Initial Impressions

[maestro]

So, I saw the game on sale and decided to give it a try.

First of all, I like the fluid movement. I hate it when I'm playing a game and your character moves like they are 90 years old walking on a cane. It's refreshing to see fast movement.

Second, what's up with the absolutely ridiculous respawn rates of enemies? You kill stuff and you get about 3-5 seconds before it respawns right next to you and immediately starts attacking you.

I couldn't even get the first couple quests done because some of the first enemies wanted by the quest do such absolutely ridonkulous damage even with some basic armor the stuff dropped. Even the slimes hit for like 9s and I only started with 27 (now have 38) and they have crazy BS accuracy that it's nearly impossible to reliably dodge anything even while strafing circles and changing directions every couple seconds they still manage to land hits with crazy accuracy.

The starting quests want you to kill ludicrous amounts of enemies (one of them wants *24!* dust off of the ghosts), and like 2 rooms into the dungeon, lesser geists are spawning and they are hitting me for like 12-14 damage, 38 really doesn't last long.

There's a recovery spell, but it has a 2 second cast AND the buff cancels upon taking damage (which means you're only going to get 1 tick if even that) and it has a long cooldown.

And sometimes when trying to retreat to a previous room just to get a chance to heal, the enemies follow you so you *still* can't attempt a healing spell. And of course, retreating means everything respawned because of the 3-5 *second* respawn timer.

Could we get, I don't know, 30 second respawns at the very least?

I wasn't expecting a game with absolutely BS difficulty. I think you guys forgot the "Difficult" tag on the store page or something.

And to make myself clear, I've played Dark Souls, I've played MMOs, I've even played some action RPGs such as Warframe, Tomb Raider, Mass Effect and other games like them. I'm not exactly new to the rodeo.

Don't get me wrong, I like the general presentation of the game, but could we at least get a difficulty slider or something?

[laslax]

You're supposed to block (or parry) and dodge. That's about it.

[C at]

Movement passives and even skill abilities can be gained at level 10 when you pick a class. they majorly help with kiting and even stunning enemies to make the swarming more manageable.
If it's still a chore keeping them away, then grab a friend or two to spilt the trouble.
Admittedly early game is gonna be a struggle until you get stronger but options open up quick.
if all else fails, like souls fashion, Invest into Vitality.

[Codeman Fluff]

Publicado originalmente por Lesserred:

Looking through this entire thread and your responses I can only surmise this to be your issue:

You need to block, parry and dodge. Yes you can do this with any weapon, shields just give you the ability to Auto-block specific thresholds of damage. You can block and parry with a bow.

You're below level 10 so you don't have a class yet or weapon masteries, meaning you're firing slower than someone above level 10 would and have no skills that utilize bow(bandit class), you don't have spread shot(a general skill for bows, it's a random drop in the first dungeon and can be bought from a merchant in the boar area around level 7).

BUT that also is irrelevant because you're talking about "instant respawns", which isn't an issue in dungeons since they come in waves and in the world respawn timers are actually pretty generous, it's just that you have to be killing faster than they respawn, which you probably won't be doing pre-level 10.

SO in summary: you're killing slimeks, or (god forbid) regular slimes and ghosts. Didn't bother learning any defensive mechanics, and probably still in starter gear(not that you'd have much better but that's besides the point). I'm also going to bet you haven't put any points in to dex to up your bow damage yet either if you're having "instant respawn" issues. Generously I'm gonna guess you're level 4-6, which means instead of figuring stuff out in early game you just immediately went to the discussion forum to complain that you weren't god yet.

I think this response hits the nail right on the head to OP's issues.


For your info OP:
I picked up a bow at level 1, selling off my defensive gear to afford it, made sure my character in the creator only has TWO dex and ONE vit, as to not inflate my damage with the basic bow or survivability, and I rushed into the Dungeon at level 2.

