Hi tsilver33, thanks for playing and thanks for the feedback. Broadly speaking, we agree with you. The pace of combat can indeed be improved, and a sped-up mode for fights will likely get there in the future, but first, we want to improve the "normal" combat flow as much as possible.
We're super interested in what you said about player agency and would like to make sure we fully understand your point of view. As far as I understand, there are two different areas that you feel are lacking agency (correct me if I'm wrong) 1) the direction of the team build, 2) the combat itself.
For 1), the current "loot table" of upgrades is completely random, and together with the fact that there aren't many upgrades that combine (or, better, combo?) with each other across different characters it might give off the feeling that you aren't really building into a particular direction.
2) The combat can feel on autopilot in some fights, given that between cooldowns and the available skills and perks the move is obvious.
We'll actively push to fix both issues, the next 2-3 weeks we'll be busy setting up a Steam page, after that, I'll have more bandwidth to look into this.
Would love to pick your brain some more, so here are a couple of questions:
Between points 1) and 2), which one do you feel is the worst?
As of now, I think the combat is a bit closer to Darkest Dungeon rather than StS, would you agree? Have you played DD? Is that combat more fun, and if so, what makes it more fun?
Sorry for the wall long of text :), and thanks again for playing!
Noted about the mana. We received some feedback about putting the mana cost and CD at the icon level, so that it's visible without doing a mouse hover, might be a good idea after all.
About the "natural talent", we're toying with the idea of, essentially, having each character have a sort of sub-class in the form of the 4th (or 5th) skill slot, a completely passive skill (similar to how oppressive aura works now) that gives this kind of cross-cutting effects. What you suggest might be a good fit for such things.
About the buffs getting crowded, also noted. Indeed the combination of buffs and effects is a core part of the game, but we absolutely want to keep things as streamlined as possible. So far we've toyed with the idea of capping the number of active skills of each unit to 3 rather than 4, and/or making the mana bars of enemies not visible or even removing the health bars, so that players don't have to calculate numbers to the exact extent (because they can't compare with the current HP), to encourage playing more with their guts/quickly
Thanks again for the valuable feedback, it is really of the utmost importance!
Hi there, thanks for playing and for taking the time to write down your feedback.
Agree with the ranger being the weaker class at the moment, the fact that the boss can cleanse itself from physical conditions is also another factor that makes the ranger less effective. We'll definitively give the ranger some love with the next patch.
About distraction, it's indeed a bit of a bittersweet pick as of now. We'll likely need to think about how we approach this kind of modifiers design-wise Might make some of the skill modifiers toggle-able and see how it goes.
Hi, thanks for the kind words. We're really happy to receive such comments, they make our day.
About the balance, it's pretty much non-existent, i.e. we aren't taking a serious approach to balancing the skill modifiers just yet, so some runs might go really crazy. The throw sand modifier that blinds all enemies is indeed a bit OP at the moment, which might be because most enemies are melee and ranged at the moment.
When it comes to the mana-neutral attacks missing, are you referring to a character in particular (i.e. the magician lady) or to all characters in general? Bash starts with no mana cost, but I can see that, once upgraded with something that increases its cost, the warrior can end up having to pass turns to gather mana, and that can be not so much fun. About the additional resource pool, it's something we'll brainstorm about in the future, but likely not soon.
>I had some trouble understand the different buffs and effects, it gets too crowded there for my taste
Could you go deeper into this? Are you referring to a skill having lots of skill modifiers or a particular character getting many buffs/debuffs?
About bash & the weakness modifier, I just took a look at the description of the modifier and indeed it does not state how many stacks of weakness it gives, will be fixed by the next patch. Thanks for pointing it out!
Thanks, much appreciated. We won't let you down! Sorry for the late reply, took a few hours for the account to be reviewed so I could reply to comments :D
Cut your way through servants of the Djinn in this combat-only alpha! The game is a tight loop of combat and perks that enhance your skills, even radically changing them! The skill customization of Path of Exile with the depth of Slay the Spire, 2.5D.
