General feedback/suggestions after 23hrs of playtime

  • (issue hard to define playstyle early in game while learning systems) I think the game could benefit from having some Dark Souls style starting classes that start with a few levels and some starting weapons, armor, and all the basic tools (fishing rod, pick ax, ax, shovel). As is, the game feels like forcing a first-time player to start as a naked person in Dark Souls 2. In that game it can feel really punishing if the player doesn’t know where the early weapons are in that game to start with nothing. Adding starting classes would do a few things. It gives basically an easy mode (at least for the first few hours) for first time players where they don’t need to worry about finding their initial stuff and can just worry about using the stuff they start with. Also, if the player wants to play a mage, ranger/assassin, or knight there is no guarantee they will find any of that gear particularly quickly and may be pushed towards putting points into stats to support gear they found but don’t particularly want to use. This stuff isn’t really an issue on second play throughs because the player can just loot everything, go to the smith, and otherwise minmax to make the naked start trivial. On the first playthrough though this was an issue for me and it wasn’t particularly fun. I felt like I was forced to use the mage staff when I really wanted to have that sword and shield I had back on the ship.
  • (Issue: harvesting importance initially unclear) The importance of harvesting (chopping, mining, and digging) isn’t clear to the player initially. I didn’t see the value in harvesting the first time I played until after I got to sacrament at which point I ultimately ended up doing a lot of retroactive chopping and mining to make up for gathering I could have easily done as I walked around originally. A possible solution would be to give experience for harvesting resources. Experience would be a way of giving importance to the action even before the player knows why it is important specifically.
  • (issue: experience reward for doing things isn’t obvious) Option to see experience numbers float over things that give it. Its both useful and rewarding to see an exp number for doing something.
  • (Issue: leveling feels slow) Rescale the game so that levels give 1 skill point and happen 3x as often (basically divide 1 level over 3). Leveling is fun and seeing the level up animation is fun. It usually happens a lot early in RPGs and tapers off as the game goes on. Leveling just always feels slow in this game and this psychologically speeds it up even if in practice it’s the same thing.
  • (Issue: food cd feels bad) Food cooldown feels bad. I get that with having the ability to carry nearly unlimited food you don’t want the player to just spam eat food like a dragonborn to nullify combat skill and I also understand that a estus flask isn’t the right healing system for this game. Given both of these things, the food CD still feels really bad. In practice, if I get to low health, I just end up running around for the CD remainder until I can use the food before continuing the fight. The main instance where it actually results in me dying usually is if I’m stuck with the enemy in a confined space (often one I jumped to with only death drops and walls or running into more enemies) where I can’t retreat to a safe area to wait for it to get off CD and heal. Potential ways to prevent food spamming while not using a hard CD: make all food have a over time component so that it loses efficiency if you heal back to back, Make food take longer to eat, Add a hunger meter that affects food consumption where being hungry makes it work like it currently does and being full applies negative modifiers (it takes longer to eat the food, you recover less health when eating while full, maybe you vomit if you try and eat while the meter is completely full, etc.).
  • (Issue storage, housing, and furniture) Weird network of systems issues regarding house. So, I think it was better when the player had to complete the quest before buying a house. The issue was not that the player didn’t have the house but that the game creates a need for the house before the player has access to it. This occurs via the carpenter and the city fixer guy selling things you can’t use without a house and your only storage being way out of the way in the rookery. If the two merchants didn’t sell things you couldn’t use until you’d bought a house and there was some form of stash attached to cerim whispers, then there would be no issue withholding the house until after completing the originally intended quest. Also, if that quest had a reward attached to it like the daily challenges do that made it clear that it unlocked the ability to buy a house that would help prioritize the quest for the player over the church’s apparent main quest.
  • (Issue: daily quest guy is annoying) Daily quest guy shouting at me gets annoying. Especially after I’ve talked to him numerous times its like “I’ve helped you and done what you asked. Why are you acting like I’ve never talked to you?” He also is in a direct line from the town cerim whisper you fast travel to so he is practically impossible to avoid. Would be nice if his voice line changed to something more affirming (“Great work cerim”) or he was just quiet after you talked to him.
  • (Issue cerim whispers can be hard to interact with) Cerim whispers have oddly small interaction boxes making them sometimes hard to interact with.
  • (Issue green plants aren’t as visually distinct as other ingredients) Green plants associated with most recipes camouflage with environment more than most other harvestable materials in the game.
  • (Issue cerim whispers feel odd) Cerim whispers don’t feel particularly good as a checkpoint (limited fast travel, fixed location, don’t restore health, they feel like they started life as a bonfire but have had their functionality continuously chipped away at until they are left with very little reason to exist besides being a checkpoint) I think because there is a cerim whisper menu I expect there to be more that can be done with them than just fast travel between sacrament and the last one used but there isn’t.
  • (Issue don’t know visually what I’m looking for sometimes) Would be nice if certain quest items had the npc show the item image not just the name when they ask for them (blood ichor and the stones that trigger the arenas)
  • (issue: some curses seem too punishing) Some curses make items feel too punishing to use (particularly reduced exp gain and loss of exp on taking damage).
  • (Issue Focus feels scarce) I found in my playthroughs that I often wasn’t using focus. There I think are a myriad of reasons for this. For one given that I respawn with no focus I can’t use anything that requires it until I’ve used some normal attacks. Many initial abilities require all of your starting focus which make them unappealing to use as it takes a while to regain the focus to use them again. Since I’m not using focus I don’t invest skill points in focus and it becomes a cycle of just not using focus. The only time focus felt practical was when I was using focus vials and then due to initial fear of scarcity of focus vials I didn’t use them. I don’t know what the best fix is (or if I’m just unique and it doesn’t need one). Given most abilities require 100 focus at most maybe just inflate starting focus to 200 and then if certain focus abilities are too spammable give them a CD? Could also just respawn with full focus so that the player can always use one focus ability.
  • (Issue can’t track stamina the way I’m used to) Would like a stamina bar (at least as an option in the settings menu) under the health bar. Having played numerous souls games this is the most intuitive way to track stamina for me and the circle is nice but I’d still prefer the option to have a green bar by my health.
  • (issue hard to switch/select food in the heat of combat) Hard to switch between food items on controller compared to a souls game where you equip specific foods and have a separate button for using the item and switching between them.
  • (issue hard to switch/select consumable items in the heat of combat) Consumable items due to not being custom equipped get cluttered and suffer the same switching problem as food on controller.

