General Experience with the game : What could be better in the future

Wicked Feedback
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Hello fellow wicked players and developers,

Here i want to address a few topics as a veteran enjoyer of this kind of game, first round of applause for everyone who worked on the project, this game is such a cool, beautiful and fun experience, unique in his own way and i really hope to see more of it when the early access is over : thanks you everybody. This is also the reason i’m hoping my feedback will serve in a way for the future of the game.

I’ll not discuss about small bugs here rather on game experiences and how i feel some points could be better for the general gameplay. And of course, it is not to blame anyone or hurt people who dedicate their time and passion on the game, i just hope a game i enjoy a lot could go the greater ends.

To start, let divide it in 3 categories :

Co-op update

What can be better to enhance the game feel and player’s fun ?

Pestilence

How can the players experience a more consistent endgame system ?

Codex and game untold mechanics

Giving player more understanding of the game complex world and mechanics.

Co-op update :

This is a great idea, experiencing those game either alone or with friends should always be fun, no matter what option you choose. But with the together update, i feel like some mechanics are either not entirely finished, or not planned.
For instance, the whole sharing and housing system feels great, resources should be shared between players who set their chest to public, but it could be good to know from which chests the item come from (so not to use to much resources of another player).
Speaking of resources, bounty rewards are kind of… disappointing ? It feels like this system have not shown us it’s true potential and that’s great, however for now, it doesn’t really enhance the players builds a lot, gems and cinders are of course most welcome as rewards, but in co-op mode, only one player can claim the rewards of bounties and challenges. While i think it is made on purpose, this doesn’t feel right in a co-op game to me, but that might be another POV i just need to adapt to !
The main concern i have with the co-op mode at the moment is Friendly Fire.
To put it bluntly : it is a very bad idea. Many games with co-op option in a PVE based game doesn’t use it (example minecraft dungeon, who feels similar in the gameplay). The game offers such a variety of builds and attacks that it can be really, really hard to decipher everything going on the screen : like with bows. Being on the frontline while having a range option in your party seems logical, but you get punished for it by taking damage from your allies, and if you add status effect or elementals UI it became unreadable (can’t tell when a enemy is attacking or recovering), plus you get “staggered” lightly while hit by your friend, which resulted in numerous unnecessary death. Another example of this is in the crucible run, you can get echos that work when at full life, but even if the friendly fire’s damage are irrelevant, even 1hp loss means your echos doesn’t work anymore, thus negating the effect of planning your build with echos. I can understand it adds a layer of difficulty to the game but in reality it’s not working as it : it creates frustration for both players because target are “auto locked” and sometimes it’s your friends who gets the focus… This needs to be removed at least in crucible runs, but in my opinions in the entire game as this mechanics is.. poor.
There is enough frustration with the randomness of enchant and loot (which is, however, an excellent idea) to add another useless layer of frustration.
Also, a spectate option could be a great plus in the crucible run, as it is impossible to revive or join the run after someone’s death.

This conclude our first topic over Co-op adjustment, overall the system is great and balanced (trade, revives etc) and it’s a nice and pleasant option to have our friends play with us.

Pestilence :

The endgame stuff is, and will be, the main focus of players : how to retain players and give them a purpose (waiting for DLC after the whole game is up if there will be any, i hope so) by farming better gear, offering them harder challenges and new ways to play and discover the world.
Pestilence offers that, but in it’s current form : it is not working as intended. While retaining player in the game is good, offering them an endgame farming (which is still random) that is technically available once a day is not a good idea : player would only log into the game to do daily bounty and pestilence zone, then close the game. It needs to be available more often in my opinion. Having a once a day system to farm item can be great : like a daily random dungeon that offers various challenges, overlay and rewards is definitely a good point. But pestilence as it is needs a rework i guess. The farming of pestilence resources can be time consuming and not fun at all if it is only once a day, the randomness of everything in the game is great but do not operate well with too many unique instance to obtain them.
I don’t doubt you are still working on a lot more content for the final release of the game and i’m looking forward to discover the finished work from the Studio’s teamwork !

