DLC is a 6/10, forgot what made Blood West great in the first place

[♦♣OneFirmCat♥♠]

After the results of the player survey came out, which I answered, I thought the devs had learned what the general issues of chapter 3 were, and why many players found it a good, but lesser experience than 1 and 2. I really enjoyed Blood West overall but I don't understand how the developer seemingly was able to ignore it while the problem got worse?

The issue is the map itself.

In Chapter 1, there was essentially 1 character, and that's the totem. He sent you off to various "Points of Interest," to look for and bring back evil items. These POI are time & place-appropriate, each with its own strong theme (Canyon, Fort, Mines, Church, Burial Grounds, etc.) They not only are large spaces of exterior and interior environment with their own subset of "small pockets of interest" (I'm using your term), between each POI there are connective passageways that allow you to approach each themed POI from different directions. For example, I can climb the Tower and end up in the back of the Fort, or descend the Mines and end up in the Canyon. Terrific exploration.

Chapter 2 has none of these connective passageways, but there are still a lot of subterranean spaces to explore. The POI in chapter 2 are arguably even better, with themes tied to the Bog. There's more character than just the totem now, I learned more about the world of Blood West through interacting with these characters. They had various levels of interactivity, granted, but it was a good addition.

In Chapter 3, while the theme of Forrest is good, there's fewer interesting characters to give anecdotes on the world in general. The doctor is the most significant of the new character (out of 2), and he didn't have a lot to say or do. It's also a smaller map, with no connective passageways between the POI. Often, to walk between two POI which are next to each other on the map, I have to walk all the way around. The experience is hurt by this combination of scaling back of intersecting characters and POI being approachable only from one direction (and once done you just double back where nothing happens, or teleport out). I think the POI are still very ornate and interesting, but they feel... 2-dimensional?

Finally, DLC. The DLC map is by far the weakest of the 4 maps. The Points of Interest here are barebones versions from the other maps. The Fishing Village is the Town from Chapter 2, only smaller. Church Cemetery, Ruined Village, Farms, are all insultingly small, barely have anything to explore. The Other World is interesting, but again it's all one directional tunnels. New creatures do all fit the game, especially the birds that sit on trees, they can really surprise you on your first playthrough. The final boss is the best in Blood West, interesting, fun, an improvement over the decidedly low bar set by the others. Maria as the voodoo totem is sort of interesting, but her exposition is held back by the map size. The skeleton is basically another Jim Hooper, a cardboard cutout with nothing to say but act as the shop. We know going into it that we play as Twen's father, but there was not a single mention of Twen or anything associated with her except in the intro cinematic, and the outro cinematic...

So my question at the end of this is, what happened? Why has the core part Blood West, the map, the exploration, degraded so much since chapters 1 & 2, even 3? The turnaround on DLC is one year, like previous chapters, but the map is 3/10 at best? The place was so small I barely used the raven skulls to fast travel back to safezones - I just legged it. It feels like a critical developer or two left the project, and those back-filling them aren't up to the task, or don't care for Blood West nearly as much. Or, it's just really, really rushed.

[jeromedoubleyou]

My guess is two-fold.

1/ The new character.
The base character might have been a choke point. If you've ever developed anything, you'd know that having a single entry point makes it very hard to create another one later. As an example, enemies are objects, each with their own pool of health, timers, etc. But the player might have been made out of constants, and not be an instance of a object. Meaning that when they set out to make another character, it wasn't as simple as iterating on the first one but having to retroactively make the base character an instance of an object. So that's my first guess, most of the work went into creating the ability to have another player character, leaving little to make a map as intricate as the previous ones.

2/ Burn out
They probably started working on this game maybe as early as 2020, maybe before. It's hard and probably even impossible to remain motivated for such a long period of time consistently. There are ups and downs, my second guess is that they're burnt out and this is a down.

I have my own theory on the DLC I shared a few times, it's going to be 3 chapters, too.
My reasoning is also two-fold:

1/ They can't tell us until the DLC sells enough for them to afford to make new chapters.

2/ The price of the DLC is $15. The price of the base game is $20. $5 per chapter + $5 for making the gameplay/audio/textures etc. The last $5 have already been payed when we bought the base game. What's left are chapter 1, 2, and 3 that cost us $5, and a DLC that cost us $15... I really think that we'll get 3 levels, see point #1 why we don't know it yet.

So, even though I can also see the flaws in this DLC, I try not to take its price into consideration yet. All that to say that I have a hard time judging it harshly because I believe that many hours of development are invisible to us. If my guess is correct about having 2 more chapters, then I have to keep in mind that a lot of work probably went into the DLC that I cannot see yet, and it will pay off in the long run.

