I was really hard in the survey so just want to say that the refinement update went a long way and made the game much more enjoyable. Really, terrific job to the team. Combat and gathering feel better overall.
A couple technical issues I’m having though that are causing me to feel sick when playing are…
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The blur effect. I don’t recall this happening so much before but the camera keeps pulling back and making the screen really blurry. Especially in the crucible.
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Sluggish gameplay. In some enemy heavy areas the game shows it’s still running at around 60fps but the animations don’t look that way. I’ll swing my weapon and what would normally be a half second swing takes about 3 seconds to go through. The enemies during these times are also in slow motion.
Other then that, feeling pretty good with the update so far. Will provide more feedback when I get further along.
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Gave the game about 15 hours this time, which was a lot more than I did with the initial update, so the refinement was effective. However, with the current balance I don’t feel that the game values your time as a player.
(-) Mobs are grindy, it’s taking me 30-40 attacks to kill basic mobs. (upgraded weapons and dumped into int for damage)
(-) Haven’t found/bought/crafted a weapon I can use since the beginning of the game
(-) Don’t feel like I’m getting any stronger, in previous builds FP on hit was a bit overkill but it at least felt like your build came online. I’m cool with that being removed but I’d like to feel like my character is better than they were on the beach by the time I’m 10+ hours into the game.
(-) The game runs poorly, I have a high end pc and set the game to performance mode and it still chugged and the visual effects caused me to feel sick and I had to take breaks.
(+) New boss was really, really cool. The sounds were eerie as hell and I felt like it was well balanced. You guys did an excellent job on that one. I really look forward to seeing more.
(+) The gathering mini-game felt rewarding and engaging. Even if you used a low level tool if you got the timing right it didn’t take too long. I much prefer it over the old system.
I’ll come back with the multiplayer update to see if it’s any good. If not, man I might have to wait for 1.0 years down the line. I still think NRfTW has a chance to be one of the best rpgs I’ve played, but it is definitely in an early access state and while I’ve 100% got my money’s worth, it does feel like I’ve taken a bite of the best meal of my life and told I’ll get to finish it in a few years.
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Weekend plans got canceled so I played a bit more. Got through the campaign and into the end game. Really cool couple of boss fights. Thought the Ori paintings were cool. But as I got into the end game it became even more apparent that the game needs some quality of life work real bad.
I thought the fights were cool but the lock on already had major issues before the enemies started flying, now every time they fly off and come back even if I still see the lock on dot on the enemy it doesn’t matter. None of my attacks will go towards that enemy. I have to lock off, then lock back on to get a hit in. They fly every 10 seconds, making this some of the most annoying gameplay I’ve experienced. Imo the following needs done…
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Lock on circle needs to either auto change colors based on the environment/enemy or I need to be able to change the color in the settings. I can’t see the orange dot a lot of the time.
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The lock on needs to be manual with assist. Instead of the current system of clicking the stick and hoping the right target gets selected and if not, banging the stick around until you hopefully end up on the right target, I think it would be better, since you have a locked camera anyways, to allow us to move the right stick to move the cursor around and whatever enemy it’s closest to when we let go gets selected.
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Make the lock on actually work. If the dot is on an enemy my attacks should go towards that enemy. As is 20-30% of attacks miss normal enemies and 90% miss the flying ones. It’s abysmal.
I’ve got other ideas for qol that would make the game better but I’ll leave it at that for now. Good game, needs a small team focused on qol for the next few to several months.
The end game feels much better than the early-mid game atm. I am having fun like I used to in prior builds now that I’ve got a house full of loot and crafters. There are so many cool new weapons. I really love how much effort yall put into the weapon animations and variety. Just, wow you guys do so well with them.
On that note, I feel like that feeling should impact sooner. I don’t like that most weapons require 42+ stat points to use. Once you’re in the end game it doesn’t matter much because you can respec but I think the early to mid game experience would be much better if yall serious reduced the requirements for weapons. If you want weapons to require a lot of stats to reach their full potential, that’s fine. But make more builds viable earlier on. I finished the whole game and cleared the map twice of pestilence before I ever found a shield that scaled with int. Then, accidentally sold it when dumping loot. Here’s a few suggestions…
• Add more blueprints, or provide a way to farm them early on.
• Cut stat requirements by half or more. Instead have weapons scale in the reverse way that FS does it, have stats be worth more as you hit higher thresholds. Maybe every 10th point is worth 5x the damage boost. Meaning a player could start using a greatsword they found way earlier in the game and build it up as they go. Having it do more and more damage as they level, while also adding runes to the weapon as they progress. You have beautiful animations for these weapons, don’t hide them behind such high stat requirements that most players won’t get to see them.
• Have the target dummies show damage numbers, with different dummies having different resistances.
• Add some challenges to the list that are tied to certain weapons or damage types. Encouraging people to try out different builds, or at least use their other weapon slots.
On an unrelated note, please reduce the pestilence UI effect/blur by at least 2/3rds. Between that and the visual bugs (like the camera blur) it’s making it really difficult to play the game for long periods of time without a headache and/or nausea.