Softlock fest

[DarkJuda On Deck]

While I adore the concept and the atmosphere, this game is brutal.
It's not just hard (by that I mean that you die in a few shots), it also gets very punishing and unfair mostly because of its design and junkiness.

Contrary to a lot of people, I'm not against the general giant emptiness of most of the areas as I enjoy that feeling of exploring almost dead worlds, but sometimes it can go against itself and become just pure frustration when you softlock yourself unwillingly.

I'm not talking about killing important npcs, as it would be my own fault, I'm talking about how the game invites you to explore just before locking you in a place where you shouldn't be. I'm not talking about falliing down the death well near a certain npc, as it is obviously a trap and it makes sense to softlock you here as it builds lore, I'm talking about the huge amount of places where the game invites you to go exploring (either by showing you a zip line you can grab, ledges to grip or pipes you can jump on) without telling you that you actually can't return from there.
If I add that to a quick save system that saves on top of hard saves, you can very easily softlock yourself in an area that you can explore but can't come back from.

I could come back if wasn't dying from water (I'm not even sure why we die from water lore-wise, since we don't get hurt by the rain or by walking in low depth water, did we ate a demon fruit or something?) as I'm just a few meters of water away from un-softlock my save, or if I could climb the walls like in Lorn's Lure.

As it is, while the game is fascinating, it is brutally infair by design.

[SaucySanders]

The death well (if by that you mean the pit on the way up to the locker with the rpg ammo int it) is very much escape-able. The only caveat is it's dependent on how much ammo the monsters have on them when they die. It's the main reason why there's a unique weapon down there other than the harpoon guns in the first place.

A lot of the actual death pits do tend to soft lock you though, usually through quirky geometry that never resolves the fall damage. The trash islands in the river being both inescapable and barren is also pretty lame, especially considering it almost appears like something would be down there, but you're not down there for any length of time long enough to consider quicksaving IMO.

[Baller's Gait]

You do remind me that I need to make quicksaves overwriting hardsaves a toggle that's off by default. We've actually been throwing around the idea of limited saves (i.e making it so you can only save in specific areas) but it's probably not going to happen and the level design is probably too sprawling to make that fun (it would discourage exploration and make things more tedious); but it would at least solve the issue of accidentally saving when you've softlocked yourself.

For the time being I just recommend making multiple saves. Will add in that toggle after we're done working through the more pressing bugs.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by SaucySanders:

The death well (if by that you mean the pit on the way up to the locker with the rpg ammo int it) is very much escape-able. The only caveat is it's dependent on how much ammo the monsters have on them when they die. It's the main reason why there's a unique weapon down there other than the harpoon guns in the first place.

Pretty sure it's not this one (because the only hole I found matching your description is at the top of 50ish floor appartment staircase, after the girl that takes care of his dad in the iron lung, who I unplugged because I'm a big fat $@!£ and I never managed to kill all those monsters in the bottom of the trap before they kill me) ,. But since I didn't find any RPG it might not be that one.
I'm talking about the one behind the guy asking for the microchip. There is a hole in the grating behind him, leading a to slide and then a hole full of bodies.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

For context, I'm stuck here and I fail to see any way out:
https://imgur.com/a/IGudm2w
Maybe if I had that harpoon gun I could try some stuff, but I don't.

[StormSaber]

Originally posted by DarkJuda On Deck:

I'm talking about the one behind the guy asking for the microchip. There is a hole in the grating behind him, leading a to slide and then a hole full of bodies.

You can get out of that one by shooting the grating, which connects to that isolated square street surrounded by buildings with balconies, that leads to that crooked staircase building with those green lights and vending machines.

[DarkJuda On Deck]

Originally posted by StormSaber:

Originally posted by DarkJuda On Deck:

I'm talking about the one behind the guy asking for the microchip. There is a hole in the grating behind him, leading a to slide and then a hole full of bodies.

You can get out of that one by shooting the grating, which connects to that isolated square street surrounded by buildings with balconies, that leads to that crooked staircase building with those green lights and vending machines.

Oh.