[Machine-translated]
[Regarding Ability Development]
After making a few mistakes, I realized, "Ah, it has to be nerve. There are so many weapons that rely on nerve."
During my first playthrough, I was blinded by the fact that the old man at the tavern was selling a "lightsaber," so I "impulsively bought" it. When I saw that this weapon "receives damage scaling from muscle," I ended up raising muscle anyway...
The accuracy is low... and while the HP is high...
More than anything, since there is an option like "Max HP increases by 20% proportional to Nerve 1," I expected there to be things like "Accuracy +0.05% proportional to Muscle 1" or "Additional damage on critical hits +0.05% proportional to Muscle 1"...
Anyway, why is there nothing for muscle and synapse...
I thought it was because it's an alpha version, but it was still a bit disappointing.
Also, I needed some kind of terminal for the additional stats that can be acquired by pressing the T button, but it seems the materials for that terminal aren't dropped items. I did manage to create a terminal by generating one of the materials using a cheat. However, I never imagined that this system grants additional stats by 'consuming' stats.
At first, I just randomly allocated points and saw my Muscle stat drop to -2. It was very strange... Did I consume the stats given by my equipment and then remove the equipment?
Anyway. In my final playthrough,
I leveled up to level 100. I noticed that the level wouldn't go up any further. (Since the experience bar was 0/0, I initially mistook it for a bug)... I equipped almost all my gear with the "0.xx% damage increase per 1 nerve" option, raised most of my stats to only nerve, and played primarily with daggers.
By the time I reached around level 90, my Nerve stat was approaching 1100. With the "1% damage increase per Nerve" from my head, gloves, shoes, and armor acting as a +4400% bonus, I became incredibly strong.
The additional bleeding damage on my dagger also applied to the +4400% bonus. This meant enemies would dodge my attacks but still get hit by the bleeding and die immediately, or lose about 1,500 HP.
I witnessed some truly interesting things.
[Regarding Enemy Level Design]
I saw enemies around level 220, but once I passed level 50, even the strongest enemies would die after just two or three hits. Elite enemies have 7,000 or 8,000 HP, but a deep hit with a dagger deals 5,000 critical damage.
Enemies are a bit of a headache in the early game. I observed that HP and level are quite 'directly proportional'. However, unless you are opening only level 1 fields early on and relentlessly harvesting grass to scrape together every last bit of experience points, I believe the problem is that enemy HP feels like it jumps up sharply in tandem as the field level advances to 2, 3, or 4.
In my experience, it felt like enemy HP suddenly "increased" by 2x or 1.5x.
Of course, once the player has acquired a certain amount of equipment, stats, and skills, the enemy stats rising in direct proportion to the level do feel a bit underwhelming.
Since this is an alpha version, there are likely only a few types of enemies available, so it is probably unavoidable.
[Weapon Acquisition Issues]
For players in the alpha version, the only way to acquire weapons is through luck. While getting good weapons ultimately depends on luck in any game, what I mean here is "praying for a weapon to drop from a sword stuck in the ground."
Of course, once the beta version is released, various shops, quest rewards, and crafted items will appear...
However, even the skills and weapons sold by the tavern keeper require luck. Since there isn't yet a feature to reset items in shops or vending machines or to restock them...
Players of the current version will have to pray that a weapon drops from a sword stuck in the ground, hope for the weapon they use to drop, and earnestly pray that it is a rare grade.
Also, will SYNAPSE-based weapons be released?
[Bow, Arrow, and Skills]
Come to think of it, the bow has an interesting feature. It feels like a hidden gimmick; a player equipped with a bow can activate "Piercing Strike."
...This is a "performance" feature, right? Right????
Anyway, Piercing Strike while holding a bow.
Arrows are not consumed, and (naturally) it allows for a wide-ranging attack.
Of course, since a stamina cost of 15 is quite high, you cannot spam it unless you are holding a Stamina +12 ring or wearing armor with Stamina Regeneration +6. (In reality, it is safe to say this is a skill exclusive to the Rusty Dagger. The damage is low, but it consumes a huge amount of stamina.)
But since shooting an arrow itself consumes 12 stamina anyway, it's pretty much the same.
Anyway, the bow is fairly strong, and the range is quite long...
However, it consumes arrows.