Codex and game untold mechanics :

I understand the game is still in it’s early access phase, here i’m expressing future concern that might appears if the game never explains some of it’s advanced and hidden mechanics.
For example, advanced status effect being a really cool way to combine elements, even more with the Co-op, player can focus on different strategies that can combo with each others (we need more of that, it’s really cool to feel that dopamine rush when doing this)! This is explain within the game guide, but not really in an “experienced” way.
There is a lot of hidden or untold stats, actions, effects that requires a lot of time to understand, or even so stays vague to the player. I’ll take the example of “Enlightment” status, some enchants gave us the ability to became “Enlighted”, providing us buffs while in that state. Great, but what exactly is this status ? Is there any other benefits to it ? This would be awesome to have something like a Codex that describe it to the player, and that codex could also serve as a monster register, weapon list etc Even on other NPC !
Again, it’s not a critic here, i think it is already planned and i’m just expressing my love for the game by having those concerns, no offense meant here.

Well, after all that long, long text, i guess i’m over with my remarks for No Rest For The Wicked.
I’m very pleased with the game in general, and i can’t wait to discover what the final release will offers us, with even more zone and story to explore !

Thanks for reading, hope it can reach players and developers in a good way so we can continue enjoying this cool game :head_shaking_vertically:

KamiHaMiaa

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Im only gonna inform in the best/weird way possible for how you can think when solving this problem.

Imagine theres an invisible/hidden leash/line that ties you and your target together and if that leash/line overlap your friends character while you attack you will most likely hit your friend.

But if you move a distance to the right or to the left until the Invisible/hidden leash/line no longer overlap then its a much higher chance that it hits the enemy.

Well its just a guideline to go after wether you do or not is up to you!

I still liked reading your review it was clear and well organized!

:heart:

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Hey, thanks for your time reading all that !

I see what you explain there, indeed it feels like an invisible line is connecting the focused target and us players.
In the case of friendly fire, this could easily be removed by making allies untargetable and immune to damage from others Cerim player (i put it like that in case we ever encounter a NPC Cerim or fallen one as a boss :eyes:).

I still don’t see the idea behind being able to hit your friend that is tanking on the front line, makes no sense to me :confused:

KamiHaMiaa

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Pestilence farming is not once a day. You can turn zones pestilent by burning items. Clearing a zone reduces the cooldown of the others, allowing you to farm non stop if you clear each zone. In regards to the pestilent resources, if you burn for max corruption, you get plenty. Burning torn sinew is highly efficient because you get back more from rewards than you burn and it leads to the least debuffs (3) at max corruption.

The items which give an enlightened buff all state what benefits you get while enlightened. There is not more to it than that.

Glimmering Bulwark

  • Gain Enlightenment for 6 seconds after parry
  • Rune damage increased by % while enlightened
  • Focus gain increased by % while enlightened

Tarnished Wand

  • Gain Enlightenment for 6 seconds after inflicting Shock Status
  • Stamina cost reduced by % while enlightened
  • Damage resistance increased by % while enlightened

It’s just what they named the buff. Just like momentum buff on Proud Lance or furnace buff on Cinder & Stone. They don’t do anything more than what is listed on the item.

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I’d add a place in the main menu or in the town where you can try out every type of weapon, regardless of whether you own them or not, regardless of their attribute distribution. It’s like a testing arena.
This is because each weapon type has its own moveset, and considering the game’s RNG, these two things are unlikely to go hand in hand.
By adding a “testing ground,” you can figure out what you like in advance and “cheer” when you get the one you’re looking for.

Let me give you a practical example:
I’ve been playing since early access came out, so I know every weapon type pretty well. The co-op update came out, and I got my brother to buy the game. We started a new game with a new character. I had a clear idea of ​​what weapon I wanted, but for him, it was “pitch black.” So for the first 10 hours or so, I passed him every weapon I found so he could try everything. He threw himself into a two-handed axe, leveling up his character along that path and upgrading the weapon.
Then, around mid-game, he dropped a two-handed curved sword, tried it, and fell in love. Too bad he couldn’t use it because of the different requirements it required.
Translation: he couldn’t use the weapon until we unlocked the statue in the crucible to reset the attributes. I entered with my level 30 character, did the crucible alone, unlocked the statue, left, re-entered with my “new” character, and only thanks to that was he able to use that sword.
Now, imagine if I didn’t have that character, my brother couldn’t have switched and had to stick with the axe for how long?

