Collected feedback after multiple characters in solo and party play in 0.4

Hello!

Just wanted to share some feedback after playing 0.4 quite a bit. My previous experience with the game was 0.1, and though I really enjoyed my time with the game then I think it is in a much better state now. I enjoyed Abyss, new campaign levels and the temple a lot.

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I wanted to however make a note of a few things I think could be improved, after playing 0.4 through with 6 characters to level 90+ in a mix of solo, 2 player and 3 player in up to T16 maps, empowered bosses, ~40 room temples and various pinnacle bosses.

I played the following:

Lightning Spells Oracle
Crossbow + Apocalypse Hybrid Shaman
Parry + Elemental Spears + Spear of Solaris Ritualist
Cold Wolf Chronomancer
Maces Invoker, later Mjolners
Summons Disciple of Varashta, later tried Lightning Spells also.

For each character, I stuck to the build / themes of the characters from earliest levels to endgame, but experimented with the passive tree and skill combinations within that theme a lot. I played each character through budgets of few exalts, few divines and up to hundreds of divines, but no further.

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- Party play mostly feels really good, but ailment threshold scaling or inflicting can occasionally cause issues in specific instances. For example, if a player needs to inflict freeze for Glory generation. If both players are pursuing freeze, then only one will generate Glory in a boss fight, locking the other out. If only one player is pursuing freeze, then the buildup is much slower.

- Spears felt lacking at the top end compared to other weapon builds I played for multiple reasons, even though I immensely enjoyed Parry and the spear hybrid melee + ranged gameplay. It was in fact my favorite out of all of the characters.

With Wolf and Crossbow, I found status effects to be much easier to apply, with bigger payoffs making them feel much more usable 'out of the box'. Pounce -> Lunar assault freeze buildup was really quick with a small investment, and the payoff with Shred + Cross Slash was very strong. The Wolf skills also had really satisfying gap closing which made the gameplay really fluid.

Crossbow on the other hand was also very easy to set up and execute with, having tried permafrost into fragmentation / plasma blast, or shock into shockburst rounds. Either way, the gameplay really captured Run and Gun and felt very fresh and fun.

Compared to these, Fangs of Frost was much harder to set up freezes with vs empowered bosses, even with a Parry setup. Moreover, Elemental Sundering or Spear of Solaris follow-ups were much weaker than e.g. plasma blast, even though they required more setup. Fangs consuming Parry also made it counter-intuitive for setting up a devastating follow-up, and the lack of lunge on fangs of frost despite using a spear made it feel sluggish at times. This is sad because a good Parry into Fangs of Frost just feels so good to execute. Overall, spear felt really fun in maps, with Fangs and Lightning spear feeding into Sundering, and Solaris feeling amazing to drop in choke points or Abysses, but vs. empowered bosses you could really feel the lack of oomph compared to Crossbow or Wolf skills. In fact, a single Plasma Blast did more damage than if a boss spent the entire runtime of Spear of Solaris under the beam, not to mention requiring a long buildup of Parry + Fangs multiple times vs Permafrost bolts getting to a freeze much much quicker.

- Infusions were fun to interact with, but inconsistent in the strength of effect they provided compared to how hard they were to generate and sustain. A lot of spells felt weaker in comparison to weapon-based characters, but Thunderstorm was a huge exception in how many ways it could be used, from damage to shock to exposure to drenched and more. In contrast, my favorite spell, Arc, felt really lacking among the variety of spells my party members and I tried out, not helped by the fact that lightning infusions were particularly hard to generate, especially in boss fights.

- Shaman, Disciple of Varashta, Chronomancer and Invoker ascendancies felt really rich with options and I found myself swapping ascendancy nodes back and forth every few levels to try out new ideas a lot. In contrast, with Oracle and Ritualist I stuck to the same options after trying everything out: For Oracle, it was the Forced Outcome and Entwined Realities, and for Ritualist it was Mystic Attunement and As the Whispers Demand (really, really fun!). The last two ascendancy points for Ritualist felt so inconsequential, with Blood Boils being so weak to be unnoticeable, Intricate Sigils not working as you'd expect (no 4th charm) and Mystic Attunement feeling so necessary if committing to Unfurled Finger making Mind Phylacteries out of reach. Admittedly, I did not know what to do with Wildwood Persistence but it probably has lots of potential if taken advantage of.

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Thank you for all of the work you put into this game. It was a very fun time for all of us.