Actual Constructive Criticism

[Koudougou Cthulhu]

Some critical feedback. Explanation behind said feedback. Suggestion towards improvement. This is from the perspective of a duo playing together.

Criticism: Water Aura rendered to ineffective post-nerfed.

Explanation: The post-nerf healing of water aura is insignificant when considering the effectiveness of other healing sources. Potions and bandages have no cooldown and can be spammed. It simply cannot compete and just feels impotent. No longer worth the positioning cost of having to stay in constant range of my teammate. More viable to kite enemies while spamming bandages/potions when needed. Skill points better spent elsewhere unless you really want trickle regen to top people off after combat.

Suggestion: Return and even improve water auras effectiveness. Make it a toggled ability. Allow only one instance of water aura to be on a player. Render alternate non-spell sources of healing ineffective while in water aura. This would push viability of healer builds, make party positioning extremely important, and present players with the interesting choice of when they want to stay close to healer or keep distance and rely on consumables.
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Criticism: Melee viability is far less then ranged options.

Explanation: Game feels like it is attempting to mimic a light version of "souls-like-ish" combat system in a survival game. This is not necessarily bad. However, some melee combat animations are very awkward with terrain collision and will sometimes freeze you in certain animation or cause odd physics interactions. Stamina is very easy to run out of considering how often you need to dodge and stamina regenerate very slowly. Even with food and skills you'll wind up just walking in circles around bosses at a brisk pace waiting for that stamina circle to regen. This just feels...not good.

Suggestion: Combat animation quality is extremely important for a souls-like combat system to work well. This needs to be improved. Maybe tweak stamina regen or improve some stamina based skills for melee? Also, please keep in mind that slow methodical combat where you are expected to learn animation cues, while dying many times; works far better in a solo player game then multiplayer with friends....who can get impatient....and act like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Just something to keep in mind while designing some enemies maybe.
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Criticism: The auto-lock cycling. O' god, the auto-lock cycling.

Explanation: The amount of times I have been about to land the killing blow on an enemy running up to hug me with his rusty sword; just to have my auto lock switch to his cousin a mile and a half behind him, is incredibly annoying. The number of times I've charged up a fireball to blast an abomination, then just as I release the mouse button the auto-lock is like: "nah fam, what you want is to target is that blue cockroach over to the side" then turns me AWAY from the boss to commence pest control...

Suggestion. Destroy the auto-lock cycling. Burn it with fire. Un-alive that mothafooka. Like now. Give us a manual cycle target option and/or an option to turn of the auto version.

That is all. For now.

[Nerevar]

good feedback overall. aside the water aura one. should have suggested buffing radiant aura instead.

water aura was too strong. even in soloplay. cannot return as was. it made potions and other healing sources obsolete. anyone who wants this to return doesnt want game balance at all and just wants to be OP. it also made health regen gear and rings not worth useing. it was so good that everyone used it on any build once they learned of it. kinda like double jump but double jump is active skill not passive.

water aura could be relooked at once higher tier content becomes available. currently it just was too good.

[Koudougou Cthulhu]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

good feedback overall. aside the water aura one. should have suggested buffing radiant aura instead.

water aura was too strong. even in soloplay. cannot return as was. it made potions and other healing sources obsolete. anyone who wants this to return doesnt want game balance at all and just wants to be OP. it also made health regen gear and rings not worth useing. it was so good that everyone used it on any build once they learned of it. kinda like double jump but double jump is active skill not passive.

water aura could be relooked at once higher tier content becomes available. currently it just was too good.

Yeah, my suggestion to disable all non-spell forms of healing while under water aura's affect would solve most of what you mentioned. I for one wouldn't want just water aura on every one of my builds if I couldn't use healing pots or bandages with it active.

[Nerevar]

bandages are redundant with how it was before the nerf. so kinda moot. and health potions arent an issue. run away for a moment. healed back to full thanks to OP aura in seconds. repeat as needed. works anywhere. completly free.

your suggestion wouldnt fix this sadly. its too easy to avoid enemies in this game for a moment and thus the aura is OP as it was. it cannot be restored to how it was. get used to not haveing it anymore.

game is unfinished and overpowered stuff was natural to be nerfed. this wont be the last nerf thats gonna happen.

[Apocaloptimist]

I agree that it was healing far too much and this is coming from someone who plays mostly solo as well. They could later maybe revisit how often the heal tics, but I think all of the auras should require heavy investment in that play style, they could in theory make earth aura give the tank more damage reduction per point of constitution but only a flat 10% for party members that doesn't stack, just one example. Also remove water aura stacking, if you're under the effects of two, the stronger one should apply and nullify the weaker one.

