Hello folks!
Great start to your new ARPG game! It looks like this could be a mainstay in the ARPG genre.
I’ve played quite a few over my many years of gaming. From Diablo to D3, to Grim Dawn and Victor Vran, to Van Helsing and PoE,. I even played the bug-riddled Wolcen release. I have had the chance to playtest the beta on a few of these as well and this is one of my favorite so far.
Things I really like:
The combat and movement seems very smooth. No problems setting up a rotation that can clear a map in no time on any of the classes I’ve played so far.
Huge skill tree but not overly complex. The classes have quite a few skills and passives to choose from, but it does not feel overwhelming.
While I see that you are planning to improve the art and animations, an that is great, they don’t really look that bad to me. I find the art style to fit the game well.
The idea of using time travel, if done right, really excites me, and I think really opens up the possibilities for new gameplay options and expansions down the road.
It looks like you all are really engaging and responding to the community, and that is a huge plus.
Crafting seems like it is going to have some real meat to it. (Please don’t make it something that I’m not going to have to use after I get a full set of uniques)
Ok, here are a few areas to make the game shine. Some of these, I’m sure have been mentioned elsewhere and you may even be planning to work on them.
Things we are going to want or need:
Story content. I realize that story isn’t the main reason people play ARPG’s, but there is almost no coherent story or meaningful questing here. I am hoping this is something you are saving for launch and just don’t want to give away, but PLEASE don’t waste this great time rift idea on just being the setup for different looking zones. I’m not asking for Shakespeare, but even Grim Dawn and Diablo have a narrative to follow and urgent feeling story. I’ll be happy to share few ideas that occurred to me while playing, if you like.
The same level of attention and detail paid to the offensive stats that have been given to defensive stats. I can see how each of the defensive stats are calculated and affect my character, but I don’t even have a clue what my baseline stats are offensively. I can tell that I am getting a percentage increase to an unknown number is all. If I increase my void damage by 5% that is great, but I don’t know what it was to start with. Is that 5% of 10 or 5% of 100? There is nothing to tell me.
Animation changes to abilities when I give them a new ability in their skill tree. One of the things D3 does really well, is that when I change my abilities their animation changes as well. So I am firing magic missiles, it looks different whether those are a cold spell or a arcane spell. In the same way, if in LE my wolf is going to start doing Cold Damage, maybe you want to have him change colors to gray-blue. You may be thinking well some trees allow you to change the ability to do multiple types of damage. And to that I say, you know how cool it would look if my ice shards started having a fire trail behind them, or arcing lightning. Maybe my new bluish-gray frost wolf could leave fiery footprints.
Also even though I think the art looks just fine. There is one exception, that rift animation when you are traveling between eras is just not good. The actual rift art itself looks amazing, but that pinkish wormhole that looks like a bad version of the one from Stargate SG-1 may need to be replaced.
I’m not sure if it is too late or too much effort to add in some customization to the character selection page, but that would be nice. Even just some minor details, like gender and hair color would be cool. I’m not asking for a chin and chest slider situation, just a few minor way to make it my own character. I’d even be ok with making that part of the cosmetic shop you are planning on.
Lastly, for now, it would be nice to have some highlight or detail when I am mousing over or clicking on something. When I am in combat and want to choose a enemy for my pets to attack or aim a spell at I can’t really get a good grasp on exactly where am aiming, because the mob doesn’t get highlighted in anyway. I found this to be a little annoying when say fighting a boss with some minions, I couldn’t really choose a particular enemy to fire at and always ended up rushing into the boss or moving where I didn’t want to go because I couldn’t tell when I was or wasn’t “clicking” on a particular enemy.
Anyway, I am looking forward to the next beta update! You all stay safe and healthy!
