Thomas asked why it doesn't sell as well, so I answered as best as I can

[Lombix_4]

Here I answer your post point by point, respectfully, trying not to leave out anything important, if you want we can have a chat on discord to have a more fluid conversation. So I can better understand the reasons behind your bad experience with this game.

@Catto

NRFW is just bad

This is a really strange thing to say before constructive criticism

what is the goal of this “ARPG”? Are you trying to create a 1 time linear arpg adventure like Dark Souls, or are you hoping to create an arpg more similar towards games like Diablo/PoE that has an addictive loop that players can come back and play again & again?

They have said several times that they want both, without lowering the quality of one or the other (to these two genres is also added the Rogue light thanks to the crucible). It’s a very ambitious goal, I don’t think it’s impossible, but it requires more time and work.

At the moment the story, even if it is not finished has already reached the level of quality that I expect from this type of game (which is incredible because the standard is incredibly high).

While the replayability component of ARPG style even if present is not enough, and I think it will be the most difficult thing to achieve

Obviously once the crucible is complete, we will have a Rogue-light inside this game.

Clearly this eclectic approach on one hand attracts more types of players but on the other makes it more difficult to quickly understand the identity of the game.

@Catto

You also lack the 3rd person perspective to create the sense of awe and wonder that most souls games have.

The atmosphere of this game is already incredible, I suppose this is a case of personal taste but I assure you that to a neutral observer the third person is not superior to the isometric view. If you look at the reviews the atmosphere is one of the aspects that is most frequently praised.

@Catto

Your combat sucks, its dogshit, period.

Are you sure you want to constructively criticize this game, and that you don’t want to insult anyone as stated in the premise?

@Catto

If you want players to move slowly through obstacles, you already have a “toggle walk” button for that, there is no need to make the default movement speed that slow.

It is true that the walking speed is slow but out of combat running does not consume stamina. While in combat alternating running and walking is part of the skill expression It is integral to stamina-based combat.

That being said a little buff to movement speed wouldn’t hurt, at least to bring it in line with other souls-likes.

@Catto

Rather than making more creative enemies, enemies are design around to take advantage of the inconvenience of your turtle speed.

I don’t think this is the case, the enemies are varied and interesting, although the game wouldn’t hurt to have more enemies, but they will come with the next updates.

@Catto

ou design dogshit bosses which is why all your bosses are designed in “giant” sized, and all of them will have a movement that can close half a screen away, and have attacks that can hit another half screen away, which means all bosses can cover whole screen immediately and dodge far away, meanwhile you are made to chase them around again.

Aggressive bosses are more difficult but more fun to fight, I understand that having a moment of respite here and there wouldn’t hurt, but once you get into the rhythm of the game, they become much more fun than more passive bosses.

@Catto

made inconvenient with both speed and stamina.

I also found it difficult to handle stamina when I first played, but maybe my experience with Dark souls 1 helped me in this area. Maybe you didn’t put enough levels in stamina or you didn’t use any method to increase stamina.

@Catto

levelling up to be exciting, but it’s NEVER exciting

I find the system of this game better from this point of view than the Souls, putting three points together in a stat really makes a difference, especially for the first levels.

@Catto

It’s a fake difficulty made by poor design.

I don’t find anything different than other level systems in this area, I would prefer to have the same level from the beginning of the game to the end, and distribute the stats as I want, without false progression, like in Sekiro ng+ (even if in Sekiro unfortunately you can’t distribute the stats). The system is not terrible though, it is preferred by the target audience of this game, we are the exception.

@Catto

Just limit players to drink 1 potion.

You can eat 5-10 foods per encounter, the previous system made you eat food endlessly with a 20 second cooldown between meals, when was the last time you played?

@Catto

You know what happens when a player get a plagued status? They die. Because they cannot cure it

It never happened to me with the previous system or with the current system. Now plague reduces resistances, it does not do damage over time

@Catto

And you know what’s cooler in souls? You don’t have to farm your potions.

The food crafting system in this game is well balanced, but I agree that it’s not perfect (even if it’s much better than Bloodborne), it could be an interesting option to add in the accessibility options (which are coming soon) the possibility of always having at least 5 meals every time you die if you’re at 0.

