Unexplored 2 Feedback

[Jackielicious]

Thank you for playing Unexplored 2: The Wayfarer’s Journey!
Please leave any feedback for the game here.
All bug feedback can be left in the bug forum post, please.

Enjoy embarking on your own unique roguelike journey with the wonderful storytelling from team Ludomotion!

Jackie | Big Sugar

[IamBaum]

Howdy,
i'm really enjoying the game.
Moving across the map, visiting locations like ruins etc. is alot of fun and most locations feel really rewarding.

My only downside right now is the lack of explanation for alot of mechanics like Pickpoketing, crafting, "Revive" through item effects, arrows flying floppy without doing dmg etc.
Also the lack of skill explanations like "Riposte".
However it makes alot of fun for now, looking forward to spend quite some time into it moving forward.
Edit:
I Misunderstood the Legacy effect, no wonder the "revive" didn't work. :)

[FlyinJ]

It would be really nice to have the player stash in the main village map of Haven.

I'm constantly needing to run all the way to the vault, wait for a load, use the stash, leave the vault and wait for another load.

[VexTary]

I feel like the whole idea of "combat gives you no rewards, and should be avoided." is terrible. The player challenging themselves to high risk and high reward situation is always great in games like this. The way it is, you only encourage people to play the game like it's a Survival Horror, but unlike on Survival Horror games, this kind of gameplay doesn't go too well here.

Just leaving my few cents from what I could see from the game, watching a friend play.

[Vivisector 9999]

Originally posted by Vexxar Sayeha Al'Hara:

I feel like the whole idea of "combat gives you no rewards, and should be avoided." is terrible. The player challenging themselves to high risk and high reward situation is always great in games like this. The way it is, you only encourage people to play the game like it's a Survival Horror, but unlike on Survival Horror games, this kind of gameplay doesn't go too well here.

Just leaving my few cents from what I could see from the game, watching a friend play.

In practice, I feel like this actually works pretty well. It's not like there's NO reward for ever fighting. There are plenty of places where you get a daring deed point and/or treasure for clearing a map (even if most of the individual enemies give you nothing)... but you rarely get anything for random enemies you encounter on the way.

As much as this game mimics Lord Of The Rings everywhere else, this is as it should be. Aragorn and crew didn't spend hours grinding in the wilderness until he unlocked the Summon Undead Army spell. He had to go to a specific place with the right item and finish a deed to do that.

[jd]

Originally posted by Vivisector 9999:

Originally posted by Vexxar Sayeha Al'Hara:

I feel like the whole idea of "combat gives you no rewards, and should be avoided." is terrible. The player challenging themselves to high risk and high reward situation is always great in games like this. The way it is, you only encourage people to play the game like it's a Survival Horror, but unlike on Survival Horror games, this kind of gameplay doesn't go too well here.

Just leaving my few cents from what I could see from the game, watching a friend play.

In practice, I feel like this actually works pretty well. It's not like there's NO reward for ever fighting. There are plenty of places where you get a daring deed point and/or treasure for clearing a map (even if most of the individual enemies give you nothing)... but you rarely get anything for random enemies you encounter on the way.

As much as this game mimics Lord Of The Rings everywhere else, this is as it should be. Aragorn and crew didn't spend hours grinding in the wilderness until he unlocked the Summon Undead Army spell. He had to go to a specific place with the right item and finish a deed to do that.

This sums it up nicely. At one point during development we had enemies drop minor items and equipment, but the result was that most players, ourselves included, felt inclined to murder about everybody the came across. That wasn't what we were aiming for. So we moved the rewards away from the enemies and placed them in the levels. So there is still opportunities to find things, and although combat doesn't yield immediate rewards, defeating enemies can make it safer to explore levels to uncover treasures there.

In addition, it would also put more stress on the inventory management if you could pick up all the gear from every defeated enemy. We made a very conscious choice to limit the inventory so that choosing the right gear becomes an important aspect of preparing for long journeys. I understand that this feels limiting, and being forced to leave something behind when you do find something good doesn't sit well with everybody. However, without such limits the whole journeying aspect of the game kinda falls flat?

[ThatGuyKhi]

Since that type of combat loop isnt in the cards.

