OK I’ve played the OpenDev for about 6 hours now.  I’ll start with the good stuff.

On my system, it runs perfectly smooth without any hitches. I hope we get ultrawide support because it would look even better on my system.  I even increased to the max resolution supported and maxed out the details.  

The art style is pretty.  I was able to use the video settings to increase the brightness to help with the dark issue successfully.  

I was able to play with the controlled and the keyboard, I think you don’t need to insist you need a controller for this game.  I think the keyboard and mouse is better to play with at the moment, especially if you keep tweaking it.

OK now it is going to be a bit harsh.

Action vs Tactical

I really don’t like the guns, or enjoy the gun combat at all.  They either feel slow or clunky, or inaccurate depending on the weapon.  And since this is half twin stick action and that’s bad news.  I find myself standing in front of those containers in the room and the hero misses several times when I got to shoot them.  I don’t know if it’s the angled view causing it or something else for me.

I wish I liked using the heroes.  I’m finding I’m making my selection on which hero I don’t want to bring with me this time instead of who I want to play with.  Again, since this is half action, it is really disappointing so far.

I don’t trust the turrets in game to do their job.  It seems like they are good for a few turns, then they all just suddenly become completely unreliable for defense on you.  I can’t watch what is going on closely enough to know why yet.

I feel like all this is fixable but I’m really having a hard time even wanting to run the dungeon because I’m not enjoying either half of the coin.

Upgrades

There a couple of cool hero upgrades hidden away, but I doubt I’ve seen most of them.  Once I discovered a .5 HP/s healing which I was excited about.  There’s too many that seem useless or you can’t tell why you might want them yet.  If there were upgrades that appeared to be useful, I would be more interested in them.  The vendors have a UI issue make them annoying, especially when the AI following you keeps pushing you out of the view distance.  I’m sure that will get fixed.

I don’t like the crystal bot sharing crystal dust as a resource with powering rooms.  I wouldn’t mind just getting 4 upgrades you could pick in a run, and dust just powered rooms.  So far I’m ok with the bot upgrades I’ve seen.

The turrets appear to be upgradable if they kill a certain about of things without dying and you click on them… that’s interesting but if feel inconsistent with the rest of the tight resource management stuff going on.  Upgrades doesn’t use resources that I can tell, but of course you have to run back to click on them.  I might like to see resource generators upgrade in a similar way if you could keep them running long enough.

Add me to the list of folks who would be happy to see the elemental damage go away.

Waves 

I’m largely undecided because I don’t think I’ve deciphered all the parts of the mechanics yet, and I don’t like the guns or turrets when I face them.  I will say that I think they happen too frequently for people seeing the game for the first time and are trying to read the descriptions on upgrades and research options.  

A heads up of some of the mechanics you changed from the old game would have been nice – like how you have timed waves instead of door opening waves.  Or perhaps how you still have dust, but you can’t turn rooms off and on at will now.  There is stuff you are going to do wrong and waste game time until you realize its confusion from playing the old title.

The most confusing part to me

As far as progress, I made it to the 2nd area (after the elevator) and moved the bot in that area once.  But then things went downhill very quickly.  One of two things started happening:  I either got run over after only 4 or 5 doors (before any upgrades) or I would play and progress to being close to the elevator and I would simply use the give up option even though I was doing ok.  After a short time, I feel some obligation to continue test while the period is active and I return. I keep trying to play and like this but I feel like I’m being repelled. My family even got a little concerned and I had to step away from it for a bit.  Because of this I don’t think the “You’ll like it more as you learn how to play” statement will help here until I like the gameplay more.

Conclusion

As a fan of Dungeon of the Endless, I really want to tell you I like playing the game. I’m just not having any fun when I do. I think its close, but it needs some big tweaks.

So after a 24 hour break I had an idea and started changing my settings and discovered one thing that seems to help with the issue I have with the shooting feel.  I had to lower the resolution. I run a multiple monitor setup, but my primary monitor is a 34" ultrawide.  So of course when I start I adjust the resolution and detail can crank that all to 11.  

It appears that decent amount of my issues annoyance shooting the guns is not as bad when I turn the resolution back to a value closer the default.  Hopefully this helps anyone else who was noticing a similar issue.

Changing the resolution appears to have fixed my biggest issue with the turrets I was having too (which was the turrets suddenly seemed to stop doing their job correctly).  I've beaten both halves, and only had the major issues I mention after I turned the resolution up.  I need more time to replicate this problem but we'll see if time permits.  I will amend some of my notes:

I think this game is better when you use the keyboard and mouse, probably because of issues with many of the UI elements.

