Cons:
A ) inventory management is a jungle
B ) lacking biometric crafting structure
C ) roleplay and tutorial stutters
D ) bare minimum administration tools
Pros:
A ) at least we have a radial menu
B ) at least we have tools to make corrections
C ) at least we have tools for private games
D ) at least we have an admin panel
Honorary notes
A ) embraces some nudity options (sweet)
B ) thralling / capture feature (awesome)
C ) thrall / pet / diet systems (nice trinity)
D ) progression-bound dlcs (best surprise)
-
Our bodies are our temples. They are the ones that house the beauty and the beast we are. This feature of options needs further exploration to really shine.
-
I often find myself hunting npcs like they were pokémon, but this capture feature needs more love. It is one of the most significant features that the game offers; to me it is one of the few cornerstones it has. Letting this feature go unexplored would contribute to shorten the game’s lifespan tremendously.
-
What thralls and pets currently are able to perform is the issue. Potential is that we capture, assimilate and assign these to all sorts of positions (platforms we provide) in order for them to grow to those professions and later on be given a name for their efforts and recognition. The inventory update made a huge setback to this important feature and needs to be reverted. Thralls actually don’t need an individual inventory, but an equipment hub, similar to how they use the Thrall Pot as a food source. This way we would tackle a wide array of issues related to inventory management, roleplay and noding even.
-
Progression-bound dlc structure allows us as players (and customers) to get best from the worlds of cosmetics and power in a way that doesn’t negate the efforts of those who won’t or can’t buy dlcs. If I ever sold dlcs or microtransactions, I would surely think about adapting this approach.
Suggestions
A ) revise the whole inventory framework
B ) revise almost the whole crafting system
C ) revise the character start setup
D ) revise the admin tools and panel
Current flow
A ) game is somewhat great as long as we don’t open the inventory screen or any other screen with an overlapping item management system box due to how long we are forced to spend effort inside them and the way the framework stutters gameplay thorough its intricate enough slotting and its relation to inconvenient command mapping when it comes to controllers
B ) crafting is tedious at best due the issue mentioned above (section A); the framework forces us to hunt progression thorough an artificial bottleneck instead of a biosensitive crafting metrics that allow smooth roleplay and player driven goal-making (paradox e.g. a recipe needs the hide of an elephant even though our region doesn’t have them or the character has never seen an elephant and yet they somehow know they exist, and that their hide is the only thing that fits for the forced job at hand even though the logical take would be to use whatever we have our hands on and improve from there)
C ) our character is an adult who should know what to do in the beginning part, but shows no effort to tutor the player with clear enough instructions how to stay alive so that we can then take over from there (I personally await a story influenced tutorial from this type of a starting setup; integrated into simple steps with a narrative, utilising animation and camera angles to their essential benefit)
D ) due to the issue mentioned above (section A), these tools also suffer from the same inconveniency, impracticality, low asset variety and the lack of true noding tools. Noding is what I mean by connecting dots. In this case we create a smoother node structure (for private servers at least) that we follow so that our roleplay doesn’t get paused due to e.g. obnoxiously silly resource requirements that make no sense for our character to face yet due to their stage of development.
Important note of detail
An opinion about the Star Metal. If it is indeed intended to be a motivation source of the highest kind, it needs a frame that actually honours its legacy. Merely walling the finest items behind it doesn’t make it (lazy business). I would actually code it so that any recipe with other metal bars involved could be imbued further with Star Metal bars (could also be used to reinforce an already made item). The added metal would not raise the damage output at all, however it would make it so that our characters are invited to the endgame by adding an element to the items that is required to take on the challenge. So the pattern of thought is, for this way to allow us enter the endgame portion of the game which is related to Star Metal. Maybe Conan would come and take us hunting Wrath-Amon and his armies after we, or in case we want to, imbue our equipment with Star Metal. Current way of motivation, when it comes to this metal, feels more like forcing us thorough a mold instead of giving really incentivising options.
Key figures
A ) inventory management must not cut us from interacting with the environment unless we stop our characters deliberately to idle awhile; the level of convenience need to get so high that walking and inventory management seem like one and the same
B ) crafting needs to embrace locational biometrics and a simple improvisation proficiency; this means that the bottlenecked crafting requirements get axed and the already located profession tables slowly improve over time thorough our choices instead of just having the current separate recipe doing the trick, feels weird to have the blacksmith’s bench and improved blacksmith’s bench just because one can do what the other can’t AND vice versa
C ) to begin with, our character needs to tell us what to do thorough the utilisation of camera angles and narrative so that we can take the reigns from there; also too much information sways us from getting the hang of things in a properly tolerable pace, like having a map even though the paradox begs to ask who gave it to us and why they didn’t bother mark important locations to it even though the level of the map is quite detailed as it is when we first open it (e.g. disable the map until we scavenge the corpse in the beginning, focus the camera to objects of interest so we get the point coz merely showing a line or two for two seconds doesn’t necessarily make our day, journey tasks shouldn’t be shown until directly related adjacent tasks get discovered, immersion is the key to player driven effort and vision)
D ) when the inventory framework gets revised to take the most out of the radial menu and reaction necessities, the only thing left is to make sure the admin panel and server settings are clear enough, and that they are able to provide the finest of details to the degree where we can do the noding ourselves in case we deem it necessary
My two cents