Finally playing Realms Rebuilt and I am disheartened.

[Artichoki]

When I first played this game I was hooked. I loved the sense of adventure it gave me. How the procedurally generated realms felt like I was having a unique personal experience from other players. Now everything just feels too rigid and linear.

Puck also feels like less of a presence in the beginning. He is easily on of my favorite things about this game. Before Rebuilt, he aids you but also teaches you to be self reliant. He actually lead you through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier and brought you to a cozy little thicket in a unique realm full of beautiful explorable sites. It felt special. Now he just drops you off at a hub in a static realm that feels very empty. I know the original tutorial was rather long but from a story perspective it really felt like a relationship was built between him and player. A skip tutorial option would of helped avoid annoyance.

I miss the wildness of the realms. I miss not knowing what I was going to see if I started a new game. Combining cards to create different biomes and instances was such a fun feature of the game and now it just feels like it was pushed aside for something safe and predictable. The story realms are very beautiful and I enjoy exploring them as well, but it does feel like some of the original spark was lost.

I tried finally going to a wild procedural realm and there is just nothing remarkable about them. Also it kinda bothers me that we don't travel out of the Fae Portals and just warp onto a lodestar. Even the massive Fae Portals that originally felt like a big deal seemed to have lost their purpose.

Making games as a indie studio is difficult and I understand you can't make everyone happy. I want this game to succeed because I do believe it is something really special but much of what I originally loved doesn't seem to be much of a feature anymore.

[Starlight Rose]

I like the changes they've made, but I do feel like they need to develop the realm-walking part of the game. For some reason, I often think of No Man's Sky with this game, not because No Man's Sky had a rough start, but because they are similar in that the players are travelling to new and strange places. Instead of a spaceship, we're travelling through portals, and instead of a planet, it is a fantastical realm.

No Man's Sky, technically operates differently, different design software etc, but the premise is so similar that I feel the realms in Nightingale could also offer the same sense of variety and exploration that No Man's Sky does. Obviously, the realms will never be as big as the planets.

I feel when we step into a new realm it should be different to the last one we were in. The environments are still too samey across the realms we visit with cards. The biggest change seems to be the sky. The story realms are actually pretty decent, I feel.

We need more reasons to realm-surf, to explore, to find new things. In short, there would need to be more unpredictability. Some of the realms should look so vastly different, in some cases alien, that you truly feel you are realm-walking.

Furthermore, I'd like clothes/armor, rare furniture, weapons to be spread out across the different realms so we're chasing things instead of everything being easy to obtain in The Watch or via an interface.

[Artichoki]

Originally posted by Starlight Rose:

I like the changes they've made, but I do feel like they need to develop the realm-walking part of the game. For some reason, I often think of No Man's Sky with this game, not because No Man's Sky had a rough start, but because they are similar in that the players are travelling to new and strange places. Instead of a spaceship, we're travelling through portals, and instead of a planet, it is a fantastical realm.

No Man's Sky, technically operates differently, different design software etc, but the premise is so similar that I feel the realms in Nightingale could also offer the same sense of variety and exploration that No Man's Sky does. Obviously, the realms will never be as big as the planets.

I feel when we step into a new realm it should be different to the last one we were in. The environments are still too samey across the realms we visit with cards. The biggest change seems to be the sky. The story realms are actually pretty decent, I feel.

We need more reasons to realm-surf, to explore, to find new things. In short, there would need to be more unpredictability. Some of the realms should look so vastly different, in some cases alien, that you truly feel you are realm-walking.

Furthermore, I'd like clothes/armor, rare furniture, weapons to be spread out across the different realms so we're chasing things instead of everything being easy to obtain in The Watch or via an interface.

More diversity is something I defiantly agree on. I think they can even do better than No Man Sky in this aspect. No Man Sky has a lot of diversity but having an entire planet to explore means structures and resources are so far away from each other which results in a lot of trekking which can get tiresome. Don't get me wrong, I love exploring, but NMS has an overly barren feel to it a lot of the time. It does keep from from staying on planets for very long. Since realms are smaller, they can tighten this up a bit better. I think Valheim is a good example of this. It's been a while since I played but I remember the biomes feeling very dense and full of interesting enemies, structures, and terrains. This is why I think they should bring back the multi card system they had or some sort of sense to it. Maybe combine multiple environment cards at the enchanters table and fuse them into one card to active a portal. So it does feel like there are many possibilities of realms you can end up in.

And yes, having the blueprints at essence traders that you need to hunt down was a great incentive to explore and set out. Playing around what you find first was a much more interesting experience. Having everything at the start is just too simple and easy.

