- (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.