Solving The Path of Love, Truth and Courage for the second time - more FEEDBACK

Today I finished the last of the three paths: Courage.

I just want to give a bit feedback [please also find my bug reports in the bug section ]

1. The questlines aren't "bugged as hell" as some people claim.
ALL paths can be played and solved in a good way. There are only a few bugs left.
Let's get rid of them until end of year (Avatars please write bug reports!).

2. The fight between Demig and the Kobold champion is very short. I just could say "mark",
and suddenly - Demig was on the ground and me too (well, I could get up ...)
I would prefer a few seconds more and a few last words told from Demig to the Avatar,
like: "For our Kingdom, for peace ..." - or "please, tell my father/brother/sister ..."

3.1 At the end of Love my feeling was great. It was a good Journey together with a new friend: Samael.
3.2 At the end of truth I was confused (People are bedeviled! And the Avatar can do - nothing?)
3.3 At the end of courage my feeling was good - peace was brought back to the lands of Norgard and I could do something to help.


THE THREE MAIN DISTURBING THINGS - my personal storyfeeling killer:

I. "Player xyz is on/offline" inside the dialogue window.
It takes our mind away from the storyline. It's very distracting - that's a shame.

II. No justify text, bold text, scrolling.

Please consider:
- to add at least ONE more text line to the dialogue window.
To prevent [continue] in more than 95% of the dialogues.
- not to show a scroll bar (a scroll bar in the chat window seems enough.)
This also will give two more letters each line!
Instead show an arrow button or the word [continue]
- to expand the whole dialogue box left and right to have a few more letters
- to provide text in justify for better reading (look below, please)
- possibly show text in two columns (like in a book) for better reading.
- last but not least: toggle the underlined keywords off in standard, please...

Please consider, that the formatting inside this forum can't be done better
- I had to put in ....... to get the gaps filled to get an idea what I mean
The text is meant to be wrapped in justify left and rirght from the vertical line:

Avatar: Sceptre .................................... | Lord Ferig: (talking to himself) Father...
Grannus:(to you) The Sceptre of Dread ... | put the sceptre down. Be a King, and
this... this THING. Mara insisted it would ... | I will serve you. Your realm needs you...
give through me the Knights power enough | it needs both of us.
to defeat the kobolds... but all it did was ... | Essen: (to Grannus) I never thought I
cloud my mind and tire my body. It is true, | would ever say this, my King, but there is
I am old, but I am still King in Norgard, and | wisdom in Lord Ferig's words. The realm is
... if not... .......................................... | in peril, though less from without now, but
......................................................... | still dire peril within.


Could also be used this way:
Avatar:.............................| NPC:........................................................
It's never too late to climb on| Well, as you are asking this, I have to confess:
a mountain to have another .| I never looked at it that way, but may be after
sight - and suddenly things ...| I take time and - of course a cup of tea - I will
could appear in another way. | find a way to show up with new improved ideas.
In a way we never thought it | Sometimes it is very simple to make it simple, if
could be possible... .............| we try to look from another point of view. I will
.......................................| try to make a new experience...


III. JOURNAL
Missing Chapters inside the Current Tasks AND Knowledge Journal
- for each Path
- further quests
Missing an own Chapter for quests beside the paths, like
- Visit Devotional Shrines
- Precious Wood Duck
- Defeat Dolus, Indigno ...
- Crafting Quests
- Emotes


My journey goes on - to the Path of the Oracle - for the second time

Thank you for having a great time inside the lands of Novia while following an interesting storyline ...

 

The fact that they can be played, solved and completed does not make them any less buggy than they are... regardless of how bug-free your experience may be.

The sad truth, though, is that SotA’s main problem with the quests aren’t necessarily the bugs (although it is a massive problem); it’s how each quests are presented to the player and give (or doesn’t give) information to the player... then there’s the issue that the game has a knack to open up all sorts of possibilities yet only providing a limited few that actually give results.