I think the next content updates could focus on the exploration and discovery aspects.
Some nodes can feel awfully barren and "dead end" while pretty to look at.

More modifiers, loot, treasures, dangers, sacrifices, etc.

[VexTary]

Originally posted by ThatGuyKhi:

Since that type of combat loop isnt in the cards.

I think the next content updates could focus on the exploration and discovery aspects.
Some nodes can feel awfully barren and "dead end" while pretty to look at.

More modifiers, loot, treasures, dangers, sacrifices, etc.

Yeah, this is the critical point. I admit I haven't played it myself, but I was watching my friend play, and there were a number of locations where it felt like there wasn't a whole lot going on, so that makes the exploration aspect less interesting. There's a negative review that captured a good bit of my concerns about the game. (which is why I haven't purchased it yet)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to trash on the game or anything. I just wanted to post my opinions and also see if I'm proven wrong as well.

[jd]

Originally posted by ThatGuyKhi:

Since that type of combat loop isnt in the cards.

I think the next content updates could focus on the exploration and discovery aspects.
Some nodes can feel awfully barren and "dead end" while pretty to look at.

More modifiers, loot, treasures, dangers, sacrifices, etc.

I agree, and I am pretty sure we'll do just that. It might also be good to point out that under the hood we make a distinction between 'destinations' and 'adventure sites'. The former are not very interesting while the latter are the bigger site where the meatier encounters are to be had. Not all nodes on the map are adventure sites. And you can easily pass on the ones that aren't. You don't have to go into every node. While traveling it is often best to stop only when you need to camp, or have a good indication something interesting is going on at your current location.

[jd]

Originally posted by Vexxar Sayeha Al'Hara:

Originally posted by ThatGuyKhi:

Since that type of combat loop isnt in the cards.

I think the next content updates could focus on the exploration and discovery aspects.
Some nodes can feel awfully barren and "dead end" while pretty to look at.

More modifiers, loot, treasures, dangers, sacrifices, etc.

Yeah, this is the critical point. I admit I haven't played it myself, but I was watching my friend play, and there were a number of locations where it felt like there wasn't a whole lot going on, so that makes the exploration aspect less interesting. There's a negative review that captured a good bit of my concerns about the game. (which is why I haven't purchased it yet)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not here to trash on the game or anything. I just wanted to post my opinions and also see if I'm proven wrong as well.

Don't worry about it! We always appreciate honest and fair feedback from others. Sharing your thoughts is invaluable to us. We might not always act on it immediately, and sometime we might need to conclude that game cannot be everything for anyone. But still we might miss on opportunities if we didn't keep our ears wide open.

[GreatSphynx]

Enjoying the game so far, just a few things in terms of feedback.

1) There are a lot of instances where terrain can obscure things you're doing or fighting, not sure if adding a sort of transparent shader when you go behind objects is in the cards but those can be a little annoying.

2) I think there needs to be a little more flexibility or customization with the camera. The cinematic camera by default is interesting because it follows the direction you are facing, which feels like a design for playing with controller. When playing with mouse and keyboard I kinda expect the camera to focus on where I'm pointing, not where I'm moving. Could just be another camera option unless it's going to mess something up too. Also the zoom levels are a little bit weird. There is no real close up zoom to appreciate your character or the world close up, the overhead camera angle doesn't feel like it has much use although it sorta reminds me of the first game it also limits the view too much to be that helpful except for trying to walk around close traps. I'm guessing rotation of the camera is not in the cards because of how the assets are made, but that would be cool to see too along with more zoom levels or zoom control.

3) The music in the game is cool so far, I hope there are more tracks or even just ambient tracks in the finished game.

4) I'm not sure if this is a bug or not, and this maybe isn't the best place to post but I created a 2nd map after doing a couple runs on characters on my first map. I got to a lightning tower and flipped the switch and got blasted while I had low HP and died. I went to the death screen and after clicking through it just took me back to the main menu and that world I had started for that new character was completely deleted (my old one was still there). Idk if I missed something in the tutorial mentioning it but are there things that can cause permadeath that completely delete the world? I can provide a video clip too if needed but it was strange and a little frustrating.

