Seeing as how I just joined this forum today, I'm dredging up a post that may seem "dead". I'm also giving you all an advance apology on what is about to be a very long post. But here goes anyway:
I'm slightly disappointed so far with what I see about the first real release of DLC for this game. I knew basically what it was going to be, but I was hoping for a LOT more. I was hoping for some major map and UI improvements more than anything else. Here's a pretty comprehensive list of things I really feel need addressing in this game aside from added challenges, dungeons, quests, etc. I should note I was NOT expecting to see all of this in the first DLC, but was hoping SOME of it would make its way in ... and still hoping that most of this stuff will make its way in over time:
MAP ENHANCEMENTS
- Allow filtering of the stamps you place on the map (ie: the interactive map online that allows you to turn on/off just about everything on the map, including shrines, villages, tech labs, etc.)
- Allow Koroks you've found to show their stamps without having to zoom in fully. It's really a pain to have to fully zoom into an area to see if you found a korok there or not. Korok seeds should show up when zoomed out a level or two, right up to the point where they start to really "flood" the map and it becomes useless to see where they are since there are so many to be found.
- Add dotted line dividers between the map areas once the map is "revealed" by activating the Skeika towers, just like normal maps show state or country boundaries so you know when you're crossing from one zone to another (note: these lines are there when the game starts, and no terrain has been revealed). This is not very important, but WOULD be helpful, and simple/easy to do for those of us who would like to see it.
- Introduce subtle shading to the map that will help you read contours and terrain to show you if an area is higher or lower (instead of just contour lines that don't really show you if that area is a mountain or a valley). Again, this is of lesser importance overall, but would definitely be a nice touch to the graphical side of the map and how the terrain is interpreted.
- Add more new stamps (specifically, stamps for mini-bosses and lynels).
- As for the stuff that we know IS included ... I'm still on the fence about the "hero's path" thing. I mean, think about this ... you can travel a LOT in 200 hours ... I would imagine the "trail" is going to be a huge mess on the map, where you have to zoom way in to get a clear reading of exactly where you went. And, after a while, it's not going to be a "path" ... it's going to be huge blobs of overlapping trails. I should however reserve full judgement of this until I see it in action for real.
- Travel Gate: This is good ... yes, most places are easy enough to get to with all the shrines unlocked. However, there are definitely some more remote locations that this gate will be very useful for. I think someone mentioned Typhlo Ruins ... then there's also the Leviathan to the northwest of Death Mountain.
UI & GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS
- UI - Add a durability meter to each item so you can see how much use it's gotten, and be able to better decide which weapon you want to throw away if you need to make room for a new one
- UI - In addition to #1, make it easier to see which weapons are brand new (the little blinking asterisk is too difficult to see). Perhaps shade the background of those inventory slots with a green or golden color to quickly show that they are new.
- UI - When opening a chest with a weapon in it, if your weapon inventory is already full, the UI should ask you if you want to throw away an item to make room for the one you just found. You should not have to close the chest, go into your inventory, throw a weapon away, and then repeat the entire process of opening the chest, being told what's in the chest, and then taking it. This process should, and can be, seamless to the UI.
- UI - There should be custom sorting of items for any given inventory. You should be able to order things however you want so that (for example) if you only use about 3 different outfits, you can put them all on the same page so you don't have to keep going back and forth through the clothing screens to find what you're looking for.
- UI + GAMEPLAY - Quite frankly, instead of #4, I would like to see the "abilities" of at least certain clothing items just become inherent qualities that Link now possesses ... such as, climbing speed, being able to swim faster and/or up waterfalls. Changing clothing just to do those things is ridiculous. I understand why attributes such as higher attack power via the barbarian gear should not be "on" 100% of the time, because if "defense up" was on at the same time, at a certain point you'd be this god-beast with incredible attack power + high defense + stealth, etc. Combining ALL those qualities at once would make you way too powerful. But again, at least some of the basics like climbing and swimming ... c'mon.
- UI + GAMEPLAY - In lieu of (or in addition to) item #5 above (and similar to item 10 below) it would be nice if you could set the game to auto-change to certain clothing/armor for given situations. This would be tricky, and would have to be limited to a degree ... but imagine if you could set the game to auto-change to climbing gear whenever you started climbing ... but then change back to what you WERE wearing when you're done climbing. Or, likewise, if the game would change to your Zora gear when you want to go up a waterfall, and then change back when you reach the top and fly into the air to glide down. That would be cool, but very tricky. Problems would be if you're in a very cold environment and didn't want to change out of your snowquill outfit to climb because of health loss due to the cold. Again, not sure how this could/would be implemented if it were a serious consideration ... but if it could be handled, that would be awesome. Perhaps a button mapped to "change to most appropriate armor/gear". Again, this is just a thought that would be a welcome improvement if implemented properly.
- GAMEPLAY - When cooking, you should be able to select your ingredients, choose to "cook", and THEN be given the option to set how many of that meal you want to cook at once ... perhaps at least up to 5 at a time. Having to do each meal individually is a bit tedious to say the least.
