I made this account just to post this.
I’ve played the game for a long time now, and recently started a private server for a couple of friends.
I’ve done pretty much all content before, but they never experienced the “story” and that’s what they were more interested in.
They are very happy with, well, pretty much everything else the game has, but a couple steps into the “story” and disappointments started pilling up. And when I thought about that I realized that, since I’ve done it before, I don’t care much about it anyway, nor do people who like to do awesome builds or PVP.
Yet, it was something that could be fixed rather easily and by all rights should have been fixed years ago.
It really hurts to hear my friends go “WOW” when they place the Staff atop the Tower of Bats and then go “aww…” when they realize it bugged and played a line it shouldn’t. And I wince inside because I know there’s even worse coming up.
For starters, how are Exiles supposed to know they should start with the Dregs? Well, there’s a Journey pointing them there. And yet, before doing journeys, people will explore. My first boss in this game was the Witch Queen. I just stumbled on her, with Iron weapons. I only met Razma many hours later, and did not make the connection that she was the women I fought all those hours ago. Her dialog came off as insane random rambling without the context.
Suggestion: place more things leading to the Dregs. Notes you find on exile camps, ghosts or NPC’s that talk to you. And by Crom, lock the door on Xel-Ha temple behind something (suggestion on next point). There’s no PVP or progression reason to visit it (except for Lemurian feat) so there’s no reason to let new players wander in there.
Then comes the Staff of the Triumvirate. Not only a excellent idea to guide players, it also plays a part in the story! How cool! But then… it’s beyond glitched. Right when you awaken it, it spews the 2 lines it’s supposed to and… a third it should only do after you visit the Archivist. Worse: it’s supposed to start giving you lines to guide you to every artefact AFTER exhausting the dialog with the Archivist. This is also bugged. 50% of my friends managed to get these lines to activate, the other half didn’t.
He also has no line for the Shinning Trapezohedron. Or rather, he has one but since the character does not have a prompt with a question, there’s no context and when he replies “This is a dangerous question, best not continue” the player will wonder what the hell is going on.
It DOES make sense why he wouldn’t tell you, but his reply seems utterly inane and disconnected from the rest. Worse still when it comes to the Scourgestone. He tells you it was broken. And then… nothing.
I’m actually struggling to find a way to tell me friends how you’re suposed to figure out where the scourgestone parts are besides “check the wiki, lol”. I don’t think there’s a signle in-game piece of content pointing you in the right away for any of the three parts. Best you could do without checking the wiki, is just keep killing stuff until it drops.
Spoiling the rest for people who haven’t done this content.
It’s absolutely BRILLIANT that you got a line in where the staff taunts you and reveals itself a servant of the Snakes that undermined and destroyed the Giant Kings Empire from within. It’s extra cool when he not only references Kull, but also threatens YOU. “You will be cleansed!” he yells! And… nothing happen. That is, if you even bothered to bring the staff with you to check for another line. When I did the Volcano for the first time, I left the staff home (it was being used as a prop for my Dancer-stage). So, no line at all. Worse still, I got the line AFTER returning home. AFTER killing every Snake there. The line would work so, SO much better if it was uttered in the Volcano . Worse still, some of his revelations (making the High Priest curse his own son) come off… out of the blue. The lore surrounding Tyros is so interspaced and spread out that I only pieced it together after consulting the wiki for the 2 lore pieces and couple journals I missed. Same goes for the Stone of circles betrayal. At least the Sandstorm hijinks is better understood by the players.
Fixing the staff is actually far, FAR easier than it would seem. You know how you got to place the staff on the Tower of Bats and activated with Demon Blood? Heck, even the altar has a crafting panel telling you the recipe. Do the same everywhere else, use one ingredient that is thematic.
For instance, Xel-ha could be locked, but have a staff opening next to it. You’d place the staff, throw in some Black Lotus and voila, it opens.
Behind the scenes, the Staff would be consumed as an ingredient for another staff (essentially a new item) that has a different line. So there would be 10 or 12 different Staff items, each with their own lines (no possibility of bugging out with the wrong line) and from the point of view of the player, he would not notice anything. Best of all: you can play a singular voice line from the altar when the recipe is concluded (like how workbench’s play sounds when recipes are finished) and it’s a voice line about the boss/dungeon you’re about to do.
In the arena, placing the staff near the plinth would summon the boss.
You could open the High Priest dungeon with it.
