Reset my Quests - Feedback on Replaying the game a year later

First and foremost let me extend my congratulations on the improvement that has been made over the past year. In effect you could go so far as to call it an entirely different game.

There are spoilers in this feedback. If that bothers you then please stop reading now as I'm not going to spoiler /spoiler every little detail.

This is a book. I am sorry. As a disclaimer I'm Adventure level 95 that used to be able to solo dragons back in the good ol' days of Fortify Defense preventing crits. As such there was never a point that I was blocked in my progress moving forward with any quests based on not being able to kill things. As such I can't comment on the "flow" of the quests.

Let me give specifics related to the Paths:

Love:
This is by far the most polished story line. All the quests I tried worked, except one, and didn't leave my quest log full of dialogue that had yet to clear like a year ago. I felt like there were enough side quests at the early and middle stages of the quest, but could use some uplift of "stuff" to do in Drachvald. I don't think there was anything to do there outside of Samael's ring quest. I want to emphasize how important this is because it's confusing as all hell if you think you're done, but the quest log trolls you into convincing yourself that you're missing something.

Definitely need more quests at the end to help level people as the ending of Love is a slug-fest unlike the other two paths. There's plenty of surrounding areas to put these in.

Samael's ring quest I'm basically considering broken because it only triggers with the word keepsake, and as far as I could tell there's never a hint or anything else pointing you to that magic word. Hell, even ring doesn't trigger it. Definitely something to fix.

One issue I did have was the journal needs to specify if I need to pick something up or not. The Solace Bridge Outskirts quest where you need to pick the piece of paper off the ground after following the blood trail and gathering evidence against Rolf for the black arrow quest were confusing (but super obvious once I understood I needed the physical items in my inventory). A pop up message of the sort to hint that picking up stuff off the ground is actually a thing in the outskirts would be a great tutorial level addition.

Courage:
This was another really well done path. I felt like there were enough side quests early on and that there isn't really as dire a need for side quests later as you don't really need the extra "leveling" to finish this particular path up (nothing to fight at the end, just need to make it into Shrekk, unlike Love where the finale is a slug-fest). I rather enjoyed the "knightly" feel to it.

Some issues... Sven (Outskirts) really is way out in the middle of nowhere and I don't think I had anyone even mention that he's out there. I think the only mention of a NPC in the wilderness was the meditating carpenter guy. Sven not being mentioned is a problem since he's a source of armor that I could see many new players missing (and that's a bummer!)

An overarching issue in general but one I found most prevalent in this particular path are the "this time of day only" quests. I can't begin to emphasize how damned annoying these are because there's really not enough to do while you wait for whatever time of day to happen. A suggestion would be to make Single/Group player and Multiplayer have a time offset of ~12 hours so that if it's day in one instance, it's night in the other. It's not a great fix but it would save significant aggravation in terms of *twiddling thumbs*.

Truth:
I'm going to basically call this the "troll" path. I didn't like this one a year ago and I basically have the same sentiment now. The outskirts are probably the only good thing about this path as there was actually something to do there and a feeling of "truth" in my actions.

For starters, there's no experience at any point of the main story line for Truth until the very end. Feels bad man. You're basically a glorified scent hound traveling all over creation for someone to simply point you in the next direction. This is a complete 180 degree turn from how Love works where there is steady experience at each stage of the quest, run around or not. One point in which this was alleviated was the boat to Xenos from Etceter where you had to hit up the bandits in the mine. That's a good change and I fully encourage more actions along those lines to spice this path up. It needs it.

I don't think there was much in the way of side quests (at least not obvious ones) in this entire path. I think the only side two quests I found was the ghost Amanda in Etceter (which was equally resolved in 2 minutes) and the bit in Aerie that actually had some text fly across my screen with the crying woman. Granted since this is a glorified run around path, you don't really need extra experience but just the same it is a sorely missing piece of the gaming experience.

Possibly because the whole path is so un-engaging I probably just auto-piloted a great deal of it towards the end just trying to get it done. I do recall the first time I did it I felt like I was being lead around by the nose by the shifty elves and then trolled at the very end. I don't think the text has changed so this is probably unchanged. I don't have any suggestions here as others may have liked it and this was just my personal preference not being met.

