Demo discussion and thoughts

[p]Hey all. First of all, a huge thanks to everyone who has tried out Primarch and reported bugs. There was a lot of unique interactions causing crashes which are now largely fixed. I also pushed an update for the memory leak issue. [/p][p]The idea behind releasing the demo in alpha state was obviously to get feedback as early as possible, so I appreciate everyone's feedback around the gameplay also. The tutorial fell just short of the deadline for Next Fest, but I don't think that is the silver bullet, it would help a bit, but the game is just a little overcooked right now in general.[/p][p]I wanted to get some opinions on some issues I think the game has currently. [/p][p][/p][p]Issue #1: Combat has a lot going on at the same time. It's not necessarily too fast, just bloated visually. [/p][p]The first solution that comes to mind is replacing all but 1 skill on non-elite enemies with a new basic skill not available to the hero. So a regular enemy would go from \[Lightning Ball, Capacitor, Flash Step, Magnet Axe] > to > \[Basic Dash, Lightning Ball, Basic Slash, Basic Dash][/p][p]The basic skills would just do X damage from X range, maybe also a dash or heal. This is very easy to implement and would help address the visual bloat, and make each enemy more unique, since they would be the only enemy with that 1 skill (outside Elites). This also makes their behaviour easier to memorize/predict and makes enemies which summon allies easier to balance.[/p][p][/p][p]Issue #2: Skill effects are a lot to read and process.[/p][p]The obvious solution is to simplify the primary effect of skills to one simple action / short sentence. Many have two sentences (in addition to their secondary effect), with additional keywords, resulting in half the screen being taken up with text if helper tooltips aren't hidden.[/p][p][/p][p]Issue #3: With so many options, there is little indication what skills you want, or how many. [/p][p]The idea with the current mechanic is you are allowed to have 1 skill, or 30, but skills give a +5 bonus to a stat while you have them, so a balance is typically the better strategy (outside gimmicks). That mechanic is supposed to guide the 'how many' question, but it is perhaps too loose on guidance.[/p][p]I think the answer to the 'which skills' question should come from your hero ability (mastery), trinkets, and talents. The current Warrior mastery is a bit bland and only really encourages dealing damage. If for example, I made it so the Warrior dealt more damage to close enemies, that gives an obvious build direction of low range and gap closers or pulls.[/p][p][/p][p]Once again a tutorial would contribute a little to helping this, but I think there's more that can be done. I'm of course open to other suggestions (the point of the post).[/p][p]Thanks once again and I look forward to further feedback. I'm available on the Official Discord also.[/p][p]Dale.[/p]