Finished the game. Appreciation and gameplay feedback

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ninjamelody
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Registriert: 14.09.2016 11:51
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I finished Enderal main quest!!!
Hello from Thailand, just writing to appreciating the developers team and supporters, thank you very much for time and effort for this excellent game!
Details, nitpicks, and feelings about story I'll post in the story section.

Things I like:
- Story
- World design
- Dungeon design
- Town design
- Variety of quests
- Arcane fever to balance heal spamming
- Usefulness of food
- Music and voice acting is great!!!

What I'd like to see improvements:
- Skill system
- Unfinished quests
- Crafting station convenience
- Enchanting magnitude scaling with skill level (urghhhhh)
- Variety of weapons
- Smarter melee enemy AI

Feedback in details:
Things that I'm highly impressed:

1. Story makes me feel really involved, and notice motives and personalities of each character, especially those in the Order and quest givers, relationship development with some characters, things can go wrong with some conversation choices. The game also portrays deep and inner struggles of the protagonist and some main characters too! All of this part fulfills what Skyrim lacked, it has only like 1-2 characters with personality for each DLC. Also a lot of mysteries left behind, a lot of things may related to real world's philosophical/social/political issues.

2. World and dungeon is great! Variety of things in the land, climate, plus some that has it's atmosphere influenced by local flora like mushrooms around the ritual site and Fogwatch. First I though no fast traveling will make the game suck but it didn't, the system that compensates this are myrads, teleport scrolls, and travel by signs in ark. So there could be more running to get to myrad towers and areas around them, but still, I had to plan more to finish stuff around the location before moving on, this gives me a bit more realistic feeling.

About buildings and dungeons, many are modified versions from Skyrim stuff, to point out obvious ones are Dual Towers vs. Skyrim's Valtheim Towers and Old Yogosh vs. Skyrim's Brinewater Grotto. These aren't bad at all, it's been done creatively! The devs added extra things and areas that do not resemble Skyrim stuff. Also a lot of dungeons aren't linear which is a great plus, knowing not much to expect which triggers excitement!

Secure chests are among the most wonderful thing considering gameplay!!!

3. Towns. Ark makes Skyrim's towns became a joke! Though I have not played Morrowind and Witcher 3 which I've heard people said it was excellent. But still, I really like the many districts in Ark that portray what people come to town for and what they do in town. Other towns in different smaller size makes sense and makes me feel being "in" there, such as sailor's town in Duneville having a lot of sailors needing entertainment and being less polite. The smaller farm towns being more relaxed and welcoming.

The Undercity is the most impressive and I have much to say, it shows the different classes of wealth, it shows where the poor and the suffering live, it shows the shady side and how the Order has looked down these people. I know there's supposed to be more quest and lore exploration involving the Undercity but it was cut off. Still, I enjoyed exploring the crypts, the vatyr infested orphanage, deeper parts beyond the tar pit, the Darkhand family members that look like Skyrim's Dragon Priests. Still, I'd like to see more interaction involving fights, prostitutes, druggies, robbery in the Undercity.

4. Variety of quests. Things involving fetching objects, reward choosing, puzzles, interactive objects, does not feel very repetitive.

5. Healing, and arcane fever to balance out spam-heal. As I haven't played a magic focused character, but I found this arcane fever would make us think twice before spamming with healing spells and potions, helpes a more strategic way to fight with less requirement to spam. So to heal during fights without increasing fever, we need to brew good potions. So that gives us to use the method of food, a lot of cooking is done and I felt good for using things the developers provide better than Skyrim. Only usefulness in food in Vanilla Skyrim I found are stamina to continually bash with shield, but now in Enderal I always keep breads, soups, roasts with myself in any adventure.

6. Music and voice acting. They are great! As I play and compose music in the styles around symphonic metal and classical, I really appreciate the quality of the music in terms of composition and production! That could cost many hundreds of dollars per song and I could officially get 118 songs not including the bard songs! I will be studying a lot of music from Enderal later on.

As for voice acting, lively and filled with emotions indeed, and appreciate the devs team had to do it for both English and German. A lot of lines has to be done for characters with relationships closer to the protagonist.

Things that I could see improvement (maybe next ES game? Or additional version of Enderal):

1. Skill system. I like how each memory/talent does not have more than 3 tiers, and mixing classes give some bonus. But as I've played some Skyrim perk mods I could see this could be done better, each tree could be filled with just about 15 memory points.

2. Unfinished quests. It seems like the world has been built much larger than the quests and lore that follows (I have heard that some were cut off due to deadlines and budget). Such as Undercity's crypts, dungeons deep beyond tarpit, Thalgard, Golden Sickle quests, quests related to Dal'Marek and Darkhand family, dragons in the south and supposedly the unopened area in Frostcliff Mountains that may have apothecary's society and another dragon?

3. Crafting station convenience. The only perfect area for crafting is the foreign quarter that has smelter, tanning rack, grindstone, forge, and workbench. The other place I noticed always lack a tanning rack, even in my expensive house in noble's quarters, the Sun temple, which results having to go through at least 2 loading screens!

4. Enchanting not scaling with skill level. I'm not sure it's a bug or it's intended this way. But I have looked from the early game where my enchanting skill level was around 15-20, elemental damage was around 4-5 per hit, then near end game my still was about 50, the damage is still pretty much the same even when using filled grand soul gems, it just gives more hits.

5. Variety of weapons. Speaking of weapon types not tiers, the lack of spears and thrusting animations are among the most frustrating things, spears are among the most efficient weapons as looking culturally and economically; it has long reach while require less material of the "expensive" part (the spearhead). Also I'd like to see more effects of falling down from being hit, being knocked sideways, etc...

6. Smarter melee enemy AI. There is significant improve in shooters and mages compared to vanilla Skyrim which has running away and dodging, but the melee enemies seem to be as dumb and the easiest archery target, no matter how tougher they are. They only just want to run and bash.


Thank you and best wishes!!!

EDIT: Added music and voice acting comments.
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