First Impression Feetback

[NachoDawg]

Map exploration gives you XP. So there's that. The dying thing is just because it's a rougelike game without the procedural map generation. Lots of people enjoy that, but due to the drawbacks I understand it's not for everyone

Though I what I was saying to Murph and Bullethead was that if anything, this game is unique and it makes you pour a lot of time into understanding it

 

[StrikerJG1]

Any way ... aside from that the arena-mode is great and shows the potential of the battle and armour-system. It's so great to finally see a game that acknowledges the fact that real armour consists of multiple layers of armour and also makes it physically realistic. I really like the fact that you get nearly no permanent damage if you wear really heavy armour ...

Yes, the way they designed the armour system is just perfect ! I'd like to see more games being developed this way. I hope it'll raise the standards.

Keep up with your unbiased impressions

 

[Anthony Obilor]

Day 4 Impression: Back to the Arena
I played the arena-mode again and realised that you could pick up the defeated enemys weapons and armour ... So really important advice: Put some information for new players in the Arena-Mode like "Double Click on the enemy to loot them" ...

One of the things I really like about the arena is that you keep your equipment! Although I made the sad experience that you loose it all after restarting the game ... There is no reason for that aside from developer's had no time to include any kind of save-feature in their game (which to a degree is baffling me ...) ...

Any way ... aside from that the arena-mode is great and shows the potential of the battle and armour-system. It's so great to finally see a game that acknowledges the fact that real armour consists of multiple layers of armour and also makes it physically realistic. I really like the fact that you get nearly no permanent damage if you wear really heavy armour ...

@NachoDawg:
I would love to explore the game if it would give me any consistent benefit aside from knowing which room and enemy you can skip ... .... ... The loose of equipment is really frustrating me and I'm only forcing me to go on with it because of the potential the game has ... Not because it's in any kind rewarding ...

Especially when the arena mode rubs under my nose how greatly the flow of that game increases when you are allowed to keep your equipment ...

At the moment it's more a speed-running contest ... But with stealth (aka slow, tidious and boring) ... Get the stuff you need, avoid enemys, close doors and get back to the part where you died the last time ... only to die again and do it all over again ... + loosing all the fun stuff you found meanwhile ... So for me there is no value in any exploration in that game and I have this itch to just start googling for maps of the game instead of exploring and enjoying it ... <.<

Its nice to see your impressions but trust me you will get better. I would actually not recommend starting the campaign until you can beat the novice arena at least 2 times. Being able to achieve that will make the undead in the campaign much easier to combat, you will have more basic and fundamental understandings how to properly block and parry, how to achieve consistent swings, but mainly you build a sort of synergy between footwork and momentum. Its a bit hard to explain basically you develop a sense of the rhythm and flow of your characters physics. The upcoming patch's movement is even much more fluid and developing a sense of this flow is very important. It honestly feels like learning to skate for the first time, people are busy skating backwards and twisting and turning and you are busy trying to stay upright and just move your feet forward.

Also many games today I call fast food games, they are made just to play through the content like watching a movie. They have a story to tell and when its done you are pretty much playing filler content or on to the next one. Other games offer you the same content but in a different layout, trust me there are very few procedurally generated games that have any actual meaningful use of what procedural could be. A save feature is a way of removing not only frustration from having to redo things and not lose things, it also ruins tension, suspense, fear; fear for life, not of losing your ubeer-sword-of-eternal-doom. It makes experience meaningless. Bare mettle are trying to create an experience where so many things could play out differently and having the ability to for instance wake up with all your gear so you can just zoom past the first part on your next try will totally ruin the experience.

What this game is trying to emulate is fear of dying, we people are are scared of going into an empty strange building sometimes, now try to imagine a fantasy medieval world where you just woke up in a strange, dark, underground, place and guess what, undead are walking about. Now strangely, they don't all attack you, some actually eventually ignore you.

