Ahdok
Green Slime
SOME NOTES ON THIS POST
Hi there! I recently grabbed Secrets of Grindea, and I've been playing it pretty obsessively over the last few weeks. I've been playing through the game both in single player, and in multiplayer, and I wrote this as the plot stopped at a guy in the mountain caves on the way to Tai Ming.
Before getting into nitty gritty, I should say: This game is really, really good, I'm enjoying it immensely. I don't normally provide lots of feedback to games in Beta, but because this thing is so neat I really wanted to help out... so I started making some notes as I went along, in case they might be of help. Feel free to use this stuff or just throw it away as you see fit - it's clear you know what you're doing by this point. If I were to only recommend one thing it'd be "keep adding to the game" - I want more content! Please bear this in mind when digging through the feedback, most of the things are pretty minor suggestions compared to the overall quality of the game.
Note to forum posters: I'm going to be fairly liberal with spoilers in this post, so please just give the thread a miss if you don't want to be spoiled!
STORY
I'm a little sad that my favourite character from the exam, Lin Mei, just vanishes once you finish that section of the story. I understand she's a ninja, and therefore probably invisible, but I kind of want to know how she did. Suggest adding her into the scene where you're given the Straw Hat - if nothing else just to let players know how she did. Personally, I think it'd be fun if she was continually found sitting on various impossible to reach places meditating around the collector headquarters, but I imagine she's failed the exam as she's not around.
After delivering the warp plate to the sky temple, I didn't go back and check if there's any dialogue for having completed the quest - but I imagine some people might warp back to HQ at that point. Suggest you add dialogue for that if there isn't any - since the delivery quest will have been completed. (don't know if this needs any attention.)
I feel that the old lady in the city and the man in Startington have the start of a story arc going on, I'd like to see more development of that with sidequests.
It seems really odd to me that a carpenter can't fix a broken cart... like okay he's not a wainwright, but he should have the skills to sort the problem out himself!
I love the Black Ferrets, they're very team-rocket-esque... but I think they show a massive step up in ability between the first fight on the bridge, and the second fight in the collector headquarters. I think the story would be enhanced by more interference, and you already have a fight with some intermediate mechanical skill from them which you use in the second area in arcade mode. - Somewhere near the first temple would be a good place to stumble across them again... maybe just before dropping off the teleport plate? There's a gap there where a bossfight would be nice pacing.
Scarie the Scarecrow doesn't do anything if you talk to him wearing a purple flower garland? I suspect that's a feature coming later.
VISUAL DESIGN
I'm a little sad that (clearly!) the most important item in the game, the cat ears come in black. I'd kind of like them to match my hair colour - but one item for each hair colour feels a little excessive. Is it possible to have a colour-changing set that synergise with your hair colour?
I realise that Teddy and Freddy are just throwaway chaff for Vilya, and that their sprites and portraits being pallette swaps reflects this, but I feel that the humour of this pales slightly in the face the feeling that pallette swaps always feel a tad lazy to me. Maybe a note that they're twins might help - or make their portraits slightly different while sharing the sleezy outfits and hairdos.
I think that with some game effects, it can be a little difficult to pick out important information quickly, there are a couple of places where visual fidelity could be improved. Elite enemies especially can be a little hard to notice if there's a lot going on, and it's important to know an enemy is elite quickly - especially in arcade mode. May be worth making the yellow circle more noticable, or giving them a slightly bigger sprite, or a pallette switch or something. Similarly, the markers signposting Winter's avalances can be tough to see, especially the horizontal ones if there's a vertical avalanche on the right.
GUI AND INTERFACE
There should be an option to re-bind keys without having to leave the game to the main menu.
I think it would be better if "magic weapons" (i.e. weapons that raise MATK and casting speed) were a seperate category to 1H and 2H weapons.
When switching equipment, you're shown the difference in stats, but not the actual stats of each item. I feel that's useful information.