We've also seen them add geometry to previously done levels (mainly small caves for the player to rest). They might end up reworking the first DLC map and make it a bit more interconnected and interesting.

I could write books about how the gaming industry has been utterly disappointing for more than a decade now. I'm not an optimistic guy, but when it comes to Blood West, I'm more than willing to "trust the process", forgive small mishaps.

[♦♣OneFirmCat♥♠]

Can't say that it was the new character or burnout. New creatures, new weapons, and new boss clearly took work, but they shouldn't have taken away from the map, unless the mapper also designed, modeled, animated, etc. I hope it's rushing to meet the date.

Your speculation about more shaman chapters is interesting. There was no indication of it in the DLC. And the end was a pretty definitive "good" ending. But who knows? That's better than trying to tweak the main game, those maps are already waaay better than the DLC. Going forward, will the new maps be like the main game, or the DLC? My confidence in BW is shaken a bit honestly.

[Og-the-Trog]

+1 to the map design in particular flagging behind
And while I hope to see another chapter for this protag, somehow I doubt it'd be free.

[Whatever100500]

DLC map seems smaller than any single of 3 main game maps. Also, as far as I understand, in main game re-spawned enemies are worth standard xp value, but in DLC they are worth basically nothing. So you are strongly encouraged to clear the map in single pass, without dying, resting or using chicken warp.

New weapons are too gimmicky. Main game teaches you that best way to do combat is to not engage in fair combat - so, sneak melee kills or headshots on unaware enemies most of the time. But most new dlc weapons are not useful for the that, because their big/slow/delayed projectiles just can't hit heads reliably. The only melee weapon I found that was better than DLC starter dagger at sneak kills was the ultimate spear (that you need to clear most of dlc map to obtain). So I just went around daggering enemies for most of the dlc.

[Jacobella]

Originally posted by Whatever100500:

DLC map seems smaller than any single of 3 main game maps. Also, as far as I understand, in main game re-spawned enemies are worth standard xp value, but in DLC they are worth basically nothing. So you are strongly encouraged to clear the map in single pass, without dying, resting or using chicken warp.

Two details:

1. In main game respawned enemies are worth 5% (unless that was changed later)
   
2. Using chicken warp does not respawn enemies in main or DLC

[Turncoat]

My biggest complaint is that the little temple pocket dimensions are so cool but utterly linear and far too short. If you had a map the size of the swamp with just as much exploration, twists and turns, inter-connectivity in map design and pathways, then I'd be a lot more happier with the DLC. Shoot I'd spent most of my time there, it's uncanny and oppressive atmosphere is top notch in the aesthetics department.

You hit the nail head though OP, this is good, but it's a definite step backwards in direction sadly.

[Whatever100500]

Originally posted by Jacobella:

Two details:

1. In main game respawned enemies are worth 5% (unless that was changed later)
   
2. Using chicken warp does not respawn enemies in main or DLC

Loaded up main game right before last boss, and it seems weird... First, 50 fixed xp from self-taught 3 plus all the multipliers you can stack guarantee at least some value for kills (minimum around 100 rather than the useless 15 in DLC). 2nd, some enemies that I'm pretty certain I've already killed before, give several hundred xp anyway.

Just assumed that since chicken warp heals like normal rest, it does respawn as well. But I suppose I didn't test this.

[solaris32]

You make some interesting points, but I still liked the DLC for what it was. Wish it had more chapters of course.
I really hope the next dlc is a randomizer like Prey Mooncrash, which they strongly hinted at. Infinite replayability!

[Victor66]

The enemies are great. But that's all. I haven't used summoning. For a character that was announced to be a summoner, we only had 3 items that did this and they were half game length at least. Also, why so many skills when the dlc is so short? I barely had enough experience to put in a few of them and I did kill at least 75% of the enemies.

And the final enemy wasn't well thought. Some fire spawning from the ground, forcing you to take turns looking at the boss and at the ground, the boss didn't attack at all, and without bullets for a long range gun he was impossible to beat, because he was flying high. I remember bosses from the main game being vulnerable to melee because they weren't anywhere high, not to be able to reach them.

[Jacobella]

Originally posted by Whatever100500:

Originally posted by Jacobella:

Two details:

1. In main game respawned enemies are worth 5% (unless that was changed later)
   
2. Using chicken warp does not respawn enemies in main or DLC

Loaded up main game right before last boss, and it seems weird... First, 50 fixed xp from self-taught 3 plus all the multipliers you can stack guarantee at least some value for kills (minimum around 100 rather than the useless 15 in DLC). 2nd, some enemies that I'm pretty certain I've already killed before, give several hundred xp anyway.

