For me the game is painfully slow, from combat to XP gain.
Here are things that I think will make the game better:
- add your character as an arrow on the map, the whole "you can't see yourself on the map, you gotta learn your surroundings, the blue planet is always North" crap is complete BS, it doesn't make the game more immersive or more interesting, just more frustrating.
- increase combat speed by at least 50%. Currently the game reminds me of Star Wars Galaxies before the CU and NGE updates, but somehow SWG combat feels faster, more fun and more enjoyable.
- limiting what weapons you can use based on your class is absolute POS. What prevents me from picking a 2H Sword if I'm a Defender? It would be more realistic to allow every class to use every weapon, except the ones not meant for them are used with reduced efficiency - hit chance, damage, etc.
- add a minimap to the game, as I said, the idea of making things difficult for no reason are not making the game more immersive. Even my most favorite RPG - The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind does this better - you can see yourself on the map, you can see yourself on the minimap, NPCs give you directions where to go and it feels much better.
- make the game feel more like Vanilla WoW - like less punishing, not easier, just less punishing, like explaining mechanics better than some tooltip containing some boring wall of text, for example things like when you attack one mob and another of its kind that's close comes to fight you too or when you attack one bandit and all of a sudden 10+ bandits spawn from another dimension and gang up on you.
The sounds in the game feel so wrong - there is some weird echo, character jump sounds are too loud and come from the camera perspective rather than character perspective, the old jump sounds are even worse and more cringe. The balance of different sounds, like nature ambiance, combat, weapons hitting, animals attacking, moving on different terrain types are so unbalanced. Some are so loud, others are too quiet and there aren't enough sound sliders to fix it.
The camera movement feels wrong - if I move the camera to be above my character, it feels like the camera zooms in on my character too much, if I move the camera behind my character, it feels like it zooms out too much. I've never seen another game do that, it's so weird and annoying.
Everything in the game feels so inconsistent. You don't know the distance at which you get aggro - I walk up to some mobs that should be aggressive, they ignore me, then all of a sudden they remember they should be aggressive and attack me, other times they attack me instantly, you don't know for how long mobs chase you before they give up - sometimes they give up outright, sometimes they chase me throughout the whole map.
UI scaling is bad - some icons that are too big are downscaled, but there is no antialiasing so they look like some overpixelated then underpixelated mess of pixels that is impossible to tell what it is.
I feel like this game doesn't know what it wants to do. It tries to be old school, but it doesn't feel fun, I'd rather play Star Wars Galaxies or EverQuest 1 instead than this, they feel more fun.
And finally the game's very unoptimized and runs very poorly. If nothing is being done about it, people won't bother with the game at all. The game is making my computer so hot and loud and it can run games from 2023 with above 60 FPS. At this point the game is making my computer serve as an electric heater that's currently making my room hotter. Even Project Gorgon feels better optimized and that game has a horrible optimization.
If nothing is being done about the game, I guarantee it will die in less than a year.
I want to play and enjoy this game, but it feels like a complete waste of my time - it's slow, punishing, poorly optimized, even if I was some disabled, immobile retired old timer with lots of disposable outcome, I would still not play this game, I would choose something else over it instead.
Good games can be fun while also being difficult and challenging - if they are really good - it motivates you to learn and become better, but with Embers Adrift, the difficulty is not making the game any more fun, it's just frustrating, annoying and it's making me want to uninstall the game. I initially started playing Embers Adrift, because I saw it was difficult and slow, and thought if I dedicated enough time, effort and patience, as my character gets stronger, things will become faster and easier, it will give me a sense of satisfaction, but the game doesn't seem to be making things feel better of faster or a little easier at all. In comparison, my all-time favorite MMORPG - Vanilla WoW starts you with one ability and no gear, at around level 5, you already have learned a few more abilities, have better gear and things feel a bit faster and easier, and it just feels good, it fills you with a sense of excitement - you want to play more and progress more and see how your character gets stronger, but with Embers Adrift this is missing - the game feels so mundane and boring and neutered, even the world looks so boring and dull - it doesn't inspire you to want to explore it and see what it has to offer - it looks like a generic forest randomly generated with a tool rather than made by a person.
- XP SPEED - The XP speed is slow, but it feels even slower with how slow combat is.
