Google disk link to pdf version of the post.
(please, consider allowing more than one embedded image in feedback/bugreports as it helps with explanations a lot)
No Rest for the Wicked: feedback and analysis
To start off: the Early Access version is a very good skeleton of an ARPG with almost excellent game design.
However, there are several crucial improvements needed from the gameplay and QoL perspective - and we are pointing at them below. Plus Keyboard and Mouse controls require a complete rework of the currently used method.
Keyboard and Mouse Controls
At its current state it is impossible to play the game with KB&M in the same way you can play it with a controller. The big culprit is the positioning of the character relative to the camera which leads to a lot of diagonal movements. Latest patches brought some QoL improvements for KB&M users, but still the movement system and the camera continue to be fully set for controllers and their directional stick in mind.
The game has two control methods for KB&M (WASD and following the mouse cursor) with the cursor method being the most comfortable for exploration, but totally uncomfortable for combat where it becomes confusing and often acts in contradiction with WASD controls. Granted, you provide three schemes to choose in between, but those are poorly explained and not well-thought (more on it below).
Itâs a requirement (not to say an imperative) to set up the camera to be constantly behind the characterâs back (Ă la Baldurâs Gate 3). For KB&M there is no other way around. First, it will provide the perfect controls over player movements, second, it will ensure proper character model alignment with intractable objects (like chests).
I think itâs totally doable and even if it could potentially âbreakâ the visuals and the way the game âhidesâ its secrets in the world, the switch to that view will be invaluable from an Action RPG perspective.
To counteract the potential trouble of missing meshes (in case they were not set properly for those angles), you can make the camera closer to top-down point of view. To be honest, it can even be considered a requirement, because on more than one occasion while traversing the world (usually when you go directional to the bottom of your screen) your character ends up with a very uncomfortable viewpoint that severely restricts the playerâs ability to notice and react to the enemies.
Donât get it wrong: weâre not talking about getting rid of the current camera entirely. It works for controllers, so no need to change it. And KB&M players can have it as an option alongside the main PC camera discussed above.
In general, Iâd say it is a huge mistake to prefer visuals over gameplay and controllability especially if you advertise your game as âsoulslikeâ.
While Moon Studios did provide a decent way to rebind keys, they need to keep in mind that KB&M has far less restrictions than controllers and KB&M player can and want to have accurate settings for every action. There is no need to keep several actions tied to the same button for KB&M just because itâs required for controllers. Here are the examples:
- Jump and Sprint share the same key which (combined with diagonal movement requiring to hold two keys simultaneously for WASD) leads to platforming sections being the biggest killers. Those must be separated (unless artificial difficulty through clunky controls is your goal).
- Hug the wall and action keys are shared too which leads to unwanted moves in a lot of situations (because those chests are very often close to walls and when trying to open a door you donât want to end up stuck to it instead).
Other keys like action confirmation in the inventory are set to spacebar while instead they should be tied to the playerâs choice of the action key (E or F). You need to allow the player to set those too and to be honest, all the UI actions just need to be clickable with the mouse - currently the UI is very inconsistent with those.
Also, you should absolutely never use the same key for two opposite actions! Example: C is âgive lessâ in town building UI, but âgive moreâ in challenges UI!
We took time to test all three KB&M schemes you provide in the options. And we got the impression that those were never really actually tested. First off, theyâre confusing: it seems from the description and the preview that those are just different key binding presets while in reality they also have different underlying logic which is most noticeable in how dodge works:
- Mouse and WASD: direction key + dodge key when moving plus mouse cursor + dodge key when stationary.
- Mostly Keyboard: direction key + dodge key when moving only, no stationary dodge.
- Mouse and Keyboard: mouse cursor + move to cursor key + dodge key when moving only, no stationary dodge.
And second, those schemes have different options for controls customization when selected, for example, Mouse and Keyboard offering walk/run switch which is missing from the first two schemes.
Well, none of those three schemes are comfortable for PC players and the way you implemented them is confusing, rework here is a requirement:
- Customize controls menu should always show all the possible key bindings, there should be no hidden ones (and no shared actions as explained above).
