Hi!
My name is Madm00n and I played No Rest For The Wicked early access for 38 hours completing all the story so far and defeating Echo Knight in crucible. Here is my feedback on game and suggestions on improvements.
Artslyle/characters/music/sound/story so far have been 10/10! The only thing I would wish for is to know more about Cerim at the beginning. I feel like everyone treating your character as someone not belonging to their world makes you hard to immerse yourself as a player and feel like you don’t belong in this world.
Level design is great, but putting new player in ionas cave with challenging platforming w/o unlocked Sacrament to return to is pure sadism imo. The last jump in this cave is awkward and unnecessary. It was not fun at the beginning. After I got a hang on a game and returned there later to do some bounties, it was enjoyable. So, I think Ionas cave is better to be a post-Sacrament location.
Another few small notes regarding level design:
1)Vines leading to an upper Orban Glades didn’t look climbable to me, so I had to google to find it to complete bounties. Wish they stood out a bit more.
2)Crane with a stone block near shortcut north at nameless quarry makes you able to jump on a platform with a level to open the gate, but you pass thought the platform and fall to your side of the gate. As I discovered later, you should open it from the other side, but initially I though I was locked out some content due to a bug.
3)In Crucible on a cage stage there is some awkward collision on ramps.
4)In Crucible on an autumn-themed stage with knight(s)+mage at the beginning, as you come from the elevator you can’t see that there is an abyss to the right (and you want to go to the right to kill mage first). And it is easy to forget that it is there even if you knew about it. Creates a number of very frustrating deaths.
Overall I liked the progression through the game. The world felt fun to explore and it is so cool to connect different locations with a shortcut and get one big location from a few smaller one.
Enemies are great. One small observation and one small wish: greatsword wielding knight in Crucible is weaker than his analogs. He is open to ranger attacks and majority of his attacks can be blocked with a shield. Doesn’t push you out of your combos either. And for the wish part: I wish there was a bigger window to react to crawlers (half bodies that emerge from the ground) opening attack. Right now feel like you have to take damage to find them.
Combat was very fun. I love the soulslike tempo of early game becoming more ARPG-like in a later parts while still requiring you to dodge/block, manage your stamina/focus and parry for maximum efficiency. I played with claymore at the beginning, then switched to sabre and buckler, then transitioned to sabre+buckler/bow, followed by spear/bow (medium armour). I went full 42 dex. I didn’t perfect my spear/bow built, so I didn’t test its late game potential. The built I finished echo knight with was double messers, heavy armor, lifesteal/no focus. I wanted to play this build to feel how it changed playstyle and feel for the game from soulslike to a more ARPG-like. Honestly, less than anticipated. The point where I felt the change of pace was too much was when I got a full self-replenishing stamina, so I could attack with double messers without exhaustion and it felt like the identity of a game which was built from the beginning was compromised. So my only point of critique in that case would be that, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be possible to get an infinite stamina/focus only based of your equipment. You should at least spend costly consumables to reach that effect for a period of time. I think that way it would balance it.
Other than that every weapon I used was fun and unique and I was very pleasantly surprised at how fun it was to play heavy armour class. The trade off between a good roll to having more armour and tackle felt fair. Maybe tackling bigger enemies and throwing them off balance only with only tackle is a bit too strong. I don’t know how tackling and poise interact with each other, but I think to destabilize bigger enemies requiring some damage to poise and tackle combined would be more balanced. Oh, and the last hit of a spear (the one with 42 dex requirement) combo attack felt not worth using all because it dealt small damage compared to stamina cost.
The biggest point of improvement for No Rest For The Wicked at this point I think would be an upgrade to a looting system (and some thing around it). There are a couple of point I would like to make:
1)inventory being locked behind ichor is annoying. It feels bad to unlock more inventory slots instead of a ring or weapon slot. And they become enough only when fully unlocked. I think you should have access to full inventory right from the start.
2)Enemies dropping random foods/bombs/oils clutters inventory and then you need to mange it and it becomes a chore. I think one type of enemy should drop one type of food/oil/bomb.
3)There are so many cool weapons you want to try, but they are locked behind the stat requirement. and to try them and see what they do you need to commit to stats upgrade. Feels bad. I thing I would suggest is to allow to equip a weapon, but make it deal almost no damage if you don’t satisfy stat requirement. That way you could at least try a weapon before you commit to stats.
3)On the topic of stats. Str/dex/int/fai doesn’t correlate to their names. They are effectively all point that you need to spent to use a weapon + a bit of damage. They don’t feel fun to upgrade. Health/equip load makes you stronger, stamina make you more dexterous and focus allows you to use more magic/abilities, so those stats buff or even characterize your character and they feel fun to spend your points into. I feel like there needs to be a system change to stats to fix this issue.
3)There doesn’t need to be a random spread of a base stats of weapon/armour. Doesn’t feel fun at all with low roll, to the point when there is no sense to invest in a weapon. Doesn’t fell particularly rewarding with a high roll, because it is like a base requirement from a weapon worth investing into. My suggestion just to remove random and make one type of a weapon/armour universal in its base stats.
4)Please add a transmog for an armour. Maybe keep it to an armour weight class to keep immersion. Otherwise you end up with armour from a shop each time because you roll for an enchantment suitable for your build. Alternatively, you could make a shopkeeper learn to sell a new common version of an armour you just found. That could be more immersive.
5)You should be able to reapply/reroll gems on a weapon and armour. And you should be able to remove runes that you added. Base rune being irremovable I see making sense from a balancing perspective.
Thanks to anyone who read my feedback. I think the game is worth playing in its current state and I think it could be the best game in ARPG genre and a contender for the best game ever in its full potential which I see from the early access version.
Regards,
Madm00n