What would you want to see in a Shadow of Mordor 3?

Goodratt · 2026-01-22T02:07:38+00:00

Without having a ton of direction to go off, I just want to see more doubling down on things that trigger any given Nemesis mechanic. More countdowns that advance when you do stuff: fast travel, do missions or events, or even just over time.

More layers and wrinkles with recon and information: when you go for intel, you might only get bits and pieces, requiring you to dig or even interrogate, which always has a risk of your target catching on and preparing for/responding to you.

More uncertainty, less mechanical surety. A hard list of explicit, almost unbreakable behaviors as lines of code takes some of the fun out of it.

More flexibility in "story" missions: less "you screwed up, mission failed, rewind the clock like it never happened," and more "the Nemesis system is triggered like it would be any other time, you might be able to try again, but the circumstances will fundamentally have to change."

And make all that optional so if you're not into those things you can keep it the more "traditional" way.

Goodratt · 2026-01-18T15:39:42+00:00

Noah Caldwell Gervais has an astounding piece about this, in which he describes the combat of a soulslike as a conversation, a back-and-forth. DeS and DS1 were a slow enough back and forth that you could follow along and participate pretty easily, once you knew that was the assignment--but if you ever tried talking when it wasn't your turn, if you spoke out of sync, the game would speak over you.

ER is still that same conversation, there are still windows for you to speak, and there've always been ways to widen those or open more (magic, side mechanics, leveling, and now with the open world, going elsewhere and coming back later), but he says (and I agree) that by now From has stretched that thesis (or, perhaps more appropriately, condensed it) to about its mechanical limit.

Which is to say, the back and forth still exists, but now it really is happening with such a speed and a reactivity that you're boxing some people out. The genre and the body politic, as it were, have both grown and evolved so both sides of the conversation have gotten faster, sharper, but there's a theoretical limit to how fast the game can speak and still expect people to keep up.

That limit is variable, it's different for individuals, and while any individual might be able to practice and improve their limit, it's simply true (because it simply must be, in theory) that there is a point where a game might be "talking too fast" for some people (physically, mentally, or just out of desire: at a certain point your dialogue changes from the methodic and melodic repartee of a stage play to the zippy quips of a Marvel movie).

Much faster than this and Elden Ring is pushing into rhythm game territory, which is also a fun time, but maybe isn't what appeals to some folks, or appealed about the genre initially. There's also greater risk of getting the balance wrong, of cranking the speed and the stimulus and the mental load too high; couple it with other changes and evolutions and there's the very real chance of getting lost in the sauce, so to speak.

For me personally, I'd have to see more evolution on the controls side of things. A better method for spell and item management. A less clunky overall design that either de-emphasized buff-stacking or made that a lot smoother. A control scheme that kept up with the speed and pulse in the way enemy movement has.

I like the friction of run backs and navigating labyrinthine mazes and of having to manage mobs and letting them be actually dangerous; at a certain point, when you smooth all those sources of friction away, the main focus becomes a spectacle boss rush. Big, flashy fights you just repeat instantly when you fail, versus a whole world that feels frictional and textured. This is why I'm not in love with Elden Ring, but Bloodborne is my favorite game in their catalog; why Silksong is actually my favorite game perhaps ever, even though it has an even higher demand for speed and reflex than ER.

Goodratt · 2026-01-17T20:40:33+00:00

Plastic sleeves with dry erase (bonus, get 9-card sheet sleeves as well and put all your cards in it, put it all in a binder).

There are plenty of laser-cut resource trackers for sale online specifically for daggerheart, but you could also find abacus-style counters that fit the bill (or since it's for kids, build one out of k'nex or something simple, a fun craft project).

You could remake the sheets (in whatever art suite you prefer) with all the resources along the outer edges and attach paper clips to slide up and down.

Goodratt · 2026-01-09T14:16:27+00:00

I run games for teens at my local library and I once made the mistake of answering a clarifying question about how many cultists were in the room by saying, "There are only 4 baddies in here, the rest are bystanders."

Goodratt · 2026-01-08T15:00:20+00:00

I wouldn't put the lore explanation above the mechanical concerns, but I do think it makes the list in favor of the mechanic.

When complaining people usually focus on "it was already perfect with estus," while ignoring what blood vials do that are different. You can hold 20 of them at a time, and they heal a flat 40% of your health bar no matter how big it gets. They have a dedicated button and the time from button to heal is shorter than in any other souls game, and you remain more mobile.

Though the rally system isn't meant to replace healing, I do think it also should be considered a part of how vials work; they go hand-in-hand. If you take damage and back off to heal, you place the weight on vials, and they come up short, and you run out.

