Current thoughts and suggestions

[Tetonka]

30-35 levels into the game. Very slight spoilers ahead, anything of relevance is tagged as spoiler.

Before I start listing things that in my opinion could be improved, I want to clearly say that this game is in an amazing state as it is and I enjoy watching it grow so much. Especially given the size of the team, I find the dimensions and quality of the game incredible, and not a single bug or design choice felt like a showstopper. I already prefer this over a large number of RPGs that I've played in my time. I absolutely acknowledge that it is a work in progress and in early access, so nothing I say is meant to criticize the game or the devs. I'd just like to contribute some thoughts and opinions. If I got something entirely wrong, please do point it out.

That being said, those are the things that felt lacking the most:

Progression and balancing

Progression doesn't feel fluent, because it happens in big chunks. Whenever the party enters a new region, enemies are noticably tougher from the very start. At the same time, a whole new tier of crafting recipes and equippable loot becomes available.
That means that the party starts each region pretty weak and likely unable to tackle larger groups of monsters or tougher, quest related enemies, until a whole lot of new gear has been assembled. That's not a bad thing in general, but... it also means that all gear you have previously gathered from strong bosses, tedious quests and costly recipes are instantly rendered obsolete, taking away the entire feeling of the repeated effort being worth it.

It also means that you are rather likely to see a game over screen if you tackle quest or story enemies too soon, even though you felt really well-equipped ten minutes ago. For example, the very first tier of crystals adds around +1 to stats. Right after Herelsor, the crystals are about ten times as strong, which is quite a leap.
Also, in the current patch, Daryon feels kinda weak compared to Selene at level 30, with comparable gear he barely does half her damage per turn. She oneshots enemies in the swamp with 1.600 damage per Firerift (with elemental weakness) at 930 Magic, whereas Daryon does a meager 850 with Fire Strike at 970 Attack. Similar results for all enemy types encountered. Haven't seen Daryon oneshot anything in a looong time, not even minor enemies/cages/tentacles.

Itemization

Stats

Stats are actually somewhat unclear ingame.

- which stats are used to calculate Myrna's damage and how would you know that? Knives generally are physical, but if I add magical elements, it becomes unclear.
- similarly, do Daryon's elemental skills profit from Magic? If so, how exactly (as in, 70 % from Attack stat, 30 % from Magic)? If not, wouldn't hybrid calculations be interesting?
- if Speed influences the rate at which the white ATB bar fills, and if Incantation Speed increases the red cast bar's rate, then what does Haste do?
Suggestion: add a small help overlay to the Characters menu, and add something like "Modifier: Physical / Magic / Hybrid" to spell and skill tooltips to make their calculations clear.

Weapons

In (J)RPGs, a huge part of a character's strength comes from their weapon. That's why weapon upgrades feel truly meaningful and very rewarding. Who doesn't love looting that one rare weapon from that one hard boss, that now gives you an advantage for the next 10 levels to come? In EoE however, I miss this feeling entirely, and I feel like it makes little difference if I use my first weapon with +15 attack or something I acquire three entire regions later, after grinding countless mobs and doing every single quest.
That's mainly because:
a) weapons feature no main damage stat at all, unlike in almost all other RPGs
b) stats provided by weapons aren't any higher than stats on other pieces of gear
c) the purpose of a weapon's level seems unclear once all relevant crystal slots were unlocked. I wonder why weapons can get to e.g. 17 even though the longest crystal path ends at 10 already. My current weapons cap at level 30, but their longest crystal paths complete at 26.
d) the biggest power up a weapon can offer lies in the number and color balance of the crystal paths. This is also an issue, because you can only see the paths after equipping a weapon, looking for the longest paths in the Crystals menu and manually checking the locked colors to see if there even is an attractive path that features all the colors you want. So finding out if a weapon truly is an upgrade is complicated and lacks any instant eye-candy effect like "WHOA, this sword has twice as much attack power as my current one!". Instead, you're looking at something extremely lame like +15 attack that does almost nothing for you.
So at above level 30 I exchanged my Dawnbreaker +5 (which I think I got early on in Herelsor) for a white Coruscantis that I got three fully completed regions after Herelsor, because its attack is a meager 9 points higher and it has a slightly longer crystal path. Same story with Selene. This feels completely underwhelming and makes little difference overall.
Suggestion: actually add weapon damage as a stat and a major point in damage calculation. Getting a stronger weapon should be an absolute MUST. Alternatively, reduce the amount of stats on gear and crystals overall, but increase it some more on weapons.

Crafting

I understand that crafting has been revamped and is a rather big work in progress. Still, here is my current view on things.

