First just wanted to say I absolutely love this game, I think the devs have done a great job and excited to see how this game progresses, I think it could be GOTY at 1.0. Anyway just wanted to leave my feedback here, Cheers.
COMBAT
- When double daggers and a bow are equipped, you should still be allowed to fire your bow.
- Ability to play pure mage/archer builds, where maybe they have a weak ranged attack with limited range that can build focus.
BALANCE
- I am very concerned about the balance in this game. The most fun Ive had (combat wise) was the opening hours of the game, or running to endgame on a 2nd char and having to fight at a higher world level (or echo knight with a mediocre build). It forced you to interact with the enemy attacks/animations, the food health system and felt enthralling to play. But unfortunately once you get a good build going, the game becomes a literal breeze. Some of the end game builds are so strong, I feel it is essentially going to break the game in the long run. % healing builds on hit just being able to spam R1. Focus regain/tank builds being able to just stunlock echo knight in an endless loop and kill in 30 seconds. Mages sprinting through the crucible in 5 mins nuking everything.
I was hoping endgame would be coop with players, where we all feel about as vulnerable as those first few hours on the beach, but if multiplayer released today, it would be players sprinting through just mulching everything in their path as fast as the game can load. This would prob feel dreadful to other players not super geared too, as they would have no real input in the combat and just be running along picking up the loot.
I think many of the stats on items should be nerfed substantially, and I think the “% health on damage dealt” stat should prob be removed from the game. Managing your food use and how fast you can spam it is the core difficulty and fun gameplay loop that makes you approach each fight trying to not get hit, when that is not important, the combat breaks down in my opinion. you can just tank Echo Knights strongest attack, and by the time he goes to hit you again, you can be at full health after a few dagger swipes with the health on hit build.
I dont think the chasm between a player with upgraded gear and bad/average rolls should be enormous compared to a player with god rolls. Otherwise you will never balance a fun, difficult and engaging end game between these 2 types of players. it will be either impossibly difficult for the average geared, or just super easy and unfun when geared. (unless you have world difficulty system where you can run the content at a harder level for more drops etc, which could be a solution)
ECONOMY
- Some items at least so far seem very hard to get, bear paws, boar tusks, wool etc
INVENTORY
- When crafting stuff, the game should also just use what’s in your storage, not just what’s on your character.
- Need a “stack all” button for player/storage inventory. I have many incomplete stacks of items.
- Furnace completed ingots need a “take all” button, like press Y. Would also be nice to upgrade these crafting benches to be able to hold more materials to convert?
- Need way more storage space in chests (like 100+ slots or more) and items should be able to stack to 999. (My 3 houses are just an ocean of crates atm). This prevents me from designing the house to look like a home, and more of a tetris abomination of crates
- Storage chest sort by name/item type/weight
- Weapon runes should stack to 100 in storage
UI
- quest progress is hard to track (kill crabs west of mariners keep) how many though? could prob also spawn an extra crab or two above the requirement for the bounty.
- Can’t see a preview of what an item is if you can’t pick it up off the ground
- Crafting an upgraded weapon should show the increased stats after upgrade on the upgrade screen (not talking about enchanting)
- Need a “compare stats” tab in inventory, for comparing rings, armour etc.
- When looking at runes in inventory or about to slot in a new rune at Eleanor, it would be nice if a little video popped up beside it showing the rune skill in action
- Bounties vendor should have a “refreshes in X hours” timer on the screen
- On cursed gear “lose gold/experience on death” or “lose experience on hit”, please tell us how much! Is it lose 50 gold on death? Lose ALL gold on death, Lose X% on death?
- Ability to have a hotbar for food/ useable items with 3-5 slots. currently it is far too tedious to cycle through these in combat. Ideally a better way to even cycle through this hotbar too, maybe utilizing the o button on Ps5 controller?
QoL
- The “sale” sign outside the front of the house you own (in the square) is too close to the door and annoying, it could be moved 2 meters away.
*The ladder to the cheapest house is kinda annoyingly hidden behind a beam. Also running from that house to town (and vice versa), there is a granny that spawns along the path and you cant seem to run past her lol! - Any intractable door won’t give you the prompt to open if you are too close to it. A small QOL here would be nice.
- Really need a way to respec stats
- Ability to delete realms
- Ability to change your characters name or edit their appearance including changing gender
- Need to add accessibility options/ key rebinding for players who are impaired.
