Greetings, After having bought this game about a month or two ago, the time has finally arrived to dispense my accumulated knowledge unto this fair community.
And by knowledge, I mean opinions, and thoughts, because this is a fantastic game even in it's current state, I can't say I've ever encountered anything quite like it, I want to see it succeed, and I want to see it's planned sequel some day, leaving some feedback is the least I can do.
I write to you having' seemingly completed most of the content currently in the game, in my latest save, hostiles are scarce, the Golem president is but a tarnishing lump of metal on a cold stone floor, and i've stuck my grimy mitts into every nook and cranny I could find, and pulled out a veritable armory of master crafted armors and enchanted weapons. Or at least it was until I tripped and fell down a pit, but we'll talk about that later, if ever.
------
Starting with the good, this game's core gameplay is incredible, once you've got the hang of it it's fun whether you're shitting down some helpless zombie's neck or fighting a gigantic hammer-wielding soul-mech that demands you call it 'daddy'
Despite being an ostensibly linear dungeon crawler I found the game world very rewarding to explore, squinting at every wall and shelf just in case. At least for most of a run, toward the end you get so bogged down with high-end gear and supplies that you start to want for a worthy opponent more than anything.
That's to say nothing of the physics sections.
Weapons and armor...god I could write an entire solo post about why the way this stuff is handled is wonderful but I've got places to be, and this is supposed to be a feedback post, not an ego-stroking post.
The skill system Is, competent at least, it's use is simple I just didn't find enough variety to really have to pick between anything, though that may be because I don't care for shields or dual wielding? This is likely to be fixed as the game furthers development. Something like a Mordhau skill for swords wouldn't go amiss, let you trade balance for a shuffled damage spread favoring impact and crush.
I never dabbled much in magic to comment on it, except that one time I turned a corpse into a budget construct with the power armor and raise undead.
Derrin is a cool kid.
------
Anyway, it wouldn't be good feedback if it was all sunshine and rainbows, so I'll just semi-coherantly lay out some of the problems I see with the game as it stands, maybe mention some half-assed ideas to address them, though I'm not a game designer, so the crucifixes are unnecessary if I get something wrong.
The biggest glaring issue I have with this game is really just a small aspect of its movement, namely right-click movement. If you want to go in a direction your character must first turn to face that direction, which at first pass you would be forgiven for thinking "duh" except humans are far more nimble creatures than that, and I rarely find myself having to face the direction I want to go before I start applying momentum in that direction, often time's I'll turn while in the middle of the first stride, and hammering behavior like this into the movement system would do magnificent things to that oppressive feeling of sluggishness and imprecise control that gnaws at me whenever I'm wandering around all the tight corners this game has.
The save system also bothers me. I understand why the number of saves in a run needs to be heavily limited in a game like this, and having completed the game I think it's fine for what the game is now, but when I was still unfamiliar, I encountered both ends of having unknowingly saved too early by innocently exploring where I shouldn't have been yet, and saving too late, crossing a point of no return just before death and completely bricking a run. In truth this is probably best left up to the devs, but were this my venture I might look into the viability of a "Limited Save Item + Scarce Save Station" system, sort of like the original Resident Evil games. At the very least some feedback regarding the checkpoints would save a lot of frustration. This goes extra for the planned sequel to this game, I'd have a hard time with a full-size RPG that didn't let me know if/when it was saving, regardless of how generous or stingy it was.
The stamina vs wounds health system is awesome, but enemy spawns when you are knocked unconscious need to be improved, many, many times I was knocked out, only to wake up with the offenders still standing over me, wasting no time in knocking me out 1 or 2 more times before they finally spawned far enough away for my character to complete the stand-up animation. If it's a difficulty issue then just make knockouts cost more health, it would be significantly less annoying.
I know I said I was infatuated with the equipment system in this game but I feel like crush/impact weapons may be a tad too good in the current meta, they are plenty powerful against unarmored enemies while also being the clear winner when dealing with armored foes. I won't speculate as to how or why anyone would want to fix it though, It didn't stop me from maining greatswords for 90% of the game.
