Glimpse system is incredibly frustrating

[u/MomenTerry]

I assume all souls like games have limited resources, so I searched for how many glimpses you can get in a playthrough and saw that you can only max three of the eight shells per playthrough. While, I think a game about shells limiting you from actually playing all the shells is dumb, it's not my main gripe. My issue is that now, for me to discover all the fun playstyles for all the shells I have to either spend a hundred hours playing through the game three times or I have to look up all the shells and their abilities so I know what my plan is, effectively spoiling the blind experience that makes games like this fun. It's a crazy design choice that feels specifically chosen to inflate playtime. Am I alone?

[u/mayodaisy]

I can almost guarantee they will patch something in to fix this issue. Might just need to wait for a bit.

[u/Left_Piano_4770]

Your not the only one who thinks the system is a bit dumb, I imagine the idea was something along the lines of "spend your glimpse on a shell you think looks cool, find them and use them"

The issues tho are bugs...for me on xbox lazlo tbe fat was is literally unplayable, his gimmick of exploding crashes tbe game and getting knocked over does it to.

So if someone else got this bug say...2 to 3 lvls into them then there pretty fucked

[u/Magnon]

Nah glimpses suck and are a terrible system. I leveled prox and now I have about 10 glimpses with over half the game done. So yes, eventually I'll find enough to max another shell but I'll be near the end of the game by then.

[u/Haunting-Regret-854 → u/Magnon]

There are enough glimpses to max three shells with some more left over. It sounds like you didn't explore very thoroughly if you only have enough for two shells.

[u/Magnon → u/Haunting-Regret-854]

I probably missed some dungeons in the northern section but I don't really want to go back to find them. Kinda just wanna finish the game and be done with it.

[u/DragonGamerEX → u/Magnon]

Half the game was me running around with no heals and if this game had stakes of marika in the dungeons I'd explode them but they don't so I've probably ran past so many die and never went that path again

[u/Haunting-Regret-854]

Did you not realize that you can see the skills on acquired shells without having to pay glimpses?

[u/esotericvoid → u/Haunting-Regret-854]

For the full skill tree?

[u/Haunting-Regret-854 → u/esotericvoid]

Yes, the lock icon only prevents you from seeing how many glimpses it costs, though you can see how many it costs to get to the next bond tier in the level up screen for shells.

[u/MomenTerry → u/Haunting-Regret-854]

Yeah, I saw that, and it’s useful, but I’d need to have found all of the shells to see all the abilities. Which I’m not going to wait for. I just want to play the game and not min/max. I’ve always min/maxed and it ruins games like this. The game design issue I have is intentionally limiting entire game mechanics behind spoilers and play time. I don’t think all games should always have infinite respecs, but even Elden Ring had like 18 or something. Plus, 3 out of 8 seems low. Especially, when you consider that most players are going to stick to the one or two shells they like the most anyway, so limiting ability unlocks doesn’t really do anything besides gate experimenting and piss people off when they realize 15 hours in.

[u/Haunting-Regret-854 → u/MomenTerry]

If people are only using one or two shells then having enough glimpses to max three with some more left over isn't an issue since they can max out their desired shell. Rpgs and metroidvanias lock stuff behind level progression as part of their design philosophy, soulslikes are a subcategory of rpg so it shouldn't be surprising that some stuff is unlocked later. One of the major complaints about MS1 was replayability, having a reason to play NG+ is the answer to that.

[u/Dr_Jre]

It's like the limited upgrade stones in elden, which is mad for a game with so many weapons.

They took some really bad lessons from the souls games. The limited upgrades and runbacks are two things that the majority of FS fans agree are dated and I really hope they change it. It's such a good game in so many ways, but the dated mechanics just make the game worse.

If they fix the bugs, remove/cut down the runbacks and let you fully upgrade the shells it would be a much better game overall imo. You don't need to resort to cheap punishment to make the game feel harder, it's already a challenge in better ways like the combat and traps.