About polishing, incremental changes, contrast and the mood of the game

Let me start this topic off with a quote.

"

ThuN wrote:

I understand that it’s hard to change all the content at a point so close to open beta, especially when your art department is just 2 people or so working on a new act. Your game is great and I love the gameplay and I’m looking forward to all the changes that you are deploying with the Beta manifesto updates.
But one thing is sure, if your plan was to make a dark fantasy game, then you probably failed.

Well, did you fail? No, I don't think so. But you could very well not life up to your own very high expectations if you are not reevaluating your priorities to some extent - at least these are my current feelings, which I am going to give voice in a rather lenghty piece of feedback now.

I believe Path of Exile is going to be a fantastic game. I am not writing this post because I think everything about the area art is bad, but because I think a lot of areas could be so much better than they are currently. With the art team's resource's currently focused on act 3 and the launch of open beta looming closer and closer, I am growing a little anxious about you guys losing focus on what's really important in order to capture a dark, gloomy and haunting atmosphere. For example, recently a lot of the weapon art has been revamped, and while this is nice I wonder why you are not prioritising the feeling and immersion of the core game. I am under the impression that the type of changes that have been proposed by some of your most loyal beta testers over the last months are being labeled as polishing and incremental changes by the art department, while in fact the changes needed for some areas come closer to complete revamps and cannot by done in small increments over the course of the next months. There is a simple truth I would like to remind you of: You guys either get the mood of the game right, or you don't. And if you don't, no amount of polishing, incremental changes or fancy doodads you throw in are going to change this. I will give a short list of example topics which contain the type of feedback I have been talking about so far (most of these are by me, because these are the ones from which I still remember the topic titles).

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/23459
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/19040
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/16534
http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/16535

In this post, I will mainly focus on the area art (thread one and two) and the bestiary (thread three and four), albeit the former being in more desperate need to be gotten right sooner rather than later (which really is the entire point here). I will not go over every single area, but let my try to give you some ideas about the rather bland ones (boring or uncreative would be a more appropriate description), starting with act one.

The Prisoner's Gate serves no purpose at all. When players complain about the game being anaemic and empty, I am sure they have this area in mind. While the Rocky Climb at least introduced some new monsters (albeit not that interesting ones) there is nothing of any interest in the Prisoner's Gate. It is a repition of the Rocky Climb the player must endure after beating Brutus, with repeated enemies, repeated art, no quest or any interesting element to it whatsoever. The color palette features beige and brown, and while these are the right colors for the mood of the area which I think you were trying to capture (that is a scorched, desolate, rocky wasteland) you need contrast to make your envisioned theme of the area work (this is something I am going to stress quite a bit from now on). Just desaturating is not enough. If you want to make the desaturated elements of the game to have any effect on the player immersion you need contrast to make the player actually notice them for what they are and for what they are meant to convey. Without contrast, the immersion is as shallow and anaemic as the whole area itself. Now, if we want a scorched, blasted, unforgiving wasteland, why are we holding back? Add half-decayed animal skeletons buried in the sand, add wicked rock-formations, add mighty, long dead trees which throw razor-sharp shadows (contrast!) on the scorched ground (bonus points for skeletons of humans executed centuries ago hanging from the trees), have giant, black scorpions emerge from the sand, add signs of long dead human civilization, add boiling pools of tar, have remains of perished caravans and warriors, desiccated oases, let parched vegetation spontaneously catch fire as the player walks by...
I could really go on forever here, but the goal here is to give you a general idea of what needs to be done, not providing a list of definite changes I would like to see. Again, and this is of grave importance, you need to compose these elements in a way that they work as a whole, even with randomly generated areas. You cannot just incrementally design doodads as part of the polishing process and throw them into the area.

