My review after 76 hours of grinding.

[Theonlyjaces]

I tried to be as objective as possible and to review the game for what it is.

I selected recommended because I want to support the devs and I believe they will have a lot to offer once fully released.

Currently I do not recommend this game. The most positive and appealing aspect of the game is the huge amount of variety for builds. It's what it's all about and it's super unique. The irony is the game is designed (so far) in a way that you will never experience any of them.

A recommendation should be aimed at the general player base. For everyone to try. Now if you're a super hardcore player who loves grinding endlessly, even there, I wouldn't recommend. I'd need to be able to say "hey come try this game you have access to 50+ different fun builds for every classes". But that's the point, you do not have access to these builds.

First, my personal opinion is it's a good game. It's super fun. I need to acknowledge that the graphic, the soundtrack, the sound effect, the visuals, the mechanics, the story are all on point. It's extremely satisfying to see all those mobs dying !!! The 2 developers have done a great job with these.

The progression is quite boring and slow-ish though but that isn't as important as much since this game is all about the endgame. I believe that will change in the next update anyways. Once you reach level 50 and your primordial weapon is level 100, it's where the game actually starts.

I grinded 76hours for a specific general build and it's not even complete yet. But there's 50+ different build per classes. You do the math. The same amount of hours spent in other AAA games would result in a final build.

I believe this game will have a lot to offer once it will be fully released. But they (devs) truly need to find a balance between their visions/goals and offering a way for players to access to these specific visions/goals.

Devs, you've done a lovely game already. Especially for 2 guys. If you want to create a game that offers such a huge variety of builds, thats great and I'm all for it! That being said, you have to tweak the system to allow players to actually have access to these builds. Usually, in most Arpgs, as I'm sure you know you have a handful of builds for every classes that are viable so the 'typical' goal is to perfect that build in specific. So the grinding is justifiable. But that's not the vision of your game. You want players to try many unique builds never seen before in other games.

As someone who spend 76hours+, here are a few ideas that could resolve this major problem.
-Halving goldus require to reforge stats/scores. (It would still require many hours of farming).
-Locking a specific stat should be free.
-Epics/Legendaries materials drop rates need to be much higher since 90% of them come from salvaging.
-***Removing reforge stats randomisation. This single change would make this game epic for anyone. It would still require a ton of grinding to access a build or to change to a different one. This idea is directly correlated to what you guys are trying to offer.***

The way I see it is you have to decide what you guys truly want. Do you want players to have a huge amount of build options ? Then make it drastically easier to reach these possibilities.
Do you want players to grind endlessly to perfect a build ? Then reduce the amount of options.

The correlation between the number of builds and the time required to access ONE build is where it makes absolutely no sens at the moment.

I'll pick it back up once the next update is released in hope something change regarding these major issues. But right now, I have the feeling that I've paid for a game that doesn't allow me to access to the actually core content.

[Ashmore[The Slormancer]]

Hello!
Thanks for your positive review and the encouraging words, it means a lot!
Also thanks for this very detailed feedback.

I think we basically agree. Our current design philosophy is to respect our player and to respect their time, which means that you should almost never feel that the amount of time required to do anything is too high. I say current because it wasn't that important for us when we started and we know we have a few elements that needs to be aligned with that philosophy. But I believe that we're slowly making changes toward a more accessible and friendly game.

We also have a couple of ideas in mind that will ease the transition between builds but they are scheduled for later.

[Theonlyjaces]

I appreciate the elaborate reply.

In all honesty, reading that was reassuring. Most games do no valued our time and it create one of the biggest upset, thus resulting in game dying over time.

This game have the potential to be one of a kind and one of the best of its niche genre.

What do you think about D3 enchanting style, having a few options to choose from per reforge ?

cheers !

[[SK]Kr3i]

I've played about 39 hours now and i must agree what OP wrote. And the grind is starting to annoy me and dont get me wrong i like to grind but it really does feel that my time is not respected.

And the game has positive things going for it even at this time at EA for example it feels good to control the character and killing monsters is fun.

[Zhuugus]

I've played 235 hours so far.
Made at least 7 builds for all 3 characters that can farm Wrath 10.
No hardcore grind in this game whatsoever.
What really annoys people is the unique way the skills progress - you have to use them or keep on action bar. This makes switching skills/builds really annoying. It is a problem and I encourage devs to pay attention to it.
Other thing is that this is not a super popular game with meta builds like D3 or PoE. Arpgs are complex games and figuring game mechanics by yourself is far more complicated than watching/reading a guide. This is ok, just the way it is.
Once you get to know the game better it becomes much easier. This brings satisfaction, you know.

Seriously, Slormancer has potential to become one the best arpgs ever made. Just give devs time and trust.