I can't remember which game it was, but there was a feature where if you killed an enemy with a projectile, a small amount of projectiles (like arrows) would be returned when you looted the corpse.
I get the feeling that something like that exists here too, but that is because my brain is filled with the delusion that there might be a very, very slight tendency for arrows to drop if you kill with a bow.
Since I have no arrows. The only meaningful attack I could use with the bow was Piercing Strike.
I assume that in the beta version, the arrow crafting feature will be available from the start.
[Elite Enemy Issue]
Oh, and regarding the enemies that create portals, you know that 'self-healing' skill? However, even after they surpass level 200, the amount of healing they recover stays around 7 to 10, so they feel like less threatening enemies as their level increases.
...(Of course, around level 220 when their HP rises to the 8,700 level, it feels like "they just occasionally rest for a turn anyway, and they have so much HP, so it doesn't matter.")
But these guys always try to heal if their HP is depleted and their Noise gauge is full. Realistically, since their own HP is over 5,000, recovering 10 HP is meaningless, isn't it?
Naturally, it seems clear that in the next version, once those guys reach around level 100, they will show a monstrous side by recovering 1,000 or 2,000 HP at a time.
Still, if I had to recommend something, I think it would be better to have these guys use that skill that "recovers damage taken once." It's good to have distinct strengths and weaknesses—strong against a style that hits once with a powerful weapon, and weak against a style that hits weakly multiple times like a dagger.
[The issue with the "recovers damage taken once" skill]
However, that "recovers damage taken once" skill has a bizarre hitbox. 1. After I use it, 2. if I attack an enemy, the air, or anything else, 3. the effect suddenly vanishes.
So, I always had to use it when I had only one action point left after attacking an enemy. My English reading comprehension is a bit lacking, so I can't quite tell if this is how the skill is supposed to be or if it's a bug...
Anyway, this skill isn't as useful as I expected right now.
It blocks base damage, but it cannot block additional effects like bleeding damage.
It feels like a skill that consumes Noise to completely defend against an enemy attack once, but since it consumes Action Points, it feels more like a skill that buys time to replenish my stamina by consuming Noise.
I dare to suggest that it would be good if this 'recovery amount' increased in a square root curve based on SYNAPSE.
[Equipment Performance]
Since the base performance of equipment dropped by enemies is standardized from level 100 onwards, options like "1% damage increase per Nerve" or "max HP increase by 35% of Nerve" do not change no matter how many +3s are attached to the item.
However, I am not entirely sure what the Luck stat actually does, but I have seen green-grade shoes drop with 200 Luck attached. Since a level 156 item has (+9) attached, does that mean the sub-options become powerful?
I have not seen Luck become that inflated on rare-grade shoes. Is this an extreme coincidence? (Those shoes only had 82 muscle points attached to them. It was as if they hadn't been reinforced at all.)
[Map Passage Disconnection Issue]
With a probability of roughly just under 10%, the 'parts' of the generated map are subtly misaligned, causing the path to be cut off by a gap of about 1 to 4 blocks.
There are times when you cannot even reach the location where the portal spawns.
At least in the current version, you can explore the rest of the map by doing something like: "Kill elite enemies -> a portal spawns somewhere -> press M to enter another map and re-enter -> start from the spawned portal"...
However, sometimes when I go back in, the disconnected path connects by about 1 block... I don't know the mechanism, so I'm not sure what is going on, but...
The worst part is when I occasionally encounter a pattern where the starting location background consists of three or four platforms floating in the sky;
The map doesn't connect anywhere. I can see another piece of land about 6 to 7 blocks away beyond the wall above... I'm not sure if the map auto-generation algorithm is malfunctioning, but
Just like in the current version where you can simply press M to escape back to the base, the Noise Key item won't be completely useless.
Also, very occasionally, there are times when the portal doesn't appear even after you've killed all the elite enemies.
It's a really, really slim chance, though.
And although it happens very, very rarely, there are cases where elite enemies are located in inaccessible terrain, like islands. They are difficult to kill without a bow, or sometimes your attacks just don't reach them even with one. In extreme cases, I even saw an elite enemy spawned by the only altar climb onto an island.
This is just... seeing elite enemies I really want to kill just loitering around from a distance...
I'm looking forward to the beta version.