Trials of Chaos QOL Feedback

This post pertains ONLY to the player QOL experience during the Trial of Chaos, and nothing to do with balance. Having said that, I hope the following elements of the area can be improved for better gameplay experience.

Trialmaster should not hard pause the player character when preparing the room. At the start of "kill all", escort and "Capture the Soul Core" rooms, the Trialmaster immobilizes the player character to do their summoning animation. This is a jarring and unpleasant experience, from a player perspective. Just as you would not rip player agency and control for cutscenes, the same should be applied here. A better solution would be to deactivate the switches and elevators, while allowing the player character to move freely.

Elevator pressure plates should be more prominent. The pressure plates on the elevators should be made more distinct from the rest of the platform. Currently, the coloration makes it blend too much with the surrounding platform, whereas you need to step onto the plate in order to activate the mechanism. Please don't shy away from increasing the contrast of the pressure plate, much like how similar ideas are implemented in elevators throughout the Souls series.

"Capture the Soul Core" maps should be revised. In my first experience of this "game mode", I felt hard stuck for a good 10 minutes. Much like (almost) every other trial room, I descended the elevator to kill the enemies. However, the room design actually wanted me to retrace my steps back up the elevator to retrieve the first Soul Core. This is unintuitive and counter to the flow of other rooms, thereby making this layout particularly confusing. A better solution would be to make the "start gate" a switch, before presenting the branching paths.

Inner and outer borders for the Rings of Death should be clearer. Considering how devastating it is to get hit by these, the AOE indicator for the expanding Rings of Death should be bolder. Most other circular AOE indicators the player experiences are "get out" mechanics, whereas these encourage the player to stay inside the doughnut. However, the current design makes the internal safe zone barely distinguishable from the rest of the AOE, causing players like myself to first assume to run out of an AOE that encompasses the entire boss room. I would recommend adding bands of Vaal runes around the internal border of the ring, at the very least. This should improve the contrast from the safe zone.

A Stash should be added to the reward room. A similar idea from the reward room of the Trials of the Sekhema should be implemented, i.e. a Stash box should be available near the reward shrine of the Trials of Chaos.