Game Is Great But Balance Is Off

Wicked Feedback
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Been playing for 5,2 hours when writing this. I’ve beat the first boss and is now trying to do the next thing.

I found that the game pace is perfect, the progression/time spend is great. I feel like I’m covering lots of distance because the world is so packed with detail and side areas to explore, despite the world not being as big as it seems. This is a big win.

Loot wise, I feel it’s okay I got a few new weapons in a timely manner and the first boss gave me a unique 2-handed sword (nice).
That being said, I havent been able to wield it at all because I lack multiple levels worth of strength and I know of no way to respec my stats.

My inventory of resources are constantly full because I’ve already gotten a lot of new types, which I don’t know if I should keep or discard. I know of the community chest but coudn’t see any personal chest.

I have 16 points in Health and Stamina because those were the stats that seemed most needed in combat and I wasn’t sure yet which weapons I would find, so weapon specific stats seemed liked a complete gamble to me.

I died at least 20 times, trying to kill the first boss, untill I got better at blocking. Then going back out of town, to face the next quest, every enemy I faced felt as hard if not harder than that boss. The regular enemies are way harder to time the block against and when I get a lucky block, I can only get 1 hit in before they retaliate.

Enemy damage is so crazy high and often you trigger multiple enemies at once and it becomes impossible for me to interrupt with a block, when they attack out of sync - meaning there is never a safe time to strike them.

I keep dying to enemy combo attacks and getting pushed off cliffs into an insta death.

I feel like the only enemy worth killing was the boss, because you often get zero reward from regular mobs.

I feel like I am missing an “area enemy lvl” indicator, because the enemies are so strong I feel like I am totally under-leveled.

I had to un-equip armor pieces because I suddenly became too heavy, with no alternative equipment available…

I had to stop playing because I broke my gear and everytime I repaired, It costed like 100 coins and now I can’t afford repairs anymore, so game over or what???

I’m a veteran Diablo 2 and PoE player and I think the character power pogression is very low and I never even saw if I had an EXP bar. Leveling up felt random and the few stat points you get is not very impactful to your gameplay.

Overall I really want to love this game and I think balance changes is all that’s needed. The big parts, like world design, items, combat and rewards is there, it just need some turning of the dials, if you ask me.

The worst part is that I felt the game was forcing me to stop, by breaking my gear and not being able to afford repair / regain spend currency between repairs. I don’t know what to do now, with a destroyed weapon and no currency.

Edit: oh yeah, almost forgot. The sound stops playing often and returns after a second or two. Very strange.

7 Likes
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100% agree. I did a feedback thread as well…

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EXP bar is top left of the screen, above (i think) your character portrait. It’s white. Didn’t get past my arrival at Sacrament but before the first boss, lots of side areas contain difficult enemies. Then, with time, you learn to beat them quite easily. It’s more about your skill as a player than about your gear or character stats like in PoE. A lot of people are complaining about the durability system but as I said in another thread, I didn’t encounter this problem at all, so idk, maybe it’s past the “tutorial” phase that it gets annoying.

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Congrats on beating the first boss! And with only blocks?! That’s pretty impressive. Parry is way easier on the first boss IMO.

Have you played other soulslikes before? This game has a similar difficulty level so it might be hard to get used to. I usually try and figure out an enemy attack pattern and decide whether dodge or parry (or block - altho I’m using the boss sword so not for me) is the way to deal with them.

If you get pretty decent at an enemy type you’ll be able to clear that respawn a lot easier, and loot+chests respawn too so make sure to gather ingredients for soups and sell all the goodies, as well as gather resources. It really depends on what playstyle you like, and you might want to try another, but for me I like having really beefy armor and really big weapon; I upgraded the first mesh armor chest piece I found a BUNCH with cotton ingots (then upgraded blacksmith for silver ingots) and that made me really tanky; even leather would do the trick with 3-4 upgrades, you’ll probably be able to tank a lot more damage.

Either way good luck! I’ve been playing the soulslikes for awhile so I think I accidentally made it a bit too easy… altho that early curve when you don’t have upgrades or ideal gear it was really punishing! I died to the first boss easily 15x before I started trying to parry him instead.

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It really depends what kind of a gamer you are. If you play a lot of soulsbourne-style games, you won’t notice the durability loss as much as you’ll be better at timing of dodges and parries and therefore die less. It still discourages exploration to a degree and is overly punishing to inexperienced players.

If you’re coming from a more traditional aRPG background I can easily see it being awful.

