thats how they made it sound like their intentions were. something where you can do your dailies or crafts on your mobile if you’re not at home. also gives mobile users and access into the game, spreading the game to more platforms. I believe they chose a fixed camera so it would play well on mobile.
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What this topic is really about is the question of what “smartly utilitsing the game’s systems” means and what kind of playing experience this leads to.
When I Smartly Utilise the game’s systems to build my character and complete a fight in the most efficient way possible, does the resulting gameplay feel - In the dev’s own words - “Visceral and Precise”? Am I engaged and entertained, making quickfire decisions about how to respond to everything which is happening on the screen in realtime? Or am I pressing Frost Throw 20 times back to back from the opposite end of the screen to permanently freeze an enemy while endlessly generating more health and focus than I need?
The heart of this issue is not about difficulty or about personal “playstyle”, it is about the nature of the gameplay which the game design itself fosters. You can not fix this problem by making a bigger Echo Knight with more health and damage, because that wouldn’t change how the game mechanics encourage the player to play.
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I find it super odd about the number of people in here that saw a video of some guy who is really overpowered and used it as a basis for why they don’t like the direction of the game.
Meanwhile their own toon isn’t anywhere near as powerful but they don’t like that someone else who has abused certain mechanics and overpowered things is in fact quite powerful.
I don’t go to a basketball game and see each team launching 50 shots from beyond the 3pt line and deciding I don’t like basketball because 3 pointers are lame.
I just play and realizr the game is plenty challenging the way which I’m playing it and don’t care if someone else can just launch 4 pointers and be over powered
It took me damn near 50 tries for sure to finish crucible and I expect it is the same for most.
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In my case I talk about my own experience and point things less enjoyable than some others to me.
I’m not trying to convince people that they need to come up with the same observations or conclusions.
I’m actually pretty happy that some of you guys enjoyed most of it.
But I’m sharing what I can and I try to highlight as best as I can what, to me, feels dissonant.
I think it’s more a fact that it is possible to become that powerful, and I feel like it’s a way to ‘exploit’ the game almost. Basically ruining the personality the game has in the earlier hours with its combat.
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It is quite simply actually.
If that video is what end game resembles, and people don’t like that, then they are within their right to question the direction of the game.
Mainly due to marketing advertising promising engaging combat. Now I do agree that my playthrough does not look like that and that I am struggling a fair amount. But I don’t want my combat eventually boiling down to that due to broken affixes.
The game needs to maintain it’s identity. Of course there has to be a sense power fantasy and getting stronger, I’m just worried you can do that stuff at such an early level relative to story content.
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Another one… I saw a video of some guy doing something that I can’t do myself because my character isn’t anywhere near that strong so therefore I don’t like the direction of the game.
It’s EA… part of the reason for an EA is to have us find what’s completely broken so they can tune it
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You misconstrue what is being said, I kindly suggest you reread what was typed.
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This is essentially what I said in my own post when I did a ‘deep-dive’ on the end game. I pointed out how I personally, don’t want a power fantasy & still want the souls-like challenge.
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I have seen that post and have been meaning to comment on it. However, it was quite late and I wanted to head to bed 
Totally willing to hear other peoples thoughts, that’s why I posted it, to engage with others.
atm though focus increase as it is is the only way to be able to create a ranger build, though Thomas said in X that as a test they will allow rangers and mages to use basic attacks at the expense of endurance, nice!
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Yes I do have to apologize. I read the first bit of your post then wrote my reply before I read the second half.
I’m not going to change my post because I’m lazy but I should still apologize for the way I worded mine
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Thank you.
Not a lot of people would willingly apologize on the internet. To me that shows you have a lot of character.
I do have to say that some people do jump to conclusions and end up making incorrect assumptions based upon the information they infer from those videos.
We seem to care a lot about “being nice” here but maybe there isn’t a nice way to say that if your character isn’t overpowered after Darrak then you’re not “smartly utilitsing the game’s systems”
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I’m going to try, again ( 
), to summarize what I said up till now and add more perspectives and specifics so we can talk about the same thing.
Keep in mind that if our experiences differ it’s because:
- Our skill level differ
- Our exploitation of the game mechanics differ
- Our biases differ
- Our expectations for the game differ
If your experience, observations and conclusions are too far from mine there is absolutely no reason to debate because there is no chance at all that my experience, observations and my conclusions even make sense to you and IT IS NORMAL.
I initially submitted this post to rally people who have globally the same observations about the general progression of the game as I have.
Of course the others are more than welcome to join the conversation and shape its evolution.
This is, again( ), MY experience of the game:
Before anything else, I have to mention that I am a fanatic fan of Souls-like games.
To be more specific: I like how varied the encounters and their surroundings are and how they break my habits to force me to adapt.
That’s why my favorite Souls-like is Lies Of Pi.
Because breaking the fights assimilated dynamics is what it does better than any other.
Mentioning it may sound trivial but it is crucial to understand my concerns.
I also need to mention that I played this game for a bit more than 100 hours.
Now we can come to how I played it.
I played the game, up to the Crucible, without consuming any attribute points or upgrading weapon and gear: I wanted to see what was the smallest amount of upgrades necessary to clear the Crucible.
After the first 10 hours I felt a huge decrease in healing items scarcity.