Also I wanted to ask, is the jump dash just completely wiped from the game? Thin veil, umbrella, and jump dash was such a fun way to explore realms.

[Foxglovez]

What Artichoki said +1. I think those of us that liked the original game that dropped in EA aren't that excited about what it has morphed in to. The numbers aren't showing much enthusiasm either so we're obviously not alone. The devs made a bet, reset their course and frankly for a lot of us that loved the tone of the game at the beginning now it's a big flop. That's how EA works though. Maybe someday another dev team will make the game we thought we were getting with Nightingale. Until then, well, luckily there are other games.

As for a comparison with NMS, it doesn't have the elegance of that game, the commitment nor the vision. Too easily swayed by a fickle gaming community. ymmv

[Artichoki]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

What Artichoki said +1. I think those of us that liked the original game that dropped in EA aren't that excited about what it has morphed in to. The numbers aren't showing much enthusiasm either so we're obviously not alone. The devs made a bet, reset their course and frankly for a lot of us that loved the tone of the game at the beginning now it's a big flop. That's how EA works though. Maybe someday another dev team will make the game we thought we were getting with Nightingale. Until then, well, luckily there are other games.

As for a comparison with NMS, it doesn't have the elegance of that game, the commitment nor the vision. Too easily swayed by a fickle gaming community. ymmv

Games like these start out as a passion project and if the passion is still there for the devs than I do hang onto hope for this game. Sinking so much time and money into something only for it to get reviewed bomb because an EA game didn't come with all the honey from heaven from the git go is a stressful thing to navigate and I don't really blame the devs for trying something different in order to appease more people. I just ask that they remember their original vision and that there is many of us who loved that vision when the game was first released. The story realms and the procedural realms can coexist but a lot of work balancing the two need to be done.

NMS had an infamously disastrous launch as a fully release game because of all the unfulfilled promises the CEO made. Back then their vision wasn't clear either. However, if they can reinvent and refocus into something that still has a very active player base, I believe Inflexion can too. It might take time, but patience is nothing new in the world of game development.

Right now I hope to get some sense of the old Abeyance Realm back as well as the adventure we went on with Puck to get there. As I said, that part really made the start of the game feel special.

[🕹️Mr.Griffin]

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

What Artichoki said +1. I think those of us that liked the original game that dropped in EA aren't that excited about what it has morphed in to. The numbers aren't showing much enthusiasm either so we're obviously not alone. The devs made a bet, reset their course and frankly for a lot of us that loved the tone of the game at the beginning now it's a big flop. That's how EA works though. Maybe someday another dev team will make the game we thought we were getting with Nightingale. Until then, well, luckily there are other games.

As for a comparison with NMS, it doesn't have the elegance of that game, the commitment nor the vision. Too easily swayed by a fickle gaming community. ymmv

Exactly what you said... and because of that, the name 'Inflection Games' is already damaged.

And just like that, I hope they don't leave it at that, because then it will feel like an even bigger cash grab, luring in people with false pretenses and not following through on anything they said in the Devblogs prior to Early Access. They have also been stripping away many good game features that were already developed and working well. The more they work on the game, the more features they remove. Crafting weapons and armors now have heavy diminishing returns on using the same materials, and you can no longer super stack your alloys. Movement has been nerfed to a crawl, making traveling across the realms much slower.

Also, the Realm-building Portal System has been changed so many times. Before, you could add 5 cards to build your Realms, then you could only enter 3 cards, and now you can only play 1 card. This was the second letdown, as the realms already felt the same, but at least you could customize them. Now, you play the same thing over and over again on repeat, and it's so tedious and stupid.

And the same goes for the tier levels. Before, we could reach gear level 270+, but now we can only get to gear level 130+ max, which is a 140 gear score difference. They said we would be able to reach gear level 270+ again when the Endgame was available, but I feel that will be a lie as well. That would mean a lot of new content, and this last year they did absolutely nothing but add cosmetics and a lame card game that you can play in your homestead. This doesn't make me feel like a 'REALM WALKER' and more like a hermit.

Now, about that card game, it would be cool if you could play it against other players, and if you could find and quest for more cards, making exploring and hunting fun again. But that is also a problem. This game killed the online mode by introducing the offline mode way too early into the development of the game, making it so that the player base, or rather what is left of it, feels seriously disconnected. There is no coherent feeling of playing together. The vaults are empty, and the watch is empty as well. If you're lucky, you see 3 to 5 people, while before it was bustling with so many players that the watch crashed every time. And I am afraid it will feel the same for Nightingale City: a big, empty, dark Victorian metropolis, and that will make my heart break. Because that, for me, was the whole premise of the game: the game I thought would be my favorite game for the next 10 years. GOD WAS I WRONG.

