One of the things we really like about our current learning platform is that it doubles as a knowledge base. Anything we load into courses is easily searchable as an asset.

We could replicate this as a sharepoint but there are reasons that hasn't been ideal in the past. It would be best if we could add content to a knowledge base and then use that content in courses as well.

It would be even better if this knowledge base could store URLs in addition to uploaded files, as we have a lot of content in our current platform that is just that.

So far I have determined that Absorb, Docebo, Cornerstone, and EducateMe all appear to support this in some way, but I would like to get confirmation/opinions on that from people actually using these tools before I start talking to any salesperson.

If you have used any of these LMS for this purpose, would love to hear your thoughts!

Ok, so the Battery Buster is great. Quick melee attacks and a powerful ranged option, routinely seems to be considered one of the best weapons in the game for good reason.

No one seems to talk about how strange and ultimately underwhelming it's charge shot upgrade is though.

If you don't use the weapon much, or even if you've just played with it a bit, you'd be forgiven for thinking it's straightforward. Go into gun mode and hold the attack button to charge a stronger shot, what's so weird about that?

1. Charging the attack fully will more than double the damage of the shot (I go from 14 to 30 damage). Good!
2. However, simply charging and releasing a shot costs 2 ammo. That's odd, now were only slightly better than not charging our shot.
3. But! Charging a shot ALSO gives your next shot the same level of charge! (referred to from here out as "holdover" shots) Okay, that would make up for the damage difference except...
4. That said, when firing the initial charge shot (not the holdover), we lose an amount of ammo equal to the charge level (in addition to the previous charge cost of 2 ammo!) Meaning the cost of charging and firing a Lv.3 Shot and Holdover Shot is 5 ammo!
   • *The "holdover" charge can still be used if we are sitting at 0 ammo, but we can only charge up to Level 1 if we couldn't "afford" the holdover shot. Example: You can only charge to level 2 if you have 2 ammo left AFTER paying the 2 ammo charge cost. If you have 0 ammo, you can still go to 1, but no higher.
   • Effectively this means you can fire a Level 1 Holdover for free, but nothing else.

Data

To further illustrate this, here's some breakdowns of potential charge shot combinations I did in the training room. All of these combinations involve shooting until the game forces us back into melee mode.

Keep in mind, shorthand for an uncharged shot is "Lv.0", and we always have to start with a Lv.0 shot because we can't begin charging without firing once.

This was done on a Mina with Lv 10 in all stats, and no trinkets that affect damage.

String of 8 normal shots:

This is the string of damage that players get for connecting every uncharged shot in a full buster. It's the easiest to spam, and by not charging, players do not need to deal with the movement penalty incurred while charging, they can fire and then go back to full movement speed.

Shot Level	Damage (displayed in game)	Remaining Ammo
Lv.0	14	7
Lv.0	14	6
Lv.0	14	5
Lv.0	14	4
Lv.0	14	3
Lv.0	14	2
Lv.0	14	1
Lv.0	14	0

Total Damage Calculated: 112

Damage Displayed by in-game calculator: 117 (these are only different probably due to rounding of damage numbers)

Straightforward string of highest-charge shots allowed:

This involves charging as many shots as possible to their highest allowed values. This means we ultimately only fire five shots, two at Level 3 and two at Level 1, along with the required Level 0 shot.

Shot Level	Damage (displayed in game)	Remaining Ammo
Lv.0	14	7
Lv.3	30	5 after charge, 2 after release.
Lv.3 Holdover	30	2
Lv.1	18	0 after charge
Lv.1 Holdover	18	0

Total Damage Calculated: 110

Damage Displayed by in-game calculator: 111

Optimized string of highest-charge shots allowed:

This is similar to the previous string except we can slightly improve things by giving ourselves one extra uncharged shot in the middle of the string due to how holdover shots can be fired at 0 Ammo.

Shot Level	Damage (displayed in game)	Remaining Ammo
Lv.0	14	7
Lv.3	30	5 after charge, 2 after release
Lv.3 Holdover	30	2
Lv.0	14	1
Lv.1	18	0 after charge
Lv.1 Holdover	18	0

Total Damage Calculated: 124

Damage Displayed by in-game calculator: 126

Takeaway:

Unless I am missing something (entirely possible) I don't think this upgrade is worth utilizing in play. The difference in damage between landing 8 Lv.0 shots and landing the maximum amount of charged shots is a whopping 9 Damage.