And by the end of the game:
The player places the staff in that circle-arena before the Snake people, to open a door, but then the staff plays that last line, and rather than opening the door, a bunch of snake people ambush the players. The staff disappears, and the door can be opened by a key carried by one of the snakes. Bonus: have the Snake High Priest wield the staff in the final fight.
Next up is the ScourgeStone. Boy, that comes out of nowhere. Think on it: people have to scavenge 3 pieces (with no hint to their location) and then… what? One of my friends did the entire story and tried sticking the pieces on the Chaosmouth. It seems simple when you’ve done it, but for new players: nothing tells them that they HAVE to assemble the Scourgestone. Worse still, they might be brilliant and realize that “follow the sandstorm” means. And stumble upon Petruzo. And Petruzo will tell them where to find the stones and to assemble them. Which is a lie: you have to bring them back, Petruzo is the one who assembles it.
Sugestion: Petruzo should direct players to Floatsam, where the players kill a boss that drops the first piece. Shamalla then should tell the players that the pirates sought to use the stone to summon winds and sail away, but after a mutiny, half the pirates stole two of the pieces and went to the desert.
The Black Hand camp should contain notes and optionally a prisioner in a cage talking about a group that went north: they found a passage and decided to go there. Essentially, a third group that double-backstabbed the Black hand.
In the Passage, alongside the scourgestone, the player should find notes about this group (they’re all dead) telling the player where they came from.
Why do things these away? Because rather than requiring people to meet Petruzo to get the location of the Scourgestone, they now have Petruzo, Flotsam, Blackhand Camp and The Passage as 4 locations that mutually reference each other. Any player who simply decides “Never been to the jungle, let’s explore” will casually stumble upon these notes and be effortlessly pointed in the right direction.
Bonus: have the Staff open the Windswept ruins with blood from Sandbeasts (as pointed above).
Third point: Tyro’s and the Silent Legion.
There’s some things I know are unreasonable to ask. Would I like to have actual Legions of silent Skeletons patrolling around his keep? Yes. Do I think that’s easy to implement? No.
But the Tragedy and betrayal that happened in the north are so hard to piece together that most players will flat out not pick up on it. It will be just a scary dude in heavy black armour.
Same goes for the Circle of Swords. Most likely, when the player reaches it, it’s been hours since he spoke to the Warmaker. And if he hasn’t found the High Priest yet, they won’t understand what the hell is going on there.
Suggestion: the tundra should be the more civilized part of the game. As in, you need more camps and NPC’s with friendlies in there with stories and lines for the player. Camps near the silent Legion keep, camps near the Circle of stones. Throw in a merchant or two, and a scholar or treasure hunter who can dump a pinch of lore on the player. It either clarifies or refreshes the player so they can understand what’s going on.
And please, PLEASE, for all that’s unholy and debauched in Derketo’s name: fix Telith island. That place should shock players and make them do a double take, but without the ghost and the singing, people will simply see the Journey notification pop-up and go “Uhhh…?”, open the Journey screen, read it and be even more confused.
Fourth point: I personally recommend to my friends that, before going into the volcano, they do the optional dungeons now. Warmaker Citadel, Wine Cellar, Dagon and Jhebal.
And when I do, someone will always ask “Wait, how were we supposed to figure these existed?”
Warmaker and Jhebal, okay, you can easily stumble on them through exploration.
But both the Wine Cellar and Dagon are “here’s this conspicuous object that does not seem relevant in any way. Press E to enter a dungeon that puts main-quest dungeons to shame”.
Wine Cellar is even worse: the Khari are just “dropped” on the player, and for people who do not know the lore well, it’s race that pops in, and pops out after doing that content.
Jhebal’s is quite okay as a “secret”, but it’s a shame because it’s visually amazing.
Suggestion: First, lock the Silent Legion Keep with a portcullis. Defeating the boss in the Warmaker citadel gives the player a Horn they can blow. Give it a description telling them it’s used to announce the arrival of a general at the Silent Legion keep. So now, Silent Legion is literally “gated” behind Warmaker, and if you place the “camps” I outlined in the previous point, one NPC can easily direct the player to Warmaker Citadel. “The gates only open for generals and nobles, but the last general died in Warmaker citadel…”
Have a camp of “Hounds of the North” in the Mounds of the dead, a rival group of the “Dogs of the Desert” with notes detailing how they want to steal their potions and invade Jhebbal’s dungeon. Place it close to the High Priest tomb, and place an item on a table there that can open the Barrow King tomb (instead of Demon Blood). So now, while doing the main-quest, the players stumble upon a hint to Jhebal’s dungeon.
