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[Merc_]

The GameXplain argument video over this DLC is hilarious.

I was so happy to be eating popcorn when it suddenly started up lol.

 

[Refreshment.01]

i wanted a survival mode with some of the features detailed in this post in the Eventide Mode section:

http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=233505299

Save for the added trial mode and costumes, the rest sounds like it takes away from the game more than it adds. For example, each Korok seed leaves a mark on the map, the point of interest are automatically named when Link passes them as well as icons for shrines/towers. With all of this and the extra 100 available custom stamps the player has many tools to manage the map exploration.

Considering the above, the new map mode seems at odds with what people were praising about the game and that was being less of "follow the GPS" than the other open world games.

If Nintendo wants to improve the difficulty then they should start by nerfing cooking to some extent as recipes are too powerful.

 

[What The Forest Taught Me]

Am I the only one really excited about the trial of the sword mode? The fact that you start it with no equipment makes it sound extremely fun and challenging.

Yeah, this mode sounds great. Bring on more survival-style gameplay!

 

[Anustart]

I knew they'd do the Korok Seed finder somehow :

I want a Reward for doing it the Hard Way. Like a Man.

Nice! You found all 900 without a guide? Props bro!

 

[ika]

YouTube clip showing Hero's Path

https://youtu.be/ilUBh_-nBCY

So far this is my favourite addition to the game. I wanted it since Aonuma said they had this tool to adjust topography. It'll be pretty handy

Sad that it only tracks 200 hours. Kinda hoping the next Switch OS update release will include video capturing and uploading to Youtube so I can share my journey to everybody and also can have a log of my first steps when I reach the 200h limit.

 

[atr0cious]

playing through the game just for hard mode seems barely worth it so I cant imagine wanting to 100% it a second time

I'm on my second playthrough now, first run was 100 of just exploring, now I'm doing story and only around 70% map completion, but fuck trying to manually find all the korok seeds. The hero's path and korok mask give me an extra incentive to do 100%, and I might as well play the hard mode and see what all they hid in there. And it's only about half of the DLC, so I'm not sweating it. Kind of hoping the story DLC directly connects to the rest so I can do like a full 100% with it included.

 

[ReBirFh]

I don't uderstand... the game already have one of the most flexible difficulty system.

-You don't accidentally recover your health, you have to activelly decide if you want to heal and how much. (you're not forced to cook, you can eat raw stuff)
-You don't level up just by playing the game
-You decide how much health or stamina you want to have and this doesn't mean you have to skip content (enjoy shrines, keep your orbs)
-You don't need to level up your armor and at half level they are fully unlocked
-You don't have to use champion powers (just disable)

Besides the master sword, you can basically accesss and enjoy the full game in the state you left the plateau

Is it really necessary to have a toggle to force this stuff upon you?

 

[jediyoshi]

I don't uderstand... the game already have one of the most flexible difficulty system.

-You don't accidentally recover your health, you have to activelly decide if you want to heal and how much. (you're not forced to cook, you can eat raw stuff)
-You don't level up just by playing the game
-You decide how much health or stamina you want to have and this doesn't mean you have to skip content (enjoy shrines, keep your orbs)
-You don't need to level up your armor and at half level they are fully unlocked
-You don't have to use champion powers (just disable)

Besides the master sword, you can basically accesss and enjoy the full game in the state you left the plateau

Is it really necessary to have a toggle to force this stuff upon you?

Do you understand the concept of difficulty modes in general?

 

[sazzy]

Excited for DLC1.

Hoping the dungeon in DLC2 is a traditional dungeon, and not another 5-shrines-in-one-DB.

I want at least a Hyrule Castle-sized dungeon with level-wide puzzles, lynels+, rotating walls and floors, dead ends and traps, etc., and a 5-tiered boss which requires using all runes in quick random succession for each fight in unique ways.

NO GYRO PUZZLES.

 

[ReBirFh]

Do you understand the concept of difficulty modes in general?

99% are a few presets to make the game easier or harder to the player. In BotW and probably other games you have granular control of how hard you want the game to be without skipping content or going out of your way to achieve it.

I've seen a lot of posts in this thread and others with people saying they should have a timer on food or hunger system like the game is forcing them to stock super foods or even cook at all.

