All notes are from the areas leading up to the first boss (the one we all saw in the promo videos). I still haven’t tried fighting him yet.
Combat/Traversal:
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Dual wielding should be able to swap to bow more easily, or have some kind of projectile option for ranged damage (not bombs). Maybe like a kunai sort of thing?
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Dash and jump being on the same button means I fall off a lot of ledges when I don’t mean to, either because I got a dash when I wanted a jump or got a jump when I wanted a dash.
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Crossbow enemies are not fun to play against. Consider making a dodge in any direction count as a miss (invulnerable frames), rather than only side-to-side relative to the projectile. Or make the arrows more easily parry-able (if they even are at all atm).
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Walking feels just a bit too slow and plodding (low encumbrance) compared to sprint. I’d like to see the walking speed increased by a small amount.
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Sneaking also feels too slow. I get that this might be to avoid having players resort to sneaking everywhere all the time (good design). However, with no way to stay hidden from enemies using foliage or the like, it means it’s almost never worth it to painfully slowly try to approach them, only for them to turn just before you get there. So, I’d also like to see this increased.
Audio:
- Voices are pretty soft at 100% volume setting. I ended up having to turn my headphones up just for this game (I’ll need to turn it down when I play others, which I always keep the same Windows and hardware volume levels for).
Items:
- Why do armor pieces start at ~20 defense rather than ~8 or 1? It seems like at least in the very opening area that these numbers almost immediately become meaningless. The only reason I can see for this is granularity in early levels (so, thinking more as if 19 is more like 1.9 as the game goes on).
Leveling:
- At the start of the game it’s unclear how level up points should be distributed and whether or not the choices have absolute permanence. This led me to attempt to delay spending them, which means I’m weaker against enemies in the part of the game where I’m already weak.
UI:
- What is the yellow/gold toolbox icon that appears in the lower right corner? (Ah, it’s a durability warning. Not immediately obvious.)
Bug:
- Prompt to speak with NPCs is in a different language (than my setting, English).
Overall:
- I’ve enjoyed the game a lot so far, but I will say it is A LOT more souls-like than I had envisioned based on the marketing of a revolutionizing of the Diablo-like ARGP. I feel like this is solvable by making things just a little less slow and ponderous. By no means explosions everywhere or screensful of enemies. Just like 3 whacks on an ore vein instead of 5 or 6 (or whatever it is) and a similar thing for digging/fishing/logging. Couple that with enemies that die a bit easier and perhaps behave differently when in groups (nothing extreme, just a little variation) than when alone, switching up the player’s strategy but not making the fight seem impossible without having to resort to cheese (which is what I feel like I end up doing).