Met a nice NPC, had a friendly chat. Little did I know that by that point, I had already failed his quest line ...
... because many hours before I had used a key given to me by someone else, in a different part of the world.
That's right, by opening the door to the Fief of the Chill Curse, I prematurely ended the quest line of Drustan, who I wouldn't meet for another 15 or so hours. I didn't even do anything in the Fief, I quickly realised that I was far too weak for the area and turned around. Doesn't matter, opening the door means Drustan will not appear outside of the Alehouse in Lower Calrath, for some fucking reason.
Which begs the question why the fuck Andreas gave me the key so early to begin with. It feels so incredibly bad to be punished for exploring.
Posted Nov 1, 2023, 10:20 PM UTC
Byron and Winterberry are in the same situation.
You get the key required to go find Winterberry from a certain boss however if you walk 5 feet past the boss and go up the elevator then Winterberry instantly dies.
The only way to save Winterberry is to immediately turn around as soon as you beat that boss and go to a remote corner of a brand new area rather than walking 5 feet to the elevator in front of you.
Finding Winterberry feels like I am traveling to mirdor
Getting to Winterberry’s room and realizing she was already killed
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https://preview.redd.it/ivns9icyavxb1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=99a0ab5091fa3dea68829a3b3dc2c6f2351fc6b0
https://preview.redd.it/g4imp53pavxb1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=967d1cb587a35ac1f5db1db167a1807e3d4d61f9
It burns us, takes it off us
Yeah I for whatever reason decided to not go immediately up the elevator and turned around and found her later on. Dumb luck.
I'm actually the same way. I don't like leaving areas unexplored and I knew there was an area with a tunnel that I hadn't explored yet, so after the boss I ran back down to go check it out but signed off for the night. The next morning I began seeing posts mentioning this dumb quest design and decided to go look for her and lucked out on not missing her.
What really makes this quest very poorly designed, is Exacter Dunmire's quest line implies that you should hit up Revelation Depths after the Tower of Penance (I think that's where you get the Perception Wisp or whatever). Really, the quest lines for many of the NPCs are just poorly thought out. Kukajin or however you spell her name is another dumb one, since you can't summon NPCs for bosses without dying. Seeing as you can first attempt a lot of bosses beginning in the mid-to-late game, you'll miss out on her questline. I hope they address a lot of these weird quest design decisions in future patches.
I did the Exacter Dumires questline. How in the hell are you supposed to do that without a guide? Even with the guide he wouldn’t appear in correct locations due to quest trigger bug. Had to reboot several times to get him to quest trigger correctly. Same with Paladins Request…even with the wiki…no clue there on how do it organically. The Umbral ending? Glad they decided to New Game+0 with the fast travel option because there was not way I was going to even attempt to do it otherwise…
Honestly, his questline was the easiest for me. That being said, after he says, "I must descend," most folks will realize he's talking about Revelation Depths. However, after he says that, he doesn't immediately go to Revelation Depths, but rather a random location in the Sunless Skein, for some reason? I have no idea how you'd find him there without starting at the entrance of the mines and exploring everywhere looking for him.
The icing on the cake for his quest comes with finding his gear. Not only is his gear NOT where he was standing in the Sunless Skein OR Revelation Depths, but instead it's at the entrance of the mines for some reason?? Again, just such weird ass logic in these quest designs.
Ugh happened to me last night😬
Same here...
I really hate this element of the game, and I have to basically google every fucking choice, there should be a window that pops up saying something like are you sure you want to leave this area? There is ZERO way to know this, and the the NPC sells important shit including a respec, so it's really shitty this is designed this way.
After I killed this boss I turned back and went down. However at some point I returned and decided to check elevator. Found out later about that. It's literally bad design trying to copy paste Souls quests without much thought. There's vestige above that elevator entrance.
This game gives me love/hate vibes constantly. I want to love it. There are many good things that sometimes built upon "default" souls mechanics but at the same time there are many VERY dumb things built upon same mechanics which basically nullify good things.