Obviously this issue stems from the game's incomplete nature but it really feels like you get all of the fattest loot right before you run out of enemies to use it on, flame sword, shock mace, self-sharpening de-fleshinizer, fucking power armor (which doesn't seem to last long enough in a fight to be of any use, but it's still fucking badass) Once I had these things, I had nothing left to fight.
You seem entirely too reliant on night-vision helmets in this game, not wearing one means you're pretty much required to use your off-hand holding the torch unless you want to put up with your light source following several steps behind you for the entire game. (and that's assuming the poor boy survives) The flaming sword is a potential solution to this but it's a very late game item and reliant on a limited supply of orange crystals. Having alternatives to the torch that aren't restricting yourself to one of two helmets in the game would be lovely.
------
Those are all general issues so I'll leave you with some more specific bug reports I saved while I was playing.
At some point during my trek through the market I started getting random error messages about object position overflows and some shit about Derrin, I'm a dunce and didn't save any of these so this is probably of limited help.
------
This chest can be accessed by climbing up this part of the cliff from below, I never did find the key to that gate.
------
This area in the second half of the sewers fucks with the AI something bad, I walked in, saw a skeleton standing on the edge of a cliff. I still had Derrin with me at this point, sensing trouble, I sprinted out of the room, but he refused to follow, a brain scan showing him pacing at the doorway, wanting to go after the skeleton, but not being allowed to by his leash, he refused to leave the room so I went in and the moment I did, the dumb shit sprinted at the skeleton full tilt and yote himself off the cliff, skeleton in tow, never to be seen again. (That's his mind on a brain scan in the bottom left just before he fell too deep)
... Then a troll showed up, presumably tripped over some fungus and fell down the cliff too, I didn't capture this moment as I was busy hiding in a corner like a bitch.
------
The player character gets stuck when trying to right-click walk over where I assume the transition zone for this part of the sewers sits.
------
That's all I've got, I hope my mad musings can be of any help at all to the devs of this game, even if as nothing more than a momentary distraction from the endless tedium we call 'life'
...What is up with that demonic fungus anyway, I didn't find any mention of it in the old parchments.
And by knowledge, I mean opinions, and thoughts, because this is a fantastic game even in it's current state, I can't say I've ever encountered anything quite like it, I want to see it succeed, and I want to see it's planned sequel some day, leaving some feedback is the least I can do.
I write to you having' seemingly completed most of the content currently in the game, in my latest save, hostiles are scarce, the Golem president is but a tarnishing lump of metal on a cold stone floor, and i've stuck my grimy mitts into every nook and cranny I could find, and pulled out a veritable armory of master crafted armors and enchanted weapons. Or at least it was until I tripped and fell down a pit, but we'll talk about that later, if ever.
------
Starting with the good, this game's core gameplay is incredible, once you've got the hang of it it's fun whether you're shitting down some helpless zombie's neck or fighting a gigantic hammer-wielding soul-mech that demands you call it 'daddy'
Despite being an ostensibly linear dungeon crawler I found the game world very rewarding to explore, squinting at every wall and shelf just in case. At least for most of a run, toward the end you get so bogged down with high-end gear and supplies that you start to want for a worthy opponent more than anything.
That's to say nothing of the physics sections.
Weapons and armor...god I could write an entire solo post about why the way this stuff is handled is wonderful but I've got places to be, and this is supposed to be a feedback post, not an ego-stroking post.
The skill system Is, competent at least, it's use is simple I just didn't find enough variety to really have to pick between anything, though that may be because I don't care for shields or dual wielding? This is likely to be fixed as the game furthers development. Something like a Mordhau skill for swords wouldn't go amiss, let you trade balance for a shuffled damage spread favoring impact and crush.
I never dabbled much in magic to comment on it, except that one time I turned a corpse into a budget construct with the power armor and raise undead.
Derrin is a cool kid.
------
Anyway, it wouldn't be good feedback if it was all sunshine and rainbows, so I'll just semi-coherantly lay out some of the problems I see with the game as it stands, maybe mention some half-assed ideas to address them, though I'm not a game designer, so the crucifixes are unnecessary if I get something wrong.