- When you dont have a weapon in the 3rd slot, the game should just skip this slot when changing weapon
CRUCIBLE
- I’ve enjoyed it, but I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more if it was just one big sprawling level. I’m not a huge fan of the 6 short arenas. My main hope is that if there is a co-op mode, it is more of a big long level, with mostly dense enemies and loot and a smattering of traps, plank crossings, puzzles etc. It would be nice if there was also a travelling merchant at points where you could sell gear, buy food or maybe the odd weapon they might stock.
SUGGESTIONS
- Combat. A big problem is combat gets janky fighting multiple enemies, so I have a large suggestion here both that would add a bit more depth, be fun, and give the player more agency to fight 1vX. Currently parry damage builds dont feel that fun or visceral because you just parry and the enemy dies. I suggest add in a parry with auto-riposte animation system that gives you iFrames throughout (like the way backstab does). I know this is asking for A LOT of extra animation work from the devs but I feel it is worth it if it’s possible and a missing link to combat flow. Fighting multiple enemies becomes a bit tedious because they don’t stagger (which i like but creates problems like 1vX fights) and you’re just dodging/running around looking for an opportunity to get a single strike in. If there was a parry-riposte animation, this would make fighting groups far more manageable and rewarding. With regain Focus on parry perks, this could create a far more satisfying and immersive loop fighting multiple enemies where you are more invested in their attacks and counter attacks as opposed to just spamming focus skills and drinking focus potions. The loop would be more like: watch enemies for a telegraphed attack-Parry fish for riposte- earn focus from parry- use focus skill- get in stabs on stragglers/stunned enemies- parry again etc. Different weapons could have different crit% chances or other different utilities from this animation, for example:
Daggers have the highest single target damage,
Claymores are able to do a sweeping slash cutting other enemies,
Spears can do a wide foot sweep (knocking down multiple small enemies) followed by a ground stab,
Katana could do a sheathed slice that travels 4-5 meters then enemies in the path spill blood a second later,
Great hammers could pound the enemy to the floor and release a shock wave in surrounding area staggering enemies,
Bows could do a flurry of 3 arrows/ or a powerful arrow that travels through multiple enemies,
Shields could do a bash/ sweep/ knockdown,
Staves/wands could do a foot sweep then send down a rain of ice shards/ fireball/ vines that ensnare etc,
Great clubs could knock enemies back far being able to ledge them off a cliff,
Scythes a wide swipe,
Rapiers 3 deep pokes etc
Then for bosses, parries work as usual (just staggering the boss) until a certain amount of parries (3/4) builds up and puts them in a downed state, where you can walk up and do a high damage critical strike, or the game automatically makes you to the riposte animation (to prevent ganking the boss as a group in this downed state instead of doing the riposte)
- I would like to see more off-hand options like parry dagger, one hand bows, throwing shuriken/akes/knives etc
- Would love to see some more unique weapon categories in the long run like Fists, Claws, Kusarigama, Shotel.
- Would love some ninja armour or more assassin armour
- Would be nice to be able to pan the camera a little bit in all directions to see ahead with right stick
- A transmog system
- Maybe a way to implement and craft armour dyes?
BUGS
- When using skirts on the female character like the “Nith Leviathan Leggings”, when you dodge, her entire ass clips through the pants.
- Bounties vendors rewards preview often seems to clip off the screen with no way to scroll down to see rewards
- When doing the sewers story, my character glitched through a locked door without finding the key, now when I go back it’s still locked and I can’t find the key (I think it was the water sewer key? The wooden door on the far left of whisper, near the first hydraulic lift thing. I believe the mini boss and chest with the key in it is now no longer there).
- Arrows don’t seem to target the wolf with the stick on his face
- Resting at the inn doesn’t restore HP as advertised
- Getting a lot of stuttering, especially fighting Echo Knight where he does that power move of shooting out a bunch of plague balls.
Just to end, there is so much to love in this game, art style, voice acting, meaningful combat, looting is easy and intuitive and fixed the annoying loot piñata system in similar games, cutscenes and facial animations, brilliant level design (reminiscent of Dark souls 1), great boss combat and general enemies. I also like the lack of fast travel, time to build/craft items, farming runs, player housing (if storage issue is fixed). Brilliant game that is just lacking some content and rough around the edges but keen to see where the devs take this. Cheers