I have to agree with the OP that the early game experience is horrible. The game itself isn't bad but early game it seems like if you didn't start how the game designers wanted you are in for a world of hurt.
To start there is very little indication where you should be going at the early levels. The dialog system in the game is horrible since most of the people in the starter town simply repeat each other. Literally they have the same dialog trees. Basically all I know to do is go North to the cave which is blocked by a boss encounter I can't beat. I feel like I turned left when I should have turned right and I in an area that I shouldn't be in. That or there was content in the town I missed which should have leveled me 1 or two levels. Heck even the guards told me I was too low level when I opened the doors but I've talked to everyone in the town.
My biggest problem, and I am fairly new so I could be incorrect but, is there are only 2 npcs in the first town which you can have join your party. They basically duplicate my starting characters so I am stuck with 2 melee fighters and 2 mages. Now of course I can have them diverge through the leveling system but in the early levels leveling takes so long that won't happen for awhile. Why aren't there 1 of each archetype in the starting zone so you can flesh out your party how you want.
I am level 4 fighting all level 5/6 mobs and always outnumbered sometimes 2 to 1. I don't have, or even have access to, a rogue or ranger and luckily Jorhan (or whatever his name is) has a heal spell or I wouldn't have a healer. To make mattes worse I started with my characters being a Shadowblade (customized to be melee centric with bleed)and Witch (swapped out the spider spell at char creation). Uh 90% of the mobs at early levels are undead which means immune to bleed which was my main combo/mechanic (Witch bleeds mobs and melee char heals off blood). Or plague guys who bleed poison. One of the main tricks from what I can tell by reading the forums is to summon spiders which act like decoys...guess I shouldn't have dropped my summoning spider ability but who knew. My Witch is basically useless until I can get spells to change her a bit but they cost like 1500 gold a piece. I have looted a ton of Ranger stuff but can't use it. I just finished the doppelganger puzzle and in the 5 chests received 2 cool Ranger and Rogue spells and some Strength 10 gear. My guys can't use any of it (my highest strength char is str 8).
I feel like I made some incredibly bad decision (although no fault of my own) at character creation but how was I supposed to know that the bleed mechanic was useless at the beginning and summoning spiders was needed. The game should have a way for the 2 character party to be adjusted early game once players saw what the game had in store for them. I don't mean reroll or anything like that but how about some cheap spells so I can get something for my Witch to do.
Don't get me wrong I really like the premise of the game and the combat is satisfying when I don't feel completely outgunned/outleveled/outmanned. The combat ai is very good. At the early levels there is no way for me to overcome bad luck in my starting characters. I feel like the only thing I can do is save scum my way to a couple of levels.
Last edited by zultor; 07/07/14 07:17 PM.