I'd quite like a little pop-up box that informed me of my progress towards various trophies when I do something that progresses them - The trophy interface has a lot of entries, and it's not really feasible to memorise them all. (Example: There's a trophy for catching all the different fish in each area. I'd like to know that I've caught 3 of 5 different fish when I collect my third one - it's a prompt that lets me know there's a reward for fishing, whereas otherwise I might not know.)
Not really sure where to put this - The archery minigame could benefit from a clear indication when you've obtained the "top prize" - I spent quite some time trying to see if there was a better reward than the 10k points reward.
DIALOGUE
After defeating Vilya the first time, one of Teddy or Freddy yells "YOU BASTARDS!" - should probably be "YOU BASTARD" in single player, unless he's shouting at the bag too. (I didn't feel that he was shouting at the bag though, it looked like a grammar error?) - I would enjoy a "I'll get you and your little bag too!" at some point though.
Nanivia's chattering is incredible, and I really enjoy the sheer gumption that you threw into her tutorialising - but after a while I turned it off with /shutup just to see what would happen. I'm a little sad that she doesn't protest in the slightest when you do so. Also, there doesn't seem to be a command to turn it back on again? - Suggest /shutup should be a toggle (I'm quite happy for her jokes when wandering around or farming for cards, but less keen on it during boss fights in the seasons temple.)
BALANCE
In the first three hours of play, I spent nearly all of my money refunding talent picks that I almost immediately regretted on purchase. I feel that early gold cost of refunds is way too high - (although to be honest, I'm not sure why there's a cost at all!) - suggest lowering or removing the cost. I guess there is a potential abuse in re-skilling during serious fights - perhaps allowing free retraining with an NPC in town could avoid that problem. I found out about the /refund command, and that's useful in testing stuff out, but I think this is a fairly important thing to look at for new players.
While there seems to be some focus towards "archery" as a viable class build, there doesn't seem to be quite enough to make it a strong option. If there were an "archery" skillset like with 1H or 2H weapons, it might feel like you could specialise as an archer. However! when you die, you respawn with full health and energy, but your ammo count remains at what it was when you died, this means you can't really defeat story bosses unless you win on the first try. Suggest restocking arrows on respawn.
Giga Slime in a small area (i.e. in arcade mode) seems impossible to avoid during the spin attack - you can shield block it, but if you haven't got an iron shield or better, you're pretty screwed?
It would be nice to have some way to practice fighting Arcade mode bosses without having to work all the way to their floor - learning patterns of new bosses is a real chore when you have to grind six or eight floors to even reach the boss.
Playing as a single-hand melee character with a heavy focus on single hand skills, One of my very early talent purchases was a couple of ranks of the talent that reduces the cost of summons - in order to reduce the cost of the shadow clone skill. This doesn't actually have any effect. Suggest either 1) make the talent apply to shadow clone, or 2) change the wording of shadow clone from "summon a shadow clone" to "create a shadow clone"
I like the balance of difficulty overall, but in multiplayer, I'm playing with a friend who has very little experience with action RPGs, and they're finding it a little bit of a struggle. - Suggest an "easy mode" to sit opposite "hard mode" for players who mostly want to explore and follow the story. I'd also suggest being able to set the difficulty independently for each player (simply scaling their damage done and taken) - if that's viable.
I'm still messing with arcade mode - I know some people have been fairly extensively playing it, and their feedback is probably more useful, but right now it seems that a bunch of skills are pretty useless in arcade mode, and you're encouraged to stick with your favourite build every playthrough. To encourage variety in builds, it might be worth considering events or items that reward you with some skill points in specific skills (that can't be reassigned) - if I beat a chicken game and got a couple of ranks in the "summon plants" magic, I might be more tempted to swap up my build on that run.
Speaking of the chicken game - I find it pretty tough to win the chicken game in arcade mode, whereas I find all the block puzzles absolutely trivial to finish. More time for chickens, less for blocks?
