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?

[maestro]

Kinda weird you can pierce jars but not enemies with bows early-game...

[Zenie]

Escrito originalmente por maestro:

Escrito originalmente por Codeman Fluff:

Don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to be an ass; I'm just trying to help. I'm going to reroll a new character and grab a bow to see if I can replicate the woes you're having. Maybe the bow is under-tuned compared to the other weapons which could be causing you more heartache then it's worth?

Well, I can tell you that it takes 5+ shots to kill a single slime, you kill 1 slime and then start working on the next and the first respawns before you have it dead a lot of the times. that's assuming you actually hit; the aim is a little jank from what I could tell. Arrows don't always follow the crosshairs. It seems to be this weird combination of your character's facing, AND the crosshairs or something weird, I couldn't pinpoint why the frick some of my shots did not go where I wanted them despite my crosshairs being right on it.

The arrows were doing, IIRC, 1-9 damage and it was very heavy RNG. A few 9s you could maybe kill 2 before the first is respawned, but otherwise... nah.

Best I can say with using the bow is you'll be making use of the lock on a lot... because yeah that's there and I forgot if they ever mention that honestly. I just tend to run through the options first when I start games. But yeah it'll make hitting arrows more consistent. Should be defaulted to middle mouse click.

I can't fault anyone getting frustrated starting out though. Some things could be explained better and it can be quick to roll anyone over that's not ready for what's going to be thrown at them. At the same time you can basically go at all the quests at your own pace, and quite a few are repeatable if you're just trying to level up more. Regardless, I know the thing of "practicing will make it more manageable" applies to any game, but this one can take a bit more if you're new. It's also balanced with multiplayer in mind, so if you can find someone to join you or go on to one of the public lobbies, it could make things a lil smoother.

[LucasRCD]

Escrito originalmente por maestro:

Kinda weird you can pierce jars but not enemies with bows early-game...

Honestly, it makes sense to me from a coding standpoint, if enemies and breakable objects handle projectile hit detection in a different way than each other, since the former are programmed to make arrows that make contact with it disappear by default, while the latter don't, allowing them to pierce until they hit a solid object.

[AlienJay]

So I learned really quick the basic mobs in this will wreck you if you dont use the block mechanic. You wont even be able to finish the first dungeon if you dont use block sometimes

[Zenie]

Escrito originalmente por LucasRCD:

Escrito originalmente por maestro:

Kinda weird you can pierce jars but not enemies with bows early-game...

Honestly, it makes sense to me from a coding standpoint, if enemies and breakable objects handle projectile hit detection in a different way than each other. Either that, or the arrows themselves just don't have a big enough hitbox in order to hit more than one enemy with just one arrow, since, with some good aim, you can hit multiple targets using something like Rock Toss, it's just very precise and not very useful.

I always found it a lil interesting that it's like that. There's only one bow that can actually pierce and you get it in the second dungeon. Even then I noticed if it's from skills it'll still not pierce.

[maestro]

Escrito originalmente por Zenie:

It's also balanced with multiplayer in mind, so if you can find someone to join you or go on to one of the public lobbies, it could make things a lil smoother.

But yet the game advertises itself as being singleplayer-friendly and claims that everything will be available and do-able in Singleplayer.

That's like, the whole reason I even tried the game in the first place. If it was forced Multiplayer I woulda never touched it.

I just think that the first couple field areas before the first dungeon could be tweaked a wee bit to be a little kinder on first-timer solo players. Not asking for sweeping difficulty changes throughout the entire game, just for respawns to be toned down just slightly to give you room to actually do something and not get swamped by enemies in the very first area you find enemies in.

The dungeon is actually easier than the field area at start, despite the fact the slimes are only lv1 because the enemies don't endlessly respawn in the dungeon.

Oh, and it'd be nice if the game would pause when you hit escape in Singleplayer, but eh that's just a small nitpick.

Don't always have time to finish multiple waves of enemies and then cast recall if something comes up IRL. Most games that do have a mix of single and multiplayer will have this function, so hopefully that eventually gets added.

