Nightingale

I'm ~12 hours in and 40 gear score and it definitely has potential, but also has a lot of drawbacks.

As Tarrant said combat (so far) is really shit. Strafe in a circle and hit 2-3 times and repeat with melee or just bow and backpedal.

You build this huge base then they send you elsewhere where you... build a huge base, but can't teleport to that base only the original base. Very dumb

VERY limited mob types so far. Icarus had the same problem but worse because it had no humanoids, but yeah it's very repetitive.

The gearing SEEMS like it'd be cool, but I'm not sure I understand how to work it/it's not working. For example:
--You get a regular bone. Regular bone stats.
--You get super bone, 10% max life, 10% max stamina!
--You put super bone in as component for your axe, thinking you'll get 10% increased life and 10% increased stamina!
--You don't.

This may be because it was a Tier 1 axe, but so far that's all we can make and you dump essences on them to upgrade them to Tier 2 which doesn't solve the problem. I'm guessing there's a bench (I've seen Tools bench in the codex) where you can actually modify the tools you make with its components, but that was one thing I was really excited about and 12 hours in it's a non-factor.

The mini worlds is okay, but not being able to fast travel to different Cairns in each one is terrible. I get they want you to make a mega base in noobville, but then you have to do a LOT of traveling to get the good resources. At the very, VERY least they need to let you TP to Respites in non Abeyance zones. It's just weird you can't.

No guns yet, looking forward to it as the crossbow feels decent enough within 10 fucking feet, but every once and a while you get that 10x crit multiplier (I have no idea why) and a mob just DROPS. Feels good.

You get a ton of items early on (arcane wicks, ingots) that have little or literally no use for you until much later. So we have a basket just full of fucking wicks with nothing to do with them. I'm guessing they're for bombs, but we're just piling them up since level 10 and no use in sight yet.

TLR

I've been looking forward to this game for YEARS and so far it's disappointing. Refund after 2 hours disappointing? Maybe for some, not for me as I think you've got to invest quite a bit of time to get to the "good" part, but that's not going to work for casuals. The early game is very mundane and often brutal (fighting level 40-60 shit at level 20 gearscore is annoying) and that's going to kill it for most people. I think this is a game that could get REALLY good with more time to bake, but I think the huge negative response that's coming/is happening is going to just kill it altogether. Unfortunate when they have great ideas and just poor implementation, but that's the story of so many games now.

Okay I played some more. Found out some stuff:

---My game is very hard. Why? Because it's in Extreme. That adds a flat +40 to everything making the Abeyance citadels fucking VERY hard. The Provisioner one I can access at gearscore 50 and it's 90 mobs. Fuck that. I make new realms on Hard because they're just +20 or something much more tolerable. Makes the game stll difficult, but I can actually melee in hordes sometimes instead of just crossbow kiting 24/7.
--Crafting is weird. It DOES work the way I thought, but some of the stats aren't bleeding through. Made a T4 Wood, T3 fabled hide, etc etc axe and it pumped the native gearscore up by like 5, and crit damage, but none of the inherent material modifiers went through as far as I could tell. No increase movespeed or anything. Unfortunate. But I did learn that higher tier shit on the same simple crafts boost your gearscore level.
--AFAIK the only way to progress to the higher cards to get the new crafters is just absolutely max juice every piece of current tier gear you have. That's a big undertaking. Like getting all the T3/T4 leather, fiber, wood, bone, etc in T2 zones just to get to T3 seems.. off? I don't know. I can't buy refined crafters until I get to the Desert Herbarium, and I can't do that until I get gearscore above 59 (60? 80?) and I'm already in full green partially juiced T2. Seems fucky.
--- I'm like 20 hours in and no guns. Just one crossbow. That was kind of a selling point and I find specialty bullets EVERYWHERE, but I've got no way to make a gun currently or even an advanced crossbow. Seems fucking weird.
---I haven't seen a hill giant yet and I'M GETTING MAD. It's probably in the expert level shit, but I wanted some EQ 'stalgia. I have run across some druids who are basically giant swamp trolls which were cool. Took forever to fucking kill even +level against them, but at least it wasn't wolves and pigs.