Personally, this game should include a place where you can try out all the weapons, or before the tutorial, a phase of the game where you’re explained and allowed to try out each type of weapon.

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Hey, thanks for your explanations.

I didn’t had the intel about burning idols to spread the pestilence in a zone, this changes my statement indeed.
But it also highlight my last topic about the importance of better explanation on the game’s mechanics (again, might be up for the final release of the game).

So if i understand it, by burning item as a tribute, i can get to spread the pestilence and also increase the rate of loot and difficulty of the zone ? Seems fair.

Every item with a “named buff” like Enlightenment is self explanatory in the item ? This is cool then, i wasn’t sure if it was the only benefits of the said enchantment. Again my concern was mainly about not being sure i had all the informations needed or if i was missing something.

Thanks again for your answer, appreciate it. :folded_hands:

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Hey,

Well the game do have a zone for that, a nicely hidden at first but still one that exists.

If you go full north from the Rookery Tower, you’ll end up in a place that look like a “forge” or “stapple”.

There lies two dummies :

  • One that attack when entering the range, ideal to test the range of weapon or to get the parry timing.
  • One that do not move at all, you can try the move sets, stack focus and try your runic attacks (the focus you gain is staying even after leaving the area, so you can teleport with full focus every time)

Be careful tho, as the dummies can be killed if you hit too hard and sometimes doesn’t respawn. Also, you can easily do the daily challenge for parrying attacks on it, it counts toward it.

Go north from the Rookery, past the low ground zone with Knights pictures on it (might be for a later update) and you’ll find them !

image
image1080×738 197 KB

KamiHaMiaa

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Thanks for the reply, I know that area.

Maybe I didn’t explain myself well. In that area, you can try out the weapons the RNG drops, but not all of them.
I mean an area where you can try out ALL the weapons in the game “for free” without having dropped them. Of course, once you leave that area, you lose the weapon and can’t take it out, but at least you get an idea of ​​everything.

This, for me, is a major problem with the game: figuring out what you actually like doing too late. It’s a system that impacts too much on the “time you can dedicate to the game,” and I find that wrong. Someone who can dedicate a short amount of time to it SHOULD have the same opportunity to figure out which weapon they like as someone who dedicates their life to it. Time should only influence the loot, not the choice.

So I would include a pre-tutorial where they make you try out each type of weapon, so you can understand their genre, and at the end of the tutorial include a crate from which you can choose a base level 1 weapon, so that you start immediately with one you like and the RNG system doesn’t decide what you have to use.

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I believe the game explains torn effigy causing plague outbreaks as part of the quest lines. It doesn’t explain that any item can do this. Because of that, there is no point in trading the watcher for the effigies since 2 torn sinew can do it as well. I’m honestly not sure if it is intentional. Why trade 5 husks for an effigy?

Maxing out the pestilence by burning items does not improve any drop rates. It adds corruptions which make enemies more powerful and increases the rewards for killing the boss. As you burn items you can see what rewards get added and also what corruptions you will have to deal with. Because of this, I suggest clearing the zone with no corruptions, and then maxing it out right before the boss so only the boss is more difficult. Certain corruptions make killing the trash a chore and since they don’t drop more or better stuff, it’s not worth it.

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Oh yeah my bad, you’re right about that.

Having a real training ground area when you can experience all weapon could be a great plus to the game.
But you then lose some of the “magic” from discovering new cool looking weapon (then realize they are absolute a.s.s :joy:). It still can def makes it to the final version of the game tho.

i heard they are adding “Class system” in a near future, that might be the way to choose a starting weapon between a few selected with the class you pick. Hope we get more info on that soon.

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Hmm, okay i see.

I’ll try out that in my next gaming session, hope i can drop some nice gear haha.

Thanks for tips mate.

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I dig you with friendly fire.

I’m playing with my friend and we started with greatswords, didn’t think about weapon reach before making those first builds hah!

After that she chose the wand path and couldn’t ger near me to hit enemies because my swings were too wide and circular, and they chipped like 40 dmg to a cloth armor user.

With my new build I ditched the greatsword and picked up tank build with mace and shield.
Yesterday in crucible she accidently one shot me with her 6.6k nuke :cry: (3 mobs 9th floor before the boss)