Journey revamp - feedback / first impressions

Pugilist · 2023-03-05T13:01:33.151Z

Exactly.

Case in point. Beastmaster and Outrider…

Apparently I did not have the right journey step active when I picked up a colt, nor when I picked up a pet. Removing the pet and readding to my inventory resolved the captur a pet. But I did not get credit for the colt until I went and got another one.

Additionally, sometimes a craft step is satisfied when you craft, sometimes only when you add it to your inventory, which is inconsistent and unnecessarily annoying.

Lastly, has anyone unlocked the secret of feeding a pet? Nothing I do, directly giving food, putting down a feed box, giving them food in the pen, nothing will complete that step.

thurgond · 2023-03-05T16:10:24.295Z

I had to click on the food in the pet’s inventory to complete that step. Just placing the food in the inventory didn’t count, even when they ate one piece

Dakhma · 2023-03-05T16:32:33.574Z

A clear example of “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. They could’ve maybe changed the UI a bit and added the rewards per tier of steps completed and that would’ve been a much better change than what it is now.

Pugilist · 2023-03-05T21:29:38.162Z

thurgond:

I had to click on the food in the pet’s inventory to complete that step. Just placing the food in the inventory didn’t count, even when they ate one piece

Unfortunately, that did not work for me, but thank you for the suggestion.

Oduda · 2023-03-05T22:09:48.535Z

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So I highlighted two points on this just to represent a point I would like to bring up. In order to unlock the Tanner Journey you have to Unlock the Tanner Knowledge. Yet step 3 in that journey is to… Unlock the Tanner Knowledge. You know, the thing you have to do in order to unlock the journey itself.

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Now that I have Unlocked the Tanner Knowledge and activated the Tanner journey you will see that I have circled the first four steps. Why you may ask? Because I’ve already done all of these things. Why should I do them all again?

So, yeah I just don’t see why it was able to track step 3 (it automatically completed when I did step 2) but not track steps 1, 2 and 4.

Dana · 2023-03-06T10:26:39.382Z

Thank you everyone for your feedback

Passed this over to the rest of the team as we are always working on improving the world of Conan Exiles.

KamikazeHamster · 2023-03-06T20:24:08.089Z

I think from reading all of the above and more thought on my part, it seems the main issues with the new Journey system could mostly be resolved by introducing more “SKIP” options for steps you’ve already completed in your normal play. Whether the “SKIP” option (which I know Dennis brought up in the recent dev stream, I need to watch again now that I have more context) is a “SKIP” button next to steps you’ve already done or auto unlock of that step when completed even if that particular journey is not active or you’re a little out of order, or allowing multiple journeys to be active at once maybe (e.g. warrior, survivor, arnourer all at once) , it could all be resolved in a way that makes it feel less “railroading” and more immersive and explanatory. A lot of my frustration was because I felt I had to stick to one particular journey and not do anything else as my actions would not count if I didn’t have, for instance, the warrior journey active. So rightly or wrongly, I went around trying to get bark for the tanner journey, deliberately NOT killing anything (I’m normally an XP-craving murder hobo, lock up your rabbits and bambis!) and wondered why even though I had over 100 bark I still could not unlock the “get bark with a pick” step (turns out I had to empty my inventory of bark THEN get bark, which I am sure will get fixed). Problem is, my normal starting play style is "kick, dodge, climb, kill, get bark, kill, eat, drink, kill, go go go… doing heaps of random stuff and loving it. The new journey system stopped all that freestyle play for me and made me do chores. If I could do those things just in my normal play without going back to my chores list, they would not be chores anymore. Having more “SKIP” options solves that, and I would assume that’s being worked on so I’m hopeful the system will be good in the end. I’m sure a lot of what’s required is also just a tidy up as it’s no easy task to get a system like that working the way it’s intended at every step when there’s so much interdependency. Please give yourselves time to get this right, Funcom! I’d rather wait for a better experience than rush it.

Dakhma · 2023-03-06T21:28:51.285Z

KamikazeHamster:

it could all be resolved in a way that makes it feel less “railroading” and more immersive and explanatory.

