First off I want to be clear that I think this game has a lot of really interesting ARPG elements and has a potentially bright future. However, during my 2nd playthrough the campaign I completely lost interest and will be putting this aside likely until 2023. I have tons of fun with games such as D2R and PoE, and while they are much more mature games I just wanted to provide some parting feedback on what obstacles I ran into that can hopefully be improved upon. I fully acknowledge that I might just not be cutout for early access games, and the problem might be more with myself.
- The cadence decision points are unlocked
It is a bit of a design trap to assume all game systems have to progress linearly (i.e. we have 15 skills to introduce and they all must be spread out evenly). Especially early on when levels are not hard to come by it is extremely easy to overload an inexperienced player with too many decisions. Due to the fact that skills are not binned in any meaningful way it is impossible to know from the start what a reasonable combination of skills should be. Do I use 1 primary damage skill or multiple? Is there a clear difference between a single target or AoE ability? Do I need a defensive skill on my bar to not be a glass cannon? Do I need a movement skill to not feel like a slug? As a result it is very easy to pick a combination of skills that donât make sense together. Really early on you just slaughter everything, but if you have a wonky build you reach a point where you hit a wall seemingly out of nowhere. With so many systems to tweak it becomes daunting to try and fix the situation (do I respec my passives? swap my skills around? perhaps it is the skill specialization I messed up? or maybe my gear is the issue?).
I would look at having skills of a similar nature unlocked together to provide a clear theme on what you are choosing. Plus, introducing a bin focused on movement skills or defense skills would encourage the player to put one on their bar. This brings me to the 2nd point that drove me away.
- A campaign that lacks purpose
ARPG campaigns in general are cancer in my opinion. The whole point should be to teach a player how to play the game, and perhaps offer difficult side areas or shortcuts for experienced players to spice up or speed up the experience. LE does none of these things effectively besides perhaps the dungeons acting as side areas. But since Iâm still a noob I honestly donât understand these at all. My campaign experience consists of nonsense quests that are basically clicking on exclamation points, yet I am never asked to interact with a single game system over the course of completing them.
Want it to be crystal clear that a movement skill should really be included on a skill bar? Attach it to a quest. Either have the goal of the quest be tied to the using of a movement skill, or have the quest reward be unlocking a movement skill. This drives the point home that this is something you want to be using. Same thing with crafting. A new player goes through the campaign collecting all this stuff with zero information on why they should care about the mats. Have it be a quest goal to craft 20% fire res before a fire boss or something.
The combination of an uninspired campaign, decision overload before I even know what direction I want to take my character, and a general lack of balance leading to scuffed build choices has turned me away at this point. Maybe some day such things will be addressed or enough people will disagree with this take and Iâll just move onto other games. Either way I wish the best of luck to EHG. I did have some fun in my brief time playing!