Playing for a bit, here's some feedback
- Overall I think it's technically solid and I like the writing so far, the comedy is good. However visually I think it needs one more pass - the levels just look monotone. In some cases, the terrain is harder to read on a quick glance due to this too.
- This barrier could use a bit better visuals, it's clear what it is but it almost seems like you can walk through it if you press against it
- The disappearing shader for pillars and walls and such is very functional, however I'd say the effect needs to be a bit less distracting.
- I get this issue using Unity too; you can see the seams of the model cutting through the shadows.... a smoothed normals model won't have that issue, but it will probably decrease performance.
- I need an actual explanation of the abilities and not just how to use them. Specially for Elsa, I'm confused about some stuff. Do those enemy instakill circles just stay there forever?
- Shooting through walls with Elsa's M2 seems a bit overpowered. Actually I'm not sure how much I feel the game is balanced at large. Though it's less relevant since it's singleplayer pve, but still.
- Robe mages in level 2 are hard to see.
- I think the light could maybe be emitted from the character and not the wand to avoid issues like this . Also, perhaps a small light surrounding the character with no shadows to it could add to the look (yes, that'd mean seeing what's on the other side of the corner here - but if it's your intention to make the current light feel like an actual field of view thing then disregard that).
- I like the music so far.
- I know it's a tricky subject, but is it intentional that you can't shoot up stairs?
- The armor suit stopped its idle animation as soon as Arcana started talking. Arcana and Elsa are sort of jittering around, here.
- Should probably add an invisible wall here
- You might as well add the map as a minimap.
- Menu would be better opened with Tab instead of Esc.
- Stats comparison on equipment might be a good idea.
- Feels weird to actually see this level floating on the void due to the ambience light being not black
- After equipping an item, having to press X to see the map again even though I have no more items that I could possibly equip is a bit weird. I think you have tons of screen space that you could use better, why not make it always visible?
- Some enemies get stuck walking against walls sometimes.
- Area attack visual representations are displayed at the player's waist height or so instead of the ground. This is confusing, as sometimes it looks like you're going to hit someone on the upper edge of the ability but they're actually outside of the range. You also don't know how much vertical range most area abilities have; some seem to have none, some a bit, some are a sphere.
- As stated previously ability balance feels too random. The mage's M1 attack definitely feels way powerful, and M2 is useless charge aside. Why does it go through walls? It just melts everything, and shield enemies have nothing to do against it which is a bit surprising considering they were just introduced to the game a minute earlier. Though that said, I thought they'd be blocking all normal attacks that do collide, but I see on the next stage I can melt through them by holding M1 on Arcana too...
I think at large you need to rethink how the kits work, specially since most abilities seem non preferrable to just spamming M1 with how situational they might be, and the time they take to set up compared to what returns you get on them, which are far lower than just spamming. Also, they have a cooldown, even while inferior.
In my opinion, kits should be reworked into something much simpler that focuses on the core "feel" a character should have much more. Perhaps just M1+2 then E for a single ability, where said ability might have different synergies with each attack. I also think it's interesting to modify (usually downgrade) the M1 spam attacks over time, you could build up on that idea some more.
I'll try to give a bit of specific feedback on each character:- Arcana: Her build is pretty decent, but I think some changes could be made. It wouldn't hurt to reduce the damage and fire rate of her M1 to emphasize her damage-dealing abilities some more. M2 feels like it's in a good place, but the damage is absolutely insane. Distance should probably scale in a more drastic way depending on charge (like barely traveling a meter if you insta-cast it). Her first ability is pretty boring in my opinion. Maybe give it a delay to explode after you cast it, and have it do lower damage but multiply for each target inside (up to a maximum limit if necessary)? Her second ability is pretty okay already, but personally I'd add a clock hand that does a full loop inside to indicate its duration, and maybe instead of just freezing enemies it could slow them down to half speed or so for 3-5s. Her third ability is pretty interesting too, but a bit simple and overpowered right now for my taste. You could sinergize it with the rest of the kit in some way; for example, what if you gained a charge of it for each kill you got from the first ability, or that changes its bullet/damage output somehow? What if it follows you around until it expires? Condense and focus on the core of each kit, and give things synnergy with eachother.
