Hello, I have 30 hours in now and I’ve been working in the videogame industry for almost a decade, and hope my insight can help the team out and the game as I love both in high ways.
These are mostly the points I had little issues with, consider the rest being top notch to be fair.
The game loop is amazing, the ambience, the lore, the art, looks to be in very good shape and hands and I can’t wait to discover more.
FARMING AND HERBS.
Artemisia herbs were a struggle in the beginning, especially when being in Sacra.
Sacra has a little plot of land with a farmer, and the ressources do not respawn there once you loot them, we have roots, but no way to plant them, that could be an easy cool grab for more Sacra life and things to do in the hub.
PATHING and SACRA
Some NPC’s block the character as he moves, he should soft push them and be the “main pusher”, out of unmoving main characters.
Sacra’s pathing is great, even if I would just remove fall damage or add more ladders here and there to optimise the heavy going back to home and marketplace.
Houses are great, placement in them too even though I wished we had more to play with, but that sure is to come. And the farming of course!
Also if guards could only have small lines like the “Eyes up”, or “Sacrament Endures” are great. The long sentences or very specific stuff should be said only once or very rarely, because you do not want to know that it’s better here then back in Tir or Why kill men for free when you can do it for money fifty times a day, and them talking to you as you completely bombard through town ignoring them.
It is not annoying per say, simply less coherent.
SOUND and MUSIC
Sound is amazing, the only place I had issues was when Madrigal Seline (SPOILER) starts building the huge scaffolding and uses “prisonners”, their pickaxes sounds take over the overwhelming and heavy ambience of the place, with no reverb, maybe tune it down or just completely remove it.
I also felt like we are missing a ton of musical ambience, knowing the beautiful soundtracks from Ori and the ones we do have so far, having more ambient to just listen to outside too would be a blessing.
COMBAT and STATS
The combat felt amazing, even first day for that punishing Stamina system that forces you to actually watch close what you are doing.
My only issues would be that as most said, you can’t respec, and I feel like Iona’s cave is quite a good place for that, or in Cerim old temples.
The only issue is the way stats are done, going one direction makes it impossible to just switch at least one weapon type at some point, you’re almost forced to build towards a good weapon you found or completely restart because you were unlucky or did not put points in the right place.
Especially when some swords just require Faith and such, no new player could expect that.
So either have respec being available for an ok price, or open the limitations per weapon a tiny bit by reducing maybe stats to equip them.
I do not see a huge advantage in locking players or forcing them to remake a character/realm to farm, as the game loop is Sacra > X Area > Upgrade and sell in Sacra/Bounties, Cook, Sleep > Go back. I don’t feel like making a new character is properly in the game loop nor should be. With such a strong love for the story, Sacra, and the character you shape in this.
INVENTORY and MENUS
- That one is already being worked on if I’m not wrong, but simple tweaks.
Being able to “scroll up” in menus to quickly go down. - Auto-sorting in chests for satisfaction of the eyes, or allow to swap items easily.
- When picking an object on the ground, or a chest, be able to discard it to
make more inventory space and not having to leave to the menu to then
delete the item to finally be able to grab the chest or ground one.
I know Thomas and many others actually read the feedback and you have done a wonderful job so far, in the hopes to one day accompagny you in this beautiful journey, I have multiple bug reports to write now, good day!