Install Steam
login
|
language
简体中文 (Simplified Chinese)
繁體中文 (Traditional Chinese)
日本語 (Japanese)
한국어 (Korean)
ไทย (Thai)
Български (Bulgarian)
Čeština (Czech)
Dansk (Danish)
Deutsch (German)
Español - España (Spanish - Spain)
Español - Latinoamérica (Spanish - Latin America)
Ελληνικά (Greek)
Français (French)
Italiano (Italian)
Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian)
Magyar (Hungarian)
Nederlands (Dutch)
Norsk (Norwegian)
Polski (Polish)
Português (Portuguese - Portugal)
Português - Brasil (Portuguese - Brazil)
Română (Romanian)
Русский (Russian)
Suomi (Finnish)
Svenska (Swedish)
Türkçe (Turkish)
Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese)
Українська (Ukrainian)
Report a translation problem
Discussions Rules and Guidelines
0 
Report this post
- Carry witchfire (36000)
- Force Manifestations
- Defeat the first Familiar
First one is clear as day.
Third one too, as I've already went to the 2nd map and saw that there's gonna be a Familiar there. Good.
But... What does "Force Manifestations" mean? And more importantly... Why or how do I even have it completed already? Nothing is clear, nothing is explained, with purposefuly convoluted wording used for literal objectives. No, it does not make your game sound/seem "cooler". It just makes it convoluted and confusing.
------------------------------------------
I also checked out the Collector. The trader guy. Let's see...
- "Portal Flame" item. Description: "Re-activates the entry portal for a limited time."
Clear as day. Easy to understand and pick up. Good. Awesome, even. This is how item descriptions should be, stating their function as is, without nonsense.
- "Placebo pill" item. Description: "Fakes the Ascension, tricking any witch into re-organizing her defences."
Brother, what? Fakes Ascension? What does that mean? Tricking a witch? What? Re-organizing defences? WHAT? I had to ask another more experienced player, who said that - "In a nutshell, it refreshes the map if you've cleared it out". Ok... WHY can't the description say so? Why can't it say exactly that or a variation of that? Why the fancy talk that only makes things confusing?
- "Siren's Shell" item. Description: "A shell whose call few can resist."
My god... What does it do exactly? Does it summon a siren? Does it summon random enemy encounter? Does it taunt enemies from the whole map to come to you? Does it summon a boss of some kind? What does it do? Once again I had to ask another player. Their answer - "Siren's shell calls the boss from one of the maps". Ok, why can't the description say exactly that? Why do you have to make everything pointlessly convoluted like that? Why?
It does not make your game any more "fancy" or "cool". Especially if you also attach price tags to items with such confusing descriptions of what they do.
Striga weapon.
Level 1 upgrade = Deals bonus damage to stunned enemies.
Good. Very clear and on point explanation of what it does. Especially when we're talking about you having to do it n-amount of times to be able to upgrade to level 2. Just hit stunned enemies. Perfectly clear. Done that. Good. Percentages or numbers would be nice too, but this is good enough - because it's at least clear.
However...
Level 2 upgrade = The stake ignites mid-flight, increasing damage and triggering a Burn shockwave on impact.
Also pretty self-explanatory description of the actual effect and what it does. At least so I thought at first glance. Turns out I was wrong. In this case? Numbers are needed indeed. Or at least a further clarification in text.
Because you see... Upgrading to Level 3 requires you to do "Second Mysterium actions 0/75". Ok. Seems fair.
- I go out and shoot enemies, to trigger the Burn shockwave! Yes? NO. Because the ignition... does not happen, for some reason? Or it doesn't have a visual effect? Or something? I was confused. So I kept on trying.
- Ok, maybe I need to hit enemies, trigger the shockwave and so the shockwave hits other enemies too? Yes? ALSO NO.
I tried both and the counter does not go up.
And then I realized... Again, after testing things out on my own, because your game isn't clear with the descriptions... The whole "ignites mid-flight" should be extended to "ignites mid-flight after 10+ meters of going through the air" or whatever the distance for this effect is. So you literally need to snipe with this weapon, for this effect to actually trigger after the stake is in-flight for a certain distance.
