Feedback after a few days of playing

4

Hello!

First of all let me say that i quite like this game, it's a different type of ARPG but i didn't come here to praise it rather i came to talk about things I didn't like while it can still be addressed. Some things you may already have in mind to change, but i will just write things as i see them. I have only played like 12h or something, so clearly i have a lot left to see but some things seems apparent already for this experienced ARPG head. I did read your recent posts, so i'll avoid some topics.

Where to start.

Gameplay:

  • Pretty much pretty soon(already i feel LOL), i feel like i'm playing as i would be playing in endgame. I like my weapon and the rest i don't really like as much. In short, there isn't a satisfying enough progression of your character in terms of how your abilities develop outside of numbers.


  • Melee vs Ranged. Yes yes, here it goes. But hear me. The problem is that with the way you have set up the game is that i can cheese it with a damn ranged character. I can do areas way higher level than me with ranged which would plain roflstomp me if i went in there with melee.This is a problem because it allows me to jump ahead in campaign mission and inquisitor level which again means i will be gearing at an excellerated pace, because my steps are longer in terms of walking the gearing path so to speak. On my melee skilled character i use one of many different ranged weapons to clear hard maps without challenge to progress faster. Melee seems to work fine for mission around it's level, and therefore the problem won't go away because since the game needs scaling it simply means melee won't be able to go face to face with too much higher content. What can be done? Not sure, but it seems clear that the cheesing is easy and unchallenged. What could be done? Good question, movement speed increased of monsters when they higher power level? Make the monsters resistant to ranged attacks the bigger the difference? Different monsters that are tough for ranged? Slows, disables, invis? Gauntlets that forces ranged in bad positions where they can't cheese? Change the progression system? That one would be complicated. Just throwing random things out, but this weakness in the game won't go away by itself.


  • The loot is lackluster I feel. When i am roaming about this world, i hunt for things for my inquisitor. Loot is one of the core bread and butter things of ARPG's. All i see is the same items with random affix. I know there are more unique items later, but in general everything seems very generic and it's been 12h already and i still haven't seen anything interesting outside of the first time i found the items. More cool affixes, including ones that alter your ability functionality not just number adjustments, more things to hunt for! Things similar to sockets that can be grinded and placed inside your best gear etc? Weapons are now what, just a dmg stat + 4 abilities. What about weapons also being able to have more than 4 abilities to choose from and the resulting abilties of found weapons of one type isn't always the exact same 4?


  • Cant see inventory in combat area. I know I know, you want it action focused, you don't want me to bother considering what loot to pick up, what to leave behind etc etc and now you can just haz all and you deal with it at the end plus you can't exchange active gear etc. In my opinion you could keep all that, but still allow me just to see and inspect the items i have picked up during my run while in that same run. I find something nice i want to see it right away! This is one of the things we really like about loot hunting, "ohh shiny!". You force me to just forget about it. I want to see it dammit.


  • Lack of secret areas. I really feel like the random generation needs more layers added, the major most thing is of course secret areas with good stuff in it. Things feel so barren and like repeating the same over and over and already knowing whats in it before i started and that's after just 12h!


  • Lack of different loot containers. I am starting to get honestly quite bored with seeing "chest" for 12h and i think 3 of them dropped anything more than the basic credit + mats. Honestly i think these are the most boring chests i have ever seen in an ARPG. Give me more interesting containers with different chances to drop this and that, that will help me build expectation when i see them. Get me excited at a chance for something. Different rarity.