Games getting better, but I can see it's a grind. Good for some, definitely means endgame could ACTUALLY be an endgame. I like that A LOT. But it's feeling really tedious in the middle right now and that's a problem. The card system isn't bad, but it's implementation is clunky. I dunked a low-grav card on the desert biom and suddenly all the hidden spots/jump puzzles were free grab. It fucking ruled.

Overall getting better and I'm beginning to see it for the game they promised, but it's just a arduous journey getting to the point where people want to enjoy the card/map mechanics.

Also had a major problem with FPS drop/memory leak. Was going 90---60---30fps. I kept fucking with graphics settings and eventually turned it to Quality after a restart and it never went under 75fps. Think it wasn't use my VRAM and was using my RAM instead or some shit when it wasn't tasking my GPU enough. Definitely some really nice graphics out there in the game:



Yes it looks like a sad earthen chode under a glorious celestial butthole.

I like the mystery aspect of the whole thing, but yeah the combat system is not good. Most of my gear at this point is stuff I stole off my hirelings and then upgraded to uncommon.

Learning shit every day I play. So I opened another Abeyance and jesus fuck it was easy on Medium or whatever. Same gear score (51ish) and Provisioner was level 35 mobs. Herbarium was level 45 instead of NOT BEING ABLE TO ENTER IT.

Do NOT. I repeat, do NOT set your Abeyance realm to Extreme. It's more or less bricking your game at this point unless you group all the content, but even then I'm not sure you can really advance correctly via crafting/gear score.

Just opening Provision realms now and clearing them. Pretty easy when shit isn't twice your iLvl. I now understand you don't build a base in each realm, but rather occupy a settlement or find a semi-base already built. I was in a Prov Forest and found a place with a defense and it also had REFINED crafting already built. So I could easily just craft my shit there before I even had it at my home base. Makes the game way more fun. Basically the idea seems to be open several custom portals (you can have multiplie portals open and leave them open with custom portals) and hop in/out as you need for resources/quests. Treat each realm as an island in Valheim which you visit to grab resources/check off quests/refill essences. You're not making a base in each with top tier shit or anything, just help build a settlement and throw a bed down and any missing quick crafters you need and then go out to PoIs. I'm essentially moving to T3 stuff now, but if the endgame is what I think it might be this is actually a much better game than most people will ever know. I'm pretty sure you get "bounty" type quests later that send you to super powered high level realms to hunt down targets. That's a pretty decent endgame if they have enough missions. Problem is even understanding the game now without a lot of cooperation with other players it may take me another 10+hours to get to the START of endgame.

So game is good, but understanding some mechanics are rough, and the end game takes probably too long to get to. Definitely less and less disappointing with my purchase each time I play. Again, having EXTREME starting Abeyance was the WORST decision and that's the one thing I can say almost completely bricked my enjoyment of the game. Hard should be fine, but there's no reward bonus for difficulty, it's just more difficulty.

Realizing I can put magic spells on my weapons was a series 'OH!' moment. Now I'm wielding my trusty wood chopping axe that I can use to heal myself so long as I have enough stamina.

Im at 'Hunt' difficulty now and getting Fabled Tier 2 materials, but stuck because I lack enough Tier 1 Essence to raise the gear I make to Uncommon. Is there a super efficient way to farm Tier 1 Essence?

So, for crafting and stats transfering the the crafted equipment....

Each piece of equipment only has certain stats available. For instance, you can't get stamina stats on a weapon iirc. So if you put stamina materials into your weapon its wasted. Part of the crafting system is learning what stats go on what items and then optimizing the materials for that item. Its a bit of a pain to learn, but I actually feel its kind of rewarding when you figure it all out. A lot of stuff in the game isn't clearly explained and I think that is by design. Experimenting is important and I've enjoyed the 'figure things out' part of the game.

I really enjoy the game, but there are a number of things to note about it.

1) No PVP. I think this is personally good for the game in general, as most pvp survival games I see kill off their own base slowly as people are pvp'd out of existence. If you aren't one of the OG pvp survival games its tough to get in on the genre. But... if you are looking for pvp and such, you won't find it here.