@Catto

What’s the point of farming 100 different kinds of healing but only limit it to 10?

now each food stacks up to 99, 5-10 per encounter (meaning against a boss you can get 5-10 heals based on whether you have them upgraded or not, while exploring you are limited to your inventory)

@Catto

No one is addicted to souls because of it’s addictive combat, it’s the sheer wonder and mystery and adventure that makes that game charming, not it’s combat.

Souls has always been considered one of the highest standards of combat for 3D RPG games. Souls mode is amazing but a lot of people love these games just for the combat.
(no offence but I’m starting to think you’re just saying random things to troll people)

@Catto

In souls, I can wield magic and cast spells/arts a few times and drink mana potions, in NRFW, I start with mostly 1 time cast per rune attack, before I have to regain it by some other way, or eat up my healing items for some rune refill.

In the next version wands and bows will have ranged attacks that cost stamina

@Catto

Normal weapons are worse, you are stuck with that 1 Rune attack all the way, because there is no other interesting combat Runes that can be slotted to create interesting combos (except fists, but none of them can combo too). So you have the most boring and brain dead idea of getting stuck with 1 special attack once you found a weapon with the decent stats that you want.

One problem in the current system is that the interesting runes and weapons are there but you have to find them via RNG, This problem will be (partially?) fixed in 1.0 (which is the next version, or the version after the multiplayer update) But even in the current system there are some combos that you can do even just with the runes guaranteed by the items sold by the vendors, in any case maybe you are misinterpreting the system, you should see it more like the ashes of war of Elden Ring It’s not strictly designed for combos but you can do them.

@Catto

getting stuck with 1 special attack once you found a weapon

You can change the base rune of a weapon by destroying the rune

@Catto

most basic 1 Rune attacks…. truly moronic.

You can have 4 different runes per weapon and they can have different functions, different costs, different elemental damage. It’s not monstrous, it’s an improvement over souls in my opinion.

@Catto

The previous concept of pure stat based weapons are also moronic as hell, instead of encouraging players to try many weapons and find a good combination, it pigeonholed players to get stuck with 1 build 1 style for the rest of the game.

I agree, this will also be changed and rethought, but I don’t know when.

@Catto

Backstab is absolutely retarded, just remove it altogether. 99% of the time you will never carry out a successful backstab because of turtle speed, and 99% of the time even a sneak backstab will fail. A useless move, a useless stat.

I use backstabs often, even in mid of combat, it’s not simple but it’s not too risky and it’s very strong.

@Catto

With more generous and less critical parries, even magic or light armoured builds have incentive to learn and participate in the parry system rather than weighing the risk of missing a parry and losing tons of health.

Your criticism here is not bad, I like the current series better, but a system where the perries are simpler but give you less advantages is not a bad idea, it could make it so that all players can appreciate the mechanic, but with your approach parries are harder to balance.

@Catto

magic that can be slotted to normal weapons

cool idea

@Catto

Remove useless stat like encumbrance, and put it into Str benefit, same with Focus paired with Int.

I like that Focus and loadout are separated from other stats, but they need to do something to make the damage stats (like: int, dex etc.) more interesting.

@Catto

BUILDS, UPGRADES, ITEMS:
Again, everything is dogshit boring.
As I’ve mentioned before, NRFW entire design is predicated on adding INCONVENIENCE to create artificial difficulty, and it’s the same here.

the mechanic is interesting, once the drops and costs are fixed it will be nice.

@Catto

This is one of the lamest stupidest upgrade i’ve ever seen in any game.

The basic idea of ​​the system is ok but here I talk about how I would change it: Ichor System Balancing Solution

@Catto

Another upgrade actually gave me another slot to carry another weapon??! How Innovative!.. Another stupid dogshit meaningless upgrade,

Having an extra weapon is a very strong and interesting option to heve. It Changes the style of the game in mid combat.

@Catto

ALL upgrades must increase player’s POWER, everything else is stupid.