-------------------------------
Guys, your whole game is riddled with this sort of stuff. Unclear, convoluted descriptions that don't explain anything... and then also with some very "stylized" and "niche" naming for even the most basic things. This is not good. It's not. It does not make your game "cool". It makes things needlessly confusing and unclear, thus leading to frustration.
There's a lot of guess work if figuring things out. I do love the game tho. I'm excited to play it more once it's fully released.
Exploring and testing stuff is one thing... But excessive guess-work literally almost at every step just to understand the basic stuff is "not it" though.
While I don't necessarily agree with everything OP said, I think some of the wording of things being unique/obscure is perfectly fine, the intent is that a poor job is done of explaining things through gameplay or through design, so the sentiment is definitely valid and I think it's worth noting that they are putting a respectable amount of effort into the feedback, even if you might not agree with 100% of the examples.
You can pretty much see this complaint everywhere since the games launch and it seems to continue to struggle with it, and it's probably going to kill the longevity of the game if they keep it up.
The overarching point is that things can be esoteric and not obvious if there are actually gameplay indicator/hints to the player built in that logically establishes the "rules" of the world and the systems, so the player can learn them and feel like they are getting somewhere. Within witchfire it's a massive problem that they keep leaning on making the in game systems directly confusing or putting in mechanics that are conflicting instead of clarifying, to the point that it loops back around to frustration instead of feeling rewarding when you figure it out. And many things keep not following the established "rules" which is something that you can't do. You can't not explain the game, and then also make it unpredictable at the same time.
a) Large audience of players who can enjoy their game for what it is (gameplay itself is enjoyable), without having to dig throug the depths of excessively "deep" and needlessly "fascinating" (not really) thematically named things... Which leads to high sales and high income...
OR
b) A super small audience of pretentious pseudo-elitist who think of themselves as "better" than others because they enjoy CBT in shape of a game. Yep, just like the Souls-like game audience. Same stuff. Which leads to much lower sales (since this isn't from a big dev, unlike Souls-games) and there isn't any big established reputation/marketing for it either. Thus leading to low income.
The choice is on the dev's side, I suppose.
I'd vote for a, for "abilities" and "passives" and other industry standard naming conventions to be used instead of pointlessly convoluted thematically fitting nonsensical worlds that don't bring literally anything to the table except dragging this game down, by making it confusing to newcomers. The moment you understand what those things are and what they do - you do not care how they are called. You for yourself just call them "abilities", "passives", etc. NOT with those nonsense words. So yes, all of this is pointless.
Like it or not, it's just pretentious nonsense that normal gamers do not care for.
All the really have to do to appease both sides is just make the guidance optional, a huge amount of games do this. If you don't want to do it and then deal with the insanity of trying to figure it out then just have a disable tutorials/hints option.
There's nothing really groundbreaking about the solution to this problem that other games haven't already done, but it's weird how stubborn they seem to be about it. You CAN still keep the core identity of the game/atmosphere and do this, as many other games have.
I am also not saying that everything has to be explained and dumbed down to the "yellow paint" levels, like how some games do these days ("use WASD to walk up that yellow paint path to win"). No. Not that either, no no no! NO!
What I'm asking for here is clarity and avoiding the use of purposefuly confusing and obscure naming for what we alread have normal, "industy standard" names for!
Let's go through the basic in-game UI screen for a sec here. And literally already the naming of those sub-menus:
- Don't use "Preyer". Call it "Character", "Player", "Hero", "Equipment". Because that's literally what that screen is. It shows your character and current equipment. Yes, the player character, on that screen itself and in descriptions of items and such, CAN be called "Preyer", because that's what they are in-lore. But don't name the UI screen/button with a confusing name, use the word that everyone is used to;
- Don't use "Arcana". Call it "Traits", "Perks". Because that's literally what it is. A screen that shows your perks that you earn for clearing a location;
- Like, they used "Map" for... guess what? A map! They didn't use something werid and obscure like... "Location Survey", "Chart", "Design", "Atlas", "Area Porjection", whatever... No! They used "Map". It is clear as day. It tells you what screen this button leads to, it needs no thinking about "what it is?". It's a map. And it says so on the button. THAT'S what it's supposed to be;
- They used "Workshop" for a place where things could be researched. This one is at least fitting ant not confusing. It gets the job done - a worshop is a placee where things are worked on (duh), including research... This one is fine, but kinda on the brink of it. I'd just use "Research" for that button instead, but that's me, I suppose;
- The "Stats" screen/button... Nothing to say here. It's perfect. It's to the point. It's exactly how a naming convention should be used. A screen with stats... named "Stats". Not "Mysterious numbers" or whatever.
