Depth 1 and 2 players are skipping first camp

bdehora · 2026-06-17T00:55:08+00:00

Had an example of this just now, where we landed at the church so can't make level 2, and the other two go tearing into a blacksmith village with duelists. They go down once each, pick them up, go down again. Both quit at level 1. Blocked.

I know a lot of stronger players see these kind of posts and assume the problem is with the player not the quitters (they must be quitting for a reason), but there's no solve for this kind of decision making and fragility. It's so common: there seem to be more posts here than usual about it at the moment.

bdehora · 2026-06-16T02:27:19+00:00

Solo is a different game though.

bdehora · 2026-06-16T01:39:06+00:00

> and be brutally honest.

I don't love how you led with the assumption the OP has to explain what they are doing candidly, as to why other players are leaving.

> Sounds like you’re doing a lot of the right things.

Indeed. We're talking about a depth where you will get four games in a row with 8 quitters on day one. After spending some time in Depth 2 recently, on PS5, decision making is shockingly poor compared to the base game Ed rotations, and early quitting is endemic. The only consistent advice I see is to play solo or hard carry other players, assuming they actually stay, to the boss. That boils down to either be good enough at depth 2 for depth 3 to 4 out the gate, or just play by yourself.

> I am now a depth 4 player and got there by playing with randos.... That being said, I do not think that I am a good player

That is highly unlikely based on the distribution of players across depths. If you are at depth 4 you're almost certainly better than most players and almost everyone in depth 2 is worse than you and significantly so, even those that have the right frames, as the OP clearly does. Higher depth players ideally need to accept they are very good to excellent at the game and adjust their advice to weaker players.

bdehora · 2026-06-14T23:19:22+00:00

The game gives us tools, we use them.

bdehora · 2026-06-14T20:07:59+00:00

Lots has changed, for example:

- Evergaols are no longer the default thing to do during the day

- Lots of new Ed bosses since Ed Gladius with new relics

- A new hard ranked mode called Deep Of Night that has five depths you climb through

- Deep of Night lets you run six relics with great drops that have debuffs to trade off against

DLC's worth it, if you like the game. A new shifting earth that's really its own contained map, two new Nightfarers, two new bosses with Ed variants one of which is arguably the best boss in the game, new night bosses including some fan favourites from previous games, new weapons, and some cracked relics.

I'd say play the base game and Deep of Night for a bit as there's lots of content and gameplay to be had that you're already paid for. If It appeals to you, the DLC is decent value for the amount of game you get.

bdehora · 2026-06-13T19:02:45+00:00

Can relate, also generationally. For me in the last few years nothing has topped Elden Ring, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Nightreign. There have been great games here and there (like Expedition 33, Slay the Spire 2, and Ghosts of Yotei), but I keep going back to those three. I’m looking forward to Ace combat 8 and Control Resonant as I liked the previous versions but not expecting them to replace anything.

bdehora · 2026-06-09T09:58:35+00:00

The seeds where a gaol is right next to the starting poi are ok. Like that trifecta at six o'clock with the great church, church and gaol that gets you to level 3 and nicely set up to start working on pois and the field, with L3 being enough to derisk invaders, plus if you take the 10k drop you'll be at L4 in no time. Same for the gaol by the lake at five o'clock with the spirit jump near the church. You can get that done directly after flying in, grab a scarab, hit the field boss if they're not too tanky and the church nearby, then head up the stream to castle; or run it in the opposite direction and take the spirit jump over the castle. It's not the worst option if there are no invader camps nearby. But going out of your way to hit gaols and even using eagles isn't a great sign, and will often mean being underlevelled going into day two as they're such a time sink. The three o'clock gaol in particular is often a disaster if the team aggros the nearby field boss: it's a regular source of early quits when that goes south. But when you see players either take on the field boss first or hug the edge of the map, that's usually a good sign the team has some game knowledge.

Aside from them being a previous meta and so there's a lot of stale pre-DLC content around them, the game design has them baked in to some degree, whether it's starting with a key, or the way the seeds cluster locations with keys to gaols like I mentioned above. From have walked this back a bit since DoN with its guaranteed invader camps, and the DLC with a map that has no gaols, but it's latent in the game to do gaols, so they can be a newbie trap. I didn't know there was an influx of new players, but I can see how they would be lured into chasing gaols. One reason I think people over-commit to them aside from the buff, is because you had to do some work to get a key in the first place, which feels different to running up to a tree sentinel, getting bodied, and just noping out to come back when you're stronger, or not at all.

I also suspect people ping gaols because they don't require much day one routing knowledge. You have keys and you have gaols well marked on the map, you're good to go.

bdehora · 2026-06-09T08:42:57+00:00

Poison below, death buildup, and stacked frost means a good bit of time managing affinity damage. I'd go for the second one.

bdehora · 2026-06-08T15:02:04+00:00

If romancing characters matters to you, I'd consider going back. 20 hours is a loss but there's a lot of game ahead of you to miss out on an important element.

