Speaking of the next update, do you plan to make your mod ‘compatible’ in the sense that the campaign map included will also include the next update?
Right now I’m starting all my new chars in your mod because I’m just burnt out on the campaign, but will be transitioning them to campaign in ultimate to beat the game once, rather than have to go through the campaign 3 times.
Also, another campaign question: If I complete quests like the hidden path in campaign, they are going to reward me with a skill point. Are these additional skill points offered in Nydiamar in any fashion, or should I just play Hidden Path quest on 3 difficulties in campaign to attain those skill points for a character?
I really appreciate to hear that! I will keep that ‘new-player friendliness’ in mind when working on future stuff. Maybe because even I am not that experienced after all - I haven’t reached level 100 on my main either, heh.
I can’t understate how much this was a draw for me in picking your mod. It was this, and the entirely new maps of course <-- this was actually the biggest factor.
I love what you’ve done with the new maps. I recently played the fogged-up challenge dungeon in the Lowran Mine (I may have spelled that wrong), and the effect of killing ghosts in the fog is really, really cool, and so different from anything base GD offers.
With that said, the fogged up transition area with ghosts was maybe a little long and confusing 
After all, I’m just running out of ideas to improve what’s currently there, and the expansion which adds new assets and changes up everything holds me back starting working on new environments right now.
The problem I have is catching bugs and odd things. For example the crystals I added last update - you could completely break them by confusing them through the Flashbang skill. I only found out about this by accident. So, again, if you catch something odd, report that back. I’m mostly working after the Trial & Error principle, which happens to let quite a lot of bugs slip through. That’s why I would like to hear a little bit from people who did play through.
I understand bug testing isn’t really possible for just one person. The smoothness with which Nydiamar runs is already breathtaking.
I did encounter one issue yesterday, I was in Hortan Mine and unlocked the office door and killed Cronley. But then I went back out the office door that I entered, and wasn’t able to re-enter and therefore had to exit to main menu.
Is this a limitation of the way door locks work in GD?
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[li]The way you currently gain Devotion points through the level rewards is a bit boring, so I’m considering this as a more interesting way to gain them:[/li]
Since the world currently is too small to put all the shrines in there, I might create a new arena where you can spawn the devotion shrines from the main campaign. The shrines are locked behind milestones you have to reach first, for example reaching the Nehada Desert on Elite unlocks the next 3 shrines to take on. You need to complete the previous spawned shrines first to be able to spawn the next set of shrines. Putting a min level for enemies on each difficulty ensures that the player won’t easily get all points, since he can’t play through Ultimate while being only level 50.
Alternatively, I may put some shrines into the world instead, with increased difficulty and Devotion points to gain from.
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I actually prefer the shrines method in the game world, rather than additional rogue dungeons. I think it would offer more variety to the game world itself, and when a shrine pops up on the minimap, it’s always nice in the campaign because you beeline straight for it for that devotion point.
In Nydiamar, the prospect of getting 2 or 3 devotion points when you see a shrine would make it even more exciting, and I think you can increase the difficulty proportionately, to even a point where sometimes you have to progress a little more before backtracking to get the shrine.
Making them a tough challenge is all good with me, I enjoy the steeper difficulty of Nydiamar so far (at level 50 now, not doing leveling quests, in the snow mountains).
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[li]When you get to level 35, you instantly unlock all factions with maximal reputation after taking your level reward. A bit boring too. [/li]
So, again, I might add a new arena to level up each faction on your own. My current idea is that you choose the faction you want to receive reputation for and then proceed to complete the arena.
The arena is split into multiple connected rooms. Something like this (quickly done in Notepad):
R = Room with an ambush; B = Room with a random boss fight; C = Room with a chest.
After completing a room, a randomly chosen path leading to the next room opens up. You won’t end up in the same room twice, so you always somehow advance towards the end. The length of the current run depends on your luck.
The reputation quests are split into multiple tiers. The first only lets you get to the first boss fight and only rewards a small amount of reputation. The second one rewards more, but requires you to reach and complete the second boss fight.
The longer you need to go to complete the quest, the higher the risk that you may die and start over. Similar to Odul Aela’s Dungeon.
