Hi all, thought I'd share my thoughts on this AMAZING game after playing for a fair bit. This game feels like it's channeling the epicness of Baldur's Gate without simply being a clone. Got a Cleric to 8 and Rogue to 7. I know this game is still in development so I'm not expecting a full experience yet. Here's my 2 cents on ways to improve the game in no specific order:
- Ranged combat feels very lackluster. Only the Rogue can do it with competence, but thanks to the 'miss randomly if enemy is in melee range thing' it means a bow Rogue has a really hard time clearing dungeons before getting a companion. And it just straight-up can't handle opening a door with multiple enemies, it's really frustrating. Meanwhile, the Warrior can use bows but doesn't get the Archery skill, which is where all the damage is baked in, meaning a pure bow Warrior is too weak to be viable. The lack of quick weapon switch means you can't easily swap weapons to simply use it for pulling enemies. The biggest surprise and disappointment is the Cleric has no ranged abilities at all. The AoE fire spell is point blank only, and they can't equip bows. I don't know what the mage update will bring, but being able to equip wands or something that adds range would be really fun. Or perhaps slings could be added to the game to give Clerics a real ranged weapon.
- Weapon enchants that are specific to a group of enemies (Light, Orc Slayer, etc) are pretty weak compared to elemental damage. Light 1 adds only +1 damage against undead, but elemental damage works on most enemies and is usually at +2 or +3. I think the enemy speific affixes should be majorly buffed so you might want to keep a Light 2 weapon to swap to instead of your +4 fire 'good against everything but imps' weapon. +3 damage per level seems appropriate, otherwise, whats the point?
- Armor enchants are fairly boring. I know I haven't found every magic item yet, but there just isn't a lot of unique or interesting enchantments. It's just elemental resist or stats. Detection seems useless, the stat screen says Detection I is only giving me +3% perception... that's basically worthless. +10% per level seems fair. But really, there should be way more enchants, like +% healing modifier, +movement speed boots, thorns damage, etc etc.
- Enemy variety is pretty lacking. The only animal enemy is wolves, I'd love to see bears or giant eagles or something else in the woods. The desert could use scorpion or giant beetles to compliment the spiders. I've yet to find a human enemy that casts spells, and none of them use skills. Having the dagger bandits use stealth when they see you before closing in would be really cool, as well as having the archers and knife throwers use kick when you close in would be cool as well. The only enemy that I've seen use skills at all is the minotaurs and orcs.
- Cleric Spells. Clerics do pitiful damage without Might active, and the fact that the cooldown is twice as long as the duration means its never up long enough. Increase the mana cost and increase the duration, or just cut the cooldown to match the duration. Or better yet, make it a toggle-able spell that drains 1 mana every 2 seconds or so. Also, I find it very strange that the fire damage doesn't scale per level like the normal damage component does. Barrier, much like the Shield skill for warriors, is strong early but has crappy scaling late and just feels kind of disappointing. Sacred Fire is really hard to aim unless you have your enemies lined up in a hallway. Since it's so short ranged, why not just make it effect everything in a radius around the caster?
- Rogue Skills. I only played a bow rogue. Sprint is hard to use to kite with. It needs either the movement speed increased or the duration increased, but right now it's kind of useless except for getting one more shot in. Traps should snare the enemies instead of slow, maybe at level 2 they snare for 1 second and level 3 they snare for 2 seconds in addition to the slow. Or maybe have the second level drop caltrops that slow all enemies walking through them. It's just really hard to play a bow rogue without a companion to tank for you, the kiting skills are just too weak. Also, rogues need to be able to duel wield, it just feels so weird that they use shields with their daggers. Perhaps an easy fix without having to write a bunch of code is to make a 'shield' in the form of an offhand dagger that increases damage or attack speed of the main hand weapon.
- Warrior Skills. I didn't play a warrior too far but it feels like the game was designed for them. They have the highest durability, the best AoE, and even good single target damage with Fury. Shield warriors feel weak, as the Shield skill doesn't scale and feels pretty 'meh' once you get plate. Bash is cool but I feel like it should do damage based on your shield's armor rating. Actually, how about having Bash do damage equal to x3/x6/x9 the shield's armor rating, and changing the Shield skill to give +33%/+66%/+100% armor value to shields (rounded up to at least 1) instead of the flat +1/+2/+3 armor bonus. The skills would have synergy and actually make the shield useful for something. Resilience has a ridiculous cooldown for the effect, compare to the similar skill the cleric has. Warriors need access to the Archery skill if you want the fact that they can equip bows to mean anything. Or having a Combat Archery skill that increases damage a bit less than the rogue version but also reduces the chance to miss due to melee enemies being in your face, making the bow archer a kiter and the warrior archer a tanky turret.
