Thoughts on the demo, the good and the bad

[CeaseNY716]

Okay, so I've played around 3 hours now and have been really just wandering around killing stuff and getting mats and rekilling stuff.

I'll start with my dislikes
-Inventory. Very annoying way to start the game. Starting with 12 slots only to have more than 12 different kinds of materials dropping 5 minutes into the Hollow is pretty... bad? I shouldn't be getting an amount of materials that I cant even pick up and have to leave on the ground that early in the game, especially a demo, when you aren't even informed of what to really do with them or the fact you have to keep backtracking to the Enclave to do anything with them

-Dying. I was just exploring and saw some water and tried to jump into it, nope, died. Lost my mats. Would have been nice to know that was a thing. Doesnt help that I was pretty far along the map and started back at the Enclave entrance and had to retrace my steps. Don't know how I feel about that mechanic but it doesnt feel very good. I like a challenge though, we'll see how that plays out

-Combat feels a bit floaty, im not a sword and board guy either way, but sword, bow, and magic all lack any impact, as cool as it looks. Want to see what 2h weapon feels like

-No dualsense vibration even though theres an option for it. Would help combat feel better

-Neutral about stamina system, im used to it in games like this and games like this are the reason im interested in Strands, hopefully we can upgrade it

-Bow shots do more damage with headshots but theres no indication, maybe a yellow number or something would be good? Also a charged bow shot would be cool

-I can throw enemies into walls for damage but if I yeet them down a cliff it does 0 damage (not a big deal)

Thats the only things I can think of right now, I see we can unlock more inventory spaces but I dont feel like I should be choosing what mats to pick up if there's a large variety. 18 slots does not feel like it will be enough at all especially when you dont know what may drop that you have to leave or backtrack to make space just to have to find the material all over again, so thats a biggie for me, even more so than losing mats on death

Things I do like

-I love the world. Its beautiful. Straight up

-Magic and animations are great

-Movement feels really smooth

-Climbing feels good so far, accidentally jumped off ark a few times but idk if that was me or not, will fight again and see

-Yeeting enemies into walls, each other, or into the abyss will never get old to me

-Spell physics are great, loved making a long Ice pillar on the dragons head that weighed its head down and it couldnt move. Made me chuckle

-Controller feels way better than kb+m to play with, magic is way easier to switch and use. Still need dualsense vibration (this is big)

-I like the dialogue, UI, Codex and all that stuff. The cutscenes are cool as well (thats all my preference)

-The MOST important thing, performance. I've seen people with highend systems complain, i dont know. 12600k+7900xtx and I've settled on Epic settings with FSR Performance mode. 90-95 fps at all times, with amd afmf2 enabled i easily max my 144 out. No ghosting, artifacts, or grainy textures. No noticable input lag either (my gaming tv and amd antilag help with that as well). Ultra performance mode gets the frames up into the 120s , with no "super" noticeable graphic loss. Will be best bet for lower end systems. This is all at 4k, didnt test lower resolutions

ZERO Microstuttering. 0.0%. Nada, None, Zilch. Had both my RTSS and AMD metrics going the whole time, with frametime and microstutter % on. 0.0% the whole 3 hours I've played. Literally I cannot state enough, NO microstutters that I have even slightly noticed, no matter what is going on on-screen

That in itself will have me buy the game, especially at a fair $40 for a bunch of different game mechanics I like all rolled into one, definitely have my gripes that I hope can be addressed, but I'm gonna have fun with this one. Cheers! ~Fix dualsense vibration!! =) ~

[OptimusGrizly]

Us with the high end systems are complaining because a game like this we should be able to run native and have no issues getting high frames. At 4K native I had to drastically reduce settings to achieve 60 FPS and was still dropping them. 1440 I can max out and frames bounce between 68-80 FPS. Compared the Stalker 4K native around 60-70 frames and Indiana Jones (ray tracing has to be enabled) I sit at 80. Both them games have way more detail to be rendered than this game.

