Patch 4: A Step in the Right Direction

Overall, patch 4 is an improvement from patch 3. A lot of small noticeable improvements added up to make the game slightly more enjoyable. Weighted dice, is by far better implemented than previous dice rolls. Druid is a nice addition, while changes have been made to the class it is still in a healthy spot in the meta.

Combat
  • Some, but not all, combat encounters have improved AI and it sped up combat encounters where this was improved.
  • Noticeably when raiding the grove fighting the druids was more engaging. However some enemies still have AI issues and run straight into the interior walls to never attack the player.
  • High ground advantage and low ground advantage have a minimal threshold. This improved gameplay a lot. It really highlighted the issues this brings for casters. I’ll make the same point I made in a prior post. High ground advantage forces the player to move their squishy characters into areas they would not otherwise. It does not make sense for magic to get advantage or disadvantage from elevation. And, the player should be allowed to zone with their squishy party members appropriately. The game would be a lot more enjoyable if players were allowed to play casters as intended.
  • I still wish for combat and combat related mechanics to be more true to the core rules.
  • I’ve been looking forward to out of the box solutions with combat. But Barrelmancy and superfluous spell scrolls are not engaging.
    Specifically I’m thinking of the fight where the player defends the grove from Minthara. Zevlor went ahead and buried oil barrels and the player has no agency in the preparation of this fight. There’s a whole hill that could be improved with better defenses, there are other items in the PHB that could come into play in this fight.
  • It would be nice to control your allies during either side of the fight. If the tieflings are on the player's side, let the player control them. If the goblins are on the player's side, please let the player control them.


Visuals
Spell buffs need better visual effects. I like most visuals in the game but these have been a sticking point for all of early access. So many of these are just drab. The constant pulse of these are not pleasing to the eye either. I hope these are placeholders, I'm just burnt out on seeing them. I've waited to post this feedback as I wanted to phrase it in the nicest way possible.
Bless reminds me of Warner Bros cartoons where after getting hit on the head a character would see birds or stars. I would be okay if it was only a visual on the portrait. I don't like the the animation for Bless at all.
Hex shows up on the warlock and it's target. The animation is a pulsing red/purple stain that reminds me of when a guest has spilled wine on my carpet. I don't know how else to explain how unappealing the animation for hex is.
Mage Armour & Shield of Faith are just white stains pulsing on the character. Again I'd prefer just a graphic on the character portrait with the animations on the character model removed. I don't want to use Mage Armour because it makes my character look ridiculous.
Armour of Agathys makes your warlock look like there is secretly a freezer underneath their armor. My character looks like they are more concerned with carrying Ben & Jerry's safely across Faerûn instead of getting their tadpole removed. I expected Armour of Agathys to look more like a pair of ice shoulder pads.

In conclusion patch 4 has been good, but has not addressed enough of the concerns with combat in this forum. I hope the visuals described are changed in a future patch, and improvements to combat are coming soon.