FEATURES AND SUGGESTIONS
I love the huge variety of hats and face items in the game, but I'm a little sad that you're restricted to only one outfit in the whole game. More outfits would be the most desirable feature right now that isn't expanding the world and story.
One time, during an arcade run, I managed to accidentally sell my shield to the vendor. Not much of an issue in an arcade run, but it'd be annoying to accidentally sell a vital piece of equipment and end up stuck, especially if it's your weapon. Suggest a buyback feature!
The hall of memories re-fights is a really cool feature, but it seems to be missing a lot of the awesome bosses in the game. Personally I'd recommend including every fight which introduces the enemy with a big portrait (Vilya, Season Hydra, etc.) - they're a lot of fun. Of course I wouldn't be upset if they all had drops as well...
It would be nice to be able to filter the Crafting sub-menu by "have materials".
As a player early on, I really wanted to experiment with all the different skills to find the ones that suited me best, but the cost of refunding is prohibitive. It could be nice to have a kind of sandbox encounter in the arena where you can set your abilities and stats and items to any combination up to your level, and any items you've found so far in the game.
After dying and respawning, I always forget to re-cast my summons/buff spells. Maybe an auto re-cast feature that you can turn on in the menu? - probably not a good thing, I just need to remember to re-cast.
It seems that the different pets all come with the same spread of stats, but you have to feed them independently. I guess you might want different builds on different pets, since the cost goes up when they gain levels - but... I was kinda sad to feed up a pet only to find one I prefered the look of... three times in a row.
I'd like to have some quests or work to do for Wyl, Her parents tell me she's a prodigy, and I'd like to see what she's capable of. Either a quest chain that lets you craft something awesome and unique... but requires you to give her lots of items along the way... or some sort of "give her a bunch of items, get something random back" option might be cool.
I'd like a master list of all the items you've found so far in the game to go alongside the monster compendium (possibly with a "where to find:" entry for each item.)
The little ghost when you die in multiplayer is the greatest thing ever. The game says you can "cheer on" your team-members, I'd like the ghost emotes to have a (minor) mechanical effect if possible! Maybe "cheer" could give a damage boost to nearby players, and "sad" could slow down enemies... that kind of thing.
I think you should be able to change rooms as a person and a ghost, without having to resurrect the ghost first.
BUGS:
During the cutscene in the fight with Winter, all characters are reduced to 1hp. This an make leaving the temple a little dangerous, especially as there are some monsters on the way out. Not a major problem if it's intended - although it's a bit anticlimactic to save the day and then randomly die to a summer knight on the way out. HOWEVER, if you choose to skip the cutscene, you leave the room with however many hitpoints you were on when you beat Winter - the event flag that reduces your hitpoints is contained within the scene itself. Suggest healing all characters to full after the fight, or at least making it consistent.
During the Festival, the house at the south-east side of town is open, but not enterable. Needs a door.
I've managed to spawn out of bounds in the first room of arcade mode: http://www.socksandpuppets.com/misc/bugs/grindea/oob.gif
My pet feed-menu is bugged such that it doesn't display any of the items I can feed my pet with. It still works though. http://www.socksandpuppets.com/misc/bugs/grindea/boxer.jpg Don't know how to replicate it, but I have a save with the problem if you need the file.
In arcade mode, it's possible sometimes to spend enough money at the healing NPC to end up with negative cash. I know several people who've done this.
In the zelda-archery minigame, it seems very easy to get negative combos and negative points. I have no idea why this is happening!
If you are holding a direction when a dialogue box appears (such as quest complete) you keep running in that direction even if you let go of the controls.
Gift boxes probably shouldn't be able to contain gift boxes.
The chances of this are very low, but while the super-awesome animation of a card drop happens, it's possible to kill a monster of the same type, and get a second card drop of the same kind of card. This fortunately doesn't break the game in any way, but it's a little anticlimactic for the second animation to result in nothing.
