Hello Orbus community.
I discovered the game during its free weekend a few weeks ago, and decided to join the adventure. I did some quests, killed some mobs, tried all the classes, even joined a small party. Here is my feedback on the game so far on what I think could be improved, and what is well done.
My current playtime is 14 hours, but let’s say I played 10 hours, My current class levels are:
Warrior lvl 5
Musketeer lvl 4
Archer lvl 1
Runemage lvl 5
GENERAL
Avatar
I was kinda frustrated by the choices offered. But I guess you already had many similar feedback on this, so I’ll keep it short : I wanted to make a long hair dude with beard, and there was nothing that could allow me to do this. I just hope at some point there will be a barber or something to allow players to change their appearance (with some limitations).
Start Tutorial
the basic tutorial is good, I understood the musketeer mechanics very clearly. However it might be useful to stress that musketeer is more a healer than a DPS (if I understood it well). I figured that out a lot later, and would have tried another class first if I had known earlier.
I don’t remember the other parts of the tutorial, I just feel it was right, and made me ready to dive in.
Localization
Everything is in english. I’m fine with english, but you definately need to make the game available in other languages, and/or allow players to display something language related.
Like displaying a flag (option to turn it off/on), or the language managed by the player (for instance “en, fr”),
Dialogs
I was annoyed by the floating text like “quest accepted” appearing in front of the current dialog text. This might be a good thing to change its place. Like moving it in top of visible area instead of bottom.
First quest
The first quest that requires to grab some herbs near the town was a pain. I did it on the free weekend and we were so many trying the quest that I was simply camping the area, praying for a pop to occur close to me. I camped like an hour to get my three little items, and I wasn’t the only one.
One of possible solutions is to add pops somewhere else (close) and mention it in the quest.
Compass
The compass is decent. I don’tr know if we can hide some markers (town, quest, …) but if not, this might be a good thing to add these options.
The shaking thing to select the channel to speak is not great. I never knew what color is what, and had someone to explain with examples to understand how to use it. A floating tag or something equivalent would be welcome to know on which channel we’re on.
Map
This is the worst part of the game. I’m pretty sure you are working on something better but currently the way to know where I am is terrible.
All I can do is looking at the map in the book, looking around to find any post or something to read directions, and make a triangulation to guess where I am.
And if I’m somewhere not on the map, I’m screwed. That’s partially why I never went off map yet, I want to know where I am.
CLASSES
Ok, I’ll probably be a bit hard on some of the classes, so I guess many will tell me to go practice more, get gud or whatever. But here is my thoughts anyway.
Musketeer
First class I played, until level 4. Was kinda disappointed by the DPS, but liked the survivability. Then I figured out it was a healer class so that explained why I felt so low at killing.
Having four special orbs + a simple hit is a very good design. Nothing to complain here.
The … I don’t remember the name, let’s say drone. I never knew you could switch mode for it, until recently, long after I dropped the job. Was it mentionned in the tutorial ? If yes I missed it. If no, you might add it.
Archer
Is there an aim correction or assist or something ? Because I’m left handed and I couldn’t aim correctly at all, it just felt awfully off. I’m not great at aiming, but I manage to be decent at some other archery game.
So if there is a sorta aim assist, please adjust it depending on the hand where the bow is held.
As it felt terribly wrong, I didn’t try the archer further.
Warrior
I’m not a tank person. I usually find the tank classes boring, or too hard for me (yes I’m usually bad at tanking).
But what a pleasant surprise it was to discover the warrior. The combo system is a blast.
It was annoying to combo on some tiny mobs as many vertical slices wern’t taken into account, or some horizontal were count as vertical.
The dash-to-mob move is a great thing but everytime I used it, I ended up using shield bash right when arrived. I think shield bash should be triggerable only when a button is held (for instance trigger for the Vive).
Sometimes, when using that dash, the mob just went through me, moving to my old location, then turning back to go at my current location. Strange, like it got the informaiton “I attack” but not “I moved”.
I played only until lvl 5 so not that much, but I enjoyed it a lot. I was terrible at keeping hate when I partied with 2 other players, but that’s probably me terrible at tanking.
Runemage
Oh runemage, where do I start.
First, I usually always play mage. That’s something I really love, and everywhere I can play mage, I do. So first I was very frustrated to see no mage class was available at start. And the vague hints given during tutorial fueled my frustration. But well, I asked, I went, I unlocked, and I started to draw stuff.
Runemage is the most thrilling and frustrating class I ever played.
Requiring to draw spells without mana consumption is an awesome design for VR. But there is a lot work to do to make the job enjoyable. I said enjoyable, not easier.
Rune guide
The fact that the runes drawn in the book or on the pillar aren’t the exact expected pattern is … I can’t believe it’s on purpose. Why would you do that ?
Unless there is a place, a quest, a npc that gives the exact pattern, this is nonsense. Why misleading players on purpose ? This souldn’t be.
Spell availability
Then I have a suggestion, and I’m going to be hated for saying it : you shouldn’t be able to cast all the spells right at the start. I mean, why bothering to learn Fireball 1, if the tier 2 version is stronger and as easy (or even easier) to draw ?
So, like any other mages, I just skipped Fireball and frostbolt at tier 1 to focus on tier 2 right away.
I think the learning path of a mage should be mastering a level of spell, then mastering the next level of the spell and so on.
For instance, tier 2 is unlocked at lvl 5, and tier 3 at lvl 10. In that case tier 1 spells need some balance but that’s just an idea, and level requirement could be lower.
Drawing accuracy
I also consider that the more you gain level, the more forgiving should be the drawing. To a certain extent of course.
Let’s continue with the previous example. let’s say at lvl 5, right after unlocking Fireball 2, the forgiving should be a little harder than now. and at lvl 10 it should be a little more tolerant than now (and is the max tolerance level).
I trained a total of 4 hours (that’s the difference between my recorded playtime and the time spent to actually play). But, there are many spells I just can’t draw.
For instance, Ice Lance. I tried everything, including youtube tutorials, wiki, in-game advices from players, … I even made a tons of screenshots (from various successful other’s cast) and a photoshop superposition to find what the real expected pattern is. I maybe drew it a hunderd times, and so far I succeded only a few times, like 2 or 3 times.
So yeah, gaining level should raise the tolerance, so I can say “if I gain some levels, I might be able to make this spell easier to draw”.
So far, I just dropped the game. Runemage is the only job I want to play, and I’m too frustrated with rune drawing despite my hours of training to have the will to play.
I logged in yesterday and was amazed at what the starting town was looking now. I started to practice a few spells to refresh my memory, went outside, missed 3 casts on 4, was frustrated beyond my will to continue, logged off.
It’s a great game, but unless some changes are made to the runemage, I’ll probably never play this class again. I might come back to give the warrior another go though, I enjoyed it. And maybe archer if I manage to know how to aim.
Thank you for reading all this. I hope you all have fun.
See you around !