Quick Edit:
5) Inventory UI for items hides all their modifiers after the name once there are like more than 1 basically because the name is too long so you have to look through the detailed description to see all the stats / modifiers. Idk what the point of putting them on the name of the object is if you can't see them all at a glance.

Other than that the game is pretty cool so far. The biggest part of it that feels early access still is NPC dialog and behavior (a lot of repeated or sorta blank lines, pathing on a lot of NPCs and enemies is sorta janky right now). The only other complaints I have mechanic wise are having some sort of method of determining if an NPC or creature will become hostile to you when you are nearby would be nice. Everything highlights with a yellow ring whether it is friendly or not when they aren't focused on you. Sometimes things seem friendly and then you walk up to them and they instantly attack, idk if there is a better way to indicate that or if it would go against the game design. Additionally inventory restrictions feel a little extreme, although I'm assuming there are ways you can expand your bulk inventory later that I just haven't found.

another edit after seeing previous comment about the inventory: I'm cool with the restricted inventory, it's just that with the way trading works and knowledge works with loremaster items I've found myself having to get rid of survival equipment just so i can carry a book or a staff to a clan village for a handful of knowledge points. I like the system but there are some downsides too, also things like a pickaxe taking up a lot of room but being required for digging up hidden things. I made the mistake of putting my pickaxe on the ground to make room and then I left that room and found spots where I needed to dig and then I came back and the pickaxe was gone (I guess chests are persistent but the floor isnt). So I like the system and I like that it forces you to make tough choices, but its maybe balanced a little on the too hard side (personal opinion). It's just weird that some books are small items and some aren't some items that seem like they would only be 1 slot take up 2 or 3, etc. If there are inventory expansions later and I just haven't found them then this is kinda a pointless critique sorry lol

sorry, one last edit: I think the tutorial or prologue could explain some of the world map mechanics a little better. I still don't fully understand what the point of befriending clans is and how the territory changes between clans and bandits and other factions actually impact the game or if they do in an important way besides just what you run into when you visit those areas. Also possibly for the first main story quest temple you have to go to having a little bit more tutorialized navigation to get there. Even though you can see where it is on the map sometimes the initial path to get there can be convoluted depending on generation. It might be good to highlight the path to the first main story temple and then explain after that part "you won't be shown the path for future quest locations go out and explore, type thing". I didn't have much of a problem but I've seen some other people play and I think it's easy to feel a little directionless when you first leave Haven on your first game.

Anyway thanks for the awesome sequel, very ambitious and lots of really cool ideas so far.

[AkhraGee]

Unexplored 1 ate a ton of my time, and 2 is shaping up to do the same. I'm loving both the callbacks and the differences (the latter significant enough that I can see myself still playing both games). The skill checks are an impressively streamlined distillation of deck building!

I agree that a bit more camera control would be nice -- in particular, I really wish I could rotate the view. Going to full top-down mostly avoids stuff being fully obscured behind northerly doorframes etc., but the characters aren't so thoroughly designed around that perspective as they were in 1; I'd much rather keep the isometric perspective, but be able to spin the perspective by e.g. holding my third mouse button. (Speaking of... it doesn't seem I can bind any mouse buttons past the first two?)

Now, the reason I came to the forums is of course a fresh gripe: "button for primary hand" is a nice idea, but why am I stuck with the right hand being primary? As a left-handed person, swapping the button and equipping a weapon in the left hand and shield in the left works fine and feels right... but as soon as I equip a two-handed weapon -- a bow, or the Staff of Yendor -- it's right-click to use. It would be great to just pick the hand those things go in, like in 1, but the mechanics around the Staff might make that hard; so, failing that, can we get an option to pick which hand IS primary?

Edit: It occurs to me that there may be an even simpler solution here. For two-handed weapons (including Yendor), why not just make BOTH buttons work? I'd still like the option to hold them in the left hand, but at least this way the controls don't conflict with my one-handed solution. And, even if swapping primary hands becomes an option later, using 2-handers with either button still seems like it has no downsides. Are there any mechanics I haven't seen yet which wouldn't work with this?

