Other Quality of Life Improvements I really would like to see (minor Spoilers)

[Sodarok]

I'm through with the whole game now and there are some things that I really miss. Besides a map screen, a mini-map and map markers, these are the things I'd love to see as well:

Quest Journal - There aren't that many side quests in this game but still enough that I completely forgot about a couple of them, and only got around doing them when I was revisiting everything.

Collectible Tracker - In the bigger dungeons there are lots of convoluted roads leading to little goodies, and I eventually started to turn around the camera frenetically to see if I missed anything. A tracker (for example on the map screen) would help to see if you really got everything in a dungeon. Especially the Gestral Sanctuaries are so easily to get lost in. And the mimes are sometimes so off-road. I needed to revisit the Ancient Sanctuary five times to get everything and that was just annoying, and it didn't feel like exploring anymore.

Bestiary and Weakness Indicator - A Bestiary in the Exploration Menu would be nice, if only more for the aesthetic reason. But it would be really helpful to see the weaknesses of the enemies there, and once you discovered the weakness of an enemy, it would be nice for it to show up before an attack, so you don't accidentally use a wrong attack on the enemy. The times I accidentally healed enemies made me suffer...

Fast Travel on the Continent or at least a faster Esquie - I think that Esquie traverses the Continent at a quite slow pace, so I'd like him to be a bit faster. Especially when you go all across the map is annoying. I understand that it's nice to soar with him over the Continent but it eventually gets old, so maybe fast-traveling on the Continent would be nice as well.

Manual Saving - This is not that important to me but there were times where I liked to make a manual save before clicking on a decision, instead of fishing in the previous saves menu and hoping there is one just before the decision.

Warning/Level Indicators for really tough encounters - Also not that important but when I was in the Gestral Village the first time and there was the option to fight Golgra, I just was like: "Yeah, let's do it.", just to get my butt handed to me. It would be nice to have a warning here. The same goes for the Grosse Tête that just stands on the Continent, I thought it's just a slightly stronger enemy and then got wiped easily again. Only Sprong gives you enough of an intimidating look to avoid it at first, in my opinion.

[Gawain]

I agree with your list, but I think minimap is actually the least necessary. It does fit with the idea of the Expedition, but then again: after going through an area, why not have a map?

The Quest Journal is really necessary, though. It's not even clear when something's a quest and when not...

[goodbye_bonito]

No trackers please, modern games are ruined by trackers, you dont play games instead you complete progress bars to 100% and collectibles to 100/100.

You will not die if you miss one lumina point or another ♥♥♥♥♥♥ weapon.


I agree only with Bestiary in your list. That's a nice addition

[Lucyfar]

Mini-map and map markers: I think the game is really smart in the way it lets you explore the world without any mini map needed whatsoever, you can always tell where is the right way to go and progress the story, there's usually a save point, or another element or maybe a character will literally tell you the direction "if we go north we advance the story", or maybe the game autosaves indicating maybe there's a boss battle in that direction, you don't need a mini map, or map marker or anything in the HUD really, it adds to the immersion of the world and exploration aspect of it, you are a expeditioner afterall.

Quest Journal: I think this one is fair, i think Lune would definitely keep a journal of this kind of thing so it makes sense to have a quest journal, even tho you don't need one because it's really easy to track the quests in this game.

Collectible Tracker: I disagree with this, it's the same as the mini-map one, it's very easy to explore every nook and crany of every dungeon and area of this game, i think by the end of my playthrough i got like 99% of all the stuff i needed for achievements, i only missed literally 1 journal and 1 music record, the game is very intuitive in it's exploration. Edit: i strongly agree with @goodbye_bonito, i think trackers ruins the experience of many games nowadays because you just start following a checklist instead of playing and enjoying the game, i hated Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth mostly because of this.

Bestiary and Weakness Indicator: Like the Quest Journal i think it's fair to say Lune would keep track of those things so it makes sense to have one, as you discover weaknesses she would write them on her Journal, makes sense, fair enough.

Fast Travel on the Continent or at least a faster Esquie: Meh i don't know, i think it's a fair point but i don't think wasting resources doing this is a good idea, actually i think Fast Travel would ruin the moments where you suddenly notice something you haven't noticed before while going through a area you already went through, so nah i disagree with this one, sorry.

Manual Saving: Technically there is a manual save in the game, when you go to the menu and change the equipment, lumina or pictos of a character the game saves, so you can use this to manually save the game anywhere, just be careful tho, don't save on the air or in a floating island cuz the game will glitch when you load and the characters will go through the terrain and be stuck forever xD almost lost my save to this but yeah an official Manual Save would be a good QoL, or at least fix the bugs related to "manually" saving by changing equipment and stuff

Warning/Level Indicators for really tough encounters: I think this would take away some aspect of the excitement of the exploration so i disagree, i also got beaten by Grosse Tete btw i and i tried facing Sprong when i saw him but yeah, also got beaten hehe it was cool discovering those enemies and saving their locations in my mind, i came back later and kicked their a$$

Anyway, you have good points overall but i also believe the devs should stick by their ideas and philosophy, they clearly have a very unique vision for the game and i would hate for them to change this and start adding a lot of stuff that other games have just for the sake of convenience.

[Sodarok]

Originally posted by goodbye_bonito:

No trackers please, modern games are ruined by trackers, you dont play games instead you complete progress bars to 100% and collectibles to 100/100.

But I'm a 100% guy. And for me a tracker would be a blessing. I guess you can see this in many ways: Either you just vibe with the game and explore or you, like I do, meticulously try to find everything. Maybe if it could be turned off if you'd like to?

On second thought, a mini-map might clutter the screen a bit much, I give you that, but at least I'd like to have a map screen to clearly see where I was and where I didn't go yet.

I disagree with the "You are an expeditioner" argument because this is a video game after all. I don't think that just because the characters don't have something, that we aren't allowed to have it, too. In my opinion, this doesn't break immersion.

I also don't see how Fast Traveling on the Continent would be bad because you don't have to use it. And I just thought a faster Esquie would be a good middleground to that.

With Manual Saving I meant a dedicated prompt where you click Save, and the game saves right then and there. Like I said, it helps when you want to go back for other decisions.

For the big bosses it would at least be nice to have the chance to flee instead of getting destroyed. It is kinda hilarious but it somewhat breaks the pace, in my opinion.

I don't know what the devs will implement eventually and what they won't. I just saw that they are open for suggestions, so I gave my feedback. But I don't see why a little more convenience would be bad. It helps to widen the accessibility.

[Gawain]

I think a good compromise would be to have a minimap that fills out itself as you explore.

[Crimsomrider]

Option to disable the Lumina list during combat.

In the endgame they cover the entire freaking right side of the screen, can't even see character specific abilities or the ability menu until they go away.

[DeadJericho]

a mini/map that fills in as you explore is a good compromise

an option to auto advance dialogue text especially for spoken scenes

an option to turn off the subtitles still appearing at the bottom right of the screen when characters say things during traversal