First I wanted to write an essay, but I soon realized my english skills were not even far good enough to write such a thing, so I switched to a list format. Sorry for that.
I will use map numbers
from here , to make it easier to follow.
Thank you for:
- Testing: gameplay and glitched areas in dragon form. Referring to Orobas Fjords and post-destruction Broken Valley:
__ To shut down the barrier near M5.1(M5.4) the normal way would have been to go to the teleporter on the western part of the central isle and use it to teleport to the teleporter inside the barrier. I used dragon form’s momentum, which transfers to the normal body after the transformation, to go up to a projection on the rock which cannot be hovered by the dragon form because of the height cap, and from there I slid down to the platform.
__ To shut down the barriers in M5.1 a specific order had to be followed (M5.1(G2-G3-G4-G5), and to shut down M5.1(G3) you would have to go to shut down G2 and then go to the teleporter which just became reachable to enter the G2. I didn’t use the teleporters, and got inside G4 and G3 by using momentum, a few narrow free flight areas and, in the case of G3, a rock platform which was under the dragon killing dome, from where I was able to reach G3 by walking. And that’s only a little part of what I could do without having to EVER use the teleporters (which I don’t like).
- Dragon form flight mechanic. A shitload of people complained that it was far too simple and easy to master, but I loved it. The Dragon Form is completely and easily controllable with mouse and keyboard (I would have added the “ascend when pressing space”, but that’s it) and that is something I love.
- All classes skills available. This was beautiful. I’ve always hated specialization, and to have a fully rounded character is something I love.
Complaining for:
- Engine testing: c’mon, ridiculous stuttering and minutes of waiting to open the menu because the engine didn’t load everything in memory? With 4GB of ram? Seriously?
- Human form movement speed: I know in other games the player is even slower, but it’s still ridiculous. The character moves like it’s underwater. Too slow by far, and there is no “run” button to go faster. Why didn’t you bind the movement speed to the strength stat?
- Capped stats: 100 cap is far too little. With the hunter set’s bow it takes about 5 arrows to kill an Imp, which is far too much.
- No console and no way to enable noclip. Not because I really needed it ingame, but because there were 2 things which were not reachable in the Primordial Cave (a chest in the Patriach Cave, shown in the cutscene but not reachable, and a secret room which is present on the map but not reachable (i tried searching for hidden buttons, but with no success. I am sure the room is there, because I jumped near the wall and saw there was a room on the other side). The fact that I couldn’t reach these places really ruined my fun that day.
- Keys needed to open chests. Please, get rid of this. It’s ridiculous that I, a ridiculously strong mage, can’t just force my way trough a locked chest...
- Grapple to a ladder while falling missing.
- A button or a menu option to show every usable/pickable item from afar (something like the overlay DA:O shows when you press TAB).
- No keyboard interaction with items when buying. I normally buy everything and then sort things out when I get back to the tower, so I would prefer a way to avoid choosing the number of pieces for every item. A "buy all" button would be perfect. Same thing for moving things to the chest in my room: a "deposit everything in the chest" button would be extremely welcome. And, last but not least, a "send everything to my tower" (and thus, to my chest) button in the merchant trade menu would be very useful to avoid being encumbered by things you don't need right now (but maybe you need later as material for enchantations).
- The fact that I couldn't ask the runners to pick more than one item. I would have loved to be able to ask them to go and pick 10 pieces of every possible stone.
- No automatic looting when near the looting bag. This is pretty annoying.
- Character keeps getting incapacitated everytime a magic hits him, even though I have everything maxed out.
- Shooting magic usable only when there is a target. Why? Why can’t I shoot boxes and so on?
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Basically, a high-budget company does an extremely accurate testing to be completely sure that the player has ONLY ONE WAY to solve reach a place or to solve a problem, which is something I REALLY HATE.
In your case you didn’t do much testing because of lack of money and resources, which resulted in good things (freedom to the player to use a more natural way to advance) and bad things (engine problems, unreachable/incomplete places). Though, I believe the good things in this case outreach by far the bad things, so I wanted to thank you for this.
Though, I think that, because of people complaining and thanks the money you earned by selling the game, you will probably do far more extensive testing for the next games and remove every other way to do things.
So I guess this is my last time playing a game of yours (except flames of vengeance, but that’s because I want to see how the story ends).
Well, anyway, thanks and good bye.
P.S: I have yet to finish the game, so I’ll probably add more things as I go forward.
EDIT: game finished, and added a few other things to the list.
