Hello Moon Studios,
I was genuinely impressed with your game the very first time I launched it in Early Access — I’ve spent no less than 90 hours playing it. Yes, it had its rough edges, but it had soul — the soul of each developer behind it. Back then, I didn’t feel the need to focus on the things that personally frustrated me, because I believed the game would be polished over time.
However, now, with the addition of content from the new region, I’d like to point out some of the earlier issues and also draw attention to the overall gameplay mechanics and balance. I want to emphasize that I’m not a developer in any field, and I have no idea how hard or easy it is to create or fix things. So I’m sharing my thoughts purely as a player — one with quite a bit of gaming experience, nothing more.
If at any point I sound harsh, it’s not intentional. I just want to help make a great game even better:
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There really needs to be microstagger or microstunlock if you’re using GS or UGS, otherwise it’s nearly impossible to play effectively with heavy weapons.
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If you’re trying to beat a boss for a long time, you eventually run out of food, and there’s no satisfying experience in having to go look for food between attempts.
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Invincibility frames are needed during rolls — sometimes enemy attacks catch you at the start of your roll, which feels unfair.
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The roll should be fully accelerated the moment you press the button. Right now, the character starts accelerating only after the input, which feels clunky. Another point I want to make — in over-the-shoulder soulslike games, it’s much easier to visually understand when a roll starts and ends. But in isometric view, it’s way harder to read. Because of that, players end up mashing the roll button just to avoid wide swings from large enemies. Please make the end of roll (and all action animations, really) more clearly readable.
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Stunlock from large enemies is way too punishing — taking 3–4 hits not only deletes a huge chunk of HP, but also builds up stun status. That’s just bad design. Even if you want large enemies to stunlock, let it be after 7–8 hits, and only if you’re fully open. Since you’re borrowing from DS mechanics, also consider DS-style balancing — for example, when both you and the enemy hit each other at the same time, you could receive 10% more damage. As for parrying (similar to Elden Ring), there should be multiple block states:
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Perfect parry — fully deflects the attack, stuns the enemy, costs you nothing (no stamina, no HP, no weapon durability).
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Partial parry — slightly mistimed but close; takes a bit of stamina and maybe ~30% of normal weapon durability loss.
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Failed parry window — you miss the timing entirely, take full damage and can’t stun, but don’t lose durability since you didn’t use the weapon.
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Stun buildup should still happen, but not at an extreme rate.
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Concentration — this is a whole separate issue. Just make it work like mana in DS: full bar on respawn, and if you use it up, then you can regenerate it with mechanics like flasks, regular attacks, etc. This would make mag builds way more fun and viable.
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The building wait-time mechanic — why are you adding mobile-game-style timegates to a PC title? What’s the point of this? If you want to visualize upgrades or create progression, add quests for vendors/carvers/blacksmiths. That would be much more engaging and rewarding than simply waiting.
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The wipe after The Breach update and the community backlash is a clear sign of how repetitive the resource grind is. Many players replayed the game only to feel frustrated having to find food and repair gear again in the early stages. The game should slowly introduce mechanics and ease the player into them — this grindwall just adds boredom.
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Inventory — no matter how you change it, it still gets cluttered. If you’re mixing diablolike and soulslike genres, at least allow easy transport to drop-off points for loot. But honestly, this solution is clunky. The best option is either an infinite inventory (like all soulslikes), or a limited one, but with clearly visible loot markers. You already have item rarity indicators — just extend this to on-ground loot so players can see what dropped without picking everything up. Look at how PoE2, PoE, Diablo 4 — even the latest FromSoftware soulslike — handle this. With infinite inventory, you still get visible loot highlights.