[Vesperas]

For the most part, I agree. It's important to recognize there isn't much progression or story content available for the normal player, so people playing for any length of time beyond that are likely spending that time in what are intended to be endgame modes.

It's also worth noting that grinding (at least to some degree) is generally considered inherent to ARPG's, as well. The game is successful because it's fun, despite the repetition of it. I feel like the real issue with the Slormancer in that regard is, unlike most ARPG's, the gear itself doesn't end up driving the player much. Instead, the bulk of your time is spent farming either the various currencies (slorm, pure slorm, fragments, gold, etc) or experience points (player level, Slorm Reaper level, skill level, etc), which just very aren't exciting.

[ಠ_ಠ]

Originally posted by Theonlyjaces:

I appreciate the elaborate reply.

In all honesty, reading that was reassuring. Most games do no valued our time and it create one of the biggest upset, thus resulting in game dying over time.

This game have the potential to be one of a kind and one of the best of its niche genre.

What do you think about D3 enchanting style, having a few options to choose from per reforge ?

cheers !

I prefer the way it's done in Chronicon. Where you can upgrade (and lock) the stats you want, and can re-roll anything that isn't locked. The exception being unique, or item specific properties, which can be upgraded, but not re-rolled. Diablo's method still means you have to grind to get a mostly perfect item.

Edit: I prefer Chronicon's system to Diablo's, just to be clear. Haven't used the crafting enough here yet to have an opinion.

[nacciw574]

So the problem I am running into right now regarding this topic is as follows, the limiting factor of course is the fact that it is EA but that also contributes to my opinion. Remember it is just my opinion:

As it stands the game "feels" like it doesn't respect the player's time when it comes to farming the resources required to craft your gear. That is basically pointed out above. However, the changes to make it more friendly are coming at a pace which I find to be, for lack of better words at the moment, painfully slow.

Chronicon has the opposite issue where it can be way to fast to craft something from the ground up. But it is not in EA.

Being that we are in EA, what would be the purpose to gate the crafting so hard? My initial thought was to how easy it was before or at the start where people were double dipping stats and wrecking 10's while amassing resources. However those who weren't or were trying to learn the systems, fell massively behind. Too heavy handed in other words were the changes IMO. People who play massive hours will always have resources.

Also it is hard to experiment when costs are so high. You can literally blow weeks of play time trying to reroll one epic stat (let alone 3) just to find the right roll because the pool is so huge. 300k to place the chant on, then 6k plus one epic slorm per reroll, lock your one stat, reroll some more...heaven forbid you want to unlock an epic stat...

I would rather see time placed into aligning the gear system then to see time placed into content. That's just me though.

This doesn't change my opinion on the game however. The core, ideas, the base of the game and the art are spot on. But tweaking needs to happen more now than later.

[ಠ_ಠ]

Originally posted by nacciw574:

Chronicon has the opposite issue where it can be way to fast to craft something from the ground up. But it is not in EA.

I agree, though it only really becomes an issue once you've gotten a character to the end game (resources are tight with the first character). I don't know where the right balance is between the two.

My personal favorite system is Grim Dawn's. No stat re-rolls, just drops, crafting, and using components, powders, and devotions to patch holes (like resistances). Wouldn't fit this game though.

[AlphaNexus]

For the fun of it I used cheat engine to set all crafting mats to 9999, gold to some 450million and went crazy building a complete set of "perfect" legendaries...
Not only did I learn that you can upgrade yellows to legendary if you have the legendary crafting mat (saved sooo much time if you only need a specific piece but keep getting different ones :) but it also took HOURS of rerolling the gear, costing MILLIONS of gold and THOUSANDS of mats
- remember not including the time it would take to grind all of these mats; that would turn hours to weeks if not months if you can't play a lot every day -
+ HOURS of pressing reroll, check the stat, reroll/lock/fail and reroll the wanted stat because its just so repetitive and boring, contiune with the next stat and do everything again and again and again until you are done with your gear....
Imo epic stats are so so so ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up with so many possible stats that just getting them right takes most of the time/mats/gold - I know thats probably only a problem for the most hardcore/perfectionist players because you don't need them to be perfect to play and enjoy the game but at the end of the day these stats still add up to quite a number of + X stats for higher difficulties (not saying you need them to beat the highest difficulty).
If I remember correctly I ended up with some mats ~6k left, some as low as ~3k and no gold at all.
I would NEVER have spent that amount of time to grind all these mats. NEVER. For me that kind of grind is simply not worth it. (+ ealry access changes can turn everything around with a patch but even if this would be with a released game still not worth it)

So if you are some1 that wants to have a "perfect" set you have to spend a lot of time of playing to get it and then reroll it, stick to the playstyle/skills because once your want to try something different you would have to change all of your gear/reroll your rerolled gear if you don't have different legendaries for the new build - and do all of the rerolling again for every build... Maybe thats also something positive for you, but I have to agree with OP.