This right here, not knowing all the things that a map offers is what makes a survival game. The journey of exploring and discovering things on your own. This new system just holds your hand in a very tight way which makes it feel more like a chore than a journey. I understand for the first 5-10 levels of the game but maybe add hints or clues instead of the full answer at later levels. (this is all of course from a new player’s perspective)

Bodin · 2023-03-06T22:04:19.142Z

Dakhma:

not knowing all the things that a map offers is what makes a survival game

Well, I sort of agree and sort of disagree. If we have the option to turn it on or off, I think it would help. Letting players have to option to play “with training wheels” or “without training wheels” would be a nice choice to allow players to customize the experience they want.

Maybe even default the settings to “on” for civilized game settings and “off” for barbaric game settings?

KamikazeHamster · 2023-03-07T08:28:16.108Z

Bodin:

Maybe even default the settings to “on” for civilized game settings and “off” for barbaric game settings?

I like it, I like it a lot!

Kacey · 2023-03-07T21:52:35.641Z

Journey system was broken. It failed to introduce new players to the core mechanics of the game, or give them realistic goals to pursue. This new system is a vast improvement, it just requires better implementation to streamline the Step progress.

Kacey · 2023-03-07T22:09:57.094Z

Conan isn’t a survival game. It’s a sandbox.

Dakhma · 2023-03-07T22:51:16.013Z

Conan Exiles

An Open World Survival Game set in the brutal lands of Conan the Barbarian!

I would say is both, but it is partially a survival game. Now if you are just memeing about the fact that the survival mechanics are nothing but a joke now then I agree with you.

KamikazeHamster · 2023-03-08T10:11:18.939Z

I agree the survival aspect has been turned right down, but you’re spot on, it’s a survival game. I’ve turned survival settings(and mods) right the hell back up on my server. My server is most definitely survival first, then sandbox.

Dakhma · 2023-03-08T14:18:12.550Z

Same here, I like increasing the hunger and thirst needs, I wish we had a slider for temperature.

KamikazeHamster · 2023-03-08T20:20:00.486Z

Would be good if adjustable server temp settings and REAL warm/cold clothing system was availlable in base game. So much more interesting. I use Severe Weather mod for that - and SandstormEx to add demon spawns to sandstorms. Every time there’s a sandstorm it’s hot as hell (Redeemed Silent Legion armour is not enough to prevent extreme heat without drinking or ice too), does damage even if wearing a mask and I get attacked by a dozen demon bats, undead hyenas and sand beasts. And there are hot and cold seasons, and you still need warming food or ice in extreme areas (and even not so extreme, like ordinary deserts or Mounds of the Dead) even in the best armour. It’s “pleasant” for us masochists

Dakhma · 2023-03-08T20:58:29.434Z

That sounds like hell on earth, exactly how the exiled lands should be.

Bodin · 2023-03-08T21:15:34.576Z

I wish such extremes would affect NPCs (human and animals) as well. Its kind of immersion breaking to have a sandstorm roll into Sepermaru and everyone going on like business as usual and animals just continuing their animations. People and animals should be taking shelter or at the very least giving some kind of reaction to ‘sand in your face’ whether that’s a raised hand to protect one’s face or an animal squatting down to ‘shelter in place.’

Lyston · 2023-03-08T19:17:11.406Z

I finally got around to typing this all out. This is a post about my impressions and feedback of the new Journey system.

The Good

I’ll begin with pointing out the new Journey’s strengths and advantages. These can be summed up as

Serves its role as a proper guidance for new players learning the basic mechanics of the game, including esoteric crafting processes, without needing to consult the wiki.
Hands out actual tangible rewards in the form of new, desirable recipes and raw resources.
Serves its role as things-to-do for players feeling lost or stuck in the sandbox.

