Sorry to hear that but would you say is the boat you miss or just the freedom and calmer pace of the disconnected island encounters?
Sure thing, ought to have included my reasoning. Just to be straight up, I was in a bad mood at the time so for example I rage quit from the worm dog shotgun encounter, then came back later.
One thing I didn't mention about the dart throwers: when I didn't know about the jumping trick and was annoyed by the predicting, it was because they could do it from so far away, their bodies small targets while they easily hit me when strafing from far away. Felt ridiculous, and so I had to do an awkward zigzag just to close the distance(perhaps I should have taken pot shots instead, but I usually had too little ammo after doing so). Due to all this added difficulty to base enemies, I gave up on meleeing anything besides the crabs. Just a thought, but I'd rather make this sniping belong to a higher tier enemy, so it's less common.
I liked the boat since it added a lot of exploration(and choice of assault location) to the level, which just isn't possible in a standard fps map. It is also 'home base', so it feels more like you're conquering the map as you push up your base, rather than just razing it and moving on. Though the controls were slightly awkward, sailing around felt cool and having the oh shit moment of an ambush to fight or run from was nice. One of my favorite parts of the previous demo was the last level: destroying patrol boats then docking under the big tower, and when low on supplies gliding back down to the boat to grab the ammo box.
Though, I can understand having issues with the boat, since it can allow bad form by the player. Like rat holing by looking for secrets in the wrong area, getting the boat stuck, or using it to cheese something. If you really don't want to pursue the boat stuff then so be it, but I thought it was the aspect that set this game apart from other FPS and was a main selling point.
Due to only being 1 level long, I felt wanting for more guns to shoot with. Now that I think about it, in the boss room I think there was a weapon on the center pedestal, but I couldn't figure out a way to get enough air to grab it. Speaking of, I didn't like this boss much at all. Very chaotic, felt more like a 2nd or 3rd boss. The lock on attack means you can't stay in eyesight for very long, so you hide. But you have to keep moving or else the lightning gets you, or the summons do. Also your cover is destroyed. He randomly teleports so you have to run jump across the map for a few more shots at him. In the end I mostly just spammed everything at him and spam healed in the open since it was killing me inside. I did realize at some point that the pedestal with the gun on it was invincible to the explosion spell, which is something.
After all that complaining, I should mention that the new enemy models are nice, looking more mutated. And, the strange fishing/bestiary minigame is something I haven't seen before, neat. Also the angular-piranha-fish jumping at you onto land is a fun enemy, and visual. Probably forgetting a few things, hope I'm not being too negative but it was my experienceTM. Keep on trucking, regardless of my opinion I'm sure the game will keep getting better as you flesh it out.