Hello,
I wanted to take my time playing a little bit before posting. I played through the game again almost two times now, and had a bunch of mechanics tries.
The good:
- I feel really comfortable most of the time regarding penetration and armor. Now it doesn't feel such too much penalizing and on veteran difficulty choosing the right weapons and gearing towards adequate amount of penetration is sufficient and balanced.
- I only tried Spells with the given companions, therefore priest and wizard, and casting times/power ratio in many cases seems adequate. There are numerous spells which feels useless, but that is due to the small number of cast times/combat.
- Combat pacing seems ok too when you don't use any excessive abilites, modals for example. Enemies and characters are adequately slow, and I don't feel the arcade style gameplay I was experiencing 2 patch ago.
The bad:
Weapon modals:
Previously I couldn't put a handle what's really wrong with modals and how should they be fixed. So there is a 'disclaimer' that weapon modals are situation and they are not essential to gameplay. This is where a dissagree. Weapon modals which makes a weapon typ unique, which - other than special enchantments - makes it desirable when building a character.
I have a problem with modals which target recovery time with penalty. With the current weapon recovery times and armor penalty, adding an extra penalty seems too excessive.
I constantly disregard weapon proficiency because by the time I can swing my weapon for said proficiency bonus, the enemy usually dead, debuffed by a faster character, or I could use the said character doing something other than standing there doing nothing for large periods of time.
These modals should target actual attack speed instead recovery time. That way you get penalized, you will swing much slower, and overall you will be slower, but not that excessive amount, and that amount is controlled. You will be much more vulnerable to interrupts, but you will not feel your character will suck if you activate the modal.
Resouce management + empower
This is one of my main issues still. Too few resouces to use abilites, and cant be increased possibly (the pool) because of empower.
Empower is a cool mechanic if you use it to empower your abilities. But it sucks because you can also use it to recover resource. I'm thinking because of that, your resource pool is balanced to be small. In fact you have so small resource pool that it discourages the player to use high level abilites except if they are really really powerful.
Empower needs to be what should be. A resource to empower your abilites, and only that. + remove the 1 / combat restriction.
Your power pool have to be 4pt starting and 2 pt. / new power level.
I was wondering how should I make my case, and here is the answer:
I am a lvl 9 single class rouge. I have hobbling strike (1pt, Blinding strike(2pt), and withering strike(3pt).
First case scenario(current iteration):
I have 7pt power pool.
I will use 1-2 blinding strike on enemies and 3-5 hobbling stike in combat. I wont use withering strike at any given time (costs too much).
Second case scenarion (suggested iteration):
I have 12pt power pool.
I will use 1-2 withering strike, 2-3 blinding strike and the rest hobbling strike.
Basically I will always want to be more optimal. If I have less I will find the optimal choice of abilites and disregard the rest. If I have more resource I will use more expensive abilities because it will be more optimal. I wont spam hobbling strike if I have the pool to use a better ability. Especially if you can use empower on that said ability.
Ship management and ship combat:
I like it. I have two issues with this:
One is that when the crew gains xp I cannot spend it how I choose. It seems very random how the crew levels up, and I have no control over it.
Second is that sometimes when the one turn ends and a new turn starts sometimes the enemy ship gets two action in a row. Meaning one turn ends with his action and the next starts with his action. This is a ui problem and makes unavoidable damage sometimes.
Example: he ends the turn with a full stop, and theoretically at the start of the next turn I could make an action but no, he starts the turn he does a full broadside attack and I cannot do nothing to mitigate. -> double action.
Passives:
It would be nice if casters could have passives which increases the number of cast they make, they would be less dependant on scrolls and weapons.
Not for high level spells, but for low level.
Also I would give the +2 quick item slot passive to all classes.
The ugly:
Remove the moles(white dots) from pale elf face please!!!!!!
Edited by Soulmojo, 03 April 2018 - 01:09 AM.