I agree with everything you said pretty much spot on. ESPECIALLY the K&M vs controller. I usually play action games with controller but wanted to use k/m since it has a lot of aiming and aiming is best with mouse. But preset controls feel a little clunky and can't rebind the button for the stance to use powers. I would add though that the ability to save while out is needed.

[docmars]

Originally posted by CeaseNY716:

Ultra performance mode gets the frames up into the 120s , with no "super" noticeable graphic loss. Will be best bet for lower end systems. This is all at 4k, didnt test lower resolutions

Not trying to start anything contentious, but asking sincerely -- how do you not notice the blurry textures and spiky artifacts + halos around objects at Ultra Performance?

I tried it last night on my 4K TV and I viscerally went: "Ooof, yuck" out loud and promptly changed it back 😅

[yellowbrickgames_devs]

Originally posted by OptimusGrizly:

Us with the high end systems are complaining because a game like this we should be able to run native and have no issues getting high frames. At 4K native I had to drastically reduce settings to achieve 60 FPS and was still dropping them. 1440 I can max out and frames bounce between 68-80 FPS. Compared the Stalker 4K native around 60-70 frames and Indiana Jones (ray tracing has to be enabled) I sit at 80. Both them games have way more detail to be rendered than this game.

Originally posted by docmars:

Not trying to start anything contentious, but asking sincerely -- how do you not notice the blurry textures and spiky artifacts + halos around objects at Ultra Performance?

I tried it last night on my 4K TV and I viscerally went: "Ooof, yuck" out loud and promptly changed it back 😅

Hey there! So it looks like we have an answer regarding Ultra-Quality performance (we'll respond in the other thread that was made about this too, but leaving this here for reference):

Ultra-Quality will be removed in a future patch, as it appears that it was in the code for future use, but settings are still being worked out under the hood. Please let us know if you're still experiencing the issues when swapping to a different quality and rebooting the game!

[yellowbrickgames_devs]

Originally posted by CeaseNY716:

-Inventory. Very annoying way to start the game. Starting with 12 slots only to have more than 12 different kinds of materials dropping 5 minutes into the Hollow is pretty... bad? I shouldn't be getting an amount of materials that I cant even pick up and have to leave on the ground that early in the game, especially a demo, when you aren't even informed of what to really do with them or the fact you have to keep backtracking to the Enclave to do anything with them

-Dying. I was just exploring and saw some water and tried to jump into it, nope, died. Lost my mats. Would have been nice to know that was a thing. Doesnt help that I was pretty far along the map and started back at the Enclave entrance and had to retrace my steps. Don't know how I feel about that mechanic but it doesnt feel very good. I like a challenge though, we'll see how that plays out

-Combat feels a bit floaty, im not a sword and board guy either way, but sword, bow, and magic all lack any impact, as cool as it looks. Want to see what 2h weapon feels like

-No dualsense vibration even though theres an option for it. Would help combat feel better

-Bow shots do more damage with headshots but theres no indication, maybe a yellow number or something would be good? Also a charged bow shot would be cool

First off, thank you SO much for all this detailed feedback! Leaving some helpful answers and tips for you:
- We are working on an action plan to improve on the inventory, safe pouch upon death, as well as the combat feedback we've received. Please stay tuned! 😊

- Regarding vibration, we are also looking into this!

- Finally, with bow shots there is a charged attack! You can press and hold to "charge" up the bow, or press in on the right stick to enter a "slow mode" for better precision. Let us know what you think! 😊

[OptimusGrizly]

- Finally, with bow shots there is a charged attack! You can press and hold to "charge" up the bow, or press in on the right stick to enter a "slow mode" for better precision. Let us know what you think! 😊 [/quote]

I was wondering what happened. I was playing on M&K and suddenly it went into slow motion. Don't know what button I pressed, but I ended up just quitting to menu. That's How I found out there is no auto save and cant save while out. It did save some items that I collected though. May want to included the slow motion into tutorial.