Few critiques to enhanced edition

[IonDrako]

This isn't compared to the original but rather in general as I never got around to playing the original.

I'll start by prefacing that I really enjoyed the game, 100%'d it in hard mode (1 achieve short )

I don't expect any of these to be changed but rather just some things I found issues with the game that in the chance the devs make another game along the same system (or a sequel which would be neat considering the end) that maybe they can be fine tuned then.

Main irks

1: consistency with map assets need to be looked at, multiple times through out my playthrough some of the rocks,plants,grass,etc would sometimes have collision and other times be just visual making navigating certain areas real tough along with trees sometimes having collision further back than they should making walking some laid out paths a chore in some areas.

2: The progression system (outside of leveling/stats) needs some attention. Now given I was farming a decent amount and had already reached dwarf village and killed both bounties near them at around level 30 before passing through the cave of life but by the time I reached the other side of the cave all my gear was maxed out and all my skills were maxed out. I had no need to collect any materials even more so since I didn't use potions almost ever.

For the gear specifically I don't think relics really had an impact or felt like they had one outside of a specific amulet from the curse quest. (and they also should not be sellable, need to be like key items) I think that you could make the gear be equipable and maybe outside of a few specific pieces make recipes for higher tier gear to be found and made with higher than t4 max, maybe some unique effects outside of stats that would maybe add some diversity between gear selection and maybe having each one be able to be leveled up. This would let you have more material types and actually have progression of them rather than still finding the base ore and other materials over halfway through the game. Look into the YS games for an example of the material progression I mean. (though this is more of an option, there are others

For skills part I feel like with the amount of stones I got that they should go a bit further with their augmentation and maybe be able to get multiple options on one skill but make someone choose 2-3 options at a time to modify the skill and let them change it at any time in the menu. Would let battle be more strategic since if their current setup didn't work they could go in and try different ones to help them past a hard boss or enemy. (even more so when a few of the current options/upgrades just make the skill a tiny bit better while others choices add new utility to the skills) (also would be nice to actually see the differences between the different class advancement choices prior to changing or at least let you put it off a second so you can save before making the choice)

Minor Irks (as in they are kinda not a huge issue in my opinion)

1: It's hard to tell what is and isn't an edge of a map you can go through. On one hand this allows for some nifty hidden areas but on others I find myself walking what seems like paths only for me to hit a wall and have to go back.

2: This may be a side affect of the change from the original to enhanced edition but there are a lot of blank areas in the game. Buildings, rooms, paths that lead to nothing but an empty area (sometimes without even basic mats. I assume there were chests there before but due to the changes they got removed but even if there was only something in those spots from mats to lore tidbits or something related to the zone itself it wouldn't be such a let down.

3: Some chests/quest rewards. By the time I got past the cave of life or dwarf village for that matter I had a metric ton of gold (60k+ almost always) but I was going out of my way to do quests or open chests that would give at most 5k which considering at that point (beginning of chapter 4 basically) I had already maxed my characters it felt pretty lack luster, at least sometimes the xp was good. Be nice if they offered some unique relic with pros and cons you could toggle on/off as rewards.

4: Dive spots were terrible. Fish were one thing (not that I really used them as I didn't use potions) but the dive spots giving 1-45 gold or so and maybe occasionally a treasure throughout my entire playthrough from start to finish made me start ignoring them completely as it was worth more to just do 2 fights or so than it was to swim over to the spots as the slow speed of swimming just to be disappointed (should have had one the spots like the one by the bridge with the 4 trolls be a relic for faster swimming, that would have been nice)

Edit:
5: I kinda feel that characters should gain some health per level, even just 1 per. I understand having to put points into Def for defensive numbers and even more health but feels kinda weird for a lvl 50 character to not have any natural health growth outside of the def stats, not that it was a huge issue for me, ended with mc having 160 health base (60 def) but she could deal ~6k damage per holy shot with 5% siphon so it was good enough.

6: The game could really use a journal. Something to keep lore tidbits, books, relics, enemy stats and info and maybe a blurb about them, etc. Would let you track a bunch of stuff and would be something else to complete by filling it out.

