Morrigan

Spear of the Metal Church
Member
Oct 24, 2017
34,582
Started this today, got it for Christmas. It's decently fun enough, but there are some really nasty problems with this game, and I don't mean the ridiculously overdesigned armours or the rubbish dialogue and throwaway story or its utter lack of charm or personaliy. Namely:

- the frame drops after playing for a while (an hour or two maybe?), despite playing in Performance Mode. I experienced this a few times and I had to close and restart the game every time. The first time, I started experiencing random microstutters, pretty frequent and very annoying. The second time, it was even worse; I had random, intermittent, 1-sec freezes during gameplay. Completely game-breaking. It would even happen in menus! Please tell me this is going to be patched? It's been a few weeks since launch, but I'd hope this would have been a priority...

- the lock-on system. Oh my god how awful is this thing?? Changing target is so clunky when it should be a very straightforward, easy thing to do. And even releasing lock-on can be clunky, sometimes it just doesn't "take" for some reason? For example, against Zamora, I'd lock on to her, and then she'd summon adds and disappear... but it'd keep the lock-on on her, and it would struggle to release it too even when I pressed the button, which made killing those mobs super annoying.

- again with locking-on: why oh WHY does the shield throw ignore the lock-on?? I lost count of the times I locked on an enemy, threw my shield, and the shield flew past it to hit an enemy in the far back (way out of reach for an R3 takedown, because of course). Why the HELL is the ranged attack ignoring my lock-on target? 🤦‍♀️

I'll never, ever say anything bad about Souls lock-on ever again...

Also... I haven't tried coop yet but I hear there's no matchmaking? I honestly couldn't believe it. I can't stop laughing at the idea of an online coop game without matchmaking. Good gods...

Anyway, don't want to be too negative, I did have some fun with it, but I can totally understand why this game reviewed poorly, because... yikes?
 

Corthier

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,071
New England, USA
Got it for xmas, been slowly playing through it. Enjoying it a fair bit though! Think my only hang up so far is I wish I had more warning about an enemy doing an offscreen attack. Though that could also be my own positioning at times as well. Still weird it has no coop matchmaking.
 

Lagamorph

Wrong About Chicken
Member
Oct 26, 2017
7,355
Playing through this at the moment I think I would summarise it as "Ok"
The game looks very pretty on PS5, but the gameplay seems to very quickly get repetitive with the only real driving force being "better loot with better numbers", with the plot seeming to be vaguely there in the background.

Can't say I'm a fan of the game being hugely padded by you having to grind for sigils to unlock the next boss.
 

Lemony1984

Member
Jul 7, 2020
6,839
Started playing this again today. I can't believe the frame drops haven't been patched. Any news on that?
 

Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
45,297
Got about 46 hours in the game now.

Is the game flawed? Yeah, and it's got performance and bug issues too...

But fuck if it's not becoming my comfort game. Going up the Ascended Tower, keep getting a bit further each time, getting both better in terms of equipment and skill level. It's combat is incredible imho.
 

Kalentan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
45,297
Damn. I got my Might to 3999.

I just need a better Sacred Flame Augment and I can easily get that over 4k...

There's also that one augment that gives Crit Dmg based on adjacent might which my friend got but I have yet to get.
 

TheZynster

Member
Oct 26, 2017
13,314
I personally play in Performance mode. It's generally good but sometimes there is dips when you enter a mission or when a lot is happening. It's something I hope they improve.


I've noticed every once in awhile it likes to stutter it seems.

The fucking weapon design in this game is astounding. Also some of the bosses are so damn cool. Just did Zomora and the skills she does are some of the coolest on a boss I've ever seen. Plus that scene introducing here coming out with the staff was haunting. Didn't realize how big she would be lol

It's not an amazing game, but with two buddies we are having a blast and the constant loot drops are fantastic. Maybe they will add another weapon or two in the expansions.....I hope they do. It's a fun game, would love a Scythe or Staff....although Pike kind of fits that Staff role.

The team seems pretty creative in their designs so I would have faith. I'm glad I picked this up, been holding off a long time due to the reviews but after the whole cyberpunk fiasco I decided to watch some recent impressions from others who skipped as well.
 

