First impressions

Warhammer 40K Feedback

By f2k

BrotherLazarus replied

1 3

With the new patch I figured it was time to buy into this game. Big mistake... :-(

Lots of problems and no redeeming qualities. There's promise, yes, but it's SO far from being playable that I'm not sure I'm going to bother again for quite a while.

Absolutely no balance:

Just took a new Inquisitor out for a spin. A few rooms into the mission I ended up dying three times in the same room - not much fun, that's for sure.

The room was teeming with Chaos Marines and Havocs, an absolute HORDE of Cultists of all kinds, and those small Nurgling-like thingies. Oh yes... And a Hellbrute as well, just because there wasn't enough stuff to deal with in the first place.

I took me two deaths to realise that the Hellbrute summoned hordes of those small thingies and right behind that was a Warpgate that kept spawning Cultists.

To make a half-hour long fight short: I didn't stand a chance. The room was spawning enemies far faster than I could kill them.

And just to repeat - this was on level one...

A lack of loot:

The enemies drop WAY too little loot to make 30 - 45 minute missions worth it. And most of what you get in that strange post-mission bonus screen is worthless.

Yesterday I played some five missions, and I didn't even need to empty my inventory. That just won't do. Without a high drop-rate for all kind of goodies there's no incentive to actually slug through all the mobs you encounter.

No inventory:

Not having access to your inventory during the mission as a pain in the behind.

Not only do I like to take a look at the loot I just picked up (not that there's much of it in the first place), but I might also want to switch weapons.

Going into a mission with no ability to change weapons makes it all a huge gamble. Sometimes the weapons are appropriate for the enemies you meet - sometimes not.

Forced out of the mission:

Being forced to quit the mission at the end is another pain in the behind. I have stood at the opening of a room with three crates in it, yet the game forced me to quit the mission before I could open them.

MANY bad words were said.

Shared progress:

For some reason I don't understand, all characters seem to share progress. My level 1 Inquisitor could continue the investigation my level 5 Inquisitor was doing... Why...?

And why are the unlock of the skilltrees shared as well? So my first couple of characters have an uphill battle ahead of them, not having access to most of the skills, but the following characters are off to a great start with full access to all skill...? Again... Why...?

Badly optimized:

I realise that this in an alpha, but the game is so horribly optimized that my computer - a fairly high-end gaming PC - is struggling and has all fans roaring at full speed to keep the GPU temperature down.

Extreme load times:

It might have to do with the lack of the optimization, but the amount of load screens and the time it takes to load the game is quite annoying.

Repetitive game play:

With a seemingly very limited selection of tiles to create each level, and the AI being virtually nonexistent, the game quickly become repetitive. Each room looks the same. Each corridor looks like the last one. And the only question is if you can kill the enemies quicker than they can spawn.

The controls don't work:

For me, this is the worst offender right now. There're just so many problems with the control that it's not even funny.

Overall, the game feels sluggish and clunky with a horrible pathfinding. Most of the time your character will move where you ask him to, but occasionally he'll fire his weapon instead or just remain stuck on some invisible obstacle. This gets particularly annoying when you're getting swamped by enemies - and that happens a lot.

The use of cover is a nice, though hardly novel, idea. But sadly, it doesn't work. It's not immediately obvious where you can get cover, leading your character to sometimes dash for cover, only to find that this particular corner or box does not provide any kind of cover, unlike the corner or box you used for cover in the last room.

And when you do get into cover, more often than not you'll find that your character outright refuses to fire (for no reason I can see) or simply fires into the cover he's standing behind. On rare occasions the cover will actually work, but most of the time it's worthless.

And then there're the skills. As with the cover, they rarely seem to work. Or perhaps it's just the awkward controls that keeps screwing me up.

Using the mouse to activate the two mouse-skills usually (though not always) works. But using the remaining skills... Not so much...

