Hello there,
I have just cleared the thieves den and wanted to post about the journey up to this point.
1. Character creation
Races / Classes: Four races x 3 different classes = 12 different combinations. If all of these 12 combinations are really unique then its fine. If they are all similar I would suggest either adding a further race or changing the classes to be more distinct from each other.
I chose a dwarf defender, 2 human mages and an elf ranger (played as a rogue) on warrior difficulty.
Customize: 4 Avatars and two voices. You are joking right? The first thing I did was look into the game folder in hopes of finding a folder for custom avatars but found nothing. Please give us either more customization options or a modding option. As for the voices: Accented english? Really? Give us some normal voices please. If not I will try to play the game in german and hope its better there.
Skills: 25 skills seems a bit low (M&M7 had 35). Please add a few if possible. Otherwise also allow us to allocate more than one point to a skill. I had to put some of the humans 8 points into skills I do not even want to use making them useless.
Attributes: Seems fine though you should add a level-up info button where you tell the players what they get on level up.
2. Sorpigal
I first explored the town, talked to everyone, got all quests and bought myself a spell from my initial gold.
I also wanted to buy a second dagger for my melee ranger but the smith did not have one in his shop. What did I do? I restarted the game again and again until he had one. Not nice. Please give the merchants more items and let them restock once every day. If the amount of different items in the game is so low that merchants nearly have nothing to sell then you should consider adding more stuff to the game.
Also the movement is very blocky. Please make moving around more fluid. If I keep on holding the forward button I shold be moving farster and without a stopping pause.
Next point: The time seems to go by too fast per step. This creates a hectic atmosphere. I am always thinking I am out of time and have to move efficiently. Oh I forgot to repair stuff? Walk through half the town to a shop and back = half a day gone.
Last Point: On the map please add markers with the name of the shops or quest givers I found.
3. Spiders lair
Its a fun dungeon. I like. If I had a wish: Please add more secret areas and give the first secret area away for free (tutorial reasons). You want a player to constantly search for secret stuff. Its what keeps players in dungeons.
4. Outside Sorpigal
I cleared the whole area between the thieves den, the castle to the north and the mermaids den (forgot the name) at the sea.
Overall the difficulty is fine. I had to reload a few times because of bad pulls. What made most fights easy was the spell 'Entangle'. With two mages and a ranger I could cast the spell 7 times with level 1 chars. Single enemies could not touch me. The cyclops died without doing a single point of damage. I am not sure if that is intentional.
Also I would like to see the amount of supplies increased to 10. With 6 I am bound to reach a dungeon with only 2-3 left. I then have to run back aaaall they way to town to get that back up to 6 (and it seems like a week went by on the journey).
Oh yes: Decrease the chance of weapons to break by 75%!!! Its already hard to find multiples of daggers / shields. The break rate is just too high. Maybe give me the skill 'Repair item' so I can repair the stuff by myself (while consuming some resources)?
5. Thieves Den
Also quite okay but you need to add a few more puzzles and secrets. Difficulty was no problem (thanks to entangle). Final boss did 0 damage to me. There is one huge bug though: I could not leave the dungeon after progressing through most of the dungeon. No savegame in any part of the dungeon worked. I had to reload a savegame from outside the dungeon and have yet to recomplete the den. I suppose I will wait for the next patch.
Further Notes
You really have to rethink the idea that every char can get hit in melee. Sure a defender can taunt for a few rounds but I do not want to rest after every fight. This forces me to make my mages tanky as well. Whats wrong with using a 2x2 group placement? Melee enemies can only attack those 2 characters that are facing them. Of course this also means that chars in the 'back' cannot attack in melee as well. Taka a look at Legends of Grimrock if you want to see what I mean.
The game still feels empty but I guess thats beta for you. Most areas and towns feel static. There is nothing going on, day/night has no influence and there is no weather. Visited areas get boring fast. Do this: CLOSE shops at night. Let enemies (rogues) wander through Sorpigal at night. Make it very dangerous to be outside of town at night. Put wandering merchants into town and outside. Add mini games to towns. Allow me to buy my own house and interact with the population in different ways. Maybe perform in the local mayors election? This is an RPG. Give me stuff outside of the main quest line to do!
I am also missing some depth regarding the character progression system and the game in general. I understood the system easily and after a few levels my skill routes were set. This is not good. I should have to make important decisions all along the way to the end of the game. Please, PLEASE, do not make a shallow skill system in a game targeted at oldschool RPGers. As it is right now the skill system holds no mystery for me. There is nothing to calculate, nothing to optimize. There is also no elaborate crafting system (another possibility for more skills).
Thank you for reading.