Stacey

Banned
Feb 8, 2020
4,610
AMD weren't wrong when claiming you needed 12gb of vram for 4k/epic settings, they forgot to include ray tracing into the mix, maxing out my 16gb card :/
 

BizzyBum

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,227
New York
Just got this on sale and played for a few hours and It's actually... pretty bad ass?

Looks nice, plays smooth in performance mode, and combat seems good so far and feels like a very arcade-y Souls game.

I'm assuming this Primal update improved the game a lot? I didn't play this at launch so no idea if it was in a much worse state back in November.
 

Witness

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
9,955
New York
Just got this on sale and played for a few hours and It's actually... pretty bad ass?

Looks nice, plays smooth in performance mode, and combat seems good so far and feels like a very arcade-y Souls game.

I'm assuming this Primal update improved the game a lot? I didn't play this at launch so no idea if it was in a much worse state back in November.

I was thinking about grabbing this since it's on sale on PSN so thank you for the updated impressions.
 

BizzyBum

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,227
New York
I was thinking about grabbing this since it's on sale on PSN so thank you for the updated impressions.

No problem, but just know these quick impressions are only from a couple hours of play. No idea how well it holds up once you complete the story and start grinding end game or exactly what they expect the player to do once they reach it.
 

BizzyBum

Member
Oct 26, 2017
9,227
New York
Beat the game and have put way more time into it since my initial impression.

The game definitely starts to show its flaws the more you play. Just some quick pros and cons for people still considering the sale:

+ Looks the part.
+ Overdesigned armor looking good or not is subjective. I think they look cool for the most part. Each have their own stats and specializations and don't require a ton of grinding to collect.
+ Plays smooth on performance mode. Some drops here and there but the majority of the time it feels great.
+ Combat is fast with a few different weapon styles that feel weighty with good DualSense implementation.
+ It is not overly difficult and enemies scale to your level so it's a good game to mindlessly grind while listening to a podcast or something if that's your thing.

- Storyline is uninteresting which is a shame. Zero depth to the characters, vanilla story, no twists. It has lore but it's designated to looting lore cards throughout the worlds and reading them in a codex. Definitely don't go in expecting a good story. Unsure if the expansion content will fix this a bit.
- Only 3 worlds currently and while they look great are all structured the same way. They end up being too narrow and focused lacking any sort of exploration for the most part. Would have been great if the worlds were more open and structured more like a metroidvania.
- Combat is fun but would have liked to see some more weapon/shield variance
- Loot could be better with more options for player customization based on it. Right now they just increase your stats.
- Endgame is pretty dreadful in its current state, hopefully the expansion content adds much more for veteran players.
- No matchmaking of course however this is going to be added in the future which was confirmed by the devs.

Overall I think it's a pretty solid 6.5/7 out of 10. I am interested to see how much this paid expansion content is going to improve/change the game coming up.
 

TiduzOmni

Member
Oct 25, 2017
466
damn, no matchmaking? only needed 3 more trophies for the platinum and you guessed it, cant do ascended tower floor 10+20 solo getting owned, bummer.
 

AstralSphere

Member
Feb 10, 2021
9,534
So I just tried the Challenger Edition they gave away in Plus, and I feel like it just confirmed my concerns that throwing brand new players straight into the endgame is a mistake.

I've never touched the game before, but I went through the tutorial and enjoyed it. Combat system felt simple, but could see how there is room to expand as you progress through the game and level up. I liked it enough that I wanted to play more.

So then I beat the tutorial and was immediately thrust into the endgame and boosted to level 50. All of a sudden I had fucking shit loads of upgrade points that I didn't know what the fuck to do with because I don't know any of the systems or how useful certain effects are... because I've not experienced the fucking game before. So I just stare at it and try to make sense of it all at once, and then put points into things like seem like fun to me and appeared useful.

I then went off to do actual content. I started with the first thing it shows you: the Tower of Trials. All of a sudden I'm getting thrown tons of enemies I've never seen before and obviously have no idea how to fight using this fairly skill-based combat system... because I've not experience the fucking game before. I muddle through feeling like I don't know what the fuck I'm doing and end up getting three floors in, until I eventually run out of continues and get booted out.

