I had a lot of fun with Stoneshard. That’s why, I played more than 400 hours and tried to give the developers constructive feedback and even crunched the numbers to improve the meta. But with each update since the introduction of the troll, the game gets less fun to play. The developer’s either doesn’t care or are unable to properly develop their game. Updates take literally years to publish and don’t take player feedback into account.

Here are the things, which make the game not fun or outright tedious to play:
- Once fun gameplay mechanics, like hunting and skinning animals for pelts, got gated behind perks.
- Choosing survival or utility perks is punishing to the player, because you will have to foregone a badly needed combat perk. Survival perks will gimp your build.
- Magic got nerfed into oblivion and is not fun to play anymore.
- Some perks and builds are much more powerful than others. Respecing is impossible, and thus the player can get permanently punished for trying new perks.
- The economy doesn’t make sense. Equipment is worthless, when you want to sell it and treasure, when you want to buy it.
- With the save system, I had no problem before. But with the expanded map, dying means hours of gameplay lost upon death.
- The most glaring fault of the game for me is the map. The game is huge and has over 1000 tiles to explore, but nothing to make exploration worth it or fun. At this point, the game is a pointless walking simulator. Even the caravan update only slightly addresses this issue. The map remains mostly empty and exploration pointless.

TLDR: The game is a walking simulator with incredibly slow development. Wait until development has finished in 10 years and then maybe pick the game up.

ugh, i genuinely love this game, but holy SH*T WHY IS EVERYTHING GETTING NERFED, for Christ sake, i wanna enjoy this painful game, not hate every second trying to progress through the story or do quests because everything kills you within 10 moves because "uh oh, your outta mana" or "uh oh, 3 enemies are attacking you all at once, or "uh oh, your character is in immense pain!" or "uh oh the necromancer just raised all the enemies you LITERALLY JUST KILLED and are now surrounded", or "uh oh, your bleeding out but you cant bandage because it takes a turn and if you do bandage, you get FU*kED by the 2 dudes in front of you and the bow dude just crit you for 10 damage, ughhhh. your weapons don't do sh*t against most enemies, unless you have skills which you need mana for, and again, its only viable against 1-2 foes, after that you completely screwed because you can no longer funnel enemies into doorways or halls...thanks for the un-needed nerf again... ive played this game for YEARS, but i always give it a break for a couple months due to how unbalanced this game is. i really wanna enjoy this hardcore game, but seriously, STOP NERFING SH*T, let people have fun with your game, i love the rags to riches changes, but i hate getting murked after walking for 5 mins trying to get to point A to point B when a single moose appears/ really any predator animal, and die, losing all that boring progress i JUST made. i hate it more after clearing 98% of a dungeon and i get sh*t on by 3 dudes because one guy used one skill on me that renders my entire build useless. please for the love of god, make combat at least a little easier, stop making the game entirely luck based, make my weapons and spells or skills do damage again, please for the love of god make the game enjoyable again. wasted 9 hours of my life on this new update. till combat gets better, via better skills or buffs to characters/ new mechanisms or tools to help the player im steering clear from this game. ive played this game since 2018 and i havnt been this disappointed in quite some time

Edit: WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FU*KEN BANDITS!? ive ran into 7 groups within 7 map chunks, each with a minimum of 3 guys per group, WHYYYYYYYYYY IIM TRYING TO DO THIS TIME SENSITIVE MISSION and theres THUGS AROUND EVERY ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ CORNER. i dont have the food nor the time to deal with the guys, but i dont have a choice, because they litterally hunt you down, and WHAT DO YOU KNOW!? I RAN INTO ANOTHER GROUP OF THUGS IN THE CHUNK NEXT DOOR, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU************KKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

I really really really _love_ this game. It has not only some of the aspect I love most about (Dark) fantasy, but rpgs too.

The skill system is mwah beautiful . The skills feel and look great. The synergies between them actives my neurons, and the freedom and experimentation you have with it takes me back to making dozens of characters in D&D.
The magic is absolutely my kinda jam, and cannot wait for the rest of the schools of magic to be released.

The health system adds depth and immersion, the inventory just scratches my storage rat tendencies, the combat has that hard "You can most definitely die as easily as your enemies" quality too it, and the fact that many enemies can do exactly what you could is not only cool in a mechanic sense, but world building sense.
Being a chosen hero or special one is cool and all, but being another one of the masses that can rise to greatness through the same-ish means than everyone else is just awesome to me.

And I don't care who you are, the art is beyond precious, it's Renaissance Enlightening kind of art. Pixel art in rpgs usually leaves something to be desired, but here? The details, the animations, they make the world feel so alive .

Big props to the dev team, hope they are doing alright after everything and thank you for your hard work. This is a game I've been waiting a long time to be made, and Ink Stains Games made me feel seen.

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Now, I've seen that a lot of people are complaining about the save system, and listen, I get it. It can be frustrating to spend 2 hours and lose it all to RNG... if it was completely out of your hand.

"This game isn't hard. Not because it's not hard, but because videogames, fundamentally, aren't hard." -SsethTzeentach, Elden Ring Review (Hey hey people)

Listen, the game cannot disrespect your time, cause it isn't alive. The devs are and you could totally blame them. But, in seriousness, I find that blaming everything excluding yourself, even when it's reasonable to argue that it isn't your fault, takes away the point and joy of this kind of games.

It's a videogame. The only way to waste time is if you don't enjoy your playtime. And learning why you're getting ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and maybe spending 2 hours without saving ain't a good idea it's part of this experience.

There are many opportunities to find a bed and rest. There is a risk/reward in exploring and going further without sleeping, but I think the major thing it's that once you've learned how the mechanics work, spend time planning your moves and understand how enemies and the terrain work (which is made easier by the fact you can known everything they are capable with a right click, and biomes are kinda the same) there really isn't much challenge in the game anymore.
The Learning Curve may be steep, but once you reach the plateau that's kinda it. You need to have your brain turned off or become cocky/lazy to die. Or a missclick, it happens.

The game isn't a rogue like, it's a rogue lite . The game isn't design for charging ahead Leroy Jenkins' style and make a new character. From every mistake, even if you think it's completely unfair, you learn something new.
-You are made to bleed from too many things? More bandages
-Traps are way too dangerous? Take a second to check rooms.
-Pain? Drugs
-Get hungry too often? Pack more food. Too much to carry? Learn where the food sources are. Make a bonfire.
-Dying and saved 2 hours ago? Instead of pushing your luck maybe GO. THE. HELL. BACK. (or carry a bedroll and put it in front the dungeon)

RNG may screw you over, but that's usually if you rely on it too much. And even if everything is unfair, it is unfair only once . If you actually take a minute, ask yourself why something happened, and engage with the game, you will beat it.

I don't wanna be reductive of how people who don't enjoy this type of gameplay feel. This isn't for everyone, and I ain't no game designer. Balanced ain't something I understand very well. I've rage-quit a couple times myself. But many negative reviews feel like people who instead of saying "This isn't my cup of tea" are saying "I don't like it, therefore ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥" when it's clear they are not engaging the game in it's terms.