When, for example, I press 4 to activate my rockets or deploy my turret, half of the time the skill outright doesn't activate. And the rest of the time the aim is usually off. The turret never deploys quite where I want it to, and I have a real hard time getting the rockets to hit anything. Rather than actually going where I click the mouse, they often fall short, even to the point where I had several instances where they hit right where I was standing.

A much better solution, I would suggest, would be to keep the primary fire mapped to the left mouse button and then using 1 through 5 to decide which skill is mapped to the right mouse button.

And then there's the weapon ranges. Or rather, the lack of them. I always feel like I have to get suicidal close to use my weapons, simply because the range is limited. I can understand why a weapon like the shotgun has a limited range (though it's practically a close combat weapon in this game) but there's no reason to have lasguns limited. They should be able to shoot as far as you can see.

And speaking of seeing...

The camera really needs an overhaul. Having to manually swing it around is a royal pain in the behind. And more than once I've died because I got ambushed and had to frantically swing the camera back and forth to try to get line-of-sight to the enemy. All the while having my health melt away...

A game like Diablo has manged, right from the first game, to design the levels and the camera in such a way that you never have to swing it around. Why can't this game do that?

Sorry to start out with such a diatribe, but there are just so many problems with the game right now that I honestly don't consider it ready for a public alpha, let alone actually being sold for money.

The balance is all over the place, and I spend more time fighting the controls and the camera than I do fighting the enemies.

That's not to say that the game is a lost cause - far from it. The basic idea of Diablo-in-space is not bad, but there's looooong way yet before the game is ready for release.

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5 comments

First impressions
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ctiger

14 173

You said somewhere in that great big block of text that you realize this is an Alpha. Somehow, I don't really think you do. Either that or, you have the idea that an Alpha should be a nearly complete, almost ready to release product.

You also complain that you would not have bought in this early, if you had realized that the current state of the game was different from your expectations. Which brings up the question: Did you even bother to read the roadmap before you purchased and, if you did, what part of it led you to believe the current game is different from what was laid out there ?

Some of your criticisms might be valid, but your expectations at this point in development, are not.

f2k

1 3

ctiger

Yes, I did read the roadmap. And yes, I do know what an alpha is.

Maybe you have a higher tolerance for bug and imbalance than I have - all I can say that if I had been the developer behind this, I wouldn't have let it out of the door in the present state.

Of course you can't expect an alpha to be complete, but I do expect a certain minimum standard from a game that's being sold for money.

But never mind that - each to his own, as they say. Problem is that a lot of this isn't a question of the game being alpha, beta, or release. It's problems that's inherent in the very design of the game.

akathanam

1 53

Posted by f2k

Yes, I did read the roadmap. And yes, I do know what an alpha is.

Yeah, i doubt that you truly understand what alpha stands for... This is an real alpha. Forget all those marketing 'beta access' shenanigans which in truth are just marketing demos to create hype/stress tests where you play an nearly complete build.

Ixxolos

9 89

Firstly kudos on taking the time to add feedback all feedback is good feedback right.

Upon reading the thoughts you currently have i'd like to offer some counter opinions of my own as well as some agreements.

Absolutely no balance : This is the entire point of us testing it in it's current state. Each update has brought new revisions for all skills, weapons, classes etc and i don't see that changing. Make notes of what you feel does not work and post about them in lengthy detail (the devs love this sort of thing).

Some missions are going to feel like a s**t show starting out i would advise taking note of the mission type as small/med missions differ in the hoards immensely, this is not apparent from the get go so understand any frustrations this causes players.

Lack of loot : I would somewhat agree here that loot from missions can be a bit on the sparse side (craftable blueprints i'm looking at you after this patch) but including the new level up items you get in addition to loot from missions it is heading in the right direction for sure, in need of tweaking... maybe sure 96.5%

No inventory : This one i don't really agree with you on, we get a shared storage for all chars making gearing alts super easy, 2 weapon load outs to take on mission use the tab key to switch from 1/2 (the idea here is to plan ahead as well as possible). Loot dropped from the instance based mission should not be interchangeable with gear you currently have equipped, maybe have an area in the mission you can switch things out but definitely not on the fly imo.

