Hello folks. First of all, hanks for the stress-test. This was my first time participating therefore my first look into Nightingale. I was quite excited about it since I was following this game for a while.
My adventure started out by ignoring everything and just went around looking at things, picking stuff up. Eventually I went back to the starting area and built a small hut, then went for the first realm card. I never got to use it, since I was diving more into building, and then the server was kicked off from under me.
I'd like to talk about a few things I noticed and didn't really like and would like to see improved.
The game overall was good, the atmosphere and music was spot in, the narration was quite good. I didn't like that the NPCs like Mina and the hireling dude was silent though.
I've encountered many bugs. Building pieces not snapping, I could build pieces into each other. I couldn't build, but there was 0 hint on why. Boss was bugged out, despawned, I couldn't repair items, but there was no indication on why or what I miss.
Despite the UI feeling too cluttered with the journal entries and all the text, there was not enough tooltips. I saw that the ingame meni has an index of things and a few other useless menus as well, but despite of that, I couldn't really found any information on what to do and how things work. Seems like useless information were prioritised over actual useful things. I wanted to explore the first tower but I had no idea how to equip new items. I couldn't empty my hotbar, I couldn't allocate new items therefore it took me a few hours to figure out that I have a climbing pick and that I need to allocate items from the inventory, into the inventory, and not to the hotbar. I think that should definitely need to be fixed so that I can remove items from the hotbar and add to that by pulling from inventory onto the hotbar.
As mentioned, the boss was bugged, but also it was able to follow me through a route that I had to climb.
#Feedback for the stress test
rough rune
stable cobalt
I like building pieces into each other because then I could add textures and fill in small gaps that I couldn’t do otherwise. The inventory system does need some fine tuning for full controller support as well
rough rune
The lack of coherent tutorials were a bit of a problem. It seems that they were made by people who are already waay too familiar with the game, and not from the perspective of a complete beginner. .
An annoying issue I've found is that I could dismantle items without any confirmation dialogue which was annoying since dismantle and equip were right under each other in the context menu which was not too great. I dismantled my umbrella and my pistol that was by accident.
I liked that there were multiple building styles, but the flow between them was pretty bad. I built a desert foundation next to a stone foundation and the contact point was just a straight line
I ventured into the 2nd tower after getting the first card, I thought I get the arbor one too, but the enemies there were lvl 100 so I couldn't even hit them and they mostly 1shotted me. A warning would have been nice when I get near the tower that my damage is ineffective against them and that I need to come back there later.
Overall the game was running well, which was a surprise to me. I was using a 5+ year old lenovo laptop, Core i7 8th gen, 16gb RAM, 1050Ti VGA. The game was set everything by default to Performance - I set the textures a bit higher. I got consistent 20+ FPS which is great. The game didn't look too good, but it was acceptable for me. I'll check if I can add some screenshots here.
cursive mirage
The lack of coherent tutorials were a bit of a problem. It seems that they were ...
Tutorials were removed and we were given materials that players typically had after 10 hrs. This was probably so we could experience more story rather than just early game grinding for the basics. I adapted pretty fast without having seen the tutorials, but I know some others who struggled.
I loved seeing the screenshots you got!! I spent more time in the story/crafting and less time on building. It’s interesting to see what you enjoyed and didn’t since it was a completely different play style than me.
rough rune
Overall, a few systems I would have done differently, but it's not that bad at all. I do hope that the release build will be way more advance d than this, and the bugs will be hammered out a bit more. I also expect better tutorials and tooltips. I was a bit on the fence before the playtest but seeing how stable it was and how well it run, I'm quite convinced that I'll buy the game. It would be better if it would come out 4-5 months from now or perhaps more, when all the bug testing was properly done. Having said that, I leave the test with positive taste in my mouth. I was not expecting that since the game overall concept was something I myself also wanted to develop, but you got to it first so I had some mixed feelings about playing it. Now that I did though, I see that your concept was significantly different from what I had imagined. The only common point is the random realms. The game came off as a stable product. I haven't seen any indication of wrongdoing, or MTS or artificial cuts - it just looked like a good and well through out game with bugs and in an unfinished status.
I'm looking forward to the full release and for future tests. The only thing I wanted to mention additionally that the dependency on servers was a bit strange, since the game played completely as a single player offline game. I haven't seen anything in it that would warrant an always online status.
I understand that it 1ill have multiplayer though. I expect to see a single player game mode regardless.
uncut pond
Maybe invite people before it ends???
rough rune
As of someone who went into the playtest completely blank and without any further knowledge - I really enjoyed it and I was happy that I had the opportunity to play the game before release.
Thanks again for the opportunity.
uncut pond
I spent an hour and a half downloading the game and not connected to the game servers. I hope that was helpful.
unborn epoch
I seemed to have no issues server wise and played at better than the recommended quality settings than for my specs just fine
rough rune
Oh and 1 more thing for the devs before I go: FULL BEARDS!! Don't even date release the game without full beards! 😁 I'm serious! I remove a full point from the review if I can't have a full beard.
plush geyser
So overall sounds where spot on. The amount to animals and monsters in what I played seemed to be very well rounded. The amount wasn’t to many, nor to little. The combat is smooth from what I have played and dodging, casting, running and blocking are working great. The vaulting and pick climbing is definitely rough though. I would like a more flushed animation to go along with how well everything else is. The crafting and building is very smooth. And I like how you get upgraded benches and blueprints through npcs making them worth going to and allowing engagement in the world that way. It adds a sense of progression in a unique way. Very solid and overall very pleased with it.
north heath
I agree with OP, as excited as I am about this game I really feel that it could use some more time in the oven and for the best possible release that they should seriously consider delaying it again.