So please Developers bring back the Early Days and stop the Fashion Show niche PLEASE......

[Artichoki]

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

Originally posted by Foxglovez:

What Artichoki said +1. I think those of us that liked the original game that dropped in EA aren't that excited about what it has morphed in to. The numbers aren't showing much enthusiasm either so we're obviously not alone. The devs made a bet, reset their course and frankly for a lot of us that loved the tone of the game at the beginning now it's a big flop. That's how EA works though. Maybe someday another dev team will make the game we thought we were getting with Nightingale. Until then, well, luckily there are other games.

As for a comparison with NMS, it doesn't have the elegance of that game, the commitment nor the vision. Too easily swayed by a fickle gaming community. ymmv

Exactly what you said... and because of that, the name 'Inflection Games' is already damaged.

And just like that, I hope they don't leave it at that, because then it will feel like an even bigger cash grab, luring in people with false pretenses and not following through on anything they said in the Devblogs prior to Early Access. They have also been stripping away many good game features that were already developed and working well. The more they work on the game, the more features they remove. Crafting weapons and armors now have heavy diminishing returns on using the same materials, and you can no longer super stack your alloys. Movement has been nerfed to a crawl, making traveling across the realms much slower.

Also, the Realm-building Portal System has been changed so many times. Before, you could add 5 cards to build your Realms, then you could only enter 3 cards, and now you can only play 1 card. This was the second letdown, as the realms already felt the same, but at least you could customize them. Now, you play the same thing over and over again on repeat, and it's so tedious and stupid.

And the same goes for the tier levels. Before, we could reach gear level 270+, but now we can only get to gear level 130+ max, which is a 140 gear score difference. They said we would be able to reach gear level 270+ again when the Endgame was available, but I feel that will be a lie as well. That would mean a lot of new content, and this last year they did absolutely nothing but add cosmetics and a lame card game that you can play in your homestead. This doesn't make me feel like a 'REALM WALKER' and more like a hermit.

Now, about that card game, it would be cool if you could play it against other players, and if you could find and quest for more cards, making exploring and hunting fun again. But that is also a problem. This game killed the online mode by introducing the offline mode way too early into the development of the game, making it so that the player base, or rather what is left of it, feels seriously disconnected. There is no coherent feeling of playing together. The vaults are empty, and the watch is empty as well. If you're lucky, you see 3 to 5 people, while before it was bustling with so many players that the watch crashed every time. And I am afraid it will feel the same for Nightingale City: a big, empty, dark Victorian metropolis, and that will make my heart break. Because that, for me, was the whole premise of the game: the game I thought would be my favorite game for the next 10 years. GOD WAS I WRONG.

So please Developers bring back the Early Days and stop the Fashion Show niche PLEASE......

Dang, I did not know about the pre release promises they made. My guess is that they brought it down to two so that it worked enough so the game was ready to play. Whittling it down to one defiantly is a huge step backwards.

At the end of the day, ideas are cheap and the devs themselves probably had lots of ideas they wanted to implement that they didn't even share with the public. The physical task of making a game with the coding, the art, the 3d modeling, the animation, the music, etc takes so much time and resources that you have to scale back and start small. This being their first game offers another level of struggle because they don't have profits of another successful game to sit on as they work on this. The fact they had to close their other studio probably plays a part in this so now production is even tighter. Because of this I do think the devs deserve some grace. AS LONG AS the passion to make the game they intentionally talked about still exists. I can't imagine the stress it takes to own and run a company where the priority is making sure people get paid despite sales being low.

We've been seeing numerous updates about seasonal clothes and a card game because compared to the grander stuff that is much easier to put out. While we are here critiquing the original core vision of the game, there are going to be people who will complain that they aren't constantly pumping out anything new regularly. You can't appease everyone though and seasonal stuff isn't enough to draw people back in long term if the main game itself feels hollow. I came back because I wanted to see how this game I have a lot of hope for developed in a year only to be disappointed and wished I played more before the Realms Rebuilt update. I'm not sure if I even want to continue with the story realms quests because if this is really what the bulk of game is going to be than I would rather wait for full release. There are only so many ways you can experience a liner static realm and story line.

And yeah you make a good point with Nightingale City. My guess it's suppose to act like a player hub much like the Anomaly in NMS? Since the active player base is so small is it going to have the impact they are building up to when it's finally ready? Is it going to be enough for people to want to play the game for hours? With the state of the game now, I can't help but feel doubtful that it will.

