Preliminary feedback on Beta

[Xariann]

I didn't spend a lot playing it, given that progress doesn't carry over, but I will play it more when Early Access comes in a few days. So far here is what I think.

I like the addition of difficulty levels. I also like that nothing is tied to them. This lets me choose what difficulty to play at just because I enjoy it, and I don't get FOMO if I don't play on max difficulty. The main downside is the balancing of Wayfinders at low level, although I will hold final judgment until I have played more in Early Access. Currently with Wingrave though, I can facetank almost anything on heroic, whereas with Kyros I am getting my butt handed to me and have to lower the difficulty. This might change later on when Kyros gets his heal, and I build him out. But also having Wayfinders that have different difficulty curves can be fun.

I seemed to have a problem in the first two dungeons, which was that when I finished them my loading screen got stuck on "Loading to Highlands". It didn't seem to happen when I teleported around otherwise.

The first time I went to the Pit, at the end when you see the rewards Kestrel's voice got cut off. Don't cut off Jennifer Hale!

Opening chests is fun! The stuff you get always seems useful, and it unlocks cosmetics, gear, etc. I also really like that armour and weapons have stats and levels like actual gear. Weapons in a way already had this (although they levelled up before), but the addition of armour with stats just makes it more fun to have, than purely having cosmetic value. I don't know what it was about before, but opening chests seemed boring.

The dungeons seem meatier. I guess you increased their size. I really like that change. It feels like you are actually delving into them. I also met a new mob (The Guardian) which had a nice move set to dodge and engaging with it required brain cells, especially on heroic.

You seem to also have increased the variety of bosses at the end of the dungeons. I like that too.

A pause button. Thanks f****. I keep thinking how rare those are nowadays :p

You get affinity points early but you don't get the tutorial until level 8, and I kept wondering if I was missing something because I couldn't use them.

I like the extra information on loot acquisition, like the echoes showing stats.

It appears that the trickster doesn't need keys? And you lowered the attempts down to 5. I prefer it that way, it takes less time to do and doesn't require grinding before you get to do an RNG event.

The first time we get a tracer we don't get any notification regarding what that is. I was expecting an event to pop up, given that it used to happen in the previous version. But nothing happened. I might have had a side quest, but I was skipping a lot of the quest exposition given that I did it before, and I might have missed that quest tracker. But there wasn't much of a cue that I achieved anything abd wasn't sure if I picked up anything. Anyway, I wound up turning it in afterwards, so that's when I knew for sure I did pick it up. Like I said though, that one might have been a me problem.

The Wayfinders speak more, so do the enemies. Nice. Can't figure out what Kyros is saying, I guess that's meant to be that way though?

I am a bit confused about the custom map marker. I might have been blind, but it didn't seem to show on my HUD when I was just in the world not looking at my map. I could see the quest markers just fine.

When you enter a dungeon there is an extra animation of the Wayfinder tearing open the Gloom with the dagger. Was that always there but we couldn't see it because of the matchmaking with the online servers? Given the small amount of time you had, I am curious as to why we can only see that now. But it's a nice touch, I like it.

In general, the loot feels better, combat is more responsive, game performance seems improved also. I am really hoping that people who enjoy singleplayer/coop will pick this up because I'd love to see this game being maintained. It's really fun so far.

[The Chuggernaught]

Agreed, things feel more cohesive and fluid, and the lack of F2P monetized MMO Online Only elements really show how much they bogged the game down.

Getting random pets and mounts from doing dungeons and finding secrets was also huge for me. The world has a reason to explore it now. Echos help you learn about the wayfinders lore, etc.

If you're a fan of single player/co-op rpgs like Vrising, ES2, Darksiders, etc, this is a good one to pick up. It is my hope that people can, as the devs asked, "Judge us for what the game is now" and give it attention it deserves. I want wayfinder to continue to get post launch support and put it's rocky past behind it. Whether you wanted an mmo or not (i personally did), wayfinder plays and feels WAY better as a coop RPG. If the devs can commit to a NMS style "few updates a year" with occasional dlc, this will be a long standing dream.

I enjoy these types of games greatly, but I find them to be too short. I reach the end, get my legendary builds, and there's nothing left. A Pseudo Live Service model like No Man's Sky will keep me coming back. It's rare we get rpg looters in a fantasy style.

[Paladin]

Agree on all counts. This is a much better game now

[Mr.Fluffins]

In my experince in Beta, the game is superior in every single way compared to how it was before. I understand that some people wanted an MMO, but to me the MMO parts were the absolute weakest parts of the game and dragged everything down (FOMO, connection issues and network-related bugs, no unlockable cosmetics, artificially extended grind to pad the game etc.).
If only it entered EA like this, as a more or less complete ARPG single player game with co-op, things would have been different. Wouldnt be topping charts or anything most likely, but it would do decently well, would be a nice addition to the indie ARPG library of games.
Playing the game made me realize just how much the "MMO life service" made the experience worse.

[HeinousAmous]

I had a lot of fun because I love transmog and unlocking decorations, but it feels very lonely and the classes are kind of subdued by themselves. I really think an AI controlling one of your Wayfinders as a buddy would be immensely beneficial.