I know it's a bit late, but finally got around to play this game again as I did been checking it out in previous DDs. Played 20.1 version and my playthroughs were mostly focused on a spellcaster build.
Game looks great as ever, and the enemy variety is great. I only noticed a couple of issues:
- Loading a manual save after dying seems to be constantly put me in a black void, always had to go to the main menu and load from there.
- Sometimes my attacks went through enemies, and I don't mean the missing because of attack rating kind, but the projectile goes through the enemy like there's no collision kind. Mainly happened with the skeleton mages who cast ice spike, but can't say if it's intended or a bug.
- Sometimes projectiles reflected by the enemy's shield slow down and just hover in place for a while before disappearing.
- Enemy attacks seem weird and random. Sometimes enemies swing as soon as they get close, sometimes they just stand there for a bit. Pokan herself bugged out of me and just stood still after going up to my face, letting me wail on her until she died.
- I went to Pokan's place, then back to Breeding Grounds 2 for some cleanup, and after that every time I went back to Pokan's area the game kept saying I was entering Breeding Grounds 2.
Apart from issues, my feelings about the balance and general gameplay:
- Potions that deplete your mana are bad, awful, terrible and worse than useless since I actually have to keep in mind which potions to avoid instead of being able to pick up everything. If they do have to be in the game it'd be better if their name reflect that they are tainted or something similar so that it's clear from a glance that they're a downgrade from regular potions instead of being called something like "wondrous" (though I have to admit, I genuinely forgot what they are actually called since I avoided them like a plague from moment one).
- Enemies that are faster than you are generally a pain to fight. I didn't find a good way to kite them - spells that slow down enemies (like the ice spell or the area one) don't last long enough, as by the time I made some distance and turned back around to attack them they were already over and the enemies ran up to my face a moment later. This combined with the fact that enemies in general are very happy to cancel their attack animation to chase you (which yourself can't do) made them kind of a resource sink, which can suck if the game decides that you're not going to find any potions for the rest of the area.
- Speaking of resources and potions, mana in general is very inconsistent. Sometimes I had no problem keeping myself topped off, other times I had to go through almost all of the level with no mana because I couldn't find any potions. Items that steal/replenish it can help IF you can find any, though ones that give a flat recovery begin to fall off in usefulness eventually. This is genuinely a shame because the spells are realy nice and fun to use with a lot of variety, but it feels like the game doesn't want me to use them and I'm left at the RNG's mercy whether I can or not.
- And speaking of spells, currently Intelligence feels like a noob trap and pretty much not worth putting any points into. I only put two so that I can learn the first level of fireball (so that I can cast it even if I switch off of my starting wand), but even that ended up as a waste as Int received from gear workts just as fine. Leveling up spells does not seem to worth it either - you get twice as damage for twice as much mana cost. Considering that you have to spend precious points to be even able to do that, you could put those points into Mind instead: not only it increases your base attack damage (for times when you're out of mana and can't even use any spells, see previous point) since it increases your maximum MP you'll be able to do more damage before you're depleted as you'll be able to cast spells more times. Hell, I'd argue that lower level spells are actually better than higher level spells: since casting is relatively fast, your damage output is basically the same whether you cast one lvl2 or two lvl1 spells, but you can split two spells for two targets and won't waste MP on any overkill damage. In case your attack misses (because you screwed up or the enemy moved away) you also waste less MP, and as most of the mana recovery is a flat amount you'll be able to cast lower level spells more frequently too because of their lower MP requirement. As for it's effect on the quickslot wheel, I had no problem just opening the spellbook mid-fight with M and changing my active spell there.
- The way there is no HP bar and enemies indicate visually of how hurt they are is a cool idea and I like it, and generally works for the most part, but not for bosses I feel like. It's not gradual enough for them considering how tanky they are and a lot of times I had no idea how well I'm doing against them, and was praying they'd die before I do. Bosses in general are not really standing out from the other enemies - most of the time I only realized I'm fighting one because they didn't die as fast as their crowd or because suddenly I'm receiving three times as much health from their attacks that I would do from a regular enemy.
- Leveling up slows down a lot as you get more levels, which I wouldn't normally mention but I kept having the feeling that the areas level up faster than I do even with clearing out the whole place to get all the XP I possibly can.
All of the complaining aside, even with it's frustrations the game is still quite fun. And last but not least, here's my endgame stats (I did encounter Vedomot in an earlier run but alas that one had to be abandoned due to bad stat distribution):