Another horrible area from act one are the Coves. I really have no idea why it is in the game, other than faking content which is not really there. It is linear, it is dull, contrastless, boring, and serves no purpose. Actually it would make more sense from a story perspective to have Merveil's caves after the ship graveyard. Would any of you guys please explain to me what you were thinking when putting this area into the game? I am not even able to give suggestions for improvement here, because I cannot figure out what this area is supposed to be other than a filler. But if you don't mind, I would propose this area to be the starting point of where Merveil and her acolytes are getting into your head and thus making it a worthy prelude to Merveil's lair. For example, upon entering the area could look like a pieceful haven, a place of shelter, the eye in the storm that is Wraeclast. Instead of wrecked ships from the previous area, have pompous, magnificant vessels lie anchor on the shore. Have neatly dressed, yet strangely tight-lipped individuals lure the player in, and as he finally sees through the charade the people reveal themselves as Merveil's acolytes, with the pieceful scenery decaying in front of the player's eyes as he is struggling to fight off waves of flesh-eating abominations.

The last area from act one I am going to talk about is the Ship Graveyard. This is a case of "almost", thus not as severe as the two previous examples, Prisoner's Gate and the Coves. On the good side, you have these really fantastic, breathtaking shipwrecks that add a lot to the area and are crafted masterfully. Another nice touch are the fireflies (sidenote: it would be nice if they fled from an approaching player character). But then again, this area has no elements that are in contrast to each other at all. You just painted everything in a greenish grey - come on! Yes, you can and should use these colors, but have elements that brake them so the player has a chance to notice the place for as forsaken as it is. Give the area some sources of light more noticeable than the occasional ship lanterns (sidenote: where fireflies should gather) - did you ever notice that by far the best looking part of the Ship Graveyard Cave (sidenote: which totally needs a kraken-boss that took the Allflame) is the destroyed, illuminated boat where the slave-girl is lying, acting as a tragic beacon of hope in the cave's darkness? Such lightsources for the overworld area could be devices to lure the bypassing ships to the coast - think of something. On yet another sidenote, this area would immensely profit from thick ground fog.

Let us proceed with act two. If I had to describe Old Fields, Crossroads and River Crossing's in one sentence, it would be: Happy daylight forest with generic humans and generic apes thrown in. Seriously, these areas are boring. Make them more vicous. We need man eating plants, we need giant thorns, fallen trees, withered monuments from the time before the Cataclysm (which actually would make a reasonable place for the right now displaced stone-golems to form), apes with black skin, glowing eyes and giant teeth, unspeakable jungle horrors and abominations, giant mosquitoes, booby-traps, thicker and more varied vegetation, man-sized beetles and certainly more badass bandits. And for god's sake, get rid of the perfectly intact roads (looking like built yesterday) that safely lead the player to the next area. As for the bandits, make them themed around their leader. A few suggestions: Kraytin's followers should be more animal than human, lunatics wearing pelts of slain beasts, walking bent over, howling and snarling like rabid dogs. In short: completely insane. Alira's followers should consist of dark necromancers, adepts of black magic, shrouded in black, whithered robes, worshipping the dark arts, summoning undead horrors and hauling the most vicious curses the player. Oak's men could be poachers, rangers, trappers and druids, sickening their animal companions onto the player. Occasionally I would like to see the bandit's followers fight each other in areas between their respective territories. As for pools and streams, that area could use pools and streams (that puny rivulets don't count).


Example: a decayed jungle-monument.

I already made a lenghty feedback post about the Weaver's Chambers and I have not much to complain about regarding the indoor areas (Chambers of Sins has fantastic art), so after having talked about the brighter areas of act two (Old Fields, Crossraods, River Crossings, etc.) let us have a look at the Dark Forest and Alira's camp. I would actually advise you to keep these two areas in the same mood, with the Dark Forest as a prelude for the place of twisted necromantic wickedness that Alira's camp should be, so I am going to comment on these two areas as a whole.
The Dark Forest is not a dark forest. It is the same happy forest from the previous area, just at night. Nothing about it is creepy, gothic, haunted or 'dark'. On my first venture into the the Dark Forest my immediate thought was "are you even trying?" - because all you did was to take the regular forest and switch the sun off. Even worse, it again lacks any contrast to convey the immersion of darkness. Please go and watch the film Sleepy Hollow. That's a dark forest.


