Hello,
First of all I want to say I enjoy this game and really want it to succeed. Unfortunately, I must say that I’m not enjoying the game as much as I would like to and I’m close to stopping completely due to too many annoyances . I also want to preface that I played and finish all the souls game and been playing ARPGS since I’m a kid. I’m far from the best souls player but I’ve beaten the games a few times so I can handle difficulty when it’s well designed.
I’ve been playing for 11 hours now so I know I haven’t learned everything about the game but I feel that I could give my feelings about the game as a brand new player and what keeps me from enjoying the game as much as I would want to.
There are a lot of great things about the game and those are what kept me so far but I feel it’s not gonna last forever. The animation, map design, music, visuals are top notch. The combat have weight to it and feels good when you hit enemies. There are many other great things and I’ll focus on the annoying things.
Things that I feel like I’m wasting my time. I get that you have to grind for some things but those are elements that are unnecessary IMO:
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Whispers: Why can’t I fast travel on whispers that I unlocked? It doesn’t make sense that when I’m in town I can only travel to the last one I used. I have to run back to the other side of the map, get killed, respawn to the last waypoint, get back to the city, run again from sacrament to other whisper I want to go… It just a waste of time and there is no fun in that. You can travel to any bonfire in dark souls, any waypoints in diablo, POE, etc. At some point I just get bored and quit the game.
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Food: I always like the idea of food that give you bonuses but the fact that it’s your main source of healing and you have to craft it makes it an awful grind that you don’t find in any other game. Right now I’m on the boss of the sewer and having a hard time. I’ve exhausted all my food so can’t go fight the boss anymore. I have to go on the surface and go grind artemisia plants just to make what are essentially estus flasks to be able to continue the game. Grinding for health potions is the most boring thing and there is a reason why other games don’t do it. Sure you can grind to UPGRADE it but not to have basic healing.
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Timers. Enough said. I think the devs are also aware.
While I think the combat is good, Here are a few things that I hate:
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Great swords: I always used great swords in souls game. I hate them in this game. Take forever to land a hit. I know there are attack speed gems later in the game so maybe that’s why they are like that but again to kill enemies I lose quite a lot of health since when I attack it takes forever to hit and the enemies can attack my a few times before I land the hit. I then eat food like crazy and then I run out of food. This got back to my previous point about the food.
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While I love the animations, there is something weird about the timing of the attack of the enemies that makes it very hard to predict and parry. I suspect that it’s because they wait a lot while swinging before hitting.
Other things that I find annoying:
- Weapons in early areas: Look I get it’s an RNG based game like diablo but it’s also a souls-like game so can we at least have set locations where we can find specific weapons (At LEAST in the starting area) and not just hope to drop the weapon that we want. I started a character and was forced to play with daggers and It’s just not my playstyle. Haven’t found a straight sword yet with that other character. I know you can transfer from other character but that is a bad design choice when you’re trying to attract new player and they are playing the game for the first time and don’t want to be forced to play with a weapon that they don’t like.
Those are the things that are killing the game for me right now. I know there are a few things that will get better with the next patch and those after but I though I would leave my feedback since, again, I like the game and really want it to succeed. I will still play the game here and there until the next patch but not as much as I would want to…
Cheers,