I also turned off Draconian quest around Level 10 and haven’t looked back.
One thing I have done to keep it interesting (and fairly close to Draconian Quest settings) is to not buy Weapons/Armor at the shop (unless it’s linked to a new costume change) and just craft everything, which has helped with some of the ramp up.
I would actually go the other way - you want a challenge? Craft nothing, and only use what you can buy from stores. Items you can craft tend to be better than stuff you buy, especially if you get +2 or +3 versions of them.
So this actually ties into one of my weirder gaming hangups overall. I really want to experience all the story/character content in the games I buy, insofar as that’s possible. I don’t need to crack the tops of leaderboards or minmax achievements, but I really want to see, for instance, the best/most complete ending, get to use all the coolest gear, etc.
Since a lot of games lock good endings and gear behind really tedious difficulty (I am extremely, laughably bad at videogames), this is often very frustrating for me. It gets worse with games that have an endless march of DLC and post-release content, to the point that I’d rather not play at all and just wait for a finalized Gold Edition or whatever eventually.
With DQ, I look forward to marching into the final boss fight with all the sickest Platinum Diamond Megaswords and Blackstar Hyperplate Armor, obliterating him/her/it, and seeing a really sappy sentimental cutscene play out. I fear that in order to do so, I need to explore every single crack, crevice, and corner, speak to every NPC after every single major story beat just in case their dialog changes and they get a new quest to offer me, etc.
It’s kind of obsessive and very dumb :(
(and to the point of the ongoing discussion, it’s probably going to make the game very easy for me, as I’m not currently trying very hard to steer around enemies while I’m digging into every single nook and cranny on the map)
Heh. Final Fantasy X has a character like that too (Auron). And on my first playthrough, I sidelined him (because of other reasons), so the game was much tougher.
I want this so badly. I know you made it up, but it sounds fucking rad.
Someday when I live out my game designer dreams and remake Sorcerer King in my own made up dark low fantasy setting but lean as hard as possible into Stardock’s unspoken goal of making “Star Control, but fantasy” (and cut out all the messy Elemental DNA that crufts up the core design), I’ll make sure to include it just for you, Scott :)
You can have my spare set in the garage!
I don’t find that weird. Or perhaps I should rephrase to say, if that’s a pathology then I share the disorder. I am a thorough completionist in most games I play. Especially if I get absorbed, then I really want to dig in. But I guess most people probably do move on from games more frequently than I do.
I’ve always thought that was the point of RPGs in particular. Whether I get wiped 3 or 15 times on a boss is not the point for me, it’s how things work out for the characters.
Exactly. When it clicks for me, its why I game. I want to love the world and stay in the world as long as I can. It was a joy to replay Fallout 3 and find stuff I missed the first time (one of which was Dogmeat, how the heck I did that, I have no idea).
Exactly.
That said, if I get wiped fifteen times I’m going to be really, really frustrated! :)
I don’t mind if I get wiped. I mind if I get wiped and I must repeat the last hour of gameplay/leveling just to get to the boss because there’s no option to save before facing the boss proper. And yes, that happened yesterday. :(
Wait, did they get rid of DQ’s death system? In the old games, on death you just wake up at the church missing half your gold, but still keep all the experience and loot you’ve found. So even if you wipe on a boss, by the time you fight your way back there you’ve probably gained a level or two and can do better.
Well, in this case, it loads the last save (or more precisely, it gives you an option between the last 3 saves, be they manual or autosaves). So everything you did after the last save is lost. At least that was the case in both my wipes so far, but the first one was easier to handle since the save point was much closer in terms of time and distance to the fight than this last particular one.
And when the boss is in the end of a long cave filled with enemies everywhere, it’s… complicated. Granted, you can use the Dark Souls technique of running avoiding enemies to shorten the time, but it’s still a hassle that could have been easily avoided.
Actually, only the bottom option loads an auto save (preserving your gold). Loading the top option restores (teleports) you to the last save point you were at, with no progress lost whatsoever (items found, crafted, looted, xp gained, etc.), but you lose 50% of the gold you carry (that’s what banks are for). I can’t recall the middle option well enough to remember how it’s worded.
Hm.
One thing I noticed watching the Tim video I linked earlier, his load times are… very long. He said he was on the PS4 and I’m used to the load times on PC so if anyone is not sure which format to get this for, I highly recommend the nearly non-existant load times on PC.
Here is someone playing PC, I set the time in the link to just before they load into a city:
It’s about 3 seconds.
Here is a load time on PS4, granted going to a different city but I suspect that’s matters little.
22 seconds.
I am sticking with Harder Enemies as that causes me to grind at times which makes the game last longer…I love looooong games so I’m happy with that.
Oooooooh, I see. I might try that one at some point. Thanks! I didn’t get that at all reading the descriptions, so yeah, it’s weird. But fine. Thanks!
Im playing on PS4 and the load times are not as quick as a pc would be but still perfectly acceptable and faster than what appears to be happening in that play through. I wonder if he’s still using his internal drive? My external SSD / hybrid thingee is fast enough for most things.
I am on PS4, too, and the load times are fine. PC loads look a lot better but I enjoy this more in a horizontal postion.
Very possible - though not everyone has such a setup, and to those using the stock internal drive, I thought it worth mentioning. Heck, when I put a fast drive in my PS4 (non-Pro, couple years back) I shaved time off my load times, but not a lot. Probably 5 seconds or so. I was grateful for it of course, 5 seconds is 5 seconds, but worth keeping an eye on.