Does a game have to be hard to be fun? No!
Does a game have to be challenging to be fun? Sometimes….
For all I know, a game can’t be tedious.
I am the kind of gamer that thinks Dark Souls 1 was a better experience than Elden Ring. The “git gud” meme warped the franchise beyond recognition. What made Dark Souls 1 so good? The interconnected world/level design and atmosphere. Calling Dark Souls a hard game is kind of silly since it’s an RPG where you can just keep leveling until you beat a boss/area. The game does reward patience!
-Realms
The idea of starting different realms doesn’t make much sense to me, why would I redo most of the areas again just to get some materials or boss drops? Realms would only work if I could visit another player’s world and harvest/mine the special materials that only drop in that player’s realm.
-Whispers
Being able to teleport to every whisper from the start of the game would be a bad idea, but there should be an alternative. Let’s say after beating an area, you should be able to build an outpost (only 1 in the center of the area) on top of a whisper or fire pit.
-The Map
Big fan of the level design and shortcuts, but the map was very hard to read for me, at least in “Nameless Pass”.
-Inventory Slots
Inventory slots should be expandable at one of the vendors with materials and not after beating a boss and spending ichor.
-Mining/Woodcutting
At the start of the game, gathering materials sucks, if I have to hit a tree four times, I am expecting to get at least 4 materials, same with digging and mining. This is one of those moments where I found the game to be a little tedious. Also, material drops should stay on top of the vein/nodes and not roll off a cliff, e.g..
I only fished 3 times in the game, take that as you will.
Why not make gems drop from mining or digging?
-Attributes
There are too many attributes, why not combine them? Remove requirements for weapons.
Give one attribute multiple values:
STR for example, STR gives you physical damage and carry load,
DEX: ranged damage, move speed/attack speed, roll speed, etc.
INT: focus/magic damage
-Boss Drops
This might be a controversial take, but I think unique boss gear should always drop on kill, this isn’t a MMO, and there shouldn’t be a reason to grind bosses.
-Resetting stats
This is an early access build of the game, why isn’t resetting stats free and easy? Why punish the player for playing the game for the first time? Never make players look up a guide that early into a game.
to be continued…