But yeah that's mostly everything that irked me to an extent, I think it was a fine game as is but if any future ones get made I'd like to see these things expanded on. I really enjoyed the story and the different dialogue (from the main 4 characters and a lot of the random ones you could talk to) and hope to see more works from the devs in the future. Cheers!

[PixyFreakingStix]

Hey there, thanks so much for your thoughts! Lots of good stuff here! Stuff I don't respond to, I agree with.

For progression, we deliberately made it possible to get past the trolls and farm up in North Starway and beyond. I think what you're suggesting means we'd need to make that area absolutely not doable until you reach a certain level, or make it so you can't get experience and materials up there somehow. Maybe you're right, but I personally like games that let you break them a little by getting to places early and taking advantage of what you can get there. If you're going to do every bit of side content before progressing, I think that -should- make you overpowered.

I think the same holds true for treasure and quest rewards. If you're going to go out of your way to farm and do side-content to the point that you have a crazy amount of gold and levels, the treasure you're supposed to find and quests you're supposed to do at the appropriate level are going to feel bad.

I think what we should have done is make expert mode so difficult that you basically have to do that.

I think this goes to dive spots too. The treasure is meant to be low, just free money. At some point, they stop being worth the trouble. We didn't want to make them too good or players will feel compelled to visit every single one, but in reality, they're just meant to be a cute novelty and a distraction, something the player can safely ignore once they're over it.

Health Per Level: Fair, but I don't think it's a bad design decision or anything. It's atypical for sure, but it's just to punish players for going too much into the glass cannon route (or reward them if they can figure out how to make it work). The offensive stats are super strong, and players are going to lean toward maximizing damage dealt rather than survival, taking only the minimum needed for survival. If we had health gained per level, we'd need to make defensive stats stronger to compensate or tone down offensive stats to make defensive stats more appealing. We could also scale enemy damage harder, but we found that surprisingly tricky to balance.

Anyway, those are my thoughts! Like I said, largely agreed on the other points.

[solaris32]

I like what the guy said. To add to it, and hopefully you read this, you need to put an event flag or something in front of doors because wandering npcs love to block me and I can't leave. Had a dog block my exit for about 30 seconds before it finally decided to move.

[IonDrako]

Really cool to hear, to touch on the things you pointed out

I'm fine with breaking the progression linearity, in fact that's why I usually try to do anything seemingly optional before progressing the main story line. I was just bothered because it let me finish all character progression outside of leveling in what felt like a really early mid point of the game (I also didn't think tier 4 was the final tier until I reached it, thought it'd go up to 5+). A lot of the materials outside the CoL were lower tier as well, a lot of cotton and what have you, you eventually reach iron and silk but it takes a while and I think most people would be done with the cotton and any other low tier mats either just prior to going through the cave or maybe a tiny bit after. But anyway I understand what you mean, just the stairway didn't feel "end game" so I explored it willy nilly. I think if progression went further stuff like I mentioned in the first post with higher tiers and different variations of skill modification and gear so it took longer to hit the absolute peak of gear (which tier 4 gear felt kinda mundane outside of damage, just a lot of stats on some pieces) and to clarify I don't mean something like making tier 4 take forever to reach as tier 4 really didn't even feel like it was going to be the end of gear progression, same with skills and the class/exotic stone advancements.

The treasure and quests, the max of a 5k gold reward with mostly lower amounts found was barely a reward for me personally after I had left the first town due to how pricey the good things in the shop were (like "oh these are my life savings, you take them." "well thanks let me go buy 10 mats with your entire life savings") . The xp was fine but I kinda wished they gave something tangible that meant something, even if just a piddly low tier relic.

Dive spots were just too bad. If I had realized what they were early on I'd never had gotten them, especially because there were a few you had to go out of your way to get just to obtain like 1 gold piece. It's fine if they're random extra things but they mostly felt like a joke on me for going and getting them haha.

The health per level thing was more of a nod to the fact that it felt odd to have characters with such low health pools end game, I don't think the other stats need to be changed though. I put almost all of my 50 levels into doing the damage I did and if it was lowered despite me sacrificing any safety in Def I'd feel it's be pretty let downy. The 1 health per level thing was more just to make it feel like characters had natural growth, would have only put my lita at 210 health which some enemies still did in damage (praise the anti one shot amulet)