Forced out of mission : Agree on all counts here. Although i will say there is a dismiss button on the mission exit ui so i would assume an option to stay and exit at a later time will be implemented in the future.

Shared progress : I was only aware of the account level skill points being able to carry over to all alt chars on the account, only recently did i find the Deeds unlock them for use account wide but you still have to reach the goals an all alts to use them (e.g. char lvl to unlock). I don't see an issue with it's current state. The overall idea here is You the player are the Inquisitor and the chars you make are all your minions hence shared account skills and storage i assumed so at any rate.

Badly optimised : This is just a given... moving on.

Extreme load times : See above ^^

Repetitive gameplay : What we have to play so far is less that 5% of the actual game give it time we are testing chunks not the whole.

The controls don't work : This i have had issues with but i use a Nostromo for play so it was mainly remap issues and relearning or should i say unlearning my old arpg play styles. Cover needs work yes but i have faith it will be an awesome feature. mouse movement can drive me crazy in melee mode but using the "hold position" key for ranged negates most issues (would like to see an option to always hold position and hold key to move vice/versa option).

Camera : Again semi agree with you feels clunky at times having to hold mmb or use 2 keys to turn it is an annoyance at times but one i have come accustomed to and adapted my play to it hardly feels like an i see now odd occasion targeting an enemy is a problem nothing to shout about though. A slight Pitch option would be greatly appreciated so i can finally see those glorious chandeliers on the damn ceilings :)

All in all good points raised and much in depth feedback to be looked into. Wish you well and hope you can get over the current games flaws and see the potential it has whilst offering in depth views on what you feel works and what does not.

This comment was edited by Ixxolos

BrotherLazarus

13 233

First thing. Don't do any content on a fresh character that isn't an investigation. After the patch I was stuck doing it for a couple days because my UI was bugging out and it was miserable. I repeat... do not do content on a fresh character if it isn't an investigation. My heavy weapon specialist is back up over level 10 and well geared and I still have to be careful with the tier 1 content.

Second thing, I haven't run into any issues with my skills not firing off... unless you're trying to fire them off while they're still on cooldown. Currently, every weapon skill has a unique cooldown (so does your armor, your innoculator, and your utility slot). Your turrets deploy like mines, right next to you rather than where your cursor is. I think that's likely a balance thing. Pay attention to your CDs. Swapping weapons starts them over again, so if you're switching madly in a fight, you're gonna have a bad time.

RE: weapon ranges. I was thinking about the same thing last night after a few hours in-game and I came to the conclusion that it is, again, balancing. Currently, the lasguns can fire just about as far as you can see (in terms of camera) and enemy ranged weapons seem to share the ranges. If enemy mooks could start damaging you in an empty room before you could see them, you'd be just as unhappy, trust me. Weapons got a much needed sweep and are far closer to not only their fluff values, but being generally fun to use now as well. You just have to learn the gear you're using or else you're gonna have a bad time.

The camera thing... I'm guessing you haven't played Grim Dawn. Rotating cameras are becoming kind of a regular thing, because, well.... for years ARPG players went "I can't see this enemy behind this one object WHY CAN'T I ROTATE THE CAMERA?!" It's a little buggier here because the levels are semi-randomly generated (per Diablo 2). Speaking of the Diablo series, I'm not sure why you'd reference it honestly... D3 was the worst Diablo game of the series--removal of skill trees, same-y play across classes, to the point where Grim Dawn has taken the slot as "a better Diablo than Diablo 3". With the time I spent in D3, I'd argue that this alpha is a better Diablo than D3.

Once more with feeling... do not do any content on a fresh character that isn't an investigation. Dreadnoughts, Decimators, and Hellbrutes are not what one would call "easy prey" compared to cultist rabble.