- The "Inventory" is also perfect. No further comment needed. The name gets the intended job done - it tells what this screen is supposed to be.
See? I can continue, if you want. Beyond the screen naming, into item names and descriptions:
- Don't use "Second/Third Mysterium Incantation". Call it "Upgrade scroll/book", "Upgrade Token", whatever else. This "flavor text" brings nothing except confusion, especially when you don't know what it is in the first place, how or where to get it, yet you see it in your weapon upgrade requirements FIRST, before seeing it in the research aka Worskshop scren;
- Don't use "Enemies Hexed" in spell upgrade requirements. Call it "Enemies hit". Because that's literally what is required. To hit the enemies. This "flavor text" brings nothing except confusion to those who may not be well-versed in English... like non-native speakers, eh? I know that word, despite being a non-native speaker, but someone else might not;
And so on, so forth. All this stylized flavor text is pointless. Because at first it's confusing and frustrating, but the moment you learn what the hell it even means or what it's supposed to be... You literally never use it again and just instead use the industry-standard and simplier terms for it. It's pointless and only makes things worse, not better, not "cooler".
First of all, I never called anyone names. Certainly didn't call the devs/authors "a55holes". You did. Let that sink in.
Second, the majority authors provide proper explanations to the terms they use. Be it as an "intro" before the book starts - be it a list of characters or events or special 'terms' used for things. Like naming conventions, date/time system that's different from ours, etc. Or they do it organically during the storytelling itself. By weaving those special naming terminology into the writing. By using both the new word AND what it's supposed to be. Like if one character calls some thing one word, the other may be of a more simple type and calls it the other, more regular, commonly used word. It's like if, say, elf claims to use "Arcane Incantations", while the next moment a human would reply - "Just call em Spells, bro". Because that's what they essentially are, even if a different, "special" name is used by the elves.
This is what separates good writing and world-building from bad. The reader who gets to experience said writing should be on the same wave as the writer. You can't just randomly throw made-up words at a person and expect them to understand what the hell is going on. Explanation is needed. Any sort of explanation, in any form... But it is needed.
The point is... You don't call an apple a "banana" and then expect people to instantly understand that you mean you want the apple actually, when you say "banana". For people to understand this... You have to EXPLAIN this first.
Meanwhile we have this game... And here is what it does:
You're given a starter weapon that you shoot people with. You unlock the first "Mysterum"... which should also be called Upgrade/Tier/Level, but ok, Mysterium, whatever. You unlock the first one, as it only requires you to kill enemies. You go in the first mission, kill enough, unlock the 1st one. Good. Done. So you see the requirements on the 2nd upgrade, second Mysterium. And aside from killing enemies and doing the "First mysterium actions" (which is also a poor explanation of what needs to be done, but ok), you are also required to get a... "Second Mysterium Incantation"? What is even that? And you don't know this AT THAT EXACT POINT IN TIME... Because the game doesn't explain it to you. You don't know what is required of you or how/where to get it. And IT IS A FACT that You get to this exact point of seeing this requirement of "Second Mysterium Incantation"... before you unlock the mirror, where you can get one in the first place. So you don't even see/know that you can get that thing from the mirror.
And that's just ONE example of such thing. There's more.
The game tells you "Give me one banana". Meaning... It's asking you for an apple instead. But it doesn't explain that it calls the apple a "banana". Nor does it even explain what a "banana" is in the first place. All while you're a person who never seen a banana or an apple in your life, so you don't know what either of those things are. Because you're a person from another world, where both bananas and apples don't exist (let's assume for the sake of simplicity of this example).