You can get all the cool armor and weapons, confront all bosses and enemies, do all side quests, explore everything and still be a 3 heart chump that dies in 1 hit.

 

[Refreshment.01]

I don't uderstand... the game already have one of the most flexible difficulty system.

-You don't accidentally recover your health, you have to activelly decide if you want to heal and how much. (you're not forced to cook, you can eat raw stuff)
-You don't level up just by playing the game
-You decide how much health or stamina you want to have and this doesn't mean you have to skip content (enjoy shrines, keep your orbs)
-You don't need to level up your armor and at half level they are fully unlocked
-You don't have to use champion powers (just disable)

Besides the master sword, you can basically accesss and enjoy the full game in the state you left the plateau

Is it really necessary to have a toggle to force this stuff upon you?

You are forgetting another important thing.

In this game you can go for 100% completition and still have some control over the health bar. Let's say that in your very first playthrough you exchanged too many orbs and now heart level is so high the game's combat system became trivial. The player has the option to go to the evil statue and take as much heart or stamina vessels as needed.

i aproach Zelda game's combat casually, and at 8 hearts and doing fun stuff the game remains decently challenging and i need to cook often. Yet i completed all the shrines, basically it fixed a long standing difficulty problem shared by all 3D zelda games.

And best of all i regullary forget i did the downgrade. It's only when a conversation related to the challenge level araises that i remember doing that in the first place.

 

[ReBirFh]

You are forgetting another important thing.

In this game you can go for 100% completition and still have some control over the health bar. Let's say that in your very first playthrough you exchanged too many orbs and now heart level is so high the game's combat system became trivial. The player has the option to go to the evil statue and take as much heart or stamina vessels as needed.

i aproach Zelda game's combat casually, and at 8 hearts and doing fun stuff the game remains decently challenging and i need to cook often. Yet i completed all the shrines, basically it fixed a long standing difficulty problem shared by all 3D zelda games.

And best of all i regullary forget i did the downgrade. It's only when a conversation related to the challenge level araises that i remember doing that in the first place.

Nice, I didn't know that. I thought the statue only gave you the option to trade 1 heart for 1 stamina and vice versa, it was one of the first if not the first quest I did in the game.

So you can get the MS and go back to glass state, cool.

 

[Refreshment.01]

Nice, I didn't know that. I thought the statue onle gave you the option to trade 1 heart for 1 stamina and vice versa, it was one of the first if not the first quest I did in the game.

So you can get the MS and go back to glass state, cool.

Correct.

And you can get all the vessels back whenever you want. The statue gives you 100 rupees for each one but demands 120 to give it back. Basically Link is paying 20 for it services.

Now recipes should be downgraded and the OP ones should be reserved for rare ingredients (Dragon parts, etc) Also put a cool down between full blown cooked meals. This is something super easy for Nintendo to implement as it just be a tweak.

However, when all the BotW DLC is all set and done i hope Nintendo puts DarkNut and Iron Knuckles in Hyrule castle. The game felt incomplete to me without these enemies in there.

Sincerely, when i boot up the game i forget i did that and the combat remains interesting to play still. i wonder if many people complaining ignores this?

 

[TLZ]

Meh. I'll pass. 260 hours was more than enough. Fighting challenge mode and some costumes isn't enticing. If they release more story though I'll be Interested.

 

[Effect]

I hope Trial of the Sword is repeatable for the challenge alone. Maybe have harder modes as well. I also think it might be safe to assume that there are going to be Lynels in this thing. So maybe start practicing on them now if you aren't used to taking them on.

 

[jediyoshi]

99% are a few presets to make the game easier or harder to the player. In BotW and probably other games you have granular control of how hard you want the game to be without skipping content or going out of your way to achieve it.

I've seen a lot of posts in this thread and others with people saying they should have a timer on food or hunger system like the game is forcing them to stock super foods or even cook at all.

You can get all the cool armor and weapons, confront all bosses and enemies, do all side quests, explore everything and still be a 3 heart chump that dies in 1 hit.

You're not answering the question. I'm not sure whether you comprehend the distinction between arbitrarily limiting yourself and having the game place it upon you.

 

[Vault Dweller 111]

Will the heroes path be able to go from release day? Or will it only start tracking after the DLC has been downloaded and the game has been updated?

