Questions and Suggestions After 100%

[Shmilly]

Having now completed the game and all its achievements, I would first and foremost like to congratulate the developer on creating such an intriguing and engaging experience. Once I started to make meaningful progress I found myself playing for lengthy sessions and it was always a delight finding and experimenting with new tools and weapons. That said I have a couple of questions and suggestions and I believe the developer tends to be active in the community, so I decided to post them here.

Questions

• What is the purpose of the Remains of the First/Second Guardian key items? I recall finding them just before a certain boss and thinking they might be used in that fight, but after completing the story they are still just sitting in my inventory.
  
  
• There is a locked door southwest of the Green Roofs District fireplace that appears to lead down some steps with a blue glowing light. Head directly south of the fireplace and up some short stairs to the right - it's facing a horizontal black bar on my map. Is there a key for this door and does it lead anywhere new?
  
  
• Do you have a list of all the available Additional Weapons? If my understanding is correct, only the Main Weapons are needed for the achievement. My inner completionist would like to know if I found everything - maybe even another achievement for collecting all these?
  --- I currently have: Rapier, Gun, Flying Blade, Whip, Cross, Fantar's Lamp, Shotgun, Lights, White Katana, Green Sword, Triangular Sword, Vortex Blade, One Mind, Energy Shell, Air Shaking, Bright Blade, Golden Staff, Esten Halberd, Large Lance of Miriecel, Esten Wing.
  
  
  

  Feedback/Suggestions

• This game is dark. Sometimes this is great for creating the oppressive atmosphere that it does so well, but sometimes it can be a hindrance. For example, lots of routes of progression are through narrow staircases or small openings, and these can sometimes be difficult to locate. There are also occasions where a whole lengthy corridor is unlit and it can be difficult to tell if you need to go in a straight line or turn a corner. My suggestion: change the Additional Weapon: Lights into a consumable item like the Salty Symbol and make it toggle on/off rather than on a timer. This way players can choose when to have it on rather than having to use it repeatedly every 30 seconds.
  
  
• Speaking of the Salty Symbol, a single line of in-game text to tell the player that it is infinite use rather than single use might save cautious players a lot of time running back to fireplaces. In fact, until I googled this information I found that to be one of the most demotivating parts of the experience.
  
  
• Some enemy attacks knock down the player and leave them in a state of vulnerability that usually guarantees they will be hit by a follow-up attack. While this is less of an issue in one-on-one fights like bosses where you can learn the moveset, it is a frustrating issue in open areas with other enemies around - the player can also be hit by other enemies during the recovery period. Example: the Esten Guardian, who is first encountered as a standalone mini-boss, appears again in later areas alongside regular mobs. My suggestion: decrease the recovery time so the player doesn't get stunlocked, and/or make the player immune to incoming damage during the recovery animation.
  
  
• In-game text clarification that the Esten Halberd and Esten Wing Additional Weapons deal White damage rather than regular damage would be appreciated. I believe these are the only ones where it is not clear until they are used for the first time.
  --- Speaking of the Esten Halberd, have you considered pairing its use with the Triangular Sword? Currently they activate one at a time in the order the player has equipped them, but it might be nice to have both activate at the same time (this would be extremely powerful with Easy Mode enabled, though).
  
  
• Additional Weapons seem to grant the player varied levels of resistance to being stunned by enemies. This means that attacks that come out quickly (eg. Green Sword) are very useful for trading, but ones that are easily staggered out of are less viable in encounters with multiple enemies (eg. Whip). My suggestion: make it easier to complete weapon combos by giving the player 'hyper armour' or stagger resistance during their animations, and/or have a system in place that automatically resets the timer on Additional Weapons when their attack was interrupted, so that the player can try again without the penalty of waiting.
  
  
• Make the player immune to damage during the Grapple animation, so that players can travel up ledges without being hit by enemies.
  
  
• Make the map on the fireplace Travel screen the same as the regular overworld map. The current design is simple but arbitrary and being able to see exactly where you are going could make traversal smoother.
  --- How about allowing the player to travel to any activated fireplace from the map screen, like Elden Ring for example? This removes the step of warping back to the fireplace and then searching through the Travel menu.
  
  
• Mark NPC locations on the map once they have been interacted with by the player. This should also be updated when the NPC moves location. Could be useful for completing side quests.
  
  
• Consider tweaking the level up system. By the endgame this was less of an issue for me and more of a 'quirk' of the game design, but it can be a little demotivating for new players. Personally, I think the stat increases are so minimal that you need to devote a large number of levels to any given stat to see any significant increase. This is especially noticeable with attack - I understand that the flat boosts from finding Lampheads are the main way to increase your power, but outside of these I felt little to no major difference after upgrading my attack stat. This made me wonder if the investment was better spent elsewhere - gradually increasing HP and stamina was never a waste.
  My suggestion: make stat increases per level more meaningful and have at least one stat increase with every level up. There were times when I needed to dump three or four levels just to earn a single extra point.

[Rone Vine]

Originally posted by Shmilly:

What is the purpose of the Remains of the First/Second Guardian key items?

They can be given to the character next to the fireplace "Upper Floors of the Gray House", he will give some information.

Originally posted by Shmilly:

There is a locked door southwest of the Green Roofs District fireplace that appears to lead down some steps with a blue glowing light.

Yes, it can be opened during the optional quest, if you take it before a certain point in the game. There is just a quest item there.

Originally posted by Shmilly:

If my understanding is correct, only the Main Weapons are needed for the achievement. My inner completionist would like to know if I found everything - maybe even another achievement for collecting all these?

The achievement is given for all main and all additional weapons. If you got this achievement, then you should have all available additional weapons in your hands.

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see what I can do about it.

[Shmilly]

Originally posted by RoneVine:

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see what I can do about it.

Thanks for the swift reply!
Don't worry if you can't implement all the changes, or if something clashes with your vision for the game. I would be honored if my feedback helped more people enjoy their time with Estencel.