Review + Gameplay Improvement Suggestions

[Noxious]

So far, the game looks like it has potential, and a lot of it. It just needs a lot of polishing.

It is an ARPG, in the most rudimentary sense of the word; the skill system being divided in "Ethnic", "Class" and "Crafting" is interesting, and if the developers build upon this idea I can see the customization being very interesting and the incentive to roll a "Crafter" and a "Magic Finder" be very high as well. The incentive to roll more than one character in ARPGs is always good as far as I'm concerned, even if it means you won't be having ONE character that can do it all. This is >good<.

The ability to customize where you put your stat points and the fact that some stats overlap means you can make a very specialized character. For instance, a character that invests HEAVILY in Defence, Dexterity and Luck would have an incredibly high Evasion chance as well as a good Physical Critique chance, which I personally like. On the other hand, a character that invests heavily into Strength and Defence will probably be your typical Barbarian, what with being able to smash everything to bits in one hit while also being able to withstand incoming damage.

As it stands, crafting is very punishing as far as investment/return is concerned, since you have to invest Skill Points AND materials into making potions/scrolls/runes, AND you have a chance of failing (quite high, mind you). This will be probably be addressed down the road in order to incentivize players who like that aspect of the game, but the idea of CRAFTING in an ARPG is one I've always been fond of. Horadric Cube transmutations will ring a bell, and I can't emphasize how great a good crafting system is in a game like this one!

As far as the gameplay goes, it feels fairly slow, but the stat page indicates there is such a thing as a "% movement speed" stat, which leads me to believe that, much like Path of Exile, the initial game's pace is slow and can ramp up in the late game once you acquire the items you need for your character. The inability for enemies to "stack" (even partially) makes it so they often end up trying very hard to surround you as you pound away without much fear of dying. Of course, this is untrue in the case of ranged attacks, but melee enemies feel a bit too clunky movement-wise because of the collision.

As a Barbarian, my attacks all seem to CLEAVE rather than "target". This makes it a lot better when it comes to taking down multiple enemies at once. This is probably a core feature of melee combat, and I like it.

There are HP (Health) Orbs and SP (Spirit, being the equivalent of Mana) Orbs, as well as STA Orbs (Stamina) that drop from monsters. These are not ITEMS but rather simply Health/Spirit/Stamina-restoring items that drop at random and that you can pick up for an instant refill of whatever stat it belonged to. Stamina, as of right now, feels like it's not tweaked to truly be apart of the core game resources. It never really depletes to a point where you're worried about lacking it, and it restores so quickly there is no punishment for not managing it properly. Maybe this will change in the future, but this is the case at the moment (not a big deal, really, but it's odd that it exists as a resource).

I've also stumbled upon a "Well" that restored my Health, much like you'd find in other ARPGs!

Loot seems interesting, and I can see a variety of VERY interesting items making their way in the game to customize the experience: aura radius-increasing uniques, class-specific items that grant you "+X to a skill", potions that increase stats for a certain duration (MMO-genre potions, potentially craftable), set items, etc. I've yet to find any of these "gamechanging" items, but I've found a few items that, from what I gather, increase your stats but a certain percentage of your base character stats. Whether this % bonus is additive or multiplicative I still don't know, but I'll edit this when I find out! (EDIT: I share with you my first amazing find :D http://i.imgur.com/CL1p1mP.jpg)

The minimap is very informative and has nodes showing everything you may want to know, including (not sure what to think of it) enemies in the form of red circles.

The atmosphere feels good, REALLY GOOD, and I think the grim/dark feel the developers intended goes through very well. The music is fine (although repetitive, but this is your typical ARPG theme). I wish there was more voice acting, but it's not a mandatory thing AT ALL.

The game has a lot of potential, but much like a rough diamond, it needs a lot of polishing. I would purchase this ONLY if you're interested in being able to playtest/give feedback and pointers for the developers. So far I can safely say I'm okay with the game, and I am hopeful!


SUGGESTIONS:

1) Allow us to hover over items rather than having to click them to see their stats! If it is possible, then maybe even allow us to see what items are on the ground by hovering over them! This is a feature I love in Path of Exile, but it isn't mandatory (obviously).

2) Maybe merge the Armor/Weapons/Potions inventory. Browsing the different windows without a keybind shortcut makes it a little weird.

3) Add an option where Right-Clicking an item in your inventory automatically Identifies it if you have available scrolls.

4) Luck and Dexterity seem to overlap very hard; is this intended for very "Evasion"-oriented characters to come about, or is it normal that Dexterity seems much less appealing in the earlier levels? I almost want to suggest that the Critique/Evasion coefficient on Luck be lowered in order to make Dexterity more appealing, or that it is simply left as a "Magic Find" stat with, perhaps, the odd chance of increasing the value of what you craft.

5) Allow opacity on the minimap. Old school ARPGers will thank you for it.

6) Speed up the character's movement speed if possible. High movement speed is a staple of interesting ARPGs, and even the "slower" ARPGs like Path of Exile (e.g: not as fast movement as Torchlight 2/Diablo 2-3) have a faster pace. I think this is a critical point to address, so make sure to get it just right!

7) Adding points to a stat WHILE having the stat selected so it pops up the little window with all the sub-stats (Physical Critique, etc.) always closes the little sub-window, not allowing you to see what changes occur when stat points are added unless you re-select the stat over and over. You should be able to select "Luck" and put points into "Luck" without having to re-select it everytime you add a point to see what it changed.