- ENJOYMENT - I'm struggling to keep playing the game and not uninstall it at this point.
- END GAME - I don't think I will ever get there.
Here are things that I think will make the game better:
- add your character as an arrow on the map, the whole "you can't see yourself on the map, you gotta learn your surroundings, the blue planet is always North" crap is complete BS, it doesn't make the game more immersive or more interesting, just more frustrating.
- increase combat speed by at least 50%. Currently the game reminds me of Star Wars Galaxies before the CU and NGE updates, but somehow SWG combat feels faster, more fun and more enjoyable.
- limiting what weapons you can use based on your class is absolute POS. What prevents me from picking a 2H Sword if I'm a Defender? It would be more realistic to allow every class to use every weapon, except the ones not meant for them are used with reduced efficiency - hit chance, damage, etc.
- add a minimap to the game, as I said, the idea of making things difficult for no reason are not making the game more immersive. Even my most favorite RPG - The Elder Scrolls 3 Morrowind does this better - you can see yourself on the map, you can see yourself on the minimap, NPCs give you directions where to go and it feels much better.
- make the game feel more like Vanilla WoW - like less punishing, not easier, just less punishing, like explaining mechanics better than some tooltip containing some boring wall of text, for example things like when you attack one mob and another of its kind that's close comes to fight you too or when you attack one bandit and all of a sudden 10+ bandits spawn from another dimension and gang up on you.
The sounds in the game feel so wrong - there is some weird echo, character jump sounds are too loud and come from the camera perspective rather than character perspective, the old jump sounds are even worse and more cringe. The balance of different sounds, like nature ambiance, combat, weapons hitting, animals attacking, moving on different terrain types are so unbalanced. Some are so loud, others are too quiet and there aren't enough sound sliders to fix it.
The camera movement feels wrong - if I move the camera to be above my character, it feels like the camera zooms in on my character too much, if I move the camera behind my character, it feels like it zooms out too much. I've never seen another game do that, it's so weird and annoying.
Everything in the game feels so inconsistent. You don't know the distance at which you get aggro - I walk up to some mobs that should be aggressive, they ignore me, then all of a sudden they remember they should be aggressive and attack me, other times they attack me instantly, you don't know for how long mobs chase you before they give up - sometimes they give up outright, sometimes they chase me throughout the whole map.
UI scaling is bad - some icons that are too big are downscaled, but there is no antialiasing so they look like some overpixelated then underpixelated mess of pixels that is impossible to tell what it is.
I feel like this game doesn't know what it wants to do. It tries to be old school, but it doesn't feel fun, I'd rather play Star Wars Galaxies or EverQuest 1 instead than this, they feel more fun.
And finally the game's very unoptimized and runs very poorly. If nothing is being done about it, people won't bother with the game at all. The game is making my computer so hot and loud and it can run games from 2023 with above 60 FPS. At this point the game is making my computer serve as an electric heater that's currently making my room hotter. Even Project Gorgon feels better optimized and that game has a horrible optimization.
If nothing is being done about the game, I guarantee it will die in less than a year.
I want to play and enjoy this game, but it feels like a complete waste of my time - it's slow, punishing, poorly optimized, even if I was some disabled, immobile retired old timer with lots of disposable outcome, I would still not play this game, I would choose something else over it instead.
Good games can be fun while also being difficult and challenging - if they are really good - it motivates you to learn and become better, but with Embers Adrift, the difficulty is not making the game any more fun, it's just frustrating, annoying and it's making me want to uninstall the game. I initially started playing Embers Adrift, because I saw it was difficult and slow, and thought if I dedicated enough time, effort and patience, as my character gets stronger, things will become faster and easier, it will give me a sense of satisfaction, but the game doesn't seem to be making things feel better of faster or a little easier at all. In comparison, my all-time favorite MMORPG - Vanilla WoW starts you with one ability and no gear, at around level 5, you already have learned a few more abilities, have better gear and things feel a bit faster and easier, and it just feels good, it fills you with a sense of excitement - you want to play more and progress more and see how your character gets stronger, but with Embers Adrift this is missing - the game feels so mundane and boring and neutered, even the world looks so boring and dull - it doesn't inspire you to want to explore it and see what it has to offer - it looks like a generic forest randomly generated with a tool rather than made by a person.
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