#General Feedback

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lilac bone
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Here's an assortment of thoughts on various topics across the game. For reference, suggestions in the form Suggestion: 1, 2, 3... are meant as a group of recommendations to address multiple or the same problem, while Suggestion: A, B, C... represent alternatives, each considered in isolation. Smaller bullet points might contain the suggestion in the same paragraph/sentence.

Combat

  • Basic attacks: One of my initial and ongoing feelings about combat is a certain sluggish or unwieldy feeling from basic attacks, specifically the rapid alternation between character movement and complete standstill during the attack animation. While it's normal to be rooted in place during such attacks in MOBA games, other battle arenas and PVE isometric games that do not feature click-to-move typically adopt an approach I also recommend for ECHA, given its gameplay direction overlaps more with the latter. Additionally, due to the isometric perspective, certain ranged basic attacks can be very tricky to aim, such as Beko throwing projectiles at different heights.
    • Suggestion 1: Allow movement during basic attacks but impose a noticeable movement penalty for the duration of the animation. This still creates incentive to at times hold off on basic attacks to focus on dodging while ensuring gameplay during heavy BA usage remains smooth and free-flowing. Experience stands to be further improved with this change when combined with future accessibility tweaks like increased input buffering/option to hold BA button to attack continuously. Note that this also increases skill expression as players can now progressively sidestep slower, easier to anticipate attacks while ceasing attacking themselves as needed for more immediate threats that need to be reacted to.
    • Suggestion 2: Add a toggleable option to draw an "aim line" on the ground from the character model to the end of BA range for the duration of BA animations. Helps aiming BAs on controller and KBM alike.
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  • Dash: The dash felt underwhelming or not very rewarding to use successfully since the demo and into EA for me. Duration of invincibility feels good (if very slightly low, though that could also be attributed to MP latency) but being the only consistent source of i-frames across characters at a moderately lengthy 4 second cooldown sets a high bar for its reliability and feel. For one, it can be hard to know when a dash is ready to be used or how long until the recast window of Double Dash expires; plus, a red flash on the health bar (the "taken damage" effect) still plays when successfully dodging an attack via dash, which when combined with the "invincible" and "no stun" combat text popups, diminish visual clarity.
    • Suggestion 1: Add an option to represent dash cooldown with a small bar near the health/luum bars above the character model. Quite a few games have this and I found it contributed a lot to fluid gameplay, knowing at a glance when your fundamental evasive maneuver is ready to use. Why dash and not other abilities, because abilities usually have a short cooldown with few exceptions, given their use is mostly governed by luum. Similarly, a bar/gauge that depletes over time to signify recast window for Double Dash is recommended at least as an option, that is if the core power remains in its current state.
    • Suggestion 2: Change the dash action so it simply deactivates the player's hitbox for the invincibility duration as opposed to just granting damage immunity. This is very much a "three birds with one stone" change, as the combat text will no longer be needed, health bar won't flash red on dodging an attack and bugs like https://discord.com/channels/489786183979630593/1387526810102792403 will be solved indirectly as the game no longer registers a 0 damage hit on the player. This also goes a long way towards making dash feel powerful and satisfying as an evasive tool that encourages precise use.
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  • Stun resistance on monsters: Certain large monsters like yetis are immune to stuns during certain animations, problem being they remain such for the whole duration of the animation, including windup and recovery. A classic example with the yeti is trying to stun it when it stumbles on the ground following a charge and it refusing to be stunned. Conventional implementations of "super armor" are aimed to preserve the threat of a given enemy either in general or during certain attacks, however they are limited to the attacks' windup stages, dissipating with the active stage as any damage is assigned.
    • Suggestion A: Remove stun resistance from non-(mini)boss enemies entirely. More intuitive and less info overload for new players, but takes away the mechanic entirely.
    • Suggestion B: Alternatively, allow stunning immediately after active frames end. Fits much better with the idea of being able to punish an enemy during the time they are most vulnerable.
  • Taunt functionality on monsters: In a contrary fashion to stun resistance problems, taunts have a strong tendency to outright cancel monster animations or reset/redefine their short term combat behavior. A nifty mechanic at first glance, it proves too unintuitive for players - there's no reason a taunt should be able to spontaneously ground Wallumps, a miniboss, while it is about to crash down from midair for its slam attack and cancel it. Moreover, taunts come with the drawback of negating recovery animations, fast-forwarding the enemy into a different attack windup state that's unpredictable and often comes as a shock to the player and their teammates. Importantly, this includes both the concept of setting the enemy to a random attack's windup unexpectedly as well as nullifying an enemy's vulnerable state, such as a yeti after a charge or Wallumps after its overshield is initially depleted and it trips on the ground.
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  • (cont.)
    • Suggestion A: Taunts no longer cancel enemy animations whatsoever and aggro/threat level only tangibly updates once their current animation concludes. Immediate effect if enemy is not currently in animation. My favored choice, simple and effective. A taunt should be meant as a way of controlling the enemy unique from a stun or mini-stun, a thematic tank maneuver to draw attention away from more vulnerable teammates. However, this option does take away the taunt's interrupt functionality, which I acknowledge might be intended in some capacity.
    • Suggestion B: Taunts interrupt enemy windups if a stun would've interrupted the same windup but they impose full recovery duration on the enemy. No effect when applied during enemy recovery. A creative but complicated solution to avoid nasty surprise attacks and collateral damage on unsuspecting teammates immediately following a taunt.