[GrailQuest]

Originally posted by Artichoki:

I tried finally going to a wild procedural realm and there is just nothing remarkable about them. Also it kinda bothers me that we don't travel out of the Fae Portals and just warp onto a lodestar. Even the massive Fae Portals that originally felt like a big deal seemed to have lost their purpose.

Now that you mention this, yeah I feel it too. But OTOH the fae portals weren't particularly well thought out. Why did they have human gadgets attached to them? Surely that's not how the fae use them? We basically don't see any fae gadgetry at all.

And the bastilles -- their justification even from the original release was so flimsy as to be basically non-existent.

[william_es]

I liked the crossways and the "hand crafted" realms I was sent to first. When the game first launched, I quickly reached a point where I was just venturing to all these ridiculous almost pointless variations of nearly the same exact realm. They looked identical, and the only thing that changed (slightly) were the levels of the resources. It felt empty and soulless.

The first places you go to in realms rebuilt are radically different from each other, with whole different vibes and moods.

The special recipes you could only buy from the essence traders in specific realms just turned it into a giant pointless scavenger hunt. Why was a certain specific recipe ONLY available in a provisioner desert realm? Not provisioner forest, or swamp, JUST the provisioner desert realm. Why was that the only place it could be purchased at??

It's not like we were running into handcrafted NPC's, where we'd learn furniture recipes from a former carpenter, or weapon recipes from a soldier. That would have made much more sense. Would have tied in with all the augments, because the augments were all props that pointed to the backgrounds of our characters. If you made a simple saddle rack, it pointed towards your character having been a cowboy at one points, who knew their way around a pistol. The victorian tea set (made out of unfired clay and stick) meant you might have been landed gentry before being forced to flee earth. That's why your character would suddently know how to craft shotguns (riding with hounds) and upper class clothing.

[🕹️Mr.Griffin]

Originally posted by william_es:

I liked the crossways and the "hand crafted" realms I was sent to first. When the game first launched, I quickly reached a point where I was just venturing to all these ridiculous almost pointless variations of nearly the same exact realm. They looked identical, and the only thing that changed (slightly) were the levels of the resources. It felt empty and soulless.

The first places you go to in realms rebuilt are radically different from each other, with whole different vibes and moods.

The special recipes you could only buy from the essence traders in specific realms just turned it into a giant pointless scavenger hunt. Why was a certain specific recipe ONLY available in a provisioner desert realm? Not provisioner forest, or swamp, JUST the provisioner desert realm. Why was that the only place it could be purchased at??

It's not like we were running into handcrafted NPC's, where we'd learn furniture recipes from a former carpenter, or weapon recipes from a soldier. That would have made much more sense. Would have tied in with all the augments, because the augments were all props that pointed to the backgrounds of our characters. If you made a simple saddle rack, it pointed towards your character having been a cowboy at one points, who knew their way around a pistol. The victorian tea set (made out of unfired clay and stick) meant you might have been landed gentry before being forced to flee earth. That's why your character would suddently know how to craft shotguns (riding with hounds) and upper class clothing.

Please play through the entirety of The Nightingale game again, and then you'll have a better understanding of what I'm referring to.

[Foxglovez]

Artichoki - this is not the devs first rodeo. They come from other games and they also have backing from Tencent which is a big deal, not some Valheim studio with 3 guys in a garage for a few years (though I'm sure this bunch would like to be them at this point). They basically took all the assets from what "was" this game and removed them from the exploratory realms and stuffed them in one hand built realm and called it new content, like they thought we were blind? The fun of exploring, gone, exploring in general gone. Oh well.

[𝙎𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢 ⑨]

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

Crafting weapons and armors now have heavy diminishing returns on using the same materials, and you can no longer super stack your alloys. Movement has been nerfed to a crawl, making traveling across the realms much slower.

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

Please play through the entirety of The Nightingale game again, and then you'll have a better understanding of what I'm referring to.

Maybe you should follow your own advice : what you describe, (the system where every time you use the same material more than once, their stacking stats are reduced) has been considered by the devs after the folding ingot exploit nerf but it has never been implemented , it's the soft/hard cap system that has been implemented.
You can put as many times the same material as you want if you don't exceed the soft cap it has no impact.
Especially since most soft caps are unreachable (like you can make your gear only in widower spider / Fabled Beelzeboar and dont have any diminishing returns on damage) , except for movement speed (which is largely compensated by the combo of charm of the wind and charm of the raven), and crits beyond 60% per item which doesn't impact for any build except the build that reach thousand millions of damage... which far exceeds the damage done by the vast majority of people using folded ingots.