- Instead of the three vaguely explained schemes there should be clear on/off options for different behaviors: dodge to mouse cursor direction, stationary backwards dodge (this is a default one for ARPG, to be honest), guard direction follows mouse cursor (right now it doesnât present in any of the control schemes), sprint toggle, walk toggle, crouch toggle (the last three are the industry standard nowadays, itâs a wonder they are missing).
- Inside the Customize Controls menu there should be three presets to choose from: KB&M, Keyboard mostly, Mouse mostly. They should not change the logic, just offer different key binding sets.
- You should allow to unbind keys and keep them unbound - this way people who prefer the mouse mostly can either unbind them completely or can keep them for rare cases if they want to.
To sum this section up (and itâs very important!): basically, the game is currently set to be a controller-only experience with KB&M support being at barely playable (or even unplayable) level. Sure, you warn the players that the controller is a preferable device, but preferable and required are not the same thing! There is a perfect example: Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons, a game that indeed has its storytelling and gameplay tied to the controller, has a very clear notice put in red just in front of the âBuyâ button.
Emphasizing to make it clear: if the controller is your artistic choice and you are absolutely sure your game must be played with it, then you must be clear about it and not hide behind âpreferableâ devices and âkeyboard supportâ!
Keep in mind that Steam stats show that 90% of PC users prefer native KB&M controls over console controllers, donât fall into a trap of confusing the opinion of a vocal minority on the forums for the actual facts. Ignoring that and trying to push controllers by implementing bad KB&M input and spreading âsuggestionsâ is counter-productive and, furthermore, even punishable: if you do not provide proper native PC controls and do not issue a clear warning similar to what Brothers have, the game is eligible for refund no matter the playtime!
Console controllers never evolved that much (apart from the PS4 dualshock touchpad which was very well used in Ghost of Tsushima) - and this is one of the reasons people prefer KB&M (and on PC we also have specialized gaming pads and mouses which are very comfortable!).
The combat system
The skeleton of the system is good, but I agree with the people who are complaining about the unfair (soulslike) difficulty. There is a huge difference between an actual enjoyable skill-based challenging combat system and an artificial one where the player is intentionally handicapped against boosted enemies who donât have even half of the playerâs restrictions and are moving, evading, attacking with speed and accuracy surpassing anything the player can ever have. Itâs not the difficulty, itâs just a camouflage for a bad AI design.
To make it right and fair while keeping the challenge, you need to slow down all the enemies. Not much, but enough for the player character to be rewarded for tactical moves and not for hectic button-mashing.
Also, most of the time combat is taking place on terrain which is totally uncomfortable to move around (not to say impossible with the current KB&M controls). If you want your players to consciously parry and evade, you need to ensure they have a proper opportunity to read enemy moves and attacks.
And talking about evades. The moves you set are totally disconnected from the map design. Nowadays Iâm absolutely sure that rolling evade is outdated - especially after playing Callisto Protocol which sets up a very good new evade move (not perfect, but largely superior to rolling) and that one is very much possible to implement from an isometric point of view.
So on the map 90% of the places are not set for evading. Only 10% are more or less proper and those are usually boss arenas. But even on those ones bosses are so big they take up the whole space, so yet again you donât have room to evade. Yes, I got the idea, itâs so-called âgit gudâ thingy of soulslikes, which in fact is coming from 90s Resident Evil. But wait a bit, those mechanics only existed back then because developers were not having all those comfortable tools and technologies people have today.
Your decision about evade moves in relation to weight is counter-intuitive and even reverse to what you did: heavy character should be using slide (or sidestep) while light character should be using large/double roll.
The AI is quite easy to cheat by making it stuck on terrain and especially doors - same as many souls-likes where enemies donât react properly to ranged attacks and being different elevation with the player. You may run into troubles if you donât tweak your pathfinder. Iâm not used to Unity (more UE) but it seems to be relying on voxel-based navmeshes (thatâs what I remember from my work on proper AI navigation systems in the past - and it still seems to be the best one). You can check for beam search or use sub-volumes for optimization.
Bosses are a quintessence of all those problems in one big package: itâs a huge jumping unit with long and fast tracking attacks, dealing huge damage and stagger you canât really interact with. You just need to wait for a very short opening which is usually enough for one hit and then you go back to evading. Be very careful here, because this is the design players did not like in the latest souls games! It makes the bosses more annoying than difficult and makes all the tools and special attacks the players have useless, because you easily get interrupted and damaged almost all the way down and can only rely on single hits because of it.