Armor crafting

Lacks clarity and availability of materials. Daryon's first craftable armor set requires Leather Hides, which I only ever got from recycling tons of looted lowlevel leather gear. I couldn't find those hides killing regular animals, nor could I craft those from scraps.
Meanwhile, I've gathered tons of Iron Ore, Wood and so many other thing that have never seen any use at all.

The first tier of crafted armor has +1 stats on base level. The next recipes are acquired in the swamp, which is quite some time later. Because of that, armor crafting is basically dead for two to three regions in which looted gear is already a lot stronger than what you can craft - and by the time you have the money to buy the first recipes and the materials you need for crafting, you already don't need that gear anymore. Reminder: to get hides for leather gear you need to recycle looted leather armor of the same tier, so you already have something better.
It's also unclear which "additional material" could be used to improve crafted gear, or how to get those. You only see an item in that additional material slot if you hold something that could be used. I only ever had this option once and the item still turned out weak and underleveled. So crafting isn't very tempting, the outcome is likely weak and quickly outpaced.
Suggestion: Show a list of possible additional materials and make it clear how exactly it will affect the crafted item. Also, make crafted gear somewhat stronger than (most) gear you would find in the region that matches the crafting tier. In general, crafting should only create gear that can't be found, OR make it so that crafted gear always has a higher quality/level. Crafting white items unless RNG makes it epic is not engaging at all.

Weapon crafting

Until late chapter 4, I only unlocked one recipe - a Shamanistic Staff for Selene, which features +ATK instead of +Magic. Why would I want that? There is no viable option for Selene to go melee. Also, crafting it requires materials (Titanium Scraps) which I never found by killing, looting, foraging, recycling or by solving all quests I came across. Couldn't find any info about those ingame, in July's patch notes OR on google, so... that's that. Weapon crafting is completely dead content to me at level 30, even though I'd love to craft new weapons.
Update: I found some more recipes; even one advanced one, without having the base tier recipe, and all of them require Titanium Scraps.
Suggestion: don't mystify crafting if you want it to be used. Don't make recipes available when the materials aren't obtainable yet. Hint at those materials' sources ingame. Of course, there'll be a Wiki, but in my opinion this should all be understandable and doable without external help, or it isn't truly enjoyable.

Potion crafting

Potions are found in such high numbers that I never had the need to craft any, so all the plants were collected for nothing as well. I absolutely wouldn't mind being forced into crafting potions. Actually having use for the materials you find is very rewarding.
Suggestion: drastically reduce or even remove (!) all other potion sources to encourage players using the crafting system. Make it NECESSARY to re-supply yourself. It allows the player to feel well-prepared after a farming and crafting endeavour and feels quite rewarding. If you're not up to farming those glittering nodes on the map, a JRPG isn't your type of game anyways.

Combat

Skills and movement

I like the combat style and it's a solid key feature of the game.
However, Daryons skillset feels extremely boring.
- Acceleration isn't worth using, the effect would need to be stronger and/or last longer. I think the math doesn't add up, meaning that you do more DPS if you just attack instead of using one turn to cast it.
- Slow down is also hardly worth using instead of a Strike attack with elemental bonus, especially if you don't know if the enemy is going to resist it anyways.
- Defense Breaker is a nice move, but WHY does it not affect Strikes? Strikes generally deal more damage than auto attacks, so Defense Breaker only strengthens the weaker option. It is only useful for powerful backstabbing, BUT that means that you need to use your turns to move into position and to keep Defense Breaker up - and not for actually attacking. So the more worthwhile option is plainly spamming Strikes from wherever.
- Cyclone Strike: very, very situational and again - likely to be resisted. In most cases, the better option is to move yourself, which only spends half an ATB bar and no mana.
- apart from that, the only actual choice is between auto attack and an elemental Strike.

Additionally, I think that moving and using items could need some boost, since those actions feel like they really hurt the flow of combat. You often need to move as a strategic element, which is fine, but enemies move, too. Sure, you lose only half your ATB upon moving, but so does the enemy. So there's no getting away to get a cast done, ever. And sometimes you'd need to move Selene to avoid a boss' deadly attack - but you can't if she's currently casting. It can't be canceled, nor can you fill her ATB fast enough after the cast.
I feel like you should be able to move AND use an item at the same time to allow for some strategic retreats. If Selene is low on mana and an enemy closes in, there's basically no way you could recover from that. If you move away to avoid an attack and use a mana potion afterwards, the enemy will be onto you again by the time you downed the potion, so moving was somewhat pointless.
Also, I feel like the early game should feature *some* skills that are combined with a movement, like a retreat skill or a way for Daryon to get behind an enemy that doesn't require 3-4 move actions. Setting up some backstabbing requires multiple non-damaging actions, so it rarely is worth it. Also, if I'm not mistaken, backstabbing only counts for auto attacks, so why would one spend several turns moving around for mostly a single stronger auto attack instead of dual-hitting the enemy with Daryon's Strikes all these turns?
Suggestion: consider adding some aoe, leap or shadowstepping options to make combat more tactical and less dull. I can't comment on skills existing past level 35 though, but in the early game, the main character feels really bland.

