Feedback: Good game concept, character designs are not engaging, instant death mechanics fumbled

[Encourage]

I'm probably the target audience for this type of game. I was a WoW raider for the first three expansions. I was even a main tank and would get multiples DMs to do stuff as soon as I logged on. I would be interested in a game that was mostly just instance runs and character customization and fine tuning. I'm tired of DBD and LoL and I've been looking for a game that fits this niche in terms of time commitment.

Right now, there are just 8 characters playable. I don't know what portion of the opening lineup that represents.

Basically, my main issue is that none of these are characters I want to spend hours and hours leveling up. The sword and board lady isn't bad just a little plain, and the fox lady has cool spell effects but I know I won't enjoy her as much as some people will. I like the aesthetics of the game and the art style, these specific characters just don't seem cool. I understand that "hero" personality classes have advantages over generic classes with lots of customization, the hero classes have to really be nailed in terms of broad, categorical appeal. These designs have a really bland, appropriate, modern fantasy vibe that is super boring. They aren't classic, they aren't pulpy, and aside from maybe the fox lady with all her plants and bugs, they aren't that creative.

This is a lesser problem, but I did not like fiddling with the ship mast and chain on the siren boss. It's super simple once you've done the fight, but really annoying when you see it the first time during a boss fight. It's possible to unchain yourself and the chain breaks on certain attacks but not others. That's a lot of trial and error potential for each player each time they do that fight for the first time. That easily could have been set up before the boss without instant death stakes so that we don't die while trying to figure out how to interact with the UI for special mechanics. While I had the idea we might chain ourselves to the mast to avoid being hypnotized off the edge as soon as I saw the boss, I did not know there would be a knockback death attack too. It just seemed like textbook bad design.

[Tsuru]

Originally posted by Encourage:

This is a lesser problem, but I did not like fiddling with the ship mast and chain on the siren boss. It's super simple once you've done the fight, but really annoying when you see it the first time during a boss fight. It's possible to unchain yourself and the chain breaks on certain attacks but not others. That's a lot of trial and error potential for each player each time they do that fight for the first time. That easily could have been set up before the boss without instant death stakes so that we don't die while trying to figure out how to interact with the UI for special mechanics. While I had the idea we might chain ourselves to the mast to avoid being hypnotized off the edge as soon as I saw the boss, I did not know there would be a knockback death attack too. It just seemed like textbook bad design.

It would seem your trying to chain yourself too much during the fight. You really only need to do it once or twice during the sirens call.

There is 0 reason to chain yourself during the knockback. Its blocked by the mast itself, just stand behind it and everyone else just needs to be off to the side of the knockback line.

Personally i hope they keep up with things like this. Its not bad design to have to make the players learn.

[Encourage]

Originally posted by Tsuru:

Personally i hope they keep up with things like this. Its not bad design to have to make the players learn.

It is bad design to make players have to learn through guess and check and wipe a group if one person hasn't seen the fight before.

Guess and check isn't a good learning model for games, either. They used to call it "tomato surprise" mechanics. Once you know what's coming, it isn't challenging. If you haven't seen it before, it kills you or makes the encounter difficult in a way that is frustrating rather than challenging.