Im on my first playhrough and bought the game with the expansion and Im currently in it.
I bought it for the classes and the level cap.
And I think its sooooo bad, the HUGE zones, the cramped corridors and houses, WAVES AND WAVES AND WAVES AND WAVES AND WAVES of mobs.
The base game had such a great sense of progression,
You can exactly see where the expanssion begins and the devs said “We gonna make everything super HUUUUUUGE”
these zones just frustrate me, Im playing this content cause I heard theres a recepie vendor for relics.
Im actually at Act 2 Elite and only went back for that.
7 levels and 7 hours later I just want it to end. This is just painful to play.
Ugdenbog is way too big, it is just dreadful, also Mourndale.
Malmouth as such isn´t too big imo, but the trillzillion stairs and cramped corridors … ugh.
You are probably not the only one, but at least here on the forums in the minority. The devs have a tendency to get carried away. But I’m not sure, if the new areas are significantly larger. The mobs are more challenging in the expansion, which might slow you down.
Crate has been happy how with the final boss has turned out - nice to hear you agree with them on something.
As someone who has replayed the game multiple times, I always feel more comfortable with later playthroughs. I am also enjoying the story and the lore, which is a welcome change between all the fighting.
There will be another expansion later this year. Feels free to post more feedback, and I shall try to keep an eye out, when testing starts.
I personally love AoM. I admit some areas are too big, like Ugdenbog or the areas after Coven/before Barrowholm. The aetherial/chthonian battlefields are just boring and I’d love to have it removed completely. Ancient Grove is nice, imo, even though it’s kinda too big, I really like it and can’t imagine it any smaller.
Agree Ugdenbog is huge. First time through I hated it. Second and onwards, I just beeline through it, rescue Dad Torven and the witches, and kill Scorv to skip the quests and make it go quicker.
The trek to Malmouth is OK, you can straight line through it after the first time.
Malmouth itself, pathfinding is a real pain but I’m happy for the choke points because of all the mobs. It’s an interesting change in dynamic to pull mobs towards a choke rather than charge towards them so I like it for that.
I don’t get complaints about size of areas and enemies. Do you enjoy the game or play to mark it for yourself as “complete”? When you enjoy something, it’s never enough
While I agree that level design in some of expansion areas is not the best, I love everything that expansion brought. Right before the expansion game offered little to no challenge to top tier builds, both in main campaign and in crucible. In AoM there are a lot of challenge for all kinds of builds. Waves of monsters is fun, this is what ARPG is about, hacking and slashing hordes of beasts to get that final loot piece you’ve dreamt about.
But going thru Mourndale is dreadful everytime I level a new char. And personally, I prefer dark narrow corridors and dungeons to vast pseudo-open world areas in ARPGs.
I love Mourndale myself. I’m a sucker for big open battlefields where two or more factions are fighting each other and you can just zip around, killing members of each faction.
Plus it’s funny seeing Grava struggle to kill low Aetherials. I’ve seen Bileeaters taking his null projectiles like champs.
I actually think it’s not too bad. I mean, you could argue that the Blood Grove is too chaotic, the Rotting Croplands are a mess and even the Pine Barrens is too large. I think there’s still some consistency in the devs’ map making.
The only location that I can relate is Mourndale. It always felt like missing one additional riftgate in the center.
As for Ugdenbog I think it’s pretty reasonable. It appears to be overwhelming at first, but it’s mostly the effect of enemies here being more durable and therefore slower progression, rather than level design. I feel like it’s actually smaller than act 1.
I don’t think hate is the right word, but I do understand the OP’s point. The combination of more difficult monsters with wider open spaces in ugdenbog and mourndale and malmouth outskirts can feel oppressing compared to the other acts.
But keep in mind that it’s completely optional, you can just go next difficulty after killing log.
Personally, I dislike the cramped stairs and corridors in malmouth itself, my character always wants to walk somewhere he cant’go.
But you can’t argue it’s pretty (and apocalyptic).
I can partialy relate. In my 1st playthrough with not so good build AoM felt tedious for me, those flowers with poison pools and often 2 lives, huge tree golems with ton of life, and especialy swarms of aetherials in ruined city.
But on elite already it felt comletely different to me as my build grew some balls. City combat felt exactly like it should, i mean it is street combat not the field, it should be tricky with all the covers and narrow streets and stairs.
So now i’m completely satisfied with add-on and gonna farm the hell out of it.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Malmouth at first, though the biggest problem for me was the large numbers of overly-resistant colossus enemies rather than all the cramped passages (I honestly kinda like tighter areas from time to time, same goes for PV). That got fixed pretty quickly though, and now after playing it a bunch Malmouth is definitely one of my favourite acts. Even Mourndale is alright, despite being less interesting than everything that follows. Those enemies that cast protective shields are still annoying as shit though.
I think Ugdenbog’s great, and it’s even better now that its had a bunch of extra content added to it over the last couple of patches.
Malmouth is hard to navigate but sois Port Valbury, guess it was made intentionally and i am fine with that. besides, low level chars without good gear would be devastated quickly if it was an open area.
Ugdenbog is my favourite area in the game. Different strokes I guess. Cities are generally cramped and overcrowded places, so I don’t see any inherent design flaw with Malmouth, and I actually like the intensity of the waves in the final sections of that campaign.
