Started logging everything I thought pertinent (trying to avoid spoilers) while playing through the first act for the very first time.
--------------------------------------
First thoughts: It's
beautiful. DoS:EE has engaging environments, but DoS2 is actually beautiful.
Seriously beautiful.
Spend-time-at-pretty-locations-looking-at-stuff beautiful. Haven't tried all the characters yet, but at least the elven versions of armor are vastly different than humans'; that's a cool touch (and clearly a much-appreciated pain to model everything for various races/genders, hah) that really defines the experience. Obviously, being in Alpha state, we're missing a lot of SFX, VO and descriptive text (replacing placeholders), so won't really comment on that.
I almost didn't want to nab DoS2 in Early Access so I could wait for the full, polished game, but seriously- I loved playing through DoS:EE. I wanted to experience DoS2 and see what it looked like in development.
General feedback: ---------------------Physical/magical armor: I like it. I was reading about mixed reviews, but it's a really cool mechanic. Balancing the two based on expected encounters is interesting from a player perspective (and a challenge for devs, no doubt); increased chance to deny status effects based upon the remaining amount of specific armor (vs. a fixed, per-status chance to evade in DoS:EE) is interesting. It makes dumping powerful effects at the start of an encounter less attractive, and I think it encourages balanced, sustainable gameplay versus a glass-cannon (not the talent, the style) approach. From a player's equipment-management viewpoint, tying armor/weapon sets to a specific hotbar-linkable ability icon may be useful for the scouts among us.
The dogs: I'm not a sappy, chic-flick kinda person, but what is it about Larians' dogs' stories/dialogs (Murphy in DoS:EE and Buddy in DoS2) that gets me? I'm just chopping onions, guys.
Just onions.
Races: woo!
Tags: woo!
Storytelling: I appreciate the shit out of developers that put time and effort into building a damned story. The storylines of DoS (1, EE, 2, pick a flavor) evidence love, focus and talent. Thank you for not stooping to grinding.
Playthrough: I'll be honest, I reloaded a shit-ton of times when stuff didn't happen logically (to me) as expected. That's kinda okay, though; I do that in a buncha games, not because I'm a min-maxer or want a 'best' ending, but because I feel like the character I have in my head will experience the world in a particular way based upon experience with other developers' actions and my own worldview.
Weirdness/suspected bugs found: ----------------------
Camp Boss Griff: Doesn't honor his bargain (crate contents for prisoner freedom); while that's not exactly a problem story-wise -mob bosses aren't known for much aside from maintaining power base- the inability to extricate without a) attempting to kill half the camp at level 2, or b) ostensibly throwing the lizard under the bus (I haven't yet, doesn't fit the character in my head; he's mine to kill, lol). Not sure if forcing a low-level character into the decision tree of "pick path A or end your adventure" is a true decision.
Warm status animation: don't like it. Makes the whole character look like a badly-tanned Kardashian, and a partymate's costume tends to clip through the coloration at certain zoom levels.
World Containers: if confirmed empty, should indicate emptiness (á la D:OS EE). Lack of status tracking is as frustrating as having a map without features or markers. I just now (just now!) realized that gold/silver chest-cursor icons indicate lootage status, but inconsistency with adding "[EMPTY]" to a containers name/description is still a bit bothersome.
Inventory: HOLY CRAPSNACKS: Need to enable sorting/inventory management of some sort.
Conversations: It's very clear that a lot of cool writing went into creating the conversation trees; putting tag-specific choices in a dialog shows real attention to detail and storytelling (something that's lacking from a sh-ton of otherwise compelling contemporary titles). Locking characters out of conversation choices once they've selected a particular path is interesting, too (it was sorta there in DoS:EE, but I'm seeing it more in DoS2); think that feedback highlights the uniqueness of every character in the world. Having the conversation run through the Narrator *explain what is meant by that* is an interesting mechanic, but not sure I love it. Injecting a third party (aside from your partymates) into the conversation sometimes needlessly complicates matters from a clarity perspective. There is a conversation choice or two I literally had to re-read and overinterpret a few times before it made good sense.
Sitting people: lose their heads? Running W10 (latest patches) and GTX980 (latest drivers). Dunno if that's me, but happens to most NPCs and my partymates on occasion.
Ancient Statue of Bracchus Rex: improperly labeled "Beach waypoint" or something non-descript in the Waypoint list.
Jug: has golden plate icon in inventory?
Repairing items: progress/status doesn't typically appear atop inventory screen.
Inventory screen:
so huge? Can't see the ground, making interactions between inventory items and the world difficult. Closing either of the screens that result from opening inventory (inventory and character) should close both.
Equipping stuff: can't seem to drag from inventory to the player model (must target slots?)
Leveling up: inconsistencies showing the level-up arrow on character portraits. For instance, all three party members leveled up (to 6), but only 2/3 members showed the level-up arrow.
Memory stat (perhaps others, too): math doesn't add up; "add X points to gain Y memory slots" inaccurate. I get that it's referencing 1 spell or ability slot per 2 memory points invested, but tooltip doesn't properly reflect current level vs. expected gain.
Wheelbarrows: are they intended to be useable? Gear icon when hovering, but doesn't do jack (that I saw)
Slane: shifts between "two ships?" Assuming this should be "two shapes." Also, cool character; hope we see more of him. Or can recruit. Seriously, let me add him to my party (I may've missed something in my first playthrough).
Two Tombs in maze (trying to avoid spoilers): If a party member is shy on strength, gives message about it being heavy, sealed, etc., but if using magically-enhanced strength (Burn My Eyes, specifically), nada. No joy, no message indicating anything.
Chat/info window: weirdness. Open it up by hitting the crossed swords icon, and moving the cursor anywhere within the resulting window (no clicking) moves the slider up and down. Unfortunately, doesn't go all the way to the bottom. Combined with the inability to sort inventory, this means that some quest rewards can't be distinguished: can't access chat record of their receipt, can't sort by 'most recent.'
Four 'shinies' on the beach: Thought I saw 4 drop, but only 3 were above-ground. Squirrel also referenced 4.
Giganticus voidworm: when it's dead, appears as if it still may have its living outline (invisibly), so clicking anywhere on the screen in its vicinity opens its dead inventory erroneously.
[u][/u]