I have just cleared the thieves den and wanted to post about the journey up to this point.
1. Character creation
Races / Classes: Four races x 3 different classes = 12 different combinations. If all of these 12 combinations are really unique then its fine. If they are all similar I would suggest either adding a further race or changing the classes to be more distinct from each other.
I chose a dwarf defender, 2 human mages and an elf ranger (played as a rogue) on warrior difficulty.
Customize: 4 Avatars and two voices. You are joking right? The first thing I did was look into the game folder in hopes of finding a folder for custom avatars but found nothing. Please give us either more customization options or a modding option. As for the voices: Accented english? Really? Give us some normal voices please. If not I will try to play the game in german and hope its better there.
Skills: 25 skills seems a bit low (M&M7 had 35). Please add a few if possible. Otherwise also allow us to allocate more than one point to a skill. I had to put some of the humans 8 points into skills I do not even want to use making them useless.
Attributes: Seems fine though you should add a level-up info button where you tell the players what they get on level up.
2. Sorpigal
I first explored the town, talked to everyone, got all quests and bought myself a spell from my initial gold.
I also wanted to buy a second dagger for my melee ranger but the smith did not have one in his shop. What did I do? I restarted the game again and again until he had one. Not nice. Please give the merchants more items and let them restock once every day. If the amount of different items in the game is so low that merchants nearly have nothing to sell then you should consider adding more stuff to the game.
Also the movement is very blocky. Please make moving around more fluid. If I keep on holding the forward button I shold be moving farster and without a stopping pause.
Next point: The time seems to go by too fast per step. This creates a hectic atmosphere. I am always thinking I am out of time and have to move efficiently. Oh I forgot to repair stuff? Walk through half the town to a shop and back = half a day gone.
Last Point: On the map please add markers with the name of the shops or quest givers I found.
3. Spiders lair
Its a fun dungeon. I like. If I had a wish: Please add more secret areas and give the first secret area away for free (tutorial reasons). You want a player to constantly search for secret stuff. Its what keeps players in dungeons.
4. Outside Sorpigal
I cleared the whole area between the thieves den, the castle to the north and the mermaids den (forgot the name) at the sea.
Overall the difficulty is fine. I had to reload a few times because of bad pulls. What made most fights easy was the spell 'Entangle'. With two mages and a ranger I could cast the spell 7 times with level 1 chars. Single enemies could not touch me. The cyclops died without doing a single point of damage. I am not sure if that is intentional.
Also I would like to see the amount of supplies increased to 10. With 6 I am bound to reach a dungeon with only 2-3 left. I then have to run back aaaall they way to town to get that back up to 6 (and it seems like a week went by on the journey).
Oh yes: Decrease the chance of weapons to break by 75%!!! Its already hard to find multiples of daggers / shields. The break rate is just too high. Maybe give me the skill 'Repair item' so I can repair the stuff by myself (while consuming some resources)?
5. Thieves Den
Also quite okay but you need to add a few more puzzles and secrets. Difficulty was no problem (thanks to entangle). Final boss did 0 damage to me. There is one huge bug though: I could not leave the dungeon after progressing through most of the dungeon. No savegame in any part of the dungeon worked. I had to reload a savegame from outside the dungeon and have yet to recomplete the den. I suppose I will wait for the next patch.
Further Notes
You really have to rethink the idea that every char can get hit in melee. Sure a defender can taunt for a few rounds but I do not want to rest after every fight. This forces me to make my mages tanky as well. Whats wrong with using a 2x2 group placement? Melee enemies can only attack those 2 characters that are facing them. Of course this also means that chars in the 'back' cannot attack in melee as well. Taka a look at Legends of Grimrock if you want to see what I mean.
The game still feels empty but I guess thats beta for you. Most areas and towns feel static. There is nothing going on, day/night has no influence and there is no weather. Visited areas get boring fast. Do this: CLOSE shops at night. Let enemies (rogues) wander through Sorpigal at night. Make it very dangerous to be outside of town at night. Put wandering merchants into town and outside. Add mini games to towns. Allow me to buy my own house and interact with the population in different ways. Maybe perform in the local mayors election? This is an RPG. Give me stuff outside of the main quest line to do!
I am also missing some depth regarding the character progression system and the game in general. I understood the system easily and after a few levels my skill routes were set. This is not good. I should have to make important decisions all along the way to the end of the game. Please, PLEASE, do not make a shallow skill system in a game targeted at oldschool RPGers. As it is right now the skill system holds no mystery for me. There is nothing to calculate, nothing to optimize. There is also no elaborate crafting system (another possibility for more skills).
Thank you for reading.