But as someone who has all skill points into mage skills(minus the beautiful double jump and 2 points of constitution for some extra survival) water aura is still healing about 18-20 hp a tic so it's not that bad.

[Koudougou Cthulhu]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

bandages are redundant with how it was before the nerf. so kinda moot. and health potions arent an issue. run away for a moment. healed back to full thanks to OP aura in seconds. repeat as needed. works anywhere. completly free.

your suggestion wouldnt fix this sadly. its too easy to avoid enemies in this game for a moment and thus the aura is OP as it was. it cannot be restored to how it was. get used to not haveing it anymore.

game is unfinished and overpowered stuff was natural to be nerfed. this wont be the last nerf thats gonna happen.

I gotta push back here a little and clarify a bit. My suggestion wasn't meant as a "be all end all" solution. Rather a base idea of which to build off from. My main point is that you can have a aura based healing passive without degenerating it to the point of a glorified trickle regen mechanic. There are game mechanics that could make it a useful ability that feels worth it.

Also, keep in mind how the entire game experience is very different between players. For you the aura seemed over powered. I'm going to assume this is because your decent at the game and (if I understood from your first post correctly) you play solo. Your probably decent at avoiding damage and positioning yourself. I usually play as a duo with my wife or with my two brothers. They aren't exactly stellar at avoiding damage. Having a passive aura that I could invest in was necessary to keep them in the game.

It comes down to this: If a completely optional mechanic exist in a game that can help my family enjoy a multiplayer survival game with myself, why can it not exist at all or at least exist in a compromised form like I suggested? If you feel the mechanic is overpower and makes the game to easy for yourself, you can choose not to take it. I, on the other hand, can't wave a "get good" wand and magic people to play better. Instead, they will simply get frustrated and simply stop playing the game. This might all be irrelevant if my situation was unique, but I'd wager a hefty sum that there are plenty of others in a similar situation. Especially, when it come to the survival game genre which I have found easier to get family and friends into. This is where my interest lie and where perspective comes from. Take that as you will.

[Fryskar]

You can try to be constructive and yet be wrong.

What would make a healer more viable is beeing relieable targeting of who you want to heal.

Going above the old water auras healing amout should only happen if it would becomes an active spell.
A passive shouldn't be your primary source of healing.

[Riflebird]

Making water aura a toggle is actually a good idea. Have it heal a lot, but make it eat up mana for every second it's active.

[Fryskar]

As example for what i think of an active spell.
On pressing "example key" you take 1.5s preparing to channel your healing energies and kneeling down, starting to heal 3x your int per tick and second. While kneeling you can't do anything (no moving, no attacking) besides standing up (any walking key or activation key) for normally standing up which takes again 1.5s. You can dodge out of it, but doing so gives you the debuff "broken concentration" rendering you unable to use any weapon or skill, leaving you with walking, jumping and doding as your only options for 5s.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Riflebird:

Making water aura a toggle is actually a good idea. Have it heal a lot, but make it eat up mana for every second it's active.

That would also need to prevent bloodletting from getting you mana back while also beeing very expensive, like 100-150 mana/sec or like 15-25% mana/sec.
For a healer thats still around 1 mana for 1 hp.

[Myst]

It's actually funny.... Cause before patch i was known as "the walking potion" and RARELY casted my healing spells going pretty much full battlemage NOW i have to ACTUALLY heal and it makes choosing to go healer actually meaningful for my group. So yeah the nerf is pretty good in my eyes... Though the tick rate needs to go back to where it was with the reduced healing they shouldnt have done BOTH at once.

[Namid]

I just want to chirp in (I don't normally talk publicly like this) ... I'm just like OP's wife and brothers - I adore this game, love the building, the lore, the exploring, fighting, but I'm not what you'd call an expert gamer. The nerf to the water aura in particular has me really worried about doing anything overly dangerous now. And I don't have friends... so I have to play solo. I hope they adjust the water aura to not being so weak...

[Koudougou Cthulhu]

Originally posted by Fryskar:

You can try to be constructive and yet be wrong.

What would make a healer more viable is beeing relieable targeting of who you want to heal.

Going above the old water auras healing amout should only happen if it would becomes an active spell.
A passive shouldn't be your primary source of healing.

TLDR: at the end of the day we're just two people who disagree on a steam forum about what we want out of this game and will probably never agree. To each their own I guess.

