First imperssions - weird design decisions?

[....]

So after getting into the genre again due to Diablo i tried this game but my first imperssion isnt good but mostly things that should be easy to fix/change:

Character Creation:

• above every character there should be a text to let the player know the class
  
• this game needs better looking characters and character customization - the characters look bland and bad (sorry but the faces arent good and the characters themselves arent distinct in any way they look generic)
  
• Add hairstyles/haircolors, skin color, beards etc. - those things should be easy to add and shouldnt interfere with animations and voice (simply hide hair to avoid clipping - but some clipping isnt a problem anyways)

Gameplay - First impression:

• Why do i name my character if my account name is displayed above my character -> and why on earth is there no way to disable that? Who wants to have his own accoutn name abovve his character constantly? Who thought of that and why?
  
• started - chat is broken - seems to randomly not work (typing something never shows up)
  
• why on earth would you break with so many genre standards - there is no left click attack, no shift+attack in the direction of the mouse
  
• when an enemy is directly in front of me and my mouse is in that direction - why does a fireball instead of hitting the enemy go trough said enemy? - there seems to be some weird min-distance for many spells that randomly will ignore enemies directly in front?
  
• what is up with the auto-aim that some attacks do - that just feels awful - if i aim somwhere i want to attack there - i dont want autoaim to be enabled and attack a random chest - that just feels off and like there is no control over the character

Graphics:

• World Graphics look nice - a bit too stylized like a comic to me but thats a design decision
  
• Characters look awful - sorry but there is no nice way to put that - the faces etc.
  
• Spells etc. look good aswell
  
• some effects look really weird - for example destroying a box - looks like it breaks the 4th wall - sometimes less is more?

Sound:

• music is okay but not great
  
• sound effects are pretty bad for some skills - for exemple Lightning Blast - nothing about that to me sounds good and it also doesnt sound like lightning at all to me
  
• Bulleted list

UI:

• Item stats are pretty weird - not sure what they are trying to tell me but mostly i have no idea - why would you not simply use what is standard in Hack and Slash since forever? - am i supposed to take a calculator out and calculate myself for every item if its better or worse with different damage and attack speed?
  
• Why on earth would skills be on normal keyboard keys as standard when the genre standard is using Numbers?
  

Skills:

• Am i missing something or can i seriously not see skill specialization for a skill without actually binding it to that skill slot?
  
  
  I think this game has a lot interresting things - but also a lot of things - especially directly at the beginning that will scare people away - you see all that great gameplay and the nice looking world - just to be scared away by the really bad looking characters right at the start? Why?

[....]

Just an addition - is there some sort of special autoheal for the start or is the autoheal always that extreme?

There also are other "bugs" that make the world look a bit cheaper - for example when you open a chest in grass it will be full of grass probably just clipping trough it?

Is there some sort of "active dodge" mechanic later on?


Story
Story starts of weird aswell - so there are a few enemies attacking that guy on the floor. He tells me someting about the shard and seems to be either just in pain or dying.

So all i can do is say ill do XY while he keeps lying on the floor? Neither can i help him nor does his status changes for example dying telling me his hast wish?

Its sort of weird so i just continue my quest and let him lie on the floor in pain? I know its a Hack and Slash - but thats just weird.

[....]

Also is this a bug or is my character constantly flying? The character shadow isnt where it should be?

Ingame Text:
Is there a hidden option to disable the text-animation? Its really annoying since its slower than one can read so i would prefer to simply have all the text instantly?

[Gottorn]

The idea of seeing the account name instead of the hero name is great, but they need to give the players a choice of this option.

In any normal ARPG, you sometimes need to take a calculator or calculate in your head.

Most popular ARPGs do not use number keys to use character skills.

[KzbUlti]

You're missing a lot of things.
Chat being broken is a known bug,
You can disable attack move as the very first option in the settings menu.
Item stats are basically PoE lite, as to make itemization important.
You can access a skill's skill specialization by right click the skill in the skill list.
WHat autoheal? There's no autoheal in this game.
You should be getting your movement ability within the first 10 levels. That's your 'active dodge'.

Also, the game ACTUALLY had a game guide you can read that is useful by pressing G.

[Swiftstylus]

I disagree with almost every point where you said "stop deviating from the industry standard"

That's what makes this game unique. If you want to play the same thing over and over, just go do that with one of the 'industry standard' games. Let unique games stand on their own merit.

The rest of your stuff is quality of life that can be polished later. The game is still in early access. Priority on function and interesting gameplay followed by shine. Looks don't mean squat if the game sucks or is clunky to play. Interactivity and fun are what makes games interesting.