- Ranged combat feels very lackluster. Only the Rogue can do it with competence, but thanks to the 'miss randomly if enemy is in melee range thing' it means a bow Rogue has a really hard time clearing dungeons before getting a companion. And it just straight-up can't handle opening a door with multiple enemies, it's really frustrating. Meanwhile, the Warrior can use bows but doesn't get the Archery skill, which is where all the damage is baked in, meaning a pure bow Warrior is too weak to be viable. The lack of quick weapon switch means you can't easily swap weapons to simply use it for pulling enemies. The biggest surprise and disappointment is the Cleric has no ranged abilities at all. The AoE fire spell is point blank only, and they can't equip bows. I don't know what the mage update will bring, but being able to equip wands or something that adds range would be really fun. Or perhaps slings could be added to the game to give Clerics a real ranged weapon.
- Weapon enchants that are specific to a group of enemies (Light, Orc Slayer, etc) are pretty weak compared to elemental damage. Light 1 adds only +1 damage against undead, but elemental damage works on most enemies and is usually at +2 or +3. I think the enemy speific affixes should be majorly buffed so you might want to keep a Light 2 weapon to swap to instead of your +4 fire 'good against everything but imps' weapon. +3 damage per level seems appropriate, otherwise, whats the point?
- Armor enchants are fairly boring. I know I haven't found every magic item yet, but there just isn't a lot of unique or interesting enchantments. It's just elemental resist or stats. Detection seems useless, the stat screen says Detection I is only giving me +3% perception... that's basically worthless. +10% per level seems fair. But really, there should be way more enchants, like +% healing modifier, +movement speed boots, thorns damage, etc etc.
- Enemy variety is pretty lacking. The only animal enemy is wolves, I'd love to see bears or giant eagles or something else in the woods. The desert could use scorpion or giant beetles to compliment the spiders. I've yet to find a human enemy that casts spells, and none of them use skills. Having the dagger bandits use stealth when they see you before closing in would be really cool, as well as having the archers and knife throwers use kick when you close in would be cool as well. The only enemy that I've seen use skills at all is the minotaurs and orcs.
- Cleric Spells. Clerics do pitiful damage without Might active, and the fact that the cooldown is twice as long as the duration means its never up long enough. Increase the mana cost and increase the duration, or just cut the cooldown to match the duration. Or better yet, make it a toggle-able spell that drains 1 mana every 2 seconds or so. Also, I find it very strange that the fire damage doesn't scale per level like the normal damage component does. Barrier, much like the Shield skill for warriors, is strong early but has crappy scaling late and just feels kind of disappointing. Sacred Fire is really hard to aim unless you have your enemies lined up in a hallway. Since it's so short ranged, why not just make it effect everything in a radius around the caster?
- Rogue Skills. I only played a bow rogue. Sprint is hard to use to kite with. It needs either the movement speed increased or the duration increased, but right now it's kind of useless except for getting one more shot in. Traps should snare the enemies instead of slow, maybe at level 2 they snare for 1 second and level 3 they snare for 2 seconds in addition to the slow. Or maybe have the second level drop caltrops that slow all enemies walking through them. It's just really hard to play a bow rogue without a companion to tank for you, the kiting skills are just too weak. Also, rogues need to be able to duel wield, it just feels so weird that they use shields with their daggers. Perhaps an easy fix without having to write a bunch of code is to make a 'shield' in the form of an offhand dagger that increases damage or attack speed of the main hand weapon.
- Warrior Skills. I didn't play a warrior too far but it feels like the game was designed for them. They have the highest durability, the best AoE, and even good single target damage with Fury. Shield warriors feel weak, as the Shield skill doesn't scale and feels pretty 'meh' once you get plate. Bash is cool but I feel like it should do damage based on your shield's armor rating. Actually, how about having Bash do damage equal to x3/x6/x9 the shield's armor rating, and changing the Shield skill to give +33%/+66%/+100% armor value to shields (rounded up to at least 1) instead of the flat +1/+2/+3 armor bonus. The skills would have synergy and actually make the shield useful for something. Resilience has a ridiculous cooldown for the effect, compare to the similar skill the cleric has. Warriors need access to the Archery skill if you want the fact that they can equip bows to mean anything. Or having a Combat Archery skill that increases damage a bit less than the rogue version but also reduces the chance to miss due to melee enemies being in your face, making the bow archer a kiter and the warrior archer a tanky turret.
