Stress Test Thoughts From Former Playtester

[plush wigeon]

First and foremost, I do want to make clear that I acknowledge that the feel of the stress test is going to be VERY different from what the feel of the game is going to be on early release. Skipping over the tutorial and starting out with a ton of extra equipment and materials and blueprints obviously alters the natural gameplay loop and sense of progression- and that organic sense of progression is crucial to the enjoyment of this game (for me, at least). I definitely wasn’t a fan of starting out with all of the stuff given to us- it made things feel very overwhelming and clunky. But I do understand WHY this approach was used for the stress test, and that things will feel very different on the 22nd.

System Specs: 1080p wide monitor, Ryzen 5600x, RTX 3070, 32 GB 3600 MHz CL-18 DDR4 Ram

Some key things I personally want to highlight:
(I’ll be dropping these in the comments since I WAY surpassed the word limit)

1. The UI as a whole is in desperate need of some tender love and care. I know you guys have already received this particular piece of feedback numerous times, so I hate to sound like I’m beating a dead horse, but it is going to be crucial in helping this game flow more smoothly. Going into my inventory always feels like a daunting task, and that was exasperated by the amount of stuff we got in the stress test. You can’t freely organize your inventory- which is a major point of frustration. Having things auto-snap to certain slots when I have a very specific way of organizing things in these types of games is a pain. Moving items to and from storage containers is also still a janky process, and I strongly encourage adding a “shift + click” option like most games have in order to quickly move whole stacks of items. An auto-refill option for storage containers is also be a much needed QOL improvement. The ability to split stacks also still needs to be properly integrated. As a quick fix leading up to early release, I would integrate the “shift + click” approach for moving stacks, and a right click would instead bring up a small list of options, one of them being the ability to split the stack. This approach still wouldn’t be as seamless as it needs to be, but it would be a major improvement for the short term.

2. The off-hand is very poorly implemented. I understand it’s something that has been messed with in the playtests, and that you guys still haven’t figured out the best way to make it accessible to both keyboard and controller users. In any case, it just isn’t good right now, and it is a major contributor to any clunkiness the game sometimes suffers from. I straight up do not use it, personally. The only thing I keep in my offhand is my torch. If I need another tool, I drag it from my inventory to my offhand and then put it back in my inventory when I’m finished. If I need to eat, I go to my inventory and right click + consume. Furthermore, another crucial piece of this- please stop auto-placing freshly harvested edible forgeables into the offhand bar This is NOT necessary and is another major contributor to things sometimes feeling clunky.

3. The AI of boars and wolves still needs tweaking. One friend of mine quit after an hour because he was tired of being attacked every 2 minutes, and to an extent, I do not blame him. I saw one other person suggest decreasing their spawn rates but increasing the amount of loot dropped, and I don’t think this is a terrible approach for a short-term fix. A potential longer term solution that directly addresses their AI would be to incorporate “warning” stances. If you approach a pack of wolves, after entering a certain threshold, as opposed to immediately being rushed down, they should enter a state where they’re clearly eyeballing you, growling, making it clear you’re entering their territory and to back off, etc. etc. Players then have the option to either give them some space, or to continue their advance. Yes, we can just run away right now if we don’t feel like messing with them- but this gets so annoying so fast.

4. Tudor style windows are terrible right now. I have no idea if this was a bug, but currently, light does not come through, and they can’t be opened either. Ideally, both of these things would be changed- but one of them at the very least needs to be tweaked.

5. The need for multiple estate cairns when playing with friends is a major pain. It should be up to the player’s discretion whether or not they want to share an estate cairn, or to use their own.

6. Needing to wait until a friend has entered a realm in order to invite them to your own was not properly explained and led to some early confusion/frustration.

7. Lighting can get to be really buggy for some reason, particularly when the sun is rising or setting. The way it interacts with the foliage or wolf fur for example causes things to look very pixelated and strange. I do use DLSS, which may be contributing to this issue- but I do not suffer from this problem with other lighting engines while using DLSS. 8/10 times, the lighting is top notch. But when it’s being wonky, it is very noticeable.

8. I didn’t interact with NPCs during the stress test, but if no changes have been made since the last playtest, then they are also in need of some serious tender love and care.

Closing thoughts (I will add additional comments if anything else comes to mind):

This game has wild potential. You guys have something very special here, and regardless of any critical feedback I offer, I adore this game and am counting down the days till early release. That being said, I am definitely somebody who falls directly into your main target demographic. If this game is going to continue to reach more players and draw in the audience who are on the fence, it’s not in a state where it’s going to do so right now- regardless of how much I want it to be. With continued polish and QOL improvements, though, I think you guys will have a very healthy game on your hands.

Thank you Inflexion Games for all your hard work. Looking forward to early release. 🤍

[plush wigeon]

Additional comment: The CLOUDS also suffered dramatically for some reason- and NOT in a way they did during my previous playtesting experience. They were very pixelated and fast moving. This is almost assuredly an issue relating to DLSS, but please please please look into this before early release

[plush wigeon]

Additional comment expanding on my comment about weird lighting relating to the sun rising/setting: The light would switch very suddenly to dark or bright light as opposed to a gradual transition. This happened to both myself and each of my friends. We were all playing with varying degrees of system specs, graphical settings, and with DLSS turned on and off. we still saw the same thing occur at the same time. Potential server issue? I don’t understand enough about serverside issues to know if that would be true, but the fact that it occurs at the same time for all players feels telling?

[frozen hatch]

I also felt that when picking things up the light from the torch in your off hand going black was very disorientating and not necessary

I felt there was a distinct lack of enemy types/classes and their AI was mostly poor

the boss fight we did in one of the dungeons was too easy as it was mostly attacking me and I could just run around a pillar and my friend just shot it endlessly from a distance (maybe this wont be the case when we dont have guns to start with)

I also felt that against most of the enemies the axe was a more powerful and better weapon to use than any of the ranged weapons (sling shot, guns, etc)