I really love the game and the way it is developing, especially after SsethTzeentach showed me the true path. I started playing Naev before this, and it is similar in many ways, but this game is the next level. After playing up to the "end", I have assembled a list of my feedback, plus this is the perspective of a fresh player. I apologise in advance as I did not find a Road Map of the game, and it is likely that some of these things shall be addressed in future updates.
Story:
1. The main plot is fantastically written and very immersive. My only issue with it is that I can't fatally fail the quest, like getting one of the important characters dead or messing so bad with the factions that the quest giver just excludes me off the project. Failling does 2 things: it stops the player from getting that awesome reward at the end, and second, it puts a big target on your back for bounty hunters to chase through space. This would bring in the risk factor and actually make the game difficult based on rekless or ill-intended decisions made by the player. Plus, getting hunted by strong NPCs could bring the player some nice captures and still make the player feel rewarded in a way.
2. I did not like the fact that you had to raise the reputation to 50% to even start the quest. To be honest, I didn't even knew that this quest existed since I only did those generic quests until 40%. The way I discovered that there was a quest in the game was when I was searching the internet to see what is up with the inactive gates. This quest could be introduced better and have a nicer starting structure of specific of micro-quests.
Keybinds:
1. I have a hard time adjusting to the keaybinds in the UI, especially when it comes to Exploration. There is no way to change the G, Q and V keys from the buttons in the UI. I would really like to change them to something more manageable in order to simplify things.
2. Changing the Right and Left mouse click behavior during flight. Personally I would like a persistent toggle for panning during flight (currently right click), in the settings.
Map:
1. Whenever I toggle the "Starscape" toggle, the grid scale changes. I do not know if it serves a purpose, but the grid mesh beign so tight on the blue background makes everything more difficult to read for me on the map. Either keep the same scale for both views of the map, or at the very least reduce the opacity by 25-35%.
2. The same as above, when I toggle on Starscape I can not see the stream tunnels. Would be nice to have them vissible there as well.
3. The map should have a search function to find Nebulas and Star Systems easier.
4. Whenever I go on the map view, it shows the last location I was viewing instead of zooming on my current fleet location.
5. The Intel Map does not allow me to click and see inside the Star System, and I have to switch back to the normal map to redifine where I want to go specifically inside that star system.
Combat Map:
1. When I am in tactical view and I do not have my captain on the field, I can't seem to navigate into combat easily and pressing tab just throws me at the spawn location.
2. There is no option to permanently toggle the captain auto pilot. Personally I play the game more of an RTS/Management game. The Ai surely plays better than me in combat from what I have seen and most of the time I forget to activate that Autopilot and my captain just drifts off and gets killed.
3. The grid on the tactical view could also benefit from an opacity reduction.
Abilities:
1. "Best of the Best" is really a mean ability. No where does it say that it will take you SP away when you disable it to change it for another one. Either give the SP back or leave the invested SP where they are in the ships. The purpose of this ability is to only enable the player to invest more points, not to also take those points away.
2. "Phase coil tuning" I think should be buffed a bit to a maximum of 45 to give the Phase ships more of an advanatage, especially the Ziggurat.
3. "Hull restoration" in my opinion is too strong. I should only recover a maximum of 2 high value ships per combat. This way it would keep combat still risky for the player instead of offering him a comfortable safety coushin.
Bounty mechanics: I find it really odd that I am the only one doing the hunting in the game. Take the game called Stalker for example: the characters there have a global score that counts their personal kills. Something simillar could be done here. Fleets of bounty hunters could beat you to a target if you stall too long from getting there. This would create competition and those hunters would gain your loot and become a stronger candidate. This could be all followed in a bounty personal reputation screen to see what rank the player stabilizes at. Hunters could also fight one another for the bounty and make some interesting scenarios. I believe Bounty hunters could just belong to the Independent faction for good measure.
Black market: this market, in my opinion should be the default market in pirate bases and absent in all other factions. This way the pirate faction become relevant to keep in good spirits. If the player goes under -30 reputation (as an example), then they are forfited the access to the black market.
Exploration: I will indulge the fact that the game is still in full development, but the exploration part is very dull. Hardly anything interesting ever happens and I had to push through like a valiant lion to explore everything. There should be more unique events and I am sure there will be, but as it is right now, exploration is a drag. Even the missions that should convince me to explore are very underpaid and poorly rewarded. I rather chase bounties to get that fat loot rather than spam the G key to endure the planet identifications and the occasional ruin. One recommendation here would be to add some logs that put together a picture of what sparked the downfall of the space civilization. As I said, the writing is fantastic in this game and I wish to see more of it! The red planet was a nice experiment as well, but very shy of its full potential.
Sound effects: The Sustained Burn sound effect is really off in my opinion. To be honest it sounds like someone is flushing a toilet in a train. Once you realize this it can't be unheard! If you could have mercy, perhaps change it to something more space-like sound <3
I am aware that there are mods that could fix some of these things, but I believe the vanilla should also strive for these tinny details.
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Topic: Tweaks and improvements to make the game better (Read 879 times)