Do you want minigames to be added in game?

Agreed! There are many opportunities to make puzzles, but AE doesn't seem go for them and that has probably to do with the time they have to get content out.

 

For me they should add more puzzle challenges in dungeons

 

Especially in solo dungeons since you don't need to rely on other players. Solo dungeons are generally boring, especially if your character's level is on par with whatever enemy of that dungeon. You fight monsters very slowly and then you just progress to battle a boss or whatever, and usually it's just part of some storyline quest. Nothing memorable about the dungeon, so having puzzles would offer something at least. Not necessarily parkour (since we have plenty of those), but something unique (maybe finding items in a dungeon to unlock other paths or pieces to other parts of a puzzle.

 

Solo content of any kind would definitely benefit from puzzles depending on what kind of solo content it is.

 

I think the best example of the type of adventure game with the best use of puzzle element is The Legend of Zelda series, especially if we're just considering the solo aspect of playing a game. I can't really see AE pulling puzzle inspirations from it as much, especially from their MMORPG frame of reference, but I think incorporating elements inspired from other games with complex and intrigue puzzles is the way to go. Imagine just how fun it would be to enter a dungeon and you needed to unlock a map and compass to guide yourself, blow up things, get over obstacles with certain items you obtain in the dungeon or from previous areas/dungeons, and discover secrets along the way. It would be like reinventing the wheel for AQ3D since it's stuck with an inventory system that would prevent that sort of immersion from being viable, but I think having a separate inventory system for dungeon objectives would definitely expand dungeons. It would of course be bigger than a mini-game at that point of course.

 

AE could make items that you need to use in dungeons to advance by labeling them as Token items because they don't take any space in your inventory.

 

Yeah, but having to access your inventory and open up your token tab would be bad for any sort of puzzle objective (because it blocks half of your screen and it takes up time). Any usable item ought to be simple to use... like a hotkey or a button on the screen. There are slots for usable items, but people mainly use those for forms and potions, so if AE ever decides to implement puzzle dungeons that require heavy use of items, they'll definitely need something separate.

 

AE already has that kind of functionality in AQ3D and you can see that with Battleon Siege. You can put up barricades by having a barricade item in your Token tab so they could just make dungeon puzzles with something similar in mind to make progress in the dungeon.

 

But that's just clicking on objects, which has been already forever and isn't as impressive. I mean being able to utilize tools like hookshots to cling to walls or shoot arrows from a bow to puzzle targets to activate new rooms or something like that.

Let's take AQ3D's snowballs for instance. In order to use them in any convenient way, you have to equip them to your item slot where you would normally have forms and potions, which is just a major inconvenience. And they're not even useful at all, not even in a fun way, because they're only limited to targeting players. And there's no mini-game where you can just throw snowballs and a counter shows which team hit the most targets. I think if AE released a new Frostval dungeon, they could make it so players can throw snowballs at hard-to-reach levers and activation switches to unlock new rooms, because that would be a good step of creating new immersion.

 

That's what I meant, have something similar how spots appear in Battleon Siege that you can interact with when you when you have a Token item required to interact with it. No need to pull the item out and put it to your item slot to use it.

 

Battleon Siege, though a step up from previous map objectives, still uses the same click-on-the-map-object mechanic. I'd like to see objectives that aren't so much about clicking on something obvious, but about aiming at stuff or something a little more skill-based.

 

It will ultimately be a click-on-the-map-object mechanic and AE probably doesn't want to make those kinds of objectives hard.

 

Lots of things are already hard, at least on mobile. For instance, parkour is something that AE could improve more for the mobile audience, like adding checkpoints (maybe spend x amount of gold to return to a checkpoint spot, and it require more gold the closer you are to the end of the parkour). Also a first-perspective camera would be useful in so many ways when it comes to click-based events, because then your character wouldn't be in the way as often (in other words, you won't have to constantly pinch your screen to zoom in and zoom out to get to what you want to click on).

But considering AQ3D is more of a "PC first" game when it comes to objectives (grinding, parkour, etc.), I don't see why they wouldn't want to keep implementing the same "hard" objectives. Otherwise, I think the biggest priority before adding any new mini-game and game objectives is to improve on the stuff players are already struggling with.

 

Spend gold to return to a checkpoint in a parkour course? I think that would make just parkour too easy even for mobile. I know we need more gold sinks but using gold to improve parkour feels out of the line.
Clicking/tapping hasn't been hard regardless of the platform you play on and how would AE even make it any harder in the first place? Make it so we have to time our clicks/taps?

 

For longer parkour courses (e.g. Fort Sneed) and also story parkour courses (e.g. Darkovia Clock Tower), it would be beneficial. I'm not saying you spend gold right away to get to a checkpoint (given that you never reached the checkpoint before), but rather, you have to earn the checkpoint first by reaching it and then if you fall down from the course, you have that option to spend gold to get back to whatever checkpoint. Oftentimes, I see players saying that parkour is ridiculous, and I'd imagine a good number of players do struggle.

 

Why make parkour easy for players that don't want to do it in the first place? Just keep it as it is because you are supposed to learn the courses.

 

I think having tiers of incentives would be nicer, that way the non-experts can enjoy parkour as much as the experts, just with a different reward at the end. Maybe a badge for parkour completion like it currently is, but a special item for whoever beats it in x amount of time (which means optimizing your movement and jumps and not falling and using checkpoints). There are better ways to improve parkour challenge rather than creating "faux challenges" via frustration like in troll obstacles, such as those invisible platforms that anyone beginning the parkour would fall through or the pick-a-portal at the end of the course which I think is ridiculous. I think any parkour course that trolls players is a terrible parkour course, because it discourages players from progressing simply because they did everything they possibly could have done and failed anyway, and that's just one part of the frustration that needs to be changed.

When it comes to presenting challenges in a fun way, it's just one of AE's weak areas. It always seem like challenges are meant to frustrate rather than to challenge.

 

Yeah, they should be rewards for completing a course in a certain amount of time so those who know how the course could get rewarded for that. AE could go further with parkour and make it more appealing for more players but that isn't their priority right now.

 

I think it's far better than prioritizing grind after grind. Having areas meant to challenge in a fun way or areas that alleviate from all of the repetitive objectives gives the game better pacing, and it's unfortunate that there hasn't been any new parkour area in almost a year now. They could have done something with Arcangrove or with Yokai Isle for parkour... for instance, I think it'd be cool to see a bamboo forest parkour course for Yokai where you have to climb bamboo shoots to reach a certain spot. I think parkour could bring endless possibilities, but I'd prefer to see less of the troll parkours.

 

Yeah, it would be a good change of pace. These parkour courses didn't really start out that well when the first one was pretty much a troll parkour course and the last one we got was just a farming area with platforming.