World The SE’s linear progression and lootruns

The Silent Expanse is built for linear progression, being more of a path rather than an explorable area. Before 2.0.3, this was fine, since it fit the quests associated with it and allowed for smoother gameplay during them. But now, with the new lootruns, it doesn’t feel right anymore. Gameplay-wise, you traverse the area as if it’s fully explorable, and yet, it’s still built like a trail you walk along.

The new void holes and tunnels added are great additions, but I still feel like it’s not enough. There are many barriers above the spikes and mountains, and so much space is totally unused. There are so a bunch of hidden areas and structures that are inaccessible, and it just makes no sense to me. So much unused potential for both during and outside of lootruns. I think it would perform much better as a fully explorable area instead of just a path. Maybe there could be a terrain rework in the future where it’s more of a natural environment? Maybe the different regions could become less distinct and more blended together, instead of being clearly separated.

I like the way that Void Valley and Toxic Wastes have areas outside the path that you can traverse, but the way that they are so different from each other and clearly separated makes it feel odd to me. Like, forces of darkness invaded this area and transformed it completely. And yet, the different areas are so tidily separated. For example, the Toxic Wastes begin right after Lutho, and once you hit the gate between TW and Void Valley, all that green shit just… stops. So abruptly. It’s weird, and not weird like the SE is supposed to be, all alien and strange. It’s just so unnatural to me.

In no way am I trying to downplay the Content Team’s work designing this area. It’s awesome. These are just my thoughts on the place.

Let me know what you think!

 

You're familiar with what the Toxic Wastes lore is, right?

 

That it’s like one giant creature? I might be wrong because I’m kinda bad at understanding the meanings of secret discoveries, but yeah I see what you mean there. It would be strange if a huge monster was like spread around the world xD

 

Yeah, it's a giant monster that fell into the earth and become the biome. Eyeball Forest might've stretched all the way to Void Valley, but it was warped even further than it already was

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Similar deal with Void Valley, it's as strange and broken as it is because of The Nameless, which is slowly advancing a wave of reality-thievery from the Pathway to Darkness all the way to Lutho, with it recently breaching into the wastes. The sudden drastic change makes a lot of sense because you're entering a biome that is being actively disassembled and taken apart

 

Okay, that makes a lot more sense. Thanks for explaining it!

If you want me to, I'll delete this post as it kind of has no purpose now xD

 

I don't feel like you should do that.
"no, the lore is consistent!" does not somehow debunk the claim that gameplay could be better. Nothing has been said in the replies to this thread yet about whether or not there should actually be a more open void valley. I for one definitely think the mechanic of voidholes is severely underused, and would kind of like if some amount of exploration through the void holes was required to unlock TNA or something. Right now they all just teleport you to quest areas you don't want to go to, so what would have been a neat mechanic for an area is just something players avoid.

 

Yeah, this has always been a bit of a problem with the region. It's way too neat and tidy and linear for what it's supposed to be.

 

Yes. Even if a huge creature fell in to the earth to form the Toxic Wastes, it still is strange that the area stops so abruptly. You’d think that such a corrosive substance that makes up the region would spread out a little, but no, it just sticks to its domain. It would be super cool if all the regions in SE were in like constant battle with each other, having parts of each place spread out between each other, which would fit the lore better than such clearly marked borders.

 

Check the border between Lutho and Toxic Wastes, because there it does

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It just doesn't in void valley because there's Absolute Unspeakable Shit happening there thanks to The Nameless

 

Honestly, it stops super abruptly to me there, too. Maybe I’m just missing it terribly, but look at this picture:

And also yeah, it stops like that in Void Valley, too, and I understand that it is lore-accurate. Maybe the real issue here isn’t the builds, but rather the abundance of barriers all around SE. If you remember my thread about that building behind the Dern portal, you know I’m obsessed with how the SE was before it was revamped. That area doesn’t directly relate to this, but due to my constant exploration of the SE on my Acrobat, I can’t help but notice the mass amount of barrier blocks above almost every spike and ledge. I think that the abundance of barriers contributes to the gameplay elements of the SE being strange, as many areas that seem to be fully explorable are actually blocked off completely. All those crazy mountains are so cool, but you can’t access them. I really like the Mines because all those lonely passageways and far-off tunnels are explorable. So many secrets. But it feels like the rest of the SE loses a lot of that accessibility due to these barriers.

Maybe, in the future, some of the barriers could be removed so that it’s more accessible.

 

About the silent expanse and the future

While lootrunning Ive noticed just how linear the layout of the Silent Expanse is. It no longer feels like a vast area to explore, but a path to an end, the Eldritch Outlook. I really hope this is wont be the case with Fruma, even though I dont think it will be, but Im slightly concerned about the map design. It may work for the SE but certainly not everywhere.

(Post I drafted but then I saw this one, so here it goes)

 

Yeah… even though, lore-wise, it is a path, it doesn’t feel like an explorable area at all and isn’t a good design for lootrunning.

Here’s a map of the accessible and inaccessible areas of SE. Green is accessible with content, red is inaccessible due to barriers, and yellow is a visible structure that is inaccessible due to barriers.
It probably isn’t totally accurate, but it should get the point across.


I don’t think this is a good design for any “explorable” area, let alone for lootrunning. It’s just way too linear and half the area is totally inaccessible. I agree, I really hope that Fruma’s map design isn’t like this…

 

Please read the post about Fruma development from Salted

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Above

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This stuff has already been talked about and answered in a community post.

 

Forgot about that part of the post, thanks for the clarification

 

Damm, you really showed how much empty expanse is in SE.

I have no issue with it being linear, specially since the whole thing of this region is being the "path" to Dern. So it being linear makes sense.

However, it doesn't justify just letting all that space go to waste. Not even talking about quests or lootrunning, just being able to explore more would be awesome.

 

There are still divergences on a regular path, it feels like SE should be similar. Just more explorable area would be nice.

100% Agreed

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Also barrier blocks above spikes = lootrunning doom

 

Exactly! I’m not even asking for a quest or any content whatsoever, I just wanna see what’s in those mountains! So many cool and unique builds are just totally inaccessible for seemingly no reason.

 

Frankly I'd argue that barriers outside quests and the border around the map are useless, let us explore things and take different paths.

 

Agreed completely. There’s so many little details and so much attention put into every single build, it’s sad to see so much go to waste.

 

A few potential reasons to keep barriers is: a lack of builds, danger of reaching the void beyond the mountains (though this is an easy fix), or to stop acro to skip through SE. (most likely)