The first one is the most important. For too long this game has been needlessly obtuse in even basic tasks, like “How do I make steel?” The process of needing Steelfire (from where? How much? With Iron Ores or Iron Bars?), then getting Brimstone and Tar, has always been something that requires a full explanation from a player or a wiki, then brute force memorization to stay remembered because it has never been intuitive or forthright. The same goes for Hardened Steel and Star Metal. Even after 1,000 hours of play, I right now can’t remember if Star Metal Bars require Hardened Steel Bars, Brimstone, or Black Ice (or some combination) to smelt. All I remember is that it is NOT just Star Metal Ore, and that there’s no indication anywhere about this. Only the consultation of a wiki and memorization. This also goes for the new (in my opinion poor design) decision to make star metal meteors only harvestable by a certain level of pick, while at the same time having a ridiculous bug where the most common high level pick (Acheronian) doesn’t work on the meteor at all. There is no indication, no clue, no anything suggesting this, making the game needlessly esoteric and require the wiki open on a second monitor for simple tasks. But now, we have the New Journey actively working on redressing issues like this, making clear the many dark and cloudy areas of the game without needing external intervention.

I cannot overstate how great the idea behind the new Journey is. Being able to play through the game naturally, without requiring a wiki consultation, is such a great and important change that I cannot fathom ever going back to the old Journey. This decision to rework it is 10/10, even though I know there are still many bumps to polish out as we go. I recently got 3 friends to play the game with me when 3.0 came out, and having to explain the process of so many needlessly mysterious details really showed me how important a proper guidance system like the new Journey is.

The second point, the new Journey reward recipes, excites me most as a long-time player. We all know how the second you hit max level, there is no incentive left to pursue the old Journey steps except boredom, and even less reason if you’ve done it all once before. Now there are cosmetics and improved goodies to give a collector incentive to go complete, for any new character. Great design choice.

The third point piggy-backs on the second. As a sandbox, players can easily get stuck on what they should be doing. More than that, the Journey serves as the main structure of content to complete for someone playing Conan Exiles as a singleplayer game. The new Journey is far superior to the old one in supplying solo player content. Once again, great design choice.

It Came With Problems

First and foremost I want to stress that the current Journey has many issues, both technical (bugs) and design. This is its first iteration of a whole new system, so I think you’re already expecting and prepared for both of these things and to shape it up as we go. I hope this post stimulates that a bit.

Bugs belong in their own report, so I will be focusing primarily on my issues with certain design decisions on the new Journey. Some things I think are design issues might also just be bugs, so please bear with me if I make that mistake.

I will structure the rest of the post by focusing on one issue at a time.

Design Issue - The Forgotten Bracelet Quest

This is my foremost issue with the new Journey. I don’t even know if there is a good solution to it, because a step-by-step Journey category for the game’s main quest utterly ruins the experience. Even more so it spoils things by the new system revealing all the steps of its current category. You knew this in the old Journey, which is why you had hidden Journey Chapters prior to the player reaching that Chapter. The new Journey also has this with hidden categories being unlocked, so there may be a way.

Now let’s look at why it is an issue. The old Journey handled the main quest perfectly. There is no guidance in this game pulling you into the main quest. You either stumble into parts of it without realizing, or you follow the “Destroy the Abyssal Remnant” Journey step and begin it properly. This is important. That old Journey step, without spoiling anything, told you exactly where to go to start the quest. See pic

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“The Dregs dungeon can be found on the western end of the river in the south.” This first step is the most important, because the reward for it is the Staff of the Triumvirate. The staff’s item description begins your quest, telling you where to go next “must be brought… The Tower of the Bat where… placed on the altar… awakened to share with us… only awakened by… their blood.”

This integration of game and quest, without some menu-based quest log or map marker, has been one of Conan Exile’s greatest strengths. The only problem? “Where’s the Tower of the bat?” The old Journey gently guides you, with a later step (without any obvious connection to the Dregs one) being

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You might avoid the Abyssal Remnant step entirely and do this first, discovering the altar and its bat guardian without knowing its purpose yet. Once you get the staff, you either did this step already and know where to go, or you get this step and now you know where to go.

This was great, simple without spoilers, excessive handholding, or abandoning the player.

