This post is going to be very lengthy, but well organized. I hope this is well received and hopefully read by someone on the dev team.
As of date I have 330 hours on Steam. I originally adopted this game a few weeks after it was released into Early Access. It has come a very long way and the potential for this game is incredible. I haven’t been this excited for a game since 2013 - and it got released as a mess and incomplete.
Below you will find my feedback and suggestions by category and followed by details. Please feel free to quote items you endorse or feel would be too difficult to implement.
Gameplay
Co-op Suggestions
- Rather than Friendly-Fire be a fixed value, add it as a slider value with different levels similar to difficulty. This should be bound by realm.
Option 1 - 5% damage transfer (Adventurers)
Option 2 - 10% damage transfer (Standard)
Option 3 - 25% damage transfer (Unspoken)
Option 4 - 50% damage transfer (Wicked)
- Allow for multiple steps of the Crucible to be active at the same time in 1.0 - should core systems allow for it.
- Add a spectator mode to the Crucible. Adding this as like a viewing stone that can be unlocked by Seneschal would be really cool. To see the ruin come back to life in the chamber would also be a neat idea.
- Allow players to rejoin Crucible at the Seneschal at the cost of Gloamseed. No Echos gained.
- Allow for Echos to be tradeable for the duration of the run (currency) this would be interesting but also probably broken.
- Allow more than one Cerim to provide blood - increasing the difficulty of the Crucible run per Cerim that bleeds.
Difficulty - Unspoken
I find that the default difficulty of Unspoken feels rather lackluster and not punishing enough. The static math/stat changes to damage and health are OK but they do not entice a sense of real challenge. While hardcore exists for a punishing permadeath - you can still experience it on the normal mode. Which is really well optimized for a standard difficulty.
I propose two changes to Unspoken:
- Attack animation logic changes
What do I mean by this? Imagine a pendulum and it randomly stops and pulls a value. The value minimum is 0.25 and the maximum of 2.0. This number is time in seconds, added or removed to an attack animation charge up. The pendulum is played after a coin-flip for add or remove and there can be incremental differences in time based on the size of enemy. This would result much more unpredictable combat, that feels fresh and actually challenging instead of a simple stat change. The exception to this logic would be bosses unless existing systems would not support it only being implemented to non-boss enemy logic. I think bosses are perfect - truly.
- Behavior changes based on faction
What do I mean by this? Well, I think this could technically be added to any mode though, it would add a layer that I consider belonging to Unspoken. This would be a change in enemy AI based on faction and faction ally positioning. I will provide some examples below.
Example 1: Balak Taw ranged enemies typically try to maintain a certain distance from Cerim. Sometimes just running off screen. They also can call reinforcements. Instead of just creating distance, the AI should identify if there are nearby allies and join with them. Possibly getting higher ground to ambush you on approach then dropping down collectively to attack. I think reinforcement characters should call in 2 units as well - instead of just 1. As Balak Taw are tribal - it would be refreshing to see their tribal behavior increase in the form of Guerilla tactics.
Example 2: Pestilence outbreaks. In the current iteration when in an area full of enemies - burning at a campfire simply respawns the set of enemies in the area - deleting the existing ones. It feels rather lacking. Instead - the existing enemies should remain and as the player runs into them. Pestilence should begin to breakout among them. Similar to your experience in the Black Trench where you see Risen fighting a bloater after the first key door. Fighting among factions in strife would add a nice layer to pestilence outbreaks and a sprinkle of chaos with the above mechanic changes. This would be a proper Unspoken experience for me. It would really make it standout. The invading faction should be lower level than the pestilence, as to not affect the meter. Instead of the typical Risen Raider helping a Siren it would feel more cohesive if factions had more strife when they ran into each other.
These changes are on top of the existing conditions. Unsure if this should just be a 4th difficulty - maybe Wicked? 
Bounties, Side Quests & Challenges - Lore and Humor
Bounties as they are currently written in my opinion feel fairly stale. They spawn certain enemies on the map for a reward. No scripted sequences, no reason they are really there, no conditions like saving a villager. The rewards are also fixed - the amount you get and the item pot value are generally the same.
Ideas:
Challenges
- Perform x amount of emotes around y faction - this sounds fun and also hard
- Remove the dummy from counting as doing Parries as its pretty cheese and doesn’t encourage learning the system in combat.
- Farming or crafting challenges > refine 20 x supple hide or harvest 20 tomatoes
- Kill 3 giant type enemies with a single blow or rune attack
- Reach x level in z class - for the class rework (low level but encourages multi-classing)
Bounties/Side Quests - While I understand some of these ideas are better suited as a “side-quest” I feel having a weekly bounty or Sacra defense mission would be refreshing
- A cry for help - A man runs to Sacrament begging Cerim for help as Merin Village has been sieged by x faction. Clear the town and free the village.