Example A:
The way Aerie is designed, the whole section of Little Xenos is completely missed by new players unless they always have the GPS open... One of the first quests you’ll come across is a guard in front of the bank that say they’ve lost a key. Instead of giving you standard directions (like go north-east and follow the road until you see a relatively big perpendicular street), it just names you the area... like you’re supposed to know where everything is already.

That NPC (among others) can tell you about Xenos, which mentions that it’s across the sea... so anyone with their right mind would look at the docks area. From the docks itself, Little Xenos is a large detour away.

Example B:
In a lot of quests, players are encouraged to mention items or events to quest NPCs to unlock new information or story progression. In Aerie’s “A Lord Must Fall”, one of the paths you can take will make a mystery “skull” dude appear in front of you that attacks you... in town... which are, until that moment, completely safe areas. If the player tries to mention this to any of the quest-related NPCs, none of them react to it.

It’s just a thing that happens. It frustrates the player as he’s wasting his time trying to figure something that has no solution or closure.

 

Your're right, Gix.

Unfortunately one of the creator of that quests isn't in the team any longer.
Puuk planned on long term to connect those quests (and also to upgrade the given information) referring to the Skull league and the Orator ...

The problem of simple information and simple questions, for example:
a NPC tells about another person or place and don't know anything about when asked back - I am with you: this is really frustrating.

The given/selected keywords are very important for a good dialogue and story flow.
A NEW told information from a NPC should appear immediately in the keyword line (most time of the game this works) AND, as you described, should offer better information:
If it would be important to talk about other locations or persons, the NPC not mentioned, they should appear in the keyword line.

The idea to fade asked keywords to grey was good, unfortunately it doesn't work properly with all keywords.
And yes, it is really frustrating, if you meet a person again and have to click through all words again - that's a waste of time and after a while you get tired of ...

I wrote a lot feedback about and asked for getting rid of the input line, because this provokes exactly what you wrote about.
That's why a lot of players tell, the story is uninteresting or boring.
There are only a few moments we need to enter "special" keywords - this could be solved with providing the needed keywords.

My feedback above wasn't to tell all is right and I am happy with it.
It was a summery of my experience after following the questlines over 4 years and now again.
Now we can follow the main story line and understand what happens around

I don't like general feedback like "bugged es hell" or "crap" or something like this. It's easy to argue in that way - but most time it is also a waste of time and it hurts.
And it changes nothing We need concrete feedback to change things.

My suggestions can be found in a lot of threads, waiting for implementation to have a better story feeling - I am patient

And to be honest:
If it is possible to show all technical information in the chat window and we can toggle it on and off, but one of the main distracting and disturbing information (player xyz is off/online) can't be toggled off in dialogue box, than we don't have to talk about more intensive dialogues
That's a no go - and should have been fixed latest with launch.

Unfortunately a lot of players don't care about and just run through the quests to receive XP/items and don't take a minute to write a bug report or a short feedback about these story killers

After official launch the reports raised and showed what a lot of us talked about years before ...
The presentation and over-and-over told distracting and disturbing stuff is one of the most story killier.

After the last post of Darkstarr I am in great hope that the next months will bring a better UI managing the main problems, like
- technical information in dialogue window
- underlined keywords making reading more difficult ("Eye jumping")
- asked keywords should fade to grey (and only again bright, if they provide new information)
- missing keywords and missing information/better description (as you described very good) should be integrated
- more, like Quest Journal and ... ... well, won't repeat all my posted feedback again

The story if you try to follow and enjoy it (and yes, it's hard with all that "by design" stuff) is interesting. I like it.
And there are so many nice dialogues - but if it the flow of the story is bad - because of technical stuff - who cares about nice dialogues and that sense of humor we can find in a lot of places?


If they get rid and change it until end of year (Well, I hope latest end of September!) we are on a really good path for Episode 2
Serious: I believe it will happen - and I am looking forward to enjoy the next Episode