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I'm glad the patch improved things for you! And thanks for pointing out that the rings are not dealing damage on touch–they definitely are supposed to. Must have slipped by since I often test things with infinite health. And yes, I will look into what I can do about the readability of the rings.

I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for your reply! I actually released a patch yesterday that added simple descriptions to boon cards and tweaked enemy health and grading a little bit. I'm doing the improved tutorial now and it should be out in a couple of days. I intend to keep the current tutorial as a separate "training grounds" section, while the tutorial will be scripted and step-by-step.

I agree that an average of above 2 minutes for a movement is too long. The patch reduced health specifically for movements 1-3 since I thought maybe the issue comes from boon selections, since the difference between picking ones that are really good early game and ones that require synergies and time to to ramp up can be very significant. The time disparities from those choices should flatten out over time as synergies build naturally, so I didn't touch the later movements (yet).

But I reckon there's more to it than that. It's interesting you mention going for mostly ripostes, since I myself don't do them that much and my times are reliably in the sub-1 minute range. I wonder if by focusing on ripostes, you're not spending time efficiently on generating and firing arcane arrows? Like, if you fire an Arcane/Riposting Shot without any arcane arrows, it's generally not going to be worth it, even if it is a riposte. And likewise, if you spend three beats "anticipating" an attack for a riposte, it's generally better to fill those gaps with quick Barrage and Ricochet Shots and not worry about the riposte.

And I imagine that, in general, it takes some getting used to the flow of the gameplay. In optimal play, you wouldn't have any action window gaps between attacks, you would attack until the very moment you have to dodge, and you would utilize every 1+ beat gap between enemy attacks effectively. If you can do that, you really can push the game to the limit where movements fly by before they can even pose a threat to you, which is why I'm wary of setting enemy health too low. But I understand that it does take quite a bit of experience to get to that point, and the game can feel way too slow until you do. Maybe I just need to be way more aggressive using health scaling in the different difficulties (even though I don't like it when most games do that), and just accept that an experienced player can destroy beginner in three minutes flat.

I think it's analogous to Monster Hunter (which was actually a big influence on the gameplay loop design). You have a weapon like Charge Blade, where you really need to grasp the loop of generating phials, charging your shield, generating phials again, then spending them on a big boom. And if you're really good, you can use guard points, which are kind of like ripostes. If instead of all that you just spam triangle to swing your sword, you're going to do negligible damage, and the game doesn't really tell you if you're doing something wrong. You're expected to just learn it on your own reading the hunter's notes and spending time in the training grounds (not unlike my game in its current state in that regard). Personally, I'm fine with players starting off slower and eventually getting the times to that sub-1 mark, but if it doesn't happen and players believe that the game is just supposed to be that slow, that's definitely something I want to avoid.

Wow! Thanks so much for the detailed feedback, I really appreciate it.

I do acknowledge that I erred on providing too much text than too little, because my concern was that without some repository of detailed information, some things would be lost on the player completely. The encyclopedia was meant more as an option to look something up if something wasn't clear, not as mandatory reading, but from your description I can see why it would seem that way. And with detailed descriptions for resonances/imbuements, my worry was also that since many of them require adjusting your gameplay to get any use out of them, players might miss out entirely on any benefits they provide. Those are things I'm definitely going to look into, like maybe having simple descriptions by default and have detailed descriptions as an option the player can select. Do you think that would help? I'm also definitely going to be implementing a step-by-step tutorial, and based on your feedback I'm actually going to prioritize it. I hope it'll alleviate the onboarding issue and make reading the encyclopedia feel less like a necessity.

Regarding enemies having too much health–would you mind sharing how long it typically takes for you to clear a movement? In balancing, I've aimed for an average clear time of 40-60 seconds, and that's based on how long it takes for choreographies to loop. Does it take you much longer than that, or do you feel that's already too long? I'm aware that there's probably a big difference between how quickly the game can be cleared under optimal play, versus how long it takes for a new player, and I do want to get that balance right.

As for having enemy behavior explained, that's something that's largely influenced by games like Rhythm Heaven where everything is explained and tutorialized before you have to do it "for real". I'm aiming for a similar kind of vibe, so I'm not sure I want to stray too far from that.

But again, massive thanks for taking the time to write up your feedback! This really helps me make the game as good as I can possibly make it.