Hello,

First of all, I have posted same thing on steam forums, so I am sorry if this  counts as double posting.

I would like to share some of my first impression with the game. I have played this game for about 10h, Where I have reached level 10. So anything me mentioning here, is simply based on my experience with game so far and are only my opinions. 

 Overall, I do enjoy the game, I like Warhammer setting and I do appreciate that it is fully online and does include some of the basic online features (Saving characters online, “guilds”, friend list, matchmaking etc.). If I would have to rate the game right now, I would give it 7.5 out of 10. Reasons for that are as follows.

Issues:

·         I personally do not mind small bugs, as long as they do not crash the game or does not cause me to lose my progress or earned items I do not have problem to wait for fixes as long as developers are working on them. However I have to say that I that I had couple crashes during those 10h and I also experienced very strange issues with performance where I was dropping down to 30FPS, which for my machine (Intel i7 @ 4,6ghz, 1080Ti GTX, 16GB Ram), is less then I would expect (60fps min at all times).  Things got slightly better with last two patches (0.8.2) But I hope it will be improved more. IF those two issues would be improved I would go for solid 8 out of 10.

·         Cover mechanics acts strange, I have played only ranged class mostly with sniper rifles but I had a lot of struggle and I feel like it does affect otherwise smooth gameplay. First of all it feels clunky to move into cover and out, simply because it is too slow in my opinion, and I mean animation for shooting from cover is very slow. Also very often I have enemies in range, but my character simply does not shoot because enemy is not at right angle (I assume it happens when enemy is slightly more on the left when I peak from right side). At that moment I click attack but nothing is happening. There is no visual or sound clue to it which makes it confusing, and waste my time and feel very clunky.

·         I do not like the way aimed shots are handled. As far as I understand, there was an option in alpha to aim at parts of the body with actual effects. But as it is now, I find it pointless, unless I am missing something. Not only that wheel with options cover my vision but I do not understand why it gives me options in a first place if they do not cause any secondary effects (slow down, knockback etc). I have never used wrong option and only thing I am looking at is damage multiplier. If there is not anything else to it, other than damage boost. I would simply prefer to hold down I am button with small bar above my character filling up from minimum to maximum. Also I feel like Aim shot is too strong and It would be nice to have some setback if you getting hit from enemies.

·         I have died many times simply because I was not aware I am on low health, there is no sound effect or screen effect related to having low HP. In other games you might get, hearth beating sound, red effect around the edges of the screen or colours slowly fading out. But here I have not noticed anything like it, so I need to keep looking left bottom all the time.

·         I really like using WASD in this game for moving my character. So I have disables mouse movement in the menu. However there is one problem with it, for some reason game does highlight destructible environments. Which is something I do not like or need, but did not find way to disable it. There is another problem with it, that the only way to open crates is using key (F) in default binding. However very often there are destructible items just next to the crates and game for some reason always decide to break them first rather than open the crate. I would love to be able disable breaking environment with F key and disable highlight as well. If I want to destroy it I will shoot at it.

·         Most of the options in tactical view do not bring enough difference in having them on or off. For Example strength of highlights between two is minimal. But ring under my character is either to obvious or not enough. I would like to see something highlighting all the cover as well.

Concerns:                         

·         I do like combat, its pace, I do appreciate that it is different and more tactical then normal ARPG’s however my biggest concern is active skill variety (weapons). So far I do not mind  having only 4 active skills from weapon at given moment however,. what worries me most is that I have not seen any unique weapons (Highest Rarity I saw is Purple). And I was really hopping I will see some weapons with unique skills or I was hoping to see crafting mechanics allowing me modify weapons to change or improve skills related to weapons. So far there is simply not enough active abilities and there is not enough difference between them.

·         I really like enemies, and differences between small (Swarming) enemies and big ones with a lot of health but slow and heavy hitting. My concern with this is, that I feel that most of the difficulty is coming from stats scaling (Amount of HP, or damage). Which is very arbitrary. I would love to see if you could make game more skill based, so enemies use more special moves, which you can avoid using movement, or interrupting with certain skill, forcing you to focus on some target first etc… I know there are some now, however I feel that enemies using them are too slow. I can see someone is going to charge me, but it takes him bloody 5 second to do it, in the meantime I can charge my aim shot to maximum and kill it with one shot. Same goes for many similar skills used by enemies, they are simply too slow in my opinion and too easy to avoid.

·         I do not know much about end game, but I feel like there is a lot to grind… level, skill trees, perks, missions etc. However I do not want to be achieving only stat boosts. I would love to see more variety in being able to use more active skills, or having access to some   Unique skills etc. Or being able to craft modify weapon in a unique way (Changing how actual skills work).

·         Voice over for certain actions in game are good. But I feel like they are very repetitive. For a lot of things there is only one voice over at the moment which plays every time (Demon from a crate for example). It really irritates me that there is not at least 3 or 4 of them. Or are not replaced by some sounds instead.

Neutral:

·         I find sounds and music to be pretty average. They are not bad, and if they will not change I will not mind too much but. However I think better sound effects could improve combat feeling a lot. Things simply do not sound exciting enough. Same for looting items, I thing better rarity looted should give more exciting sound.

·         I do not like some of the effects like Fire, splashes, blood etc… For some reason game is very smooth with moving or shooting animations, however effect animations seem like they are running at very low FPS and appear to by choppy for some reason. It was same in Van Hellsing Game.

Surprises:                          

·         I thought I will miss big open world, but I really like mission structure, especially in multiplayer, where you cannot change your loot or set up. It makes game to flow much better during the mission without unnecessary slowdowns or worrying about inventory management. Which is great.

·         I like limited amount of skills, and other things like “health potions” or “utility”  during the missions as it does force you to play more carefully I just hope it will be balanced in the late game to give proper challenge.

·         I think story is very good and interesting and I can’ t wait to see how it will unfold in the future.

·         I really like different death animations and effects, plus how enemies reacts to the attacks. It gives very good feeling from a combat.

·         I really like different traps and unique things happening on the map, they are great and hope to see more in the future.

·         I like differences between swarming, normal and large enemies.

 Overall I really like the game and I hope it will be successful sale wise and you will keep working on it in the future. I hope you will focus on bringing more unique things into game. In missions, skills, enemies skills etc. And I hope whole difficulty will not simply be based on how much damage I do or receive from enemies, but there will be more skill involved from dodging, interrupting, prioritising and correct set up. Other than that, it is great game but I cannot obviously comment on its longevity, however what I saw makes me want to play more.

Keep up good work and thank you for the game.