A regular forest at night. Nothing creepy about it.


A dark forest. Oh god, did you hear that too?

In order to make the Dark Forest a dark forest, you need thick, gnarly, leafeless trees (even thicker and gnarlier than in my example picture) which the player can see from the top, ground fog, pools of blood, giant thornbushes, twisted vegetation blocking the path, eerie whispers and gnarls, haunting schemes, black stones, necromantic altars with sacrificed bodies and a fitting set of enemies (which I already mentioned). The space between the trees can be pitch-black, while there are lanterns hanging in the trees as the only, desperate sources of light - contrast!

A few words on the Waterfall Cave and the Ancient Pyramid. I think both of these areas could use more unique art, most of it has already been experienced by the player at this point - these areas should feel more unique. I am sure you have a good reason why there is a pyramid in the jungle, so go fill it with altars and wall-paintings taken from Wraeclast's lore. Nothing about the pyramid actually makes it feel like a pyramid, besides the levels getting smaller and smaller towards the top (and I must admit I was really disappointed that I could not see the pyramid from the outside after reading about it in the patchnotes). Also this place would be a splendid location to introduce mummy enemies.

This is all I can think of right now, I might add more to this thread later.

tl;dr version:
You are not at the point where incremental changes and polishing are going to be enough to fulfill your own high expectations. While I realize that you are a small team, please reevaluate your priorities in regards of capturing the dark fantasy atmosphere you are striving to convey with Path of Exile. This is not done by crafting doodads such as gnarly trees and throwing them into flawed areas one by one. One important aspect you need to keep in mind is that only with contrast desaturated parts of an area are recognized as dark/gritty/haunting.

"

dust7 wrote:

Nothing about the pyramid actually makes it feel like a pyramid, besides the levels getting smaller and smaller towards the top (and I must admit I was really disappointed that I could not see the pyramid from the outside after reading about it in the patchnotes). Also this place would be a splendid location to introduce mummy enemies.

I would love to see a mayan style pyramid like this. You could walk up a bit and see that it's a pyramid, but because of the rubble you would have to smash in a wall or something. It's kinda similar to the Prison, so it wouldn't be optimal. I actually think it would be a lot of cooler if you you'd enter the pyramid from above and you made the levels from the pyramid from small to big.

I think these are good suggestions.

To compress my thoughts(which are somewhat unrelated to OP issues which I also agree with), in a very uncoherent way, first thing I'd like to see improved is act coherence and dynamics(especially act 2).

Coherence meaning, a singular area doesn't need to have a whole lotta stuff different from the area before and after. Infact it's bad in my opinion if they do. There should be a natural flow from area to other area to accomplish a disctict act. A certain type of flora in an area shouldn't lead to a very different type in other area (which is the case in act 2 many times). This is actually easier for the developers to achieve I think than trying to make every doodad different. Gradual smaller changes such as few new monsters every now and then, small changes in landscape(same area without architecture, then with architecture, same area without deadly maneating plants, now with man eating plants, same area without gloomy lighting, now with gloomy lighting etc.) Coherence with few interesting changes is in my opinion much more satisfying than really different area after different area. It's only confusing and immersion eating otherwise.

With dynamics I mean making each area feel important in some way. No area should be dead space. This also works to make similar looking coherent areas different from one another. Take act 1 in Diablo 2 for example. It looks like a real area in a world, because the landscape is similar throughout. But you have Den of Evil in the first area, then a boss in second, the stone circle in third, then an ancient mysterios tree, then a ruined tower, then a monastery. All related to the game story. The progress feels "dynamic". Along with this you have the gradual changes in monsters and bigger changes in landscape such as caves and dungeos to keep things interesting. But "indoor" areas of course can be less coherent without loosing overall coherence. That said I don't think Diablo 2 is the best example because there is a little too much coherence in acts visually making them a bit boring lol.