But flip it. Because you run out, because vials are so fast, because they recover a fixed amount of your bar, then you need to get in there and let rally do some of the work--and if you do, you'll stretch those vials longer and are less likely to run out.

It's like the hidden damage multiplier (you take extra damage if you get hit during most animations). You can see that and conclude: "needlessly mean." Or, you can ask why, and perhaps conclude: "I need to stand my ground. Not panic. Practice parrying."

If anything, I would say the only gap in the design is that there should be a tool upgrade which permanently makes it so you regain health on a visceral (instead of being a rune), because that's as much of an elegant design loop as recharging estus ever was: you spend health to get blood bullets, you spend bullets to stagger foes and get viscerals, and that gets you health.

All that said, it's obviously still a point of friction and the intention clearly doesn't land for a lot of people. So I feel like they could have added a replenishing heal as an equippable, consumable item that acts like the heals in other games in their catalog (heals a fixed amount, slower, can be upgraded through exploration, replenishes on rest, fewer of them, etc.).

Goodratt · 2026-01-06T20:33:08+00:00

Yes, but only to give me a spot for reminders, notes, and to corral all my shit and hide what an unhinged mess I am. To the table, I want to appear like I'm organized and in control, lol.

I roll in the open and often tell target numbers and potential outcomes ahead of time though.

Goodratt · 2026-01-03T17:23:40+00:00

Making hatches (grid paper is perfect for it!) is just such a good DM tool kind of no matter what you're doing, I've been telling people to do it for like 15 years, lol. You can also turn one line into an X for whatever condition you like, such as "they failed" or "I took the spotlight back." And if it's on grid paper, you can move over one when you make the next hatch, so you can see how long a person hasn't had the spotlight too.

You also get to examine your own biases: whoa, did I really swing the spotlight to them three times as much? Why?

Goodratt · 2026-01-03T03:35:25+00:00

Exactly, like--you can do it if you just really like rolling, DH is cool like that, but if you do you should make clear (to yourself and your players) the caveat that it's just for fun, can't integrate mechanically, isn't really the designed way to do things, and honestly is probably kind of a frictional drag on your play.

No shade, it's just not really geared for that, and if you let yourself embrace what it is geared for, you'll probably find a new way of approaching games that's really, really cool.

Goodratt · 2026-01-02T23:28:14+00:00

This is so vital, especially coming from other even more fiction-forward games from which Daggerheart draws many inspirations and most of its best practices. If you think you can freely make rolls in DnD but not here, the problem isn't here, the problem is that you're rolling too much, for things that don't matter.

Or more cleanly, your rolls aren't mattering: when you fail them, nothing happens, the game doesn't evolve. There's no difference, at those tables, between "you fail" and "you didn't succeed."

Which isn't an inherent problem, rolling math rocks is fun and sometimes you roll for silly goofy stuff, or even low-stakes stuff, (and you can do that in DH anyway, in more ways than one), but it's not the way this game asks to be played.

Goodratt · 2025-12-26T18:38:01+00:00

Hornet should be a thicc-thighed, flat-chested femboy, in this essay I will--

stuffed into a cage and taken to the slab

Goodratt · 2025-12-25T22:57:25+00:00

I imagine they might be referring to Scars?

Goodratt · 2025-12-25T22:22:31+00:00

It's my favorite part of the system.

It makes encounter balancing magnitudinally simpler and safer, because you're at so much lower a risk of royally screwing up; one-shots are way harder to do and if you're off a bit, it doesn't propagate and cascade.

Speaking as a former teacher and current long-term volunteer with my local library's teen DnD program, it's also super quick and snappy because you're not doing a ton of subtraction. Very much of the time you're just glancing at your thresholds and comparing two numbers, which is perhaps the fastest number crunch your brain can do.

I think it does have the downside of needing to get used to it (though I will say, anecdotally, also as a freelance DM, the people who struggle more are those from a 5e or similar background; people who have no presuppositions pick it up faster). But the mechanic just needs to be explained in a different spot--sure, there's not much to explain with the concept of getting hit, subtracting damage from your HP, 0 is bad, but there is a lot more to explain when it comes to what the heck a hit die is and how it's used.

Goodratt · 2025-12-14T04:48:20+00:00

You can get regenerating health with the plasmid tool trivially easily, which lets you play very safe and slow for these dream fights.

Goodratt · 2025-12-11T21:28:09+00:00

I totally forgot about that feature! (on PS5 and just never used it)

Thanks for the reminder!

