Feedback so far

[FlamingQaz]

Hi so I'm really looking forward to this game but there are a couple annoyances I've come up against so far

• No Two handed Weapons - Really our only options are, ranged magic damage types, ranged pysical damage types (only bows which is fine but having a category just for them feels lonely, there is nothing wrong with leaving it like this but maybe think about adding other weapon types here or combining the two ranged options), dual wield (but only daggers :( would really love to see other dual options or mixing and matching like wands and swords or a mace and a dagger or something), and sword and board
  Would really love to see a 2 handed option or a one hand, no shield option or something like that
  
  The way D:OS2 handled it was nice because you still had plenty of freedom when choosing what weapons you wanted to use, here it feels restricting
  
  
• Clarity - Its really unclear what skill levels do, I know they add damage to those skills but do they do anything else? And how does that work like does Pyromancy buff all fire damage or just fire skills? Does burning ground benefit your character makes benefit from pyromancy? What about fire damaging weapons like staves and wands? I assume skills don't have secondary effect because they aren't listed anywhere (like in D:OS2 where investing in polymorph gave you extra stat points or investing in necromancy gave you life leech)?
  
  
• Missing Talents - Its weird there is no starting talent that gives a bonus to charm like there is for intimidate or intellect, call it like Seductive or something idk
  
  
• No Minimap - Like take the main town hub Gladeheim, there are so so many NPCs and when my quest points to one specifically it can get really disorienting to walk around everywhere trying to see the one NPC I need to find. I know you want to encourage us to use the in game item version of the map but that feels really really clumsy, and it can be hard to tell where your character is because it's not to scale. I can figure out and remember the general locations of things and on what side of the the town they are but the purpose of a map is to help you find specific things buy congregating important NPCs and items near those specific places, but Gladeheim is way too busy for that. If you really really don't want to add an in game map to areas then at least give us a true free roaming camera that doesn't have a distance limit from the player with I don't know a visual indicator for where the direction of where the PCs are so the player as a general idea of what direction to go after they manage to locate what they are looking for
  
  
• Forgot about this one but, Out of Combat Skills - I understand you want to avoid some cheeses by stacking buffs before a fight and want to encourage item use to clear debuffs and heal, but It does feel like most fights are designed to be fought full fighting power and the only way to really remove debuffs is to visit the healer in town. I would really like to see if you could allow some if not all skills to be cast out of combat. it would be really nice to just clear a poison field with a spell or scroll before I try trudge through it and I feel like it would make for a few fun puzzles. Now this does get into the realm of cheese potentially but I would also appreciate the ability to do surprise attacks or surprise rounds? Like starting combat by casting a fireball or a summon skeleton. I feel like this could go a long way to making control spells feel well powerful and fun and not like you're wasting potential damage, idk

Now this isn't an annoyance but just like D:OS2 with talents, feats do provide interesting ways to differentiate your character/build and really make each build you make feel unique and interesting, right now they feel really really similar

Sorry for the constant comparison to D:OS2, but it is really obvious you took inspiration from it and I don't want this to become "D:OS2 2" as this is your unique project and work but they do a lot of things right that I feel could make your game really pop and feel a lot smoother to play

Sorry if this was a ramble I've never really written something like this before, which goes to show you that I really really feel like this game could be fantastic and I hope to learn from this style and a lot of gameplay choices you've made when I work on some of my own projects in the future. I'm really excited to see how this game evolves over time.

I didn't discuss any of the story because I'm not too far into it (I don't want to spoil so I'll just say, blackpits but poison) but it looks really interesting and campy

P.S. There is a really big thread talking about "not adding any woke stuff" and just please please don't listen to that person, I implore you to avoid or censure the many different kinds of people that exist out in the world. Seeing people talk like that about other human being is just so heartbreaking and especially during times like this we should embrace and show off all the many different colors people can be. I know you are thinking about adding romance later on in development, either in the EA or post EA, please let there be same sex options/queer options. It really really does mean the world to a lot of people to see us represented in media like this, and it certainly makes me feel a lot more welcome and happier to see other people like me in works like these. Being able to explore and role play different characters of various different beliefs/values, orientations, and identity is important in allowing others to explore who they are and what matters to them and allows your players to get ever more invested into your world and the characters they interact with. Thank you so much for the work you've put into your world and this game, please don't tarnish it by listening to bigots like them, thank you.

[vultm]

Hi FlamingQaz, thanks for playing and for taking the time to provide this detailed feedback. This is so valuable as we continue to build through Early Access. I made some comments below in response.

Two-handed weapons/more dual-wield freedom: This is unfortunately more of a scope/technical limitation associated with the pixel art and equipment system. All the animations in the game are hand-drawn, including all the equipment (armor, helmets, etc). Introducing more open-ended dual-wielding or two-handed weapons, while really cool, would also mandate additional attack animations and create a requirement for new animations for all the equipment in the game. Ultimately, this was a difficult but deliberate trade-off that we made, in favour of more equipment/visual character customization variety over additional weapon types like wand/sword dual-wielding or two-handed/large weapons. That all being said, we are looking at ways to make the different weapon types more differentiated from a gameplay perspective, in ways that don't create additional animation workload.

Clarity: Thanks for this feedback. We will be making an effort to provide more information to the player on various mechanics, including damage calculation. As an FYI, there will also be additional progression/unlocks tied to school attributes added, such as talents and skills.

Missing talents: Good point, we will fix this inconsistency.

Minimap: This has actually been a consistent point of discussion/debate among the development team, and we have been monitoring feedback on this issue particularly closely. Your feedback on this is noted as we continue to evaluate the addition of this feature.

Out of combat skills: We are actually working on an ambush system that will allow casting skills to start a battle, and rewarding players for getting the jump on a group of enemies (with some risk/cost-benefit analysis). We'll be talking more about this soon, and players should be able to try this out in the near future! However, total freedom of skill cast outside of battle is currently not on the roadmap.

Influence of "woke/anti-woke" discourse: The discussion you referenced is of little relevance to the development of the game, as the world/characters/writing take no influence or inspiration from current events or contemporary political discourse. We do seek to provide as much role-playing choice/freedom as possible, and there are same-sex romance options available.

Thanks again for your feedback! Hope you enjoy the rest of the EA content.

[Lawful Evil]

Speaking of animations, I really like the idle animations of characters in this game, how their hair and clothes move in the wind etc. A lot of games have this annoying idle animation where a character just moves up and down (I don’t know how to describe it better), I'm really glad this one doesn't have it.

[vultm]

Originally posted by Lawful Evil:

Speaking of animations, I really like the idle animations of characters in this game, how their hair and clothes move in the wind etc. A lot of games have this annoying idle animation where a character just moves up and down (I don’t know how to describe it better), I'm really glad this one doesn't have it.

Thanks! We made a decision early on to limit unnecessary pixel movement in the animations.