I'm now only neutral on the heroes, but I still am slightly negative about the skills and the use.  When the shots actually land as you would expect it makes a huge difference obviously.  Zed feels underpowered compared to the others.  I know its been said, but you need to be able to look at the details of what they currently have (plus upgrades) and what they can currently do in the UI.

Shopkeeper UI needs to be revised.

Why can't you tell the other hero to follow/protect the crystal bot?

Timed Waves vs Doors.

If you keep the feature that resources are granted when you open doors, people will always go back to comparing this to DotE.  That's a signature DotE thing that you can't escape if you keep that signature feature.  I would investigate and test alternate ways to grant resources like having a generator grant .1/sec and trigger a big event if you don't open a door in x seconds. Otherwise I am Ok with timed waves.

So now that I don't feel like the game is using cheat codes against me.  I'm a lot more neutral on the game experience.  

Really? I think Zed is the best hero because best DPS, and biggest Q.

GeekLegion wrote:

Best DPS certainly wasn't my experience at all, not even good DPS.  Zed could not even protect herself from the bugs in my game very well, let alone a generator or crystal bot.  Its possible Zed wasn't working as expected on my system?

Zed's the best you have to know how to play her. Here's what you do: you get Fission MG or the Sniper, and you get the perk that doubles your damage and makes you take double damage back. Who cares about the last part of the perk because you'll kill them all before they touch you. Then you go to a chokepoint, press R to activate your ult (makes you shoot faster) and you hold down left click(game has autoaim) and then you kill everything. Fission MG is seriously, seriously good. Zed's only bad until you upgrade to the Fission or the sniper then she's ridiculous and can solo 10 waves by herself.

I disagree.  Any one of the characters in game that get one of the better upgraded weapons and a good perk will play well.  "Get a good weapon upgrade and perk" isn't some secret I'm unaware of.  I hate starting any game with Zed, not the potential of the fully upgraded Zed.

Zed is so weak at the beginning you need to just leave her in the back until upgrades are available.  She moves slow, and turret interactions take forever.  So after she's upgraded, I want the faster upgraded hero to run ahead and explore and run to protect something that should have been safe, so she just becomes a mobile tower that I want to place and ignore until its time to move..

Zed does not need any upgrades to be good. Her starting weapon is fine vs bugs and a little weak vs robots. Your characters gain levels separate from each other and if you keep all of your characters the same level then Zed will have the best DPS. If you find your Zed weak you're probably under using her so she doesn't level up.

steeb wrote:

GeekLegion wrote:

Best DPS certainly wasn't my experience at all, not even good DPS.  Zed could not even protect herself from the bugs in my game very well, let alone a generator or crystal bot.  Its possible Zed wasn't working as expected on my system?

Zed's the best you have to know how to play her. Here's what you do: you get Fission MG or the Sniper, and you get the perk that doubles your damage and makes you take double damage back. Who cares about the last part of the perk because you'll kill them all before they touch you. Then you go to a chokepoint, press R to activate your ult (makes you shoot faster) and you hold down left click(game has autoaim) and then you kill everything. Fission MG is seriously, seriously good. Zed's only bad until you upgrade to the Fission or the sniper then she's ridiculous and can solo 10 waves by herself.

I think Blaze is in a similar position with that weapon + device.
Bunker is not in a bad position with a close-range weapon and the device that give +0.5hp/sec

Eulogos wrote:
Your characters gain levels separate from each other and if you keep all of your characters the same level then Zed will have the best DPS.

I think this almost needs its own discussion.  I haven't seen anyone new mention characters gaining experience, the rate of experience, how much power gain per level in any of the Open Dev discussions so far.  How many folks completely missed that the feature was even in play?  Its a bit disappointing to learn this only now.  I was a little upset when realized how long it took me to discover that turrets could level up.  

Now combine that with the lack of available info about your character mid level.  What level am I now? How many levels can I even earn?  How many should be available?  Is hero x lagging because I need to switch to level up with more exp?  What bonuses am I getting?  You need to be able see what changes are happening.

I only barely noticed that there are levels myself. If you've played ES2 you may remember the level up jingle. ED uses that same jingle when you level up, and you can see in the upper left corner your hero's old level, and the then it rising to their new level. That's the only way to know at the moment.

They plan on adding an inventory/stat screen in the future, so these kinds of things will be more clear. I also expect they will rework how leveling/exp works to more involve food, since right now food is nearly worthless.