Part 2 - the negatives:
- my computer sounded like an airplane taking off with the GPU fan on max speed all the time for no reason, bad performance in general for what is quite an ugly and simple looking game. I got a shit PC but this doesn't happen with Div:OS, PoE or Shadowrun which achieve a better aesthetic with lower hardware requirements.
- the overworld doesn't look good at all. It's way too empty, and I'm not only talking about items or stuff to do but empty as in you can come across a few screens of a plain grass fields. While to some degree it really evokes the feeling of exploration, I wish they toned it down just a tiny bit, introduced some better landscape, this shit looks seriously amateurish like somebody took some terrain height tool and randomly sprayed it across the map like I used to do with the Warcraft 3 or Stronghold map editor. It can be vast and empty without being boring and ugly I would hope.
- it's also too abstract which I think was a defense against having to show too much detail, so ok it's an abstraction but it remains boring, especially the items like chests and treasures. Can't they look more realistic? Do they really have to shine and be huge? I'm already scanning the map like crazy because of the camera system, surely I would notice a decently modeled chest or a pig or something, no need to make them into a mario-esque power-ups because then they start to feel like stupid power-ups you gotta be picking up all the time. It's of course true but can you sugarcoat it a little? Something simple like Homam3 or 4 before they went full retard, at the very least.
- the travel/camp ratio is off, I don't like having to fiddle with the camp setting after getting literally nowhere in the previous turn, but I understand you guys know this already. From reading the interview I also got the impression that an adventure day is 1 big day until you get to the map border where you camp but
Jonas seems to be saying that's not true. Can you elaborate how it will work? It sounds like a step in the opposite direction where the camping will be almost an afterthought. I'd really like that you'd properly balance the length of the adventuring day instead so that I can actually manage to do something in 1 day and then the camping would feel like a welcome respite instead of a chore, especially after having done it approx 300-400 times already.
- the character development is not good enough. What the fuck why are the last 3 ranks the same for every character? I don't care that it's linear and you can't really change anything or make them unique but if I go through the trouble of leveling up my racist asshole pikeman that I care about I want to get something cool while still having the incentive to level up my slutwhore pious priest to see HER new skill, not to mention the high level skills weren't interesting or even that good. I'd be totally happy if each class had a 100% unique skill progression, nothing more. Sure you can make it even better by actually making a skill tree not a skill trunk. This seems obvious so I suppose it was on account of some time pressure or budget or something.
Basically, as you are well aware, the character progression stops near the start of the second map which sucks ass and makes everything more of a chore.
- the fortress, while better than that useless shit ruin in Pillars of Eternity, still has plenty of flaws, namely:
- it comes way too late in the game for the player to actually gain something from using it
- in order to buy something there or commence building a structure, you have to travel to it, which combined with the short adventuring day, the insane decision to put it to the far corner of the map where you have no reason to be going ever and the relative uselessness of it makes it not worth the effort
- I was intrigued by the text telling me that it would draw people to the stronghold but because it was such a chore to get it built up, I never got all the soldiers to overthrow the dirty indians on my own. I learned this was possible after having finished the game, I think it's absolutely a great idea but it was really hindered by the fortress being so far away. The purpose of it should be a place you like to visit, feel at home, care about, get some nice bonuses and friendly marketplace and you should LIKE to be visiting it often just to see what's new. I can't think of a better solution than making it an essential hub in the centre of the map or something similar to the quest hub in SR:DF because if you let the players build shit in it from some menu, it will end up like in PoE where you just dump your useless money into it and go check it once or twice at the end of the game just to be disappointed nothing matters and there's no use for the stronghold. I like the idea of a homebase but it needs lots of work to be worth working on at all.
- the class balance for combat purposes is not good enough. I don't need everybody to effective as everybody else but:
- the scholars are a waste of a combat slot, especially combined with the rest of the mechanics. I don't think that the buffs are really worth it when the enemy HP is fixed and a damage done to a character is SO valuable. It's not like you need to buff up your party to take down a 300 HP enemy dragon. I wouldn't mind having some characters suck in the combat if they had a different purpose, but I don't like dumping the XPs into these useless classes just to get their main stat to 10 and then let them sit in the party doing tinkering or herbalism forever while their level-up bonus is a combat skill. This could be solved by adding some non-combat skills or traits to these useless classes so there'd be a reason to level them up rather than the obligation of researching 1 passive skill to let you walk more on the map because the adventuring day is way too short.
- the hunter is kinda ok, they could get some better skills though
- scouts and soldiers are fun enough, they need to have more diverse uses imo and different high level skills
- the natives are weird, you get them later and they don't seem worth leveling up because their attack values are inferior to your soldiers', who are already also leveled up and most importantly, you never know when will the game take them away from you again. I must say though that while I was worried about this for most of the game, it never happened to me that I couldn't keep a unit in my party unless it was fairly well telegraphed in advance that they'll be leaving at some point. After some retrospect, I think the devs did a good job in this regard, even game you the options to tell them to stay in your army and shut the fuck up for some morale malus. Good stuff, on the next playthrough or in the sequel, I'll trust the devs more with these recruitable characters.
