- You already implemented a lot of improvements I didn’t even get the chance to send feedback of. Well done.
- I can only judge on what I can see (and not which is coming in the future).
- I can only give you my subjective opinion. I personally don’t care about the story but I understand some people do so I won’t be giving my opinion about such elements.
Performance:
Please keep seeking ways to improve performance for any setup even when adding extra content.
This game is timing and therefore performance based.
Looting feature request:
Loot all items while walking over them while holding down button (encourages farming).
Pause game option?
XP:
XP bar or XP in general could slightly be improved somehow to FEEL the progress. (future idea? talents? or too far?)
Level up visual is nice, FEELS good.
Sidle:
- Decrease Sidle notifier or just straight up rework sidle so that it only pops up at places where it’s actually useful. (dopamine hit?)
- (PC) Sidle is forced in such a way that even when I try to enter my house form certain directions I sidle instead, annoying…
NPCS:
- (PC) Interacting with any npc is janky unless you stand in the perfect spot.
- Roaming npc’s tend to block, stand in front of me when walking through narrow spaces or push me away.
- Sometimes Roaming npc’s stand in front of merchant npc’s, preventing from talking to merchants.
- Blacksmith npc’s are standing a bit too close to the furnace and each other, especially in blacksmith level 1 and 2.
- Cinematic dialogue / ‘cinematic animation zoom’ when interacting with merchants needs to be either sped up, polished or removed.
Crucible:
‘cinematic visual’ / moving into to next room needs to be sped up.
Inn:
- Add heal to full or passive HP regen while in town? Other? Perhaps a healing fountain you can click or stand nearby which scales with Inn level? No clue. Because Level 2 and level 3 Inn’s passives feel underwhelming or too much work to heal. I’ve personally never done it.
- Inn’s position in town feels off. Suggestion: More central, perhaps to the left of Sacrement courtyard? Or to the left/inside the walls when going up the stairs coming from Sacrement Whisper? Where the big tree is and the small tower with a chest on it.
- Loading screen when entering inn doesn’t feel good. But I can maybe see why you did it (performance?) If you somehow could improve this function you could also add functions such as locals entering/leaving inn making the inn/town feel more alive.
Sound:
- Overall Sound and music can be more compelling.
- Rune ready sound plays when I enter the game, in town, unnecessary.
- Rune ready sounds a bit ‘cheap’/non-immersive.
- Enable/disable music loop? Music inside the players house becomes repetitive real quick, loop too short.
- Inn lacks Inn/tavern music.
Positive feedback of unique sound element:
There is a sound bite when loading into the game from the main menu specifically when there is a black screen, it sounds dreamy and a voice “singing” very gently. Such effects are good/immersive! More!
Visuals:
Rune visuals:
In the main UI screen can be bigger/better/more clear/more visually appealing/bigger font?
Gear inventory function and visual clarity:
- The way that equipping gear works needs to be improved, currently feels a bit wonky or counter intuitive.
- Chest sorting functions can be improved, I can’t even drag and drop a specific item in a specific slot. (including PC)
- Comparing gear doesn’t show “currently equipped” text for quick visualization.
- Also, in my opinion, just show the compared items on top of the character or inventory items when comparing items, it doesn’t look visually compelling when you show the character off-screen to the right.
Text visuals:
such as: NPC names/Buy/Sell/Repair/Quests/Bounties/Challenges/etc… are a bit dull. Could use some brighter or more appealing color. Or outline or bar surrounding the name.
No idea how, I’m not an designer.
Bar sliders: (maybe)
Have you experimented with player preference HP, Focus and/or XP bar size sliders?
empty/soulless/unsatisfying elements:
- Chests. Not sure if it’s due the content or the way materials are structured, feels not even worth opening, and when I do open chests it’s not satisfying. Maybe I’m unlucky or idk.
- Buildings and building upgrades:
(example) V Rising takes it to the extreme where even a simple element such as the castle heart gives a sense of wanting to keep playing by farming because of dopamine, you FEEL the attraction the first time around.
NRFTW building does not give me any FEELINGS or satisfaction or wanting to go out and farm to upgrade in any way whatsoever. No satisfaction upon completion and ‘meh’/because I have too when fully upgraded. Both UI and way of interacting feels cheap. - Runes: From what I understood by reading through Reddit comments you are reworking elements?
Ill be mentioning of what is in the current game regardless:- elemental runes such as cold feel neglected, too basic/the same effect as lightning etc. And fire has more more than cold and lightning and so on.
Early game > First boss: feedback related to early access patch 2.
I haven’t played early game since so not sure if it changed.
Early game needs something to balance or smooth out the game curve but I don’t know what specifically.
There is no avoiding the first boss so you can’t out lvl or out gear him.
Maybe it’s gear improvement, maybe the boss drops hearts at 10% or something else to make everything balanced, again I don’t know what it needs to smoothen out the curve I’m just throwing out ideas.
I think the boss is balanced, challenging and satisfying to beat but he is a major pain and perhaps even a game breaker for a lot of people. From what I can tell you already implemented some changes to make it a bit easier, I noticed repairs are free before the first boss which is good, but it’s still not enough, imo.