And while this game does reward player skill and you theoretically could play through the whole game without leveling up (I’m sure someone will), player levels really do matter. Particularly stamina and health. Also equipment upgrades matter as well.

A general recommendation is to learn dodging and the iframes. The hitboxes in this game are sub-par (very often they extend 10-20% past the visual end of the weapon, including your own), which does make that difficult but that is IMO the best way to stop dying.

2 Likes
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UPDATE

Playstime: 16,5 hours
Character LVL: 15

Okay, I need to take back most of my complaints. I managed to sell some material and repair my gear. Then from there and on, I’ve managed to climb the progression ladder and succeed!

The learning curve is very steep but once I got my head in the game - everything started to make sense and now I’m pretty rich :smiley:
My strategy was to simply grind a lot more, gain levels and upgrade my gear, so I am better prepared for the tougher challenges. Instead of pushing forward constantly.

I love the game so far, it has such great potential. I’m very happy I got Wicked Warrick’s Unique 2h Sword, It’s a very cool weapon and I’ve been using it ever since. That really sold the game for me :partying_face: I’ve also gotten two other Unique 1h swords but despite being aquired much later, they don’t seem like an upgrade for me. I also prefer the 2h playstyle with massive damage and weapon swings. Looks sick.

Couple points of new feedback:

  • Would be nice with the ability to cancel animations. I sometimes die because my character takes long to consume potions and then a boss does some massive strikes that also closes the gap and I won’t be able to escape in time.

  • Timing Parry can really be extremely hard at times, feels almost unfair. I would suggest increasing the Parry window by 10-15%.

  • As a 2h user, I feel I could use a charge attack. So when I Parry at a greater distance, I can close the gap and retaliate in time before the enemy recovers.

  • Cast time on the Wicked Warrick Sword rune abilities can be very punishing and therefore I often only use the damage dealing ones. The Thorns and Roar ability I never really use and I am not even sure what they do. That’s kinda sad. So better ability descriptions would be a plus as well.

  • An option to unsocket infusions again but only destroy the removed gem/stone. I have been avoiding socketing my main weapon because I fear I will find something better to put in it and regret my decision. If this option already exist, I havent noticed it.

  • I feel the need for Artemisia Herbs to cook meals is a bit too much, I believe all my food recipes require this one Herb…

  • The unintentional random jumping off cliffs into an insta death is absurd and just overly punishing. Same with fall damage in Sacrament. There has to be a better solution to promote cautious movement. I don’t want there to be no punishment but this is unfun. What about less damage and a “crippled” debuff that gives the player movement speed reduction for “x” duration or just disable run.

  • If the different damage types has special innate effects, please list it somewhere. I havent seen it. If they don’t have innate effects, I think they should. This adds to item depth.

That’s it for now, some things that came to mind.

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Oh wow I wasn’t sure if there were other uniques - were they dropped off the bosses? I’m also using that 2H sword and I love it, I’m finally starting to need to replace it with the level 21 / 42 stat weapons but now excited to try something new.

  • Definitely agree on parry window, it seems VERY slim and 10-15% would be great.

  • Although, it does have a charge attack doesn’t it? Some weapons only have them in certain places in the combo but it can charge all 3 of its basic standing attacks.

  • Definitely agree on the rune ability descriptions. I cannot see when thorns (ability / gem / however) would be viable at all since you can take so much damage by getting hit.

  • Definitely agree need to be able to unsocket. I think the thing they’re trying to keep you from doing is resocket something multiple times to get a higher % on the affix… which, sure, but also losing the gem you socketed is a cost there.

  • You’ll get to the next herb (dracaenia?) being the limit at some point too, although I believe they require a stove. I’ve never had an issue when I collect them every time I see them, often times I’m deleting them.

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Excellent feedback from a Gamer ! Good read !

Ell :smiley:

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SMALL UPDATE

I invited a good friend over today and he was very excited to see and try the game.

Overall he thought it was very cool and was planning to go purchase it monday when he got home.

However, I have to mention that he really thought the Parry window was absurdly small and hard to get right. I think he managed to Parry 1 time and died probably 15 times, in like 15 minutes of playing. The game is just brutal for new players to pick up. Even I after 22,2 hours of playtime is still really struggling with Parry. Most of the time I just tank the enemy hits if possible and hope I kill them quickly.

My friend will most likely NOT choose a 2h weapon, when he makes his own character :sweat_smile:

  • We played using ps5 controller