Heroes

Fyn

  • Charge: I'd like to see a visual indicator for when the charge is fully...well, charged, meaning it would benefit from the skill damage bonus in the ability. Perhaps it would also be nice to slightly speed up charge time (or alternatively increase damage at full charge) to incentivize more frequent full charges as opposed to point-blank ones just for the taunt, as currently it feels intuitive to reserve full charges for periods where downtime was a given already (e.g. walking up to a fight).

Riiva

  • Parry: Include in the tooltip that Riiva is stun immune during the ability! Optionally, I'd like to see a sort of counterattack mechanic such that if Riiva is hit (or alternatively, loses X overshield, or is hit by a stun, depending on how common or rare you want the trigger condition) she retaliates with an attack all around her or towards the enemy she took the hit from, for example. This can also be a bonus effect granted by my suggestion for soulbound blooms in the Shards category.
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  • Spinning Axe: Recast should deal damage to enemies in the area. Grants Riiva extra AOE to set up preemptively (she still has to aim that axe!) and makes the recast feel much, much more impactful. Of course, the bug that allows Riiva to infinitely activate the recast would have to be fixed for that.
  • Smash: Feels underwhelming not just due to its lower damage but perhaps due to how it feels mainly like a band-aid for her general lack of AOE. While it's possible I am mistaken on the balance of the ability, another issue remains; Riiva always casts Smash in her facing direction as opposed to being an ability you can aim separately, which makes it especially unwieldy for KBM controls (e.g. moving up-right, holding down W and D default keybinds with middle and index finger on a right-handed setup, then trying to press E). To clarify, the issue is both that it's hard to aim because players have to turn Riiva to face the group of enemies/position the AOE effectively to hit all of them but also certain key combinations aren't comfortable to press together.

Cynder

  • Comet: Sometimes, quick jolts of movement are possible during the spell's windup frames while other times it's not, hampering precise aim of the spell.
  • Ashen Incantation: A small nitpick but I feel like either the luum cost is a little high or damage a little low. Between Comet (300 damage, 15 luum, ranged singletarget), Spellbomb (250 damage, 20 luum, ranged AOE) and Ashen Incantation (330 damage, 30 luum, melee AOE) it feels like the risk of getting close enough to use the ability doesn't quite back up its damage and/or luum cost.

