Before I get in to criticizing the game I want people to understand that I really enjoy this game and just want to see it become the best it can before release. I also understand that my view is subjective and not everyone will/should agree.
After playing through most of the beta and completing all but several quests that I was able to find this is my general impression and critique:
----------------------------------------------------------------
Abilities/Talents:
-It seems a little too easy to max out abilities like "way of the warrior" or "fire elementalist" to access the high tier skills/spells. If the game is a good deal longer than the beta and there isn't a higher tier of abilities than 5 the progression would seem wonky.
-Crafting is very strange in this game and I generally don't bother with it. Having to search through a journal for random recipes and the click and drag combining seemed tedious. Can't cast too much judgement on crafting because I didn't delve into it much.
-Lock-picking doesn't seem enticing enough. Nobody in my party had lock-picking and I didn't really miss it. Most chests/doors have keys nearby or you can just blast them open with spells. Also lock-picks seem to never drop or appear in the world outside of the tutorial cave.
-All social skills are poorly described and I have no idea what I am receiving for the points I spend in them. I have seen definite benefits from barter and had lucky finds with lucky charm but I still have no idea what leadership and charisma actually do for me.
-Body building is pretty much the same deal as social skills. The description gives a vague idea of what it does for you but you can't actually see it effect your stats.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Difficulty/Gameplay:
-Playing the game on hard makes the first 5 levels very challenging and enjoyable if you're willing to reload every time mistakes are made. However, if you are a completionist and know how to build characters well the game becomes trivial even on hard. Once I hit around level 7 and was well established in terms of spells and gear I began steamrolling and was actually able to beat
the giant crab, the twins, evelyn, and braccus without them attacking me once (the twins joined by fire could have attacked but didn't for some reason).
This was mainly due to being 1-2 levels ahead in most situations and buffs/debuffs just being extremely powerful.
-Clicking on enemies can seem strangely difficult sometimes and if you try to rush combat you can end up walking around an enemy instead of attacking them.
-While standing near hazardous terrain if you select another party member to control the formation will "reform" around you often causing them to step on whatever deadly substance.
-In multiplayer there is a lot of visual desyncing especially when using a spell like rush. Characters also appear to be firing in the wrong direction rarely.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Classes:
Here I'm just going to focus on mages as I only tested warriors/mages enough to be informed about. Warriors receive no complaints from me.
Elemental Mage (I didn't use witchcraft at all):
-Fire was very powerful and fun, but there was a bit of an overabundance of enemies immune to it.
-Earth was the same way with 2 of the 3 damaging spells I was able to get (only reached rank 3 earth elementalist) being poison damage and a majority of the enemies being undead.
-If you are a fire/earth elementalist when you get to the flaming ruins area all you can really do is buff party members and use staff of magus if you happen to have a water/air staff.
-Air felt the weakest to me with none of the spells doing great damage and the relatively low status effect chance and duration on most of them.
-Water was good, no complaints.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks for reading if anyone does!
