What's with the low review and player counts?

[Stoners Knight]

Surely more people are interested in this..

[Nightmarian]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย ChubbiChibbai:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย GuNNuP:

if the game was fun to play as pretty as the art style is, and as poor as the story is.

How is the story poor?
As someone who actually watched the cutscenes, and actively engages in all the conversations at the camp - tell me what you don't like about the story.

Sure its not winning any awards but to say its poor is just unfair. There is a solid premise laid out, a deep and nicely built out lore and each character has their own back story as well as their own motivations and interactions / thoughts and feelings that you can interact with.

I really feel like people skip the dialogue and then say the story is poor because its not being spoon fed to them.

The mediocre story is a common criticism in critic reviews. There's nothing wrong with this game, and the devs are focused ON the game and no idiotic political activism (and I say that as someone who doesn't care for either side of that dumb war).

It's just a mid game, that's all there really is to it. There are some games that received basically no reviews like Ender Magnolia, Nine Sols, and OMORI that are still massively successful and considered some of the most top tier 'hidden' gems of all time.

Then there are games like Kena: Bridge of Spirits which are good but nothing to shatter your mind with that get very little attention and little by little as the rough spots are smoothed over and sales make the game more appealing become more popular.

I think that's what this game will be. Once it gets some good patches and sales it'll probably come under more peoples' radars.

Like, KCD comes out next week, Avowed soon after that, then Wilds, and FF7 Rebirth just released too. There's a lot of things to keep people busy and lot of people are just waiting for their preferred game.

With all these $70 base prices and insane $100 special editions with 'early' access, people are going to buy less games and care more about those they do, so a 'mid' or 'just okay' game simply isn't going to be worth it to someone who is only going to play 1 or 2 games that year in between their f2p slop.

And let's not forget that a lot of people also are terminally online and only play whatever's FOMO on social media.

[Savatage79]

I think with some qol changed the game would really jump up a notch. I loved the first map but the more I play the more I'm agitated by how limited the crafting mechanics, returning to town constantly, etc all works

[Solie]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kazio:

I won't say anything about identity politics or like that. The game looks very vibrant and functional. The main issue with alot of games nowadays, this one included, seems to be they are just sterile and uneventful. We play games for the gameplay and such, but if the game does have a story, it seems to be the current trend to make things as generally inoffensive as possible.
Even if it came out on Gamepass its still pretty bad that its under a 1000+ players on Steam a day after launch day....

In the demo that I played for like 4-5 hours last night, I got hints that the hooded NPC was a gender neutral over like 2 pieces of dialogue. One of which was a quick snippet while I was running around the camp where the horned elf looking girl was talking to the bird about how the hooded one wanted to be called 'Laen' instead of 'Laenray' or something like that, and bird was basically like "Sure whatever ill keep that in mind" sounding slightly irritated. No big gender dump the moment I engage with the NPC, though im sure some of that may come later.

That said, the game itself has really solid writing most of the time with an interesting world and lore. Genuinely surprised how cool it ended up being because I skipped the intro expecting to play for like 10-15 minutes and drop it. The dialogue is usually very good with a few moments of "Did the same person write this?" because the character voice acting "I'm awesome like that" after all their other dialogue gives a very different feel comes off like it doesn't belong. This isn't dragon age level of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the bed either. Interested to see where the story goes and the environment and powers are very cool.

Only thing I wish was different based on what i've played of the demo so far, is that there are houses and buildings, that are solid objects that you can destroy, because almost everything is destructable and manipulated with your gravity magic if its light enough, but the doors don't work and you can't go inside, unless you just break it apart. There are some structures you can go inside like a tower I've found so far, but a lot of it is outdoors. I hope there are more interior structures later on.

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Sel Und Irae:

It looks interesting. But i refuse to play any game that genderlocks to female, I always play a male character no matter what game it is if the game wont let me i wont play it.

I like to play games to immerse myself, I literally cannot immerse myself if i'm looking at jiggle the entire time.

Idk what others are having issues with, It looks decent to me aside from the genderlock. If they had a male option i'd purchase it right now.