Getting this far is important because once you craft the Awakened Staff of the Triumvirate, the staff gives you your further directions. It tells you to go to the Archivist in the Unnamed City. And it’s important that a player has the staff tell you that, because the devs have reworked that part of the map into an end-game zone that is too punishing and terrifying for a low level player to be willing to explore it without a literal demon telling you to. I even suggest adding a line to the staff’s dialogue that tells the players to just run past the legions of undead and bat demons, because that is presently the only real way of doing it. Likewise, there’s a Journey step vaguely pointing you there with

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And once a player gets to the Archivist, the whole world opens up. You get access to the Map Room, enabling fast-travel. You get the Archivist’s dialogue pointing you towards the Keystone and its components. You finish off by going to the Warmaker, who points you towards the Sandstorm Temple, which points you towards the Scourgestone pieces and shows you where to hand them in.

The main quest in Conan Exiles is done very well with the old Journey. Its not intrusive or handholdy, its guidance is rooted in the very game itself, and the gentle nudges you get from the Journey gets you the Staff and to the Archivist and Sandstorm Maniac, which you know you can revisit at any time to remind you of your goal. And after all that, if a player gets too lost, you have later Journey steps slyly nudging you towards interesting places like “Defeat the Barrow King” or “Destroy whatever dwells at the heart of the Volcano” (that just so happen to have items for the Keystone, but you don’t know that yet).

Now the New Journey doesn’t even get you to Step 1: Get the Staff, and even if you stumble across the Dregs accidentally (literally how?), you don’t know where or what the Tower of the Bat is for Step 2: Awaken the Staff. You never reach that minimum point where you have all the tools to consult to figure out the main quest on your own.

I don’t WANT a new Journey category for “Bracelet Breaker” spelling out everything for the player step by step, doing all the wrong things that Conan Exiles avoided with the old Journey. But I do have some ideas.

Have the early-game combat Journeys end with the player conquering the Dregs.
Have an early-game Cartographer Journey that includes, among other things, the Tower of the Bat and and Unnamed City (specifically the map room). Completing this early Cartographer unlocks the current “whole map” Cartographer.

Both of these give the player that first push onto the main quest, without revealing that the player is doing this FOR the main quest. Once a player gets to the Archivist with the Awakened Staff in hand, they have the tools to do the rest themselves.

Design Issue - Is Player XP still a reward?

This may be a bug, but the new Journey is abysmal at rewarding the player XP. If it’s a bug, I’d like to point out that completing steps or completing Journeys do not reward experience points that scale with player progress, nor scale with their current difficulty.

On one hand, I feel you still want Journeys to reward XP because if a player chooses to “skip” Survivor, they are rewarded with enough XP to instantly reach level 5. It seems clear. But later on, the steps that require Knowledge unlocked at level 17 give 100 xp (which may have been the crafting xp? So maybe it gave 0?).

For example, the Dismantler Journey unlocks at level 17 (with the Grinder). For the first step, “Put Bone into the Grinder,” I started at 212,300-something experience. I put bone in, completed the step. I checked my XP and it was still 212,300-something. I got less than 100 XP, when I need tens of thousands to level up.

So I thought that meant I need to complete a whole Journey instead of just steps. So I switched to Acolyte and completed that. At the time I already had Survivor, Survival Shelter, Warrior, Archer, Tanner, Alchemist, Armorer, Blacksmith, and Homesteader completed. I got 100 XP for each step, 400 total for completing Acolyte. That’s like 1% of my bar at just level 17. And Acolyte unlocked High Priest, whose steps are only end-game stuff requiring at least lvl 50 Knowledge to start, so I had no path forward.

This felt terrible. The reward for Acolyte, a humble Supply Materials, with a dead-end path forward was just spit in the face.

My beta character is currently around level 25 and I feel like there’s no good path forward for XP except grinding. Of the 6 paths forward for player xp,

Time, aka survival
Kill
Harvest
Craft
Journey
Exploration

Time is functionally useless, giving 1 XP per second when a player needs millions. Crafting was functionally removed with the new Construction Hammer system, since anything it builds gives 0 XP. Harvest, like Time, is functionally useless (except a few niche exploits, particularly sorcery harvesting or black ice). And now the Journey XP has become functionally useless.

All that’s left is “Killing” and “Exploring.” I think this harms the game significantly. Exploring is tedious and best saved for high or max level. And killing is just grindy repetition, even more so when humans still give functionally no XP. So you’re left with just grinding animals.

