I’m a bit late but I finally started to play the new update.
I’m gonna start by saying what you did with the Crucible is amazing. I might be a bit biased as I LOVE roguelikes, but really, the new Crucible is a blast. The amount of work behind it must have been huge, expecially for a feature you had already released and now revamped because of player feedback.
And it was a needed, much needed change. At times the old Crucible almost felt like a torture, repeating the same rooms with little variance and no reason to clear them if not to reach a boss who was very likely to beat you in a minute.
Now the rooms have a purpose. You’re gathering up Echoes, becoming stronger the more you kill and advance. The room is not the barrier before the boss, it’s the boon helping you defeat it.
It’s really fun! I’m enjoying my Crucible runs and the system you built is engaging. It’s intuitive and simple, but rewarding and useful.
No loot + no experience was initially a “No, why?” from me, but then I thought about it, made some runs, and… it kinda fits, it’s ok.
To me it looks like the idea behind this was making the Crucible a “true endgame experience”, a place where you go once you’ve done everything and become a “god”, hence you have no need for loot or exp. I’m just worried this removal might leave a hole where the “Endgame farming zone” should be, but it could also be you have planned for this in future updates.
As for the game in general, it feels… better in some areas, worse in others, but I have not played enough this new update to have a clear idea about where and what.
Some random things:
-There are still bugs (nothing weird, it’s expected in EA), some visual glitches and slight performance problems in some cases (much less than before, tho. Good work). Some bugs and glitches have been there since the previous update, I might group them in a bug report later just to remember they exist.
-Acquiring high level drops is now a bit more of a pain since you can’t exactly farm in the crucible anymore.
-Weapon requirements are still confusing, I hoped in a revamp of that too; the community has been talking about this since launch so there’s nothing to add here.
-Not related to the crucible update, but please bring back the house being locked behind the “Of rats and raiders” questline. It made it a much more meaningful thing to unlock, and it had a really well crafted and enjoyable story behind it. Just having the chests being connected to shops etc is enough to solve most of the early game inventory problems (which, in my opinion, were never a real problem).
-YOU CAN PET THE DOGS, I APPROVE
I don’t have much more to say, just keep up the good work! The update is very nice! I will continue playing through the update and report anything of note, wether it be bugs, feedback or suggestions.