[LucasRCD]

Escrito originalmente por AlienJay:

So I learned really quick the basic mobs in this will wreck you if you dont use the block mechanic. You wont even be able to finish the first dungeon if you dont use block sometimes

The real filter are the Geists in the second level of the Catacombs, as they're far more aggressive and deal way more damage than the Mini Geists in the first level. Then the boss is the wall if you don't learn to block, not even potion chugging will help you since past the halfway point, the boss starts summoning Geists to pester you.

[Real Human Bean]

You can't make everyone happy. The game has already been toned down since Alpha, and back then there were people complaining that it was too easy.
You can play alone, but the focus is multiplayer.

[LucasRCD]

Escrito originalmente por maestro:

Escrito originalmente por Zenie:

It's also balanced with multiplayer in mind, so if you can find someone to join you or go on to one of the public lobbies, it could make things a lil smoother.

But yet the game advertises itself as being singleplayer-friendly and claims that everything will be available and do-able in Singleplayer.

Not too long ago, the difficulty used to be much more unbearable for singleplayer, because enemies didn't take half second turns when attacking en masse, turning any fight in an enclosed arena into a moshpit. It's still hard, but much more manageable now.

Prior to that, multiplayer used to be technically easier even in spite of the health and damage scaling, because the aggro wouldn't be focused on just one person, plus enemies wouldn't regen their health if only one person dies. Now it's arguable that singleplayer is easier if you just keep a steady supply of HP restoring items and make liberal use of the universal healing skill.

[maestro]

Escrito originalmente por Real Human Bean:

You can't make everyone happy.

Palword did an amazing job with its difficulty.

How?

Difficulty Sliders.

You can tweak everything from how much damage you take, to how much damage Pals take to how much damage Pals can do, you can even tweak the inventory capacity (by modifying the weight of items) and you can even modify how hard it is to catch a Pal.

Personally I think on the default difficulty (in Palworld I mean), you take way too much flippin damage, like your health gets deleted in 2 seconds flat if you take any hits at all, but hey. That's why we have difficulty sliders. "Damage done to Player: 50%" There. Much more fun now.

Now, I get this is a solo/small team dev, but conversations like this are a great indication of why difficulty sliders are awesome. I could tone the respawns down a little and be happy. You could turn them up and be happy.

[LucasRCD]

My personal tip, as someone who suck ass at this game and constantly flubs parrying time? Buy healing items. And try maxing out Restore as soon as possible. There's no shame in potion chugging, especially if you're used to Diablo-like games.

The game rewards mastering the parry mechanic, but you can just as well just dodge things out of the way, which I would argue is much easier to do against projectiles because none of them have homing properties so far.

One final tip, as a bow user: You can get the scroll for Spread Shot, a universal skill, as a random drop. If luck is on your side, you can get reliable AOE for the Bow way before level 10.

[silly idiot]

you... dont need a shield to block...

shields only let you block hits under the damage threshold, and at worst are just extra stats

bows also let you stay far away from enemies, make use of that to kite them

[BucketHeadValtr]

Bro doesn't know how to parry LMAOOO

[Julius Seizure]

Cryptmaster had a special interaction if you ignored a basic game mechanic for too long, where the title character would suddenly pop up and say "Y'know what, this game's probably too much for you" and promptly offer clear, concise, step-by-step instructions on how to quit the game and go ask for a refund from whichever storefront you bought it from.

Maybe this game could use something like that.

[C at]

Not sure how you misunderstood areas with respawning enemies as mandatory fights when you can just sorta.. walk away? They don't block the way of other locations and keep to where they spawn, rarely chasing you through the map. So there really isn't any excuse you can make.

also just because you said you "played" dark souls doesn't mean you're good at games, you're good at dark souls, obviously not Atlyss. they play massively differently

Calling people try hards for just understanding how the game mechanics works while following up with a "/eyeroll" just makes you look ignorant