Or, maybe that didn't happen. Maybe instead you skipped a level challenge... or two... or all of them. And you didn't realize until a certain point later after you found out about it. Why didn't you know about this challenge until now? Maybe because you noticed the big ol' warning on a lot of side dungeons and figured "Nah I shouldn't go in there until I'm higher level." That is the point made by the uberquests in the first place. But, how are you supposed to know about a specific level challenge in a specific area, alongside with the swirly effect by just playing the game? "Read the docs: http://docs.median-xl.com/" as many of us would say to new players asking about certain things about the mod. Yes.... but what about actually playing the game without seeking knowledge? You most likely will never know about it until you look into the docs, because of the fact you are contextually taught by the mod to not go into the areas that have red text, or otherwise, depending on when you played, a blatant DANGER warning.
That's the problem I've had with Median XL ever since I started playing, and it's been something infamous about this mod for the longest time. That of which, it's own inherent design is built upon reading a book or forum to have a general understanding as to what to expect, rather than being able to just hop on in the wild ride and explore the mod on it's own. Your own failures, rather than learning from your mistakes, or taking a moment to look at the environment, all come from a lack of research prior to playing. To me, subjectively at least, is rather poor design. This is not to say of course that I think this is an awful mod of course. I've played the mod since 2009, clearly I still have my fun with it. But with anything of course, there is room for improvement, even as subtle as one simple change, which I will get into later.
But first, for comparison sake. Lets look into other games. Specifically, how they teach you their game. Nowadays of course, many games just hold your hand and guide you verbally how even press a button on your keyboard. But there are of course, games that don't treat you like an idiot and teach you what to expect in their game contextually. What do I mean by that?
Lets look at egoraptor's video on Megaman X, and how much he praises it's design. It's a 20 minute video, and worth the watch. Alternatively, if you are at work or don't want to watch a video, I'll describe what I mean with good old Dark Souls in the spoiler below.
► Show Spoiler
I understand, given that I have a basic knowledge of Diablo II modding, that Diablo II isn't great at properly conveying these sort of basic things. You can't have GUI popups explaining what each thing does without hard coding. Instead, we have pearls of wisdom, of which the players don't start off with anymore. And hell, did you know that you could cube a pearl by itself to cycle through information? I didn't until I read the docs.
Now for actual feedback: Have players start with the Pearl of Wisdom again. Have a text that states you can cube the Pearl by itself to cycle through all the information, as well as updated information for the new uberquests of course. Add basic text to the oils and Catalysts, explaining what they do to what types of items. Now of course there will be cases where people don't read, sure. That will always happen. But at a bare minimum, it can at least lighten the load and make the mod just a bit more 'noob friendly'. As for Sigma, Marco I hope you take this factor under consideration. I'm not saying that documentation shouldn't exist, or that every single core feature should be explained bit by bit. What I am saying though is that some sort of clairvoyance in a blind playthrough of the mod is given some thought and consideration for the future, wherever Median heads into.
. Then i came back some months later when i saw some videos and found out the existence of the docs.
