Frustrated with this game.

[NatureMage]

I'm really a lot of the game, but I've had to put it down. The concept is great. The core gameplay is great. The urge to explore and see what hidden monsters are in each zone is great.

But there is so much wrong with this game and it chips away at my ability to want to load up a save after I've stepped away for a bit. I'll try to list my grievences along with suggestions I feel may improve the experience.

• Dialogue is awkward to navigate through. There are weird delays between conversation cards, and it usually waits for you to click to show you your options- while also registering your click as a selection if you're not careful. Having dialogue move faster, or instant text, and no delay between the dialogue and your response would brighten the experience considerably.
  
• Town is a slog. While large areas for "monster maps" are fine, I realy don't understand why the town is so big and all the shops are so far apart. Slowly running past identical buildings and samey streets to get to the various shops you might need to visit is annoying. It feels like a huge waste of time every time I have to visit town. This could easily be improved by simply making the character move faster while in town.
  
• Town utilities are a slog. When resting in the inn, you run in, go through some akwward dialogue, hit a black screen, then run out of the place. Not terrible, but longer than it needs to be. Healing monsters is much worse. Run in, click through a couple dialogues, wait awkwardly for the scene to start, click through some more dialogues. And you've got to do this regularly, because there isn't much reliable healing in the game. Ressurecitng a monster is even worse than that, but I imagine this is intentional. My solution to the first two is to fix your dialogue (first suggestion) and then stop doing the extra animations after the first time. A quick fade-to-black, easy peasy. This is something the player has to do a lot, and there's no reason to make it so irritating.
  
• Gold. F--king. Sucks. The game seems build to punish you, and gives you so few avenues to recover. Before the first duel money is too scarce to waste on monster crystals, so you make do with what you find. If any of your monsters die, good luck- you literally can't afford to replace them. After the duel you unlock resurrection, and surprise, it's stupid expensive. You can grind fights, but unless you find pearls you're only going to get 1-5g per fight if you sell the loot. Buying even the lowest ranked monster crystals or decent potions can require dozens of fights, and you need to break frequently to rest because even a first level monster requires 100g to be resurrected. It's just straight up un-fun, and can shut down a playthrough completely in the first hours if the player loses too many monsters. Solution? Ramp up the gold earnings. Or make monsters drop gold on death. Or introduce more "treasure loots" at much greater frequency. Something. Anything. For a game built so heavily around consumables you don't give the player any avenues to actually purchase them. I realize that crafting is a thing, but early game it's not an option for expensive staples like capture crystlas.

Look, I said it before and I'll repeat it here- I like the core gameplay loop. I like the monster designs. I like the world setting. I just feel ilke so many of the systems within the game are buried under the drudgery of gold concerns, needless time wasting, and awkward UI.

Every complaint I have could be addressed (I feel) pretty simply, but the biggest one is the gold grind. It's just too much.

[NatureMage]

I've been playing the game a bit more and have found additional things I wanted to mention.

• No minimap. This is pretty frustrating. The zones are huge, and having to run, tap M, orient myself, run some more, tap M, rinse/repeat is not fun.
  
• You can't see what a monster is afflicted with. Is it buffed? Is it debuffed? You have no way to know unless you see it tick damage at the start of its turn or notice that it's speed is reduced. This is pretty ridiculous in a game with turn based strategy combat.
  
• Limited ability information. Abilities should be marked as basic attacks if they don't have a cooldown and should contain the ability's cooldown in the description when you're looking at the bestiary information.
  
• Experience is wonky, counterintuitive, and frustrating to play around. Monsters only get exp if they hurt an enemy (sometimes they don't do enough damage to even count), and they get a bonus if they land the killing blow. This makes slow, lumbering monsters even worse because they're very difficult to level without taking a lot of damage. Ranged monsters reign supreme, and the slowest of your monsters is usually the highest level because that's the one securing all your kills. I really don't understand why you chose this system at all. Slow melee monsters are a huge pain to use, and wasting turns on utility skills (like heal) means your monster gets even less experience than everyone else. I think the system would be greatly improved if experience were shared among all monsters on the board, perhaps with bonuses for those who land the killing blow. The system here is tedious and unfun when you try to level up new additions to your team.

[Rikika]

I agree with a lot of this, but I do have some contention with some points.

Blue Crystals do become craftable quite early on, you get the recipe from the potion seller's quest in town after giving her some elements. One can be found in the mine in the starting area if memory serves.

I dont know what you are talking about with the buffs and debuffs, I can see everything by rightclicking the monsters in battle.

Lack of crystals? You get like 5 for free if you look around just the starting areas. After accessing more areas the amount you can stumple upon gets ridiculous. On my second playthrough I didnt even have to buy any or grind any materials, because I didnt aim to capture a specimen of every monster, just the ones I wanted.

Tips:- the healing spell you can buy in the library is your best friend at lower levels. Dont waste money on potions.

-Dont bother with monsters with healing skills, the healing dont scale like damage do and soon gets useless.

-Spend the first five level ups on monster control, having the greater force of monsters lets you steamroll most encounters.

-Get a noctua druid, its a nasty ranged damage dealer even early on and it only gets better as it levels.

-Complete quests, they usually grants quite a bit of cash.

-Compete in the underground arena, its very profitable, if you team is strong enough.

-Save scumming is always an option unless you are a gaming puritan.

-And lastly if you didnt pick him from the start, get a Noctua guardian, he is a beast in close ranged combat only outdone by legendaries and can shred most monsters with his abilities.

[Seraphim Sword]

I agree with your posts Naturemage; I like the game but there are quite a few things that make it feel more grind than fun. I haven't gotte nthat far, but I realized that a lot of items have no value to sell, but since they are crafting materials they will be more profitable creating extra items and then selling them. For example, a flask plus 2 meat is worth 3gold to sell, but creating an extra small potion with them, would get you 5gold. and more expensive items sell for bigger profit margins. That so far has helped me a lot with the lack of gold.

Good post Rikika. I didn't realize how good Noctua Druid was or Noctua Guardian, so I'll add them to my main team as I am only just past their area and farmed them. Or that right clicking would show the buffs/de-buffs. Thanks for the tips.

[Orlendis]

Are there some materials that aren't actually for crafting and are just to sell? There's 3 recipes I'm still missing, but there's quite a few materials I haven't found a use for yet.

[Rikika]

All material in the valuables category can be safely sold except the monster liquor, it is used for one recipe.