First Night's Gaming: Impressions

[docbates7]

Greetings all.

Just downloded the demo (and bought a license  ) and spent a good number of hours last night going through my first AVWW character.  I haven't died (yet) so I have no yet experienced that aspect of the game.  I wanted, though, to share my thoughts, likes and dislikes to hopefully make the game better.  Rather than grouping things, I'll just list everything as I went through them.  If i could sum it up quickly, then awesome potential, make it spicey, and DO NOT (yes that's shouting) fall into the Daggerfall trap (more on that below). 

start stream of consciousness :

1) Character Gen/Selection:

Seemed ok.  Generated the world and then got to select from my options.  I choose the all neutral stat gal (not sure if this is also random in the game).  I am not sure to think of the pre-gened chars.  On one hand, I have always loved the way the final fantasy series has characters that are class/ability specific (holy crap he's a FRIGGING NINJA!).  On the other, I (personally) find it easier to get connected to characters I specifically craft into my little avatar.  I haven't gotten far in the game (and its a beta) so i have no idea what you have planned.  But the char gens, blase.

2) First Town

Did the crystal deal, made my spells, talked to the NPCs.  Ran out into the word.  Huzzah.

3) Overworld Exploring

overworld map is cool.  I kinda liked it. was fun to uncover new areas.  lots of little numbers....MAY want to think of a way to better represent "civ strength" than that.  loved the little icons on the map and whatnot

4) Procedural Exploring

into my first snow field I go.  shot my fireball at some enemies.  find an office building. sweet, I go in.  look around. find some stuff....after my third staircase, I really don't feel the need to explore.  not doing it for me.  the enemies don't drop anything, the few items I have found are meh and holy crap am i lost.  Rinse and repeat for the other buildings, not to mention a few epic ones.  Fortunately my "small shacks" do stay small.

5) combat

was fun at first, now just kinda doesn't do it for me.  maybe if more of the regular enemies did something when they died.  right now i get no satisfaction from combat other than it functioning as a combo time/resource sink.  i'm not sure if that sapphire dust i just obtained was worth the magic potion, light scrolls, and health scroll to get in here. 

----

stream off

Anyhow.  I suggest that a good game to compare AVWW with is Elder Scrolls: Daggerfall.  Epic sized world, epic possibilities, all of which felt exactly the same.  combat was dull-ish, and (in the end) i just warped all around b/c i really couldn't bring myself to walk through yet another @#($*%#$ forest. 

Hope this helps.

Doc

[tigersfan]

Thanks so much for the feedback.

A couple things in response.

Have you tried fighting any bosses yet? That's there the real difficult combat comes into play. Also, please remember that this is still beta, the game is far from complete. We plan to add so much more in the way of enemies (who do more and more interesting things) bosses (who do more and more interesting things). We plan on adding more artwork, more building and region types, more character sprites, and more.

We really want to avoid the "daggerfall trap" as you call it. And I think we will. There is so much planned for this game it would truly surprise you.

[docbates7]

Tiger -

Thanks for the response.  I have not tried a boss yet but I definitely will tonight!

I am excited for the game, hence buying a license, and I can't wait to see what you come up with.  Just wanted to give some honest feed back from my first beta impression.  I am sure the game as release will probably have not a lot in common with this build once released.

[tigersfan]

And we appreciate honest feedback. :-)

[docbates7]

tiger-

Just wanted to let you know how things went last night.  I hit up a boss with a rare-commodity tower. multi-tiered tower with about 3 big esper-like minibosses followed by one big robot boss.  both had a variety of boss-room configurations.  interestingly enough, i also ran through two empty boss rooms.  not sure if that's normal or not.

thoughts on the big-esper bosses:  a general strategy of wood platforms worked well.  liked the mechanics, definitely had to think more.  i basically built wood platforms and wailed away on it.  the boss battle was more fun than the "junk" enemies.  Though i would suggest that having 3 of the same type of mini-boss in a row might not be the greatest mechanic.  3 at once would have been better i think rather than sequential.  this also may be due to the fact that i was in a level 1 area and thus the bosses did not hit very hard and i could absorb a few blows while spamming my fireball to heal.  on another note, a spell like "lightning grapple" or something similar would be fun for those big boss rooms (not sure if there is a spell like that).  the esper mainly stayed up near the ceiling and i had to build a bunch of platforms, then double jump and spam the fireball.

thoughts on the robot:  was actually almost easier than the espers.  not sure if the bosses are supposed to ramp up in difficulty as you get higher or not.  was able to just jump over him and wham away per usual.


all fights were fun though and definitely better than the regular masses.

[Dizzard]

thoughts on the robot:  was actually almost easier than the espers.  not sure if the bosses are supposed to ramp up in difficulty as you get higher or not.  was able to just jump over him and wham away per usual.

I'd agree that the big robot is much easier than the boss esper. The main thing that really makes the esper harder is that it's rarely in your view. Otherwise it wouldn't be so bad.

I haven't ventured out of the ice age zones yet so I don't know anything about other bosses.

[tigersfan]

Glad you liked those fights docbates. There are two factors contributing to having three bosses in a row that were the same. One is that being level 1 does limit what options you do have. Second is that there just aren't that many bosses in the game yet. That's part of the big plans for stuff to come in the next few days/weeks/months. More bosses, more enemies, more interior art, more building types, etc. And we plan to have even more interesting boss fights (wait till you get to a crippled dragon ;-) )

[zebramatt]

Them giant skellies look a lot meaner than they actually are. Not hard, mind. They look pretty freakin' mean!