 

[kunonabi]

I'm on my second playthrough now, first run was 100 of just exploring, now I'm doing story and only around 70% map completion, but fuck trying to manually find all the korok seeds. The hero's path and korok mask give me an extra incentive to do 100%, and I might as well play the hard mode and see what all they hid in there. And it's only about half of the DLC, so I'm not sweating it. Kind of hoping the story DLC directly connects to the rest so I can do like a full 100% with it included.

Yeah, i 100%ed the whole thing in my first run so pretty much everything in this patch is useless to me aside from the costumes. If there isnt a way to stack a hard mode playthrough with my current save im probably going to skip it since the reward will probably be ass anyway.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

The GameXplain argument video over this DLC is hilarious.

I was so happy to be eating popcorn when it suddenly started up lol.

Andre's argument against single player DLC was absolutely horrible.

 

[d34thfrom4bov3]

Oh man, guess I'm gonna have to run through this game again now. Wasn't really interested in the season pass stuff but gotta have that Tingle outfit, that and I really wanted to play again anyway so collecting stuff like this is the perfect excuse.

 

[GoldStarz]

You're not answering the question. I'm not sure whether you comprehend the distinction between arbitrarily limiting yourself and having the game place it upon you.

The difference between the game putting limits on the player and the player putting limits on themselves is the following:

 

[Crayon]

How underwhelming.

 

[Weltall Zero]

The difference between the game putting limits on the player and the player putting limits on themselves is the following:

That kind of answers his question alright; you don't.

 

[GoldStarz]

That kind of answers his question alright; you don't.

Nah, it's just the truth. Generally speaking the difficulty ups put in a game by devs can pretty easily be recreated through player choice. The only place I can think of where this isn't true is in leveling which is literally not a factor in the game. If you can think of a way that the game could be made harder outside of something that could be simulated though, by all means, please share.

 

[atr0cious]

Now recipes should be downgraded and the OP ones should be reserved for rare ingredients (Dragon parts, etc) Also put a cool down between full blown cooked meals. This is something super easy for Nintendo to implement as it just be a tweak.

Just don't use those ingredients. I myself am currently doing a 3 heart run and I don't heal during battles. I know it's probably different people, but it's so weird seeing people calling for options to be removed from a Nintendo game.

 

[kunonabi]

Nah, it's just the truth. Generally speaking the difficulty ups put in a game by devs can pretty easily be recreated through player choice. The only place I can think of where this isn't true is in leveling which is literally not a factor in the game. If you can think of a way that the game could be made harder outside of something that could be simulated though, by all means, please share.

The amount of horseshit in this one paragraph is amazing. People have been been providing details for weeks now if havent been willing to pay attention all this time youre not going to start now.

 

[13ruce]

You can decrease your stamina and hearts at a cursed statue, they did not put that in for the lolz. I kept my hearts at 9 and stamina at 2 circles and armour non upgraded.

You sure can make the game harder and still get 100% official completion.

The new hard mode is 50/50 for me the enemy in the sky stuff sure interests me, maybe they will tweak hard mode more with healing etc when backlash reaches them. There still is a few months to go for the dlc. So it should be possible to tweak some more.

 

[PtM]

Aren't all the languages in there already? Until know it just hasn't let us choose because reasons.

The Nintendo page said it needs a download. Since WiiU is region-locked, the game likely has only the regional languages.

 

[KarmaCow]

The difference between the game putting limits on the player and the player putting limits on themselves is the following:

One that should be immediately obvious is say the feasibility of abiding by a cooldown timer manually vs the game doing it for you. I don't even mean someone not sticking by it when things get tough, I mean literally keeping track of the timer while playing the game.

Another is that the player limited in how they can tune the game to themselves. Sure you can just go into fights naked with a weak weapon but that wont change the extremely telegraphed attacks enemies where it doesn't matter if you die in one hit when you can just perfect dodge>flurry their attacks.

There's a reason why Eventide Island is brought up so much despite the fact that the player can impose those restrictions on themselves outside of that one area.

 

[GoldStarz]

The amount of horseshit in this one paragraph is amazing. People have been been providing details for weeks now if havent been willing to pay attention all this time youre not going to start now.