From what I experienced and can summarize what you went through, you were under-leveled, experienced enemy damage reduction due to level difference, probably didn't allocate your stats, and refused to learn basic game fundamentals like blocking/dashing/kiting. I died three times but finished the Dungeon using the basic bow and only having a max of 24 HP, with most of my stat points being thrown Dex. And before you state, "the game didn't teach me any of that" neither did it for me. I sat and took the time to learn the mechanics and study what was happening on screen, and I have a learning disability for christ sake lmao, so idk wtf your excuse is

Enemies in the dungeon were not "instantly respawning" as stated above, they come in waves, so you were not properly managing your by time and slacked off getting caught off-guard in-between waves spawning, and you're clearly pushing into zones in the open world that are far too high level far too quickly causing your already skewed misunderstandings of the game mechanics to be further punished.

I think you are overvaluing your skill-level and heavily underestimating the game, given how quick you are to state your gaming credentials. This game is attempting to humble you, and I'd learn from that. Or don't and refund it. The choice is yours. Either way, stop trying to bend the game to your will because of your refusal to learn/understand the mechanics in front of you.

I think the case has been closed on this one lol

PS: Now I'm being an ass as it's evident you've refused to do your due diligence

[Orifan1]

Publicado originalmente por maestro:

Publicado originalmente por Venc Ganence:

Soulframe. Atlyss. Probably others.

Not just blocking, parrying with a bow, too. You didn't even try to toy with the mechanics...

Like I said, the game didn't say anything about dashing, and blocking with a bow sounded absurdly stupid. Not sure why they'd expect players to actually do that, silly as it sounds.

And I can tell you that in Warframe, you do not block with a bow. A bow is a ranged weapon which you can't block with, blocks only work with melee weapons.

they said soulframe, not warframe. you know, DE's fantasy game? they made a massive ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ deal about it.
like, massive.
like, you cant follow warframe news at all without hearing about it massive.

[maestro]

I'm a bit of an on-again off-again Warframe player. did the intro to 1999 but otherwise haven't really played much since March.

/shrug

[BoxxyB]

My first impression is very good of this game, just started and wanted to see what the discussion forum was like but I love the concept of single player mmos. this game has a ton of charm I just hope it stays as good as that first dungeon was.

[maestro]

Publicado originalmente por BoxxyB:

My first impression is very good of this game, just started and wanted to see what the discussion forum was like but I love the concept of single player mmos. this game has a ton of charm I just hope it stays as good as that first dungeon was.

I wasn't even trying to diss the game at all, in fact I said I rather liked the premise of it.

But I made the most egregious of errors, suggesting that maybe the first few rooms with enemies shouldn't have instantly respawning enemies that kill you in like 3 hits flat to at least let you get used to combat in the game without running you through the wringer.

Like, literally the very first room that has enemies in it, the enemies are doing like 6-11 damage and you start out with 27, so .... seems a bit excessive. And if I'm "underleveled", I'd love to know how I was supposed to get level ups before fighting the first enemies in the game, lol.

But nah, there's always sweaty tryhards who look down their noses at people who maybe want a little time to learn a game before it throws you into the fire.

/eyeroll

I mean, most games give you time to learn them and such, but nah let's not do that. And I love the assumptions everywhere. Yes, I did put points into Dex. I found a couple pieces of armor dropped by enemies and put it on.

Didn't really seem to do much of anything though, to be honest.

But, you know, I come in here, trying to be polite, not dissing the game, and people throw jester badges around and talk trash, and use belittling tones and frankly it's getting tiresome.

There really doesn't need to be this kind of toxicity just because someone suggested that the game not be so harsh from the very beginning. But if this is what the community is like, I think I'mma take a hard pass.

[Venc Ganence]

Publicado originalmente por BoxxyB:

My first impression is very good of this game, just started and wanted to see what the discussion forum was like but I love the concept of single player mmos. this game has a ton of charm I just hope it stays as good as that first dungeon was.

So far, it has. I haven't met anyone who actually plays the game that dislikes it or finds it too hard. I know Kiseff reads the Steam forums occasionally () so I frequent here to respond and make sure Kiseff knows there are people who love the game as he's envisioned it.

[BoxxyB]

Publicado originalmente por maestro:

I wasn't even trying to diss the game at all, in fact I said I rather liked the premise of it.

But I made the most egregious of errors, suggesting that maybe the first few rooms with enemies shouldn't have instantly respawning enemies that kill you in like 3 hits flat to at least let you get used to combat in the game without running you through the wringer.

