Been waiting until patch 2 to bother getting to this discussion out of curiosity for what lies ahead.
I think Moon Studios owes us all a well thought out plan and or sense of direction for NRFTW. The road map has no context to anyone outside of your studio. An honest plan, saying “we dunno” is completely acceptable because at least it’s real and gives us all a point of reference when providing feedback. My issue with patch 2 is that it feels like a clear plan is becoming apparent and yet there’s no dialogue from Moon so… Ick.
The current road map reads: launch EA, multiplayer, some content with a name, some content without a name. And don’t get me wrong, Moon has enough good credit built up I’d get on that ship and set sails.
Call it my profession getting in the way of my care free enjoyment here, but patch 2 hit me in the wrong way on several levels.
We still don’t have a comprehensive list of known issues. This subject doesn’t need to be belabored. Caiden_Boulton does a great job making sure people who are bothering to post bugs feel heard. Beyond this it would go a long way to have a list at the end of patch notes which has much greater visibility than scattered posts.
“Hidden gems” aka unlisted changes. I’m not saying Moon has to be on the forums 24/7 responding to every single topic; quite the opposite, we want you all working on the game. That said when you do address community especially in writing… Communication needs to be accurate. Especially given how little we hear from you all on the bear bones of the game. I said it above and I’ll repeat it because I really mean it. Just keep it real with the community and saying we don’t know what we want is still viable. At least then feedback will continue to come based around that understanding.
Listed and unlisted changes and focus… Yes this is a focus post in disguise 
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Short backstory here, I piicked up the game shortly before patch 1 and played it out blind. By the time I got into caring about gear it seems focus Regen was fixed from a broken stat so maybe this change was little more than correcting an overcorrection but that’s not what it feels like. Patch 2 clearly said focus is not mana. And the infusions nerfs to focus on damage and focus on ability tell me this game is heading in a direction.
I’m not thrilled by the idea of NRFTW being isometric dark souls with terrible crafting (over simplification). My stance is that Moon doesn’t need our help telling a good story. The level design in NRFTW is amazing and the art style is refreshing and polished. So what is Moon bringing to shake up the stale scene of attack speed/cast speed/move speeds we don’t introduce mechanics just increase mob health ARPGs?
Another oversimplified take but the only really new things we have that distinguish this title from OG souls is parry on every weapon, and access to more abilities through runes than weapon arts along provided.
And don’t get me wrong I’m still going to play this game when it’s released but if all we’re doing here is adding MMO style tedious elements to a souls game and wrapping it up nicely in a good in depth story… I just don’t see where the community fits in, and Id go so far to say it’s a bold marketing farce to call the game and ARPG…
So where does this nerd rage stem from? There has been an awful lot of discussion on this forum regarding what is the intended experience and what combat should be modeled around as a community but not from Moon. That said I feel like patch 2 is a pretty clear albeit underhanded nod from Moon that this is little more than a souls game in terms of combat and gearing.
Skipping over the current crafting system which again I can only hope is part of a larger system we know nothing of…
Traditionally combat style and gearing are integral to ARPGs because the common theme is you build into something and it becomes impactful. The recent patch hit focus in a way that in my eyes says, focus isn’t mana we want something else. The unlisted changes to focus tell me we’re still at the beginning of a long journey of continued nerfs until we just have isometric dark souls.
This is how you can get focus as of Patch 2.
Consumables
Parrying
Focus Regen
% Focus on damage delt
These values can be modified by focus gain %.
Only my own opinion but I think consumables feel shitty to use and should be avoided in combat as the break up the flow so much.
Focus Regen has been nerfed to the point that it no longer represents something akin to mana Regen and does little more than provide focus for buffs between engagements.
Focus on damage delt has been nerfed yet again so I guess next week we’ll go from 1-2% to 1% before it’s removed, who knows.
This leaves parrying. I love it, but I also think a lot of people wont and I also believe it significantly restrictes play styles. Aka this is the answer to the circular discussion around the intended experience. Building focus now means much more investment into your focus pool for starters and the impact of passive sources is not meant to be an alternative to parry which is a significant element of the games combat systems.
This change says, get in there and mix it up. We like the idea of y’all using a bunch of spells/abilities but not without being active, focus isn’t a resource it’s a mechanic.
So TLDR… It would be nice to hear from Moon directly on where they see the game heading. The changes indicate to me we’re not sailing aimlessly so why the lack of transparency O captain my captain?
IMO only after Moon makes clear the intent behind the games mechanics can we provide meaningful feedback. Until then call it what it really is, just a wish list.
Just one old nerds take.
We initially had the entire first month after launch pegged as a ‘fixes and patches’ period since it was foreseeable that we’d need to fix bugs and react to the community a lot right after launch. Reflecting on this month since launch, I think we’ve done quite well in that regard! But we’ve also been busy since launch working in the background on a bunch of the stuff we had to cut just to make the Early Access Release. So the most obvious step regarding content was to first deliver on the final vision for the content that didn’t make it for release: As you’ve probably already noticed, areas like Nameless Pass and the Black Trench were initially cut short a bit. So with our upcoming patches, you’ll see content updates to all the areas you’ve already been playing through so that they reflect the original vision and so that these areas have even more meat on their bones 
) and those will dramatically increase the scope of Wicked already. Those areas will also unlock all of our Tier 4 gear, so that you’ll be able to craft entirely new builds! At the same time, we also see a ton of value in our Crucible. What we shipped was really only a tease of what’s to come. The ultimate goal for the Crucible is to turn that section into a rogue-lite that would basically get you the same kick you get in games like Hades, Dead Cells, etc. BUT since we already have a ton of our systems in place, I think we can do all kinds of things you don’t usually see in other rogue-lites. We can feature intricate levels that bring a ton of verticality into play, feature deeper combat mechanics, allow you to play those sections with your friends in Multiplayer, introduce new Crucible Statues that offer entirely new ways of playing Wicked, etc. You’d want to play the Crucible with the character you’ve been playing so far being the base, but with every section you clear, our plan is that you can pick from a boon and through completing the various sections you’re basically creating a class on top of your current class that would - hopefully - allow you to defeat the boss and get all the rewards in the end! 
And with all that, we also have to always keep an eye towards our end-goal of shipping our 1.0 release. We’ve been analyzing exactly what we’ll still need to change on a more systemic level in order to reach that. So far we’ve only found one big ‘heart surgery’ change design-wise that we think is necessary, but the ultimate goal with 1.0 is to get as close to my final vision for Wicked as possible and hopefully at that point we’ll have crafted one of most exciting ARPGs in recent years that will feel like a game that our small team shouldn’t have been able to make. And to leave you with one more sneak peek behind the scenes, let’s quickly bring up our ‘Plague System’: Right now this system is set to ‘static’, meaning, new states unlock statically as a player progresses through the realm. The end-goal here though is to flip the switch so that our Plague System is dynamic so that Isola Sacra will always be alive, new states get enabled dynamically with enemy levels increasing so that the world evolves just as your character evolves, introducing all new challenges and rewards throughout all of Isola Sacra. Right now there’s a clear ‘end-state’ that can be reached, but ultimately there should never be a point where you can’t find any new challenge anymore. Every day you dive into Sacra, you should never quite know what to expect. There’s a lot of work still ahead of us, but I hope this mammoth breakdown gives some clarity as to where we’re heading!