Queen's Wish: Player Discussion

Just a place to discuss the Spidweb game:

I was bored so I grabbed it and while I find it very linear, the game is fun enough to play for a while. I'm playing a good two shoes who is gradually making the queen mad. My goal at the moment is to create a new power by joining the three factions to resist Haven. We'll see how far the game lets me do that.

While I enjoy the game, there are a couple of concepts which I don't like that much in the game.

Regarding my progress: Playing on Torment, so everything takes a bit longer
I am 20 hours in, did the central area and went west, reclaimed Fort Muck and some of the mines.
I am basically playing the nice guy who is there for the people, who fights for haven but not unconditionally. No idea where that leads but so far the story hasn't been that interesting.

I am not sure how linear the game actually is. I tried my luck first to go to the Ahriel in the east, got beaten up by passing through the entrance area and didn't try again.

In any case, I don't feel that it's linear, but it's artificially constructed to a degree where it's a bit too much. Like one realm in each direction, with 2 forts each, an army each.
It feels a bit like playing Civilization on a symetrical map or something, where it's not actually a surprise that the opponent is sitting on the other side of the river.
Or like these old companion quests in some games (including some Avadons) where you get a companion and know that he's got a quest at some point to win his favor.

Some other mechanics of the game:

You can gain resources and you need them to place and MAINTAIN buildings.

The Fort building in itself is completely uninteresting as you basically have to place one of each building anyways. The more interesting part about it is the resource management and the decision what you place first and if you hold off placing stuff.
That however seems to be only relevant if you try to hit the achievement to win the game within 100 days.
Correct me if I am wrong, but in theory you could just run in circles to get unlimited resources by passing time and then build everything.
I don't think time has any other impact besides of the achievement, but again, correct me if I am wrong. I'd actually be glad if there is some kind of time pressure to give this mechanic some meaning.

This resource focus also has an impact on another system:
While old Spiderweb games offered tons of trash loot, where you looked at every spoon to check if you can get some gold for it, Queen's Wish is the exact opposite.
There is hardly any loot at all. This is because the majority of the stuff is crated and therefore gated to how many forts you have.
This means that there is almost no loot for any encounters which makes it much less rewarding. Also you find some vendors in the world which...well...have 3 crappy items. I definitely preferred the old system and loved the trashbag feature.

Enemy Respawn: A double edged sword.
This game has lots of zones where some groups of enemies will respawn if you won't kill the boss to "claim" the zone.
That in itself isn't that bad. I guess it should make it a bit more challenging. And instead of having the challenge limited to just the boss encounter now you include the fights infront of that encounter into it, and make it a bit into a marathon.
However: You are never clearly told which enemies are impacted.
This means that you might go in, kill 5 trash groups (takes maybe 40 minutes) and then you encounter the boss. You realize, you will not be able to beat him, because you ran out of HP/Mana/Potions. So now you leave the zone, heal, come back and you see that the last 2 of thes groups respawned, which you need to kill again.
If you knew that beforehand you could just head back before actually going into combat with these groups.

And then some other issue I saw:
Secrets: The game doesn't have any hidden switches or doors anyway. That was fun in previous games and seems to be completely gone now

Pathfinding:
Spiderweb actually improved their pathfinding in their last games, so that characters do NOT run into enemy area of control if they can reach the path without doing so.
In Queens wish that's gone again and the pathfinding AI in combat got worse again.

This game really feels like a cash grab and nothing else. That's just too bad. Maybe Vogel joined Ellis Studios and just didn't say. @Ripper; should investigate.

I'm playing a proud son of the realm, who is fairly kind to those we rule - but I have zero tolerance for insubordination amongst my own ranks and people. If given the choice of execution (and twice so far I have), it's curtains for the convicted.

On a lighter side…

I'm enjoying the Fort elements so far, it's giving me a feeling of investment in the land itself, and a purpose other than just sallying forth looking to quest.

Clearing the northwest "Mugret Mine" to support the Smith & Barracks (that I probably built too soon), I pushed to the West (Ukat region) sooner than later, an effort to quickly secure another Fort as soon as possible. It's the RTS player in me (looking to expand asap) and get the resources rolling in.

While I held my own in a quite few good fights, and indeed liberated Fort Muck, I soon found myself a bit overwhelmed. The enemies started hitting me w/ status effects that I had not faced until then. I like to heal only when necessary, and often find myself going into an encounter with only a half tank of gas. I'll come back later, I was really just trying to see how far I could push it

Things started getting too dicey once I headed further North, so I'm going back to where it all began, in Haven territory, to explore the entire middle area. Looks like there's another mine to clear there, too.

After dealing with absolute BUCKETS of loot on the last few games I've played, (feeling more like a traveling salesman than an adventurer) I'm ready for a loot-lite game. I'm getting XP for completing goals, I'm leveling all the same, so have been fine w/ the XP system so far.

This is my first Spiderweb game, so I'm not coming in with any real expectations. The graphics are growing on me a little, in a weird way =P

I'm taking a different non-linear approach altogether, and instead of clearing one zone and moving to the next - I'm opening up all 3.

I traveled around the central Haven zone (I renamed my central fort to "Fort Schnauzer") and there were actually some pretty crazy fights there as well! I scraped by, and went North and took care of the Northeast mine. I then had enough smiths rolling to unlock the next tier of weapons, and upgraded some of my crew's equipment.

