Delightful The Bloodline Observations and Gameplay

[Mr. Delightful]

So, I took another look at The Bloodline, fun combat, but still very rough.
I recorded my experiences, in case anyone is interested in a more audio / visual format.
https://youtu.be/LIe9K5kl8nI

I’ll try and keep this organized, splitting this into the many encountered bugs, and gameplay suggestions.
Please let me know if anyone thinks any of this is off base or out of line.

8.9 hours in game total after the stream / recording; as I said, fun combat, but still very rough…

Bugs / Technical issues:

1: It Crashed While Streaming! This game runs hot!
At around 45:00 in the above video; ouch.
This happened the last time I tried to stream the game around launch too.
For reference:
I’m on a Ryzen 9 5900X, with an RTX 3070, & 16G of ram.

2: Some Sounds are Set Way Too LOUD!
The lvl up notification is a big one.
Also, some abilities are way too loud, like the “Path of Ice” Cryomancy ability, which is so loud and jarring to use I’m actually less likely to do so.

3: Big Bug: I Spawned Underneath the Carriage in a Caravan Ambush!
Tried to uplift the carriage with ice pillar, to no avail…
I had to reload that one.

4: Bug: Shush Crickets!
Tons of really loud crickets in the burning slimes lava area for some reason; it really did not seem the biome for them…

5: Bug: Stamina is not going down under the noon sun in the open desert random encounters, but it does in the desert maps?

6: Minor Bug: was not able to freeze the pond in the hills, the one with the waterfall.
Sad…

7: Bug: does the LAlt item bar not work, because I can’t click and drag an apple in there…

Gameplay Suggestions:

8: Continue last save option needed on the main screen.
As hunting through a list of saves that seems to put new ones on the bottom is neither efficient nor fun.

9: Monster Faction Interactions Planned?
Goblins, bandits, and ogres should interact and fight amongst themselves, like different factions do in Mount and Blade, unless there some sort of Baldur’s Gate like much more powerful force holding them together and preventing them from turning on each other.
In that case, once the hero takes out the boss and their lieutenants, perhaps the factions should fall again to infighting?

10: Swimming should be a Constant Drain on Stamina to make Water a bit more Interesting and Dangerous.
Sort of like how the desert is made much more interesting by having to avoid the hot sun during the day.
Also consider water monsters, with sunken loot to draw the player down below…

11: Can exit to world map whenever you are, even when hostiles are near?
Perhaps you can due to the very buggy, early access state of the current game?

12: Cannot attack cavern who does not give you a reward; Chosen One is so Insulted!
No NPC should be safe from me!
Though, the player should have to bear the consequences of killing certain important types.
Also, an alignment system would feel great here, after all what sort of “Chosen One” are you, the evil kind?!

13: The Game Currently lacks Accessible Dungeons; Needs More Dungeon Delving!
Channel your inner Daggerfall!
Undead are a thing in this world: you don’t have to pay them, they never stop, so they never stop digging…
Truly gigantic undergrounds and Undermoutain / Underdark like areas are on the table, right?

14: I have No Need of Cities; because I have Unlimited Inventory.
I have no real need of food or water.
I have no need of training.
I can do it all: thus the cities offer me nothing, thus they are uninteresting and boring…

15: More Interesting Deserts.
As they are now, with the sun dodging and use of shade, they represent a big step up from the boring, expected forests, but it would be interesting to have to find water or carry some into the desert, and maybe the lava land as well?

16: Go Away QRTs!
You don’t get the lvl up for mining if you don’t want to do the QRT mining / tree cutting game?
Yuck!
I assure you: most players are NOT here for the QRTs!

17: The Base Movement Speed is Too Slow.
Especially considering how gigantic some of the zones are, like the desert, and how you need to keep your stamina for the combat, or to avoid the sun damage.

Anyway, I hope work on The Bloodline continues; it really is a huge accomplishment for such a small dev team, and I look forward to the day when it fulfils many of the grand ambitions its world seems to promise.
Thanks for the fun!

[Nerrivik]

I love the thought the developers put into environmental spells. You can freeze air while it's raining. You cannot use poison dart spells while raining. You can mix fire and poison spells to make massive explosions for cheap mana and enemy crowd control. This is the stuff I expect from a big studio, like Larian or Obsidian, but nice job!