UI/Controls:

  • The Camera. Oh man I have beef with the camera. I have seen now multiple games try this type of camera with the way you control it where you rotate it using the middle mouse key and you can't change the binding or be forced to use rotate left/right keys. I honestly think all the tries have failed to create a fluid system. The only time i recall it working out near-perfectly was in dungeon siege 2 and maybe 1. There it was controlled using right click and dragging. Additionally, you allow only rotation around 1 axis, lets say horizontal, but in dungeon siege 2 you had a small angle you could also rotate it vertically! Just not much, but enough that it mattered a whole lot. To further enhance my point i would tell you that wow used also right click dragging for maximum player control, speed and accuracy because it is the only real fluid way to do it. The difference between that and DS2 was just that it allowed full vertical rotation also. But the wow devs knew what they were doing back then. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. At the bare minimum let me bind the rotation lock key. And let me bind it to damn right click, i will remap the right ability to something fitting instead as i will with all abilities for maximum player control. A lot of people including myself cannot reliably use the middle mouse key because on many popular mice it is the actual mouse wheel which zooms and whatnot in addition to being totally impractical since a whole lot of people only place 2 and not 3 fingers on top of the mouse.  Shit it would even be better if i could rotate pressing both mouse keys same time but still an inferior solution.


  • The map overlay is lackluster. Your character isn't centered on it(so the center of the screen is where the dot with your character is) which means you forego that increased focus it brings. It is more confusing now. rather than you always know exactly where to find your current position. I would also really appreciate an option where instead of toggle map it would be hold to show.


That's it for now, all i can think of at this time. Minor things and bugs there will be legion to report.


This post was edited 6 years 177 days ago by Crackmonster
Store Page
Share
4 comments
Feedback after a few days of playing
Your Thoughts? Please login to place your opinion. Not a member yet? Register here and now!
6 years 176 days ago
+2

While i do not completely disagree with any of your points. I did want to touch on one of them. Your first one on Ranged VS. Melee and you saying you can cheese it. I have to disagree there because unless your character is geared in all relic items and you have some really good movement speed. The first time you crack a round off at a pack that is +100 to your gear rating and you barely scratch one then your running for your life and get stomped in 2 seconds. I believe your concept of cheese will go out the window. The game gets a LOT harder. That has been my experience with almost 130 hours. =) Very nice write up.

6 years 176 days ago
+1
Posted by Contavius 6 years 176 days ago

While i do not completely disagree with any of your points. I did want to touch on one of them. Your first one on Ranged VS. Melee and you saying you can cheese it. I have to disagree there because unless your character is geared in all relic items and you have some really good movement speed. The first time you crack a round off at a pack that is +100 to your gear rating and you barely scratch one then your running for your life and get stomped in 2 seconds. I believe your concept of cheese will go out the window. The game gets a LOT harder. That has been my experience with almost 130 hours. =) Very nice write up.

Neocore have gone to great lengths to make it so that this game is as hard or as close to easy as you want to make it. If you do the easier content yes it will be easy. ATM the power sword Melee is the OP speed clear build.


6 years 176 days ago
Posted by Contavius 6 years 176 days ago

While i do not completely disagree with any of your points. I did want to touch on one of them. Your first one on Ranged VS. Melee and you saying you can cheese it. I have to disagree there because unless your character is geared in all relic items and you have some really good movement speed. The first time you crack a round off at a pack that is +100 to your gear rating and you barely scratch one then your running for your life and get stomped in 2 seconds. I believe your concept of cheese will go out the window. The game gets a LOT harder. That has been my experience with almost 130 hours. =) Very nice write up.

I do see what i mean, but the point still stands.


I cannot "cheese" infinitely higher rating, but i can certainly due to ranged and the things i mentioned, clear higher +rating than melee leaning to the exact mentioned issues where ranged can do higher +rating meaning that they can upgrade their inquisitor levels fasters and thereby get better gear faster, and so can gear up faster.

It became quite clear to me when i had to switch to ranged weapon on my melee char so i could clear higher campaign missions with ease that were practically death zone just power-swording in on any decent pack when i stuck to strictly melee(without using the armour time field thing). That allowed me access to higher inquisitor level which means i could gear up faster.

Maybe if i am solo and play rush meta, just with power-sword completing missions as fast as possible skipping as much as possible, then i would be able to gear better. Maybe. But then we want the meta to be balanced around skipping content? Because else it will be faster to just run in a group anyway in which case power sword's advantage matters less.

This comment was edited 6 years 176 days ago by Crackmonster
6 years 177 days ago
Thank you for this nice feedback! Added this to our feedback notes.