New player. I am 20 hours in. I play and 100% complete Souls games. I also enjoy survival games where you gather stuff, upgrade (or build) towns, and have player housing. I do not play games like Diablo, PoE etc.
There are a lot of things I have come across in just that first 20 hours that make me question where this game is headed, in terms of balance and gamedesign.
- Why can you use stored resources from anywhere?
For example, if you have 100s of herbs for food stashed away in a community chest or a personal chest in your house, these resources are available from anywhere. Even sitting down at campfires out in the wild to craft food items. Why? This completely kills one of the experiences the survival/adventuring games have, where you need to make sure you’re leaving the safe hub (in this case, Sacrament) with what you need, and coming back with… whatever you have left or have foraged during that outing. You would have to make-do with whatever you have on-hand at the moment, which incentivizes smart inventory management and being prepared. It also doesn’t make in-game sense that you’re magically pulling these resources out of your bum.
If the issue is that the player doesn’t have enough inventory slots or too little storage space at the start of the game, then address that in a more direct way, not by giving everyone the magic power to teleport ingredients across the continent. I see from the latest patch notes that stack sizes have been greatly increased. With this change, maybe the early game inventory management would be fine now and this could be removed. If it’s still not enough, then add more storage space to the community chests and the early game will be perfectly fine.
In my experience, it removed some depth the game might have had. It made the game easier/more convenient in a way I didn’t like. It also, funnily enough, made me feel like housing was less valuable. I thought one of the big reasons to get a house was that the crafting tables inside a house would pull items from storage placed in that house, and thus give it an advantage over the shops outside. Nope, the shops outside behave in that same way…
If this situation is the result of player feedback, or player data, then please go back to the original design.
- Speaking of housing, why can I purchase a house the moment I step into Sacrament? And why is it so CHEAP? And why am I told at the end of a questline that I can now make Sacrament my home, when it… already is?
Again, if the issue is that the player doesn’t have enough inventory slots or too little storage space at the start of the game, then address that in a more direct way. Give more community chests to the Rookery, or give more slots to community chests.
In my experience, it devalues housing. You don’t earn it. You can just spend a few silver coins the moment you step into the city and bam. You’re a homeowner. This is extremely underwhelming. It devalues the Rookery, too. Because I was allowed to buy a house very early, I barely had any use for it. I had almost nothing to move from the community chests to the house. The houses are also WAY too cheap. Getting a house should feel like an important moment. Right now, it’s the furthest thing from that. The moment you step into Sacrament, you could even say the game is essentially telling you: “Please buy a house, look how cheap this is”.
If this situation is the result of player feedback, or player data, then please go back to the original design.
- Why are the town upgrades so cheap?
I have been playing for 20 hours and soon all of my merchants will be tier 3. There is very little in the way of feeling like there is any kind of town progression. Yesterday when I started playing, the merchants’ area looked like slums. Today, it’s a proper trade district with many huge, good-looking buildings.
Again, just… why? I feel like I have earned nothing. It’s as if the upgrades are just handed to me. There’s no feeling of steady, meaningful progression.
- Why is the Crucible introduced so early?
Especially when new players will never beat the boss until much, much later. Early on, it’s straight-up just a waste of time and resources (food, other consumables).
If it’s because that’s how you unlock respec… just change the way we unlock respec? In fact, why isn’t Respec handled in the Rookery? You know, where all the other character-related upgrades are handled? Why isn’t the Watcher the one making you Respec? Would give some more use to the Rookery, and make an NPC more useful. Instead of just… some statue somewhere which is really out of your way at any time you’re not actively grinding the crucible? Again, very odd gamedesign decisions…
- Why can I walk up to a tomato plant and get ONE tomato, but cast a line and lure in THREE items in one fishing attempt (2 fishes and an eel) ??
If there is no intent from the devteam to change any of these for all players, then PLEASE make it so we can change it ourselves. Please give us EXTENSIVE Realm Settings/a Realm Editor we can use to customize, change or even outright enable/disable most of the game’s features/rules (hardcore, pulling items from storage from ANYWHERE, house prices, town upgrade prices AND timers, etc).