Linear game progression

[Hilli]

After my first playthrough of 160 hours I have to say this game is great, the most technical stuff is running flawless and the overall ambience is top, but there are also some gamedesings which make the game more linear than it should be and at least some missing locations and game mechanics within the already working biomes.

Linear Gamedesigns

About this point I have two main critics, first the simple armor progression and second the enemy difficulty.

Armor Progression
In my opinion is this point very bad designed, because in each new biome you just have to farm the new type of metal and craft the new hot ♥♥♥♥ and the old stuff becomes useless. It would make so much more fun, if new materials allow to upgrade old armors and at the end you have multiple armor sets for different situations and playstyles, so you have tanky armors based on Iron with high defense but low mobility, light armors based on hides and pelts with low defense and high mobility, medium armors based on everything as a mix of both and special gear for anti poisen, fire, ice and lightning.

Enemy Difficulty
Early enemies lose thier danger very fast with later gear. The blackforest is the best example while it was a hard area at the start the enemies become moot if you go through it with just Iron armor. The further you progress in the game you have access to better food which gives more HP and the damage of the enemies are going lower and lower. Sure better gear should provide better defense and make this area alot easier, but making you to a god that takes just 5 damage from a troll slamming you with tree is kinda inacceptable in my opinion. It isn't just the black forest all assaults on your base suffer under this fact too. My thoughts to fix it is to give enemies a true damage which will always deal this amount of damage and a variable damage which would be effected by armor and other damage resistant effects. Another aspect are the resistant potions, it's good to have options for countering element type damages, but instead of just being a
a tool to deal with that stuff, they make you almost immune to the element and you don't have to worry about it anymore.

Biome Improvements

I like the Biomes thier designes are beautiful and the music accentuate the ambience very good, but at the moment if you explore one Biome you know each other too. I see the point, it's just content which had less importance than building a good working game in this early state. However I wan't to bring some thoughts which could help to make the biomes more individuell.

Biome features
Each biome has different passive or active features. For example one swamp has an effect that is covered in a poisen mist near the ground, so you have to build bridges from treetop to treetop if you won't be permanent poisened there. The next swamp has no special features and in another swamp are crawling corpses under the ground, that catch and try to drown you into the muddy ground, so you have to dig fast a hole in the ground and kill it before it pulls you underground.
A hand full of special features for each biome would increase the uniqueness of each area and exploring a new biome could be a whole new experience.

Biome pieces
Actually are to less special pieces in each biome almost nothing that say oh nice I haven't seen this hundred times already this could be simple things like a lost cart in the black forest, a hot spring in the mountains or slough in the plains. Also some great rare if not world unique structures are missing like grand temples for Yagluth in the plains, abandoned mines in the mountains or sunken villages in the swamp. Maybe this special locations can be linked with some new unique enemies like a high priest in the temple or a mountain demon in the mines which work lika a miniboss.

[chomba]

my biggest problem right now is bows and shields, they are just way too strong. and i think parrying should not stun enemy enough for full combo, at least for the strongest enemies. you can fully parry a 1 star goblins attack with fully upgraded silver shield which is ONLY 20 silver, bear in mind armor pieces START at 20 silver. heavy armor is also a bit overtuned. bonemass buff way too strong, its like 75% or more damage reduction for 5 whole minutes. if you know your way around the game is honestly a joke, which is bizarre for me to say because i actually thought the game was surprisingly difficult at first, then you learn certain things and its just... yeah

[Hilli]

yeah the bow is your best friend in the hard parts of the game, in my opinion the damage is fine, but it's way to easy to use even when the mobs are hunting your ass. A higher movement penality while aiming would help to avoid this cheesy run and gun strat. Another thought I get about it is to add split the bow in two classes a short and a long bow, while the long bow deals more dmg therefor it has a higher movement penality and higher stamina, deals the short bow less dmg but has almost no movement penality. So you have one bow for opening snipes and one for close combat situations.
Actually I have no problem with the parry, cause all other weapons break the poise of the enemies very easy with thier secondary attacks it's just all about the timing, but to be honest the parry timing should be harder to hit.