Just assumed that since chicken warp heals like normal rest, it does respawn as well. But I suppose I didn't test this.

I didn't use the Chicken Head for a while until I was absolutely sure it didn't respawn monsters because randomly respawned monsters worth very little XP screws the risk/reward ratios

[Victor66]

Originally posted by Jacobella:

Originally posted by Whatever100500:

Loaded up main game right before last boss, and it seems weird... First, 50 fixed xp from self-taught 3 plus all the multipliers you can stack guarantee at least some value for kills (minimum around 100 rather than the useless 15 in DLC). 2nd, some enemies that I'm pretty certain I've already killed before, give several hundred xp anyway.

Just assumed that since chicken warp heals like normal rest, it does respawn as well. But I suppose I didn't test this.

I didn't use the Chicken Head for a while until I was absolutely sure it didn't respawn monsters because randomly respawned monsters worth very little XP screws the risk/reward ratios

It says right in its description. Stop explaining, we understand you didn't read it, it happens.

[Grilled Cheese]

chapter 3 was my favourite also bruh its dlc what'd you expect? pretty common for dlcs to have small maps and be way shorter than the base game because it is an attachment to the base game

[Victor66]

Originally posted by Chocomilk:

chapter 3 was my favourite also bruh its dlc what'd you expect? pretty common for dlcs to have small maps and be way shorter than the base game because it is an attachment to the base game

Yes, but the price should reflect that.

[Gort]

I hope the Ravagers from the DLC evolve into something worse for the next chapter. Maybe like a full on burrowing demon bug that splits into smaller bugs when slain.

I'd also like another map with the canyon tile set

[daenisi]

Haven't played DLC yet, but right now I'm on 3rd chapter and just broke my no death run so I'm gonna rant about chapter 3 map a little.

As you guys said 1st chapter was amazing, perfect I dare to say. Simple but memorable and very diverse in approach to it. There are lots of structually different locations which consist of interior, exterior and lots of small pockets to explore. Also your main spawn point is in the middlle of the map so you could tackle any POI at any time. 10/10, favorite map.

Chapter 2 had same idea and tried to be more thematic and added more enemies between POI. On one hand world feels more alive. In 1st map everyting is dead, only spirits and dead roam some places. But in 2nd chapter we got some kind of cultist society and you can see old half destroyed buildings with crazy cultist living in there, still hunting and doing their things. Overral map is good, on the level of 1st one, maybe better, but personally I hate swamps since dark souls and I hate swamps map in hunt showdown as well.
Only thing I miss from second chapter is bushes mechanic, I hope they add it to other maps as well. 8/10 because ♥♥♥♥ swamps.

Chapter 3 feels like a completely different game. First thing that make me think like that was light and color filter, everytning got more bright and view distance got bigger. Design of enemies is more detailed and enemies are more animated.
Second thing were enemies themselves. Usually they were pretty simple and straightforward with a 1-2 gimmicks. For example prodigidal daughter is classic shotgun enemy but have a mask as a gimmick. Or fat dudes from swamp who are immune to headshots, have lots of hp and run pretty fast before tiring out.
They all were pretty simple visually and mechanically, new enemies are more complex and numerous. It's because our character grows stronger with each chapter, and I was ok with that in 2nd chapter. But 3 chapter feels a little too much (invisible hard hitting enemies who travel in packs, teleporting ghost enemies whoe deal lots of damage and usually in groups of 3, immortal enemies unless you stealth kill them in head or use special ammo/oil/molotov, fodder enemies which can't be killed completely silently, enemies who hide in blood and can't be attacked unless they see you). Other enemies are copies of old ones (bird outlaw, sniper cultist, basic undead but gassy, wendigo but without homing but a bear instead).

But it's all highly subjective, there are people who like picture being more bright/saturated and people who love new enemies ( I like them too, just think that they're too different from previous chapters and make game step a little to far from original idea).

What's trully a worse part of 3rd chapter is a map. It's to linear, it reminds me of borderlands 1. A straightforward map that leads you back to the start after completing it. Or in some cases you need just to run back the same way you came. Plus locations are more dangerous or covered in trees and vegetations so much you can't see ♥♥♥♥.
And my main gripe is how little there to actually explore, you just go to the point A by only 1 way, get items at the end, run back to starting point. Repeat for point B,C,D etc.