It took me a while to learn that this game does many amazing things in subtle ways. The undead have behaviours with thresholds for certain things e.g. how close you are standing to them, are you in an aggressive stance? are you running towards them? did you bump into them? are you staring at them? are you fighting another undead? even sudden movements can trigger them. I am sure there are other things but even the simplest of enemies the undead are actually complex.

My advice to you is stop trying to "finish" the game and start experiencing the game. Try to build more muscle memory by playing the arena especially without pressing space bar. Yes I know you use space Try to feel how your character moves, use twisting and turning together with footwork to parry better and be able to deliver more devastating attacks. And another thing I have recently found and trying to actively promote is try not to dash constantly, it throws you off balance and it makes you miss-aim most of your attacks, you also open yourself up to more advanced enemies. Learn to tap when going for attack or even dodging back, you will find you step just out of range and are in a better position to counter. The new update even has an interesting mechanic with dodging where you can quickly turn a dodge into a devastating attack but you need to feel to flow to take advantage of that.

Also do not forget when other skills are introduced like ranged combat and thaumathurgy then you will have many more options to how to approach a situation. Never let it slip that the game is in beta and has a lot still missing.

 

[K.L.R.G.]

@Anthony Obilor:
Oh don't underestimate me. I'm actually getting constantly better and like I said before. I expect this to be a system that takes time to learn. I put over 1.000 hours of gameplay into the original Mount & Blade for example and got good enough to do some improvised feints against the AI by turning around (I could bet that this was not considered by the developers at all ... xD) ...

And I get the fast-food-game-problem and the overuse of underused random generation as well ...

About Saves:
But as an starting game-developer my self I see much different issues with the current state of gaming and I put a lot of thought in analyzing how and why metagame-systems like saving changes experiences in games.
My personal core-problem is that there are multiple save-states. So the loading becomes more a problem than actually being able to save progress. This is especially problematic in the oh so decision-driven roleplaying game genre which suffers from the fact that you can undo every decision by just saving/loading on different save-slots ...
And even those that limit you to saving on one slot can easily be exploited by using Alt-F4 in the right moment ...

The perfect Decision-Driven-Rpg for me would force every game to have one saveslot and save automatically after every decision you make, but before it shows you any consequences ...

I hope that illustrates that I in theory like the idea of hard game and consequences ...

....................

But loosing your equipment is not a really good consequence. Atleast not in the current context of the game ...

To a degree I would be more forgivable if the whole game was random, but there is clear level design and it's really linear, static and with little choices to make ...

There is only one way in the first level ... Get the key ... Open the door to the quarters (and yes I take back what I said in earlier posts ... They really have beds!) ... went through an annoying long, dark corridor (which sucks for wielders of doublehanded weapons ...) ... kill one enemy in the corridor ... get his key ... open the door and go to the end of the level and/or checkpoint (died before reaching it, but got so frustrated that I peaked at a map to make sure that I'm not missing something...)

There is nothing new to explore or experience here ... All skill I need is watching the enemys and open/close doors tactically ... So am I afraid of the darkness in this game? No ... I can shut a door ... What I would be afraid of is exploring new areas I don't know inside out already ...

And yeah ... the arena is nice to train and all ... but you keep your equip there which makes it actually motivating and let you progress ...

And it's another example of the games lack of communication yet ... It should tell new players that you can equip/loot the enemys in the arena ...

The main game would simply benefit from keeping at least parts of your equipment ... It would even motivate you to explore more and backtrack to different random-chests in hope to find better loot ...

In its current stage I just have to open/close doors for 5 to 15 minutes before I can go back to the place where I died and eventually loose everything again ... There is no reward here and it feels even a little bit of hypocritcal, considering that you keep your Exp in the main game and in the arena even your Equipment ...

There is nothing the game would loose if you would be able to keep equipment. Atleast not with the current state of door-trickable AI and linear level design ...

 

[K.L.R.G.]