Edit 2: ...and I was just able to equip a quarterstaff in my character's left hand! Was this always a feature? It's the first two-handed melee weapon I've tried with, but I distinctly recall a bow going directly to the right. Staff is still there too, of course. Well, it's something. :D

[[podsos] Admimistrator]

I have ~100 hours in Unexplored 1, even managed to beat the Guardian several times, so I immediately backed Unexplored 2. Tried it several times in the EA, didn't like and decided to check on release.

After 4 hours, I really tried to like it, but it feels empty, barren and not a roguelite/RPG but a boardgame traveller sim.

I think I spent most time in the overworld map, loading same easy and dull encounters over and over again and from what I've seen there're "wild lands" regions and there're "city with farms near" regions, which creates very boring back-and-forth grindy gameplay: go to the temple, get books, then travel back. Due to encounters and the way obstacles are desgined it doesn't feel like adventure, it's tedious

Small inventory doesn't really help. I think it's supposed to give me the choice of "get one more book or get that dagger", but results in me having "the perfect & minimum loadout" and just throwing other stuff away. That mysterious rod of mystery? screw that, I'd have a sleeping bag.

On a good side graphics and style are superb, I really liked it. I think I'm going to return in like a year and then leave a review, hopefully you won't abandon this like Unexplored 1, which is very buggy atm

tl;dr - I expected Unexplored in the overworld, with levels that feel handcrafted, interesting combat, but got No Man Sky The RPG - big premise, RNG all the way, but there's not much to do and all the experience feels the same

[Hunter]

With how important inventory management is, some kind of 'compare' option would be great. Opening a chest with a cool sword and having to go back and forth between my weapon and the new one 3 times to figure out which is better is a bit tedious, when a simple popup of the equipped item's stats over the player inventory would do.

I'd also love to see a few QoL things, like having container UI's close when theyre empty. I cant tell you how many times I mashed a to pick up all the small loot in a bag, only for my cursor to switch over to my inventory when I was done and start moving stuff from my inventory to the what-was-empty bag.

This is a much larger, and maybe not even possible thing, but It'd also be cool to see the Rumor system expand a bit. If Person A tells me of a barrow nearby with a dead adventurer, I may find that rumor over and over again in ruins, books, or other people. Id love to see the rumor 'grow' occasionally as you find more info.
Maybe Person A tells me theres a great hero Bob buried in a barrow, and a ruin tells me of the legendary hero Bob who carried his blade Sword-Nimi. Well, now I have more info about the same rumor that could be appended to my original knowledge. In the current system, it seems all rumors about a location are the same, but little details to build on existing rumors could be a fun 'hook' leading me to go explore that rumor for myself.

Id also love to see routes and 'next nodes' preserved on the map. Its hard to plan my travels when all of the paths disappear from the map after leaving the area, and all of the potential nodes I could reach from another node are erased when I leave that node. I saw an abandoned keep near a node I was at, but had to turn back to return stuff to Haven, then completely forgot about the keep because it was removed from the map when I left the area

[SnakesNBarrels]

OOK where do i start.

Overall I do like this game, I think it will be a great game in time, but there are quality of life problems in addition to the many bugs currently

Things that have made this game LESS ENJOYABLE that are not bugs. Not in a particular order, but probably in order of how much pain they have caused me.

CAMPING
is probably the most frustrating part of this game for me. Not the concept, not the fact that I need to do it, but some of the mechanics of it are just not fun. Need to eat? Repair? Here's an infinite amount of creatures to stop you from doing that(where are they all coming from) You should only have to have one encounter max per attempt. Eating food should not take time(preserving food should). I turned the "easier camping" option on and it still sucks. NOT FUN

INFORMATION/FEEDBACK(or the lack thereof)
When you complete major tasks or are not completely done, there is sometimes an underwhelming amount of fanfare or even just basic feedback. I am fine with not leading the player by the nose, but I shouldn't be wondering if I completed a major task or not.
(MINOR SPOILER ALERT) There is also lack of feedback on certain events where you are teleported involunarily. Like the text does not reflect what actually happened.

GENERAL MECHANICS INFO
-Stolen items or items you are about to steal do not look different or tell you that in any way, they should also wan you if it belongs to a particular clan(ask me why this is important)
-Hope level - can we get an actual number on this? I mean for a mechanic that can permanently harm your character, it seems pretty important to know how much hope you have left.
-Character building-building a character with skills before you really even know why you would want them seems not-fun to me. I hate tutorials, and the tutorial in this game didn't really help. Why not start the player off blank and let them make choices a little later. That way you're not sitting there guessing how useful it will be.

