Hello and welcome to Feedback Quest 9! My name is Hythrain, and I'm one of the hosts for this lovely event! I'm also one of the streamers, so both the game and this feedback are being done live! If you want to see the see the VOD, let me know and I'll link you to it when it's uploaded to YouTube!
So when I first saw this game, I immediately began thinking about the Diablo franchise of games and at first I was concerned when I saw the starting area... felt an awful lot like Tristram. I was glad when this was the only thing that felt similar and instead the game went into being more of a roguelike action game.
However, that relief turned into concern again once I got into my fourth run of the game. Why? Well, let me tell you what happened. In my first run, I started as a Hunter. In this run, I managed to get to the second area and was almost into the third when I died. In my second, I was an Ice Mage. In this run, I managed to reach the third area (specifically doing the red portal) where I died not too far into it. In my third, I was a Barbarian and this run... ended in the seconsd area (brief note, I may have the final progress for Ice Mage and Barbarian backwards). Finally, in my fourth I was a Hunter again. In this run... I got all the way to Lower Spire 2 and had to stop playing due to being well over the time I could give the game. Getting that far just wasn't a problem, either. Only once, in Lower Spire 1, did I get low enough to die... yet I was able to just survive until I leveled up, which gave me a full heal.
Basically, what I found while playing is that Hunter is essentially too powerful when compared to Ice Mage and especially compared to Barbarian. It has both the fastest attacks and the highest range, making it really easy to efficiently clear out swarms of enemies with little to no risk to myself. So long as I made sure I had a place to go, I could always keep a safe distance away. Why was this the case? Because the Hunter's secondary skill is so freakin' strong. It not only leaps you backwards, which puts distance between you and the enemies you're fighting, but it also fires so many arrows. Then when I got the skill to use the normal bow skill while maintaining full speed, it became a bit of a joke. Adding in a rather quick dodge that let me get past enemies that had trapped me, and it felt more like I would have to try to get killed.
By contrast, Ice Mage felt a bit challenging. The range for the primary spell was so short while the attack rate was slow, yet it didn't do more damage than the Hunter did. The secondary, meanwhile, was really only effective if I hit an enemy with the main component in order to cause it to shoot out in all directions. However, this resulted in the ice ball ending and its potential damage being excessively limited. Despite feeling like this spell should be far more effective against swarms of enemies, it felt way worse than the volley. It also took me a while to realize how the teleport worked, which I liked once I knew but which I also wasn't a fan of entirely.
As for Barbarian... Heavy Slash is just awful. The slowest attack in game and the shortest range to boot, with only doing about 50% more damage per target hit compared to the arrows. Now sure, it can hit multiple enemies, but the attack is so slow that in order to use it well you have to constantly pre-cast it and have the swing happen right as the enemies arrive. Otherwise, you're going to get hit by virtually every enemy (except the zombies, which have an even slower attack). I found myself using the secondary attack way more purely due to how fast it was: I would lunge in, get the hit and then back away to do it again. Yet the damage output of this just paled in comparison to what I was able to do with Hunter.
And then there are the perks. When I played Barbarian and got to choose my first perk for the class, I found myself asking one thing : what the heck is Spin? Why are two of the only three perks in the Barbarian tree related to a skill that I just don't have?
There are some other small issues too, like how breaking some objects in the world felt like they took way too long (rather than being based on damage done, they're based on a number of hits. This means Hunter will always break them fastest due to having the fastest attack rate, while Barbarian will always be slowest despite having the strongest attack). Another small issue is how if you're highlighting a buff to read its effects and said buff wears off, the buff text won't disappear. It'll even remain if you die and start a new run. I also generally felt like moving around felt slow. When I got a buff that increased my movement speed, I was having a lot more fun as the ability to get around quicker made a huge difference. I won't suggest that that be the default speed, but I do think movement speed should go up.
Overall, the game is really fun and I like the style of it. However, it has a huge balancing issue right now. If you want to balance it out, here are the things I think would help...
For Ice Mage, make them the range leader in both of their skills. You don't need to change Hunter range, just increase Ice Mage range. You also don't need to change the speed of the primary spell, both in terms of casting and in how fast the projectile moves. However, I would recommend modifying the secondary skill to fire lots of more additional shots out at a faster rate (but retain the short distance from the main ball) and to make it that the ball hitting an enemy doesn't cause it to disappear. It should still deal damage, but it should keep going.
For Barbarian, increase its speed (I'd say start by making it 25% faster and see if that works. If not, give it more speed. However, don't exceed 50% faster) and give the swing arc more range to hit enemies further away (if there are enemies directly in front of the Barbarian, the swing should be able to go through them into additional enemies that are right behind). That way, the Barbarian can hit a lot of targets if they're close enough in exchange for being more in danger. Also, go through the Barbarian perks to add more things and actually make them useful. Only three perks in that tree, with two being for a skill I didn't even have, is just not good at all.
Oh, two more thing. First, try to make the starting place look LESS like Tristram. You don't want to risk potential copyright issues with Blizzard. Second, I'd recommend getting some music in there. While the sound design was good so far, I found myself wishing I had some in-game music to go with it. Music can really help with the atmosphere. If there WAS music, I legit didn't even notice it which means it needs to be brought out more.
That's all for me. I can't wait to see where this goes!