---
Well, that's everything in my document! Keep on building up this awesome game.
Hi there! I recently grabbed Secrets of Grindea, and I've been playing it pretty obsessively over the last few weeks. I've been playing through the game both in single player, and in multiplayer, and I wrote this as the plot stopped at a guy in the mountain caves on the way to Tai Ming.
Before getting into nitty gritty, I should say: This game is really, really good, I'm enjoying it immensely. I don't normally provide lots of feedback to games in Beta, but because this thing is so neat I really wanted to help out... so I started making some notes as I went along, in case they might be of help. Feel free to use this stuff or just throw it away as you see fit - it's clear you know what you're doing by this point. If I were to only recommend one thing it'd be "keep adding to the game" - I want more content! Please bear this in mind when digging through the feedback, most of the things are pretty minor suggestions compared to the overall quality of the game.
Note to forum posters: I'm going to be fairly liberal with spoilers in this post, so please just give the thread a miss if you don't want to be spoiled!
STORY
I'm a little sad that my favourite character from the exam, Lin Mei, just vanishes once you finish that section of the story. I understand she's a ninja, and therefore probably invisible, but I kind of want to know how she did. Suggest adding her into the scene where you're given the Straw Hat - if nothing else just to let players know how she did. Personally, I think it'd be fun if she was continually found sitting on various impossible to reach places meditating around the collector headquarters, but I imagine she's failed the exam as she's not around.
After delivering the warp plate to the sky temple, I didn't go back and check if there's any dialogue for having completed the quest - but I imagine some people might warp back to HQ at that point. Suggest you add dialogue for that if there isn't any - since the delivery quest will have been completed. (don't know if this needs any attention.)
I feel that the old lady in the city and the man in Startington have the start of a story arc going on, I'd like to see more development of that with sidequests.
It seems really odd to me that a carpenter can't fix a broken cart... like okay he's not a wainwright, but he should have the skills to sort the problem out himself!
I love the Black Ferrets, they're very team-rocket-esque... but I think they show a massive step up in ability between the first fight on the bridge, and the second fight in the collector headquarters. I think the story would be enhanced by more interference, and you already have a fight with some intermediate mechanical skill from them which you use in the second area in arcade mode. - Somewhere near the first temple would be a good place to stumble across them again... maybe just before dropping off the teleport plate? There's a gap there where a bossfight would be nice pacing.
Scarie the Scarecrow doesn't do anything if you talk to him wearing a purple flower garland? I suspect that's a feature coming later.
VISUAL DESIGN
I'm a little sad that (clearly!) the most important item in the game, the cat ears come in black. I'd kind of like them to match my hair colour - but one item for each hair colour feels a little excessive. Is it possible to have a colour-changing set that synergise with your hair colour?
I realise that Teddy and Freddy are just throwaway chaff for Vilya, and that their sprites and portraits being pallette swaps reflects this, but I feel that the humour of this pales slightly in the face the feeling that pallette swaps always feel a tad lazy to me. Maybe a note that they're twins might help - or make their portraits slightly different while sharing the sleezy outfits and hairdos.
I think that with some game effects, it can be a little difficult to pick out important information quickly, there are a couple of places where visual fidelity could be improved. Elite enemies especially can be a little hard to notice if there's a lot going on, and it's important to know an enemy is elite quickly - especially in arcade mode. May be worth making the yellow circle more noticable, or giving them a slightly bigger sprite, or a pallette switch or something. Similarly, the markers signposting Winter's avalances can be tough to see, especially the horizontal ones if there's a vertical avalanche on the right.
GUI AND INTERFACE
There should be an option to re-bind keys without having to leave the game to the main menu.
I think it would be better if "magic weapons" (i.e. weapons that raise MATK and casting speed) were a seperate category to 1H and 2H weapons.
When switching equipment, you're shown the difference in stats, but not the actual stats of each item. I feel that's useful information.
