Story Skip, Or I Take My $$$$$ Elsewhere

General
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I can be a “whale”. I can spend thousands of hours playing a game I love. I CANNOT suffer through the agony of creating another character again. I don’t want to hear, “…but you can do a dungeon at level 27…” or “Monoliths, dude!” again. Neither of those provide the extra passive points, nor do they unlock idol slots. D3 and D4 require you to play the story ONCE in your ENTIRE LIFE, then you get to jump into Adventure Mode. I asked a famous LE streamer about a story skip, and he said, “How can you skip a story that hasn’t even been finished yet?” Here’s my answer: “THE GAME HAS RELEASED IN IT’S 1.0 VERSION.” That means any story after that is considered DLC by me. 1.0 means you’re DONE, unless you want to add extra shit or keep patching problems. 1.3.1.0 and the story isn’t done? I SUFFER through 9 chapters, now 10, and there are MORE??? I’d play this game until my fingers bled if I could start a character and just bounce around, here and there, do Monoliths, etc. like D3, with everything scaling to my level. I have 200+ hours in this game and couldn’t tell you what the story is about if you put a gun in my mouth, other than “time travel”. Is there a technical problem? Is it too hard for the devs to fashion a new mode? Diablo 3 did it in 2014. Maybe you guys could call Blizzard. I’ll pay for the f*cking phone call. I want to make a Stygian Coal Lich, a Devouring Orb Void Knight, a Meteor Sorcerer, a Werebear Druid, a 100% Minion Necro. Will I? Not with previously mentioned gun in my mouth. Getting to endgame is like getting my temperature taken with a pine cone. I have dozens upon dozens of other things I could “complain” about, like the horrendous look of awesome items on your actual character, the lack of BASIC transmog (yeah, I know, corporate greed), etc., but I’m not going to. I have dozens of pages of notes on things that could be improved, notes on ideas, feedback, things I could share as an experienced gamer (an Atari 2600 the week it released, a Ti 99-4/A and Hunt the Wumpus, I even wrote my own games in B.A.S.I.C for my Commodore 64), but I’m going to keep my ideas and my overflowing wallet to myself until this singular issue is addressed.

To all the sweat lord try-hards, I will completely ignore your comments. What I am typing here is for the devs, not you. I will report your comments directly to my trash can. Save your opinions, I don’t want to hear them. I am not asking for a response from anyone. I want the devs to know that I would throw THOUSANDS of dollars at this game if it didn’t anger me to my very core. Oh, I buy the games, DLC, and cosmetics for my entire family. I buy MULTIPLE copies of everything. Woven Legend? Yep, bought more than one. When I am happy and buy something, I buy BUNCHES of them.

Edit: An idea popped into my head while spell-checking: Let me PAY to skip the story forever. $$.

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Dungeons do.

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If you are playing offline, you can duplicate your save file and rename it to characterslot_2, open the savefile in notepad and change char name to something else and then just respec the char keeping all the progress of your original.
Hell you can even change mastery (for free) and class also I think by editing the savefile.
You can also use all these cosmetics you are bragging about buying in offline now.

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It wouldn’t be so bad if you are able to do dungeons beat last boss and have the skill points and idols unlocked .
I have done that but have only 8 idols sloths plus map is not open so iI have to track thru trying to find one .
for no reason really it doses sucks the Fun out of things .

diablo 3 had the right idea after there expan pack you didn’t have to level by story

And it was better for it so when you felt like doing the story it was just better

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First off holy hell format ur wall of text

Second incorrect dungeons do in fact give u passive and idol slot when u complete them for the first time on a character. It doesnt give u all of them currently it does tho give u a majority of them. Leaving u with having to do 2 or 3 side quest for the rest

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GTFOH with this crap. Level scalling is garbage. It makes everything feel the same. Take a look at what happened to cyberpunk 2077. Before the 2.0 update adding in level scalling made all mobs feel exactly the same. Before that update u had wanted enemies that were a way higher lvl than u especially in a new game. Now u can kill them with the starting pistol u get. On top of that before 2.0 u had to use the scanner to find out thier lvl as well as weakness or what they can resist. 2.0 made scanning obsolete.

Take think it was oblivion as another example before lvl scalling was added there where dungeons and other side zones u could enter very very early in the game at lvl say 2 and u would be meat with lvl 10 or 12 mobs. Now u can just enter those areas at lvl 1 and run those areas.

Lvl scalling does more harm to the health of a game than it does help it… its trash game design

Lvl scalling also just makes u weaker with every lvl u gain due to how it scales which is the opposite of a non lvl scalling system where ur always getting stronger with each lvl. Lvl scalling also removes the ability for players to say jump to an area lvl 40 zone at lvl 20 if they feel they are strong enough to handle higher lvl content

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Dude the way u wrote this isnt going to get the devs to even consider ur feedback.

Its all very demanding vs stating the problem and then giving a solution to it

It also sounds like a pissed off post as well. Not a good way to get the attention of the devs

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Go and take it elsewhere then. Have fun!