Unlike souls the load of secondary weapons does not add to the primary one and therefore it is better to carry more weapons and have more options.
It’s one of my favorite features and I like that people are tied to the Ichor system instead of having it from the beginning.

@Catto

You removed exaltation feature, which was pretty exciting, and now there’s nothing else but smithing your gears to next level for the sake of numbers go up.

It’s still in the game, and it’s more interesting than before.

@Catto

… when it comes to builds, its also super boring.

I really like building with gems rather than spells, and I like the builds, but they’re a bit too expensive and time consuming. As for Enchantments, rerolling them is too tedious and they are unbalanced I talked about it here: Enchantments Rework Detailed Suggestion - Google Docs

@Catto

When a player look for a fun build, they are thinking about shooting a single fire ball, and perhaps with some tinkering, not they can shoot 2 fireballs, and after more upgrades, now the 2 fireballs split into 4 smaller fireballs after hitting their first target. That’s is what an interesting build is about.

@Catto

“Projectiles return after you fire them, but it can hurt you too” “You fire additional projectiles, but each projectile does reduced 30% dmg”
When I can get such build combinations, i feel the power up, i feel the effort, i change my playstyle, which spices up gameplay & combat.
Dodges can leave behind thunderstrikes/after-effects , melee attacks can release small aoe waves etc, or even “melee attack now does no damage, but leave behind a 100hp 2m ice wall”, and let players find some interesting 2nd weapon skill that can be used to create crazy usage for that skill.

This can be cool but it has to stay balanced.

@Catto

MECHANICS
When i say mechanics, i mean something like the Breach mechanics that you’ve implemented. Though, to be honest, I haven’t played that far to experience it, but if I’m understanding it correctly from the trailer, the breach can happen organically anywhere when you travel, and this is a good thing.
First and foremost, mechanics should be a very very important part of your gameplay. NRFW world is static, and almost dead, because there is also 0 rpg interactions that you could make or make any difference, so your world has almost 0 randomization, which is important when it comes to making addictive arpg gameplay, and sorry, your dailies system is dogshit, boring, a chore, uncreative.
You want to learn what are great mechanics, look to the best in the market right now, PoE, usually called League Mechanics.
In general, mechanics that can happen organically are good, and these are mechanics like Breach(poe), Delirium, Syndicate and Abyss. These encounters make the map encounters more fresh and interesting.
Some require more preparation but can also be great, like Blight (tower defense system). These are the stuffs that will make every Cerim’s journey different, and encountering 2 or more league mechanics together can make a dull journey into a dangerous and exciting one. Ideally, every mechanic will culminate into a special boss fight that will yield special items or special mods. This will encourage players to chase them to craft special items/runes/power to fuel their theory crafting. People would not engage with league mechanics if it doesn’t have the chance to yield interesting rewards.

Understandable, it seems to me that the devs are already working on the things you said, and the current situation is not “shit”.

@Catto

CRUCIBLE
Now you can pat yourself in the back, but only a little, because when it comes to roguelike, you are not the only bad players in town. Every single arpg in existence that has implemented roguelike mechanics has implemented them wrong/badly, period (yes even poe).
Why bother implementing it if you are going to do half assed work?
Every arpg out there, when they implement roguelike, what they meant was, adding mods to enemies like “enemies does 20% more damage”, and adding mods to players like “players does 20% more damage”, these are the most basic retarded mods that does nothing to enhance the gameplay. A good roguelike always allows the players to create bonkers builds that alter and provide variety to the gameplay itself. Every single good roguelike in the market does that, just look at Hades, Warm Snow, Soulstone etc. What is exciting about Hades? Additional 20% damage? NO. It’s when I get mods that turn my gun into rocket missiles and get another mod that makes it homing. What makes Warm Snow fun? Additional 10% crit chance? NO. It’s when I stack tons of speed, get mods that make my dash damage enemies, and turn into a dashing lightning throughout the maps. These elements are always present in the good roguelikes and never present in arpg roguelike modes.
Yes you have some fun mods like faster speed, but that’s also only because your default gamespeed is already atrocious. What people want is getting mods that allow them to eventually build into crazy attack speed, shooting more than reasonable projectiles, get 3x additional dash and dash like a madman. Don’t worry about your balance first since it is restricted to Crucible mode, concern yourself with making it FUN first. Make people ADDICTED to Crucible mode because they want to know how lucky they can get with the mods. Then you can later add crazy mods to the enemies side too, like “final boss gets a clone”, “final boss continually summon minions every 15 secs” etc. If a roguelike mode makes me fight like normal in every other fight, then that’s a total failure of a roguelike.
Again have the reward giving players special items/mods, so that people have a purpose to chase power there. The previous one has an exaltation mechanic, I don’t know why it was removed, but I hope you can replace it with something else.