I'd quite like a little pop-up box that informed me of my progress towards various trophies when I do something that progresses them - The trophy interface has a lot of entries, and it's not really feasible to memorise them all. (Example: There's a trophy for catching all the different fish in each area. I'd like to know that I've caught 3 of 5 different fish when I collect my third one - it's a prompt that lets me know there's a reward for fishing, whereas otherwise I might not know.)
Not really sure where to put this - The archery minigame could benefit from a clear indication when you've obtained the "top prize" - I spent quite some time trying to see if there was a better reward than the 10k points reward.
DIALOGUE
After defeating Vilya the first time, one of Teddy or Freddy yells "YOU BASTARDS!" - should probably be "YOU BASTARD" in single player, unless he's shouting at the bag too. (I didn't feel that he was shouting at the bag though, it looked like a grammar error?) - I would enjoy a "I'll get you and your little bag too!" at some point though.
Nanivia's chattering is incredible, and I really enjoy the sheer gumption that you threw into her tutorialising - but after a while I turned it off with /shutup just to see what would happen. I'm a little sad that she doesn't protest in the slightest when you do so. Also, there doesn't seem to be a command to turn it back on again? - Suggest /shutup should be a toggle (I'm quite happy for her jokes when wandering around or farming for cards, but less keen on it during boss fights in the seasons temple.)
BALANCE
In the first three hours of play, I spent nearly all of my money refunding talent picks that I almost immediately regretted on purchase. I feel that early gold cost of refunds is way too high - (although to be honest, I'm not sure why there's a cost at all!) - suggest lowering or removing the cost. I guess there is a potential abuse in re-skilling during serious fights - perhaps allowing free retraining with an NPC in town could avoid that problem. I found out about the /refund command, and that's useful in testing stuff out, but I think this is a fairly important thing to look at for new players.
While there seems to be some focus towards "archery" as a viable class build, there doesn't seem to be quite enough to make it a strong option. If there were an "archery" skillset like with 1H or 2H weapons, it might feel like you could specialise as an archer. However! when you die, you respawn with full health and energy, but your ammo count remains at what it was when you died, this means you can't really defeat story bosses unless you win on the first try. Suggest restocking arrows on respawn.
Giga Slime in a small area (i.e. in arcade mode) seems impossible to avoid during the spin attack - you can shield block it, but if you haven't got an iron shield or better, you're pretty screwed?
It would be nice to have some way to practice fighting Arcade mode bosses without having to work all the way to their floor - learning patterns of new bosses is a real chore when you have to grind six or eight floors to even reach the boss.
Playing as a single-hand melee character with a heavy focus on single hand skills, One of my very early talent purchases was a couple of ranks of the talent that reduces the cost of summons - in order to reduce the cost of the shadow clone skill. This doesn't actually have any effect. Suggest either 1) make the talent apply to shadow clone, or 2) change the wording of shadow clone from "summon a shadow clone" to "create a shadow clone"
I like the balance of difficulty overall, but in multiplayer, I'm playing with a friend who has very little experience with action RPGs, and they're finding it a little bit of a struggle. - Suggest an "easy mode" to sit opposite "hard mode" for players who mostly want to explore and follow the story. I'd also suggest being able to set the difficulty independently for each player (simply scaling their damage done and taken) - if that's viable.
I'm still messing with arcade mode - I know some people have been fairly extensively playing it, and their feedback is probably more useful, but right now it seems that a bunch of skills are pretty useless in arcade mode, and you're encouraged to stick with your favourite build every playthrough. To encourage variety in builds, it might be worth considering events or items that reward you with some skill points in specific skills (that can't be reassigned) - if I beat a chicken game and got a couple of ranks in the "summon plants" magic, I might be more tempted to swap up my build on that run.
Speaking of the chicken game - I find it pretty tough to win the chicken game in arcade mode, whereas I find all the block puzzles absolutely trivial to finish. More time for chickens, less for blocks?