Nobody sane wants slob like level scaling which will be with a 99% chance executed like utter garbage.

Secondly… your premise about the passive points is wrong. You get idol slots from the dungeons specifically and the quests along the way are also set up distinctly in a way to allow skipping with barely any time investment needed.
Yes, it can be improved… but besides the utterly horrendous designed D3 method it’s the fastest existing in the genre.

D3 and D4 are also counted as the utter bottom-tier of quality in relation to itemization progression and longevity of the genre… it’s counted as ‘sub-par’ by people… not without reason the meme ‘PoE good, Diablo bad’ has sprung up and held its position since D3 came out.

As for the release: Yes, that point I agree with you, EHG did crap… they gotta make up for it. Has jack to do with a skip though :stuck_out_tongue:

And if you ignore the comments… showcases that the discussion is on ‘clown-level’ from your side. :joy:

As for paying to skip the story?
Piss off is all I can say to that. Blunt and direct. Pay-to-progress should be legally forbidden is my position. Pure predatory business practice.

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Not the first time we are having this conversation, but I still totally disagree with that.

Level scaling is the only way to have a reasonably free to explore game, that you can play the way you like. If zones follow a level progression, the game can only be extremely linear.
And people like me visiting every nook and cranny, and doing all side quests, always end up stupidly over-leveled. Not fun.
Any game that wants to have the letters RPG in their genre description should be level scaled in my opinion, no matter if the first letters are A, C, MMO, J, others…

However, I would grant you a few point:

  • As LE is specifically designed to have the most linear campaign possible, with as little side quests as possible, scaling wouldn’t change much.
  • “Everything scaling to my level”, as formulated by the OP, and illustrated by your examples, is indeed bad design. Everything should adapt to your level, not blindly stick to it. If you want an especially dangerous dungeon, make it lvl+5. A boss roaming around, supposed to be killed by a group? Lvl+20. You see what I mean.
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Name a game which has level scaling that feels great to play in terms of progression of combat.

And if so then at least showcase the distinct aspects needed for level scaling to actually make a positive rather then a net-negative (the common) impact.

I know there’s viable options… but given EHG is really bad in terms of progression design… be it itemization, be it balancing be it any form of positioning of content even… I wouldn’t even let em touch it with a long long pole.

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Sacred 1 & 2 did level scalling well. There were caps & floors so at any level you had a variety of zones you could wander round. If things were too easy you could go to a zone where the level floor was higher than your level, if you just wanted to mindlessly explode things you could go to a zone where the cap was lower than your level.

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Which is a fair argument, so we’re already starting to adjust it accordingly, and decently so!

The level scaling of Sacred 1 & 2 was basically a ‘This area stays relevant a little longer… but still not permanently’.
A fine method! Has limits but works.

The same can be said about systems like ‘No Rest for the Wicked’ which has a fixed level adjustment. Old areas which are bypassed get upgraded as you finish quests. The factions you reduce to rubble aren’t holding back the other stuff which then moves in. That is a good feeling system as it has meaning.

But the sad fact is that most game devs have no clue how to handle any form of level scaling decently and do it similar to Bethesda where you kill a rat at level 1 and level 100 and it’s still a threat… you are deprived of your feeling of progression.

As you’ve mentioned, the returning option to places where you’ve the ability to mindlessy slaughter everything is very important to include. Which inherently does reduce the amount of places which stay viable as the game progresses.

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How about the option of giving players agency in the scaling?

Whether it be a game mechanic or a simple slider or switch.

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The important part is to hold areas distinct and fitting for the stage of playing… even if it falls out of favor for not providing anything good.

Generally yes with the player agency… but it’s to be done really really carefully, otherwise you’ll get a system like with ‘Chronicon’ where any scaling just feels generic and boring. ‘Just the same with bigger numbers’ is a prime way to loose people over time.

But could work if EHG does make a great execution of it… which makes me thing it won’t work :stuck_out_tongue:

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This is worse than a Reddit post. Keep your money and go buy some nappies with it.

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This is the first time in months I’ve been embarrassed for someone else. My goodness. I hope you’ve already taken your money somewhere else. On the other hand, I feel sorry for everyone in every other game you play. Holy shit.

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Just to throw my 2 cents in. I was torn about BL4 after my experience with BL3 and TTWL. Now I heared I have to play the story only once and after I finished it I can start new chars with the story finished. At this point I’m sure I’ll buy BL4 because the gameplay looks neat and suffering through a bad campaign or story line only once seals the deal.

I don’t care about LEs campaign at all. I just do it like in almost every other H&S game. I don’t like Diablos adventure mode that much either but I think having an option to skip all the campaign content and to make skillpoint and idol slot benefits account wide would help if there was an optional way to level up outside of story or dungeons.

Make an option to start normal monos at level 1 with new toons while they level up the zones the further you go out from the start point after you played the whole story once from A-Z each season. Something like that but I care to little to come up with an good idea and just run the story down brainafk.

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I am someone who loves the story. But I do not want to play it with every alt. We need some way to skip to monos.