Hello,
I wanted to give my general feedback after completing the current story content in the game (only crucible is left to do). Current playtime is about 22 hours now, with going through every nook and cranny possible. These are the current things off the top of my head:
Overall
The game is simply what I always wanted for a diablo like ARPG to be. I have been waiting for an extremely long time for something like this. Skill based challenging combat combined with the item and character progression from the genre. While traversing a nice open world. This is what I dreamt off.
I Also love the small down time activities, that I am accustomed to from survival games, as well like gathering and mining. its a nice change up from intense combat.
Despite myself experiencing hefty performance issues, I have enjoyed my time tremendously. Its everything I wanted and waited for. I can see there is a lot of passion and love poured in the game. The world feels and looks amazing. The game still needs work but I am very excited to see it at the end of its journey.
On a personal note, I really, really, really hope the difficulty of the game won’t be tuned down and that an engaging and challenging experience is at it’s core. Risks and loss are part of an adventure, it makes it so much more special and immersive in my opinion.
If there is a split in the community regarding difficulty and death penalties, then difficulty options are totally fine and would work well in the context of how realms work. But please design content as challenging in mind first and then scale it down with use of difficulty multipliers. Since doing it the other way around usually devolves into cheap artificial difficulty.
Visuals
Not much I can say other that they look gorgeous to me. The lighting effects, the rain effects, the art style top notch.
Gameplay
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Combat
It’s tight and feels well. Has a good feel of weight to it as well. Fighting with enemies feels engaging since you need to figure when to strike and depending on the weapon you use, try to see when you can commit to a full combo. As advertised it’s slow and mechanical. As advertised a good dance -
Death Penalty
I personally really like when there is something on the line in a game like this; be it resources, experience, or having an area reset and having to go through it again Souls style.
In this case I think the durability loss and burning through resources works well. Since there is an actual risk of losing something.
And if you are running low you can just go do some downtime activities like chopping down some trees or gathering. Or just smack some weaker enemies around for money.
I even feel that the most recent nerf to it was a bit too heavy handed. I think either the reduction in repair costs can be reverted or the amount of durability lost on death.
Again if there is clear division in the community for wanting a more hefty or less hefty death penalty, please add it as an option. Since everyone can have their own realm this would not be a problem. -
Exploration
Also feels really good in the game. trying to figure out paths of where to go and exploring the nooks and crannies is satisfying. The platforming itself can be a bit janky at times, as in the character sliding of ledges.
Performance
Already talked about a lot, and it is being worked on. But It’s not great, FPS swings wildly, performance degrades over time in game.
(RTX2070, i7-9700k,16gb RAM: 1080p, motion blur off, performance settings; 30 -60 fps)
Bugs
- Sorting option for inventory don’t work, or only work for a couple of items
- Town upgrades sometimes, consume resources but the construction does not start.
- Crab Stuffed Mushrooms recipe, is learnt but unavailable for crafting at a fire.
- the infected enemies with the leeches in them. Don’t ragdoll properly sometimes after being killed. And a T-posing model is left behind. Not sure what causes it.
QOL suggestions
- quick stack options for chests
- sorting option for chests
- confirmation window when cancelling bounties and challenges.
- Compare option for items
Gameplay suggestions
- transmog option
- Option to remove runes from weapons (if this doesn’t mess with the balance and is priced appropriately
This is all the current feedback I can think of now. Best of luck with the development!