If this isn’t the intent, I want to point out my current character is in the mid-20’s level, and I have completed the Journeys for Survivor, Survival Shelter, Warrior, Archer, Tanner, Alchemist, Armorer, Blacksmith, Homesteader, Mountaineer, and Acolyte. I also have many steps done for Soldier, Rogue, Sharpshooter, Steelsmith, Mason, Potionmaker, and Dismantler. The rest are either too demanding or outright impossible (Knowledge-locked) to complete. I have no path forward for leveling right now except grinding animals. The new Journey’s current state does NOT satisfying leveling a player up as they advance.

Design Issue - Low Level Journey steps have High Demands

When I started the new Journey, the progression felt pretty good. Survivor went into Survival shelter. I did Warrior no problem, then Archer. Homesteader felt good after Survival shelter. But for the combat progression, after Warrior came Soldier and Rogue.

I want to point out, Soldier requires the player to reach lvl 10. It rewards the recipe for an iron weapon. The step AFTER lvl 10 is “Perform a heavy combo finisher.” That’s how low level it is. But the step after the combo is “Wear a piece of Heavy Armor.” This sounds so simple, but do you realize how much of a ridiculous leap that is? To make heavy armor, you need Iron Bars and Heavy Hide. That means at minimum you need to complete the entire Armorer journey, the entire Blacksmith journey, the entire Tanner journey, the entire Expert Armorer journey, AND you have to hike your lvl 10 character up to the Savanna or Highlands to kill (in your own words) “Animals such as Rhinos, Elephants, and Bears”

Have you tried taking a level 10 with an iron weapon and no heavy armor out to fight an elephant? Holy ship. This is a terrible leap. Even if you can do it, you shouldn’t HAVE to do it. And the reward is just an improved iron weapon. By the time I want to hunt a Heavy Hide animal I’d already have steel. The reward is not worth the demand. And the demand is way outside the scope of the level.

Rogue has the same problem. You have to be lvl 10, then you need to craft and use poison. Early poison only comes from Sand Reapers. That means hiking your lvl 10 up past Black Hand pirates to the highlands barrier, or hiking out past Sepermeru to the little hive. Both spots have World Boss queens ready to rip your dinky rogue to shreds, against already dangerous creatures spewing poison themselves. All for a pair of iron daggers that only do +2 extra damage. This is the exact same problem as Soldier. It is way too demanding and way too unrewarding for a journey that is supposed to be a tutorial for a lvl 10 new player.

In comparison, Sharpshooter that unlocked with Soldier and Rogue capstones with “Shoot an enemy in the head.” You don’t even have to leave noob river for that. THAT is how a low level journey should be completed.

Additionally, the journey for Blacksmith requires “Harvest Coal.” This step is really out of place here. First, coal isn’t necessary to smelting. You could just as easily require dry wood here (don’t). Second, there’s no coal around noob river, even though there is a fair amount of iron nodes. That means a new player has to roam well away from his base just to complete a step that has no relevance to what he’s doing or learning. That isn’t good design. It would be better with Steelsmith, where you’re already prompted to roam out in search for Brimstone (and you can teach the player crushing Coal for Tar at the same time, the other ingredient for Steelfire).

Design Issue - Unrewarding Journeys: High Priest

The new Journey rewards were the thing I was most excited about. In some ways, I still am, but what I’ve experienced so far has left a faint bitter taste in my mouth. I want to look at a few specifically.

Acolyte is an easy, low-level Journey. As mentioned above, it gave me functionally 0 experience, and its reward of Supply Materials is similarly nothing. But Acolyte unlocks the high goal of High Priest. Completing High Priest involves reaching lvl 50 for T3 altars, capturing T4 priests, and wastefully using up your T4 priests for the big summon. And the reward for all this is Incense.

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Keep in mind, Incense is a decoration long-since unlocked with lvl 30 Knowledge Potionmaker. Unlike the bug with Balanced Iron Poinards, this isn’t new or an accident. It’s a flavorful touch that comes with mid-tier alchemy. It’s been this way for a long time, and I’ve long-since enjoyed my little placeable in live.