Eventually I may add some rooms with the same mechanic as the Elements part in the Strange Well - to spice it up.
The environment will be a desert (so I’m waiting here for the expansion once again), mixed with some other exotic biomes, again similar to Odul Aela’s Dungeon where the environment slightly changes the further you advance.[/ul]
I like this idea as you’ve put it. Dungeons for faction rep makes sense to me, as in the game you gain it by killing and it takes a long time. Giving it to players at level 35 is a little OP, IMO, as faction gear can often be used for strong leveling builds, and farming rep was the gate for that in the main campaign.
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[li]Endgame. 4 new areas, which you can access through several randomly spawned rifts. Similar how the Ashen Waste works. The rift for the 1st area might spawn somewhere inside the Nehada Desert. The 2nd in the Snowy Landscape. The 3rd, I don’t know, probably in the Transition parts. The 4th and final one inside the Ashes.[/li]
The 4th one requires keystones that you receive by completing the previous areas. The keystones will be difficulty locked. Since those areas are supposed to be endgame, you finally get to fight some of the harder bosses, probably those from the main campaigns challenge dungeons, like Alkamos.
The environments for those areas are going to be awesome, got some crazy ideas.
[li]New hidden challenge dungeon near the Entrance of the Catacombs, accompanied by a lengthy quest.[/li]> [/ul]
I LOVE the idea of endgame areas and dungeons. I don’t have the crucible DLC and the idea of just playing in 1 dungeon over and over against waves of enemies is not super interesting to me.
I am so sick of the campaign map, so the idea of 4 brand new areas for end-game farming really sounds good to me.
I would like it if the spawn points for the rifts are maybe 1 of 4 places that aren’t too far apart. For the most part, for endgame, I think that making me run all over the Nehada map, for instance, would probably just annoy me a little, as the goal is end-game farming and not so much exploration or quest completion.
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Once again, I wanted to thank you for the time you’ve put into this mod. As far as I’m aware, it’s one of the very few mods that offers brand new game maps, and in the quantity Nydiamar has. I still love the Nehada Desert, and often farm skellies there simply because it’s fun to just blow a bunch of them up. The maps are so detailed, I can only imagine the hundreds of hours you’ve put into crafting them.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to share a couple of things that have been on my mind playing Nydiamar:
- For the crafting quests, I’m at tier 2 which means I get 2 blueprints. However, more often than not, I’m getting duplicates or blueprints I’ve already learned. Is the pool of blueprints that are rewarded really small?
I was hoping to do these quests constantly just to pad out my blueprints and hopefully get some good legendary blueprint drops at at least a greater frequency than the main campaign.
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The forest outside the Outpost is a little difficult to navigate. I’m sure this was your intention, but my first time going through there was a little frustrating. This is just a personal thing and not a criticism, but offering a slightly clearer path may be good for players new to your mod, as the environment is already very interesting, especially with the crater (which was awesome, if I may say).
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To be honest, I find myself imagining a stronger narrative thread. I understand it’s not meant for lore, but you’ve got these great locations and already have a few quests (the woman at the Outpost, for instance). Tying a bunch together as a stronger throughline from start to finish could be really cool. This is just something I was idly thinking about.
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You mentioned about graphical settings so I think I should share my unique setup. I am playing on a 6" screen on the lowest possible settings at 720p using controller input (it’s a handheld computer called GPD Win 2), and I haven’t run into any problems or issues that I know of. I guess it’s just a data point you can add to how your maps run. Framerate is actually often better than the campaign (except for the tomb where I’m smashing vases, which was a bloody excellent idea to implement, btw).
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Last one, and I really hope you can answer this because I’m tearing my hair out: Where the heck is the “Apt” shard? lol
And finally, I actually laughed out loud on the train when the bench killed me, so that was a good joke. Thanks. (I play GD on my commute to work using my portable handheld computer).
But i am wondering about making NEW char to start from lvl 1 and make all content again. Btw idea about caping monster levels is good idea coz going all normal till 100lvl is easy (and belive me i am lazy player who will do that on normal without effort and i do not want that to be there) so You better do that monster level cap coz this sounds more reliable and enjoyable 