Gave it a playthrough after seeing the new patch! This time I tried to go as far as I could, but my run was ended after getting party wiped by a bear! (more on that later)
So as always, great work. I'm always happy to see some changes that I recommended before be implemented! Things like typing your name in, Billy being available at the start and so on.
So, here's my thoughts in a chronological order. The early game stuff is really minor since I feel as if most of my issues were addressed already, and things work as how I'd expect them to.
>When selecting New Game, 'Press [Esc] to continue' is a bit awkward, if I just pressed Enter to confirm a New Game. I'd rather it be something closer to Enter, or just reuse that key. If not enter, maybe 'Space'
>Potential confusion for new players when picking class. The game just starts off, no confirm button or anything. A player might not be sure if the selection went through.
>Skipped the tutorial since I remember most things at this point. No issues here. I left the tips on just incase.
>The "NPC Walking away" animation is really long and gets old quick. Happens with John and the religious folks when Helena leaves. No clue if this is an engine limitation, but I'd like to either be able to move immediately or have them walk twice as fast away. While the current setup makes sense, it's sacrificing gameplay for immersion, which I never like. This is made worse since I like talking to John for tips, but I just end up picking up my phone or doing something else out of the game while he walks away. It probably isn't that long, but it just feels long since I think "alright I can't move for a few seconds now".
I like the new descriptions and inventory visuals. I have a suggestion for things like food:
since you already have a lot of space (maybe not for bigger items later? but I didn't find any that felt like was taking up too much space) you can easily give the stats their own line, and some color coating helps. Perhaps you can assign a color to all 3 stats as well. There is a visible contrast between the quality of the bottom bar (great) and the top part of the screen (simple white text on transparent background). I'd focus on that if possible.
It's also a good segue into another topic: I think the amount of content as this point is solid. Every playthrough I discover either a new interaction, or event, or characters. I think it's a good idea to start highly polishing the early game section and idiot-proofing things. Things like adding tooltips to the starter items and having characters explain things more. An example would be:
Billy gives you the seed chest tool. I went back to my hideout and knew how to place it, but I think that's because I've done it before. Perhaps in his dialog, Billy could give another line of "Remember - use the signpost in front of your tent to set this up. And if you want to get seeds, you'll need . . . " and so on. I guess I could call those "immersive tutorials" that explain things as you get them without them feeling forced.
Same with messing around with your base. Clicking something that would offer you 0 options - like crafting with no craftable items - should tell you "consider doing X, or talking to Y, or getting Z" to have things to craft. Really, just giving players some answers, at least at the start. I think this is only an issue do to the availability of exploration. A player can really go anywhere and get lost easily while looking for answers to some basic questions, like "how do I learn cooking recipes". If they haven't gotten John's tip (or forgot it, misread it, or want to learn early) they can wander about and get overwhelmed with things. Anyway, I think this also fits in the "minor" issues, and I might even be overthinking it, since I didn't have these issues due to previous experience.
Another example of idiot proofing would be the Billy potato quest - to turn the quest in (which isn't done automatically? it should!), I need to go to the quest TAB, not the quest option listing, which the player has experience doing. Someone who just isn't good at games can get stuck here easily. While playing this time, I remembered that I needed to do something -extra- to turn this quest. So I went to Billy, couldn't turn it in by clicking the Quest option, went back to his place to double check - then remembered that I needed to mess with the quest Tab for it to work.
Everything else made sense and I had no issues. I did the Kobold questline, got Alf, talked to Helena and started the Bloodstone quest, did some Suong traps.
>In the screen with the elevator machine and the mine - if you walk down from the elevator, you can enter(walk through the hill visuals) a hilled area (?) but you can't leave it. Needed to reload here
>With Alf, Suong and George, I went about clearing the map. I found 3 Kobolds around the area with the hidden Church. Cool, they got owned and I didn't lose a hitpoint. One screen away is a bear. I thought to myself that it wont be hard since I can kill 3 humanoids (Suong/her kid has a gun? that's probably strong!) Big mistake! The bear one shots everyone - Game Over!
I think this is a bit cruel since it's difficult to gauge the relative strength of enemies. While it's clear that my character can't do anything, the other 3 felt like they were clearwing the rooster beasts and kobolds super easily - this enemy is in the same area so I figured he'll be of the same approximate difficulty.
Luckily, autosaves work and I will resume my adventures later.
As always, great work! I think the fact that my biggest complaints are very minor things is a sign that the game is in a good state and progressing well.