The biggest glaring issue I have with this game is really just a small aspect of its movement, namely right-click movement. If you want to go in a direction your character must first turn to face that direction, which at first pass you would be forgiven for thinking "duh" except humans are far more nimble creatures than that, and I rarely find myself having to face the direction I want to go before I start applying momentum in that direction, often time's I'll turn while in the middle of the first stride, and hammering behavior like this into the movement system would do magnificent things to that oppressive feeling of sluggishness and imprecise control that gnaws at me whenever I'm wandering around all the tight corners this game has.
The save system also bothers me. I understand why the number of saves in a run needs to be heavily limited in a game like this, and having completed the game I think it's fine for what the game is now, but when I was still unfamiliar, I encountered both ends of having unknowingly saved too early by innocently exploring where I shouldn't have been yet, and saving too late, crossing a point of no return just before death and completely bricking a run. In truth this is probably best left up to the devs, but were this my venture I might look into the viability of a "Limited Save Item + Scarce Save Station" system, sort of like the original Resident Evil games. At the very least some feedback regarding the checkpoints would save a lot of frustration. This goes extra for the planned sequel to this game, I'd have a hard time with a full-size RPG that didn't let me know if/when it was saving, regardless of how generous or stingy it was.
The stamina vs wounds health system is awesome, but enemy spawns when you are knocked unconscious need to be improved, many, many times I was knocked out, only to wake up with the offenders still standing over me, wasting no time in knocking me out 1 or 2 more times before they finally spawned far enough away for my character to complete the stand-up animation. If it's a difficulty issue then just make knockouts cost more health, it would be significantly less annoying.
I know I said I was infatuated with the equipment system in this game but I feel like crush/impact weapons may be a tad too good in the current meta, they are plenty powerful against unarmored enemies while also being the clear winner when dealing with armored foes. I won't speculate as to how or why anyone would want to fix it though, It didn't stop me from maining greatswords for 90% of the game.
Obviously this issue stems from the game's incomplete nature but it really feels like you get all of the fattest loot right before you run out of enemies to use it on, flame sword, shock mace, self-sharpening de-fleshinizer, fucking power armor (which doesn't seem to last long enough in a fight to be of any use, but it's still fucking badass) Once I had these things, I had nothing left to fight.
You seem entirely too reliant on night-vision helmets in this game, not wearing one means you're pretty much required to use your off-hand holding the torch unless you want to put up with your light source following several steps behind you for the entire game. (and that's assuming the poor boy survives) The flaming sword is a potential solution to this but it's a very late game item and reliant on a limited supply of orange crystals. Having alternatives to the torch that aren't restricting yourself to one of two helmets in the game would be lovely.
------
Those are all general issues so I'll leave you with some more specific bug reports I saved while I was playing.
At some point during my trek through the market I started getting random error messages about object position overflows and some shit about Derrin, I'm a dunce and didn't save any of these so this is probably of limited help.
------
This chest can be accessed by climbing up this part of the cliff from below, I never did find the key to that gate.
------
This area in the second half of the sewers fucks with the AI something bad, I walked in, saw a skeleton standing on the edge of a cliff. I still had Derrin with me at this point, sensing trouble, I sprinted out of the room, but he refused to follow, a brain scan showing him pacing at the doorway, wanting to go after the skeleton, but not being allowed to by his leash, he refused to leave the room so I went in and the moment I did, the dumb shit sprinted at the skeleton full tilt and yote himself off the cliff, skeleton in tow, never to be seen again. (That's his mind on a brain scan in the bottom left just before he fell too deep)
... Then a troll showed up, presumably tripped over some fungus and fell down the cliff too, I didn't capture this moment as I was busy hiding in a corner like a bitch.
------
The player character gets stuck when trying to right-click walk over where I assume the transition zone for this part of the sewers sits.
------
That's all I've got, I hope my mad musings can be of any help at all to the devs of this game, even if as nothing more than a momentary distraction from the endless tedium we call 'life'
...What is up with that demonic fungus anyway, I didn't find any mention of it in the old parchments.
Last edited:
