A beta testers rant. Thread - Secrets of Grindea

This is a general thread for people to go on a writing rampage, talking about what they liked and maybe disliked about the beta. Handing out ideas and whatnot to the guys making this. Feel free to add yours and lets get this game running at full speed.

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So I met Teddy Sjöström at the Swedish Game Awards ceremony a day ago and I asked him when the game would come out (as probably most people who meet him and know of the game do), and spoke briefly about game mechanics and things he has noticed about the beta. He then handed me a beta-key... So after a very drunken manner walking home at 3am later that evening and falling asleep, waking up to go to work and then finally sitting down at this fine evening to play the game I now have thoughts that I would like to share with anyone interested.

Lets start with the first impression of the game then.
The second I started to move into the game I noticed was that multiplayer demanded IP from the host and there was no real hub for every player to chat in for example, a hub for trading or finding games. As the betakeys is quite rare I had to post messages to desura-users who had it in hope of getting into a game. When i did get into the game it felt very smoothly made and the character was quite nimble when moving around obstacles (sometimes making me miss them and walk straight past them cause I am slightly bad with the arrowkeys). And this I thought was a good thing really, game feel means a lot to me, which brings me to the next thing.

The combat. The combat felt great. I was quick on my feet, and the monsters was very quick too even on normal, making it actually stick out to most games nowdays when they walk with you through 30% of the games holding your hand. It was made great with the shield really, the quick switch to that shield in mid animation saved my ass when my feet couldn't. The fact that some mobs didn't get any knockback when using skills threw me a bit off and I ended up dying since I am used to very casual gaming at the start of a game. Great feel, just saying.

The storyline then, well, not much was said about the whole story and how the story would drive you forward other than the need of gathering items, since well, you are a collector, a treasurehunter, carying around a quite unique bag who seem to carry the emotions of most mmorpg players. "screw jibberjabber, let's get that loot!". Which I don't mind really, i find it to be a funny character who can really make an impression if given good lines...and why not his own story? And why is there even collectors in the first place, is there a grand treasure to be found somewhere who everyone is searching for, or is everyone just that hungry for adventure so they just go out and try to grab every junk they find? Oh, and by the way. does every collector have these kinda bags? Cause if they don't, I kinda feel sorry for them since the items needed to craft was quite many, it would be heavy to lift in a normal bag. (I really shouldn't think that far)

The hud and menu. It was well executed, well fitted for a controller too. The menu also included everything needed really, no overly complicated stuff, didn't get why my pet didn't show in the square when I got the rabby...but yeah, it's a beta right? I might have missed the healthbar a couple of times and died since I am a complete "noob", but wouldn't mind the option to maybe get a healthbar over/under the player, sure, you shouldn't get hit in the first place, but I like a challenge and grabbing way too many mobs at once and try timing the shield usage was kinda fun but felt a need to keep my hp in check way more often. Oh, and the little minigames for fishing and catching pets, making it less boring of a task, brilliant. Hopefully we get to see more of those minigames.

Weapons and skills, yes...Slight lack of variations when comming to type of weapon. I dont really mind it, but with the great speed of exp gained and the kinda low amount of skills to use it on made it quite an obvious headline to talk about. The beta didn't last long, but the skills were kinda strong at low levels, so didnt really feel a need to scale one all the way but take small points in everything instead to gain that significant boost at early levels. There might be a plan for this since I didnt get to taste the later levels of the skills since they were locked, so the skilltopic might need to be put on ice before we can actually see the whole tree and all the skills in working condition. The bow being used as a "on use item" and not used as one of the weaponskills surprised me a bit too, some weapon fast-switch (with cooldown in combat of course) and more thought put into mechanics of the bow and arrow might even open up a whole new skilltree for the game. The fast-switch came to mind when I thought about the puzzles you clearly wanted to bow to be a part of.

The graphics, I am a sucker for 8-16-32 bit art, and this was well done. Animations, the towns and areas you ran into was a treat to the eye. the characters might need slightly more variation when it comes to the closeups. Noticed quite a bit of characters who gave me the thought "are they all siblings?". Met a dude who kept eating and he was supposed to look fat I guess since he was sliiightly rounder, didn't give me that impression sadly. But yeah, good work.

Now a summary might be fitting for the people way too lazy to read. it's might be seen as quite harsh since it's a very early beta, but it's better said than forgotten.

