I’m rolling through Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (Team Ninja) and feeling like a fucking badass. With a caveat. I’ll get to that in a minute. Let me start by saying, though, that I’m beyond annoyed at the automatic text-scrolling in the character encyclopedia. There is no way to pause it, and the text is very small. Yes, you can enlarge it, but it’s still small and hard to read. I quick-Googled it and there’s no way to stop the scroll. Apparently, Team Ninja is ‘aware’ of the issue. But, why the hell put it in in the first place? Again, this is from Google, but this was also something in Nioh 2 and they patched it out. Why repeat their mistake???
That’s what haunts me about it. Why put it in in the first place? It would seem the default would be no-scroll, so someone had to code in the scroll. I could be wrong. It’s very likely I’m wrong because I know nothing about games development. But it really makes it so I don’t want to read about the characters. I read fast, but not with that font. And I like to choose to progress at my own damn pace.
The second issue I have is with the morale system. I mentioned it in yesterday’s post, but only briefly. Every time you go into a new area, there is a base morale level of 10. There are marking flags and battle flags in the level (the latter are like bonfires in the Souls series), and the more you find, the higher your morale raises. Every time you kill an enemy, your morale gets a bump. You can’t go over 25 morale.
If you fight a person with less morale than you have, it’ll be easier, but your reward will be not as great as if you fight someone with a higher morale. If you die, your morale goes back to the base number–and all this info (morale level, battle flags (say, 4/5), and marking flages (also with a discrete number)) is in the upper righthand corner. So, to sum up, it’s in your interest to find all the battle flags and the marking flags.
I both like and don’t like this system. I like it because it’s a way of over-leveling without grnding. I don’t like it because going back to base morale, especially when it’s at the beginning of the level before you find the flags, feels demoralizing. Also, it makes level almost irrelevant, but that’s true of all Team Ninja games. In the Niohs, they’ll give a suggested level for each mission, and I would mentally double that number. In this game, your level matters so little in comparison to your morale. Get those battle flags and those marking flags whenever you can. You do not want to have less morale than your enemies/boss.
Honestly, I want to say that this is one of the most important combat tips I have for noobs–take time to explore. You can rush through the levels and get to the boss in record time, but i wouldn’t advise it if you’re at best fair-to-middling at these games such as I am.
Still. Find ing the flags weren’t that easy for me. Even with the careful exploration I was doing, I made it to the final boss missing some of the flags. I’ll give you a big tip. There are breakable walls and check the rooftops. Those are two places that have flags more often than not. Oh, by the way. the morale system is based on fortitude. The base number is your fortitude number, not your morale number. Whatever. I call it your morale level because that’s what boosts the number.
In the IGN Review of the game, it mentions another issue with the Team Ninja games that frustrates me a great deal. The loot. There is way too much of it. Everyone and his uncle drops loot and at some point, I just don’t bother with anything that is less than a +3 (purple). I’m currently rocking a hammer as my main with a sword as my second. I have a bow that I use mainly to shoot archers in the head because they are frustrating as fuck.
Anyway, when I was playing Nioh 2, I ran out of inventory space, which is also annoying. In this day and age, there is no reason for that. But it got to the point where I just dropped anything white or yellow. One thing I like about the FromSoft games is that most of the loot is meaningful. No, I’m not going to use it all, but at least it wasn’t every two seconds.
Another irritation is the mobs. I hate not being able to pull a single enemyy. I was fighting a side mission, and the boss of the end had buddies by him. Three if I remmeber correctly. I tried to arrow one in the head and got more than half his health. But then everyone started running at me and hitting me at the same time. I dealt with it by running away, hoping that one or more would lose aggro, but no. They all just kept coming and swarmed me. What was the solution? Well, them killing me was the first step. Then, I went around to boost my morale up to 25 (the leader was 20) and went back to tackle the situation again. I shot the one guy in the head and quickly finished him off. I threw poison at the rest (fun fact: the poison affects me as well) and ran. I zapped the main guy with magicks until he expried and then took care of the other two.
I hate mobs. I hate when I can’t pull one away from the crowd and take care of him first. I feel like I’m being punished for doing what should be rewarded–patiently picking them off one by one. It was a fun mission in general, but I also realized that I tend to go up whenever I can, which means I may be skipping around the level too much. Ian told me that when the fortitude number is way over yours, you’re going the wrong way. Which makes sense, but I don’t always pay attention to that.
This is definitiely a Team Ninja game, for better and for worse. If the Niohs are their take on the Souls games, then Wo Long is their Sekiro-lite. Oh, and as in Bloodborne, an enemy picks up your souls when you die. You have to kill them to regain your honor/get reverge and get back your souls. Er….Google tells me it’s ‘Genuine Qi’.
Side Note: It’s hilarious to me how these games fashion themselves on FromSoft games and yet, they want to be distinct so they do things like give ridiculous names to the equivalent terms. Genuine Qi for Souls. I don’t even know what they call the Deflect. Battle Flag for Bonfire.
Stats are really interesting in Team Ninja games, too. In this one, there are five stats that correspond with the five elements. And the magics are divided into the five elements as well. So, fire rules, ah, stamina? Maybe? Anyway, if I want to use fire magic, which I do, I have to level that stat. It’s interesting, but I’m not sure yet if I like it or not. I was wwatching a video of Fighting Cowboys tips for beginners and he has 6 in Vigor. 6! Probably because he doesn’t care for that element. And you get a few points in vigor no matter what, but still.
I’m still enjoying the game. Ape boss and pig boss were so easy in comparison to the first boss. I’m sure it won’t continue that way, but I’ll take being overpowered for now.S