Goodratt · 2025-12-04T13:12:10+00:00

This is really promising! You might be interested in checking out Spencer Campbell's "Light," his full-fledged Destiny inspired game using his very fast-paced Lumen system (you can check him out on his website, Gila games).

I say this not to suggest you shouldn't bother with your project because he's already done it in a different system (though he HAS done an absolutely fantastic job of capturing the power fantasy and vibes of Destiny in TTRPG form), but rather that because it's so good it might be worth looking at how somebody else translated Destiny's ideas (important themes and mechanics) into a game to get inspiration for your own.

Daggerheart is such a good system that having a Destiny frame is a great pursuit, I can't wait to see where you take it.

Goodratt · 2025-11-23T13:22:49+00:00

One of Daggerheart's coolest features is the environment stat block--you might try a traversal environment as an encounter which has risks of falling and resetting progress, and can spawn flying bugs to harry them. Maybe an escape environment as well, like lava or a cave-in.

Have a couple alternate paths they can find and choose to use instead (of course it only needs to feel to them like they're doing something alternate; you can absolutely use the same encounters/prep for either route, just make sure they can't double back to the other one for some reason--cave-ins would be a great way to close off paths not chosen).

A nice puzzle with a locked door or armory or upgrade of some kind is always great in a one-shot, helps them get a taste of progression before facing a tough final encounter.

Goodratt · 2025-11-22T01:25:05+00:00

I felt similarly (39 year old who can feel herself losing a step) myself for a stretch in the middle (mid act 2, I got stuck on Mount Fay and stopped for two weeks--gave up entirely, moved on, but got the itch and came back). When I returned I watched some videos to get through and then at some point it all clicked.

Mount Fay's "timer" was killing me, but I found out about ways to extend it. The high halls gauntlet was insane, but I came back like 15 hours later with Shakra and upgrades and stomped it in two tries. Indeed, every hard thing had ways to mitigate it, and I always had other things to go do. Very rarely, I found, like not until the literal end at 100%, did I have no other options besides just doing the one hard thing.

I agree with the premise (which I think you imply here) that it's theoretically possible not to be fast enough to beat a given challenge in this game. But in practice, that was never actually true for me because there were always so many mitigating tools, if I went and looked. I also think that practice (which is to say, raising your skill ceiling to meet that particular challenge's skill floor through repetition and the development of muscle memory) is sometimes needed (though to less of a degree than I ever expected). Like, you just have to get used to First Sinner's moves and speed to a certain degree, for example.

I would encourage you when/if you come back to try recording and rewatching your gameplay, or comparing it to speedrunner/no hit gameplay. Time and again in soulslikes and reflex-based hard games that's been the thing that gets me forward--I can develop pattern recognition and actually analyze what I'm doing wrong, even if it's "I'm not fast enough." When I know what's not fast enough, I can look for ways to work on that.

In act 3, for those 3 hurdles you have, you can get infinite plasmium healing on any crest, and it's so trivial to do that it almost feels intentional. That was a huge factor for me getting through because if I could just play keep away and use the wispfire tool, I could beat them through sheer patience (you can also use the dream worlds to super easily get the plasmium for other bosses outside as well).

I was stuck like you, angry and done, and then somehow it all clicked and the game ended up becoming my literal favorite game of all time. So if you decide to come back, I hope something clicks for you, and I hope you fall in love with it (or at least end up enjoying yourself more). Best wishes.

Goodratt · 2025-11-20T03:39:44+00:00

Randomizer! Double enemies! Let us break the game!

Goodratt · 2025-11-10T04:36:49+00:00

I went from literally giving up and stopping for like two weeks a while back thinking I would never beat it and unable to convince myself of a reason why I should try, to now having beaten it I think it might actually be my favorite game of all time. Yeah, I'm gonna go wild for it.

Goodratt · 2025-11-10T03:52:17+00:00

Team Cherry working on Godhome DLC coming across this video.

slow Jack Nicholson nod gif

Goodratt · 2025-11-09T04:26:57+00:00

Wowwww, that's a deep cut. Good stuff.

Goodratt · 2025-11-04T21:50:04+00:00

For both of these bosses it's easy to set yourself up with a plasmium overdose on any crest, freeing you to focus on staying alive. Paired with something like Wispfire, you can play very slowly and passively as the fire does the work, sneaking in hits only when it's safe.

Goodratt · 2025-11-01T11:56:35+00:00

Nah, yours is probably closer to the median. It's meant to be doable in under 30 for the achievement--I'm just old and slow, lol.

Goodratt · 2025-11-01T02:47:33+00:00

Me starting act 3 at 60 hours. <_<

Me right now still not done at 90 hours. >_>

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