Hello, I'm new to the forums but I've been playing this fantastic game for a while now and I'm loving it. I cannot wait until the game is finished and all areas are explorable. It has such an amazing potential and it's looking really good so far. I'm glad I came across this jewel. Having said that, here are some of my thoughts regarding what could be improved.
First off, the quest Dubious Poetry, SPOILER ahead:
Regarding hireable adventurers, I like the idea very much but I find them quite expensive and not worth it given that there's no way to heal them except by resting or using the recovery button. That means they will inevitably die pretty fast as soon as you get into a not-so-easy fight, which happens quite often. Also, they seem to be much more helpful early on as their level doesn't scale accordingly with your progress and so they end up losing relevance. It would also be nice to add some dialogue variance to their responses, maybe based on class and gender, and the possibility to give basic battle orders just as with companions, which would also add some tactical options. Finally, a ranged/archer class for them would be appreciated too, so a warrior could get some fire support from behind while engaging in combat.
As a graphic designer, I reckon that the game would benefit visually from a more appropiate font family. Dialogues, item descriptions, game log, etc are fine as they are I think, but at least the world map, menus and npc/creature names on screen would look better with a more medieval font. It needn't be one of those hard to understand fonts, though. For example, the game Mount and Blade Warband uses the font Mordred, which is highly legible while also having a medieval or ancient style. I believe it would add greatly to the atmosphere of the game and make it more visually appealing.
Finally, something that bothers me a little bit is that no helm is visible when worn by the player character, even though the sprites seem to be there as legionnaires have helmets and bandits hoods. It's a minor thing but I'd love to see my warrior with a helmet and my (future) rogue hooded, even if it is just one same sprite for every helmet and another one for every hood. I've read somewhere on this forum that the sprites are templates or something like thay so that's why they are limited, but as I said above, it's not that there's no helmet or hood sprite at all, it seems it just doesn't get applied to the player.
Thats all I can think of for now. I hope it's not too much reading and that the dev(s?) find my feedback helpful. I don't expect a detailed response but it'd be nice to know if you (the/a dev) happen to read this.
Cheers!
First off, the quest Dubious Poetry, SPOILER ahead:
I generally like very much the quests and their twists but I got extremely disappointed by this one. There's one MAJOR flaw: it makes absolutely no sense at all that you hand those love letters BEFORE getting what you demanded from Lady Leanna, be it a passionate night or the 5000 gold coins. Imagine if some kidnapper released his prisoners before getting the ramson from the families of his victims. Who would ever pay him? The whole idea of extorting someone with something is that you have the power of inflicting some sort of damage to the victim, and in this case, all that power is gone once you hand the letters to her, so there's no reason for her to fulfill your demands anymore.
Secondly, although it is somewhat predictable that she will try to murder you somehow, it wouldn't be so bad if you could take some form of revenge or do some sort of justice afterwards. You just never see her again, stupidly hand the letters and end up with nothing but the assasins' loot.
I love the idea of this quest, I think it's very original but it could have been executed so much better in my opinion. How about being able to show the letters to the husband? I expected this to be an option from the beginning actually, but I think it's essential that this can be done. Be it even without demanding anything from her and spreading the letters/handing them to the husband directly or after your demands are not met as her plan of killing you fails. This could result in the royal historian leaving her or she getting some kind of punishment from the queen or at least humiliation as the whole town gets to know of her affair.
I really hope this quest gets revised.
Secondly, although it is somewhat predictable that she will try to murder you somehow, it wouldn't be so bad if you could take some form of revenge or do some sort of justice afterwards. You just never see her again, stupidly hand the letters and end up with nothing but the assasins' loot.
I love the idea of this quest, I think it's very original but it could have been executed so much better in my opinion. How about being able to show the letters to the husband? I expected this to be an option from the beginning actually, but I think it's essential that this can be done. Be it even without demanding anything from her and spreading the letters/handing them to the husband directly or after your demands are not met as her plan of killing you fails. This could result in the royal historian leaving her or she getting some kind of punishment from the queen or at least humiliation as the whole town gets to know of her affair.
I really hope this quest gets revised.
As a graphic designer, I reckon that the game would benefit visually from a more appropiate font family. Dialogues, item descriptions, game log, etc are fine as they are I think, but at least the world map, menus and npc/creature names on screen would look better with a more medieval font. It needn't be one of those hard to understand fonts, though. For example, the game Mount and Blade Warband uses the font Mordred, which is highly legible while also having a medieval or ancient style. I believe it would add greatly to the atmosphere of the game and make it more visually appealing.
Finally, something that bothers me a little bit is that no helm is visible when worn by the player character, even though the sprites seem to be there as legionnaires have helmets and bandits hoods. It's a minor thing but I'd love to see my warrior with a helmet and my (future) rogue hooded, even if it is just one same sprite for every helmet and another one for every hood. I've read somewhere on this forum that the sprites are templates or something like thay so that's why they are limited, but as I said above, it's not that there's no helmet or hood sprite at all, it seems it just doesn't get applied to the player.
Thats all I can think of for now. I hope it's not too much reading and that the dev(s?) find my feedback helpful. I don't expect a detailed response but it'd be nice to know if you (the/a dev) happen to read this.
Cheers!