[🕹️Mr.Griffin]

Originally posted by 𝙎𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢 ⑨:

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

Crafting weapons and armors now have heavy diminishing returns on using the same materials, and you can no longer super stack your alloys. Movement has been nerfed to a crawl, making traveling across the realms much slower.

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

Please play through the entirety of The Nightingale game again, and then you'll have a better understanding of what I'm referring to.

Maybe you should follow your own advice : what you describe, (the system where every time you use the same material more than once, their stacking stats are reduced) has been considered by the devs after the folding ingot exploit nerf but it has never been implemented , it's the soft/hard cap system that has been implemented.
You can put as many times the same material as you want if you don't exceed the soft cap it has no impact.
Especially since most soft caps are unreachable (like you can make your gear only in widower spider / Fabled Beelzeboar and dont have any diminishing returns on damage) , except for movement speed (which is largely compensated by the combo of charm of the wind and charm of the raven), and crits beyond 60% per item which doesn't impact for any build except the build that reach thousand millions of damage... which far exceeds the damage done by the vast majority of people using folded ingots.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3437863656

and you can no longer super stack your alloys. Movement has been nerfed to a crawl, making traveling across the realms much slower.

And I can promise you, I was zooming.

In the current version of the game, you can still one or two-tap every boss, and you need a couple more shots when you do the higher boss rush missions.

[𝙎𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢 ⑨]

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3437863656

and you can no longer super stack your alloys. Movement has been nerfed to a crawl, making traveling across the realms much slower.

And I can promise you, I was zooming.

The folding ingots that I mentioned, is what you call "super alloy", I was zooming too, but you can still... And for your broken link, I guess it referring to the diminishing feedback system when using the same materials, again, YES it's been mentioned several times in videos but it's the soft cap system that's been implemented, which confirms the fact that you spend more time watching videos videos than playing nightingale.

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

In the current version of the game, you can still one or two-tap every boss, and you need a couple more shots when you do the higher boss rush missions.

You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
You can one shot every vault bosses, but the boss rush have a a scaling that stretches over a fifty waves, it makes no sense to compare, some of the bosses have more than 1 billions of HP. The comparison is meaningless. But you can do 100 millions of damage, with a theorical limit in party play of few billions

[🕹️Mr.Griffin]

Originally posted by 𝙎𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢 ⑨:

Originally posted by -=Mr. Griffin=-:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3437863656

and you can no longer super stack your alloys. Movement has been nerfed to a crawl, making traveling across the realms much slower.

And I can promise you, I was zooming.

The folding ingots that I mentioned, is what you call "super alloy", I was zooming too, but you can still... And for your broken link, I guess it referring to the diminishing feedback system when using the same materials, again, YES it's been mentioned several times in videos but it's the soft cap system that's been implemented, which confirms the fact that you spend more time watching videos videos than playing nightingale.

My issues with the game are not with the current stats, but rather with lackluster animations from NPCs, enemies, bosses, and static doors. Additionally, handcrafted realms that provide everything you need or are looking for, the fact that you no longer die when starving to death, the lackluster building mechanics, and the numerous bugs that have been plaguing the game since the start of Early Access are all sources of frustration. Not to mention all the features that were removed for the sake of streamlining or balancing, but with no replacements.

The player numbers speak for themselves, starting with a whopping 20,000 players and now reduced to around 500, with 350 playing and 150 complaining about the game's direction. It seems to have shifted towards fashion shows and homesteads, rather than realmwalking and exploring, which is what originally drew players in. If the developers want players to build more, they could at least add more building tiles, such as connecting roof tiles, triangle or round foundations, and matching pieces. As someone who had all the achievements before the realms rework, I don't feel motivated to redo them all before the game's full release, especially since I've lost my progress twice already.

Before you assume that this is about me, I want to clarify that I have no involvement in the creation of the game Nightingale. I'm simply here to share my thoughts and frustrations with others regarding the game's performance and player loss, which are not my doing...or are they?

As I've mentioned before, I still prefer the previous iteration of the game much more than what it is today. There's nothing you can do or say that will change my mind about that, because for me, it's a clear fact. And, about 15,000 players agree with me.

That's about 10 times more players than the game has today.

Peace...

[𝙎𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙪𝙢 ⑨]

But who's going to assume that you were involved in the game's creation? You've spent your time whining on the discord and pinging the devs, when several people have pointed out to you that there's a specific platform where you can post feedback and that it will be read by the devs.

I have absolutely no problem with people preferring older versions of the game, or criticizing it, and I do prefer few aspect of the pre RR version but you're just hijacking thread (not this one) to throw out your pamphlets even though the subject has nothing to do with it.
I advise you to make a post on https://playnightingale.ideas.aha.io/ideas/new , the devs will read it.