I've been frequenting most of the Breath of the Wild forums and really the only thing I can think of that I've seen regarding difficulty increase that the player couldn't directly simulate is weapons being less durable. Honestly, if anything I've been hearing complaints about difficulty with people whining about breakable weapons.

One that should be immediately obvious is say the feasibility of abiding by a cooldown timer manually vs the game doing it for you. I don't even mean someone not sticking by it when things get tough, I mean literally keeping track of the timer while playing the game.

Another is that the player limited in how they can tune the game to themselves. Sure you can just go into fights naked with a weak weapon but that wont change the extremely telegraphed attacks enemies where it doesn't matter if you die in one hit when you can just perfect dodge>flurry their attacks.

There's a reason why Eventide Island is brought up so much despite the fact that the player can impose those restrictions on themselves outside of that one area.

1) You still have learn take the time to learn how to perform a Flurry Rush against each enemy.
2) Performing a Flurry Rush is, again, completely optional.

 

[KarmaCow]

1) You still have learn take the time to learn how to perform a Flurry Rush against each enemy.
2) Performing a Flurry Rush is, again, completely optional.

We're talking about people who want an additional challenge. They already know how to do it, which is why they want something more challenging. Moreover, what makes a challenge fun is that it pushes you to use all the mechanics available to you to overcome it. Again, I'll point to Eventide Island in how it forces the player to use everything they can by imposing restrictions and balancing around it.

 

[Famassu]

Nah, it's just the truth. Generally speaking the difficulty ups put in a game by devs can pretty easily be recreated through player choice. The only place I can think of where this isn't true is in leveling which is literally not a factor in the game. If you can think of a way that the game could be made harder outside of something that could be simulated though, by all means, please share.

The difference is that it's hard to know as a player what would be a balanced way to limit themselves that keeps things enjoyably challenging but doesn't become frustrating with difficulty spikes or in some situations. The players ways of affecting difficulty is also quite limited. Just being more easy to die isn't too interesting. As I pointed out earlier, just upping damage numbers and enemy health can be a pretty boring way of upping difficulty in games unless that plays well into the systems of the game. BOTW that already has damage sponge enemies that are pretty boring to kill in the long run + the additional frustration of easily breaking weapons, so the hard mode just makes enemies even more damage sponge-y.

Well balanced & well designed difficulty levels do it like Bayonetta where the game introduces new challenges with each subsequently harder difficulty level and you can still be challenged even when you have all the weapons & skills & upgrades of the game, not having to artificially limit yourself from using features of the game. Kingdom Hearts II (Final Mix) is a good example of a game where the systems themselves support a straightforward STR increase for enemies. The game has actually been designed to accommodate a Lvl 1 playthrough for people who want to take on such a challenge and yet it can offer a decent challenge (so long as the player doesn't over-level himself too early) on the hardest difficulty level even if one plays it normally.

Stuff like switching enemy setups in at least some key locations (not just "enemy lvl goes up"), having enemies with new strategies & skills, making enemies more aggressive & otherwise more dangerous etc. are some ways to make things more interesting & requiring more of the player relatively easily without having to, like, create completely new content or having to create more indepth survival system. And that should be the bare minimum if one has to actually PAY for the harder difficulty level. I wouldn't mind if Hard Mode was as is if it had been included from the start. As is, it is behind a paywall and as such it feels too pedestrian of a difficulty level to warrant that paywall instead of being a free update.

 

[ShadowFox08]

I just watched the GameXplain video on the Zelda DLC Pack 1. To hear Andre (ANDRE) take the better stance against poor DLC practices with Nintendo involved is something I never though I'd say until today. Wow.

Wow. *claps*

you mean the 50 minute video one? You sat through that? Ughh why they do make so many damn long videos. Is Andre that much of a narcisst that he really loves to hear himself talk for 50 minutes and expects everyone else does the same?

 

[Terrible_Majesty]

Hopefully we can paint these outfits. Would like to get the phantom armor in all black.

 

[Tom Nook Sawyer]

you mean the 50 minute video one? You sat through that? Ughh why they do make so many damn long videos. Is Andre that much of a narcisst that he really loves to hear himself talk for 50 minutes and expects everyone else does the same?

They're essentially podcasts. Are all podcast hosts narcissistic?

Ash and Andre apparently had a fundamental difference in opinion which turned into a debate that lasted the bulk of the video, for better or worse.