Oracle:
This path has so much potential but it ends up falling flat. It's a lot like the Truth path in that you're traveling all over creation collecting things but there's minimal interaction in any of the ruins. I will say I liked it more the first time when I was first exploring the ruins trying to find the vaults. The second time it was just a chore.

The page in Brittany needs some work. Let's face it, Brittany is huge spanning multiple different areas and there's absolutely nothing to hint that the page is a 1 minute walk from the oracle's main house. There's basically no direction and even that Spoony clown that gives you the hint is easily overlooked because he's portrayed as a little goof that I wager most people would dismiss as useless.

I liked the puzzles in Boreas Colossus. That was a masterstroke touch for the Titan of Truth. I absolutely hate the time of day nonsense in Sequanna. That needs to be tweaked into an interactive puzzle of lighting candles or the like to make a shadow vs waiting for one. Grannus is eh... I don't really feel anything "courageous" about that particular area except it has high level enemies. I do like the notion of having to rebuild the lens. I'll leave that one as my "neutral" with the other two being great and poor.

One issue of sorts is in regards to Hilt. Please put some damned coal nodes next to the forge. While this is totally on me for not thinking ahead of time of what *else* I needed outside of the three fragments, it would be a nice addition so that people aren't as annoyed as I was.

In addition, the quest to reforge the lens did not clear in the journal (and still hasn't even after having the shroud).

I enjoyed the Dire Prophecies themselves as to how it was written and how my actions were explained in virtue terms.

On the whole: I found the main story both playable and enjoyable. Truth needs the most work followed by some additions to the path of the oracle making it seem less "fetch-y". Maybe some virtue related quests preceding each corresponding page before you're able to hit up the vaults themselves to further emphasize the virtues vs them being basically a back-drop. There's definitely enough otherwise un-used zones to have these take place in.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to what the next year has in store!

 

There should be a compass marker for that one as well as the other locations for where to look for quest items.

Maybe if they also put the markers on the in game maps that would make them easier to find.

 

The game's interface needs to provide better feedback. The Rolf questline is a perfect example. Knowing for sure that my character now knows whats going on, it became an exercise in frustration in communicating to the game that my character had solve the mystery. We don't need hand-holding and quest markers, but feedback is important. Even if it's as much as yellow text in the chat window saying something along the lines "Now i know the truth... what to do with that information?"

 

@Trihugger Consider yourself lucky doing the Path of Love.

After resetting my quests I experienced a bugged quest in Solace Bridge Outskirts that I can’t complete. I couldn’t figure out how to get Samael to go with me to the Necropolis (although I wanted him) so I had to take Kardan. After reaching the final room in the Necropolis this part of the quest bugged out when I was forced to log out of the game in the Necropolis because of a real-life interruption. I ended up asking someone to help me get to the Midras Ruins on the overworld map to get to the Crypt of the Avatar. After completing the side quest in the Crypt I was totally disappointed by the tiny reward that was in no relation to the difficulty I faced in completing it. I was so discouraged by my experience that I haven’t continued on this Path.

 

I would have preferred to get a key from Samael, which would give you the underground route hint.

That route seems harder since, you have to explore nearby scenes to find the underground entrance and then also get a key from a high level mob that drops it.

Midras can also be hard if you are lower level with the mobs there, using the map to find the entrance there and hoping that no other players will bother you.

 

Yep. We just lucked out on finding that one because I happen to play music all the time while I'm walking around.

Great idea. I've been nailed by that too.

 

I was like "okay, mmm hmm, okay,..." and then I saw this one. Yeah.

The biggest problem with it is that you can turn off shadows in your video settings and you will not have the faintest clue why you can't use that glowing candle statue, or when you can use it. And I have no idea where you were supposed to know how it works in the first place.

First suggestion: Don't turn the candle statue blue until players can actually use it! This way at least you might have a second chance to figure it out if you (like me) have no idea how it's supposed to work. Seriously, I know how it works now, but only because it was mentioned in a forum thread after I asked about it. How are you supposed to know when you can use the candle statue? What is the clue that even tells you that shadows matter at all?

 

There is supposed to be NPC dialogue clue from the camp nearby. Also use movie knowledge if needed -