 

@oplek

Agreed. I really like the Epitaph. It has a little bit of everything in appropriate proportions.

There is some lore. There are some foes of different difficulties. There are some resource nodes. There is some loot. There are some hints at the greater story. There are some NPCs that add to the flavor. (like the oldest prisoner)

 

Really good point.

There sometimes appears to be a level of tone deafness when it comes to risk vs. reward. Part of that is because of design decisions that allowed players to infinitely grow in power, making it near impossible to give great rewards for accomplishing great things. For example if you kill a dragon there's nothing stopping you from killing it again, and again, and...how many times does someone kill the same dragon before that stops being something we reward?

There are a lot of examples like this where we seem to want a perpetual reward system that encourages long hours of play (like EQ or WOW) but that fails to deliver on the accomplishments of people that don't want to perform the same repetitive actions because the value for them just isn't there, be it because of playing style or time investment.

 

...and you can climb the outside for a great view!

 

I have to agree, its a great area. I've spent hundreds of hours down there mining alone.

Very well designed area that actually feels like a real space.

 

I took the liberty of making a report on Desolis and Epitaph.
If anyone else who likes this scene would like to contribute then please do so.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...lis-and-epitaph-others-please-join-in.102399/

 

After seeing this, I went and looked around. It was pretty cool, except for a couple minor things.

I was annoyed that so many of the cool deco items weren't lootable. It also seemed weird that two people give the same quest for books, but don't seem to acknowledge each other, or offer a reason why they should get the books over the other person.

On the other hand, I got to kill my first troll. And go through the SotA rite of passage that is dying several times trying to kill a tough enemy and getting 5 gold for the effort.

But it was the first time playing the game where I got a bit of thrilling exploration. Instead of "oh, woods, time to kill more wolves." ( I stopped in one of the nearby desert scenes, thinking, "well, at least there won't be wolves." Nope, desert wolves. )

 

Hope you don't mind me adding them to the report.

Re: books
Yea it is meant as a virtue choice but doesn't feel like one. Most assume one should be able to solve both.

Re: deco items
Yea, too much cool stuff that one cannot interact with.


Re: troll
Yay, congrats on the 5g. It was one of the first large creatures added into the game.

Re: desert wolves
Well consider yourself lucky then since the dragons which can be seen from within Desolis roost in that nearby scene.

Exactly. It is a scene that inspires exploration (although it doesn't really reward it).

 

Not at all.

How so? Did I not go deeply enough into their dialogue? I didn't really get the feeling that one was better or different than the other. I suppose there are two books, you could give one to each of them. I think it would definitely add a lot if they each made a case for giving them the books, and not the other person. Especially if there was some sort of consequence depending on who you gave them to. Or maybe one of them pays twice as much, but is up to no good, and talking with other NPCs lets you learn this. Or one of them hires assassins to come after you if you give the books to the other. Missed opportunities, otherwise.

Heh. Actually, I did come across one. (Another first.) Thankfully, I was able to jump down the mountain without getting killed in the fall, which got me away from the dragon quickly enough that it gave up and went back to sleep.

I felt rewarded enough. Sometimes, just getting a neat area to explore is worth it. This was the first time in SotA that I felt like the first time in a Draugr crypt in Skyrim, or the D.C. ruins in FO3. Plus, while I couldn't grab the coolest stuff, I did get some nice swag to decorate my alchemy shop with.

 

I really agree with this. I did the new puzzle in The Crags recently and I had fun doing it, but the reward vs effort/level gave me a bit of a "seriously?" reaction. No spoilers so no specifics, but some item that is marked as unique so you can only have one in your possession would be a good answer, in my opinion. As a secondary idea, maybe a unique title ("Conqueror of the Crags" or something?). An actual item would be better, though.

I got done and I was kind of like "well...at least I had fun figuring out the puzzle."

 

There are three books.

Spoiler

two in separate chambers in the big experimental octagon room with the chains etc, then one in the room with the dragon bones it is in the far corner next to a crafting station

One NPC wants the books to learn the secrets and become more powerful, the other NPC wants the books to further the study of their history so we don't repeat old mistakes.
You can only resolve one of the NPCs questlines.

So it is clear that the thought behind the quest was an ethical/moral dilemma. However just like you pointed out there is no dialog that shows that the player has a choice to make. Instead it appears like two different quests.
This then is compounded with the books being there again the next time you go through. So one could easily collect double sets of the books but the NPCs only allow one hand-in.

Agreed that it would be much nicer and clearer if the two NPCs advocated much more strongly why one shouldn't hand any books over to the other NPC.
I will write that into the report.

 

Looks like I need to go back and look more carefully, then. I found 1 and 2; had no reason to think there was a third.

 

I do like The Epitaph for the reasons mentioned above.

I also HATE HATE HATE Resolute Sewers, because of the opposite...

Spoiler

There's no lore, there's no rhyme or reason why there's those bandit like fellas that get into constant fights with the undead (Why are either of them even down there?) and then there's the room of the endlessly, frustratingly spawning spiders... they just spawn and spawn and spawn even if you never skin any of them.

I can see why the Bandit looking fellas are down there, there is SOME treasure to be had down there, I can get the spiders, but absolutely HATE the spawn rate... as it makes things impossibly difficult to get through, in order to battle the bounty hunter, get the key and then go into the area with the mine... that is filled with obnoxiously difficult slimes.. but whatever the slimes make sense at least.

It would be nice if they fixed the spawn rate for Resolute Sewers and maybe popped in a bit of lore as to why those three groups of mobs are right on top of each other, always fighting one another.

 

It is technically a 5-skull area. You get 500 pXP for mining nodes.

 

I think that's one of the things I've found most off-putting about SotA. There's a lot here, but it's still really shallow. At least, at lower levels. I hope/expect that much of that will be remedied over the next few months before release.

But at least there's grinding!

No? Okay.

 

Since I originally posted this, I've also played the "Outskirts" zones. I thought those did a good job along the same lines. There's enough to keep you interested, including unique one-time quest rewards.

My biggest gripe about Highvale outskirts and Blood River outskirts, was the endless zig-zagging across the map trying to find something. It took me a few hours to find the 4th frekin' stone in Highvale, because I apparently can't execute a coherent search pattern.

 

We intentionally did not want the two NPCs to know of each other to help make the choice less clear-cut.

 

Hm. I wish I'd paid more attention to their specific requests, then. My recollection is that there wasn't really any reason to choose one over the other. To the point that I didn't feel it mattered either way. That it might be a virtue thing didn't even cross my mind. Hopefully I can still get those speech options when I check later tonight; it may totally be that I wasn't paying much attention.