[....]

Originally posted by Swiftstylus:

I disagree with almost every point where you said "stop deviating from the industry standard"

That's what makes this game unique. If you want to play the same thing over and over, just go do that with one of the 'industry standard' games. Let unique games stand on their own merit.

The rest of your stuff is quality of life that can be polished later. The game is still in early access. Priority on function and interesting gameplay followed by shine. Looks don't mean squat if the game sucks or is clunky to play. Interactivity and fun are what makes games interesting.

By industry standard i mean general mechanics that have not much to do with gameplay.

Having stats that take time to compare doesnt make it unique - neither do special control layouts etc.

For example - if a new FPS game would put "shoot" at the right mousebutton - it wouldnt make it special - it would only make it weird.

Since you agree with almost every point - do you really think the characters for example look good?

The text animation isnt annoying to you? It makes reading a chore since you constantly have to stop and wait.

[Cargerlee]

I think low sound quality, too liitle voice acting, awful character looks and no hide option display name above character are negative features for me but I mostly enjoy playing LE.

[Cpt Obvious]

Gender locking and no character creator is big miss in 2023 rpg game. There dev team size is not tiny anymore to use that as justification.

[Arnaud3013]

Character: agreed, but as you won't see your chartacter closely like in cinematic, you don't really care.
Using numbers is more a MMO things than ARPG.
And standard is not looking only diablo, take a look on POE, Lost Ark, Grim Dawn.
For comparing stats agreed, i've activated auto compare in settings, it help, but it could be complicated to compare "impact". One way i use is to equip stuff and take a look on dps on my equiped skill, and that way i can say if it's better or not. You can't have a big "it's better" as lot of effect impact some skill and not others, like having +30% fire dmg. But it could be great to have some ui things saying impact on skill without having to equip and iterate on skill equiped just for dps.
Like having a +/- x dps show on top of each skill would great.

For fireball, it's linked to hitboxes, i had that too sometimes, to improve.
You can see skill tree just by clicking on the skill in skill UI (S). No need to specialize.

[Ayk-]

There are some really shady decisions too:
Why my messages get censored when I'm chatting/bantering a friend from private? What's up with this unnecessary monitoring in private messages?

[Hazel]

If you run over a potion on the ground while your belt is full the game will pop a potion and pick up the one on the ground.

[Arnaud3013]

Originally posted by Ayk-:

There are some really shady decisions too:
Why my messages get censored when I'm chatting/bantering a friend from private? What's up with this unnecessary monitoring in private messages?

It's a bug with chat, not a censor thing

[RodHull]

Originally posted by ....:

Gameplay - First impression:

• when an enemy is directly in front of me and my mouse is in that direction - why does a fireball instead of hitting the enemy go trough said enemy? - there seems to be some weird min-distance for many spells that randomly will ignore enemies directly in front?
  
• what is up with the auto-aim that some attacks do - that just feels awful - if i aim somwhere i want to attack there - i dont want autoaim to be enabled and attack a random chest - that just feels off and like there is no control over the character

These two are persistent known bugs that have never been fixed or even addressed, you can add to this fighting from different elevations. There is wonky physics going on somewhere and I think the heavy autoaim is a patch job to make it somewhat playable. But most people who like this game don't seem to care about it for some reason. But its always been this way since it first went into EA.

Originally posted by Swiftstylus:

That's what makes this game unique. If you want to play the same thing over and over, just go do that with one of the 'industry standard' games. Let unique games stand on their own merit.

Sometimes industry standards are good things we should observe.

Like cars having 4 round wheels and seats in them. I mean we could make them with 3 square wheels and a bed in them but they wouldn't make great vehicles.

Some of the design choices are done for the sake of being different and make no actual improvement on anything. And some are just bugs they never bothered to fix and re-branded as features.

[tiamats4esgares]

I have mainly played acolyte with a little primalist. I tried playing mage last night for first time ever and was weirded out that fireball didn't hit what was straight in front of me. I don't think it's a bug, it's a "design decision" that it goes to where your mouse is pointed and not just the direction. But it's weird and dumb.

[RodHull]

Originally posted by tiamats4esgares:

I have mainly played acolyte with a little primalist. I tried playing mage last night for first time ever and was weirded out that fireball didn't hit what was straight in front of me. I don't think it's a bug, it's a "design decision" that it goes to where your mouse is pointed and not just the direction. But it's weird and dumb.

It's a combination of design choice and bug. It's basically wonky targeting and hitboxes so to alleviate that they make the targeting behave in this way. And yes its very weird.