The way I look at it, the no death penalty game is practice for when you actually suffer serious consequences for death later on. If you just suicide pill out beyond that part, you'll have no practice in dealing with the stuff on the way out... but then there's also the fact that I haven't heard the idea of a good death penalty. People mention locking you out of mage classes or perks temporarily, or all around making you weaker, but all that's going to do is make the game even harder, and potentially give you unwinnable situations. If you want to lose the game on death, you just make that upfront, instead of taking away your progression and making the game impossible to win at anymore. Be upfront about that kind of thing. There should be some little resource cost, maybe morale or mana, but nothing else.
Otherwise, I'm imagining my frequent deaths to bosses in my first playthrough. I would literally have lost the game at the first lieutenant like 5 turns in, quit the game forever, and declared it broken if I were forced to suffer serious death penalties for how ridiculously hard the game was. I have maybe slightly above average skill at games. I can beat things that require more patience, like say Super Meat Boy. You die, you just replay the level to where you died... but the game's ridiculously hard. Hate to say it, but giving this game (which is on a similar level of 'hard' in some cases) that kind of punishment (perks or classes) would make it potentially unplayable.
Ehh.... I can understand that to a point. The difficulty of the game, though, is very subjective, which is part of the problem. You say the game is ridiculously hard, but I personally am starting to find it much too easy. One of the reasons for me to use the pill after, say, grabbing a perk item is the simple fact that it just removes the tedium of exiting. Exiting the cave simply means going back through areas that I already easily passed in the first place.... there's no challenge there, so I see little reason to bother. I need a challenge in order for something to hold my attention. The pill just bypasses the duller parts that much faster, which is good, because I tend to have little to no patience.
And part of the tedium is, to me, the lack of any kind of real threat. One of the reasons why the strategic mode remains so fascinating is because there's ALWAYS a threat. Proper strategy is important, and if I do something stupid, I'll have to pay for it. The platformer bits utterly lack this. To be honest, I'm not always entirely paying attention to them when going through them (with a couple of exceptions), due to the simple fact that it really just doesnt matter if I screw up; I dont NEED to focus on it. The only real exceptions being boss fights, and the escape sequence in research facilities, since both of those are at least decently challenging. Even then though, if I screw those up.... well, just keep charging at them till it works.
And this is part of my problem with ALOT of games these days. Gamers have gotten much too used to ALWAYS winning in the end, and to me, this is extremely boring. It's one of the big reasons why I've pretty much dropped the consoles completely and stick to PC games (and even then, I avoid most AAA titles like the plague). One thing I've liked about Arcen's games so far is that they seem unafraid to stick some genuine difficulty in, with actual penalties for being defeated (losing your guy in AVWW1 was a good one). The strategic mode very definitely keeps up with that idea, but it's just so strange to me that for much of the game, the platformer bit DOESNT. And I know the later bits DO have a penalty, but even that.... it's such an extreme, dramatic change that it really is likely to just frustrate alot of players. Very.... jarring? If that's the right word. It doesnt bug me, but it *will* bug others. Probably alot.
As to why... there's not really that much to do on the platforming maps. You jump around, kill stuff, and pick up the occasional merc coin. Other than that, it's just rushing to the next perk/generator/level up statue/etc.
Thus, my goal is usually "clear the area as fast as possible", so that I get another turn on the strategic map.
Yeah, and that is imo the problem. Because platforming is clearly the meat of this game. And currently there is no meat. So to speak. ;p There is very little to actually do... which makes the platforming segments more like an extremely annoying turn-end button (as absurd as that sounds).
I think this game needs more interactive elements in the maps that affect the strategic game, Shrines to find and activate that improve moral or maybe weaken the bosses or enemies for 1 or 2 turns, ancient golems hidden in deep caves that help you fight for 1 turn, portals to other dimensions, ancient beings lurking in the shadows that can be good or evil, that we can free or kill (with varying effects). And give us something that levels up over time. (The aforementioned drone or wisp) Stuff like that. Give us a reason to explore, and give us good rewards (story, dialog, loot, maybe an improvement to 1 of the 4 spell) in return. And more, the game needs direly buttons to press that do stuff. Extend a bridge, summon something or another. Books to find with lore, ancient magic to do and some proper puzzles. Find the crank-wheel and open a door to a prisoner of ancient times..
You see, I can come up with all that, and I know Arcengames loves coming up with that kind of stuff... point being, this is whats missing. Again, the game has solid platforming with ehm.. "meh" controls, but it fails not because of that, but because the game needs more than enemies to kill.
I thought Metroid is the inspiration here? Metroid had a lot of secrets that didn't involve shooting <3 everything to smithereens.
Aye, I agree with this to a point. More STUFF to find/do in the platforming areas. The perk tokens are very satisfying to find..... but that's it. I know there's mercenary coins, but those seem.... useless, once I found out what the mercenaries actually do, namely, next to nothing. And beyond those two things, there just isnt anything else. I cant even count equipment here because it barely even exists.
Now, I'm not saying to implement yet another Diablo-style loot system here. I liked that there was alot of stuff to grab in the first game.... but what I've always NOT liked about Diablo-style loot is that 99% of it is absolutely worthless. I know some people like that style, and that's fine, but.... ehh. I'd rather find things that are always genuinely useful, that make me want to go out of my way to grab them. Even if it's just something like coins in the original Super Mario Bros. Each individual coin wasnt much, but you still tried to grab lots of them, because when you got enough, 1-up time! AVWW1 did this, which was pretty nice, with the only downside being that instead of giving you 1ups or something it usually just farted out junk loot at you, but still, it was better than nothing. At least grabbing all of the enchant bits was fun, even if it did spit garbage out as a result most of the time.
And now I've forgotten where I was going with any of this, provided I was going somewhere at all, so I'll stop here.