What this means is that the grand reward for this incredibly wasteful, end-game Journey is literally nothing. And again, unlike Balanced Iron Poinards appearing in Knowledge, you better not remove Incense from where we already got it just to give it back for that Journey. That would feel even worse, and such a dinky, useless decoration is NOT rewarding regardless for such a lofty cost. The new Journey has been, and should be, about new rewards. And please, let those new rewards for high goals actually be rewarding. You’ve done well with other end game Journeys, but not this one.

Design Issue - Unrewarding Journeys: Mountaineer

Another problem is Mountaineer.

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This one bothers me for multiple reasons. The first issue is design. The journey tells you to craft Climbing Boots, and the very next thing it does it make those Climbing Boots useless and replace them with Spiderclimb Boots. It’s wasteful. The reward shouldn’t invalidate the steps. More than that, you don’t even get to USE the Climbing Boots it tells you to make before telling you to throw them away. Spiderclimb Boots don’t have a different, higher material cost. They require the same as the regular, just with a little extra. They aren’t a higher tier, they are a straight upgrade. To me this is bad design. You should have at least ONE mandatory step after crafting climbing gear that makes you use it. And the reward should be a higher tier (requires steel?), so the player has something to look forward to as an upgrade even if they can’t do it right now. On a related note, it bothers me that Spiderclimb Boots are ridiculously better than even epic Climbing Boots. That has long been an issue, with how useless the star metal-requiring epic is. With Spiderclimb flaunting +20 stamina over the worthless epic Climbing Boots (without even wasting a Fragment of Power), how could anyone ever buy and craft Improved Climbing Boots without feeling like a fool? You should really look into improving the “Improved.”

Mountaineer bothers me for other reasons too. As I said previously about the main quest, this level of handholding and spoiling the game’s secrets just feels, well, like you spoiled it. Fortunately, this has an easy fix. HIDE the journey “Mountaineer” until the player speaks with the Mountaineer. Erase the first step “Climb Fingerfang Rock.” Once the player learns the Knowledge Mountaineer (as its prerequisite), THEN unlock and reveal the Journey for it (making the player go “whoa, a secret unlock, how cool!”), with the first steps being craft the gear, then steps for something scenic to climb with the gear. THEN those Spiderclimb Boots feel like a reward well-earned, and players will style with them forever more.

Design Issue - Unrewarding Journeys: Improved Benches

The last Unrewarding reward I want to talk about is the Improved benches. When I saw “Reward: Improved Tanner’s Table” I could not contain my excitement. FINALLY. We FINALLY got an improved Tanner’s Table. High-fives all around!

I earned it. Then I craft it. And I hate it.

I want to remind you WHY you added improved benches. Bench thralls used to be useful. They reduced material costs and time. You decided, for reasons, to remove the thrall’s material cost discount and added “improved” benches that did such for us, along with specialized T3 benches that did extra cost reduction or extra time reduction, while thralls only reduce time. Now we finally have an Improved Tanner’s Table, and it doesn’t reduce cost. It only reduces time. And the cost for this time reduction is a massive bench that takes up more space than 3 Tanner’s Tables. When the only reward is time, having 2 (or even 3 with that footprint) working simultaneously is far better at saving time than one. And I could just throw in a thrall for recipes and better time anyways.

I’m really, earnestly disappointed by this. It just feels bad. It’s not efficient. It needlessly takes up so much space. Just look at this.

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I think I could fit 4 regular benches in the same footprint. If the only reward is time, it’s no reward at all. 2 benches working simultaneously saves more time for less space.

The other bench I am (was) incredibly excited for is the Improved Dismantling Bench. I had hoped it would have a (tiny) bonus to the return from dismantling. Now I’m not sure what to expect. Is it going to also take up way more space than two Dismantling Benches while only offering a slight time reduction that is worse than 2 benches working simultaneously? Please consider changing it, if so.

Design Issue - Repeating Steps (Repeating Steps)

I know others have voiced this too. It really is frustrating to be made to redo the exact same Journey steps again and again. I acknowledge that you at least put a trigger on, for example, just equipping a skinning knife if you’ve already crafted one to trigger completion. Same for opening benches you’ve already crafted.