Another Compromise Idea:
What if you were actually able to keep your equipment after dying, but start each time with 1% more permanent damage?

So after you died for let's say 40 times you start with only 60% of your potential hitpoints. So you have collected all that great equipment that you want to keep, but you get less and less life and actually have to decide if you want to keep the character or start over ...

Could feel like that illustration:

(Torchbearer - An Indy-Pen&Paper for anybody interested ...)

 

[Greenbrog]

That illustration has the opposite correlation than you intended. As you get closer to permanent death you'd have better gear. really not certain what that was supposed to show. And frankly if you keep getting "reincarnated" it makes even less sense to keep your gear. But that's not entirely accurate, it actually seems like you're being "reset" but with your knowledge from previous times (remind you of Planescape:Torment a bit, but in that one you kept your gear AND your knowledge, just not your memory, never did like how you kept your gear when you died, lots of meta game issues with that game). Frankly I say "suck it up", most of the content in the 1-3 levels can just skipped or run past, you can literally sprint though level 2 in under a minute. Just how much do you want that "stuff" laying around. Cost to benefit. If you don't like redoing content, take care of your character and choose your battles. Learn to run away. I have literally killed d&d groups over and over because people refuse to learn to run away. There is only one really aggressive mob in level one you really have to get near (and even then you can path by carefully, or sprint past and leave the game and log back in to give yourself a little time because they will drop the chase), and level 2 only has 3-4 hyper aggressive guys and 2 of them can be completely avoided and the other 2 are in the long hall so they can be sprinted from, one won't even chase very long. Level 3 becomes a bit tougher. The mobs tend to be more aggressive and some will chase for a long time. Either way the doors in the game are designed to allow you to gate mobs, and since only you (ATM) can open fully shut doors you control the "flow" of mobs. Learning to fight in long corridors is simply a requirement and paying attention to not get backed into a corner is simply required. With room to back up there is only yourself to blame if you take damage. Also, they've specifically said that getting gear is supposed to "easyish". And frankly it is. You can get really well geared up between levels 1 and 2 without having to "fight" a single mob it's just going to take patience and diligence. Once your a little geared it's much much easier to avoid taking permanent damage. And then "dieing" really comes down to being stubborn about not running away, and that's on you. Now the auto-kill mechanics in the maze, that's a different story and as of now 100% avoidable. If they put more auto-kill in the game that isn't avoidable this argument might have room for traction.

 

[StrikerJG1]

Do you like the puzzle area ?

 

[Greenbrog]

It's fine. It makes sense. It's clever. It's payoff to time invested doesn't feel worth it. Especially the first time. But it's optional, so it's whatever. Something like that become mandatory and that'll be a tough sell if you have to do it 80% of the way through the game and has a lot of death's for it's learning curve. But I like puzzles a lot and they really should be in a RPG. The fact that for much of it you can use the "environment" to solve it differently is a huge plus. Being able to "over-power" somethings feel like it'd be good too, like using a level to "force" a door open. or using a pole to flip a leaver from the opposite side of a gate. They've gone for "realism" I'm just hoping the this level of realism is feasible.

 

[Greenbrog]

My bag of holding in D&D will now always have a few 12x2x12 now though.

 

[K.L.R.G.]

@Greenbrog:
The illustration was just the nearest thing that came to mind. I'm not going to redraw my own more fitting version just to illustrate an idea for some game-feedback I don't even know if anybody from the developement will even read.
In my opinion the meta- and sometimes 4th-wall-feel of Planescape Torment is actually the thing that makes it so interesting and NOT D&D ... I mean ... I play D&D 3.5 for 4 or 5 years yet and I'm just amused that anybody takes this system serious ... It has so many "gamy" rules and stupid stuff in it that it's baffling me that there is this crowd of oh so hardcore gamers who take it serious ... The D&D-world could never work even remotely ...