This is an awful lot of opinion stated as fact. I never at any point stated that water aura should be a main source of healing in this game. I think you are to fixated on my particular suggestion to water aura changes and the possibility of making it stronger. Let me clarify: I want the option for some sort of optional "crutch" to exist for facilitating play with others that may not be great at this games. How that is achieved is actually irrelevant to me. Give us another ability with different mechanics attached for all I care. Think of my suggestion more as a brainstorming jumping off point. That's it.

Also, "A passive shouldn't be your primary source of healing" is your opinion and not a fact. It depends on the game developer philosophy for their game and what the game is trying to achieve. There are numerous games that essentially require a passive form of health sustain. A simple google search will show this. This doesn't mean it's the correct choice for THIS game. I'm going to assume you meant it in reference to this game. Even then, that would be your opinion and probably reflects what you think is fun/good in a game...and that's fine.

[Fryskar]

Originally posted by Koudougou Cthulhu:

Originally posted by Fryskar:

You can try to be constructive and yet be wrong.

What would make a healer more viable is beeing relieable targeting of who you want to heal.

Going above the old water auras healing amout should only happen if it would becomes an active spell.
A passive shouldn't be your primary source of healing.

TLDR: at the end of the day we're just two people who disagree on a steam forum about what we want out of this game and will probably never agree. To each their own I guess.

This is an awful lot of opinion stated as fact. I never at any point stated that water aura should be a main source of healing in this game. I think you are to fixated on my particular suggestion to water aura changes and the possibility of making it stronger. Let me clarify: I want the option for some sort of optional "crutch" to exist for facilitating play with others that may not be great at this games. How that is achieved is actually irrelevant to me. Give us another ability with different mechanics attached for all I care. Think of my suggestion more as a brainstorming jumping off point. That's it.

Also, "A passive shouldn't be your primary source of healing" is your opinion and not a fact. It depends on the game developer philosophy for their game and what the game is trying to achieve. There are numerous games that essentially require a passive form of health sustain. A simple google search will show this. This doesn't mean it's the correct choice for THIS game. I'm going to assume you meant it in reference to this game. Even then, that would be your opinion and probably reflects what you think is fun/good in a game...and that's fine.

You're free to consider my opinion horrible.

I won't even try to argue with you as you pretty much admit you want a sort of godmode.

[Nerevar]

Originally posted by Koudougou Cthulhu:

Originally posted by Nerevar:

bandages are redundant with how it was before the nerf. so kinda moot. and health potions arent an issue. run away for a moment. healed back to full thanks to OP aura in seconds. repeat as needed. works anywhere. completly free.

your suggestion wouldnt fix this sadly. its too easy to avoid enemies in this game for a moment and thus the aura is OP as it was. it cannot be restored to how it was. get used to not haveing it anymore.

game is unfinished and overpowered stuff was natural to be nerfed. this wont be the last nerf thats gonna happen.

I gotta push back here a little and clarify a bit. My suggestion wasn't meant as a "be all end all" solution. Rather a base idea of which to build off from. My main point is that you can have a aura based healing passive without degenerating it to the point of a glorified trickle regen mechanic. There are game mechanics that could make it a useful ability that feels worth it.

Also, keep in mind how the entire game experience is very different between players. For you the aura seemed over powered. I'm going to assume this is because your decent at the game and (if I understood from your first post correctly) you play solo. Your probably decent at avoiding damage and positioning yourself. I usually play as a duo with my wife or with my two brothers. They aren't exactly stellar at avoiding damage. Having a passive aura that I could invest in was necessary to keep them in the game.

It comes down to this: If a completely optional mechanic exist in a game that can help my family enjoy a multiplayer survival game with myself, why can it not exist at all or at least exist in a compromised form like I suggested? If you feel the mechanic is overpower and makes the game to easy for yourself, you can choose not to take it. I, on the other hand, can't wave a "get good" wand and magic people to play better. Instead, they will simply get frustrated and simply stop playing the game. This might all be irrelevant if my situation was unique, but I'd wager a hefty sum that there are plenty of others in a similar situation. Especially, when it come to the survival game genre which I have found easier to get family and friends into. This is where my interest lie and where perspective comes from. Take that as you will.

ah the good old argument of "dont use it then" please dont. thats just a weak argument for anything in any game to have gross imbalance.

there is a fine line to walk here. you cannot balance things based on the lowest common player skill level. as if you do that you end up with a game that will ONLY please that type of player and everyone else will quit.