(issue hard to figure out what many things in menus and tooltips do) Can’t get information on many things via tooltips, manuals, help area, glossary, or some other tool while using controller.

2 Likes

Agree 100%.

I think they should add a rough starting class, or at the very least a variety of weapons on the ship in the prologue.

Also, I played for hours before finding a shovel my first play through.

Don’t really agree here. I think most people have a pretty good idea what the resources will be used for unless they’ve never played a game before. Also, ore deposits tend to drop gems, and all kind of goodies are buried. Seems to be pretty clear motive to gather resources.

More over, they’ll figure out whats what pretty quickly once they get to sacrament.

Yes.

Oddly, I think leveling is too fast, lol. First playthrough is a bit of a slog, but subsequent playthroughs it’s super quick. I’ve been meaning to time how long it takes me to hit milestones, keep forgetting.

All pretty good ideas.

I personally like the food cooldown, because I’m not a fan of heal tanking that is prevalent in so many games these days. But could use some tweaking, I like the idea of a over-time component. Also, they could make meals take longer to eat if it’s before the cooldown, so first meal is quick, but each after gets slower and slower.

I hate him. Lol
“Why don’t you trade that silly costume for a real uniform!?”
STFU bruh.

Agree, but I’ve grown to like the current system. They don’t feel bad imo, just different than we’re used to.

I’ve had similar thoughts regarding the Whisper menus, my guess is there will be major whispers that will be added to the list. So while you wont be able to fast travel to every whisper, you will be able to whisper to a handful of hub style locations. Just speculation.

What I find interesting is that everyone has a different idea of what curses are bad.

I look for slower exp or exp loss on death, these are my favorite as they don’t affect my combat ability.

I avoid focus loss on damage and health reduction.

It’s not, at all, lol.

You can basically get an endless supply of focus with focus gain, focus on damage (totally broken), and focus on kill. Not to mention your focus pool is super easy to build with gems and those +100 rings.

After one melee combo, my caster can basically run through the entire crucible without throwing another attack until I get to Echo Knight.

Yes.

Yes. I wish they would give us the option to maybe put 5 items on the quick use buttons and not every. single. item.

At the very least, give the ability to turn off showing basic ingredients in the food menu.

I didn’t realize there was tooltips, lol.