INVENTORY SIZE
I understand why a person is limited, but the size of this inventory and/or the bulk system is a bit awful. Like maybe things you are wearing shouldn't take up an inventory slot, but the extra bulk of an item should. The current system makes me not even want to carry certain items in the game. Climbing Gear? nope. Cold Weather Gear? Absolutely Not. I don't want to be sitting in a place for 10 minutes trying to figure out what I want to carry out of there. Especially in the current state of the game(relating to bugs) where you have a chance of losing anything you leave in the dungeon

INVENTORY MANAGEMENT
non-existent

ITEM AVAILABILITY/CONSISTENCY
I know item generation is random, but only seeing 2 pieces of light armor and 0 heavy armor in about 25 hours of game play in the same map, on the same character, across every region is pretty ridiculous. This might be a problem with how the shops/merchants stock items/replenish. I have started and played about 10 characters AND worlds. This is not a consistent problem, but it is a problem when you have it. This is not just an armor specific problem, it's merely the anecdote I am using.


BANDITS
Why do I need to have a conversation/luck roll with every single bandit in the game? It gets old reeeeaal fast. You should either be able to ally with the bandits once, or not at all.
ALSO when there is a deed for clearing bandits/ruffians, there just shouldn't be a conversation option.

RIFTS
PLEASE give strong warnings about hope loss with these or fix how it works. I lost 8 hope because I decided to try to close a rift at it's source(-1 hope). Which I was successful(I THINK? IT WASNT VERY CLEAR), then without warning another -7 hope. This seems pretty backwards to me, I was punished for entering a rift, and punished for closing it.

[GreatSphynx]

I wanted to update and add some more feedback after playing another 8 hours and nearly beating a run (got stuck due to a bug).

1) BUGS
Biggest and most important definitely has to do with bugs. I had my last run get stuck literally 2 travel points away from the final forge when I got sucked in to fight Valker. Nothing ruins the overall experience of a roguelike/lite with long-ish runs than getting towards the end and being completely stopped out through no fault of your own. Makes you not want to pick up the game again.

2) Area generation, Level Flow, REWARDS
I know this is kind of the elephant in the room when it comes to a game with heavy proc gen (I love heavy proc gen though). I've had more and more maps generate recently that were literally not completable, including main story ones. The most common roadblock I've found recently is coming across an area that has something needed to complete the rest of the map or objective (like a key or treasure) and it is inside of a locked chest. Not the type of lock where the key is found in the map, the kind you need to pick. That's great except one of my last games I literally went back and forth to haven 5 times and none of the vendors ever had lock picks, and there were none on the map (this was literally the first story temple too). So I just couldn't complete those areas, normally that would be ok because of the whole aspect of preparedness in this game, but because of how solving a dungeon area works you end up spending a ton of extra time searching everywhere only to realize "Yeah that key I need is in that one chest I can't open". For rusty locks there really needs to be some sort of alternative to open them other than lockpicks, either through magic or some sort of feat of strength or heavy weapon or SOMETHING. Not only that but in the same dungeon I came across like 3 empty chests. IMO this game should NEVER have an empty chest and that is something at least somewhat easier to solve in terms of tweaking the generation. I got to the end of a long dungeon in a play session and there was an empty chest at the end... great.
In general I'm mostly ok with enemies not dropping a ton of loot (although I think harder enemies should have at least some higher chance to drop rewards like trade goods). On the flip side though I have run into encounters where combat IS 100% necessary as one of the enemies in a scripted group will drop a key. It's a little bizarre to me that you guys put so much focus on making combat optional (and even encouraging avoiding it), yet you come across certain instances where it is 100% required and there is no indication of that. If you're trained that enemies rarely drop anything why would anyone expect an encounter to drop a key necessary to complete an area?