- GAMEPLAY - The weather ... not sure what to do about this. It just seems like it changes too fast too often. I would say slow it down, but then when it starts raining or when there are lightning storms, those too would have to last longer just like the nice, clear sunny days. That would be bothersome... but speeding things up would make it even more crazy since it would be changing every few minutes (real time, not in-game time). All I can say for now is, weather needs to be tweaked and improved.
- GAMEPLAY - This one just occurred to me ... and that is, the amount of shields you can carry (when inventory slots are max'd out) is way more than anyone SHOULD need. I think we all can agree that weapon durability is a bit on the "soft" side, with weapons breaking far too quickly/easily ... so, one solution would be to reduce shield slots, and add more weapon slots. Either that, or tweak the weapon durability so that weapons last about 2x as long as they currently do. You'd still have them break, and still have to go find new ones ... but at least if they were a bit more durable, you wouldn't have to carry so many of a given type of weapon, and would be able to be more diverse with your stash of weapons. For instance, I find myself stocking up on good lynel weapons, broadswords, tri-forked lizal boomerangs, etc. to the detriment of carrying spears, or wooden weapons if/when there is lightning and I need a non-metallic weapon to work with. Not to mention, trying to keep a hammer or stone breaker for ore-mining. I know Nintendo has worked to make the game where they WANT you have to deal with this, and pick up weapons during combat that were dropped by enemies, etc. I get it, I do ... but when balancing realism and fun, it's just no fun to work your butt off to get a great weapon, have it break after a couple of enemies, and be relegated to a bokoblin club until you finally get a chance to grab a good weapon again.
- GAMEPLAY - It would be VERY nice if you could set a default "second weapon" for when one breaks during combat, so that it automatically changes to that weapon as soon as the one you're currently using breaks. This would avoid the issue of having to "pause" your fight, select a new weapon, then re-start the fighting. Now, given that, you COULD pause anyway and go set a new "secondary weapon" so that you have that 'backup weapon' ready if the new current weapon breaks during the fight. Keep in mind, this would be good even if weapon durability was increased across the board ... but is (in my mind) almost necessary with the current levels of weapon durability. It would simply make the game flow a lot better.
Not sure if most of you can pick up on this by reading the above ... but one of my biggest overall complaints about all the Zelda games has been the time it takes to stop what you're doing, change gear, clothing, weapons, etc. I find that I spend an inordinate amount of time doing this. And, with this game specifically - with all the gazillion weapons, bows, shields, articles of clothing/armor - you're constantly stopping the game to change things around for your situation. On the one hand, you kind of need to ... and from a real-life type perspective, it's a great, realistic feature. However, from a gameplay standpoint, it really stifles the flow of the game. Same goes for when you accidentally get into a "conversation" with someone you didn't mean to, and have to mash A or B over and over to work through the conversation and get back to playing ... or the animation when you warp from one spot to another. Stuff like that is cool the first few times you go through it ... but after a while, when you get to "grinding" for stuff and have some level of fatigue with the game ... having to sit through that stuff is just flat-out annoying. Having the ability to exit out of any conversation, cut-scene, etc would be such a welcome addition to the game.
On that note, I also feel that this game - while they did a great job with it overall - has just way too much "stuff" in it for you to mess with. There's really no need for (in one example) over 30 different types of one-handed weapons. There's the (1) traveler's sword, (2) rusty broadsword, (3) soldier's broadsword, (4) feathered edge, (5) Zora sword, (6) Gerudo scimitar, (7) guardian sword, (8) amiibo sword, (9) thunderblade, (10) forest dweller's sword, (11) flameblade, (12) moonlight scimitar, (13) knight's broadsword, (14) goddess sword, (15) guardian sword +, (16) frostblade, (17) eightfold blade, (18) mighty Lynel sword, (19) ancient short sword, (20) guardian sword ++, (21) Royal Guard's sword, (22) sword of the six stages, (23) savage Lynel sword, (24) demon carver, (25) boko club, (26) spiked boko club, (27) spiked boko bat, (28) bokoblin arm, (29) dragonbone boko club, (30) lizal boomerang, (31) lizal forked boomerang, (32) tri-forked lizal boomerang, (33) lizalfos arm, (34) lynel sword, (35) moblin arm, (36) Scimitar of the Seven, (37) vicious sickle ... There may be a couple more, or I may have included a two-handed sword in there ... But look at that list. That's ONLY the one-handed items. That's pure insanity if you ask me. There should just be A sword ... and A boomerang ... so on and so forth ... and as the game progressed, you could find stronger and more durable versions of each. But, no need for a gazillion variations/names ... it's pointless really to have that many.
So, back on point. The DLC package that's coming soon ... I'm glad it's coming out, but it seems rather bland and mostly useless. I don't even want to know how they came up with this idea to have floating platforms suspended by balloons, some with treasure, some with monsters/enemies ... I mean, c'mon. I guess I get that it's just another fun thing to do ... find a spot to glide from, and land on the platform to get some treasure. But is it really enhancing the game at all? That remains to be seen.
Lastly, I'm upset that I haven't heard anything about the Blood Moon cycle issues, and how they will (hopefully) address them at some point. It has only affected me a few times in hundreds of hours of playing, but since it's a well-known issue, you'd think they would patch this. I don't know, maybe they do patch this game with non-DLC stuff and I just haven't even realized it. But either way, it's something that needs (or needed) addressing.