Using fancy words without any sort of explanation does not make things cooler. It just creates a gap between the authors(devs) and their playerbase. And then there's also formed a "special" playerbase, who got in on the game's hype earlier and learned what all of those things mean earlier than others. You know... With Early Access? And people hopping onto it before others? And now, when newer players come in and get confused with the weird naming and lack of explanations... We get reactions like from you. That's called "pseudo elitism", my guy. It's like those obnoxious art critics, who look at some random color mish-mash plastered all over (or worse examples of "modern art") and say "ITS GLORIOUS!", while if anyone dares to criticize this puke of paint on the wall - they instantly claim "You're just simple-minded, you won't understand the genius of the artist". No, brother... It's literally just someone tossing a bunch of paint at the wall, then selling it for crazy money as "art". It's not art. And you are acting as one of those pseudo-elitist art critics. Please, don't.
Or join whatever debate is going on here at that level, but this whole mindset of pretending that there aren't any aspects of the games systems that are poorly communicated to the player and need work is absurd, there absolutely are. All you have to do is read through the feedback forums and there are examples of it being discussed, and there are new ones added in the latest update as well.
If you don't care to offer constructive criticism to help them improve the game, then leave, don't browse feedback forums. No personally I don't necessarily agree that a whole of it is phrasing based, the main problems I have are gameplay based/combat mechanics that are poorly communicated to the player (like element damage interactions on enemies, or for example in the latest update, how divine essence appears as an unbound item yet behaves differently then others and they didn't seem to care to communicate that, etc.). But I'm not going to blindly pretend the problems don't exist either.
That being said though, can't say I agree with the judgement of renaming things. Most of these names are fine, it's relatively clear. In many cases, its just lack of subtext, or gameplay cues behind it and not that the word itself is different.
Then you instantly go and post...
Come on, make up your mind?
I'm not exaggerating anything. There is exactly zero reason to make a game in the way it is now - adding convoluted naming of things that is different from "industry strandard", yet not explaining a thing about those different names. Zero reason.
You acting like it's fine just proves my point of that pseudo-elitism mindset of an arts critic, yelling "you just don't understand the genius of this". Yeah, I don't. Which means the accessibility would be very low, resulting in bad reputation, low popularity, low sales, low income for the devs. You want that to happen? Because that's how you make it happen - by ignoring this issue.
Just unlocked the 1st upgrade for the Duelist pistol. The description states:
"After any kill, a DUEL can be initiate by shooting an enemy while aiming down sights. Landing a critical hit RIGHT AFTER THE MARK empowers the gun temporarily. Dueling is disabled while empowered."
Ok, let's see. First things first, let's take it slow:
- You kill an enemy, to get the *ability* to trigger a "duel" with an enemy;
- You ADS at another enemy to trigger the Duel;
These two parts are clear. Now...
- What does this "duel" mean? Is it the whole... plasing a mark after ADSing? If so... Why does it even have to be specially named a "duel"? Why go above and beyond, if all you have to explain is marking the enemy? Why the excessive use of this pointless "duel" related extra text? Just make it like this:
"After any kill, aiming down sights at the next target places a Mark on them. Landing a critical hit on the marked target empowers the gun temporairly. Can't place more marks while empowered."
See? It's shorter and entirley getts rid of the whole "duel" part. IT's not needed. It's excessive and really only there for the gun's name - Duelist. But just because you named the gun "Duelist"... doesn't mean you have to use the word "Duel" in the explanation of how it works. You know?
NOW! The next step. The whole... "empowers the gun temporairly" part. What does that even mean?
- Does it deal more damage?
- Does it fire faster?
- Does it get more range without damage fall-off?
- Does it get infinite ammo?
- Does it turn into a minigun?
WHAT DOES THAT "Empowers the gun temporarily" MEAN? Why can't you just state it in the description, like normal developers do?
Sure. I can go into the game. Do the whole "dueling" thing, trigger the empowerment. I can. And I will, in a moment. Because I keep playing your game. But why do I have to go into a mission to learn how my gun even works in the first place? Sure, there's a target range aka one respawning skeleton guy in the base too. But come on... Why can't the game just normally explain things and how they work, from just reading the descriptions?