Keep in mind that is IF you do it right, if you do something like the straightforward charge shot string you do LESS damage than if you connected all 8 normal shots.

This means you would need (in the heat of a fight no less) to keep track of how much ammo you currently have and determine what level you should charge up to, and even doing all that mental math the BEST case scenario is that you end up getting a 13% boost in damage.

Personally? I'm not gonna bother. Unless I am overlooking something (again, very possible) I don't see the point in taking a movement penalty for such a low boost.

I think the devs could fix this by simply making the "holdover" shots either not cost ANY ammo (since you already spent double for the charge, plus the time investment for charging) or cost 1 ammo. It's current implementation is bizarrely unintuitive and not worth the added risk of charging.

Previously I worked in LMS management/course development for higher learning. I switched to corporate elearning a little less than a year ago. I hadn't worked with an LXP before this so I have been learning as I go.

Currently my employer has an LXP they have maintained for about a decade. They don't run an LMS but they are looking at alternatives to the LXP as our contract is coming up for renewal and the LXP is focusing more and more on features we aren't utilizing.

High Priority needs:

1. The ability to house Learning Materials as EITHER embedded files in the platform OR a "cataloged asset URL".
   • I don't know the standard term for a "cataloged asset URL", but in our current LXP we can take a sharepoint link or other URL and add it to our catalog of content along with a name and description. We then place this in all the relevant courses/locations.
   • When we need to update the content, we can just copy/paste a new Sharepoint URL into the cataloged asset instead of tracking down all the locations that we put it, ensuring that outdated information isn't still in circulation.
2. Simple editing tools that still look nice. One of the reasons this company moved away from an LMS a decade ago was the owners didn't like the look of the LMS.
   • Sidenote: my boss has been interested in Docebo for this reason, but I am concerned that it seems like the editor requires a strong grasp of HTML and webdesign in order to create much of anything, something our SMEs do not have experience in.
3. Tools for tracking and pushing user engagement. I know that's boilerplate, but if you know of any tools that you think do a particularly good job of this, I would be interested. We struggle with user engagement outside of the onboarding process, something I am working on with other initiatives, but I'll take all the help I can get.
4. The ability to run cohorts in a way that is easily manageable. Possibly something like Canvas Blueprints?

Things that would be nice to have:

1. AI Roleplay for tools/apps/customer service would be nice, but we are also looking at 3rd parties for this, so it's not a dealbreaker.
2. Existing corporate course library, specifically for compliance courses. I know there are vendors we can go to for this (we currently make it ourselves) but it'd be nice if this was part of the LXP/LMS package.
3. Live Training integration. Current LXP doesn't support Live Training sessions, so far the company has just worked around/outside this but it would be nice if we could integrate our Teams/GoToMeeting training in a way that pointed people back to the LMS or LXP.
4. The ability to house materials in a way that isn't specifically cohort based. I am tripping over my words here but basically, just the ability to create pages that house content without a due date and make finding relevant job aids easier.
   • With my previous employer we would accomplish this by just setting up courses with no due dates and open viewing for users, I'm wondering if there is anything more elegant?

Things we don't need:

1. Our current LXP is big on the social engagement side of things. Comments, sharing, user badging/achievements, etc. This is not being utilized due to the adoption of a separate company social media hub that cannibalizes these features.
2. Current LXP also does a lot of skills tracking/evaluating, but for various reasons above my paygrade we can't really utilize this at the moment.

Any thoughtful help or suggestions would be very appreciated, thank you for even just taking the time to read through all this! I am nervously putting together my first project plan for potential content migration while I look at these alternatives.

"Adventure" is simultaneously ubiquitous to gaming experiences and surprisingly rare. Almost all games involve the player navigating a story that could be called an adventure, but often times that gets pushed to the side. Gameplay systems nudge us towards side-objectives for quest rewards and new skills, or animated cutscenes take the act of choice-making out of the players hands.

None of this is bad, and different players have different thresholds for how much "gamey-ness" starts to obfuscate that sense of open-ended exploration.

But when you step into a game like The Ancient City (Kings Field 4 as it is also known) and you see almost every scrap of curated presentation and handholding stripped away, you're either going to drop it thinking the game is underbaked... or you'll be intrigued enough to stick with it.