FEATURES AND SUGGESTIONS
I love the huge variety of hats and face items in the game, but I'm a little sad that you're restricted to only one outfit in the whole game. More outfits would be the most desirable feature right now that isn't expanding the world and story.
One time, during an arcade run, I managed to accidentally sell my shield to the vendor. Not much of an issue in an arcade run, but it'd be annoying to accidentally sell a vital piece of equipment and end up stuck, especially if it's your weapon. Suggest a buyback feature!
The hall of memories re-fights is a really cool feature, but it seems to be missing a lot of the awesome bosses in the game. Personally I'd recommend including every fight which introduces the enemy with a big portrait (Vilya, Season Hydra, etc.) - they're a lot of fun. Of course I wouldn't be upset if they all had drops as well...
It would be nice to be able to filter the Crafting sub-menu by "have materials".
As a player early on, I really wanted to experiment with all the different skills to find the ones that suited me best, but the cost of refunding is prohibitive. It could be nice to have a kind of sandbox encounter in the arena where you can set your abilities and stats and items to any combination up to your level, and any items you've found so far in the game.
After dying and respawning, I always forget to re-cast my summons/buff spells. Maybe an auto re-cast feature that you can turn on in the menu? - probably not a good thing, I just need to remember to re-cast.
It seems that the different pets all come with the same spread of stats, but you have to feed them independently. I guess you might want different builds on different pets, since the cost goes up when they gain levels - but... I was kinda sad to feed up a pet only to find one I prefered the look of... three times in a row.
I'd like to have some quests or work to do for Wyl, Her parents tell me she's a prodigy, and I'd like to see what she's capable of. Either a quest chain that lets you craft something awesome and unique... but requires you to give her lots of items along the way... or some sort of "give her a bunch of items, get something random back" option might be cool.
I'd like a master list of all the items you've found so far in the game to go alongside the monster compendium (possibly with a "where to find:" entry for each item.)
The little ghost when you die in multiplayer is the greatest thing ever. The game says you can "cheer on" your team-members, I'd like the ghost emotes to have a (minor) mechanical effect if possible! Maybe "cheer" could give a damage boost to nearby players, and "sad" could slow down enemies... that kind of thing.
I think you should be able to change rooms as a person and a ghost, without having to resurrect the ghost first.
BUGS:
During the cutscene in the fight with Winter, all characters are reduced to 1hp. This an make leaving the temple a little dangerous, especially as there are some monsters on the way out. Not a major problem if it's intended - although it's a bit anticlimactic to save the day and then randomly die to a summer knight on the way out. HOWEVER, if you choose to skip the cutscene, you leave the room with however many hitpoints you were on when you beat Winter - the event flag that reduces your hitpoints is contained within the scene itself. Suggest healing all characters to full after the fight, or at least making it consistent.
During the Festival, the house at the south-east side of town is open, but not enterable. Needs a door.
I've managed to spawn out of bounds in the first room of arcade mode: http://www.socksandpuppets.com/misc/bugs/grindea/oob.gif
My pet feed-menu is bugged such that it doesn't display any of the items I can feed my pet with. It still works though. http://www.socksandpuppets.com/misc/bugs/grindea/boxer.jpg Don't know how to replicate it, but I have a save with the problem if you need the file.
In arcade mode, it's possible sometimes to spend enough money at the healing NPC to end up with negative cash. I know several people who've done this.
In the zelda-archery minigame, it seems very easy to get negative combos and negative points. I have no idea why this is happening!
If you are holding a direction when a dialogue box appears (such as quest complete) you keep running in that direction even if you let go of the controls.
Gift boxes probably shouldn't be able to contain gift boxes.
The chances of this are very low, but while the super-awesome animation of a card drop happens, it's possible to kill a monster of the same type, and get a second card drop of the same kind of card. This fortunately doesn't break the game in any way, but it's a little anticlimactic for the second animation to result in nothing.
---
Well, that's everything in my document! Keep on building up this awesome game.
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