PROS – I like that many aspects of the game improved with this patch.
- The lifesteal nerf is a good change — it was breaking the game’s balance (its happen in every ARPG)
- The nerf of focus-generating flasks is also great.
- New food system is much better.
- Many quality-of-life improvements were added.
- Vendor sale limits encourage farming instead of just staying in town and crafting endlessly.
- Endgame bosses are truly challenging.
- The new locations are awesome — level design is still top-notch, and exploration is amazing.
- Crafting feels more engaging now.
CONS – These don’t make the game bad, especially considering it’s still in Early Access and improving with every patch. Some of these points can be subjective.
- Story
- At this momnet, the story feels dry, unengaging, and hard to follow. Quest design is odd at times — sometimes it’s not even clear what you’re supposed to do.
- That said, I don’t expect much from Early Access in terms of narrative, but I hope it gets significantly better when the game is released.
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- Equipment
- New weapon WANDS were introduced, and some of them have ranged attacks. Personally, I feel this goes against the core philosophy of the game. All ranged attacks should consume Focus — no exceptions. These wands let you kill bosses from a distance without using runes or much food.
- Legendary items are still pretty underwhelming.
My suggestion: let each legendary have one unique perk, and make the rest reforgable.
And I’m waiting legendary pickaxe for mining! =D
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- Difficulty
- The game keeps getting easier with each hotfix, and I don’t understand why developers follow this way. I hope you will make more game difficulties, because right now the game looks pretty simple for me.
- For me the challenge is what sets this game apart from titles like Diablo or PoE2, where you just hold down a button and speedrun everything. P.S. Yes PoE2 feels hard at the start, but in endgame its like Diablo
- The food limit feels generous — five charges would be enough, especially considering upgrades.
- Some bosses feel easier now, though that could be because I know the game well and this is my second playthrough.
- The latest hotfix reduced the level of zones after completing company — but why would I, at level 30, return to a level 21 area?
- Personally, I want more challenge. For example in endgame event Im investing max resources — then it gets really interesting and I want same feeling in previous part of the game.
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- Crucible
- The path to the boss is more fun right now, but the random perks feel chaotic. I often end up fighting the boss with a Frankenstein build, just winging it.
- Sometimes there are so many perks that I stop reading them. And the final boss is rarely a challenge — often gets one-shot.
- Getting to the boss is still challenging, because no matter how strong you are, you can simply FALL =D.
It still triggers alot of emotions — and that’s a fantastic part of the game.
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- UI/UX – This is probably the biggest issue right now
- Desctiptions. Many mechanics are unclear and poorly explained, and even the forums don’t always help.
What do elemental damage types do? What does Heat do? How much damage does Burn deal? Alot of questions…
The game is full of attributes with no proper descriptions. Only armor clearly (I hope) tells you how much % it reduces.
I think you need an actual codex in game. - Inventory. Every time after selling items shuffling and I can cause accidental sales, and there’s no buyback system — frustrating.
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- Reforging.
- The new reforging system is also hard to use. I tried using the excel, but it’s clunky and probably outdated.
- I think the existence of such a vague and confusing excel suggests that something is wrong with the system — it’s overly complicated.
- If you watch in Diablo, you can hover over a perk you want to reforge, and it shows you popup with potential outcome perks.
- And same problem with shuffling. The constant shuffling of item perks is annoying. They should be sorted by relevance — again, take notes from Diablo.
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- Attributes and Respec
- Adding a respec option is great. But right now, it’s so cheap that it makes attribute choices meaningless.
- Attributes don’t give any benefits on their own, so maybe the next step is removing weapon stat requirements altogether — for me it wouldn’t be a huge loss. Free changing of weapon sounds cool.
- If attributes had their own effects, you’d have to think twice before respeccing, since it’d affect more than just weapon choice.