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.)
I think it is a very well written summary of what happens.
The further you get into the game the more the game loses it’s identity.
The first few areas I feel the visceral combat, were the various elements like, dodging, parrying, weapon combo’s and rune specials feel like they exist in harmony. They feel complementary and create a unique experience.
I bought the game because I loved the graphics and the immersion aspect. I love CRPGs and MMORPGs for this reason. Most ARPGs don’t have immersive elements so I don’t play them. Titan Quest being the exception, but that game is childhood sentiment.
I agree 100% on the crucible feeling horrible. I am new to soulslikes, but I don’t see how clearing a trash pack over and over is helping me in preparation for the actual boss fight. I’d prefer that the rooms leading up to it help me prepare in some way. Spending X amount of time clearing trash to have another attempt feels like artificially increasing game, which I am 99.9% sure isn’t the intention at all.
I don’t mind dying, it’s part of the learning curve and getting better at the game.
Now to some extent we get more powerful as the game progresses that’s normal. It also means we should be able to carve our way to trash mobs more easily if they are weaker than us. It adds to the roleplaying and power fantasy.
But Bosses should still feel like Bosses.
When I see those cheese videos where they get Rune Spammed down. Or Rune Rushing as a general concept. I just don’t like it.
The game should hold onto it’s unique identity as you progress into the game. There are others ways to feel more powerful than Rune Rushing.
i kinda have a similar sense, that like a parasite has crept into my skull keeping me addicted without actual much joy. after reliably killng echo knight i desperately try to squeeze out the last bits of enjoyment.
But can I blame the game? not really, i spent 4 times the amount of time in needs to finish the campaign.
My only downside is, that after 6 years of development just 2 regions and the crucible is a bit to little of content…? especially when most features are just a barebone implementations and feel like “we have no idea what we want, what we’re doing, or how to implement it, let’s just make it early access and listen to the players”
But to be honest, this is probably going to be a mobile game, the post on twitter, the whole ui, the grinding and waiting for crafts/buildings to finish. all look like a big “don’t you guys have phones?!” rugpull is going to happen eventually and that deep content isn’t desired.
I don’t know, it makes me highly skeptical and i’m happy that this game is going to be a placeholder for poe2 or at least a candidate for a back and forth of the 2 games…
I’m super torn on this, i could be great, but the initial state doesn’t look like it actually wants to be deep, rather wide as an ocean and deep as a puddle and all signs lead it down this road.
could you blame them? they made 2 (incredible) jump and runs, but deep intricate mechanics hasn’t ever been part of that.
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
I think it depends on the extent to which we get to live our power fantasies.
We should have moments where we feel more powerful than before and have that sense of being able to defeat a particular enemy fairly easily after some time to them even becoming a non-issue.
But rune rushing bosses in 30 seconds by stunlocking them is too much.
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