*pros*
+ Gamefeel
+ Comedy
+ Combat movement
+ Character personality
+ Menu
+ Controller support
+ Minigames
+ Monster AI
+ Graphics

*Cons*
- Multiplayer lobby
- Lacking storyline
- No on-character HP-bar option
- Weapon variation
- Skill amount and progression
- Character variation (human npc's)

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Oh, and before I forget. Teddy, if you ever read this, I have a suggestion. While we were talking I was slightly too drunk thanks to my small body and not enough food in my belly to give you this information when you said something like this "The beta has show us that players who is in the beta has been grinding quite a bit, and is extremely powerfull when the new content is released, making it a bit of a trouble". The moment I thought of this when I was at work I thought: "Why not adjust the players strength after the area they are in, using a avarage for multiplayer or even adjustable to character power?"
This is used by both the Diablo series and Guildwars 2 for example, and it works quite well. For people who have not played these games, Diablo raises monster power to adjust itself with the player while Guildwars 2 adjusts the player and brings him/her down the the monsters level so there is still some challenge to the low level areas. and many thanks for the beta-key. <3

That is enough for now I guess, hopefully we get an update on the beta soon so we can test out some new features and areas.
Happy gaming all and I hope to see some rants or suggestions in the forum.

d(^_^)b

In a betatest you would think there would be an option to simple generate a character at level 5, 10, 15, 20, etc to immediately test out new content at any specific level. Few people will abandon their high level characters to regrind up from 1 unless they is incentive to do so.

I mean, I would be happy to generate plenty of new characters to test out new content, but unfortunately I'm not a part of the beta. =P

Hi guys, to safe your precious time, i'd like to keep this post plain and simple.

- The most important and imho inalienable thing that NEEDS to be included is more than just three character-slots. I think there has to be an infinite amount of them. Whenever one wants to try something else with a new charakter NOTHING should prevent the player from doing so
- I think that there should be some sort of signal telling you immediatly, that you are out of Energy (/Mana), when you try to cast, but there is not enough engery left (maybe just a sound indicating it)
- I believe the quest-text of the quest in which you need to place the teleportation-plate is buggy. Although I even defeated Gun-D4m, the text, that I need to place the plate is stille "active" and shows up in the upper right corner as well as in the journal - in addition I still have the plate in my inventory
- it feels like your character walks faster, when moving diagonally. Is it just me?
- if you try to open a portal right underneath a obstacle (when water or a cliff is above your character) you are not able to enter it. It is no problem, since you can just walk a few steps und create another portal, but I wanted to mention it
- I accidently hit two enemies (jumpkins and several others) with a single arrow
- Sometimes the music stops (I believe that happens, when you stay a pretty long time in a single area without leaving to another one)
- For me it feels like the attack-speed of the bow is too high
- After I solved the puzzle in a cave of the pumpkin woods and was able to open the three chests, I came back the day after and could solve it one more time - but of course without any reward. I think, riddles, where you have an initial reward once, should stay solved.
- I'd find it very helpful if there was the possibilty to mark a craftable recipe as a quest, so that it apears like the quest-log in the upper right corner of the screen and in your menue somewhere to keep track of the ingredients you still need to find
- maybe the free space inbetween the four shortcuts for your spells and moves is an ideal place to permanently display your characters level (or somewhere else)
- What about arrow-shooting-skills? In expense of additional arrows, of course
- Maybe you did that on purpose, but I think it would be passable if you start with a full quiver, when you enter the arena
- It feels like the cast-(/attack?)speed is way faster, when you keep holding down the move-button so your charakter takes a tiny step inbetween casts
- Maybe I'm just the worst arcade-player ever, but I never get very far in there and the quests are almost impossible for me to fulfil. Imho the difficulty should be easier or at least one should be able to choose a difficulty
- When I switch to windowed mode, the game visuals become strechted vertically. The "Zoom"-Option doesn't change anything, no matter which I choose
- sometimes, if you are too quickly pressing the start-button after you lvled-up, the "+ Level" is still displayed on the lower right side next to your skills, even though you already spent your skillpoint
- today the game crashed pretty much all the time, when I had a "herd the chicken"-challange in arcade mode (it crashed right after the first chicken should have entered the coop)
- The spell Cloud Strike remains active, after you've beaten the arcade-mode (and met the mayor). It appears with you in Arcadia and it travels along you at lvl 0. Idk if that only happens if you beat the arcade-mode.
- It feels as the spell "Chain Lightning" only deals pretty few damage compared to spells like "Ice Spikes"
- When you have a lvl with a bee-hive, the bees spawning there seem not to count as usual enemies and if you leave them and kill every other enemy, the area becomes completed anyway, even though one or some bees remain
- today I had a problem for the first time, namly that the health-spheres appeared, but I couldn't pick them up immediatly. It took some time, before it actually was possible (story mode, fourth character for whom I deleted the first one I created)
- in Evergrind City you can buy a wooden sword at the blacksmith, but no wooden shield. So if you sell your initial wooden shield, you are no longer able to craft the crystal shield

PS: Thanks for giving me the opportunity for participating in this great game
PPS: The game says, I achieved 117% completion xD

Edited by: CriticalHit

Late getting to the Beta test, late on talking on all of the above mentioned issues... For what it's worth, thanks for beating me to it. That's a lot to write.

Nice percentage of completion there CritHit

I can't wait to see what the card game is.. I was hoping a rendition of FFVIII Trading Card game just not so much alike that you guys at Pixel Ferrets get sued by Square-Enix.

Anyway, I'm off to play some more xD