How much game is there, now?

[Blackcompany]

First off, this post is utterly without sarcasm or judgement. I want to make it very clear that I am genuinely interested in, and rooting for, this game.

So...how much 'game' is there here, at this stage? I won't lie; Enshrouded looks intriguing, and I DO want to play it. But while I might toss the occasional bug report to the devs, I simply do not have time to be a tester. Time, or desire. I am immensely grateful to those willing to do so, because we can have games like this...but it isn't for me.

If this game is in a very playable state, where my girl and I could log in and get in some good coop fun, I'd very much like to pull the trigger. But if it is still at the crash prone, more testing than playing stage, I will simply wait, rather than risk souring us both on it.

So...in your estimations...is this something we would like now, or should we hold off a while yet?

Also...how controller friendly is it? We both work on kb/m all day and enjoy kicking back with controllers.

Thanks!

[Congrolios]

You should specify what you want out of the game other than it not crashing.

I got it recently and put 67~ hours into it to do basically everything in the game. Never experienced a crash, and only a few minor annoyances/bugs. The quests are all fetch quests and the combat is very simple/easy other than the new boss (which is great). The building is great. I thought it was worth the 24 bucks and I don't like the genre (survival craft) as a whole, so that's something.

[Grobi]

I reached midgame today, currently with 47 hours. But I really rushed a bit, if you take your time I would say, to complete the content 80-100 hours. If you're into building, farming and exploring 200+ hours, maybe much more. I never had a crash, few minor bugs.

[Allisonlj]

If you and your partner are creative then get it as soon as you like look up some youtube videos of insane builds people have already made. If they are older videos then figure theres a ton more now too.

If you and your partner want to just unlock all the unlockable things and kill all the bosses you can kill then you're still golden.

The game impacting bugs i've found so far were fixed today though there are still some people with quest progression issues regarding the collector and getting sent to the various temples -- but this is very minor in the greater scheme of things other than an ugly reminder in your quest log that wont go away.

[Aluna]

I could write an extremely long list about everything thats currently awesome in the game and what still needs improvement so it would help to know what exactly is important to you.

To give you my general perspective:
I'm at 250 hours now, defeated the currently last boss 2 days ago, still have a bit to explore in the last region and am done with all quests but 1 (plus the 3 currently bugged ones that are actually also done).
However, I explore literally every corner, climb every mountain and cleared the entire possible fog of war so far (minus a bit in the new area). Also 23 of these hours were spent building my newest base alone xD So my 250h are probably pretty close to the number you get if you're determined to exhaust the game completely (without doing multiple playthroughs or hundreds of hours building stuff).
I would say that's a lot of game. And a very enjoyable on top :)

Concerning the "tester" role: Its early access, there's obviously quite a few things that still need improvement but the devs are determined to actually do so and listen to the players. Today they fixed a long list of stuff and many of these things only got into the game 2 weeks ago. That's a work speed I dearly miss in certain other games.
Also I have played released titles, AAAs even, that were significantly more bugged than this game. There is nothing actually game breaking I would have come across so far (in my single player world).

One big issue that might become a problem for you if you play with your partner/kid however is that multiplayer is in a rather bad state. On our group server we often experience horrible lags and quests tend to get tangled up. We all live pretty far away from each other though (spread between UK, Austria and Finland) and tend to get lost in chaos where people do different things so it might be less of a problem for you if you play in the same house with the same internet access and also stay together while questing ingame.

[Blackcompany]

Lots of great info here. Thanks everyone. I will give this some thought.

Really appreciate it!

[Skywalker]

My coop partner and me played about 60 hours together and never had a bug or lag in coop. I think it depends on the power of the pc and the internet of the host.

The game in its actual state is very polished and finished for an early access title. You can play only about 40% of the planned and targeted release 1.0 map/regions, but this 40% feels not like "early access", but feels good and completed.

If you like collecting, fighting, solving puzzles, crafting, exploring a huge world then you will have fun with Enshrouded. The survival elements are there, but not like in a hard core survival title.

If you like building, farming and decorating your houses or even whole villages in a voxel world where you can alter nearly everything (like mincraft but with much better graphics and smaller voxels), your fun will triple ;)

[gerzald]

State of the Art. Me and my brother play once a week. No MP issues. Takes me back to that first month of playing WOW. Same fun vibe.

[Horrorscope CC97]

I jumped in a couple weeks ago, game is in a very playable state with a lot of content. Plays really well, gives you good direction, satisfied. I coop with my ole man.

Edit: Want to add all the slider type options to game play we have, really allows the players to find their happy place.

[retsam1]

Originally posted by Blackcompany:

First off, this post is utterly without sarcasm or judgement. I want to make it very clear that I am genuinely interested in, and rooting for, this game.

