Good Day;
Thank you for putting a lot of time and effort into making this game. I have placed more than 40 hours in the early access and the points below are my feedback on some aspects of it. While I believe the game overall is very well made, I believe there is room for improvement.
1. Characters:
-General: I found most of the characters who join the party to be unlikable, the only exceptions being Gale and Wyll. I understand that you intended for the companions available in the first stage of early access to be those that had an evil or neutral alignment, but not being moral does not equate to being unlikable. It is possible to be evil and charming, which none of the evil characters here are. At almost every conversation the characters do not miss a chance to insult or belittle the player character, and what makes this a problem is that the player character hardly has options that are as equally scathing or hurtful; to put it simply if they are going to treat the player character like dirt it would only be fair for the player character to be afforded the opportunity to do the same, maybe you could even add special retorts that are dependent on being a certain class(A barbarian would threaten violence, a wizard would logically dismantle the verbal jab thrown their way and a bard would come up with a far more colorful come back, etc).
Even after earning higher affinity with I have noticed a significant enough change. I am not advocating for them to fall at the player characters feet and apologize for every horrible thing ever did, but it wouldn't hurt to have a change of the usual exchange, and maybe open more dialogue options to signify this change in relationship. It also does not help that a lot of them really seem uninterested with joining forces.
Finally I have an issue with the backstory of ALL the companions currently available. This isn't about whether these backstories are good or not, its about them not fitting level 1 characters. I cannot help but roll my eyes when a level 1 wizard tells me that he was important for the netherese to place a magical bomb inside of him, or that I am teaming up with a githyanki elite warrior who is a level 1 fighter, a vampire spawn who has been alive for 200 years serving a vampire's every whim is a level 1 rogue, and so on. What these characters when through doesn't really fit with them being novice adventurers, if you happened to obtain these characters later in the adventure when you at a higher level than it would honestly make more sense.
Again if this is working as intended. If the evil characters are supposed to be devoid of charm and utterly miserable. Then I will only call for the ability to call them out and lay your own verbal beatdown on them, and if possible to alter their backstory to make it so its believable that they are novice adventurers or maybe have them join the player character at a more believable level.
-Shadowheart: I have several problems with this character, aside from being an un-charismatic and unpleasant, she can be described with the phrase "none of your business" she is not interested in anything aside from the main quest which is understandable, but we do not even see any hints of any other traits aside from "I am secretive". I realize this is a major aspect of a priestess of Shar, but have her at least display other character virtues or flaws. Her ability scores also do not line up with her character, she is supposed to be a priestess of Shar, so you would think she would be good at be sneaky and stealthy but her dex modifier is -1, with her decent charisma you would think she would have deception but she doesn't even have that. I would honestly lower her charisma to 10 as she doesn't appear or act charismatic, and her way of keeping secrets appear to be keeping silent about them and not spreading misinformation. Raise her Dexterity to 14 so she can make use of her stealth skill and maybe down the road we can find her a medium armor that won't give her disadvantage on stealth check while also giving her good AC. I guess it wouldn't hurt to see more of her personality even in a minor way before she decides to reveal her secrets....if you can even call it that. She is also one of the characters that seems to be happiest with being alone, so why would I invite her along when there will be other characters that are willing to work with you?
-Astarion: I never cared for Astarion, He treats everyone like crap and is completely unapologetic about it. Seems that the only thing he enjoys is seeing others suffer and only cares about himself. I am guessing this is working as intended and honestly I can see some wanting a character like him around for a completely evil party, but his evil feels petty and pathetic which kinda fits seeing that he's a minion of a vampire and not a true vampire himself. I honestly don't see a way of fixing Astarion that doesn't involve changing the character dramatically. Like Shadowheart he also seems uninterested in joining forces if not offered. One more thing, an elf character who uses knives who puts a blade to the player character's neck on a beach....why am I getting divinity original sin 2 flashbacks?
-Lae zel: The way she acts makes sense given her history, and she is surprisingly one of the characters that sees the advantage of teaming up with others to solve the issue you are all facing, unlike Shadowheart and Astarion who are too obsessed with being the cool loners(I am exaggerating, but you get my point). given the choices between her and the above mentioned character I would take her along, but given other choices of more pleasant company I would still not bother with her domineering nature. Her ability scores make sense when considering her character, if heavy armor was more prevalent in the early access I would give her one without question. At the end of the day I find her more tolerable than Shadowheart or Astarion.
Gale: Aside from what I mentioned above about his backstory and the fact that he eats your magic items(A big deal in a game like this) I don't have much to complain about with Gale, still I would probably never pick him simply based on the fact that he will deprive me of good gear. Sorry man, I don't need the game to be harder because your awesome backstory requires you to destroy any rare gear you find. I recommend making another wizard companion character so we can promptly ignore Gale. Apologies there was no nice way to say it.
Wyll: I have no issues with him aside from his ability scores not matching up with his character. He calls himself the blade of frontiers but has a laughable Dex 13, make it 14 at least. Even if it is planned for him to pick up pact of the blade, nothing excuses a such a low Dex score when the character doesn't have easy access to Heavy Armor.
2. Classes:
-General: Classes were translated very well, except for the rogue....
-Rogue: No expertise, which is a defining feature of the rogue in 5e, all characters being able to hide and disengage as bonus actions also heavily diminishes cunning action.
3. Combat
-General: overall its fun, but every encounter having enemies with Area of Effect and environment effecting abilities does get ridiculous. The reaction feature also needs to be looked at again as its semi-automated nature doesn't play well with the rest of the 5e system.
In conclusion I think I will stop playing the early access till more characters and classes are introduced.
Thanks again for making this game, and good luck with the rest of the development.