Shade

  • Backstab: I think there should be at least a bit more reward for taking the time to position yourself behind your enemies. While a 25% boost is appreciable, it's likely a value like 30% or even 35% might be more appropriate.
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  • Blink: This might count as more of a bug but I have noticed Shade gets hit by projectiles or even melee attacks she attempts to blink through/away from at an alarming rate. Whether this is due to her hitbox internally traveling in a linear destination from start to end position (akin to a dash) or Blink's cast time is too slow to get her to the destination in time, there is a noticeable problem here. As a mostly defensive tool, Blink should feel like a powerful evasive maneuver with big play-making potential.
  • Hyperslash: Line AOE feels a little too narrow to start with. I initially thought the damage was low/luum cost too high similar to what I described with Cynder above but since, I have zeroed in on a bigger problem; the invincibility function. Beyond Hyperslash suffering from similar problems to the Dash ability (see Combat section above), it additionally fails to protect the player from debilitating debuffs like freeze and breach and perhaps most problematic of all is her inability to resist stuns!
    • Suggestion: Shade's hitbox is deactivated for the entirety of Hyperslash. Uniquely gaining access to what's essentially a second, damaging Dash ability is in my opinion necessary utility that in turn more than justifies the luum cost or lower damage output. While I don't mind having an odd freeze stack or two, or breach while casting the ability, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth especially when combined to the dealbreaker that no stun resistance amounts to.
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  • Backlash: It seems like the ability suffers from too small a targeting range. Given targeting presumably takes the center of an enemy model into account, larger enemies like armadillos, yetis, Wallumps and Thrashclaw become increasingly inconsistent to target successfully. I suggest a small range increase to facilitate this, on top of the targeting state remaining active for just a little longer following the keypress (KBM controls) to facilitate use of the ability. Finally, quickly alternating between basic attacks and weaving casts of Backlash didn't feel nearly as smooth as I expected, causing Shade overall to play in a bit of a more clunky fashion than someone like Cynder, who sequences abilities near seamlessly. This might be due to recovery animations in either her basic attack or Backlash not being easily cancelable.
  • Phase Clone: At 800 skill damage in a small area after a large delay, Shade's ult leaves much to be desired. Although the fantasy of the ability is on-brand for a techy assassin, it specifically pales in comparison to Cynder's ult, even after the "cost" (ult charge rate) adjustments. I'd look into buffing the single-hit damage to 1000 at least while watching out for concerns of wasted damage due to overkill, especially in solo mode. Note also that the ult has a few bugged interactions such as ult charge visually changing to ~20% or so instead of correctly reverting to 0% once the ult is used but before it detonates, or how the clone allows Beko's lantern to be placed on it.

Lotus

  • Shearing Slash: Occasionally, I have noticed that the slash flies off in directions away from where I aim (on KBM controls), though this is a relatively rare occurrence. I've mostly observed this when Lotus herself is very close to an enemy.
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  • Royal Blessing: Although I consider the ult to be relatively strong when combined with the Chemical Reaction shard, I do not deem it a major concern as the ability is a major factor in keeping the shard interesting and useful in its current state.

Beko

  • Basic attacks: It's taxing to mentally translate the attack visuals to a precise attack hurtbox trajectory in the heat of battle, since the first two attacks of the combo string shoot out a certain height from the floor while the finisher is lobbed along the floor. See the end of Combat > Basic attacks
  • Lantern Barrier: There is apparently a hidden stun that affects even larger enemies that cannot be knocked back; I'd like to see it mentioned in the ability tooltip. Furthermore, a clearer indicator for when the lantern is fully charged while holding the ability is well warranted.

Monsters

  • Melee slashing golem, all variants: Spinning attack begins assigning damage ticks during windup animation, before the golem visually starts spinning.
  • Tank golem: At least I assume that's the name of the big yellow/black golem with a shield looking arm and two different slam attacks. Its single circular slam attack centered on itself assigns damage shortly before the indicator "pops".
  • Healer/shooter golem: Tracking/visual feedback of the red indicator on the player persists in some situations after the enemy dies. Additionally, its healing functionality is disproportionately punishing when it targets a melee character as the latter is zoned away from combat since it's very likely an enemy would've received the heal otherwise.
  • Wolves, small and large: Especially now with the introduction of yellow wolves which have no recovery on their lunges, all wolf lunges should probably be better telegraphed with a bit of pre-lunge body movement.
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  • Armadillos, small and large: It is possible to take damage from their tail-lobbed projectiles while standing behind them. While I am not opposed to the tail swing itself counting as an attack (especially for more dangerous variants of this enemy) it needs to be clearly communicated to the player that there is a hitbox and/or threat area active there or cleaned up so it doesn't hit players behind the enemy anymore. Also, small armadillos are a little too durable!
  • Yetis, armadillos (large), Thrashclaw: Their frontal charge attack can hit players standing directly behind or more rarely to their side which is pretty clearly unintended.
  • Kraggor Thrashclaw: The rotating lasers attack is a concern for multiplayer desyncs due to its speed; you might find that similar rotating attacks are prime suspects for desyncs in many games. More importantly, the lasers move inconsistently throughout the attack, starting at a speed and accelerating steadily towards the end, to a speed not easily surmountable without the use of dash.
    • Suggestion: Lasers can steadily accelerate to their typical speed as the attack starts, then decelerate at the very end, creating a much smoother threat area profile. With this baseline, the ground is paved for potential different laser patterns down the line.

