Overall, I loved the game, but of course it has room for improvement.
Better AI mechanics when dealing with spells.So I'm in a big fight, my tank has just a sliver of health left, in a move of desperation I have my mage cast forcefield on him. What happens? All the enemies surrounding my tank beat on him for 20 seconds while the rest of my party does irreparable damage to them. Like that, the encounter went from just about game over to trivial. I could choose to just not use the spell, and sometimes I do, but it is there and I would like to use it.
The AI should realize the target is now invulnerable and if it does not dispel it, they should go after other party members for the 20 seconds (or however long) the spell lasts. After the spell ends, they can go back to beating on the tank or even better, the spell could act as a complete agro wipe making it more difficult for my tank to regain control, thus there would be some consequences to using the spell. With the current limited AI, I feel like the spell is just too powerful such that I'd rather not use it.
Better AI spell tactics / use of CCIn a similar vein, battles could be more enjoyable / varied if the AI used its spells a bit more intelligently. For example, if one of my party members falls below 40%, an enemy mage could cast forcefield/paralysis on my mage in an attempt to stave off healing and quickly finishing off that party member.
I'm sure there are more interesting techniques people can think of, but right now the AI is just incredibly predictable when it comes to spells. Generally, a ranked mage will throw all of their best spells (crushing prison, paralysis, curse of mortality) on the first person that goes charging in, and knowing this makes being able to deal with them both easier and more predictable.
More interesting boss encountersI'm hesitant to mention Warcraft, but it does have some interesting boss encounters, and is maybe something developers could look to for some more interesting boss mechanics. While there are some interesting boss encounters, they are few and far between ( and I wont get into it for spoiler reasons). For the most part, I see a boss creature and it acts the same as any other except it hits pretty hard.
More interesting boss encounters would go a long way to making the game feel more engaging. As a (not great, but whatever) example, maybe a boss that every 15 seconds paralyzes a different party member, so we have 3 rotating characters to use. Pretty quickly, what would otherwise have been a normal encounter has at least become somewhat unique. It may require planning (ie maybe I need to bring a second warrior to act as an OT if my tank is paralyzed), but that is a good thing.
Also, for whatever reason I find the beginning of the game to be the hardest part (probably because of the lack of healing spells), and so that first Ogre fight is one of the more challenging. For a lot of these melee-type bosses, it is pretty easy to have whoever has agro run around in a circle around my parties members, who then beat on it without taking a hit. For (maybe just some of) these melee bosses, it would make them a lot more potent if they had a temporary slowing debuff applied to whoever they hit to negate such a tactic.
Other quick commentsAs mentioned numerous times in this threat, a better hide helm mechanic built in. The mods sort of work, but I find them too buggy to keep on, so I end up running around with these ridiculous looking helmets.
Health potions are too prevalent and have too short of a cooldown. I'd like to either see the cooldown increased or (better) have all potions share a cooldown (at least on nightmare). As it is, lesser health potions are essentially free mid way through the game, and even towards the end are useful. Even on nightmare, I can have my tank alternate between lesser and normal health potions and with an occasional heal pretty much stay in business forever on the tougher encounters. Increasing and/or having potions share a cooldown would go a long way to forcing me to come up with other tactics to keep my tank alive.
All of the "cool" looking armor is for warriors, it would be nice to have some different, visually appealing, options for rogues and mages.
Modifié par ZFerian7, 01 février 2010 - 06:07 .