General Thoughts on Book III, So Far (some SPOILERS)

[severian]

I`ve just finished the game.
28 hrs+. 26 quests, 26/30 secrets, 5 super-weapons. level 20
I`ve played as my traditional Merchant->Jack Of All Trades build, that again provided me with very smooth mid-to-endgame.

I`d share a couple of my thoughts.

• The overall outcome feels satisfactory. The finale is not such a great surprise, as I expected, but it was not presented as a cliche, either.
• The game feels very....compact? The small area makes an impression, that the game is much shorter than E2 or even E1.
  Last quest left me with a feeling - ok, lets get to the second part of the game. Great immersion.
  I had the same feeling after playing Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 afterwards - second part felt too short, beacause it was smaller and packed with action.
• Having said that - now, if Wylderan is a sparsely populated wilderness, and it looks like this, other parts of Eschalon look like a barren waste. Perhaps some hardcore modding will change this in the future.
• Quests and puzzles are interesting, not so challenging like in some dungeon crawlers (Grimrock), but not discouraging either.
  The "Raiders of Lost Ark" puzzle was the hardest, as figuring out the shape was not so obvious, adding something to Handle this better would certanly help some more casual players, wink wink
• Skill improvements - Armour items have skill level caps - great idea.
  Foraging - good idea, but needs a small patch - finding items along is a good idea, but I`d suggest making some sort of "location item pool". It would prevent some wierd situations, like "You are walking through the corridors of a dungeon of a sandy, desert castle - and suddenly - A Wild Cabbage Appears!
• Spells - I usually use only the most utilitarian and priest spells, so I can say that changes here are good too. New Create Food - quite fine. Reveal Map - great improvement for compulsive mapmakers, who want to know it all, also for aesthetic reason - blanks in maps look so bad. And disturbing ;>
  Had some basic issue with sand having almost the same colour as "unexplored", but after a while I got used to it.
• General gameplay things - Hidden Areas and Secrets - great dungeon crawlers idea, well implemented.
  Destructible vases - also something good, as the new kegs, "hostels" secrets and hidden areas.

Fortunately alternative vendors provided backup sales in the most busy period, but still sorry for Basilisk could have got more money if not....

Generally E3 feels a little bit short, but perhaps because it was such an immersive game.
The story ends in a credible, neat way, with some M&M world ideas, but still original in some ways, which is hard in usually generic/post-tolkien cRPG worlds, or even in a mix like this, vastly used in series like M&M or Wizardry.

I hope the modding tools will allow to create some new locations, perhaps some ruins or necromancers to the north of Astral Range, or a boat trip to The Isle with cpt. Morgan.

I had a great time with the game, I`m only waiting for someone to reveal 4 secrets I`ve missed ^^

[SpottedShroom]

The "Raiders of Lost Ark" puzzle was the hardest, as figuring out the shape was not so obvious, adding something to Handle this better would certanly help some more casual players, wink wink

This was actually made easier during testing. It was originally just a plaque with "#5." written on it.

[AK_Marty]

The "Raiders of Lost Ark" puzzle was the hardest, as figuring out the shape was not so obvious, adding something to Handle this better would certanly help some more casual players, wink wink

This was actually made easier during testing. It was originally just a plaque with "#5." written on it.

When I saw the sign, I thought I needed 5 copper bars to put in the chest. The red trapezoid looked to me like the end of a copper ingot.

[IJBall]

The "Raiders of Lost Ark" puzzle was the hardest, as figuring out the shape was not so obvious, adding something to Handle this better would certanly help some more casual players, wink wink

Totally agree - just adding something reminiscent of a "loop" at the top of the trapezoid would make that particular puzzle more fair, IMO.

I would never have been able to solve this puzzle on my own as it is now.

An alternative would be to leave the puzzle as is, but to put a "weak" section of wall somewhere around that shack, so you could "blow" a wall to get into that back section.

Considering that this puzzle ends up being a key puzzle for being able to solve the main quest-line for the whole game (and the only one I had no clue how to approach!!), I think that one needs to be modified - if it was an unimportant "side-quest", I'd be a lot more agreeable to just leaving it as is.

YMMV.

[Vroqren]

Technically, you can beat the game without finishing that puzzle (I did my first time through). But I agree that something as simple as a loop on top would make the puzzle much more solvable.

[AtheneWins]

Game was good. It was a bit less fluid than books 1 and 2, and felt much shorter. Maybe that's just because after 2 games a 3rd game become easier. Also I used magic so I was not challenged combatively at any point.