 

[watershed]

you mean the 50 minute video one? You sat through that? Ughh why they do make so many damn long videos. Is Andre that much of a narcisst that he really loves to hear himself talk for 50 minutes and expects everyone else does the same?

Harsh reaction much? Their discussion videos are like podcasts. I'm not sure what narcissism has to do with it.

 

[GoldStarz]

The difference is that it's hard to know as a player what would be a balanced way to limit themselves that keeps things enjoyably challenging but doesn't become frustrating with difficulty spikes or in some situations. The players ways of affecting difficulty is also quite limited. Just being more easy to die isn't too interesting. As I pointed out earlier, just upping damage numbers and enemy health can be a pretty boring way of upping difficulty in games unless that plays well into the systems of the game. BOTW that already has damage sponge enemies that are pretty boring to kill in the long run + the additional frustration of easily breaking weapons, so the hard mode just makes enemies even more damage sponge-y.

Well balanced & well designed difficulty levels do it like Bayonetta where the game introduces new challenges with each subsequently harder difficulty level and you can still be challenged even when you have all the weapons & skills & upgrades of the game, not having to artificially limit yourself from using features of the game. Kingdom Hearts II (Final Mix) is a good example of a game where the systems themselves support a straightforward STR increase for enemies. The game has actually been designed to accommodate a Lvl 1 playthrough for people who want to take on such a challenge and yet it can offer a decent challenge (so long as the player doesn't over-level himself too early) on the hardest difficulty level even if one plays it normally.

Stuff like switching enemy setups in at least some key locations (not just "enemy lvl goes up"), having enemies with new strategies & skills, making enemies more aggressive & otherwise more dangerous etc. are some ways to make things more interesting & requiring more of the player relatively easily without having to, like, create completely new content or having to create more indepth survival system. And that should be the bare minimum if one has to actually PAY for the harder difficulty level. I wouldn't mind if Hard Mode was as is if it had been included from the start. As is, it is behind a paywall and as such it feels too pedestrian of a difficulty level to warrant that paywall instead of being a free update.

Okay, that's a fair point, I stiil think you could still experiment with it to find what works for you, but I'm not gonna argue that you don't have a point with saying it takes work to find what level of handicap you put on yourself.

As for the other part though, Bayonetta and KHII are still very different games from Breath of the WIld and have systems that I think would make it easier to tweak to add or change difficulty. Also, while your example is definitely an interesting way of how you could change the game in a way that player's couldn't control, I feel that there isn't really enough variability between enemies that would make a substantial change in difficulty (the lack of variety in enemies is definitely a critique I have for the game, though) and that the number of alterations you'd need to make to implement for each enemy camp would push hard mode back into the winter DLC pack when people are already complaining about it coming out now.

 

[jediyoshi]

The difference between the game putting limits on the player and the player putting limits on themselves is the following:

You see zero distinction on player agency when the player them self is freely able to dictate the concept of an otherwise entirely designed challenge? Don't become a game designer, I'm pretty sure if all developers were that idealistic about players, all games would just be empty boxes with a controllable avatar.

 

[Skronk]

Where is the Minish Cap. Where is it.

You want a dead duck beak attached to your hat? It's not as if they'd make it talk.

 

[TheMagician]

Here's what I wanted hard mode to be:

General enemies deliver more damage

Devine Beast end boss fights deliver and take more damage. Their difficulty also increases further depending on how many hearts you have.

Calamity Ganon has 5 health bars. Completing a Devine Beast takes away one of those bars. Ganon also delivers and takes more damage. His difficulty increases further depending on how many hearts you have.

Cooked food lasts 5 in game days before going stale.

Can only carry a maximum of 5 cooked meals.

Raw meat/fish lasts 7 in game days before going stale.

Items in shops are more expensive to purchase.

The powers you get from each Champion are nerfed. MG only restores 5 hearts, DP gives you one shield instead of 3 etc, and they take longer to recharge.

 

[jts]

Here's what I wanted hard mode to be:

General enemies deliver more damage

Devine Beast end boss fights deliver and take more damage. Their difficulty also increases further depending on how many hearts you have.

Calamity Ganon has 5 health bars. Completing a Devine Beast takes away one of those bars. Ganon also delivers and takes more damage. His difficulty increases further depending on how many hearts you have.