Like all items dropped on ground stay there forever and even if you throw enemy off the cliff you don't lose items because they will drop close to the edge. But at the same time for some idiotic reason inventory is limited to 1337, has no separate inventory for quest items which leads to progression ruined because if your inventory is full quests items will simply disappear, also real genius though that auto putting items in quick slots is fun good idea (in Remnant 2 there's setting which disables auto-equip for example)
It's "funny" that latest test branch before patch that should drop today is named "zeroqa" on steamdb. I don't know maybe devs mocking themselves considering some things in this game probably had literally zero q&a like mentioned situation with limited inventory and disappearing items (no one will be able convince me that it went through any testing) Also we know that majority of feedback regarding online was ignored.
I was literally at that boss and found that out on this sub. Thankfully before I used the elevator.
The other thing is that Revelation Depths is one of the best areas in the game and most players won't even get there.
Lol—quests are not for blind playthroughs in this game. I didn’t even know winterberry existed until after I beat the game and was helping someone in coop. “Who the fuck is this?” Most of the fromsoft games have this same problem, though.
If you have to follow a wiki to complete the quests and make sure you don’t mess it up it’s not a good design if a significant number of your quests function like this. I wouldn’t mind for 1-2 of the quests to be “secret” in this way, but the fact is a lot of them have unpredictable steps that can just end up killing the NPC.
I hope future souls likes take a page from Lies of P when it comes to quests. Just display a little NPC icon next to the area on the fast travel screen. It’s not like it’s a map or a quest tab, but something so you don’t have to play the game from the wiki if you don’t wanna miss things.
No, they bring the community together in fromsoft games, you get messages explore places, its more fun.
Also elden ring the quests are not difficult to do for the vast majority. Most of the quests they tell you what they want or where to go. The only major convoluted one i can think of is finding goldmask all the time.
Try behind and then thrusting. Illusionary wall Amazing chest ahead.
Absolutely fun, thought provoking, and helpful messages. Absolutely define the genre.
I agree for the most part. Lies of P was just a little too hand-holdy for me. I want a middle ground between how souls and lies of p handles quests.
If you don’t want to miss things, then explore and replay. That’s sort of the point, learning from your mistakes and getting the results you want. Not everything’s meant to be completed the first time.
It’s enjoyable figuring things out for oneself, there gets to be a point where it kills exploration and the sense of discovery. I’d much rather it error on the side of obtuse or obscure but I enjoy replaying these sorts of games. It’s what leads to multiple runs of still having first despite feeling like I had done everything previously.
I love figuring things out on my own as well in games. However the quests in these games are sometimes so horribly designed that the only way of figuring them out is through savescumming.
For you to say “explore and replay” is missing the point. I can explore and replay countless times and it would be near impossible find winterberry alive due to the layout of the level. Because if you touch the elevator without speaking to her and Byron, she’s dead. If you want 1-2 of the quests in the entire game to function like this, then I can’t argue that, but when most of them are seemingly random trigger points of no return, it sucks to play. Vendor leaves and you didn’t buy out his inventory before leaving randomly? Too bad. Do another playthrough. If it was only one vendor then at least it would be easier to remember on NG+, but they almost all leave. And there’s often times not a replacement vendor.
There’s a happy balance that can be met.
idk why people downvote you, first playthrough you can clearly see winterberry’s bloody backpack and bryon saying he killed her. That creates an incentive for the player to go for another playthrough to prevent bryon from killing winterberry. And yes, the devs use the elevator as a clear indicator because bryon moves to upper calrath, so the player knows not to go up there but they need the key from the boss. It’s really awesome, but people wanna find a reason to hate on these kinds of quests. If someone wants unmissable quests, go play standard rpg(s).
Except it's not a problem
Matter of taste. Fromsoftware games are my favorites, and I loved this one as well. Personally, I think a lot of the quests would be better with more clues. I don’t want my hand held, but give me a little more. Also, some of the quest breaks were too arbitrary. Going up that elevator should not break Byron’s quest. That’s ridiculous.
See and I have no problem with the elevator. It is a matter of taste, and that's fine. You might find it annoying even if I don't, I just can't stand the people who slander the game so bad bc of it. Its ridiculous.