Gammaboy45
Empress of Light
Sorry if I was a bit unclear, my general issue is just how the early learning curve is unsatisfying as a result of the restrictions. I was suggesting the mod wasn't railroaded *quite* enough, in that I found myself spending more time figuring out what my objective really was. I found my first geothaumic surveillance system half way across the map, and every moment leading up to there was a trudge. Perhaps opening things up a bit before throwing barriers at the player or ensuring that the "mana is needed to progress, you need to find shards first" part was communicated well before you cleared the first one would have saved a bit of confusion. I think giving the player a hand-crafted tutorial of sorts to give them a better impression of how to advance would go a long way. Not saying you need to outright tell them how to play, but just a few mechanical pointers.
I didn't know how to get repair kits for a good while, so I was stuck using the mad ranger for several hours. I think the biggest problem is moreso the frequency of ruined items. I find the accessory slot limitations do a substantial amount to add progression to accessory loadouts, and with the 50% failure chance there's just not enough repair kits to go around when every item you find requires a few to be worth anything but the temporary utility.
As for npcs, the merchant didn't give me a *ton* of options. That's assuming I could hold on to my money for long enough. Yet another part where trying this pack on normal might've served me better.
I was suggesting that the limited mana brought down early game mage as an option. I also saw the major buff to magic, and I do think it makes sense- my complaint in this regard was not that magic was unusable or even entirely unviable, but that early game magic is even more hindered by the mana progression and as such adds to the issue of not finding a lot of alternatives to the ranger early on. Both the revolver and higher tier gem staves end up being about equally unreliable for early game.
I might have been better off switching to a bow, all things considered. I don't think ore was especially difficult to find, and I do think it's well balanced. Getting a bow is not difficult, so maybe I'm mostly to blame for my troubles.
I don't believe I made mention of this either, but I also found the orbs a bit tedious. I do like what they do and the general concept, although I think there's a bit too many colors. Not only does it mean you have to carry a *lot* of them around, but more colors = less likely you are to have one on hand. This makes sense, but I think it comes at the expense of the worth that each orb brings. I think maybe a part of it is just the rng behind it that I find a bit frustrating. You don't know whether you can make good use of a colored orb because all colors are equally useful but also equally lacking in identity. I think I'd find the system a bit less obtuse if either there were either less colors but the orbs were slightly less frequent or each orb color only has its uses in specific environments. For instance, white orbs are only really useful in giving you access to spaces that generated in the surface forest or beach biomes while green orbs are required for clearing any part of the jungle. In that sense, they each have a specific use but you still only get a substantial amount of them with more exploration. I understand that the colors are meant to keep orbs from trivializing the "no digging" restriction, but I think a better balance could be struck in some way.
I don't want to give off the impression that I'm not enjoying the pack at all. I do like the sense of discovery (just found out what the RED meter meant) and I think it picks up a bit once you break the second barrier. I just felt like the early game tried all that it could to push me away from getting to this point, and while I'm not entirely sure what fixes or changes I'd make I think the progression for a metroidvania adventure mode should start off a bit faster.
EDIT: also, is there any convenient way to do away with the cursed bones? They like to spawn in enormous groups, and make accessing some areas virtually untraversable. That's not neccessarily a bad thing, as long as there's some way to deal with them. I personally think destroying these could be a good use for orbs, if another means doesn't already exist.