There’s a lot of work to be done on the mode. Obviously they put it in just to give something to play between updates, it’s not even close to being finished

@Catto

BOSSES:
Not every boss have to be giant despite what you think of visible animations or not. And not every boss or elite should be able to cross entire screen in a single move. You forgot the benefit of isometric view, is that bosses can have attacks that carry positioning mechanics. Which are attacks that covers the environment in a certain pattern, that require the player to move out of the way. And yes, all the good action isometric roguelikes does this, Hades, Warm Snow, The Breaking Show etc…. And even PoE & PoE 2….., except NRFW, because NRFW is brain stuck in the souls like combat. If you have ever played any arpgs, PoE series hands down has the best bosses bar none. Their bosses have clear mechanics that require players to handle or solve them, not just simple various attacks that are all solved with rolling away (because of turtle speed). If you have fought Maven in PoE, you have to move around rotating beams, and also handle exploding certain projectiles because they can leave permanent ground effects. They never had to make all their bosses giant, because they did the only smart thing ever done in arpgs, they use voices to indicate their special attacks. You can have your movement animations, but you can also use voices to indicate special attack mechanics.
In PoE2, bosses like Jamanrath is pretty excellent, in it’s 1st phase it does your typical souls melee if you are near, and javelin throw if you are far, with a mix of aoe blast and chasing lighting rods. Then in Phase 2, it does space control by having portal that constantly shoot knives to block certain paths, and forces you into ever closer and smaller space and it does its melee slashes there. The mechanics are varied, interesting, and clear.
Meanwhile all your bosses are almost the same, big swing, big jump, big charge. Echo Knight is just made purposefully confusing by having erratic animations and do ridiculous distance closing attacks. So players just end up memorising the attack timing because the animations are so unreadable due to erratic animation, made artificially difficult by having tons of damage in a single attack. The boss isn’t hard, it doesn’t have any interesting mechanics to handle, it’s just boring and annoying. Same with the werebeast. Hades have positioning mechanics, Warm Snow has positioning mechanics, so if you want to make your bosses cool and interesting, you better think of designing them for bosses too.

Prefer Souls style bosses to other RPGs I’ve seen, the bosses are not boring, it’s probably a matter of taste in this case and I’m sorry you don’t like them, I agree that they can use “patterns” for some attacks, I think a lot of bosses have this attack where they create damage area under your feet, I would like it if that attack was replaced by something more interesting.

@Catto

Co-op
Focus less on the coop but polish the combat and gameplay first. Most players are still single players.

the feedback here is clear, everyone wants multiplayer, in any case they are already close to releasing it, they will certainly not stop working on it now.

@Catto

Internet Rants
While it’s good that as a developers you dont make crazy statements, in reality nobody cares. If your game is excellent, people will still buy and play it. Don’t ever get the notion that it was some of your crazy internet statements that stopped people from buying your game, it’s always about your game itself. Cue Factorio, Hogwarts Legacy etc.

You’re simplifying a bit but it’s true, but they should work on communication if you want to follow the discussion about it it’s here: Feedback to Devs Regarding Communication

@Catto

I’m telling you how and why it suck not because I want you to fail, but because I want you to succeed

You know you can say that the game “has serious problems”, “is in a bad state”, “it’s unresonably frustrating” instead of saying it’s “suck”, “dogshit” “bed” etc.?
This way of expressing yourself worsens communication, is not convincing, or provocative, it is irritating and rude. It decreases the probability that important points of criticism will reach the reader between one insult and another.