I really like this game, will play it with every bigger update (the new expedition is really good).
But thats what EA is for anyways so lets hope for the best that suggestions will not only be heard but the game adjusted and improved!

[fester1]

Personally I stopped using the forge pretty early in the game. Re rolling for me is a waste of time and resources. Currently I only have 2 legendaries equipped, the rest are epics with better stats than legendaries. Still enjoying the game though.

[Vesperas]

That is correct and seems to be working as intended.

One of the earliest patches massively increased the cost of upgrading your gear because it was completely broken before and people were capping multiple stats at once. I suspect most of the players easily clearing Wrath 10 at the moment are still using the overpowered gear they crafted prior to that patch or doing something like you did and using cheat engine to accomplish something similar.

I don't think the developers should balance around that by any means. However, it might be worth their time to look at how games like World of Warcraft keep gear drops exciting, by using item levels and putting exponentially diminishing returns on gear as the player level increases.

As it is, there doesn't seem to be anything like that in the Slormancer. Increasing Wrath level increases the damage and health threshold of enemies, but it doesn't change anything or necessarily make it harder, it just makes them take longer to clear.

The blacksmith is still very broken, but I think it will somewhat fall into line as players end up with more gear with pure stats and the cost of upgrades becomes prohibitive. I'm not really sure what the best way to fix it would be though, seeing as the freedom of crafting is a feature a lot of people seem to like about it.

Maybe limiting each level (magic, rare, epic) to only stat and lowering the available pool of possible stats for each at the blacksmith? It needs some refinement at any rate. The difference between a player that barely uses the blacksmith and a player that uses them frequently is so vast it's not even balanced. It's not good at the min/max level either because players aren't even excited about drops at that point, they're just trashing loot drops for fragments and farming gold, pure slorm, etc.

[nacciw574]

All good points. These are, more specifically, the issues I have been running into that are more specific and highlight everything:

1) Double negative scaling of wrath levels. As you go up in levels your armor and elemental res go down and the enemies scale (that is how it was, unsure as of now). Now I get the artificial negative dump in resistance, however I think that is a artifact of a bygone age. An artificial way to introduce "customization". It really is no longer necessary. Even health and damage scaling is shallow.

2) Costs for crafting. Yes, EA, things might even out. But how are we suppose to test anything if you can blow 15 hours of farming and still not roll a single affix you want because the pool is bloated at the epic level. Currently I am sitting on about 20 legendaries from about 180 hrs of playtime, none of which would meaningfully impact my build. Not to mention the cost to even try to pivot to something else. It is cheap to blue modifiers sure...though maybe that is intended...epic being expensive but not necessary...never occurred to me until now which, in that case, makes this point moot and more understandable.

3) Drops at higher wrath's (8-10) seem no better than that of 6. Elites don't seem worth it and hitting red breaches seem more of a chance of being insta gibbed than worth the mats they give when they are fully closed.

There is more but I won't leave wall of text. I think just a little more defined clarification from the devs would set things at ease for me and not so much as looking at my views as being negative but more of questions that need answering (even if vague answers beyond what is above) on what they are doing or thinking about how itemization is going to work. Is epic stats for real end game...then cool something to shoot for...in which case maybe legend enchants should be a little more common to help get the build online first.

I really like this game, all of it and want to see it succeed.

[Theonlyjaces]

*Reviving the discussion

This was written back when level cap was 50.

I just got back and spent another 10h or so. The 2 new missions are fun and all. The forge is a cool alternative to the two other endgame content. It's also fun to have to deal with more monsters that have different mechanics.

Mission 3 - 4 : Seems to be the best way to get Slorms and leveling up both character's exp and reapers.

I'm very surprised nothing have been addressed in term of drop rate. Not only that but the devs removed the only valuable way to get gold and legendary (mission two mid-bosses spiders). Even with that it was taking forever to obtain the necessary resources to upgrade/craft desired equipment.

I'm also quite shocked that nothing changed for crafting materials/goldus requirement.

It's great to have more ancestral skills for sure tho...

Seems like the core problem haven't been resolve unfortunately...

[Slt les rickies]

Well, the main way to get legendaries as of now is to buy the random crates (most expensive option) at the merchant. It may feel a bit weird, but filling your inventories with crates should net you around 1.5 legendaries, BUT you can chose between 3 items, which in the end feels pretty great when you're looking for specific effects.

Now, you will need a LOT of gold. And by a lot, i mean around 1M goldus per legendary, but you can find pretty good guides on how to build in order to maximise goldus gained (archer comes to mind).

In the end, the grind is still pretty big, but I didn't feel like it was too much. To each their own I guess