Atmosphere and Environment

If you have heard any praise at all for FromSoft's older dungeon crawlers, it's almost certainly for their atmosphere. The titular Ancient City is a massive multi-floor mega-dungeon you descend deeper and deeper into. True to it's name the locations with-in the dungeon are districts. Living quarters, forges, treasuries, graveyards, most of which have now been corrupted or overrun by opportunistic monsters.

Weirder locales exist too, like seaside fortresses full of plesiosaurs and snake temples with minecart tracks. Peppered throughout are plenty of traps, puzzles, and loot.

All of these wrap around and lead back to a massive central-chamber. It might take you 2-3 hours before you even see it, but after that first time it becomes a welcome sight when you finally open a door that loops back to this relative safe haven.

Combat exists to support Loot, which supports Exploration

Combat is very simple in Kings Field. You swing a sword to hit an enemy, and you back off and wait for your attack bar to refill so you can swing again.

There is a little more nuance to it than that, but not much. You need to play footsie with your foes and bait out attacks before launching your own. It's high-stakes as enemies can kill in a few hits, but it's not deep.

In my opinion, combat primarily exists to incentivize searching for loot. New armor, new weapons, new spells, consumables, these are oftentimes hidden behind fake walls or in hard to reach places. You want to become more familiar with the areas you are exploring so you can get these items to stand a chance against the tougher foes you will go up against.

The act of finding this loot is oftentimes it's own little story you participated in. The Queen's Staff didn't drop from some random mob. Your tired adventurer saw it hiding in a chest behind 2 giant living golden statues and took the risk (and the scrapes) to get it.

Organic Awe

Because The Ancient City refuses to hold your hand, there's a lot of moments in the game where you get to feel like a real genius adventurer for figuring something out.

I already mentioned one of these when you first circle back around to the central chamber of the Ancient City.

I won't spoil any of the others, but one in particular involves the games fast-travel system. Veterans who have played the game probably already know what I am talking about. All I will say is that the game teaches you the fast travel systems rules and then leaves you with an open-ended question you might not realize you already have the answer to. The end result is an organic moment that just feels amazing to put together.

The Ancient City isn't super puzzle heavy, there are some overt puzzles but most of them are more environmental/traversal which aids in the sense of adventure.

Some Caveats

I have some warnings on the game for anyone interested in playing it:

1. The only mod I made to this game was to give it something closer to modern twin-stick first person controls. I would recommend doing this as the original controls for this and the other FS Dungeon Crawlers are really rough.
   • I did NOT increase the movement or turn-speed. Frankly I think concerns that the players movement speed is too slow are overstated, you can run in this game and you move briskly enough. Turn-speed is... it's rough, but increasing it would break the combat balance so I left it alone.
2. This is the kind of dungeon crawler that starts out a lot harder than it ends. Every piece of gear, every spell you unlock, every level you gain is making the game that much easier. It can be a lot at first, but if you stick with it it does start to click.
3. You are not under leveled for any area you can get to. At first I assumed that I was wandering into areas I wasn't meant to be in yet. This is not the case, if you can enter an area, you are meant to be there.
   • The only exception to this I am aware of involves the area at the very top of the city (you'll know because you can see a cloudy sky...and the enemies will destroy you).
4. Don't worry about your gear's durability for now. You are going to be waiting a LONG time for the blacksmith. Gear cannot break (it caps at 50% durability meaning it is much less effective, but cannot be lost permanently) and you should be finding enough of it that you can switch to other gear until you do find the blacksmith, but you probably don't want to sell much of the gear you find until him for that reason.

Stuff I didn't love:

1. This is a minor criticism but the game hands you a lot of really neat utility gear at the very end. There are a lot of secrets you can easily miss, and you have to get about 70% of the way through the game to unlock a tool that helps with this, and then beat about 90% of the game to get another tool that helps with this. This is of course assuming you find these as they are both hidden. That's fine, I just wish they were available a little sooner?
2. This is also around the time you start get a lot more magic spells, but almost all of the enemies are weak to the same element at this point and you probably won't have a need for the others.
3. On that note, both spells and weapons can be leveled up by repeated use. I like this, but the amount of uses required is absurd. You can unlock special attacks for the weapons if you get them to level 3, but that requires a total of 480 hits on an enemy PER WEAPON. I never got a single weapon to level 3, and only got a handful to level 2. Spells get new effects as they level too, and while I got more of these to level 3, you'd have to probably spend an average playthrough length amount of time to max all of them.