And you no what? I had mastered scenarios myself where I forced my D&D-group to retreat ... And I've already posted (multiple times if I remember correctly) that I AM using doors, sneak around and ignore enemys where ever I can ... but hey ... The modern "suck-it-up"-crowd of gamers have to presume the worst ...

And another point ... I just shall run through the levels without knowing them ... Great advice! So fuck the oh so great sense of exploration others are praising here ... Ideally google the level-maps and just run through the game without exploring anything ... which will so not lead to my demise even if I try to be careful ... good that I just have to "suck it up" ...

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And great ... there'll be instant death-traps in the future ahead ... ... ... yeah me ... ... ...

 

[Greenbrog]

Explore and learn the maps. nobody said not to. You have to know the maps in order to "run" through. I was assuming you'd taken the time to learn it. Maybe even take your own maps. Every time you open a door you should know what's behind you. Or take the time to make sure nothing can follow you. Frankly I don't understand what you're really complaining about, losing your gear is basically the only penalty to dieing. Once you know the maps the time to "get back" is really minor. And doing your diligence to learn the maps, I figured a given to anyone playing an RPG, whether you're reading someone else's, making your own or just winging it. You keep you exp, and your meta knowledge of the game. Not losing you gear removes the only penalty to dieing and then anyone playing the game eventually (probably rather quickly because of how the gear gateing really works) with little skill and just luck is fully geared and able to badly face roll through all the content. Because if on your first play through were able to make it x distance and then x+1, you'll reach that gear gate long before you reach the skill gate. and you'll just end up with a bunch of people bitching about how the Proctor or a skellie is OP because they have all plate and chain but haven't earned the skill to fight them.

On a differant note did you like 4e d&d.

 

[StrikerJG1]

@K.L.R.G. : Do you like the puzzle area ?

 

[K.L.R.G.]

@Greenbrog:
Why not get rid of the equipment-penalty. Instead the game could focus on being really hard and forcing the player to use more than actually opening/closing doors ...
I wouldn't mind if the game would have been the thing you actually imagine when you only hear of but not play games like demon's souls or dark's souls. Really difficult dungeon-crawling that is so hard that even when you are fully equipped in plate mail you are going to die easily ...
Think "Tomb of Horros"-Level of Difficulty Minus-"the bullshit random instant death-traps" ... Although even those wouldn't be such a pain in the ass if you would keep your equipment.

I didn't make any noticeable skill-progression due to repeating sneaking, spotting and closing off Zombies. It just gets boring ... I might get the difficulty-point if the enemys where not so easily trickable ... But there isn't that much difficulty involved and at the current stage there is not much to learn ...

It might change with skelettons and traps and so on, don't know, but the current level has no teachable moments I can think of. It's just getting the one concentrated (and lucky) playthrough ...

D&D 4:
I have played the 4th edition back when it was released but have little to no memorys ... The things I have heard about it, especially in comparisson with the d20-systems, haven't motivated me to look into it either ...

The D&D Systems are just trapped in there cheesy alignment-thinking and overcomplicating basic stuff ... The lack of any believabilty in terms of combat is also annoying at times.

If there is any system I might play in the future it would be Burning Wheel, but I haven't finished reading the handbook yet and have only little time for it ...

@StrikerJG1:
I haven't seen any puzzles yet ...

 

[Greenbrog]

I'm going to have to agree to disagree on the losing your gear. But I will admit I understand your point of view. Personally I've been playing Path of Exile on Hardcore for the past 2 years and I'm so used to perma-death that I don't understand play much other way really. And that's not for everyone, or even most. I'm not saying this game should be like POE, I don't want it to be; but I do want it "hard" and I want it "punishing".

Good, 4e was terrible terrible terrible. 5th has fixed much of went wrong in 4th, and even surpassed 3rd rivaling AD&D 2.0.

And Striker was talking about the maze.

 

[Iscandar]

Just going to drop this in here. The title is feetback.

That is all.

 

[Greenbrog]

Yeah I noticed too, but I have a Rutabega as my image... Obviously I take everything seriously.