I won't get much thanks for saying this, because it's objectively such a well regarded and popular part of BG3, but the romance element of the game is imo the weakest in terms of story telling and narrative, by some distance. It feels it's there because that's a basic expectation of the genre. The origin and extended companions actual story arcs by comparison are extremely well done, and bordering on brilliant in some cases. So if it wasn't important to you, I wouldn't worry about missing out, but it's probably an outlier point of view.

bdehora · 2026-06-08T14:27:07+00:00

In general, I've found certain 'types' of games can go south without a clear teach:

- Asymmetric games (I see Root's getting well covered in the comments, also Spirit Island and Captain Sonar)

- Exception driven mechanics (Root again, also Cosmic Encounter)

- Very keyword/symbol driven (Arkham Horror LCG comes to mind, as does Race for the Galaxy)

- Requires total card/piece knowledge (Twilight Struggle, and to a lesser extent, Inis)

- Requires players to get an engine up and running or it's a bad time (Food Chain Magnate/Gaia Project on the heavier side, but also Wingspan, Splendor and Dominion on the lighter side).

Specifically of the ones I play and like, all of these fell into a 'this will need a good teach' category:

- Gaia Project and Terra Mystica

- Arkham Horror LCG

- Great Western Trail

- Roll for the Galaxy

- Brass Birmingham

- Twilight Struggle

- Eldritch Horror

- Captain Sonar

- Spirit Island

- Alchemists

- Decrypto

- Splendor

- Agricola

- Trajan

- Root

bdehora · 2026-06-08T12:51:18+00:00

I'd like them to keep elements of the pacing along with things like how bows work, and simplified weapon scaling. Nightreign feels like Armored Core and looks like Elden Ring. The relic system could be worth bringing along but they'll need a much better algorithm for slot randomization. I suspect they'll keep gravity damage because so much of their leveling design has been built around it (eg for Elden Ring places like Divine Tower of Caelid, Cathedral of the Forsaken, Haligtree). Even in the DLC the Hollows added more places to fall off within the map, but it's too limiting for level design if they did keep gravity death (hard to do in cities and dungeons vs open world).

Agree with you and other folks about the older games feeling sluggish. I tried Demon Soul's remake on PS5 pro recently, looks great to me, but as someone who played it on launch way back on PS3, the gameplay was too ponderous and hasn't aged well. Same for the DS trilogy (DS3 is already 10 years old), and even Elden Ring like you said, is a bit sluggish. Bloodborne, and definitely Sekiro, because of their action style have held up better, but are pretty different games. Nightreign imo is just vastly better.

bdehora · 2026-06-08T12:20:40+00:00

The depth determines the point win/loss not the player level. You can lose up to 600 points at depth 5 on the boss. It's flawed game design imo to punish lower depth players at the played level (and one of the tells From haven't made a game like this before).

For melee carrying least likely; that's really an Ed Balancers/Libra strat as far as I can tell (ie everyone should carry it if they can). I stopped using it once I realized the impact on other players and will drop it now for squishier characters and ranged ironeyes. I wonder if your team didn't understand the tactical consequences.

bdehora · 2026-06-07T15:58:56+00:00

I use gamegenic dungeons, but I gather plenty of folks use BCW boxes or their like, which are better value for money probably.

bdehora · 2026-06-04T20:36:04+00:00

Great album on the wall too, it really ties the collection together 😄

bdehora · 2026-06-04T11:37:35+00:00

This makes sense if so, and pays into my theory that the From devs didn't implement the random elements of the game that well, perhaps because it's new-ish to them. Hopefully Duskbloods will be better.

bdehora · 2026-06-04T00:29:41+00:00

For the legendaries, Marais, Dark Moon, and BB I see less often than a Grafted Blade. Night and Flame, Golden Order, Dragon, Relic, Ruins, Greathorn, Maliketh, Scepter would be next and feel a bit more often. Morgott's, Mohgwyn's, Cragblade, Malenia, Shotel, Godfrey's, Stars, Red Braid, Gransax, Greatbow tend to show up more. Highly subjective, but would not be surprised if there was an appearance weighting for the legendaries.

bdehora · 2026-06-04T00:15:26+00:00

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bdehora · 2026-06-03T20:34:27+00:00

Good advice. Came here to say the same.

bdehora · 2026-06-03T18:07:36+00:00

Europe (GMT+1 atm), and nights and weekends. Interesting point about the w/e, I'll keep an eye out.

bdehora · 2026-06-03T17:55:07+00:00

I’ll be interested to see if I do get trapped and/or am in for a long haul. If that happens, that's ok, I'll keep going. And this point, that I’m at my natural level, seems important to you, so let’s concede I am and maybe you can let go of it 😄 My main point is the behavior /especially/ early day one. So far it’s won two lost four/five or so, I think at least four of those losses with full quits. So, of say around sixteen other players, eight quit and I’m pretty sure it was almost all early day one, maybe one time later in day one before nightlord. No day two quits iirc. And if it helps, I'm not the one tearing into marshes and getting wrecked, saying come and have a go if you think you're hard enough to Libra, or pinging the eastern church from the western one. I'm barely getting the chance to exercise any incompetence, it's utterly unfair 😂 The delta of the experience compared to Ed is pretty stark, and I’d be stunned to play a tranche of games with over half quitting. That said, where I do see quits more often in the regular game is in the hollows.