8) Sound-wise, there seems to be a problem when it comes to FEEDBACK. You have very little feedback when you get hit or when equipping items. For instance, if I have two amulets that share the same model and I want to swap them out, I'll double-click the one in my inventory. However, doing so gives me no feedback as to whether or not I did or didn't equip the item: I hear the same sound as when I simply clicked the amulet in the first place, so I end up wondering if I just re-selected it or effectively double-clicked it. Again, this is a quality of life improvement but it certainly makes a big difference in the long run.

9) Add a clock to the game so we can know what time it is in real life. This is merely a quality of life change, but it'd be nice.

10) The crafting requirements are very steep for some of the most basic items, on top of being subjected to failures. I love crafting in my games, and it's honestly one of my favorite aspects, but I think the current recipe requirements are a bit over the top. I'll edit this as the game progresses if drop rates increase.

11) Reduce the size of enemy Health Bars when lowering the HUD size and possibly display each and every enemy's Health in a very straightforward manner, with a very simple red line with a black outline. I can appreciate the art around the current Health Bars, but it is probably much more fitting for bosses and rare monsters than for the simple, easy-to-kill Mosquitoes and Whelps that swarm me in the early game. All Health Bars, I want dem ALL!

12) As it is, holding "LeftShift" and using an attack/skill will use this skill. However, this is not the case if you are holding LeftMouseButton to move. If I am >>holding<< LMB on my screen to move my character around and then hit Shift, my character DOES NOT stop moving. I know this may seem like a fluffy thing to mention, but it's a habit that is ingrained in the most hardcore of ARPGers out there: LeftShift should "stop" your character from moving and start using whatever skills you want.

13) Change the font on the game's main image, as it reads "Jesabel" and not "Iesabel". I've asked a few people to confirm whether or not I was the one who misread it systematically, and it seems like I'm not the only one. This may seem trivial, but it is mildly confusing.

14) Allow us to move while we have a window open (Inventory, Hero, etc.). As it is, we cannot click to move outside of the windows when they are open. I personally like playing portions of the game with an open inventory window, especially when I'm on a looting spree.

15) Item names on the ground overlap in a way that makes them hardly readable. It is okay that items overlap, but it would be good if the name tags associated to each item "stacked" rather than "overlapped". This would allow a lot more precision when clicking a specific item for looting/interacting purposes.

16) When clicking on a non-ground Area to move your character, the character takes a step and stops moving completely. Instead, it would be good if the character kept moving in that direction until he hit a wall rather than simply not respond at all. This is probably my only "actual" big gripe with the movement system as it is.

17) Allow us to hit "Esc" to close a merchant window.

18) Consider adding a numerical indicator somewhere over or on top of the Health/Spirit Bars (e.g: 500/721 HP) to see how much of a danger we are exposed to. The same can be done for the XP/Stamina bar.

19) Make the crafting interface more visually intuitive. Instead of showing a big icon with the resulting item, and a bunch of ingredients around it, here is something a lot more intuitive I think could do the job. I'm not asking you to put THIS in the game, but it would simplify the process of crafting: http://i.imgur.com/M6xexSm.png

20) Remove the slider from the crafting interface if no items can be crafted out of available ingredients.



Take care! I'll be back with more to offer, if anything =]

[gamer]

1. Is done by no game, ever. I'm not going to even bother reading through the rest because I can tell it's going to be more garbage gripes instead of the real issues.

[Noxious]

"1. Is done by no game, ever. I'm not going to even bother reading through the rest because I can tell it's going to be more garbage gripes instead of the real issues."

Are you sure? I'm fairly sure Path of Exile works in this manner. Maybe I'm mistaken though.

I've been an ARPG lover since dem olden days of D2, and I was very happy with the way Path of Exile handled it. Maybe I'm just completely off though.

[Reticulated Ungulate]

I concur.. mouse over is a good suggestion. You should be able to see stats of an item in inventory without having to click on every one. Also, macros look identical. At least they would have the creativity to render slightly different item macros for the first few levels.

These are legit concerns. If you are going to make a diablo clone, at least learn from the successes out there.

[Noxious]

Alright, back home for some more testing =]!

[DrYvOutCM]

It may have potential but right now it is NOT worth 15 dollars. I have a bad feeling that whoever pushed this game out is just going to walk away from it and we'll never see any significant improvements/patch.

[electronizer]

i also think it is NOT worth 15 bucks. only 2 classes and needs a lot of polishing. i had more fun with drakengard online which is for free .

[Vash]

Wow, thats a long list. Well written dude. Devs, READ THIS!

[Dorok]

I agree on point 1, the game already use a lot mouse over... and already use it for items :-) but not to show their detailled stats, just the name. Well if I remember well.

Clearly mouse hover is growing in PC games and is great in many game types for many things, the power availibility allow it now easilly and for sure it's going to spread.

For the game, well I'd say to developers, many little good ideas. The writing is a bit bland but it's ok, the maps and graphics are ok, but really developpers should play a lot Diablo 2, Torchlight and Torchlight 2 before to have made this game. The fights are very very basic in their design.

[Michal]

Awesome Noxious_HS! Thanks for this very lost list of insight.

@DrYvOutCM

On the contrary. We are constantly updating the mobile version of Iesabel with new content and fixes for the last 3 months since premiere. We will not walk away from the PC version, don't worry :)