Mercy Mission and A Dirty Job

Never thought I'd have to say this...but...uhm...easy there, Pneuma.

I think this is very much a valid concern and have raised it with the devs. The fact that it's the ONLY QUEST you're given upon entering Lioneye's really does make it seem less 'side' and more 'main'.

"

BJSV wrote:

This is bad design and nothing else. Explaining how things work doesnt mean its dumbed down, and if it does than they already done that by explaining damage types on forum. Now all they need to do is put it into the game.

Also if they want to go upstream they need to tell people that. First mission in every game is easy. Killing pigs, wolfs or delivering things or talking to people. Here first mission is for you to die if you try to do it. So if they intend for first mission to be so hard, than they need to explain it to new players.

Well~ I have to disagree. I think the difficulty forces the player to think. But not only that, it forces you to see the enemies as more than AI pinatas. And then you get a feeling of satisfaction when you overcome the things that used to seem to difficult.

Yesterday I thought killing Brutus in turbo HC race was 90% RNG. Today, I took him down without taking a single hit. It was fun because I was given the oppurtunity to figure it out on my own. Nobody gave me a hint that there was a special trick to beating him, in fact the all chat was filled with beginners who swore killing Brutus was near impossible.

Same goes with the frost guy, before I had to spam portals to heal up. But today, I just kited like a boss. Pssh round da corner.

About game design using old games to explore good ideas in game design. Mildly entertaining but a long watch.

What OP is suggesting here is trading one bad design philosophy for another.

Imagine if in mario brothers, every time a new kind of bad guy showed up, a friendly cloud-dude popped up in the corner and paused your game with a dialog:
"Mario, look out! Those bob-ombs will explode on you if you're not careful!"
I'd have thought that game was lame when I was eight, instead of totally awesome. Nintendo actually started doing that kind of thing later, and look at how successful nintendo is these days.

What good games do is teach their players to react to mechanics, by introducing them in non-punishing ways. And embedding subtle clues in the environment that let an intelligent person figure out what the hell's going on. Without being handed a guidebook.

Now obviously, the hailrake encounter fails. You see him and you die. Hell, I've played through this game probably 20 times by now and I still skip hailrake until at least level 8. The way we get introduced to crit and status effects, with cold - it makes no sense, and it's VERY punishing. It's like, oh hey, a unique guy - look, frosty stuff. Oh, I can't move - oh, I'm dead. Ugh.

Take away the punishing bit and all is well. Make his mana pool smaller, and weaken his melee attack; you still walk headfirst into that ice spear, but he only has enough mana to cast two of them. That way, you recover from the freeze with 20% of your health left.

No hand-holding in-game-guide, pleasepleaplease
"mega man, mega man!! Better jump soon, spikes are gonna come out of the ground!" aaaaahhhh
Just imagine if the old games did that kind of bullshit.

I would pee myself laughing if a pop-up came up after Hailrake freezes your arse and kills it in two hits that said 'Ice can freeze you and even kill you.'

I don't want this encounter made easier. It just needs to be made seriously 'side questy'.

I know the hints in a form of pop up window are not PoE style, but as some people suggested it in other threads, it doesnt have to be like that. They can add bunch of frozen corpses around that area. Its not exactly telling you whats in front, but it does give you a clue.

And still I think some explanation of how things work should be in game. I would like to see some log where you can see what you encountered, and not to spoil fun and to not make things easier it gets updated once you kill the enemy.

"

Charan wrote:

Never thought I'd have to say this...but...uhm...easy there, Pneuma.

I think this is very much a valid concern and have raised it with the devs. The fact that it's the ONLY QUEST you're given upon entering Lioneye's really does make it seem less 'side' and more 'main'.

Am I the only PoE player who has NEVER died to Hailrake? He froze me once and once only. I honestly never realized he is such a big deal. The medicine chest is always the first thing I do after I get the Mud Flats waypoint.

Also one thing that makes Mercy Mission so confusing is the fact that when you mouse over that area on map it says lvl 3 area, but going there on lvl 3 is suicide.