- Elsa: I feel like M2 could change to simply be a hold-to-constantly-fire, lower rate of fire but wider arch "shotgun" type of shot, whereas M1 remains more focused like it is now. The first ability might be better if it was faster to cast (E bind i.e.) and had a lower cooldown. The what-I-though-was-invisibility but actually is invulnerability ability just seems out of place. There's no reason to not be spamming this, but also it has faults like not showcasing when it's going to run out in any way that I can tell. Overall I feel like it's boring and does not belong. Perhaps you could experiment with modifying dashes for each character instead - how about a shorter distance, and more spammable (or rather make the others' longer - or nonexistent) dash that gives you full immunity while doing it? The third ability also feels out of place and not fitting to the character, on top of giving no indication how many more enemies it can kill before expiring (maybe I'm blind). Feels like it's just trying to fill in a checklist of stuff all characters should have, when I think you should only focus on a few elements of the whole (like, mobility, high damage, defensive abilities, cc) instead of trying to have each character do them all. That would make the design lean more into each character being unique with a different playstyle.
- Frank: I like that he's a melee-based character, but it feels like you should focus on that more. His M2 charge attack feels too overpowered. His M2 attack feels like it doesn't give you enough returns for continuing to hold for a while - like, there's no reason to continue holding it but release it anytime before the full charged attack. His first ability also feels out of place - why can he throw some projectiles, and why even do it when they are so underwhelming? So how about this: remove it, remove the full charge M2, remove M2 charging at all, and instead give M2 a longer cooldown, but let it send back projectiles you hit with it, with a speed boost to them. Second ability feels like what should actually happen when you hold M2 completely, but keep the cooldown else it'll be very abusable. Before reaching full charge, I'd just make him hold his swing in. The third ability feels good to use, but I wonder if it could be a synnergy to something else instead? Like for example, get a "kills" gauge that fills up by 1 every time you get a kill, but you lose that point 2 seconds after or so. So if you get a bunch of kills on a short time, you can get the gauge to fill up and temporarily activate this ranged shockwave attack automatically (pretty much stealing from Hammerwatch here). Make it less powerful though. I also feel like his dash should act in a unique way due to the rest of his kit, how about it being a melee attack as well? Like a long stab that pierces enemies, and perhaps pushes enemies on the sides away and stuns them for a sec, but it has a bit of a longer cooldown?
- Vania: Clearly a more melee focused character already, with more mobility but more defensive? I feel she's a bit on the underpowered side right now, and could definitely use some more synnergy too. Personally I would take her jump ability and make that her M2 attack, with no charging. Have her knock back enemies on landing but idle for a second, recovering from the jump afterwards, or just a plain cooldown perhaps - I just feel like pressing 1 to cast it is unwieldy. Her second ability feels the same as Elsa's: there's no good indication of when it will run out, and just going invulnerable for X time is boring. So how about this instead: block damage but only from the front, and after a couple seconds, do a forward slash the range and damage of which increases with each attack you blocked during that time period (this would merge her original M2 with this too). Have it on a cooldown, and you're unable to attack while doing it, and suddenly it becomes more of a strategic decision - do I want to protect myself from these attacks, while knowing that I can't attack too? Or do I save this for when even more enemies are coming, so I can get even bigger damage returns? Her third ability is the weakest part of her kit right now, specifically because of its shape, causing you to miss 50% or more of the enemies you'd want to hit right around you. The visuals look like it's staying "on" for a bit too, when it's just instant damage for one frame. It's also just not very interesting. Perhaps instead of a plain old AOE attack you can give her something that has more levels of complexity to it, and that plays to her core themes a bit more. Something that plays with base attributes, for example, or with her character role. How about filling a "morale" meter for every enemy you defeat, that goes down over time slowly, and then once you use the ability you can summon allied soldiers that last for a bit, depending on how much meter you have? Something like that.
- Octavia: Probably the most interesting kit to me so far, though the damage values are quite underpowered all over the board. I'd only suggest a couple changes: Make M2 charged dash charge faster (half as much time as it takes now?) while the base M2 attack (shove) has a static, non-scaling range (middle point between base and total?). Her third ability could probably have slightly bigger radius and also bigger damage, but how about instead of an instant explosion, it's a grenade toss that takes ~1s to land and hit? I think she should also be able to do it through walls (I couldn't throw it to the other side of a tree in the arena). As a minor thought, maybe her first ability should have a lower angle spread and concentrate the projectiles a bit more, but only slightly. I like how they pierce and knock back enemies though. All of her kit was fun to use, probably because of the extra precision required by the single bullet base attack and feeling more like I needed to use the rest of her kit to survive.