2) The whole exploration figuring things out part is awesome, but that will only last so long and people will be posting the bestest things on the internet and hey. Thats good if you want to just skip the exploring part and read a guide, but it kinda takes away from the experience.

3) Mobs and realms. People mentioned that there are generally only a small subset of mobs in each realm. This is sorta true, but there are small variations in each biome that matter on hunting down specifics, world bosses, and 'legendary' creatures. For instance yes, its a forest realm. But this one the special bosses are deer, this one spiders, this one bears, and this last one treants etc. It matters when you go for the top end crafting stuff trying to find the best mix of stats for your specific item by hunting down legendary components.

4) Crafting is really interesting, but also kinda hazy to figure out and easy to fuck up. You can make an ilvl 250 axe that has amazing stats, or use all the wrong materials and make one that is ilvl 250 with dog shit for damage. You can use T4+ materials but if you pick an axe and use all stealth and stamina stats, it will have no damage mods and can be worse than an ilvl 150 axe.

5) Minor realm cards are a thing. Hidden in them are bonuses that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, crafting weapons with a combatant workshop up adds baked in damage modifiers. The greenhouse card adds mods to your cloth clothing items. There is a lot of room for playing and expanding here, and having your own minor realm transmuter built next to your base is a thing.

6) You can have more than one portal established at once. My base currently has 3 crude portal generators I have built in a 'portal room' and then the main world portal. I use the 3 next to my base for one of each biome for farming, and use the main world one for exploring. I don't know if there is a limit but you can have multiple portals established at once. And as said before, you don't establish permanent buildings in these realms. Make a hunting base, scour them for the stuff you need and do the events for Essences, then close it and reset it for a fresh one if you want to farm for more essences or get a different flavor.

7) The game is not finished, and once you get to the end it shows. Lots of items in the crafting lists aren't used. The current public end game raids are level 100 and are a joke at my current level. You can set up private ones and those are more challenging, up to lvl 220 but the material drops from those bosses are the same as the level 100 ones. Only the Essence rates are upped and why do the extra pain when you can speed run lower level for essence easier.

You can get up to 220 realms with the ascended cards, but the lower level ascended realms have access to T5 resources, though at slight lower harvest rates. You can't get T5 monster parts until realm level 230, so it makes the 220 difficulty only really exist if you want the extra challenge.

Now, having said the game is not finished, it clearly isn't and there are obvious and clearly outlined plans for expansion. For one, we aren't to Nightingale yet. We're at the watch, so there is a whole questline still to get to Nightingale that needs to be played out. There are crafting items in the game that don't have a purpose yet, and paints that I don't know how to use (and don't even know if we can). I've gotten drops of materials (marble stone and coffee beans for instance) that I haven't found available in any of the biomes. The portal system allows for easy expansion of difficulty and realm levels as well as biome expansions. The guy who mentioned snow realms is an obvious choice, as well as jungle and whatever else they want to make up. Even some of the more fantastical realms. There also is a story cliffhanger that was left about the Winter Court waking up, and who started the whole Pale disaster in the first place.

All that being said, I really enjoyed the game up to where I am now and am still enjoying it though I clearly see a content drought about to hit with what is currently available. This game is actually early access in the beta original sense. Its buggy and scuffed but fun and I would imagine its an attempt to get the game out to more people so that it can generate buzz and get them more money to continue development. The company has been responsive, for instance they have come out and said they are moving solo offline play to the front of their development timeline, because they claim they didn't realize how highly people valued it. We'll see if they follow through, but it is a nice change from the usual, "You are playing our game wrong, fuck off" responce I see too often. It also looks like they already have planned how they intend to grow and expand the game, which I believe is a good sign for the future. I enjoy enough of what is currently out that I am eager to see what they add in as we go.

For me, it was worth the price of admission and I have spent $30 on far worse. I'm willing to toss them my scratch on the possibility it continues to expand and improve and I don't dislike what I have seen so far. It is visually appealing, fun, but a bit scuffed and buggy. It is still very much a coin flip on if the game gets a chance to succeed and if it can survive long enough to grow into its potential.