Shards

  • Similarity/redundancy: A not super widespread problem with some shards that just do too similar things, which at best causes redundancy while at worst, there is a clear winner among the bunch in terms of feel, power level or versatility. As a classic example, Bomb Rush applies burn in a very small AOE at the end of a dash, whereas Line of Fire spawns a lingering line AOE that applies the burn instead, between starting position and destination. As a result, the former is largely overshadowed by the latter.
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  • (cont.)
    • Suggestion A: Add extra value in a different fashion to better distinguish shards that accomplish too similar things. Following the above example, Bomb Rush could do a solid flat amount of damage on its AOE on top of burn application, compensating for its otherwise limited area or how much work is required to get a payoff out of it.
    • Suggestion B: Consider adapting the shard in a different caterogy/shard billy. This is less of an action to be taken in a vacuum and more used as an aid to help define its new purpose or identity. In our case, what if Bomb Rush was a Mischief shard? Perhaps it would benefit from renewed "assassin" theming (drop a bomb as you dash, dealing damage and maybe breaching the enemy?) and all of a sudden gain synergy with other dash effects like Speed of Death - a very underutilized shard - or Efficient Dash; whereas something like Line of Fire would more uniquely benefit from a longer dash distance and so on.
  • Dependency on dashing: Quite a few shards work by adding extra effects or some other sort of reward for dashing; case in point, the aforementioned Bomb Rush and Line of Fire, as well as others like applying a poison stack on dash or exploding burning enemies for a burst of damage, obtaining temporary overshield (the Dashtech Overshield) and so on. This is not a problem in itself but should be handled with care since it technically incentivizes players to use their one defensive fallback to achieve something different, like repurposing it offensively or for some other utility. As a result, it makes sense that such shards be balanced to a higher standard of power to compensate.
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  • Impression of low numbers, especially percentages: Seeing a small, i.e. single digit percent increase in an ability description, item description or other tooltip can leave a lukewarm impression on players. The main offenders here would have to be the recently nerfed Penscythe's Mark, at +1-5% damage increase based on mark stacks up to 5, or the basic Critical Chance Mischief shard granting a measly 5% crit chance. Special mention also goes to on-hit or "proc" type of effects, particularly Stunlock. While it makes sense to keep the trigger chance constrained according to the potency of the effects, for many, seeing a low percent number gives the impression of something exceedingly weak. In some cases like Penscythe Mark, it probably is.
    • Suggestion: Not sure if this is already implemented like this (I've suspected it might be in a bunch of cases) but I would consider switching to a pseudo-random as opposed to a true random distribution. That is, if the displayed chance of an effect triggering is X%, to find a number Y < X where the internal trigger chance is Y% and each subsequent chance following a failed trigger is instead 2Y%, then 3Y% etc. until a success, at which point trigger chance resets to Y%; and such that the expected occurrence rate over an infinite sample size averages back out to X%. Alternatively, X itself can be used as both the tooltip and internal starting chance, though in practice that will result in a somewhat higher true trigger chance when averaged out while also eliminating the need to calculate a different starting chance. This doesn't address the problem of first impression but definitely helps on-hit effects feel better and much more consistent over the course of a playthrough.
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  • Lack of synergy potential in solo: This is more of a problem in solo mode and thus perhaps not as much in scope as the others but I found that the contrast between picking 1 shard per shard picker in solo vs. 3 total across the team in multiplayer is rather drastic, given how synergies are often designed to be realized team-wide with strong dynamics between players and/or roles. The discrepancy is amplified further due to how certain shards like Flame Touch and Chemical Reaction conflict with each other, disallowing the possession of both at the same time.
    • Suggestion: In solo, there can be a single opportunity, whether facilitated by metaprogression or a unique objective/interaction throughout the run, to pick two different shards from the same shard picker. In this way, players can choose to spec more strongly into their favorite (or character's favored) shard category.
  • Active shard slot count confusion: Apparently there is a way to have two active items/shards to hold and use at will and I heard there used to be 2 slots for active shards. It might be good to implement that 2nd slot eventually (probably not a big priority) to resolve the situation, or maybe even do away with it if more active shard ideas aren't pursued.
  • Soulbound blooms feeling a little uninspired: Here I'm making a little excuse for a suggestion, the soulbound blooms are a cool idea as a little generic stat boost with some agency in where it goes; be it max health, a base damage boost to a given skill, ult charge rate or a modification to the dash. I like how players can grow their stats in the middle of a run and think this reward should stay in some capacity, however on top of that, the iconic 🪷 lotus-shaped soulbound blooms can be repurposed into something much greater: an ability modification that either produces an extra tangible impact or even completely changes how the ability works! There can be a few such unique upgrades, here are a few examples:
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  • (cont.)
    • Suggestion 1: Each time Riiva takes damage (let's say up to once per 0.2 seconds or so) while Parry is active, she releases a frontal shockwave dealing damage.
    • Suggestion 2: When Beko's lantern passes through an enemy (as it travels via the ability that moves it), it deals damage and empowers the lantern holder to deal bonus damage with basic attacks for each enemy hit, up to 3. Doesn't work on solo, so maybe not the best example.
    • Suggestion 3: Shade's Blink casts a lesser Backlash at the nearest enemy when she lands, luum cost increased slightly.
    • Suggestion 4: Cynder spawns a flame mine at the target's location for every 3rd enemy hit by his spells. Casting Spellbomb causes all nearby mines to detonate in a Spellbomb explosion.
    • Suggestion 5: While affected by a Seed of Life herself, Lotus spreads a trail of flower petals as she moves, increasing the stats of allies standing in it

