Current state of development

[Kirellian]

This thread mainly serves the purpose of informing the dev of some major cons, if they should not already be aware of them. I hope they actually read these.

• 0 Animations for combat (dodge, parry, hit reg, weapon type animations)
  
• No melee skills beside rush, very basic animations for all magic
  
• No impactful character customization
  
• Vast empty spaces and dungeons that can not be completed.

The 4 points mentioned above make the game feel insanely monotonous, beyond a point of reason. It makes you tire of the game easily, despite how much you love the grind for new and exciting things. Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot to do in Elin, but that hardly matters when the content is fixed between a handful of categories and filled out mainly by randomly generated content. The lack of combat animations and satisfaction (sound design, small delay on critical hit etc.) is the worst offender in terms of monotonous gameplay.

You would have to work like a man possessed to get this game out of early access in the specified amount of time. It's the perfect example of "a lot to do, little to accomplish".

I should specify that my criticism comes in the form of disappointment only because, seeing as how Elin is labeled as a roguelike, it is much closer to an incomplete farming sim, with bonus content. There is a lot of potential here, but as of right now I don't see how it's supposed to be realised if the devs focus too much on the farming sim aspect of the game.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

You know most roguelikes are ascii right? For the most part they don't have any customization and you have short runs and die with 1 of 10 possible starting races and options. I think maybe you don't understand the genre.

[Nitram]

Maybe your just hoping for too much out of this game?There actually already hours and hours of content and things to discover. i have over 70h already and im no where near tired of the game.it and old style rogue-like game. it not gonna be up to snuff with triple A games in terms of graphics and all stuff.Anyway it erlie access stuff will change and update. It lame that you have criticism over a unfinished game....you should keep it inside until the game actually done, nobody forced you to buy and play a work in progress it was your choice.

[Saber]

Bro this isn't Elden Ring.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

I mean comparing it with actual roguelikes its insanely polished and leagues ahead of them. Tangledeep, Caves of Qud, Dungeonmans, Nethack. It has so much more content than all of them and its early access. Even most roguelites it has dramatically more content then. It blows me away that anyone can be unsatisfied by the content here. I have 120 hours and still every day I want to play more like its like crack. I feel like you either like real roguelikes or not.

[Astasia]

Originally posted by Kirellian:

The 4 points mentioned above make the game feel insanely monotonous, beyond a point of reason. It makes you tire of the game easily, despite how much you love the grind for new and exciting things.

It's the perfect example of "a lot to do, little to accomplish".

I think you are completely off the mark and this game likely just isn't for you.

I'm at nearly 300 hours into the game now, it has fully hooked me over the past month, I have friends at like 400 hours. I think the only thing really missing at this point is the equipment crafting, once that system is in, it's just a matter of doing the story and I'd be happy with that. The currently closed dungeons will likely be added as well, in addition to some better relationship stuff as mentioned on the store page, but I don't think they are that important to the experience.

There's plenty of character customization, I'm on my 4th run and each run has had a very different playstyle, but the dev has mentioned possibly adding gene modding to players for yet another layer of customization. Extra sprite animations almost certainly aren't going to happen, that's just not how 2D works. The magic spells look fine, and there are plenty of melee effects, I don't see a need for "active" melee abilities, passive ones are fine.

[Zedrin]

I'd rather see the crafting systems that are already in the game expanded rather than some relatively minor combat fluff. E.g., alchemy, weapon smithing and legendary weapons, as well as expanding on facilities that are missing recipes like the furnace.

I'd recommend looking at Elona / Elona+ to see what the expectations for this game are. Anyone familiar with the roguelike genre, or this game's predecessor isn't expecting the things you're requesting out of the things you said that are ACTUALLY accurate.

But as far as melee weapon active abilities, that seems more frustrating than anything; swapping abilities and spells when dealing with different enemy types is kinda annoying as is.
For character customization, maybe you're referring to visuals? In which case, grab mods if it's too shallow. If you're complaining about equipment not showing up on your sprite, consider what you're actually saying, because that is no small request considering how the sprite system is structured.
If you mean character growth and leveling, I think you maybe haven't gotten past the surface level of the game yet.