Such an unfair design of the enemies is also very bad for teaching your players the rules of your game (and teaching in general).
After playing the game and testing its progression it becomes clear that the difficulty comes from the wrong place: the game is hard at the beginning just because you donât have good stats and equipment and the enemy behaviors described above donât allow you to be tactical - you have to be cautions to survive, but it becomes easy as you spend points into stats and get better equipment - after that you can just bypass every fight with button-mashing and itâs not about skill at all. The base ARPG mechanics you have in the game like hit, combos, parry/riposte, block, dodge need to be reliable for the player to use at any time and any progression level (riposte is not implemented yet as far as I know, but it should be).
Be coherent with your game design
Itâs very strange to move around the town with your weapon unsheathed. You should allow players to sheath their weapons at will.
Donât reuse models of intractable objects for a generic clutter in the world (scrolls, etc). Itâs confusing and because scrolls are rare, it amplifies the feeling even more.
Also, at the very beginning of the game you teach the players that they can open trap doors. And then the very first trap door that looks the same they find on the island is a non-interactable clutter! If it becomes active later (quest, maybe), then you at least should show an animation of the character trying to open it and failing. The general idea here is that interactable things should always be interactable to keep the world and the gameplay consistent.
Your world has different weather, so make it a part of the gameplay by tying meaningful gameplay mechanics to it!
The UI
KB&M users should be able to move the map with the mouse! Not with WASD keys (especially when the proper AZERTY switch is not set up). Marker descriptions should be shown when we point at them with the mouse, not when we move the central dot onto them. We should be able to place markers with mouse clicks.
Hereâs a good PC control scheme for the map that feels natural for KB&M users: dragging the map with the right mouse button, placing the user marker with the left mouse button (click or double-click), selecting the icon with the left mouse button.
Building mode for player house is uncontrollable with KB&M and needs a QoL rework. Currently you move the character trying to fit a station into a proper place, but instead you should fix the character where he is and just move the station itself (and do it with the mouse).
There is no need to have separate menus with a separate design. We strongly suggest using overlays with transparency (especially considering the fact that there is no pause anywhere, so the player needs to keep connection with the world).
Healthbar placement is not good for monitoring your life and focus in the heat of the battle.
There is inconsistency in using UI elements like health and stamina: health is top-left corner, stamina is tied to character and appearing and disappearing. Sometimes a red (health?) indicator appears close to stamina. And most of the time the stamina bar is not even visible in combat properly because it doesnât stand out enough from the background and the effects.
You absolutely need to change the standard windows cursor to something fitting to the overall game style!
In-game information
Runes should have proper description with full information on their effects available directly in-game without an external website or any kind of those things that push young people to constantly have their smartphones near their console/PC screen!
In-game navigation
It is important to have a good navigation system in game. Donât get me wrong, Iâm not talking about markers for anything anywhere at any time, but about something to ease your way when youâre trying to find your owned house, for example, or a quest giver to return to.
Everything else
The fact that you need to each time go and manually accept daily and weekly tasks and if you didnât whatever you do wonât be taken into account retroactively might be a teaching move, but to be honest it feels more like one of those player retention tactics aimed at increasing the time spent in game artificially. Look at how Conan Exiles handles those, for example.
Do be careful about setting up your streaming engine.
And last but not least: consider using DX12 instead of DX11. Stuttering troubles youâve got currently should go away if your code is proper. Basically, adding sync for your game to keep the memory available until itâs no longer needed. There are many advantages I wonât list here, but in general DX11 underuses the modern hardware capabilities. Plus, with DX12 you can later decide to add HDRP with specific RT effects: RTAO could be good for the game (see The Ascent game use of reflections as an example).
The books and scrolls you can find and read on the map are almost useless as theyâre not giving you valuable information, just some lore pieces. Itâs totally outdated for a 2024 RPG where those should come with actual choices, locations of secret places, or tips about hidden chests or closed doors - once again, pointing here at the claim to reinvent the ARPG genre.
r457 and gh057