meanwhile there is ALOT of options to approach the games combat instead of "run in stand there and smash the attack button" and that is not something that requires the player to be very skilled or have good reaction time. my reaction time is very poor for example. yet i have good observation skills. so its easy for me to read what an enemy will do and predict them unless thier moves have no windup animation at all.

but you dont need any reaction time or SKILL to get combat done here. all you need to do is make use of all the different options the game offers you. if your co players refuse to make use of these and instead want a passive to carry them trough the game that is entirely on them. they are lazy. and you dont design your game around such players. the result.... wont last. seen that countless times by now.

you put things at a good middle ground. finding this middle ground is difficult for game developers. but its possible. be it trough game settings or whatever. but anything is better than haveing that one OP ability in the game and tell others to "not use it" as the later has never worked out in game design so far. for a reason. it goes againist the human brains nature.

the aura is fine for now. once enemy dmg is ramped up a fair bit and the game has gotten more content or a baseline difficulty overhaul they can revisit it. for whats currently available it was WAY too strong. and your solution wouldnt fix that sadly. as your fix only really works for multiplayer for the most part. you never need potions or bandages in solo with just the old aura. i tested this. i didnt dodge once. it simply wasnt ever needed.

its nerfed now and has to stay like that for awhile atleast. gotta wait and see whats next. and if they can get content out in a timely manner before more competition arrives and pulls the players away again.

[Koudougou Cthulhu]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

Originally posted by Koudougou Cthulhu:

I gotta push back here a little and clarify a bit. My suggestion wasn't meant as a "be all end all" solution. Rather a base idea of which to build off from. My main point is that you can have a aura based healing passive without degenerating it to the point of a glorified trickle regen mechanic. There are game mechanics that could make it a useful ability that feels worth it.

Also, keep in mind how the entire game experience is very different between players. For you the aura seemed over powered. I'm going to assume this is because your decent at the game and (if I understood from your first post correctly) you play solo. Your probably decent at avoiding damage and positioning yourself. I usually play as a duo with my wife or with my two brothers. They aren't exactly stellar at avoiding damage. Having a passive aura that I could invest in was necessary to keep them in the game.

It comes down to this: If a completely optional mechanic exist in a game that can help my family enjoy a multiplayer survival game with myself, why can it not exist at all or at least exist in a compromised form like I suggested? If you feel the mechanic is overpower and makes the game to easy for yourself, you can choose not to take it. I, on the other hand, can't wave a "get good" wand and magic people to play better. Instead, they will simply get frustrated and simply stop playing the game. This might all be irrelevant if my situation was unique, but I'd wager a hefty sum that there are plenty of others in a similar situation. Especially, when it come to the survival game genre which I have found easier to get family and friends into. This is where my interest lie and where perspective comes from. Take that as you will.

ah the good old argument of "dont use it then" please dont. thats just a weak argument for anything in any game to have gross imbalance.

there is a fine line to walk here. you cannot balance things based on the lowest common player skill level. as if you do that you end up with a game that will ONLY please that type of player and everyone else will quit.

meanwhile there is ALOT of options to approach the games combat instead of "run in stand there and smash the attack button" and that is not something that requires the player to be very skilled or have good reaction time. my reaction time is very poor for example. yet i have good observation skills. so its easy for me to read what an enemy will do and predict them unless thier moves have no windup animation at all.

but you dont need any reaction time or SKILL to get combat done here. all you need to do is make use of all the different options the game offers you. if your co players refuse to make use of these and instead want a passive to carry them trough the game that is entirely on them. they are lazy. and you dont design your game around such players. the result.... wont last. seen that countless times by now.

you put things at a good middle ground. finding this middle ground is difficult for game developers. but its possible. be it trough game settings or whatever. but anything is better than haveing that one OP ability in the game and tell others to "not use it" as the later has never worked out in game design so far. for a reason. it goes againist the human brains nature.

the aura is fine for now. once enemy dmg is ramped up a fair bit and the game has gotten more content or a baseline difficulty overhaul they can revisit it. for whats currently available it was WAY too strong. and your solution wouldnt fix that sadly. as your fix only really works for multiplayer for the most part. you never need potions or bandages in solo with just the old aura. i tested this. i didnt dodge once. it simply wasnt ever needed.

its nerfed now and has to stay like that for awhile atleast. gotta wait and see whats next. and if they can get content out in a timely manner before more competition arrives and pulls the players away again.

For sure man. Anyways, it's up to the devs now. Happy gaming!