Combat overview

The game desperately needs some sort of combat log, or rather, a visualized aide of what's going on. There is no way of knowing which skill the enemy is currently using and whom they are targeting, unless you've fought the enemy before and know its entire skillset. If the enemy has multiple skills, melee and ranged, you simply don't know how to react. They may look at a given direction while charging the red cast bar, but if Selene stands behind Daryon, you can't tell who's gonna get it.
Suggestion: add a visualized queue of the next 4-5 actions to a top corner of the screen. Let it show who's next and, if an action is currently charging, what it is and who's being targeted, if any. Example:
Daryon
Selene >>> Fire Rift >>> Orokko A
Orokko A >>> Stampede
Orokko B
Daryon

Boss battles

Boss battles are far too random, and can potentially require several reloads to be fully understood, and several more reloads because pure badluck can lose the battle without leaving you a chance to turn it around with skill. That's actually not very fun.
Many, many battles can be entirely impossible depending on the boss' first moves. I got oneshot in the first turn of several battles without EVER being underfarmed, underleveled or underequipped for the current content. For example, the group that attacks once you enter Tyr'Caelum oneshot me in their first turn, even though I oneshot one of them with Selene. Both my characters stood on different places and not in red circles, though the two remaining enemies just killed them with their very first action. After reloading, the very same battles were either easy, or similar stuff happened again. That tells me it's not the difficulty, but the RNG in the enemies' movesets. I feel like those should rather follow a certain order, logic and cooldowns.
A good example for boss battles that may be entirely impossible just because of singular moves: the giant corroded plant boss after Tyr'Caelum. It sometimes just spams the move that entangles and immobilizes a target. If Selene gets entangled, the battle is likely lost, because Daryon needs at least 2 full turns with elemental advantage to free her, and Ysoris can not destroy the tentacles without killing the person as well, since he can only attack entire spaces. During those two turns, the boss happily bombs away at you, and you can not ever recover from that. Guess what happens if the boss entangles two targets in a row, or if Selene gets hit with mutism multiple turns in a row so she can't cast her stuff at all. You simply don't have enough time in a boss battle to deal with all situations that may randomly come up, because the boss' actions aren't limited or streamlined. You can't compensate for two people being in a cage, unless the remaining person is Selene without mutism. You can't spend all your turns moving out of puddles, or towards tentacle cages, or behind an enemy. You can't heal mutism, wait for your turn again, and cast a spell in peace. By the time this would be done, you either got mutism again or someone else got in trouble and needs to be freed from a cage. Removing mutism with an item is also a wasted turn, because it'll be gone next turn anyways AND the boss constantly re-applies it with his randomly aimed ranged attacks. While the concept of this boss is excellent, its RNG destroys the fun.
On a sidenote, this boss is basically the first battle after Ysoris joins the party with his terrible baseline weapon. So unless you randomly start grinding at this very point, you'd have to deal with the boss as-is, likely without Taunt and Shockwave etc. My Ysoris has such terrible speed stats that he almost never gets to act in this battle. He only moves out of puddles while the rest of the party is stuck in cages.
Suggestion: script and direct those boss battles a bit more to bring all the mechanics into action, but in an order that can be dealt with, and with a logic that also considers excluding factors (e.g. don't use the same skill twice in a row | don't target the same target twice | don't use skill X if a target is already afflicted with X's effect etc.)

[Sheaki]

Good topics, but did our dears devs read this place? (sorry bad english in this post!)

Ive allready give all the suggestions i could during the survey we had each time we close the game, but some are,

- i would prefer more sidequests for kill mobs (like the strengh of EoE its the battle system, we want fight a lot! XD)

- the disable of gems crafting, i feel it useless, we loot/buy them directly, so why this craft?
- recipes of weapons/armors should be more strong than what we loot on monsters, for give us an interest to craft

- The balance of 2 boss yes, the big bug with his iron pylones, very hard // the giant corroded plant like you say, yes, its the 2e most strong boss actually; his pattern is disgusting, ive finally kill it ignoring flowers and just doing damage on him, like a tard,i was depressed after 3h+ of retry ive stop try to play with brain and strategy, just dps only with only the item fire bomb (dont know his name in english), on the 3 mates wich must have it for this fight. After this boss, the others are normal, not horribles again, for who are suffering on him, dont worry, life is better after!