- the combat mechanics:
- AoO are fine imo
- combat skills not so much, they feel way too gamey and abstract, like the guard skill. I had the biggest problem with the trap skills/items actually, they felt totally stupid, especially the barricades, torches and huge fields of caltrops. They were fun to use and I don't really know of any solution, but I'm hoping for something that makes more sense in the context of the game for the sequel. I get it that caltrops are a part of the setting with the traps and stuff but sowing them with the godhand onto the battlefield like that doesn't seem right. At least have the characters plant those in the tactical preparation round, that would be a great improvement and I think I read somewhere that's what they'd do in the sequel.
- the balance between shooting and stabbing is so so. I think there should be a way to increase your accuracy for some classes to get it higher. I used Walk Your Shots but rarely felt it made a huge impact. Or any. Yeah, after 4 rounds, you hit the guy almost for sure, same as you'd probably hit him after 4 tries anyway.
- the level-up passives were not fun enough. I think everybody knows this already. Taking a weapon passive seems like a waste, the defense and offense bonuses are totally tiny, I think they are like 5 points? that's 5 equipment if I'm correct? That's not really worth it, imo, 5% extra damage reduction for only 1 level-up and you're done with improving your defense is not fun. Again especially combined with the low set health of everything which in itself is great, but it should be an opportunity to make lots of interesting skills and stats because it should be easier to balance around it rather than having to account for killing a 30 HP spider and 400 HP dragon with the same character in the same game. You should get plenty of movement related skills, accuracy related skills, attack status related skills, to diversify your options if not to do more damage, something that adds another layer in the combat not just +1 this +5 that.
- the enemy variety and the combat area variety was at the lowest point where it still wouldn't get boring but there's lots to improve just by simply adding more stuff
- using your tactics or diplomacy skills to set up an ambush seemed like the worse option because your characters would be scattered all around the map instead of a good formation where you can heal the front line and protect the back line, so this I think is pretty counter-intuitive to use your skills to get the worse initial setup. I really liked that with the right use of skills you could shoot a few guys before the battle began, that was awesome and fun and made thinking about the text adventures have a real impact on stuff you really care about
- on that note, I must say that thinking things through in the text adventures really paid off to me and I was rewarded for doing what I thought was the best tactical or strategic decision, no nonsense stupid shit like using a rubber duck onto a dildo to create a time machine like often happens in shit adventure games or shit RPGs for that matter
- the tinker skill and the crafting skills were not good enough.
the recipes for traps you get too randomly, I'd prefer to just buy them or get them on a level-up, I'd like to be able to do something about my equipment with the tons of useless shit I find around the map.
Researching the AXE and PICKAXE(or what was it called) skills was a waste of time, same as researching the cart for more steps on the map, because firstly you don't need any more wood or metal, you need more oil and rope and secondly, 3 more steps is nothing, if it were 50% that'd be worth it. Good skill concept but shit content.
This makes the tinker classes totally underused, shit for combat and good for making 2 kinds of traps. Better teach them hunting cuz you can always use that.
- the trading mechanics are ok but they're underused because every trader has about the same amount of everything. It's not like you find a trader that really needs medicine and sell him tons of it to get gold and then sell the gold to a poor bunch of indians to get their weapons. It's all roughly the same everywhere. There were like 1-2 places that really lacked some goods but also didn't have anything to sell.
- the paper map isn't all that good. It's pretty, but I'd rather it be pretty and just a little bit more accurate or useful. I don't need big quest markers or arrows but just a bit more detail. I'd also like there to be some passages through the mountains or forests, at least 1 so that if you trek for 5 days into some corner of the map but find only a forest with a blinking quest marker on the other side of it, you don't need to journey for another 5 days and then go around for 3 to get there. How about some mechanic to cut your way through the forest maybe? Because you can't see shit so you're going blind in the general direction of the destination and stuff like this annoyed me halfway through the game. Maybe that's the intention so whatever, I don't think it's all bad but I'm not sure it's totally necessary. Funnily, it happened to me that I got stuck in the same place 3 times in a row because the overworld map looks so fucking bland I couldn't tell whether I'd been here already or not. Maybe that'd be a good solution to make the map less empty so you could actually remember the places you had explored and you wouldn't be getting stuck traversing an untraversable mountain range more often than once. It all ties in with the short adventuring day and the terrain penalties.
That's all that I can think of now. I hope somebody finds it useful.
EDIT:
I just remembered another thing: The A Team and B Team dynamics in this game.
- I like it, it makes me care about my soldiers. I'm not sure it's a good idea to give the XP to everybody, you'd need to really ramp up the skill trees to make the units interesting then. I prefer it this way where I need to watch out for my main squad but also give SOMETHING to that useless idiot asshole 2nd scout I'm not using because he just might save my ass some day. I think this will be lost if everybody has the same XP.