But one that bothered me most was skinning itself. I did the Armorer journey, wanting to make light armor. You asked me to “Skin an animal.” So I killed and skinned all the animals around my base to get all the Hide I could ever need for my first set of armor.

Then I switched Journey to Tanner. And the first thing you ask me is “Skin a Corpse.” But now’s there’s no corpses anywhere around me anymore because I had JUST killed and skinned everything to do the exact same journey step you asked before. I had to run far outside my base to go find something, feeling frustrated the whole way that I was wasting my time because my inventory was already full from all the corpses I already skinned. And I hope you notice the motif of repeating myself here because no one likes hearing or doing the same thing over and over and over again. It’s frustrating.

There are multiple ways around this. Either let nigh identical steps count for each other across Journeys (because the player clearly already learned it the first time, and learning is the only reason you said was the reason for the strict progression system), or have the game remember it was done and give players another “skip” button when they are on a step they’d already done for a different Journey. You can keep the equip trigger for things like “Craft a Stone Skinning Knife” but anything repeated for harvesting or killing, let the player skip because it can become so frustrating if there’s nothing left.

Design Issue - Journey Hopping

Somewhat similar to the previous issue, I very quickly found it incredibly tedious having to constantly pop open my Journey screen and hop between Journeys to complete certain steps in a natural order (which is out of order compared to how the Journey presents it). From lvl 5 to lvl 15 I feel like I spent more time in menus than playing the game. Making this problem worse is having the means to do something thanks to progress in one Journey, but you can’t even hop to the other Journey to complete the step for it there because there are still prerequisite steps undone before it.

I don’t have a good solution to this, because it is tied explicitly to your refusal to let steps be done without the player intending to (even if the player did intend to). My best suggestion, with keeping veteran players in mind and the longevity of this game several years from now in mind, recognizing that a year or two from now players will have done all this new Journey stuff several times by then, you should allow an option (in the player’s Gameplay Settings, below “Auto Switch Next Journey”, so it’s slightly hidden to new players) that allows new Journey steps to be done out of order, regardless of active Journey. This would bring a huge sigh of relief to every experienced player, and especially to those in the future when they make new characters after having previously done the new Journey.

Conclusion - tl;dr

This is a huge post now, that I tried to keep focused and well-structured. To conclude it, I just want to summarize the main actionable points.

There should be some steps early on that guide the player into the Main Quest, specifically to the Dregs to get the Staff, to the Tower of Bats to awaken it, and to the Unnamed City for the Archivist. These steps should NOT be presented in a way that feels like a “Main Quest Journey”.
The Journey does not give appropriate XP anymore, beginning around lvl 20. Are players meant to only grind out killing animals to level up now?
Low Level Journeys are sometimes impeded by inappropriately demanding steps. Soldier should not require heavy armor. Rogue should not require poison. Blacksmith should not require Coal.
Acolyte and High Priest have no rewards, despite the very demanding and wasteful tasks required to complete them.
Mountaineer should be slightly reworked. The Journey should be hidden until a player unlocks it with the Knowledge Mountaineer, and there should be a reason to use the Climbing Boots you are required to craft before replacing them with Spiderclimb Boots. Also, Improved Climbing gear needs improvements to compensate.
Improved Benches as rewards, the thing I was most excited for, currently feel terrible. They take up too much space and give no discount, and their only effect is worse than multiple regular benches in the same space.
Repeating the same Journey steps is frustrating, especially those like harvesting (skinning) when you’ve already cleared out all the creatures near you for the last time you did that same step.
Journey hopping is tedious and frustrating, and it is worse for players in the future who will have already done the new Journey on previous characters. Consider adding an option to complete steps out of order, preferably buried in the player’s Gameplay Settings next to “Auto Switch Next Journey.”

That’s a wrap. If you’ve read through this, thank you for listening.

-Lyston

lanceromancer · 2023-03-09T04:01:04.487Z

Haven’t played it yet. But totally agreed about the need for the game to intuitively tell you how to perform basic tasks like crafting Hardened Steel. The game should not require wiki use at all. I wonder how I’d even have discovered how to make basic items without the wiki. Endless experimentation doesn’t seem that exciting.