Anyone else find the level design incredibly confusing and frustrating?

[Cole]

Crashes aside, this is easily my biggest gripe with the game. So many paths, doors, crossways, stairs. It's like every room has 4 exits, I don't even think I'm exaggerating. The visual design is doing it's fair share to complicate things, doors and pathways are often hard to see, everything is overly convoluted and filled with visual clutter.

I also noticed that the levels are way too vertical. There are constantly stairs up and down and around and around, it's very hard for me to get a sense of the place.

And no, I don't want a minimap or quest markers. If I explore an area in Dark Souls for 10 hours I usually feel right at home, knowing where I'm going. In Lords I feel lost ALL the damn time and it's seriously diminishing the fun I'm having.

[Trivvy™]

I've been running around the same area for ages trying to find how to progress.

[catnipdave]

Doesn't help that they've cut and pasted so many areast to save time and money. Very disorientating, but I hear they are a fairly small team so excusible and forgivable (explians many of the other faults too).

Watched a great review of th game where the guy was saying the ONLY reason LoTF doesn't have a map is because - Dark Souls didn't have a map. Makes perfect sense.

[catnipdave]

It's a great review - link I agreed with pretty much everything the guy said.

[Pecata]

Originally posted by Suzi Q.:

Crashes aside, this is easily my biggest gripe with the game. So many paths, doors, crossways, stairs. It's like every room has 4 exits, I don't even think I'm exaggerating. The visual design is doing it's fair share to complicate things, doors and pathways are often hard to see, everything is overly convoluted and filled with visual clutter.

I also noticed that the levels are way too vertical. There are constantly stairs up and down and around and around, it's very hard for me to get a sense of the place.

And no, I don't want a minimap or quest markers. If I explore an area in Dark Souls for 10 hours I usually feel right at home, knowing where I'm going. In Lords I feel lost ALL the damn time and it's seriously diminishing the fun I'm having.

I agree with you 100% I feel the same way-sometimes it's just frustrating to find your way out....that doesn't make the game more interesting-it makes it more boring-roaming the same places over and over again just because they all look the same...

[Aydrian]

I like it. Sure I do sometimes get confused as to where to go, or miss a set of stairs that is just out of sight unless you know to look for them, but it's keeping me on my toes. It's encouraging me to explore every single room thoroughly, which then reveals more loot that I might've missed if I hadn't done so.

I can get over the annoyance of being lost sometimes, because I really get to take in all of the environments while looking for hidden doors and stuff.

[catnipdave]

I've just spent something like 2 hours wandering around the same areas looking for the Annihilator. Nothing like the seriousl hardcore gaming challenge of looking for a door, or is it a button, or a lever, or a secret wall, or an npc?

Thank god for Youtube and those better souls that can someonhow persevere.

[SpawnCap]

Don't find level design a problem at all, just have to pay attention to your surroundings. Try and find something in a huge open world, harder than finding something in this game and it's one castle and a little bit of outdoors area.

[Cole]

Originally posted by catnipdave:

Doesn't help that they've cut and pasted so many areast to save time and money. Very disorientating, but I hear they are a fairly small team so excusible and forgivable (explians many of the other faults too).

Watched a great review of th game where the guy was saying the ONLY reason LoTF doesn't have a map is because - Dark Souls didn't have a map. Makes perfect sense.

Well, they forgot to make maps that actually work without a minimap...

I'll watch that review tomorrow. :)

And @Annihilator: hahaha, I have JUST done the same all evening, two hours wasted.