Like, literally the very first room that has enemies in it, the enemies are doing like 6-11 damage and you start out with 27, so .... seems a bit excessive. And if I'm "underleveled", I'd love to know how I was supposed to get level ups before fighting the first enemies in the game, lol.

But nah, there's always sweaty tryhards who look down their noses at people who maybe want a little time to learn a game before it throws you into the fire.

/eyeroll

I mean, most games give you time to learn them and such, but nah let's not do that. And I love the assumptions everywhere. Yes, I did put points into Dex. I found a couple pieces of armor dropped by enemies and put it on.

Didn't really seem to do much of anything though, to be honest.

But, you know, I come in here, trying to be polite, not dissing the game, and people throw jester badges around and talk trash, and use belittling tones and frankly it's getting tiresome.

There really doesn't need to be this kind of toxicity just because someone suggested that the game not be so harsh from the very beginning. But if this is what the community is like, I think I'mma take a hard pass.

I don't know about any of that because I am by no means a try hard. in fact if I find a game gets too difficult or obviously not play tested I will attempt to refund it. so i will attempt to make some arguments against it.

There is no punishment from dying as far as I can tell, so the slimes respawning could or at least should be considered a good thing because 1. you can farm them until you feel like you have a hang of the combat, and 2. you can farm them for level ups until you feel more comfortably.

I will make the argument that this game has horrible conveyance. One of the first skills you can unlock is called recovery. I missed it for a while because I didn't want to start throwing around my points but after getting in the crypt and getting beat up by a ghost with a scythe I finally clicked K which the game had been reminding me to do since my first level up. I do not know if that will curve your opinion but I got all of this out of the first hour. I'm certainly not trying to change anyones opinion but it seems like the games still in its infancy

[Victory_Abyss]

Publicado originalmente por maestro:

So, I saw the game on sale and decided to give it a try.

First of all, I like the fluid movement. I hate it when I'm playing a game and your character moves like they are 90 years old walking on a cane. It's refreshing to see fast movement.

Second, what's up with the absolutely ridiculous respawn rates of enemies? You kill stuff and you get about 3-5 seconds before it respawns right next to you and immediately starts attacking you.

I couldn't even get the first couple quests done because some of the first enemies wanted by the quest do such absolutely ridonkulous damage even with some basic armor the stuff dropped. Even the slimes hit for like 9s and I only started with 27 (now have 38) and they have crazy BS accuracy that it's nearly impossible to reliably dodge anything even while strafing circles and changing directions every couple seconds they still manage to land hits with crazy accuracy.

The starting quests want you to kill ludicrous amounts of enemies (one of them wants *24!* dust off of the ghosts), and like 2 rooms into the dungeon, lesser geists are spawning and they are hitting me for like 12-14 damage, 38 really doesn't last long.

There's a recovery spell, but it has a 2 second cast AND the buff cancels upon taking damage (which means you're only going to get 1 tick if even that) and it has a long cooldown.

And sometimes when trying to retreat to a previous room just to get a chance to heal, the enemies follow you so you *still* can't attempt a healing spell. And of course, retreating means everything respawned because of the 3-5 *second* respawn timer.

Could we get, I don't know, 30 second respawns at the very least?

I wasn't expecting a game with absolutely BS difficulty. I think you guys forgot the "Difficult" tag on the store page or something.

And to make myself clear, I've played Dark Souls, I've played MMOs, I've even played some action RPGs such as Warframe, Tomb Raider, Mass Effect and other games like them. I'm not exactly new to the rodeo.

Don't get me wrong, I like the general presentation of the game, but could we at least get a difficulty slider or something?

Honest opinion here, I think most of this can be solved with practice (don't worry you will get better at it) but the one thing I do think would make sense is if there were just an extra 5 seconds between waves, not because it's desperately needed or anything, but because it would just be nice to have a few seconds to heal and breath before the next wave spawns. Also my hands start to hurt really bad by the end of a wave even though I'm winning, 5 seconds would be helpful to rest.

I also feel like most of the time, not enough enemies are spawning in each wave, and I think that should be increased.

[maestro]

So after doing the first floor of the Catacombs, I'd have to say the interior dungeons are way better designed than the field zones.

