Here is a suggestions, based on my initial impression of the game. I admit not having finished the campaign, and not having tried any ‘end game’ modes. Nevertheless, I think it is a valuable opinion to share, as first impressions often decide whether a player will stick with the game (and experience its full richness) or move on.
The thing that held me back from playing more is monotony. This applies to level design and in a lesser degree to graphics/visuals and audio.
Let me elaborate: most levels in the campaign are rather large (which is nice), but they seem to drag on, because there is no variation. Each screen contains another group of monsters, the same audio and environmental clutter (which is again, nicely done), so after a while it you can almost calculate how long it will take you to ‘clear’ the level. This predictability is in effect… boring.
A simple yet effective solution to this is variation. Clustering of mosters, with the parts in between them almost empty. Vary the tension and activity. The parts void of monsters also give the player a moment to focus on the visuals and audio and in effect, appreciate those more. Visual ‘clutter’ should also vary more, with areas with different degree of density (clustering again), varying intensity of lighting (dark areas stop being scary after they drag on without end) and space. The only place where this is done (well) is when you get to a boss fight area, you immediately notice it is a different setting, and your adrenaline goes up in expectation of something new.
I’ve played many games before, and what I do not have in LE is that feeling of ‘I want to play some more, just one more level, just one more piece of gear I miss, just a bit longer to level that one skill, and so on.’ That feeling that you’re drawn into the game. Instead, I had a feeling where I forced myself to ‘finish this map, becuase it will be reset and you’ll have to fights through it step by step the next time you start the game’.
This feedback is of course just a part of my experience with the game, there are things done right (like the very nice character level-up celebration) that help achieve that ‘just some more’ feeling in the game, but I wanted to keep this post limited to that one fundamental aspect of design, since it is so important to first impressions (for future players, who have not backed you from the start and have no emotional attachments), and the first impression I get is a bit ‘meh’, instead of ‘wow’
It is really interesting to hear the take of a completly new/fresh player on this. I played the campaign already dozens of times and i really like the “constant combat flow”. Not sure if you suggestion with the more clustered mobs would change how much i do like the campaign.
The only thing that is 100% different for me is:
LE is one of the game where the sense of progression(especially the skill spec tree points) is one of the best in the whole genre.
Grim Dawn and LE are the two best ones here for me. In Grim Dawn you get 3 skill points for the better first half of the character levels, which leads to builds getting a very strong identity very quickly.
Same applies to LE, you unlock a whole bunch of all kinds of different skills very early, all with wastly different skill spec tree, where you can evolve the same skills is soo many different directions.
Maybe this is just me, because i already have a good grasp of the game as a whole, but the skill synergies and different appraoches you can take on the same skil lare so diverse i always have the feeling “just a few more skill points on skill X and i can try out this completely new thing”
But i do appreciate your try to put your first impressions into words. I know this can be very hard sometimes. On some games you cant point your figner exactly “WHY” a game makes you wanna play more of stop playing after 5 minutes.
My comment was not related to skills or character progression, but to level design mostly.
The character tree progression is definitely nicely paced, no complaints there, except that I feel there are too many skills in there that are too similar or that thier differences are impossible to see for someone who does not know all the subltle differences thay might contain. And by extension, it feels a bit like ‘stabbing in the sark’ and appointing skills based on educated guesses and previous experiences with similar game models. But that is another topic entirely, and a more difficult one (apparent clarity and simplicity for new players combined with depth and intricacies for the experienced ones).
Agreed, sorry i didn’t touched the level design topic that much, because i think i personally don’t have to say that much about it.
But all those different system in aRPG’s are systems that make me enjoy the relatively repetitive gameplayloop(i mean which aRPG don’t have a repetetive gameplay loop^^).
I don’t think that many base skilsl are “very similar”, but as you said that’s a different topic. (Feel free to make a thread and we can discuss that there)
Better and more clear tooltips could of course help.
It’s interesting to see the whole different strokes thing at play here.
I would hate this kind of design because empty areas would bore me to death. Visuals and audio are passive background elements for me to see out of the corner of my eye as I’m doing the fun stuff (killing, grinding, loot hunting). If anything, I’d actually want the areas to be more compact and be more like a corridor with the variety coming from encounters.
I do like varied tension and activity, but I get the feeling we’d have different definitions. Varied tension for me would be significantly different encounter puzzles to solve based on routes taken. And varied activity for me would be something that would progress a quest, add an achievement or journal entry, or provide a piece of lore or something to non-combat element to interact with (like an NPC).
It is indeed interesting how different people feel about this stuff.
Now when i think about it and read through @Vidya reply, i think for me the best mob density would be probably continous mobs scatter around the whole area, with some occasional “hotspots”, where the mob density is quite high, with some rares in the big pack.
But in terms of the general map design and partially procedual genrated levels. I think when the devs will add more tilesets of each kind of enviroment it would already increase the variety and not get so monotone so quickly.
More variation through addition of more assets is nice, but that is an ‘expensive’ way to do it, and does not address the issue I talk about above.
There are multiple levels of variation, one being on a higher level (with longer ‘period’, if you look at it as a wave) that concerns town visit intertwined with ‘dungeon’ levels and occasionally intemingled with boss fights and quest interactions. The loop I’m talking about here is a very ‘short’ duration, that is in seconds. That’s why no one would ‘die of boredom’ in those moments with no monsters (unless you get bored and die in 3 seconds ;)). Then there is a slightly longer loop of variation that you can measure in minutes, which also applies to level design, and that is more about areas within a level (and within a tileset most of the time), that has a different period still.
All these loops are related to attention span and ‘sensory’ deprivation, that is that a prolonged exposure to a monotonous stimulus makes you increasingly less receptive (and appreciative) to it over time, that is why you need variation, as you cannot always have the level of intensity/excitement go up indefinitely.
There is an interesting video that mentiones this topic actually, a behavioral psychologist from Valve and a guy from a startup talk about it, also in relation to the ‘flow’ theory (for those who are unfamiliar with it, it’s about the balance between boredom and annoyance, so the content is challenging enough to be motivating, but not discouraging). The trouble with it is that that balance lies elsewhere for different players, so you have discussions like "this game is too easy’ vs ‘no way, this game is too hard’. Yet another topic of discussion though
Here is the video, for who’s interested (it’s about the future of brain-computer interfaces in gaming, but don’t get intimidated), the relavant part starts at around 30m:40s.
I would call my self a pretty dedicated gamer, but i never thought that deeply about this kind of topic.
I mean i know there was something about general level design, tilesets, flow of areas -> combat -> quests -> towns etc.
But me personally could never put things into words that had some valueable feedback about that kind fo topics. Good that we have people that are very dedicated in thosetype of subjects.
All of my feedback that i bring to games is mostly skill/character progression/customization