Hopefully users add some good mods for the game. A level 18+ area for stacked characters above the king's place that you pay 2000g to enter would be sweet.

[Vroqren]

...later on I found a particular location and thought there was a puzzle. Hours later I found out there was no puzzle.

Don't worry - I did same thing with the chest labeled "The contents of this chest belong to you".

[+] SPOILER

I hadn't yet entered moonrise, so I had no prior knowledge of the map, and thought that I had to put the right item into the chest in order for a rock to disappear, so I could get to those clams.

[Jaymann]

Where is there a T. Rex? Seems like I have cleared all maps and not seen that.

[Randomizer]

When going into the east part of Deadman's Strand, look at the pattern of sand.

There's also a smiley face in East Mirkland Delta.

[Palog]

I tried wrote a user review in steam forum of the game (hope external links aren't forbidden) but it's more a review to people not knowing the trilogy so they decipher what's special, good and bad:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/257870/di ... 693440816/

In this thread a more specific feedback fits much better. So I'll stick to Book 3 vs previous Books, in that point of view:
Improvements of Book 3 I appreciated a lot:
- Much more tricks/secrets/sort of puzzles and a much better density of them.
- A better balance of difficulty of tricks/secrets/sort of puzzles.
- Much better exploration, the more complex links between the various areas are an excellent exploitation of the automap limits. It keeps to many area a feeling of mystery and more to explore during a longer time and it's just great.
- Better graphics, for me it's not a thin detail, I appreciate the improvement and that it's been used to hide more nastily some paths.

Regressions of Book 3 I disliked the most:
- Combats, there's few very good combats setup but I felt many didn't worked or had no real design. A typical case are the ambushes I think all failed in that book, scorpions, wolves, goblins, more. I could saw the special setup but it was failing to build an ambush. Previous Book was quite better in that matter, even if overall combats isn't the stronger element of the series.
- The size, in term of play time, it's my longest first play of any book, but mainly because I searched much more the good secrets/tricks/and so on. There's something not fully satisfying in term of size for the last game of a series. It is quite shorter than Book 2 (probably 25% if not 30% shorter) and that it has probably has many secrets and tricks and stuff to do ie Book 3 has a much better density of stuff to do but it doesn't compensate the feeling that it should have been bigger than book 2 or at least as big. The other problem relative to this size feeling is the main game is build to access to another area where you expect discover a vast new part of the world like a second chapter and instead you get few areas probably less well filled than others.
- No come back of some Book 1 elements removed in Book 2. Mainly the respawning of few monsters in outdoor adapted to character level and place. The rest system still unsolved and now more a simple win button, at least in Book 1 beside use quick rest to save your character from a bad state, you could also play the game with a honest rest and a different gameplay which was a good option for replay. The rest design never been fixed, that's not cool. Some Book 1 elements was nasty but removed or tempered a lot in Book 2, and probably even more in Book 3. I'm fine with this for a default play, but there are really missing elements of Book 1. An option should have allow have them in Book 3 (and in Book 2).
- Lowered difficulty with a mage, I know a mage well build has always been the easiest, but I felt it's been pushed to extreme in Book 3.

That's all and that doesn't include a more general perspective on the Book 3 and/or the trilogy.

[Jaymann]

When going into the east part of Deadman's Strand, look at the pattern of sand.

There's also a smiley face in East Mirkland Delta.

I saw those, but can you please spoiler what to do with them?

[SpottedShroom]

I saw those, but can you please spoiler what to do with them?

[+] SPOILER

Look at them. They're pretty.

[VDK]

Fighters are actually some damn good damage dealers if you play right. Get high strength, speed or dex (for piercing) get move silent to 5 skill level. Approach something in the corner, let it come to the edge, Save, go in powerstrike mode and surprise hits, you should kill it in 1 to 2 strikes. Works like a charm for me and fun as anything.

[mbrowne]

I haven't yet tried training foraging up to the 20s or 30s. Do more useful reagents turn up for master foragers? If so, alchemy could turn out to be a viable skill.

Yes, at higher levels both the quality of the items found and the frequency increases.

Could you say more about the reducing of Alchemy? In II I enjoyed an almost 50/50 Elemental/Alchemist. I can't even come close to that in III. I'm thinking it might have been toned down too much.

[corwin]

I have yet to use Alchemy even once which totally surprises me. I have plenty of reagents, but not the ones which match my recipes!! My other major complaint is 5 copies of one useless spell for sale, but none for the ones you need. Took me forever to find one copy of the gravediggers light spell for example, but there were never fewer than 4-5 copies of Draw Water!!