But I'm sure the devs are aware of some of the problems and have their priorities so we are patient lol

ahh not much I myself can reply to this. However if you have ideas on random fx things to add to areas just like the ship graveyard has please tell me :) However as you know I lack tech for a lot of complex things however I may be able to do some of the enviro things you suggest.

i would like to echo the point on lighting - in a lot of the bluer dungeons, such as the prison, the lack of lights in the prison itself makes the area feel rather dull - and the occasional orange torch contrasting with the area around it makes a welcome and visually appealing bit of punctuation.

"

Chris wrote:

Dust7: There are scheduled improvements coming for many years. Many of your comments are addressed by planned improvements. It's mandatory for Act Three to be ready by Open Beta. It's merely nice if Act One and Two have been improved by then. We're working on it as hard we can, but there's plenty of time in the future to finish it.

I can't comment on specific art issues, but I have full confidence in our art team and am very pleased with both their work so far and their plans to improve it in the future.

All I am trying to say is that I'd rather have three awesome acts than four or five mediocre ones and that I was afraid that act one and two areas are pretty much 'done' except for polishing matters (good to hear that's not the case). I might have come across as a little harsh, I did not mean to. The success of PoE is a heartfelt desire of mine and while that post took me hours to compose I just had to write down the ideas I was bursting with when playing through certain areas of the current game.

"Let us proceed with act two. If I had to describe Old Fields, Crossroads and River Crossing's in one sentence, it would be: Happy daylight forest with generic humans and generic apes thrown in. Seriously, these areas are boring. Make them more vicous. We need man eating plants, we need giant thorns, fallen trees, withered monuments from the time before the Cataclysm (which actually would make a reasonable place for the right now displaced stone-golems to form), apes with black skin, glowing eyes and giant teeth, unspeakable jungle horrors and abominations, giant mosquitoes, booby-traps, thicker and more varied vegetation, man-sized beetles and certainly more badass bandits. And for god's sake, get rid of the perfectly intact roads (looking like built yesterday) that safely lead the player to the next area. As for the bandits, make them themed around their leader. A few suggestions: Kraytin's followers should be more animal than human, lunatics wearing pelts of slain beasts, walking bent over, howling and snarling like rabid dogs. In short: completely insane. Alira's followers should consist of dark necromancers, adepts of black magic, shrouded in black, whithered robes, worshipping the dark arts, summoning undead horrors and hauling the most vicious curses the player. Oak's men could be poachers, rangers, trappers and druids, sickening their animal companions onto the player. Occasionally I would like to see the bandit's followers fight each other in areas between their respective territories. As for pools and streams, that area could use pools and streams (that puny rivulets don't count)."


Good god this is the best thing I have read on the forums since I signed up two months ago. Just reading this paragraph made me want to see this so bad, it all sounds so right and there are so many clutch ideas here. The themed bandit followers- perfect. AND +1 TO GETTING RID OF THE PAVED-YESTERDAY ROADS! Make the areas seem like real FORESTS or JUNGLES-- you can GET LOST and not sure which way to go! The game is definitely zzzzzz snooze mode after a few times through. I just run right to the zone entrances/exits. Half of the fun from the first playthrough is the EXPLORING. Try to figure out a way to keep this in the game!

"

However if you have ideas on random fx things to add to areas just like the ship graveyard has please tell me :)

black shadow fireflys/whisps for the very lower parts of the pyramid (waterfallcavelvl2).
And an animation for the act2-boss where he soaks all of those fireflys up to himself through the 4 holes in the new bossroom.
Connecting the boss stronger to the pyramidsetting, "was he imprisoned there or is it the pyramidbuilding itself".

Very well thought and written feedback dust7, well worthy your time most definitly..

From the feedback i enjoyed mostly the parts with "giant mosquitoes", "necromantic altars with sacrificed bodies", humongous beetles, "fireflies" (which immediately my mind remembered 'Dragon Fly' in HoM&M3) and "a kraken-boss" that should be protecting allfame. Not to forget the difference of bandits and their nasty warriors.

Dragon Fly from HoMM3;



But i thought you forgot to mention this thread, as it is very important for PoE as well as others.