Hi I’m bored but I’ve been wanting to share this feedback for quite a long time now but I kept forgetting.
“A Study in Time” side quest:
One of the most annoying quest for me with the current state of the game. There are just way too much hopping here and there given the current time to load one area to another. And even if the loading times have been improved in the future, this quest is just way too much time wasted for me. While I appreciate the use of time travel concept which I think is really cool, I think the implementation is just too poor for this one.
Go to Ruined College (Imperial Era)→Go back to Ruins of Welryn (Ruined Era)→Go to Ruined College (Ruined Era)→Go back to Welryn (Imperial Era)→Go back again to Ruined College (Imperial Era) and then either go back to Welryn (Imperial Era) or somewhere else to continue your main quest or whatever you were doing. See how much hops it takes for this quest alone?
Not to mention going back to Ruins of Welryn (iirc it’s somewhere around level-18 area), as someone who are probably around Lv30 is already quite pointless since killing enemies won’t give you EXP just to reach the Ruined College from there. I just pointed this out since devs are trying to minimize the amount of backtracking in monoliths so I think it would also make sense on these kind of quest.
My suggestion would be is to remove the Ruined College in Ruined Era completely, and put it in Imperial Era instead. How? Add a time rift inside Ruined College (Imperial Era) instead after being told that you have to go back. And have the Ruined-era version of Ruined College to be in the same map, kinda like how they did it in the Temple of Eterra quest to retrieve some orb or crystal where a time rift opens, and you get the orb (from Ruined Era to Ancient Era and vice versa), no loading screen. I hope I explained this part well…
Also, I’ve never tried to skip this quest even once ever since I played the game for the first time. Have you skipped it? Do you skip it every time? Can it be skipped without losing passive-point reward?
And on a side note:
The areas prior to reaching dungeons also kinda suffer the same where you’re probably Lv80-100 already and you’re going back to encounter Lv20ish mobs. So for this one, maybe have these areas scale to player level. I know it’s still kinda pointless since you’re not there to kill the enemies on those areas, you’re trying to go there to reach and enter the dungeon. But I think of fighting your way through to reach the gates of the dungeon feels much more engaging and makes more sense.
There seem to be 18 skill points rewards up to chapter 7 (which is as far as you would go for all idol rewards), so you don’t even have to do Study In Time.
I learned just to skip this quest, learn what npc give it and don’t talk to him. It won’t have the message problem either, saying it’s a quest pending to be finished. You have plenty of other quests to get the idol slots or passive points
Yeah the time travel feel would be hit waaaay better if we time travelled without leaving the area. Currently you dont feel like you’re travelling in time, you just feel like you’re fast travelling on a map.
Thanks for the tip, but a bit too late now after learning it can be skipped totally, I ain’t touching this side quest ever again until maybe EHG rework it lol.
You just saved a bunch of people some read time lol. I should’'ve just phrased it this way.
Don’t worry, it took me like 2 hours typing this because alt tabbing and I’m aN eFfiCiEnT mAn ThaT LiKe tO Multi taSk, so I believe you.
But yeah, only reason I do all side quest is, hello OCD.
I think the quest feels bad because the ruined college is so tiny. And you spend more time travelling than actually exploring. With a much, much larger college the feeling would be different.
Agreed, and that’s why level scaling feels SO much better in an ARPG than flat area levels.
I always do ALL side quests, in any game.
If you’re even considering skipping that one, your OCD is very benign compared to mine.
I could not disagree more. Look at D4, every time you level up you feel weaker, the only time when you feel better is when you upgrade your gear. Which do not happen every level but more so every few levels.
I appreciate a lot of people don’t like level scaling. This is fine, I completely agree to disagree.
The problem I see with flat area levels is, how do you scale them?
I always do ALL side quests, as I said before. In 90% of the games, it means I am ridiculously over powered after an hour for the area I am in, and it becomes boring, because all my questing and exploring gives me too much xp, and the areas are not designed for so much exploring.
But if they arranged the area level for players like me, other players trying to quick-run through the zones would complain that the monsters level becomes too high far too quickly.
In my opinion. level scaling is the only way to let all kind of players enjoy the game the way they like it. Rush, take it slow, do more or less quests, the challenge remains the same.
(Diablo IV scaling is, to me, absolutely fine. Possibly because I do not want to feel wayyyyy stronger than the monsters when I level up, and because I quest and explore enough to get a lot more gear at each level than a zooming player).
Imo there is a difference between feeling way stronger, feeling a bit stronger and feeling weaker.
I guess you could do zone scaling within a range. A little bit like Kingdom of Amalur did. X zone is between lvl 12 and 18, Y zone is lvl 16-20 etc… and its updated when you enter the zone not dynamically on your lvl
Sooo there is this time travel themed game that sounds realy awesome but heck do I hate time travel that makes visit the same place back and forth in different time zones… “A study in time” is hands down the only quest that’s suites the game because you activly do something to change something in another timeline.
On the other hand I get why people dislike certain quests but to me this one is the only quests that was a win for the games theme that is otherwise just different biomes of the same maps that got slightly changed (with some exceptions).
I guess the question is, why bother with level-scaling at all? The experience gains are scaled already, which pushes the player along to higher level areas. These maps are used in the monolith system so it’s not like you’re missing out on some intricately detailed zone or anything.
Maybe I should’ve been more clear about hopping maps here and there, nothing wrong with it but I think it could’ve been improved or done something much better. Like I said I like the concept, though it makes you go back to low-level areas which is kinda pointless and main takeaway is the current loading time.
Maybe something like this. Something like they did in Temple of Eterra quest that I also mentioned. Maybe instead of making us go back to Ruins of Welryn (Ruined Era), it opens a portal instead leading to Ruins of Welryn “B” (Ruined Era) or something where it’s a totally separate map than the Lv18ish one, so the enemies you encounter are the same level as your character. Though I’d still prefer it having on the same map just to eliminate the load times.
And I do agree with this one. Maybe 70% of this quest is loading screen lol.
Also I could be wrong on this one, It’s been a long time since I touched offline mode, but I think even with shorter load times, the feel doesn’t really change much.
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