So...how much 'game' is there here, at this stage? I won't lie; Enshrouded looks intriguing, and I DO want to play it. But while I might toss the occasional bug report to the devs, I simply do not have time to be a tester. Time, or desire. I am immensely grateful to those willing to do so, because we can have games like this...but it isn't for me.

If this game is in a very playable state, where my girl and I could log in and get in some good coop fun, I'd very much like to pull the trigger. But if it is still at the crash prone, more testing than playing stage, I will simply wait, rather than risk souring us both on it.

So...in your estimations...is this something we would like now, or should we hold off a while yet?

Also...how controller friendly is it? We both work on kb/m all day and enjoy kicking back with controllers.

Thanks!

I put over 150 hours into the game back in April.... well before any of the major additions to the game came out so there is more I can opt to consider to do since then.

Whether that objectively that matches your potential play time or longer likely remains to be seen because there are too many variables that will likely be related to whether or not you intend to do a full completion, how much time you spend building/mining/gathering and much more.

[ZeroZeroOne]

My wife and I are currently at level 20 and just reached the third (?) biome, the desert. I like to adventure, and she likes to build villages. I think im are about 30 hours played (my wife might be at 50 hours played).

[AgentX320]

i am at 50 hours i just finished the second hollow halls i guess i am maybe halfway of the content ? i'll start third biome soon i think i just had the flame lvl 5

i played at the release reaching 60 hours in my first game but never went in the third biome

game content is crazy big

[Nokturnal]

It's got a ton of content especially since I got the game for $20, but there's definitely issues with it.

Building and Crafting are generally pretty good, outside of some lack of QoL features. Like inability to instantly deposit your backpack into nearby chests. (Terraria and Abiotic Factor both allow for this, I'm sure there's other survival games as well) Magic Chests are nice in that they share their contents with everything within your Flame Radius, but Workstations don't automatically put their output into that shared base inventory.

If you're into building, it allows for better building than Valheim for example.

Combat is in a really bad state imo. Melee is bland with badly designed AoE attacks. Archer basically means you're just going to be spamming arrows constantly, which gets old. Magic feels floaty and inaccurate, but once leveled has some good AoE attacks. Sneaking is probably the worst off as enemies have just random patrol routes for the most part and you're not allowed to Blink or Jump while sneaking, even just separating your body from a smooth surface causes Sneak to end. (like falling down an inch tall incline) You can set the enemy detection to the lowest in the server settings and sneaking still feels bad. The Skill Tree in general needs a total overhaul before release.

Enemy variety is really lacking for how large the map is. Biomes are pretty big and each one you're going to be encountering the same enemies over and over and over.

Content wise though, the current map is huge.

[Fryskar]

Depends a lot on how you play.
I'm quiet done with it, i'd say if you rush its maybe 50-80h for lvl 35, flame 8, all achivements and >80% of the map explored.

I'm now at 144h and quiet some time of it was building stuff or searching stuff (mosaic/tapestry) to the point where i've started to raze that damn fort.
As dislcaimer, i've played to 25 before the swamp, skipped that update, then did the rest in the current update.

[Horrorscope CC97]

Originally posted by Nokturnal:

Combat is in a really bad state imo. Melee is bland with badly designed AoE attacks. Archer basically means you're just going to be spamming arrows constantly, which gets old. Magic feels floaty and inaccurate, but once leveled has some good AoE attacks.

I feel melee is well better than what you see in most if not all Indy Survivals which to me is always basic. Just having the skill where it soft lock lunges adds choreography to melee, like a Batman series combat-lite. That's a large step above average. Jump Attack is nice, the block/parry systems are good. Sure it could use more varied skills, like cleave etc.

Bow shooting, yeah other than split there isn't a lot of variation, other than different arrows. But I find Melee first Archery second a solid 1-2 for indy survival.

Magic, haven't messed much with it, my coop partner uses it Melee-Magic 1-2, when we bunch up a lot of baddies they back off to bomb aoe them. We find the combat very good for indy survival and with the sliders to adjust it, we're always in a good spot challenge wise.

[PrinceVinc]

Originally posted by Nokturnal:

Combat is in a really bad state imo. Melee is bland with badly designed AoE attacks. Archer basically means you're just going to be spamming arrows constantly, which gets old. Magic feels floaty and inaccurate, but once leveled has some good AoE attacks. Sneaking is probably the worst off as enemies have just random patrol routes for the most part and you're not allowed to Blink or Jump while sneaking, even just separating your body from a smooth surface causes Sneak to end. (like falling down an inch tall incline) You can set the enemy detection to the lowest in the server settings and sneaking still feels bad. The Skill Tree in general needs a total overhaul before release.

Dam...I was about to make a Thread just to look for this answer... I was so hoping they would have done a Combat overhaul... the game is good in most aspectes but the combat sucks so bad... how come only the minority of players seem to be bothered by it? All these expansions without finishing a core aspect of the game...