As for dungeons being empty, the ones I go into are usually full of enemies and loot. Maybe you just need to try a higher level one.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

Yea, I think something of note is that self-harm is a teleport skill that trades health for teleportation which can help get out of those tight spots in dungeons, or you could just mine through the walls with a pickaxe. This game doesn't stop you from that.

[Zalzany]

One this is not a game you play if you want animations its rogue like they infamous for not having them at all in 98% of cases lol.

Two they already said they want to add more for melee at later date.

Three Its a rogue like the custimazation is bare bones you are playing wrong genre you want a AAA RPG they focus on pretty and not roguelike features

Lastly one the dungeons are PROCDUAL and pretty damn good for a Roguelike again you mistaking this ROGUELIKE for a pretty boy RPG that has no sandbox at all at best they do open world. Also the Dungeons you can't go into are PLACE HOLDERS its EA they just let you go into a new one and its not done yet it says so in the notes, and again others are there for a later date.

And stop using "you" You mean "ME" or "I" there is a crap ton of us with over hundred hours. The gameplay is insanely good in this issue is you want SHINY GAMES and you playing a roguelike... Again it has crap ton of active players discord has over 8k users

[Wirewing]

I'm gonna add to this list of wishes for officially implemented, non-mod, content with my own:

In-town apartments/ housing with a team pop of 1-5 for people who don't like, or tire easily of, base-building


Not gonna hate on you for this like others but, they are coming from an informed angle. Take a look at the workshop. Take look at ylvapedia's modding section. Check out the Discord.

Some people say that you shouldn't have to mod a game to make it fun and I agree, with one big exception - when the game is basically designed around that. It's a healthy community activity for games like this. Look at the first game, Elona. Look at the kind of community. Both games are so super easy to mod and the game is supportive of that community.

If you didn't know, going in, about the community focus that this or Elona, or many of the most popular sandbox roguelikes have, that's not your fault. You saw a cool game and bought it. Something that people don't seem to acknowledge, here, is that more official content means more cool things to play around with in mods.

Also, there's nothing wrong with asking for things. Worst thing happens is that you don't get it.

Edit: btw, if you want to make a thread more appealing, maybe make the tone more positive/ helpful and less like a list of grievances, in the explanation. You don't have to explain your requests with complaints.

[Just Some Random Kid]

Originally posted by Wirewing:

I'm gonna add to this list of wishes for officially implemented, non-mod, content with my own:

In-town apartments/ housing with a team pop of 1-5 for people who don't like, or tire easily of, base-building


Not gonna hate on you for this like others but, they are coming from an informed angle. Take a look at the workshop. Take look at ylvapedia's modding section. Check out the Discord.

Some people say that you shouldn't have to mod a game to make it fun and I agree, with one big exception - when the game is basically designed around that. It's a healthy community activity for games like this. Look at the first game, Elona. Look at the kind of community. Both games are so super easy to mod and the game is supportive of that community.

If you didn't know, going in, about the community focus that this or Elona, or many of the most popular sandbox roguelikes have, that's not your fault. You saw a cool game and bought it. Something that people don't seem to acknowledge, here, is that more official content means more cool things to play around with in mods.

Also, there's nothing wrong with asking for things. Worst thing happens is that you don't get it.

I think people are mostly annoyed at the fact that he's acting like his opinion is 100% and that all players want the things he's talking about. Most people playing this game I would say don't care if the things he's talking about for the most part don't get implemented. They'd be nice but are far from the focus that most players want.

[Mazzle Dazzle]

I know for me the reason I made the comment I did is because these are irrelevant for roguelikes and not expected. When you have a crazy simulation like this its generally accepted that its going to be in this format. There is a huge difference between roguelikes and roguelites and I think that gets confused for people. I also don't believe visual customization, or animations would make the game more fun or are major cons for anything. It's like playing wizardry and complaining its a gridder and saying it should have complicated combat mechanics and animations. It's just not appropriate for the genre. Also, I have never seen vast empty spaces in any dungeon or any dungeon that can't be completed in 120 hours. You have the freedom to use a pickaxe and explore and even self-harm to teleport so literally nothing said is actually relevant. Then on top of that, its stated as if its objective fact when its not. The statement is also made that it would be impossible to get it out of early access when the hard part is the simulation and procedural generation. Then on top of that, there is a mention of the roguelike tag, and if you compare other roguelikes, its leagues ahead of them. Its just layered in such a way where its completely inaccurate top to bottom.