3) RISK V REWARD
I love so much about this game but in its current state with its current mechanics the moments where you actually feel rewarded are SO rare it's unbelievable. Like mentioned above when I run into areas with dead end generation (that need 1 specific item that can't be found in the area), or areas full of empty chests it doesn't feel good at all. I like how all the survival and travel mechanics are designed around wearing down your character, but the moment to moment gameplay in each area shouldn't be doing the same thing. Yes there should be tension with enemies and risky areas and having to play carefully, but you shouldn't spend 30 minutes in a big dungeon and walk away unable to complete the area or get 0 sense of accomplishment. Way too many areas I visit feel like wastes of time. I know that you can just skip areas that might not seem interesting, but this happens with like 90% of the areas in the game. There need to be more rewards for actually completing areas so there is an incentive risk vs reward. Otherwise honestly the best way to play the game right now is skip as many areas as possible until you get the clues you need to find the final forge and just head straight there skipping as many areas as possible.

4) THE LOOT GAME
I've read a lot about the devs point of view on items and inventory and I can agree with lots of it, but some stuff after playing quite a bit still just puts more focus on making the players life miserable instead of actually offering interesting choices or strategy. IMO lore items and gifts should have their own separate inventory tab or something. When I first started playing I would go out of my way to get lots of gifts to give to different tribes and get knowledge and stuff. I like that system but the issue is the actual reward for doing it is very minimal / has very little immediate impact, yet you sacrifice a ton of inventory space for those gifts. Somehow some books fit in your small inventory, but the ones you can actually trade in for lore don't fit in that part of your bag. Not only that but the limited inventory actively discourages players from trying out new gear and equipment, it's too risky to swap a weapon and leave it on the ground if you need space because it will disappear if you change rooms. Carrying 2 normal size weapons takes up so much of your bulk inventory that you have no room for survival equipment and armor. One change that could potentially solve a lot of this is making equipped items NOT take up any extra bulk, only the 1 slot they occupy in the inventory. If I'm actively wearing my armor, helmet, bad weather gear etc. why does it still take up extra room in my bag? It doesn't make sense. So far I have found 0 inventory upgrades in the game, if they do exist then they are way too rare. I don't think this game needs to be like Diablo where you are constantly looting and selling, but right now the current system actively makes you avoid swapping in new equipment. The survival system encourages you to bring things to be prepared for what you might encounter, but you have very little idea of what you might actually encounter outside of some general biome stuff (hot, cold etc). This makes it really REALLY hard to ever want to waste space on stuff like tents, climbing gear, ropes, cooking utensils etc. Not to mention that for some dungeon challenges you NEED to have something like lockpicks, pick axe etc. Maybe survival gear should be kept to it's own separate inventory away from equipment. IDK I 100% get what the devs are going for but imo it's not executed well and just makes the game more frustrating.

5) INTERACTIONS
When I first started playing I thought the little mini-game for events was pretty cool. Now I kind of loathe it because there is really only 1 input from the player in terms of player agency. You can only re-roll, either by spending points or through abilities / equipment. After playing the game 10ish hours I'm not really a fan of this system anymore. I was hoping as I progressed and encountered more events it would possibly open up more and there might be more interactions, but there are none. More re-rolls as a stat is cool, but it really doesn't feel that great after a while, as you are just re-rolling and getting frustrated when luck doesn't go your way. In the future it might be really cool to see specific interactions if you have specific spells or equipment (sorta mentioned above).

Sorry for another big wall of text. I love traditional roguelikes, I love proc gen, I love roguelites, I loved Unexplored 1. This game has so much going for it but right now it's being held back by a lot of design decisions that just frustrate more than satisfy. I'm playing on Wayfarer, I'm up for a challenge, I like hard games, but they have to be fun. Right now Unexplored 2 goes back and forth from fun to frustrating to me. Lots of time spent loading and generating for areas with little to do, few rewards, very little encouragement or direction at times. I really hope the devs continue to update and listen to some of this feedback. As a game dev myself it sort of feels like you guys have spent a ton of time playing your own game and look at it in a very specific light that may have given some blind spots to certain mechanics, I hope you can be open to the feedback of the community.

I was really hyped for this game and last night after getting stuck right before my first win I almost went and left a negative review, but I'm gonna give it a month or two and see what updates come (you guys have been good on that so far, appreciate it).

Thanks again for all your hard work.