Lastly: block off the entries to the volcano. One is blocked by an ancient Kari gatehouse that opens with a key you get from the wine cellar. You can explore a small portion of the gatehouse and find a map, detailing a refuge to their hidden city in the south (don’t mention Sepermeru, I don’t think it was buildt when the Kari were around).
The other entrance is blocked by a Lemurian temple. To enter it, you need to carry an item relating to Dagon. Once more, have another map, detailing where Lemurian cultists would depart from to reach Dagon’s worshipping place.
These items are not consumed on use, they simply open the door, temporarily while carrying them.
And please, make the entrance to the WineCellar and Dagon a little more noticeable. A make-shift docks with several boats and notes (couple of Lemurian guards) and a sort of mine-shaft garded by Setite guards in Sepermeru for instance.
So, after all this, the player has gathered all the parts, done the optional dungeons and arrives at the Chaosmouth. The staff is gone and can’t guide you anymore, you’re about to end your journey.
You know where I’m going next, we all do, even Funcom probably knows. And we all do, because it’s something that has been repeated adnauseum on this forum.
Please Funcom, you can ignore everything above this point, but at least fix this.
The Servant of the Ring.
We all know how broken it is, some of us have even summoned it manually to fight it and get the journey, so let me jump straight to the suggestion.
When the player places all 6 artefacts on the altar, they’re locked and consumed. The keystone is made, but alas: the archivist was wrong. While the artefacts are enough to created the keystone, it has no power, and it cannot activate. But when a player crafts it, a ghost appears next to the Altar.
It’s Thoth-Amon! It cackles and taunts the player: you have strength, but no “real power”. Then proclaim that they wish to bargain. The keystone for our freedom. Come to the Snake temple in the Unnamed city, place the keystone on the alter and we’ll bargain…
This is, of course a trap. The player has to place the keystone on the altar inside the temple (simply make it act like a chest) but when they do, a green barrier appears at the entrance and the Servant of the Ring spawns in. Thoth-Amons voice cackles through the air, laughing at us, and then crying in anger when we kill his servant. The Servant of the Ring doesn’t even need to be a spectacular boss or anything, the ambient corruption on that fight already makes it a tense moment. Heck, you could simply bump his health to 15k right now as he is (with no extra attacks), spawn in 6 more undead around him and it would be an entirely appropriate boss fight to end the game on. Not spectacular, but serviceable.
When the servant dies, Klael dies outside too, so that when the player leaves the Temple, he sees the Warmaker, the last of the Giant Kings, finally dead, joining his kin (Implying that the servant killed him before getting in as the Giant Kings were no longer useful for Thoth Amon).
The player can now use the essence from the Servant and activate the Keystone he recovered from the altar to remove his bracelet.
Or rather, and here’s the final fix: when you use the keystone, the game doesn’t outright end. The bracelet changes colour to blue.
If the player wishes to keep playing, this is a neat detail to distinguish him among other players has someone who has done the story. Kind of like the White Robes in the game “Journey”.
This let’s you keep the bracelet (so you can remove it to kill yourself).
Anytime he wishes though, he can head south, through the desert and continue. As soon as he passes the Ghost Barrier, the normal cutscene plays (bonus detail you could add: when you pass the barrier, the bracelet opens and falls on the sand).
I would also add a credit scroll here, with some music. Come on Funcom, this is the best time for you guys to brag a bit and let your names out there, use it!
Main reason is that this effectively lets the players finish all journey steps and still continue playing. And then end it anytime they want.
Now, I know there’s 3.0 coming around the corner, and I know everyone is busy either getting hyped, or trying to contain their hype to avoid disappointments. I know there’s a lot of work ahead for the team hot fixing all the problems that will surely pop up whenever a big update gets dropped on the player base. And I am also very aware that 90% of the player base plays this game to build cool forts and PVP. But please, remember that once upon a time, you guys actually managed to write a good story, with some twists and shocking revelations, the fall of an empire, betrayal, love and the oldest grudge in history. And some of us really liked it.
If nothing in this list is doable in the near future or at all, then I’ll use the opportunity to ask that you send a message to your writers and artists: “You guys did an amazing job, and I loved every bit of it.”
PS: when sorcery? I’m throwing fire-orbs at my friends and calling myself “Tim the Powerful Sorcerer” but they mock me and claim it’s not really magick