Is there some mode I'm supposed to be doing first as a new player that should ease me into the game a bit more? Or is this just the experience new players should expect? I understand the story campaign is trash and that this is the best form of the game, but I don't really believe that it's within a game's best interest to just eliminate all the content that is there for players to learn and get used to a game's systems, especially one with as many systems as this.
 

Morrigan

Spear of the Metal Church
Member
Oct 24, 2017
34,582
Is there some mode I'm supposed to be doing first as a new player that should ease me into the game a bit more? Or is this just the experience new players should expect? I understand the story campaign is trash and that this is the best form of the game, but I don't really believe that it's within a game's best interest to just eliminate all the content that is there for players to learn and get used to a game's systems, especially one with as many systems as this.
I haven't tried this particular mode, but as someone who played the campaign, I think your criticism are on point and what you played sounds like a clusterfuck honestly. I did some "tower trials" back then but that was after being familiarized with the combat and mechanics, being thrown into something like that right off the bat sounds really boring and un-fun.

No idea what they were thinking with giving away this mode that no one wants...
 

Love Machine

Member
Oct 29, 2017
4,288
Tokyo, Japan
So I just tried the Challenger Edition they gave away in Plus, and I feel like it just confirmed my concerns that throwing brand new players straight into the endgame is a mistake.

I've never touched the game before, but I went through the tutorial and enjoyed it. Combat system felt simple, but could see how there is room to expand as you progress through the game and level up. I liked it enough that I wanted to play more.

So then I beat the tutorial and was immediately thrust into the endgame and boosted to level 50. All of a sudden I had fucking shit loads of upgrade points that I didn't know what the fuck to do with because I don't know any of the systems or how useful certain effects are... because I've not experienced the fucking game before. So I just stare at it and try to make sense of it all at once, and then put points into things like seem like fun to me and appeared useful.

I then went off to do actual content. I started with the first thing it shows you: the Tower of Trials. All of a sudden I'm getting thrown tons of enemies I've never seen before and obviously have no idea how to fight using this fairly skill-based combat system... because I've not experience the fucking game before. I muddle through feeling like I don't know what the fuck I'm doing and end up getting three floors in, until I eventually run out of continues and get booted out.

Is there some mode I'm supposed to be doing first as a new player that should ease me into the game a bit more? Or is this just the experience new players should expect? I understand the story campaign is trash and that this is the best form of the game, but I don't really believe that it's within a game's best interest to just eliminate all the content that is there for players to learn and get used to a game's systems, especially one with as many systems as this.
Wow, this sounds...painfully obvious that it was a bad idea. You're basically describing word-for-word what most people feared as soon as Challenger Edition was announced for PS+.

I'll give it a go, as I have a co-op buddy for this kind of thing, but it seems like they're going to lose a ton of retention and put a lot of people off buying the actual game, even on the cheap.
 

AstralSphere

Member
Feb 10, 2021
9,534
Yeah, I'm not sure this works.

I played through and finished a Dreamstone which I thought was pretty fun. The rounds are too short (like, almost as if it was originally meant to be a mobile game kind of short), but overall it was closer to what I wanted out of the gameplay loop. Enter level, go through level to get to the boss, beat the boss and end the round. You complete multiple rounds to build up resources to take on a final bigger boss to complete the Dreamstone. I can see it getting super repetitive, but it was decent I thought.

But there's one problem. A big one.

From what I can tell you can only start Dreamstones for levels 30 to 40, which also determines the level of the loot that drops there. Upon starting the Challenger Edition you get boosted to level 50 as soon as you beat the tutorial and also get given a full quota of level 50 loot to fill every open equipment slot.

Now unless you can somehow unlock the ability to access level 50 Dreamstones later on, this means that playing Dreamstones in this endgame-only version (which revolves solely around loot grinding) is entirely pointless as literally everything you will ever pick up will be trash you won't use.