Edit:
For the record, I would say having more sprites(fairy, golem, wraith, chaos) would be nice but its in no way a major con for a genre ruled by ascii games due to the inherent complexity for its systems.

[【Ｎｉｃｅ Ｈｉｓｓ】]

Originally posted by Nitram:

Maybe your just hoping for too much out of this game?

Literally none of these things are difficult to implement.

-Animations for combat and spells? Easy. The hardest part is creating the animations which isn't hard for someone who has already animated what they have in the game. Even things like simple swiping for sword swings or better particle effects for spells would go a long wal.

- More melee skills? An afternoon of effort. Balancing is the hardest part.

- Character customization? The easiest part of a game like this. The textures already exist on character creation for the most part. Just give more fine tune controls.

- Dungeons should be improved as that is the focus of the game.

[【Ｎｉｃｅ Ｈｉｓｓ】]

Originally posted by Mazzle Dazzle:

You know most roguelikes are ascii right?

Opinions like this are beyond useless. Nothing about roguelikes limits them to terrible graphics and outdated mechanics. The best rougelikes are not ascii. The only reason most roguelikes are ascii is because the huge volume of them made by tiny indie devs with no graphical experience but lots of crunchy development experience.

But most of those roguelikes barely sell and are limited to exceedingly niche audiences. It would be better for everyone if Elin sold more.

Originally posted by Mazzle Dazzle:

Even most roguelites it has dramatically more content then.

Where is the content because 70% of this game is just crafting. Crafting games are the most shallow and least interesting form of content in games. They are just fancy skinner boxes.

Quite frankly, from a content perspective, Elona was better. Elin is just a crafting game with roguelike elements. And I know I'm not alone in feeling this. The #1 reason I've heard people quit is the obsession with crafting and how it eats up the majority of time and content. Might as well just play something like Stardew.

[Sairek Ceareste]

I think the 94% positive review rating and the fact this game still has over 10k people playing it during prime activity in the day, even after nearly 45 days of being available to the public, kind of shows that the game isn't as monotonous to the public as you claim it to be.


Also this game has way more effort put in the graphics as most roguelikes of this nature tend to be. There's always the ability to mod more animation frames in for things if needed even if it isn't added via official capacity. People have already gotten that working.

[Just Some Random Kid]

Originally posted by 【Ｎｉｃｅ　Ｈｉｓｓ】:

Originally posted by Mazzle Dazzle:

You know most roguelikes are ascii right?

Opinions like this are beyond useless. Nothing about roguelikes limits them to terrible graphics and outdated mechanics. The best rougelikes are not ascii. The only reason most roguelikes are ascii is because the huge volume of them made by tiny indie devs with no graphical experience but lots of crunchy development experience.

But most of those roguelikes barely sell and are limited to exceedingly niche audiences. It would be better for everyone if Elin sold more.

Originally posted by Mazzle Dazzle:

Even most roguelites it has dramatically more content then.

Where is the content because 70% of this game is just crafting. Crafting games are the most shallow and least interesting form of content in games. They are just fancy skinner boxes.

Quite frankly, from a content perspective, Elona was better. Elin is just a crafting game with roguelike elements. And I know I'm not alone in feeling this. The #1 reason I've heard people quit is the obsession with crafting and how it eats up the majority of time and content. Might as well just play something like Stardew.

If you think the game is 70% crafting then you're clearly not interacting with the parts of the game that aren't crafting. I know several people who basically never touch crafting and just adventure. Trying to min-max gear and companions, hunting for the right genes, and other things. The game is only 70% crafting if you think you can't progress without crafting. Which is not the case.