[Kaldorei]

Of course that we read and take feedbacks into account :), thanks for taking the time to write that.

[Kaldorei]

I've put a test build on trunk that address some of the issues concerning weapons:

- Revamped stats, diminished stats from character source, increased stats from equipment and weapons by a lot

- Added a "power" stat to weapons that summarize the bonus damages the weapon will provide by combining all stats

I'd like your feedbacks about it especially because it would make the weapons the main stat source

[Tetonka]

Amazing! I would never have expected a test build addressing some suggestions, much less one day later! :D

I've tested it for a bit (lvl 35, against Corroded Orokkos @Silver-haired goddess.
This test build works really well!

Daryon, auto attack
@25 Power
-> 400 dmg

@1403 Power
-> 800 dmg
-> 1200 Fire Strike with elemental weakness

Selene
@19 Power
-> 1400 dmg Firerift with elemental weakness

@890 Power
-> 2000 dmg Firerift with elemental weakness


Daryon's dmg looks way more realistic now, since his current weapon finally acknowledges its higher level. With this, he can finally one-shot standard enemies with elemental weakness Strikes again - while also not dealing that much damage that it would seem unbalanced. Auto hits don't kill, which they shouldn't, so elemental weaknesses retain their importance in damage calculation.
With a low-level weapon, he is indeed weaker and can't handle enemies as easily, but he's not rendered defenseless.

Selene oneshots with elemental weakness as usual, but doesn't without, which is perfect in my opinion, just like with Daryon's auto attacks.

Ysoris seems a bit boosted though, but of course there'd be need for some fine tuning (and stat numbers crunching) anyways.

I think this is great, and makes weapon upgrades finally worth it. Daryon's sudden weakness that I described in my original post being resolved by this tells me that this Power system makes damage calculation and player progression much more reasonable.
At the same time, it doesn't make the game unplayable with much weaker gear - even with his 25 Power weapon, Daryon could handle standard enemies within 3-5 turns, whereas a current weapon needs only 1-2 turns. I think that's fair as to not force players into getting a new weapon every 5 levels, while providing a clear advantage if they do. :)
If feasible, I'd say that the damage with much, much weaker weapons could still be a tad lower; but that's hard to say since the stats gained from armor are still important, and I didn't unequip or replace those for the testing.

Kudos for this surprise build! I'd love to see more feedback from other players.

[Kaldorei]

Originally posted by Tetonka:

Amazing! I would never have expected a test build addressing some suggestions, much less one day later! :D

I've tested it for a bit (lvl 35, against Corroded Orokkos @Silver-haired goddess.
This test build works really well!

Daryon, auto attack
@25 Power
-> 400 dmg

@1403 Power
-> 800 dmg
-> 1200 Fire Strike with elemental weakness

Selene
@19 Power
-> 1400 dmg Firerift with elemental weakness

@890 Power
-> 2000 dmg Firerift with elemental weakness


Daryon's dmg looks way more realistic now, since his current weapon finally acknowledges its higher level. With this, he can finally one-shot standard enemies with elemental weakness Strikes again - while also not dealing that much damage that it would seem unbalanced. Auto hits don't kill, which they shouldn't, so elemental weaknesses retain their importance in damage calculation.
With a low-level weapon, he is indeed weaker and can't handle enemies as easily, but he's not rendered defenseless.

Selene oneshots with elemental weakness as usual, but doesn't without, which is perfect in my opinion, just like with Daryon's auto attacks.

Ysoris seems a bit boosted though, but of course there'd be need for some fine tuning (and stat numbers crunching) anyways.

I think this is great, and makes weapon upgrades finally worth it. Daryon's sudden weakness that I described in my original post being resolved by this tells me that this Power system makes damage calculation and player progression much more reasonable.
At the same time, it doesn't make the game unplayable with much weaker gear - even with his 25 Power weapon, Daryon could handle standard enemies within 3-5 turns, whereas a current weapon needs only 1-2 turns. I think that's fair as to not force players into getting a new weapon every 5 levels, while providing a clear advantage if they do. :)
If feasible, I'd say that the damage with much, much weaker weapons could still be a tad lower; but that's hard to say since the stats gained from armor are still important, and I didn't unequip or replace those for the testing.

Kudos for this surprise build! I'd love to see more feedback from other players.

Thanks!

I've put a new test build with stats squashing (visual only, internally it still use the same stats)