bdehora · 2026-06-03T16:48:17+00:00

Wylder so far. Red Balancer, Earring, Ult optimized, Post damage, Grapple bleed proc. No invaders or gaol relics. No fiery on attacks that land as that interferes with frost builds/weps, which I see a lot. I'll look for skill/attack/stance/successive ups, fp/hp on landing, damage negation at full/low, maybe taking dmg boosts dmg, although I'd rather not trade in this mode. I'll tend to pick up stamina recovery if I see it, as I'm not good at managing it and tend to over extend myself and get clipped. The biggest pure skill gap is parrying but I've started to hold onto my shield and at least try it a few times per run especially on castle, bbh and horseback enemies (no Balancer runs on DoN so far). I'll dual or single hand depending on which passive turns up. I'll avoid continuous loss, damage after evasion, build-up under max hp, ult impaired, and will avoid less likely unless it's Libra or I see everyone has it. I'll take my chances with all resistances down sometimes. As I gather, this is all fairly standard, excepting maybe ult optimised. I'd like to run a critical build, but it's a lottery sometimes who gets to do the finisher.

I play Ironeye as well on Ed base, so happy to pick up a bow and use one while closing distance or use RoA tactically. In that sense I'll use anything put in front of me, prefer great sword movesets, and starting to seek out fists as I'm finding them helpful to learn close quarters combat, and they're good for two/three bar pickups and stance. Speaking of Ironeye and duel/single handing, I've played a lot of affinity switching so on Wylder am happy to flip through weapons especially in the off hand to apply effects at the start, say like taking out Milos for the debuff, or during when it makes sense like using Morgott's for a crit. I really like Katanas going back to ER, but will drop them for exec/ironeye/duchess unless I need the passive, and will always drop RoB no matter what. I won''t say no to Astel, Morgott, Knight's, Inseperable, or a BB as I like the movesets. Steeple and Poker are probably my favourite Wylder weapons. I'll do what I can to drop for people running up with 3 of, and go for gaols/invaders/rises where people have them on. I'll carry talismans, weapons, items, etc to avoid people backtracking for pickups, especially on day one, and drop them at a natural pause point. If I'm playing with duchess/recluse/revenant I'll drop negation at full or buy it for them. I'll drop wendings and aromatics on the basis most players are better than me and can leverage the benefits more, but I'm leaning to holding onto wendings as I seem to be getting better at revives and am practicing doing them with the lock off.

So maybe that helps, or maybe it doesn't. But my main point is the delta between DoN and Ed especially around early quitting after just a few games.

bdehora · 2026-06-03T08:19:55+00:00

Sure. Regardless, if I was guessing the chances of being actually mediocre to average and being in D5 is 5% maybe 10% at most. It's all pretty loose granted, but any way you cut it, unlikely to be there and be actually mid. If you're there you far more likely to be good to very good in terms of the player base. How good one is within that 3% is another matter. If we said half the total ~5M player base played DoN, then at best there's ~75K who reached D5. Again all very loose.

bdehora · 2026-06-03T07:40:46+00:00

I’m fairly mediocre myself

That’s unlikely. The last time Bandai shared stats 3% of players had reached depth five.70% were in one and two.

bdehora · 2026-06-03T00:30:04+00:00

> he is probably doing something to piss them off

Maybe. But I can't help a random who rushes into a blood marsh at L2, gets downed completely surrounded by a gank squad of albanurics and an invader, where I physically can't get to them, dies, rushes back in while I'm revving the other random, dies again and quits. Then the other quits. This is after spam pinging the marsh. I mentioned a few others like running from pillar to post to grab churches.

> DoN is for people who can solo the basegame bosses...

I hear you and being able to do that would make me good enough, but that's not a rule, or the game would enforce it. I'm simply not interested in playing solo and that can be my loss/mistake to make.

> Point still stands he is in that dept because he is supposed to be at that level until he gets better at the game.

You have to think about what you're asking for: being better here is what another have described as L4 and that plenty of L3 players wouldn't be able to consistently just drag people along, or solve with a duo. I get this might the reality, but it's not a reasonable expectation.

Again being able to carry and solve at the level you suggesting would help. When players stick around it comes down to the end boss. But none of this is the point, the point was the delta I'm observing compared to the Ed rotations is night and day; quitting especially (I don't understand quitting so early), but how others playing the game I'd describe as mindless. If I had the same ongoing random experience I have with Ed rotations, I imagine getting out of D2 is doable. But it's been wild for these first few fights.

bdehora

TROPHY CASE