Thank you for these comments -- it really helps reading them. You've nailed a lot of the nagging balance problems I've been dealing with and that other players have brought up, especially those who read the mechanics and try to break the game in the Void, which is where some cracks begin to show, lol. I think a final version will officially have the game balanced around beating the Obelisk, or that was the plan, with the Void as a bonus. But as long as the Void exists, it becomes the standard challenge, which means the game has to be balanced around those very late builds, which definitely changes things. It narrows the potential builds for sure. I'll definitely add a preliminary victory screen for beating the Obelisk, and keep thinking about this.
DEX will continue to be a problem as long as the Speed bonus works the way it does, with so much being accumulated. I think this can only be solved with a rework of the bonus, a rework of Speed entirely, or just adding more powers that give Speed based on other attributes, particularly WIL. If Speed was something you could only raise by investing in certain powers (with a variety) it might be a better situation. I don't really like having to balance powerful enemies around players who potentially have 60 speed
The "pure WIL damage" archetype needs some love -- it's suffering from the fact that it was by far the strongest in very early builds, so I've been subconsciously regulating it more than, for example, DEX
In terms of mechanics in general, I'm extremely dissatisfied with how difficult it is to see stuff like a bonus to Hit "dice" -- it's been in the back of my mind that I might remake these systems to be simpler and more intuitive. This applies to defense / block as well. For example, if dice "sides" were fixed, bonuses would be easier to see. The current system gives more character to equipment by fluctuating sides with different stat scalings but in practice it's not really satisfyingly visible to the player
Anyway I very much appreciate your comments and will eagerly read them. Also be warned, yesterday's update messes with some of this stuff