Also disregard anything this guy says, he legit lives on the forums. 400+ pages of forum posts and a schizo tier mountain of comments on his own profile talking to himself about his various bans on different game forums. The funniest of which involves him giving praise to Stellaris in his early profile while later talking about how he was banned, and retroactively changed all of his DLC reviews to the same copy paste which also got banned since its probably a torrent link. Very funny if you're the type to go down the rabbit hole of internet lolcows etc.

[Nightmarian]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Solie:

Also disregard anything this guy says, he legit lives on the forums. 400+ pages of forum posts and a schizo tier mountain of comments on his own profile talking to himself about his various bans on different game forums. The funniest of which involves him giving praise to Stellaris in his early profile while later talking about how he was banned, and retroactively changed all of his DLC reviews to the same copy paste which also got banned since its probably a torrent link. Very funny if you're the type to go down the rabbit hole of internet lolcows etc.

Eh, I could say that about 90% of people who use the Steam forums. While I don't agree with his sentiment, I can understand why people dislike genderlock characters. It's a common complaint in every MMORPG that does it.

However, it's my impression that you're not playing a generic character, but a specific person like Jill Valentine or Geralt. In which case, self-insertion is not only silly but against the point.

[GuNNuP]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย ChubbiChibbai:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย GuNNuP:

if the game was fun to play as pretty as the art style is, and as poor as the story is.

How is the story poor?
As someone who actually watched the cutscenes, and actively engages in all the conversations at the camp - tell me what you don't like about the story.

Sure its not winning any awards but to say its poor is just unfair. There is a solid premise laid out, a deep and nicely built out lore and each character has their own back story as well as their own motivations and interactions / thoughts and feelings that you can interact with.

I really feel like people skip the dialogue and then say the story is poor because its not being spoon fed to them.

I read the dialogue, I promise... it's among the weakest introductions. The enemies that you fight are boring to fight. not that they aren't difficult but the lack of feedback to the attacks on enemies. the spell effects all seem like alpha state in their usability. The character art design all sucks besides 2 characters the owl and the dude that hangs out with the smith.

The world design feels very "closed" and very PS2 era progression.

The 2d cutsceens have pretty bad animation quality, low frame rate. would be better if it where an in game cuteness at 40 bucks. (Not that it held my attention for low cost on gamepass.)

The game feels like a half complete game, with a lot of modern influences just ignored in the genre. It's not even close in how good other games are in this genre and it's contemporaries.

add to it, the art direction doesn't seem like it's well thought out. they convirt to 2d when it would be better an 3d. and they go vn, when a perfectly good 3d moddle is used. I suppose the cost might be an attributing factor for the less than stellar art presentation. they have found 2 ways to break immersion in the game. should have just been like sonic, here is level 1-2-3 ect.

Adding woke themes and making sure not to offend anyone, but also being extremely horrible to Hispanic people. is only a slight problem to the games larger issues.

[[BIO] Orangecoke]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Nightmarian:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Solie:

Also disregard anything this guy says, he legit lives on the forums. 400+ pages of forum posts and a schizo tier mountain of comments on his own profile talking to himself about his various bans on different game forums. The funniest of which involves him giving praise to Stellaris in his early profile while later talking about how he was banned, and retroactively changed all of his DLC reviews to the same copy paste which also got banned since its probably a torrent link. Very funny if you're the type to go down the rabbit hole of internet lolcows etc.

Eh, I could say that about 90% of people who use the Steam forums. While I don't agree with his sentiment, I can understand why people dislike genderlock characters. It's a common complaint in every MMORPG that does it.

However, it's my impression that you're not playing a generic character, but a specific person like Jill Valentine or Geralt. In which case, self-insertion is not only silly but against the point.

Yeah. Honestly “gender locked”
doesn’t describe this game (and few games really force that).

It’s a female protagonist with a name. Like Aloy or whatnot. And honestly it’s weird to make a big deal out of it like it’s a big negative. There are games with male protagonists too. Space Marine 2 etc etc.

[Zarquon]

for me it's the cartoony art style and the buddy-buddy everyone let's get along cheery attitude. Also lack of depth but i don't hold it against the devs since that's the genre. It looks like a kids game (even if it isn't at all).