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Don’t really agree here. I think most people have a pretty good idea what the resources will be used for unless they’ve never played a game before. Also, ore deposits tend to drop gems, and all kind of goodies are buried. Seems to be pretty clear motive to gather resources.

More over, they’ll figure out whats what pretty quickly once they get to sacrament.

touché. I was thinking something trivial like a flat 1 xp per harvested object with a tool. This would matter for like the first few levels which are in the hundreds of experience but is maybe going to total 50xp by the time you fight the first boss and probably amount to 1000 xp at most over a normal playthrough of the current content.

That said, I also avoided resource harvesting on release day when it took like 5-9 swings to chop a tree or mine an ore vein which felt pretty awful (as compared to the current 3). The reduced swing count to harvest things by itself mitigates this issue a lot.

Oddly, I think leveling is too fast, lol. First playthrough is a bit of a slog, but subsequent playthroughs it’s super quick. I’ve been meaning to time how long it takes me to hit milestones, keep forgetting.

That’s a funny difference of opinion. I think the leveling also feels a bit more linear in its scaling. Like leveling after level 10 feels I think faster than many ARPGs to me but level 1-10 feels much slower than other ARPGs to me. At any rate I didn’t actually want to change the practical pace of leveling just perceptual difference. That said, if the current pacing is by in large liked by most people definitely ignore this feedback.

All pretty good ideas.

I personally like the food cooldown, because I’m not a fan of heal tanking that is prevalent in so many games these days. But could use some tweaking, I like the idea of a over-time component. Also, they could make meals take longer to eat if it’s before the cooldown, so first meal is quick, but each after gets slower and slower.

I like your alternative tweaks to the system also.

I hate him. Lol
“Why don’t you trade that silly costume for a real uniform!?”
STFU bruh.

Thank goodness I’m not the only one to hate this guy!

Agree, but I’ve grown to like the current system. They don’t feel bad imo, just different than we’re used to.

I’ve had similar thoughts regarding the Whisper menus, my guess is there will be major whispers that will be added to the list. So while you wont be able to fast travel to every whisper, you will be able to whisper to a handful of hub style locations. Just speculation.

Agreed. I hated the system when I first started the game but as I’ve played it more it just feels a little off to me. Like they don’t fit neatly into a box. Functionally they do what they need to. That said, my brain wonders why the world has town portals nailed down all over the world that don’t interconnect with each other. This might be a lot of work but if there was some ritual where it opened a portal to show Sacrement and then from Sacrement it showed where the whisper went it would do a lot to sell what it is to me. More generically speaking there may be art/lore solutions that solve this feeling off without mechanically changing what they do.

What I find interesting is that everyone has a different idea of what curses are bad.

I look for slower exp or exp loss on death, these are my favorite as they don’t affect my combat ability.

I avoid focus loss on damage and health reduction.

Completely fair. This may also relate to our difference of opinion on leveling speed. I think the favorite downsides I’ve found was losing money on death and reduced durability. Beyond that, I’ve been coming around on a lot of the other ones I wasn’t willing to try before.

It’s not, at all, lol.

You can basically get an endless supply of focus with focus gain, focus on damage (totally broken), and focus on kill. Not to mention your focus pool is super easy to build with gems and those +100 rings.

After one melee combo, my caster can basically run through the entire crucible without throwing another attack until I get to Echo Knight.

Fair, I’ve been running various melee builds and seen very little on hit focus building stuff, focus on kill, or bonus focus pool (more oh hit stamina and health on kill which also feel amazing). Thus many swords, axes, daggers, etc. have focus special abilities that I just never use because they cost 100 focus out of my 100 focus and I just don’t think about them when I can use basic attacks at almost no stamina cost. That said, I’m 100% willing to admit that this is a me problem and not a game problem.

I didn’t realize there was tooltips, lol.

Debatable whether what I was thinking of when I said it really counts. I was thinking of hovering items where it tells you what affixes it has and the like which is technically a tooltip as it takes the same basic form (hover over something get more information) but also isn’t really serving a tooltip function (it is really just item info).

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I think you missed the most OP mechanic of the game. Maybe not the stat itself but how it gets handled.

Yeah! I wonder if this line changes if my outfit finally fits something he likes?
Also i feel that all other sacrament npcs are kind of annoying meeting them the 10th or 20th time. The woman on the square yells someting about the madrigal … Fillmore always says “Nothing sings like steel” … i mean i like that they want to communicate and thats important for the atmosphere but maybe add a cap? I like the short “Cerim!” of the guards.

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