Bingox

Yeah radiation isn't fun. Level and health makes so much difference as you get a heal each time you kill an enemy - so having a high enough level to kill quickly means radiation is outhealed. I also left at 2nd level of tower due to constant radiation deaths [I was level 22 - which I think is a few levels below recommended], and just went exploring, was level 30 when I went back and it was fairly trivial.

The lowest ones are all have the "broken" prefix in their name. Based on the high stats in your screenshot you definitely had something on the ape frame that needed level 2o - would be better if the game just let you swap in any level core to a frame and if any gear slot doesn't match the inserted core level disable that piece of gear and just warn player. Can't disagree about the pacing being a bit off - but cores were not an issue for me as I always tried to do any side dungeons I came across. Finished it last night - and the last area is quite tough if you are not high enough level. I struggled initially at level 22, but cleared fine at level 30 (with lots of extra health upgrades too). So depending on skill some more grinding may be required. I think I had about 70 cores by the time the credits rolled, as I did enjoy exploring and doing the optional dungeons. I may play on to get to 75 cores to try the final optional dungeon that needs 75 to unlock. The final fight was frustrating - twice when trying to extract a core the camera view completely obscured the tether line - meaning extraction failed and I had to whittle down boss health again.

Seems like you've resolved the problem through grinding so the following is a bit redundant - but based on that screenshot those are not the base frames (I recognise for instance the ape has the zombie head, and atk, def energy would all be 0 on the base frame if no core inserted). I'm not talking about the cores - but the frames (the gear you put the core into) which are made up of 4 components [head - forelegs -rearlegs-tail] and determines the level requirements.

Just to clarify by resetting to base bodies you also changed the head/legs/tails etc to the lowest white level ones before trying to swap cores, and not just moved the cores into the original frames? Having just one piece with a higher level requirement can screw you over when swapping cores - particularly when your cores have different levels.

I felt core progression is quite lenient - unless I'm about to hit a brick wall in requirtements. The (I presume) end area needed just 30 cores - which for me was just a couple of extra side dungeons (of which there are many), and if you don't enjoy doing any of those then you probably won't enjoy the rest of the game. But you shouldn't need to grind anyway at the Duncan stage of the game, I think it's just the fiddly core swapping that has cores-d the issue, and changing the loadouts should resolve it.

I don't recall having similar issue - and fairly certain duncan was lower level when I got him. Are you able to change Duncans loadout? Perhaps you have equiped items which have bumped up his level requirements. [edit - also check the other frames you are swapping with which could be causing the problem]

I actually started this again (for the 3rd time) a few days ago. I do actually enjoy it and have got past my prior sticking point- but it can be very frustrating, particularly doing of the optional secondary objectives in traversal dungeons. I've had some annoying bugs as well - such as fast travel being switched off for no reason, scenery glitching, and companion robots becoming unresponsive. Also being only allowed two robots at a time (which I understand makes sense for combat and dungeons) makes the outdoor exploration a bit finicky. On the whole though despite these annoyances I still find myself wanting to play it - as I find the combat quite satisfying and like the exploration. Maybe I'll actually complete it this time.

Very enjoyable. I hope they make more! This contains 3 scenarios which act a a prelude of sorts to the original. Complexity is similar to the later episodes of Golden Idol, with the first of the three being a bit simpler to ease us back in.

New patch out. I didn't notice anything about drop rates - but haven't read it too closely. There are lots of changes - the main one being allowing flags to be carried over when re-doing levels: https://teamninja-studio.com/wolong/us/update/

This is getting some DLC - and very soon too [4th May]! I really enjoyed the base game so am looking forward to more mysteries to solve.

I think this is new:

I might be misremembering - but I think finding all an areas landmarks clears the Fog of War.

I like the system too - and have been thinking about how they could solve the ng+ problem. I don't think you can completely abolish it - as it's part of the ebb and flow of boss battles. You could just have all flags remain found when you redo missions - but that causes other issues as now early enemies are trivial. A halfway house option would be to link the smaller flags to a parent large flag - so all previously found small flags are unlocked when you get the daddy flag. This won't remove the in-level progression, but does speed it up, and removes need for extra searching. Note you already have some tools to solve this - just chug down elixirs to get to wanted Moral level, it's a bit unwieldy as you need to keep resting to restock elixirs so perhaps they could streamline this process [spend some form of currency at rest sites to buy morale?].

New patch out - contains some nice QOL updates - in particular: - Made changes to the Travel menu which will allow players to check their progress in collecting Shitieshou, Golden Cicada Shells, Tablets, Dragon Vein Essence, and Dragon Vein Crystals via icons. Should make mopping up remaining collectibles a little more palatable. Also first boss has been nerfed - so hopefully removing an early roadblock for some folk. https://teamninja-studio.com/wolong/us/update/

Yeah - I was lucky with the health upgrades as I got them all on the main playthrough, and for tablets it easy to work out which ones are missing - but I redid lots of levels for all the pandas. I'm sure Nioh showed you how many Kodama had been collected per level - so it's something they know is useful and strange that it's missing here.