 

[StrikerJG1]

@StrikerJG1:
I haven't seen any puzzles yet ...

It is in the first level.

Here is a clue :

Where the three path cross, follow the skull.

Spoiler

 

[K.L.R.G.]

Day 5 Impression: I give up ...
So I finally got it right ... Took my time, collected armour, colleted weapons and played the "Game of Doors" very carefully ... And I got very far ... I even found a sword and chainmail which made it much much saver to take on enemys in combat ...
I even found a glimpse of story by reading the new found scrolls and books ... As far as I can piece it toghether I'm trapped in some kind of former madhouse/hospital where some kind of magician started to experiment a little bit to much ... Nice stuff so far ...

On the downside ... There was some kind of error-message about missing the characters position or something like that. It made me really fear that the game might crash and that all might be for nothing ... But the game keept running ... And than I reached this fucking abysm that you have to pass very fast after pressing a switch ... Guess who wasn't fast enough on his first try ...

I give up ... there is no point in trying to play that game honestly & carefully with instant death traps like that. I wouldn't mind this IF I would keep the equipment, but no ... So from now on I'm playing with the use of google, especially maps that show the positon of keys ... In its current state the game is just not rewarding in all the wrong ways ... And there would be ways to compromise the difficulty despite keeping your hard earned equipment ...

Like I mentioned above, there could be a system that lowers your life with every death so that you still have to be careful and constantly dying will wreck your character over time but you get atleast some kind of rewarding experience and progression ... If you have only 40% of your lifes left, even heavy plate armour might not save you and you might consider to start over ...

 

[Anthony Obilor]

Right now u I finish the campaign without dying at all or maybe once or twice. I also kill every enemy along the way and visit every room. The game is frustrating because you are still not good at it. It will take alot for me to die in the first level now some unfortunate luck or a fault of mine. The abyss that swallowed you cuz you weren't fast enough is not its fault. I fell in on my first try too but never again, do you know that you need to hold shift + rmb to sprint? Just holding shift will only make you run, just holding rmb will only make you run, you need to do it together to sprint.

Also the fact that you died at the puzzle area tells me you really haven't gotten far, yes it's annoying but when you do get better trust me you will be looking around for undead cuz you are bored. It took me over a week b4 i completed the campaign, you are on day 5,dont worry it will come to you. Also have u completed novice arena twice? Try completing it with a short sword as well as you may prefer shorter weapons in the campaign.

You seem like the sort that is willing to go the distance and feel the pain take heart the game is very unforgiving but when you build a fundamental understanding of it you will find it much easier. We all went through what you going through, trust me it will come to you when it just clicks, its not there yet, one day you will wake up and play it and start finding you can "see" the flow. Patience young padawan do not ruin the game for yourself by falling prey to google. It's not about how far you get its what you learn, you are subconsciously learning the physics and flow, at a point your hands will catch up to your brain.

 

[K.L.R.G.]

Day 5.5: BEAT IT
Who is the Padawan now? XD
It was a 4 hour sit at the least but I finished it in ONE playthrough with maybe 70% of my hitpoints left. Although I did use maps for basic orientation. Technically speaking it helped the exploration. There is no 100% correct map that shows everything yet. Using 2 different unfinished maps was an interesting experience (I start to understand how sailors in the medieval age must have felt ...).
It really helped to know where the keys are because these tiny little shitthings are really annoying to find. It would have been hours of backtracking to find these things. That's one of the things I hate for example about old point & click adventures ... It has nothing to do with your lack of skill ... Most of the time you just don't know which tiny pixel you have to click at ...

And by the way. I made some screenshots of every scroll/book I collected ... On the one side to show that I've completed it, on the over hand for me to get a better grasp of the "story" that takes place in the background. So if anybody is interested in it (maybe for the wiki or just personal interest):

Personal Observations and Impressions:
This game is actually not that hard the moment you get average armour, a one-handed sword (with torch for the dark sections) and a two handed sword for everything else. I just blazed through the hordes of zombies without taking any permanent damage ... at least after getting the two handed sword at the end of the first level ...