So, I'm Lv6 and even enchanted a bow I found in the dungeon that was way better than the starting bow, and I got a quest to go to some Terrace or some place to fight Slimeks.

Ok, sure. But of course, the infinite respawn thing happens again. There's like 20 regular slimes and like 10 slimeks in this area and you really can't fight a slimek without getting 10+ regular slimes all over you.

It kinda seems like you really need lots of AoE abilities, but... apparently you don't actually learn anything until Lv10... so not sure why they'd make these enemies Lv6 and the quest to kill them Lv6.

But it seems to ONLY be the field areas where stuff just keeps respawning constantly.

And then it goes nighttime and greater wisps start spawning 3-5 at a time and by the time you kill them off, more are pestering you.

The dash thing does help a bit with not taking damage (woulda been nice if the game woulda mentioned dashing, pretty sure I don't remember it... also the default keybind is really strange, changed it to L-Ctrl like any other game), sure... but the respawn in the field areas, sheeesh. It'd be nice to actually be able to fight the enemies I'm after without being constantly harassed by other stuff.

Suppose I'm supposed to just grind in the dungeon where it's only waves of stuff instead of an endless quagmire of respawns.

[LucasRCD]

Publicado originalmente por BoxxyB:

There is no punishment from dying as far as I can tell

Dungeon enemies and bosses both heal at a rapid rate when you die, the former always healing to full while the latter used to do that but it was nerfed slightly, plus the Colossus proves there can be checkpoints for bosses when you die.

This isn't like Dungeon Siege where you drop all your items and/or lose half your money upon death, thankfully. In a sense the closest game I can compare it to, funnily enough, is Dungeon Siege: Throne of Agony, AKA the forgotten PSP spinoff that turned the series into an ARPG way 5 years before III killed the franchise. In that game, you just respawn back at the entrance of an area, not unlike how you respawn in those shrine thingies at the beginning of dungeons, with zero other penalties. Strange minds think alike, I guess, given all the uncanny and 100% unintentional similarites Atlyss has to that game, with this being one among a sea of many.

[LucasRCD]

Publicado originalmente por maestro:

Don't really get how I'm supposed to use a shield if I'm using a bow.

I know it's not exactly intuitive, but everyone basically gets access to the Shield barrier from Super Smash Bros. in this game by pressing the Block button. It even works nearly the same way: You keep getting hit, and eventually it breaks if get hit too many times or you keep the button held for too long, although the punishment for it breaking isn't as harsh as a stun; you merely get fatigued and can't block for a few seconds until your Stamina regenerates, which also means you can't use skills that rely on Stamina until then.

All that equipping a shield does is make you take less damage and autoblock attacks that deal less damage than the shield's threshold blocks. It's not a must have, but it's handy if your playstyle is based on tanking instead of dodging.

Could the game's tutorials be handled better so that you aren't going through a trial by fire when starting out? Yes, absolutely. Remember that this is still very early in development, meaning a lot can change, so ignore the Jester awards, your feedback is valuable towards improving the experience for everyone.

[LucasRCD]

Also, as a Byrdle player who's a primary bow user, I have this to say: I know your pain of using bows. They start out as the weakest weapons in the game, but as soon as you get stuff in the level 12+ range, they start becoming solid, capable of outdamaging Katars. The Serrated Longbow in particular trades off range for the ability to pierce enemies with its shots, giving Bow users much-needed crowd control without the need for skills. So hang in there, the bows do eventually get usable as a primary source of damage, they just start off really underwhelming.

[Victory_Abyss]

Publicado originalmente por LucasRCD:

Also, as a Byrdle player who's a primary bow user, I have this to say: I know your pain of using bows. They start out as the weakest weapons in the game, but as soon as you get stuff in the level 12+ range, they start becoming solid, capable of outdamaging Katars. The Serrated Longbow in particular trades off range for the ability to pierce enemies with its shots, giving Bow users much-needed crowd control without the need for skills. So hang in there, the bows do eventually get usable as a primary source of damage, they just start off really underwhelming.

I had no idea serrated longbows could do this, this is very helpful thanks! I don't know how I didn't figure this out lol.