Gold & Shops

  • Gold as a "win-more" mechanic: Something that always struck me as odd about gold rooms is they partially test the team/player for their current power level, since you earn more gold the more enemies you kill, but also only rewards a currency that will maybe be useful later down the line in a run. Personally, I don't feel like gold has all that much value beyond used as a fuel for the Gold Power Bracer/Gold Focus Module shards and whatever value it does have (bit of potential to find a key synergy combo piece in the shop, a powerful item overall, maybe a shop-unique item?) competes directly and strongly with the variable power level of the aforementioned shards. All that combined with the opportunity cost of passing up a given shard room or even core coins/keys for players to pad out their metaprogression back at home makes gold rooms feel not quite up to snuff, with the rare and welcome exception of treasure goblin rooms.
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  • (cont.)
    • Suggestion A: Add a gauge that fills up as you kill enemies, more so for bigger, tougher enemies similar to how gold rewards scale as a "bar" to reach. If the team reaches that bar, they are also awarded a shard picker on top of all the gold. This could even be multi-tiered and with potential to award even a second shard should the team have broken the game and obtained insane synergies! To balance this out, the shard doesn't have to give the same agency over which category or choice you pick, it could be a random category which makes it less potent of a boon. Although my suggestion seems sharply counter to the vision for gold rooms as a "pass up immediate power for longer term benefits" idea, I fear said benefits aren't appreciable at the moment and there is a chance something along this path is most fitting for gold rooms in the end.
    • Suggestion B: An easier in the short term, harder in the long term option is to simply overhaul the shop. For starters, taking gold prices down to 500 or 1000 max for some unique or more powerful items seems very appropriate, as is having fully random items in the shop as opposed to set templates. 3000 for a level 1 Mediport Module, for example, is really not quite worth it. A single reroll option per player per shop also seems par for the course, rewarding the accumulation of gold. Finally, having all shops be at set points in the run as opposed to semi-random is probably the way to go.
    • Suggestion C: Only spawn gold room portals when they are one of two portal choices in a given room. Simple and straightforward.