Don't understand that as an attack at all the people who gave me advice, but like I was saying from the beginning ... my personal skill wasn't that big of a problem as soon as armour and fitting weaponry came into play. Which means I stay by my opinion that keeping equipment wouldn't have changed ANYTHING except avoiding at least 3-4 hours of tidious grinding aka unfunny busy-work ... (I guess I have played the game for 12 to 14 hours at maximum yet ...)

You know ... I didn't get that much training in the main game (or the arena -> Just beat it once by collecting the weapons/armours of my opponents) ... The only thing I did was playing "The Game of Doors" ... And I'll keep making fun of this ... You have THE most realistic melee-battlesystem in any game yet, you have THE most realistic armour- and weapon-system in any game yet, You have THE most believable environment of any dungeon-grinder I've played so far ... And then a major core-mechanic (by accident. improvisation and/or deliberately) is tricking enemys who are to stupid to use a door handle ... That really breaks the immersion ...

But my point is ... I didn't fight a single enemy until I get decent armour and a sword ... So everything before is tidious busywork after you've done it for the first time ... It's tricking enemys with doors ... There was no lack of fighting skill on my own ... I just had to get the right equipment and it got quite easy (still exciting though) ... So why frustrate new players by removing the equipment after every death ... It's a really transparent way of stretching the gametime without enhancing the experience ...

And there is this gap between the veterans and me as a new player that really makes me wonder. For one I totally get that after some training you'll be able to get through the game without getting hit at all (despite any armour). But that's the kind of skill you only develope after finishing the game for a few times ... Which people would do with a much higher probability if they didn't get frustrated the living shit out of them ...

I also get the impression that most veteran players who didn't get my points are just used to play in the higher levels and not starting in level 1 ... Level 2 and 3 just through decent stuff at you at every corner. Even if you have to restart in those areas with zero equipment it's much easier to get the good stuff ... So I think there is a much different perception that I have observed in many games ... Most veteran players are used to the later stages and actually better equipment ... (Which is no personal attack ... I bet some people here play through the game naked without taking any enemy blows, but the average veteran player might just get used to the later stages ... I mean ... I am a newby at this game and just went through level 2 and 3 in a row ...) ... As soon as you have the equip it's a really fun game with good flow and yet hard enough to let you act careful (even if you would keep the equip ...)

.....................

On another note. The environment is really fantastic. If you're observant enough you get a good grasp of how this underground-community have lived and worked together. There is so much detail in it with the different kinds of workshops, the dinning rooms, kitchens, sleeping places and toilettes ... Although I really wonder how those toilettes work (is there some kind of sewerage below there)? And it would be interesting to know how they got their food. I guess they crafted all kinds of stuff and sold it to the world above?

Which brings me to an interesting idea. It would be really cool to visit this underground-settlement when it was active and in use. Maybe as idea for some kind of future special add on or something like that ...

..........................

And although it was very simple I like the vague informations about the potential incident that happened here. Although I found it really sad that you actually found that Elara the kidnapped victim just starved to death ... I hoped to met her as an NPC somewhere, but thats just me and my heart for unimportant side-characters ... ... ...

.......................

And that's all I can think of right now ... Oh ... one thing ... I don't know if the game saves anything between getting restarted yet ... which is one of the reasons I played level 2 and 3 in a row because I didn't want to loose my character ...

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And there where 2 bugs:
Sometimes when you kill a zombie his shadow appears standing under the door he has passed before you killed him. It disappears as soon as you get near it ...

And I recognised some potential AI-dropouts ... They don't know what to do when another zombie is already in the room they want to pass ... So they stand around, not knowing what to do (in the small rooms atleast). I also saw two zombies bumping into each other not going anywhere ...