The current state of this post took quite some time to achieve.
The discussions with the community had me rethink, rephrase and clarify my thoughts and the way I express them countless times.
I can say that we have a fantastic and vibrant community here.
With some of us really engaged to provide solid expression and debate platforms to help shape a clear vision of what could be the best version of this game.
And of course a massive thank you to Moon Studio for the audacious and perilous initial vision.
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My thoughts exactly. If the game is able to keep challenging the players from start to finish the playtime will increase significantly which I’m all in for!
Like I wouldn’t mind farming and crafting for days to prepare for new adventures which initially were too hard for my character.
It would feel like a living breathing world if you have to engage in other activities too than just rushing through the main quest.
The journey is what matters!
(Just rushed the current story content in a couple of hours with a new character. And mariners keep was the hardest at the beginning. Also the worm zombies in black trench.)
It almost feels like you’re playing two separate games: one at the beginning of the experience, and another once you reach the endgame. (For clarification, I haven’t reached the endgame myself, but I’ve watched videos of it.) From what I’ve seen, the game seems to lose its identity, which is a major concern for me. I worry that the game is heading towards a continuous grindfest until you obtain the desired loot, and the introduction of builds that absolutely cheese the game could ruin what I currently enjoy about it.
However, being in Early Access probably doesn’t help, as the pacing at which you acquire these powers likely doesn’t feel quite right.
I guess Moon Studios tried to satisfiy two playertypes
The worker-endgame-grinder-story-skipper type
The sensible-adventurer-story-lover type
This EA shows what the game will be capable of and its squeezed in very less story content with a hard cut in the end.
I was also a little disappointed after the twins. I was a feeling like somebody replaced my heart with a machine
Hopefully if the story part gets richer the cut to the crucible will come way later
The endgame for me doesn’t look fun, I understand the power fantasy element but I think it shouldn’t be cheesy and atleast give the player some challenge.
For example, when this was shared: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqezdH2ekGc - I was watching it and I thought it was completely boring. Why was that? bc the combat didn’t look engaging and it looked completely opposite from the opening of the game. Now I understand combat does evolve, but this put a sour taste in my mouth and it’s something that I didn’t find fun nor engaging.
I don’t feel like I was cheated. I don’t feel like the game itself changed in feel, I felt the difficulty and loneliness the whole game, but lost interest in the game after I got through everything I could get through. Because there’s nothing else to do in the game, I might do it, but considering that there will most likely be a wipe, it doesn’t even make sense(I don’t mind, if anything).The only thing I found specifically bad is that the hero stats are somehow unbalanced relative to the world. For my first hero I maxed out my agility, I thought that yes, I would die quickly because I have no HP, but at least I would damage enemies, a lot of damage. But no, you can’t do much damage in this game. Weapon scaling is weak, I think the damage even decreases over time per unit of points you put into an attribute. At one point, I pumped 3 points into dexterity at once and it gave me 0 weapon damage boost. So I decided to create a new character and emphasized HP and payload (to have more armor), and then it became very easy for me to play this game. It is advantageous to be fat in this game. The problem is balance, in short.Also I don’t like the concept where I have to pump up intelligence along with dexterity to be able to pick up weapons. All those attributes only increase the damage to the weapon, what’s the point? If I then find a dagger that consists of one attribute(like dexterity, I will lose in damage because I will have unnecessary points in intelligence, they will literally give me nothing, absolutely 0, useless). That’s why I suggested to redo the hero attributes.
But man, I still love this game, and I hope the developers will work on improving it, on balancing it out
I understand that not everybody’s experience can be exactly the same here but if you’ve been to the bottom of what the Crucible is with a maximized character I don’t think you can say that it has anything to do with the first hours of the game in terms of game feel.
My main grief here is consistency:
If it is a pure Diablo-like, I don’t mind, let’s go.
If it is a pure Souls-like, I don’t mind, let’s go.
If it is a pure WhateverYouWanToCallIt-like, I don’t mind, let’s go.
But these games genre don’t have the same appeal and I don’t play them, or enjoy them, for the same reasons.
The only thing I ask is clarity and consistency in the design: so if I buy a cat, I get a cat, and if I buy a dog, I get a dog.
Not a mix of both where I have neither the taste of one long enough, nor the other.
Sounds like I eat cats and dogs, I don’t, but I hope you get the idea.
And I don’t think it can be solved by any minor or major attributes or resources updates/upgrades/rework.
It needs to be dealt at the lowest level, where and when the development team agrees on the core design philosophy.
I don’t see anything wrong with taking the best qualities from other games and then just making it into one game, the only problem is how exactly you’re going to do it, whether it’s going to be well done, well developed. And about Crucible - I think that’s just the first level, an introductory level. There’s also a bunch more altars where you can spill your blood. And yeah, I don’t think a character has to be level 30 to go through all that. When I killed the twin brothers I was level 14-15, at that level I went to Crucible, the opponents there were difficult, at least up to level 21, then it got easier because I was able to put on things that were not available to me because of my low level
This game is such an artwork!
The connection to your character and the surrounding is so intense. Felt nothing of that in any other arpg like diablo, poe or last epoch.
I guess thats why the cut is so hard after the twins and “uhm … thats it for now?”. We have to wait … so much potential to build on.
I think he meant the current level cap is 30, and the contents that would be added later would be balanced for (example) lvl 40. So the lvl 30 players can’t rely on their equipments alone.
