May I add a few ?
** Skill system is boring SO FAR. I may have never touched a lock pick in my entire life, and blam, invest 10 points in it in a row, and become very "proficient". The geometrical requirement of skill points saves it to some extend...
** BUYING skills in shops ? That is ridiculous. Even with some imagination that the guy maybe giving me some lessons, it is a mood breaker for me.
** Loot system is indeed ridiculous too. I stopped playing the alpha (until next big patch), when I found silver in some barrels. Come on... On the other side, I still want to recover wood, or even some iron, when I destroy a crate...
It is weird, because Larian goes to some very realistic détails (to the point of having empty or full goblets, and so on), but can't have a logical or quite realistic loot system...
I wouldn't be ashamed to have an undead infested mine near Cyseal, and be able to recover Ore from it once I clear it from the undeads. Would make sense to me to recover silver ore, not randomly find it in crates...
3) I am not a game designer so I don't know what the best loot system would be. However, the ubiquitousness of 'junk' is a deliberate design decision on the part of the developers to make the world feel more alive and to encourage interactivity, similar to the old Ultima games. I fail to see the problem with that.
It makes the world feel more inconsistent, IMHO. And being interactive with crates is so boring. On the other hand, they made the fish stacks right IMHO. Every loot should be like them. Finding some fish on fish poles or stacks makes sense IMHO.
IMO, the problem is it is not THAT realistic, while it could easily be more realistic.
** crafting is Meh. It has the roots to be very good IMO (randomness of results, profusion , but not so much, of ingrédients, variety of crafting recipes), but it still lacks feedback, maybe some success levels (You know, I want to char some fish I am cooking, could be fun RPG stuff), and some use of workshops IMHO. It feels like 25% power, while it could be 100%.
** What are source hunters ? Basic wandering rag tag noobs ? Because the first piece of armor I loot or sword I buy is so much better than source hunter gear... Not saying that the first pack of undeads outside cyseal kicks my ass hard time if I go "alone" fight them in the beginning. I may have missed something, but I have rather have them clearly be basic source hunter recruits, things would be clearer IMHO.
I am really aware that this is an alpha, and that Larian makes huge improvments every patch. Just sharing why I play 10mn of the game every new alpha, and then wait for the next big patch (or editor, ahem...). So far, DoS is a frustrating inquiry RPG for me.