Then I cruised South and kicked down the Vol's door (metaphorically speaking) long enough to set up the Fort there, and now I'm headed East to the woodsy zone to plant my flag there as well. Mom will be so proud

I'm liking the writing, there's been a few LOL moments, and while the characters are not very deep, the descriptions and depictions he lays out of people/places/things are interesting.

I think this is kind of the linear approach as the enemy levels present the linearity and not the regions. I cleared the middle section and then did the west, first the southern part and went up north after that. The enemy level was 12 or so while my characters were 9, which made it extremely difficult. The "linear" approach would have been to go to the vol before doing the north of the Ukatish.

here i was feeling like a rebel

Kordanor said:

And then some other issue I saw:
Secrets: The game doesn't have any hidden switches or doors anyway. That was fun in previous games and seems to be completely gone now

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Aargh. I enjoyed that aspect, and also the destructable barriers (natural or magical) that required different levels of spells to remove (removed in Avadon as well, so I assume there's none of that here either).

How is the dungeon design aside from these aspects? Are there interesting combat encounters? Some of the dungeons and encounters in Avernum and Avadon are almost puzzle-like.

I would say the dungeon design is rather standard. Lots of nice descriptions and an "authentic" design.

I know which puzzle like encounters you are talking about. These were quite present in Avadon 1 and Avernum: Escape from the pit, but already almost non-existant in the latset games in the series. So far I haven't seen any boss of that type in Queen's Wish.

That is disappointing to hear, I kind of enjoyed looking for the occasional hidden switch or lever. What about hidden treasures or loot, any of those present in this newest offering?

Well, there is an achievement called:

Puzzle Master
Complete 7 different coin puzzles. Many of these are not available until late game.

However, after having played about 30 hours I didn't encounter one yet.

I cleared out the central area and maybe a quarter of the southern area. What seemed strange to me was that I had already unlocked what appeared to be every character ability, and I didn't feel like there was anything that interesting left to spend skill points on, but it didn't feel like I was too far into the game. Do new skills ever open up? A few new cultural skills came up for my main guy, but nothing for anyone else.

Other then that it was interesting, but it felt like I spent way too much time clearing out mines. I did enjoy the fortress bits, although they aren't very deep. I am happy that the game feels sufficiently different then the previous ones though.

Hrm, are you sure you got more skills on your main guy? I think I started with 3 and that's what I got now around level 12 or so.
You can replace your starting team mates with characters from other factions, and you are supposed to do so. These also have 3 racial skills each, one of them extremely powerful.

But besides of that - I think you are right. About half way into the game, you have maxed out what you really wanted and you need to spread into other trees.

Remember that even if you don't cast with your warrior, you also profit from the passives, like additional energy and mana. The 5% dodge chance on every tear also is quite good. But yeah, it feels weird and is certainly not optimal.

Kordanor said:

Hrm, are you sure you got more skills on your main guy? I think I started with 3 and that's what I got now around level 12 or so.

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It is quite possible that I didn't actually get any new abilities and that I just didn't notice that I had abilities in the cultural tab until later in the game .

Ok, that was funny. I basically started my guy with those skills because they seem OP in the beginning. He was able to get some combat skills a little later.

I stopped playing a little after that, not because the game is bad; it's just the "been there done that" vibe that affects all Vogel games gets to me. The treasure is especially lame.

I really need the next TES game. Stupid Bethesda for releasing the pathetic FO76 instead of TES!

I just started playing this game yesterday, only have a few hours in so far but really enjoying the exploration, quests, and combat so far.

Carnifex said:

That is disappointing to hear, I kind of enjoyed looking for the occasional hidden switch or lever. What about hidden treasures or loot, any of those present in this newest offering?

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I had a lot of fun to play this game, but it hasn't secrets, only a few abstract puzzles disconnected to main play and used as unlock, not many tricky exploration or quests parts. The dev said he focused put them in combats. There's a bit more progression that looks tricky but it's mostly fake, just illusion building to worry player. There's also some vaguely hidden stuff, like a container mildly hidden by a chair, but it's not frequent, and with a tiny inventory designed for a more focused lite expedition approach, there isn't much place for loots in dungeons so loot is limited.

What's the point then, and how it can be fun. For me:
- Party building, extended with a management layout, completed by a limited expedition inventory, open to a lot of experiment with free respec.
- Combats, I had to increase difficulty, but didn't bother end with Torment, and had few series of too easy combats. But thankfully I'm not smart enough nor did a party building good enough to faceroll the game, if you are/do you'll probably have a weak experience.
- Extreme freedom, curious of something, let check it, I enjoyed.
- Writing, found it more old school and more easy to read than in other games. But I also felt it more light, which was fine for me, but not for all.
- Lite expedition management, it's less fake then previous rest systems, but the more you progress the more it feel minor.
- Dungeons progressions, at least for some, a bit too many end a bit too linear through locks despite the layout isn't a corridor nor a series of rooms. The positive of those more linear dungeons is they have a better little story progression or mood progression.

fadedc said:

It is quite possible that I didn't actually get any new abilities and that I just didn't notice that I had abilities in the cultural tab until later in the game .

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Yes the only new abilities are through items alas none give a new active ability, only new passive abilities, and most allow increase the strength of an existing ability, some are actives.

The dev said that he will look on a system so some higher level abilities will be available only in later parts of the game. Currently you can try all abilities at level 7, which doesn't mean it's end of a build.