This is my first round of feedback after a full playthrough over 24 hours of playtime!
DISCLAIMER: Because I have only seen through Act 1, I realize there may be item affixes, systems and any number of other things that may be revealed later in the game that could change things significantly. That said, here is my current take.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time playing through the first act! Super fun and I think this game is on track to be one of the greats. My feedback is based on the new player experience. I had quite a few ‘AHA’ moments where I understood some mechanics or interactions that would have entirely changed some frustrations had I been introduced to them earlier or more clearly.
Character Stats:
Lvl 15
Claymore
Leather Armor in Every Slot
Fast Equipment Load
Health 10
Stamina 20
Strength 13
Dexterity 10
Intelligence 10
Faith 10
Focus 10
Equip Load 30
My class fantasy was to be a super fast character that wields a heavy weapon. Sacrificing damage for mobility. It was really challenging until I had there was a moment where everything clicked and then I started face rolling everything.
CORE MECHANICS INTRODUCTION PACING:
ABILITY USAGE
My big ‘AHA’ moment came with the importance of ability usage in this game, at least with the build I chose to play. Because the game feels so much like Dark Souls, my focus was on dealing direct damage with my weapon through the standard move set. Abilities in those games are important but very much secondary.
I was facing the twins and getting hammered constantly. I realized I had a ton of focus flasks that I never really used. I had a fire throw ability that seemed to do really good damage, so I figured. Hey, what if I just spam that ability and drink down potions as needed. Turns out, abilities are WAY more powerful and important than they seem. After that battle, everything I struggled with the previous 10 hours or so became almost trivial but still super fun.
Suddenly, it made sense why monsters and bosses seemed a bit faster than they should be. When ability usage is used more consistently, they NEED to be that fast or else the game would be insanely easy.
Suggestion:
Add a sequence into the early part of the game that introduces the importance of focus and ability usage. Make a scene where the character must use weapon abilities and refill their focus gauge with the potion several times in one combat sequence in order to pass the area Have an NPC, toss additional potions to the player until the combat is completed. Perhaps use a mage staff as it would likely be most useful to that class fantasy.
If I had known this early on, I would’ve played the game entirely differently from the start. It would also help the people who want to play pure mages know what their combat loop should look like. Because the potions are not limited in the way they are in souls games, it makes sense that you could use them as a consistent source of focus if you choose not to generate it through combat or don’t have access to items that generate quick enough.
HOW GEAR STATS CAN CHANGE YOUR BUILD
A really new concept to this genre is how RNG weapon stats can have a huge effect on gameplay. This is WAY outside the realm of any souls games.
My claymore felt sluggish where I couldn’t quite get in the last hit of a chain before the enemy would recover. I found a ring with attack speed on it and all of a sudden I could complete the sequence. This is super cool and really really game changing for the genre.
Suggestion:
Make some kind of quest or sequence that introduces the player to weapon stats that can be build changing. In the way that they added the starter cave in Elden Ring, this game could really use something along the same lines to introduce these mechanics.
Maybe make an ancient Cerim cave where ancestors can go over some of these slightly more advanced but important concepts for players who choose to visit the cave.
RESOURCE GATHERING
I spent a long time in the starting area exploring before I ever made it to the city. I was constantly collecting resources and filling up limited inventory and it was annoying to feel like I needed to progress the story just to get to the town to spend these resources I knew I would need in the future.
Suggestion:
Since the blacksmith is available before the city, add a quest that has you gather resources and bank them with him until you get to the city. The quest should culminate with the spending of said resources at the town to make your first upgrade of the blacksmith.
This clears up inventory space in the first part of the game and makes you feel like you’re doing resource gathering for a reason rather than just for the sake of it before you reach the city.
COMBAT MECHANICS:
For my playthrough as a fast moving heavy weapon user, everything felt great except one thing. Every time I was knocked down, the time to recover felt insanely long and unfair especially as a character with the fastest move set. I sacrificed my damage for mobility and those situations where I would get knocked down and then get hit 3 times before I could roll away felt bad.
Suggestion:
If the player has Stamina remaining, delay time to roll away should be shorter for faster equipment loads scaling to slower for heavy equip. If no stamina, no roll.
