For an early access game I’m very Impressed. Below are some issues and suggestions for the Devs if they ever read this.
Graphics and Performance:
As other’s have stated performance is probably the biggest issue. I’m running a 3090 and a i7-8700k at 1440p and for the most part i hit 60fps but it will frequently dip down to 40s and there are a lot of traversal stutters. Even while running at 60fps it feels a bit sluggish, i suspect the frame times are a bit off.
It looks like 16x anisotropic filtering is not being used. After forcing it on in the the Nvidia control Panel it really made the game look a lot crisper.
Depth of field and Bokeh effect could be better. DOf samples foreground object into the background so things have a noticeable halo around them. Not enough samples are being used for the Bokeh so it ends up looking like a dot with 6 dots around it. There are tons of resources for a proper hexagonal Bokeh effect (Hexagonal Bokeh Blur Revisited – ZigguratVertigo's Hideout) So I’m not sure why it wasn’t properly implemented since that’s what they were going for. I’m a developer with a focus on graphics so I’m probably being nit picky here, but it really mars an otherwise excellent presentation.
Controls :
You can’t rebind controls.
Controls on the thumbstick could benefit from a greater range. Right now while walking you either go at a medium walk when barely touching it to a slightly faster walk when pushing all the way. Instead barely touching the thumbstick should barely move the character and then progressively increase the characters speed until something like a slow jog. Given the amount of things you need to balance over and how much the developer touted as having a 1-1 movement representation in game, I think this is another oversight.
Gameplay:
After playing for about 9 hours the game is starting to feel a bit grindy. I’m having to go back out to the starting area to gather resources and exp which is fine but it seems like things are going at a snails pace after getting to Sacrament.
I might be to early on but it feels like your character has very little stamina. I can roll out of the way one and maybe get one or two hits before I have to back off and wait for stamina to refill. The focus meter is even more stingy so playing as a magic wielder didn’t seem very viable since I have to physically attack something like 6 times before I have enough focus to cast a single fireball.
After you get to Sacrament enemies respawn a bit too quickly or maybe I’m not aware of the rules that cause them to respawn.
Unless I’m missing something there’s no way to advance time. At first I expected that you could sleep in your room at the Rookery but the bed isn’t interactable. After completing a side mission and gathering enough resources I was able to upgrade the Inn and I expected to be able to sleep in a bed till mourning. Nope, you can lie down in a bed but it won’t advance time. The only benefit is to lie down then exit the game four at least for realtime hours to get a boon.
Building upgrades list completion time, but this is real time and not in game time which was confusing at first.
In my opinion you should be able to advance time manually by sleeping or resting which in turn heals your character and offers some sort of boon. Building upgrades should require X amount of in game days which will also encourage resting. Enemies should respawn after resting a full day.
HUD:
This game looks incredible so it’s a shame that the HUD is on constantly. Ideally the HUD should be dynamic and customizable so that you can disable all or portions of it.
Camera:
The slightly curved world really helps with seeing stuff in the distance… as long as you’re moving up. If you’re going down or two the sides visibility is pretty limited. Some sort of manual camera control would be nice. It doesn’t have to be full 3d but allowing the right stick to slightly pan the camera or zoom in and out would work wonders.