About 2/3s through the game, loving it so far... but there are a couple little QoL things that might make me love it even more.

[Talbot]

Reserving judgment on the story/pacing/etc. until I finish, but purely for gameplay there are just a couple things I'd love to see patched in. Just my two cents, tossing them into the wishing fountain that is the Steam boards.

- First and biggest, optional level scaling settings for the baddies. I did the Frozen Hearts mission as soon as it became available, and while I assumed it'd make me over-leveled for a mission or two, it actually just made me overleveled for everything since. Given how open the gameworld is, I'm sure a lot of people have likewise borked their leveling curve via Dark Shores or Sprong or whatever in addition to the way I did it. That said, it's also not far to force level scaling on people who like to out-grind the game, so an optional switch would be awesome.

- I really don't think allowing saves, or at least checkpoints, during the Gestral games would hurt anyone. At least for the two platforming ones.

- Also this is a nitpick but if these games are gonna be so dependent on ledge grabs it'd be great if they either made those more consistent, or at least made it obvious why they don't happen when you're counting on them to. For me I can't really spot any difference on my climbing runs between when I jump at that weird boat or column and easily clamber up, or when I just bounce off and fall back into the sea.

- Another optional slider that might be nice for people would be an indicator on missed parries whether you were too late or too early to help you learn?

- Torn on this one but a little more in-game tracking for some of the collectibles or sub-categories would be welcome. You don't even need to tell me how many total records or expedition logs or white nevrons or mimes or chromatic nevrons there are to get, but it would be cool if I could easily track how many I already had. Kinda make sense in-world for an Expedition to keep detailed records on stuff like that, too.

- I really like the way the game incentivizes you to use all five characters, but I think the nature of Monoco's skill acquisition ends up over-incientivizing bringing him to every battle in any new area. It'd be cool if you could explore with whomever you want and just get a prompt each time a new Monoco-relevant monster is encountered for the first time, with an option to hotswap him in at the start of the battle.

- Related to a lot of the above, I guess, is that I think more difficulty options beyond just "harder" or "easier" to let people play the version of the game they'd like best. If somebody hates (or just can't master) the Dodge/Parry system but still wants challenging experience outside of that mechanic, it'd be cool if they could jack up enemy stats while also giving themselves a gentler dodge window. On the other hand, if someone has mastered everything, letting them shorten the timing window even further while also stat-scaling the enemies to always be at least vie levels ahead of the party would also only make the game more fun for more people, I think.

Not really QoL, but more outfits/hairstyles would be welcome, too, particularly if they wanted to give characters more bespoke looks instead of four-five variations on every theme. It's cool that I can dress Lune and Sciel both up as the a Danseuse, but their civilian outfits are kind of painfully generic for two characters who feel like they otherwise have a very strong sense of self-expression.

I think of all of those only #1 is really "important," but they are all things that would make me dig a game I'm already pretty much enraptured be just that little bit more.