- Random wanted posters throughout Sacrament start a bounty with sequences or cutscenes - a lady held hostage in one of the houses near the Windmill. Saving her gives you a new emote instead of money and items for example. Several quests like this should be in 1.0.
- Performing certain emotes to specific NPCs should start side-quests. I think having some be based on in game or real life time would make it extra-interesting and easter-egg like.
- You should be able to look into Helena’s telescope after a favor.
- Discounted farmland - there is a landlord in Sacrament. He should report that Risen have overtaken his farm in the Lowland Meadows - he offers it at a discounted price if you can rid the property of Risen. However, making it overpriced to begin with would also be kinda funny. Like the graveyard house in Sacrament. So you can still just buy it at the price-gouged price.
Weapons & Equipment
Gauntlets & Double Daggers - Runes
Currently all weapons have a huge amount of interchangeable attack runes. If logic serves me right - these will not be affected by the class system as only attributes are being traded so that more unique trait skills can be unlocked while we progress class independently based on weapon equipped. Using this assumption - gauntlets and duel daggers are very lacking in the rune department. While with a wand, staff, axe, or great weapon. You can almost interchangeably have a near limitless combination of runes. Wands and Staffs getting the most compatible runes of any weapons in the game.
While this does feel imbalanced - it is too fun for me to think it should change. Instead I think more runes need to exists for these weapons specifically. Illaria should sell gauntlet specific runes as well - not just universal runes. Only one or two would be a good balance. Similar to Elenore only selling one or two really high end weapons in her shop at Tier 3.
Infused Gems - UI
Some new gems have been added like the shield and some existing gems have changed their effects. Barrier is not listed in the codex that I am aware of and understanding how the percentage equates to what damage value is still not quite clear. Is it value percentage based on health or something else entirely?
Infused gems that provide regainable health show no tooltips on equipped item but one will show for an enchantment. I propose for clarity sake the following implementation:
Forgive the poor photoshop but something like this would reduce page switching to stats and the poise damage increase is not reflected on the weapon UI. I feel an added window like this with a bindable button for Detailed View would reduce the current need for users to jump between Stats and Inventory and overall be a better experience. This way you know exactly how your stats are being affected by equipped items without having to equip > change page > go back > change equipped item > go back to stats to see difference.
Lacquered Bow - Targeting is bugged
When in the Nameless pass and some other areas with enemies high up. The bow will auto-lock and prime the bow as if I am holding R1/RB. Causing me to miss jumps and fall to my death in some cases as the weapon state prevents me from jumping.
Shops & Crucible
Respecting Player Time & Effort
Currently there is a maximum of 99 Gloamseeds in the Crucible. An ability to get a limited number of store refreshes per day (24 hours) would be nice. At the cost of 50 Gloamseeds I think would be steep enough and grindy enough to warrant a shop recycle. Requiring you to grind for them more instead of spending them all and never using them again - I think this gives them infinite useability and makes the endless mode even more endless.
A limit of 3 or 5 feels healthy with current design. The exceptions to these shop refreshes should be the Seneschal itself and Finley. As both are unpredictable by nature and expensive. I think there should generally be more uses for the Gloamseeds outside of their current implementation - a reason to keep getting them. However - nothing that is exactly benefiting - just the opportunity to benefit. Similar to the options already available in the Offerings tab. This purchase should cycle all shops except for the ones above.
Long-term this would discourage users from having 20+ realms just to actively have shopping choices. Though - with 1.0 tiers this will likely be moot. However, for EA this would be adorned.
Graphics & Settings
Display Resolution - Ultrawide
Performance seems to significantly dip when using any resolution in 21:9 aspect ratio and 16:9 appears to get optimal frames at all resolutions. Please add this to the optimization checklist for PC during your rounds for system optimization prior to 1.0.
Rendering Options - AMD & NVIDIA
I am in the minority of users as I have an Intel graphics card - is there any plan to add XESS support? I know Unity supports it but this would be nice to have OEM rendering tech. AMD works fine - ish but I tend to dip pretty low in performance in the Lowland Meadows.
Graphics Options - Advanced
PLEASE implement an advanced option for graphics with individual elements being customizable. Like foliage, shadows, bloom, view distance, ray tracing, particles, etc. I understand you are waiting for console optimization rounds to even touch it but something rudimentary would be amazing in the current state as it allows us to tune should we have current hardware limitations. A meter on expected VRAM usage would be ideal as well for 1.0.
Damage Numbers - Visibility
Please add a High Contrast option for the damage numbers that appear for damage done, healing, etc. High Contrast and Colorblind options should exist for 1.0. I am not colorblind but there should be a bit of options in how we can customize this aspect of the UI.
That’s all I can manage to extract from this smooth brain at this time.