ITEM SWITCHING IN COMBAT
Suggestion: Super easy fix here. Short press to cycle items, long press to use.
UI AND INVENTORY:
There is a lot here unfortunately but I’ll do my best to break down the most critical things.
RESOURCE INVENTORY
Inventory in the game is nightmarish, reminiscent of Diablo 4. In a game where resources are as abundant as they are in NRFTW, you CANNOT limit space in the way it is now. It’s just straight up tedious and NOT FUN.
A lot of caps here because it never made any sense to me why developers do this.
It makes sense to me why you would limit how much equipment and items you can pick up and hold. But for stackable resources, just do away with inventory scarcity.
Resource tab should just be a giant list of what you have and the number.
Genuinely ask yourself, why is it a fun gameplay loop to have to go to town and drop of loads of resources you’re not even sure you’ll need in the future. It makes you not even want to pick things up at a certain point because you dread having to deal with it later.
Same with gems and runes. Diablo 4 already learned this lesson the hard way.
Do yourself a favor and make a RUNE CODEX where you can store runes without using inventory space.
TOOLTIPS FOR EVERYTHING:
The lack of information on almost everything in the game is irritating. I don’t need to know every detail but I need to know what it is at the lowest level.
BLUEPRINTS
There are blueprints for sale at the vendors. I refuse to purchase them because I have no idea what I’m purchasing. I’m a light armor user, is that armor blueprint light armor? Heavy armor? a paper bag? You don’t need to show every detail about it but at least let me know the basics of what I’m purchasing.
RUNES:
Same thing. At least give a basic readout of what the rune actually does when you look at it in your inventory on a weapon or at a vendor. Especially when slotting them is permanent.
If there is already some way in the game to find this out and I missed it, then please make it more clear.
GEMS
What do they do for what types of equipment on a simple tooltip. I hate having to find an unslotted piece of gear, go to the infuse tab at the enchanter, and then find out what effect a given gem has on an item.
STATUS ICONS
Tooltip to show what buffs, debuffs are doing to your character. An Icon is useless to me if I can’t figure out what it means.
GENERAL:
LEAPING ATTACK FOR GAPS
Sometimes enemies pool on a ledge and make leaping over a gap a really risky gamble that is unavoidable. Add a leap attack so you can at least engage them instead of leap and pray.
CANCEL ICHOR SELECTION
Currently you can’t cancel out when selecting Ichor Abilities. I wasn’t sure which I wanted to choose at one point but you are forced to make a selection.
WEAPON POWER DIFFERENTIAL
I used my claymore the entire game until I got the corpse 2 handed unique. I upgraded it to the same level as my claymore. It’s move set is WAY slower by quite a bit but the damage output was so incredibly low it made absolutely no sense to stop using my claymore. I almost the exact same damage with none of the downside.
ATTRIBUTE SCALING
Because of the situation I just listed about the power differential, I thought maybe it’s because of strength scaling. Since my build has barely any strength, maybe that’s why the corpse blade felt week. I check the stat screen and then I realize, I have no Idea how to tell if the weapons are scaled differently. For example, in Souls games, scaling is indicated by the SABCD scale. If I see that the claymore has C scaling but the corpse unique has A scaling. I would immediately know why the 2 felt the same. You can’t scale something if you didn’t put points into that attribute.
HITBOX FOR WHISPERS
I kept running into this annoying thing where I would have to run in a circle until I could find a spot to activate the whisper. Make it slightly larger please.
THINGS I’M ON THE FENCE ABOUT:
EXPERIENCE RETENTION
I’m torn about the lack of experience recovery. On one had the added challenge is kind of cool, on the other hand when facing a really hard boss and losing 700 exp is not super great. Update: I realized later I had a crystal in my weapon that did this. You should add a debuff icon to the UI so it’s more obvious this is an active effect in case you lose track like I did.
Suggestion: Experience ‘Banking’. I’m not entirely sure if I like this idea but what if you could go back to town and essentially stash earned XP in some way. That way if you hit a boss and you haven’t quite reached the next level, you can at least maintain progress before you spend an hour redoing the boss 50 times.
CONCLUSION:
Love the game. Can’t wait for more. Everything above is just my opinion and I reserve the right to change my mind or have my mind changed. I hope everyone finds this feedback useful!