One last note about Octavia is that due to how abilities are drawn at waist height instead of the floor, or maybe regardless of that, her second ability feels a bit hard to land sometimes, I'd make it slightly wider. - Fiera: Her kit is also really interesting and fun to use, however it's greatly overshadowed by her insane M1. Her second ability also missled me into believing I was invulnerable, when I just had a damage aura. I think you could mix around her ability order to create a more fun to use and interesting kit: Replace her M1 for a simple left-right-left-right fireball spam. They should be relatively weak, and not so fast. They definitely should not pierce through enemies. Her M2 + full charged feels good, but I'd like to see how the fireball in her hands grows bigger visually while charging it. Then, I would add a heat meter or such that builds up by doing damage. This time, it doesn't decrease over time, probably. Once charged fully, you would be able to trigger, or instantly turn into, the "fire spirit" phase. Your heat bar would deplete relatively fast, and transform you back once it's out of heat, however during this phase you are much more powerful: you gain the fire damage aura around you, M1 gets turned into the current M1 flamethrower, and M2 allows you to "place" AOE explosions like you can do now with the first ability, but one for each click (with a bit of a cooldown of course, ~1s?). Charging M2 would then allow you to use a tornado - the charge shouldn't take too long considering you're already on a timer (heat bar), and that you probably shouldn't be able to have 2 tornados out at once.
- Together with all the above, the UI probably needs a rework too. Even if none of those kit ideas are into account, you definitely need to at leastchange the UI to emit some sort of effect once an ability goes off-cooldown.
- The "respawn as" system isn't really explained, and I'd like to be given the option to choose character when starting a stage too.
- The country borders, or what I assume are country borders, should be represented a bit more clearly in this map, although I assume this map is extremely WIP
- Level up flash is way too obnoxious and hurts my eyes, should just be removed and leave just the text.
- Octavia's firing animation makes it seem like the model is badly positioned, rotated to the right. It's alright because the bullets actually go where you're aiming, just a detail.
- I don't know why I have 4 identical level 1 power 1 crossbows, will there be a weapon scrapping mechanic?
- I got a level 1 common grenade with power 2, and a level 2 common grenade with power 2. Is this normal?
- Level design definitely feels a bit lacking. I don't think it needs to be anything super complicated for a game of this kind, but right now the story levels feel too corridor-room-corridor-room-like. The arena level is much more interesting because enemies come in from multiple sides at once and there's small obstacles in the middle of the room, both things that the normal story levels lack. I would try to focus more on having open spaces with obstacles; corridors are definitely no good used this often.
- Forest level feels a bit lazy, with both areas having pretty much the same layout. Try to spice up the rooms a bit like described above so that the two areas can feel more unique.
- Feels like there should be collision here, these trees cover up too much (2nd forest area, right side)
- I would like to not have to walk all the way to the boss again, specially since there's enemies in the way in the second forest screen. The boss design seems veery good, by the way, and that's coming from someone who doesn't really enjoy bullethell games. Boss dialogue could also probably be skipped after the first time.
- Perhaps the camera could be pulled back a bit more for the bossfight?
- Very glowy river. Feels like this third forest screen could use a bit better visibility overall (and thus also less contrast with glowy river, too glowy) or give characters a warm light around them that lights up the scene a bit - similar to the level 2 request I made earlier.
- I see weapons giving me stats and such, but I don't quite get what the "Power" is. Bear in mind I never played Diablo or the likes, so looter game aspects are a bit lost on me, but I think it'd be nice to have it explained.
- You should be able to drag the map around in the pause/inventory screen.
- I find the dashing halberd/lance enemies pretty interesting, however their visual effect for preparing to attack is a bit lost next to an endless supply of glowy bullets/enemies like the wraths and the blue wisps have.
- Skeleton walked into bossfight somehow.
- Hanako and Yurie holding hands animation resets when it ends, probably shouldn't.
- Boss attacks should probably inmediately despawn the moment the cinematic starts.
- Boss dropped hearts should not despawn while the cinematic is going on.
- Boss attacks that are mid-execution should be cancelled by the cinematic too. For some reason, after the meteor shower before the cinematic, Hanako started one of the huge AOE nukes in my position, before cutting to the cinematic. It hit me right after it ended with no chance for me to avoiding it.
- Hanako's wand and attacks glow a bit too much in my opinion.
All in all, the game is solid so far, but I would consider some of the kit tweaks I mentions, everything else is just minor polish. This text wall might feel like it goes on for far too long, but trust me when I say I did enjoy my time with the game. The forest level enemies and the bossfights were a definite highlight, I'm looking foward to future updates!
Edit: A couple things I missed
- Knights appear green in this part of the first forest cinematic, for some reason
- I'd love to see a bossrush mode in the future, or just individual bossfights, that you can do with any of the characters, so I can fight Hanako and Yurie as the Arcanum(?) girls/armor lad!