I hope I'm wrong, because Tower of Trials seems super basic and simultaneously too chaotic for new players, and from what I played of Lightbringer it was a mode I didn't enjoy even a little bit.

Edit: I've just tried another Trial and I've noticed that all the gear I'm getting are levels 48 and 49. So I presume it's the Ascended Trials that give you level 50 stuff, which I presume are like Destiny's Nightfall Strikes? They seriously can't be expecting new players to go straight into content like that, right?

It really seems like this Challenger Edition is mostly for existing Godfall vets, which begs the question as to why it exists as a standalone. Is there anything meaningful to do at all as an inexperienced player aside from throw yourself into the depths and hope you eventually learn to swim through adversity?

Edit 2: Deleted. I'll just redownload Outriders.
 
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Love Machine

Member
Oct 29, 2017
4,288
Tokyo, Japan
Yeah, I'm not sure this works.

I played through and finished a Dreamstone which I thought was pretty fun. The rounds are too short (like, almost as if it was originally meant to be a mobile game kind of short), but overall it was closer to what I wanted out of the gameplay loop. Enter level, go through level to get to the boss, beat the boss and end the round. You complete multiple rounds to build up resources to take on a final bigger boss to complete the Dreamstone. I can see it getting super repetitive, but it was decent I thought.

But there's one problem. A big one.

From what I can tell you can only start Dreamstones for levels 30 to 40, which also determines the level of the loot that drops there. Upon starting the Challenger Edition you get boosted to level 50 as soon as you beat the tutorial and also get given a full quota of level 50 loot to fill every open equipment slot.

Now unless you can somehow unlock the ability to access level 50 Dreamstones later on, this means that playing Dreamstones in this endgame-only version (which revolves solely around loot grinding) is entirely pointless as literally everything you will ever pick up will be trash you won't use.

I hope I'm wrong, because Tower of Trials seems super basic and simultaneously too chaotic for new players, and from what I played of Lightbringer it was a mode I didn't enjoy even a little bit.

Edit: I've just tried another Trial and I've noticed that all the gear I'm getting are levels 48 and 49. So I presume it's the Ascended Trials that give you level 50 stuff, which I presume are like Destiny's Nightfall Strikes? They seriously can't be expecting new players to go straight into content like that, right?

It really seems like this Challenger Edition is mostly for existing Godfall vets, which begs the question as to why it exists as a standalone. Is there anything meaningful to do at all as an inexperienced player aside from throw yourself into the depths and hope you eventually learn to swim through adversity?

Edit 2: Deleted. I'll just redownload Outriders.
I went through the tutorial, filled all slots with the lvl 50 gear and tried a level 30 Dreamstone, and I fully understand your concerns.
Not going to completely abandon it just yet, as the combat can be pretty fun, and I imagine the tougher stuff may be more manageable with a co-op partner.

Curious about the part of your post you deleted.

It really seems like a weird way to try and promote this game, as it takes a lot of commitment just to try and fathom everything thrown at a new player jumping straight to lvl 50. (Seriously, has this method ever been attempted or succeeded previously?)
 

NeverWas

Member
Feb 28, 2019
2,640
I liked the tutorial, so I threw a few bucks at it and upgraded to the complete version. I'm not really paying attention to the story much, but I'm digging the combat.
 

Ricker

Member
Oct 27, 2017
8,057
Beautiful Province of Quebec.
Didnt read this OT yet but damn,I just did the long Tutorial that leads to defeating Solaris and it was pretty great lol...graphics are awesome,just have to reduce the Bloom a bit next time,combat was fun...stopped when they raised me to 50 but I almost feel like buying this game now and start from scratch...how long does it take to get to 50...? does the combat get repetitive ? is the story or quest in the regular campaign that bad...?
 

Calabi

Member
Oct 26, 2017
3,514
I was enjoying this right until I come up against the impossible dream arena battles where you come up against 4 or 5 bosses at once, and you can't do anything, you stand still your dead, you hit more than once you dead, it would take about an hour just to knock all the bosses hp down. I don't mind difficult games but I hate arsehole difficulty.

Why is every game now seemingly designed by sadists.