Cooked food lasts 5 in game days before going stale.

Can only carry a maximum of 5 cooked meals.

Raw meat/fish lasts 7 in game days before going stale.

Items in shops are more expensive to purchase.

The powers you get from each Champion are nerfed. MG only restores 5 hearts, DP gives you one shield instead of 3 etc, and they take longer to recharge.

There's some good ideas there, but the food going bad seems like micromanagement hell that I'd prefer to avoid.

They could also make it that you can't eat food when a fight is engaged (you could eat just before, to get ready for it) or at least limit the number of times you can.

 

[jim2point0]

Matthewmatosis had great ideas for the hard mode.

Consuming food or potions triggers an in-game animation of Link eating which lasts a second or two.

One hit kill protection removed.

Mipha’s Grace no longer heals Link to full health. 5 hearts seems like a reasonable number instead.

Daruk’s Protection reduced from 3 uses to 1.

Urbosa’s Fury damage halved.

Stasis+ still freezes enemies but damage done while frozen doesn’t count.

Bombs no longer inflict knockdown, they cause a hitstun instead. Damage is unchanged.

The effects of hearty food no longer stack. If the player consumes a hearty item which gives +3 yellow hearts and then one which gives +4 hearts they end up with only +4 hearts. (Consuming them in the opposite order also yields +4 hearts, smaller values don’t overwrite bigger ones.)

Link cannot carry more than one fairy at a time.

Manual saving is disabled outside of towns.

Autosaves are no longer triggered before enemy camps or minibosses. Making progress on quests, visiting a town, arriving at a full boss, unlocking or solving a shrine are the only way to trigger autosaves. This autosave change is explained to the player in a prompt before they start hard mode.

Night time is darker, visibility around Link is more limited.

Lizalfos more closely match the colour of their surroundings when cloaked.Their pounce when breaking cloak is more accurate.

Wizzrobes are no longer instantly killed by elemental arrows, however they do take additional damage. Wizzrobes immediately go back to their immaterial form when hit by a headshot.

Ancient arrows still do large bonus damage to guardians and high single target damage everything else but no longer instantly kill.

Arrows have max limits. Suggested values: 30 normal, 20 fire/ice/elec, 10 bomb, 5 ancient.

Lynel bows consume the number of arrows they fire. In other words a five shot bow uses five arrows from inventory.

Rain is not more common than usual but rain is somewhat more likely to be a thunderstorm in areas where that’s possible.

Armor upgrade values are changed so that the level 4 upgrade value is now roughly equivalent to the level 2 upgrade value on Normal mode. Material requirements are unchanged and set bonuses are still granted at level 2. Example: If a piece of armour had the upgrade values 1 -> 5 -> 8 -> 11 on Normal it now has values like 1 -> 2 -> 4 -> 6 instead.

With more details for each point.

 

[OrbitalBeard]

you mean the 50 minute video one? You sat through that? Ughh why they do make so many damn long videos. Is Andre that much of a narcisst that he really loves to hear himself talk for 50 minutes and expects everyone else does the same?

They're essentially podcasts and their subscribers seem to love these types of videos. I know I do.

 

[Gray-Fox]

will wait for GOTY ed.

 

[Skronk]

will wait for GOTY ed.

You mean Zelda BotW: Deluxe on their next console?

 

[Pokemaniac]

will wait for GOTY ed.

You'll be waiting for a while. Nintendo doesn't typically make those.

 

[Amalthea]

I really hope Trial of the Swords features the bosses too, I forgot to get an encyclopedia entry for the Vah Ruda and Vah Naboris bosses.

 

[kunonabi]

You'll be waiting for a while. Nintendo doesn't typically make those.

Current Nintendo is a different beast. It wouldnt surprise me at all to see one.

 

[Caelus]

I really hope Trial of the Swords features the bosses too, I forgot to get an encyclopedia entry for the Vah Ruda and Vah Naboris bosses.

You can buy them from the Akkala tech lab after beating the game.

 

[kIdMuScLe]

Matthewmatosis had great ideas for the hard mode.



With more details for each point.

I don't agree with the food animation and no saves part. I don't want to redo my progress just because I decided to travel across the map without visiting towns or shrines. And the animation point is just plain dumb