[[BIO] Orangecoke]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Zarquon:

for me it's the cartoony art style and the buddy-buddy everyone let's get along cheery attitude. Also lack of depth but i don't hold it against the devs since that's the genre.

That’s reasonable. The visuals and tone won’t be everyone’s cup of tea.

[Sel Und Irae]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Solie:

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Kazio:

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โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Sel Und Irae:

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mountain of comments on his own profile talking to himself about his various bans on different game forums.

We've resorted to stalking now? Very sad.

[Operator]

After I finished the demo and got to the dustborn cast of characters i uninstalled the game hands down and won't look back.

[undefined]

Overpriced modern audience slop.

[B Unit]

First impressions mean a lot and its clear this game doesn't have the largest budget ever, has a generic title and fantasy Fortnite aesthetic that is played out at this point. The cast of characters look and behave like they came from someone's Tumblr OC fanfiction.

Add next to no marketing it was going to have to get carried on word of mouth and it being mostly described as "its ok" isn't really going to cut it.

[Ingel Riday]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Operator:

After I finished the demo and got to the dustborn cast of characters i uninstalled the game hands down and won't look back.

You know, I was thinking about this today.

What got me into a lot of games growing up was how cool the main characters looked. Necromancers with bones and spikes on their armor. Femme Fatales in form-fitting outfits with mischievous smirks. Doom Guy with his goofy green armor and ludicrous helmet.

I skipped Concord because the characters looked like modern audience garbage. I had no desire to play any of them. I started playing Marvel Rivals because the characters looked AWESOME, and I have spent $150 on costumes that I shouldn't have because the costumes are glorious! My dudes are buff and crazy looking, my ladies are either sultry or maniacal, and my Jeff is adorkable dressed up as a dolphin. I'm trying to learn characters who are definitively NOT my cup of tea, because their costume are so awesome that I want to MAKE MYSELF learn how to play them. So that the back-line healers can gaze at my magnificence as I stab them with purple laser swords.

None of the designs in Eternal Strands evoke the same feelings as Marvel Rivals or the avatars of my youth. I wouldn't buy cosmetics for any of these characters. They're not Concord / Veilguard level bad at all, but they certainly drank from the "modern audience" fountain.

I doubt the average consumer is looking at Laen or Dahm and going: "Wow! You dudes look awesome, man." "Oh bro, that lady blacksmith looks like a race-swapped Steven Universe! YEAH! Man, she's pretty cool." Eh?

There is an audience for these kinds of designs, sure. It's not very large and it doesn't buy a lot of games. I'm not sure that catering to it is a very good idea, financially.

As for the lead character... Brynn gets some genuinely nice armor designs in the game, I'll give her that, but they're wasted on her. She's too androgynous to be sultry, too scrawny to be buff and cool looking in plate, and too tame to look maniacal. I don't hate her look, but it doesn't do anything for me. At all. I'm not saying go all "gooner" or what have you, but where is the mainstream appeal? Where is the personality?

She's a battlemage. Where are my idles where Brynn toys with elemental powers? Or a playful hip movement? Or a gruff adjusting of an armor piece before battle? Make the player character tough. Make the player character sensual. Do both like classic Lara Croft, if you want! Make the player character something other than just there. :-D

Edit addition: I'm going to ramble just a bit more, because I'm silly. I just played Gravity Rush not two weeks ago, and Kat (the main character) is not a sensual lady at all. She's pretty and her outfit is cute, but there is no Femme Fatale energy about the girl. She's not really buff looking or maniacal, either. No... Kat is girly, very feminine, egregiously dorky, and socially awkward as she endures snide quips from most supporting characters.

I totally connected with that character. Someone made fun of her clothes, she pouted, and I caught myself literally going "aw!!!" and feeling bad for her. "She's just jealous, Kat. It's okay! We'll use gravity powers and fling her bike across town in revenge." That's the kind of response you want. Kat has mainstream appeal. If her games had better controls and less nausea-inducing gameplay (I almost vomited during a boss mission), her franchise would have probably done pretty well. :-D

[TriforcePlayer7]

40 Dollars? Wake me when its 10

[Elveone]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย TriforcePlayer7:

40 Dollars? Wake me when its 10

It is 10 - it is on gamepass.