Desert Canyon has severe balancing issues
It is a maze. "Follow the light", aka find the next torch and/or statue and figure out what exit to take is super frustrating when those unlit braziers usually mean "nope, go somewhere else" but also sometimes "here is the path, follow me"
It is bad enough but even randomly trying exits or normal exploring is punished because the likelyhood you end up in a small area full of (mountain) snakes which deal a lot of damage in a short time is high, which means instadeath.
Even the normal path is full of snakes and even mountain snakes near the end. You want the player to go there at around level 25-30. This is a recipe for disaster and will cause much frustration.
Specific things I want to be changed:
- Mark the correct path more clearly.
- Do not discourage exploring by either adding myriad of snakes or exits leading to instadeath. Instead, mark these instadeath snakepits somehow, e.g via a sign.
- No more (mountain) snakes along the correct path. Especially not near Halinarzo where you would grind for bandit drops. A lone snake or a couple of old snakes might be fine however.