My routine was:
- Craft what I can with what I farmed.
- Buy extra ingredients to complete some possible healing item craft.
I ended up my 100 hours with more of it that I can chew.
Healing scarcity playing a predominant role in Souls-like games fights intensity, I started to loose slowly but surely the feeling of a consistent progression feel.
Concerning the Crucible this is what I found out.
First, repeating this content over and over is just boring, no matter how valuable the reward is.
And I think that, if it is a barrier of entry for later content, it makes things even worse.
To me, at this point, the game encouraged me, to not say forced me, to take the META build path.
I felt and confirmed it later by testing that upgrading my weapon damage and wisely assigning my attribute points, like I usually do with Souls-like, wouldn’t be enough.
So I used every single bit of advantage possible.
It annoyed me deeply because my primary gaming philosophy is: Play the game the way you want to play the game.
So I raised all the cursors: maximizing levels, weapon, equipment, runes …
Doing that you end up with a build, and a play style, that has nothing to do, in terms of game feel, with a Souls-like.
And even worse for me: was in complete contrast with the early hours of the game that I enjoyed so much.
“But Lamni, you complain a lot but what do you mean by game feel ?”
This is what I mean by game feel.
When in the early game the number of times that you have to get out of the fight to avoid a mechanic or heal is pretty significant.
Now you can(and you will) face your opponent head first hoping:
- That you have upgraded everything enough and won’t run out of materials if more upgrades are necessary
- That your enemy health bar drops faster than yours
The requirements for a “fluid experience” of the Crucible completely breaks the good foundations that I perceived and the pace of the game.
And this, TO ME, revealed 2 things.
The VISCERAL aspect of the game, meaning the tension in the fight that you would expect from a Souls-like game, is gone.
The only remaining tension being the hope that you have when something drops and how useful it could be later on to build an even more META build.
And also it revealed a deeper shift in mechanical skills requirements.
Having more heals wasn’t enough, now you have more resources regeneration.
You can fully fulfill your dreams of being an “invincible living static spamming turret”.
So now:
- How do you solve that ?
- Does it need to be solved ?
To the second question, I’ll answer yes, IF, the visceral aspect of the game is really the intended experience.
The answer to the first question is: IF the visceral aspect of the game is really the intended experience, then, the development team needs to make sure that in NO CASES, what you face in the game and how you build your character, can get you to the point where spamming without moving is a better option than any other.
That is why, when I initially opened this post, I said that this is not a technical issue.
No update/upgrade/rework/whatever of the resources/attributes/skills/whatever can solve that.
It is a core game design philosophy issue: the development team needs to clarify and fully commit to what the intended experience is suppose to be.
And make sure that there is no current or additional feature breaking the initial promise.
And don’t get me wrong, I have a sincere passion for this game and I’ll play the game in both cases, but:
- In the case of a more Souls-like game feel experience, I will devour everything.
- In the case of a more Diablo-like game feel experience, I think that the Main Story may be my main and only driver.
That is why, TO ME, knowing the definitive choice in the direction is so significant.
And it will also help the development team and the community to come up with more relevant suggestions.
I hope I’m understood now. 
Don’t forget, if you really want to know what the definitive intended experience will be:
- Click on the Vote button at the top left corner of this post
- And/Or use the Reply button to share you experience
- And/Or leave a like 
Voting (here top left corner) followed by leaving a comment being the best way to reach more people.
Thank you, again, for your support. 
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You shouldn’t have to keep continuously explain yourself to people who don’t want to understand you.
Don’t you fret mate, we’ve got your back.
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I’m not going to be very eloquent in my reply and I appreciate you taking the time to explain yourself but I disagree still with most of the conclusions you’ve drawn about the game direction based on YOUR experience.
If you’re using a thistle/crow ring. Don’t play with it. Thistle ring still currently provides life steal when it shouldn’t and does not have any negative attribute as far as I can tell. If you’re using stuff that’s in the game and not working as intended and using that to draw conclusions about the directions, I think you’re being dishonest with yourself and others.
Most of the build showcases I see completely ignore that they’re using stuff that’s currently not working as intended.
It’s early access and it’s here so that the devs can see what kind of broken nonsense we can come up with so that they can properly tune it. I’m sure focus gain will either be nerfed or the game balanced around it being required.
I’m sure life steal will be nerfed or the game balanced around you needing it.
Just my 2 cents and truly I’m sorry if I maybe missed the whole point of your post again (im incredibly sick at the moment and not all there mentally) I trust the devs will hit the mark in the end. The thing they wanted to avoid with their vision of the game was spam ability to win amd I trust they’ll be able to find the path there
I dont see why you feel the need to come dismiss his feedback? We all want the best game possible.
And you are still unable to understand what he is trying to convey.
Please go rest, and come back with better arguments than your broken meta when you get better.
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I’m not trying to argue with anything you say.
And my goal is not to nitpick some of the game features and say that it should be nerfed/buffed/removed/whatever.
My goal is to understand, mostly for myself, where is this game going ?
When I see on its promotions that it is a Visceral Action RPG, I expect it to be visceral.
Meaning that when you fight you have some sort of tension no matter what you have equipped, no matter what your level is, no matter what your skill level is, etc …
And this, to me, seems like a philosophical deal that the developers have not yet done with themselves.
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