Recent reviews by LogieBear

I am mostly a PVE player. However the latest update to the game has made the Deep Desert 100% harder. Poor decision made from the right place. I don't think I can play it anymore now that all the PVP players are squeezed into a half the DD with all the end game mats.

Do this instead;
1. Add Holtzman Shields to Ornithopters (carry Shields or Rockets) allowing Solo Farmer players to survive sudden PVP encounters.
2. Return DD to full PVP map so the PVP players have to spread out.
3. Add all mats (Spice, Strav, Titanium) in random quantities right across the DD from Row B-I so that PVE players can get these mats much closer and again PVP players must spread much further out.
4. Make Testing Stations PVP but give individual Loot. Loot should get better and more valuable the deep out you go.
5. Remove all access to non-house Building Sets and Variants.
6. Make the Landsraad Spice Melange based. The House that deliverers the most Spice Melange that week win the voting rights. Guilds that deliver the most for their house get more voting power, but even the solo farmer of your house is now important and less likely to be shot down if they are in your house variant vehicle.

Revised my review because they added Mounts like the promised.

For any of my friends who are considering buying this game. DON'T!! It's entirely an exercise in constant frustration. No matter what I do to practice and learn this game is so difficult and unbearbly over complicated that it strips all the fun out of it. Challenging would be okay but here is a few examples of how unplayable it is.

1. In over 20 hours of game play I'm yet to find an NPC enemy that I can actually sword fight with. Regardless of the game mechanics it always degenerates to a hack n slash event that's not even remotely fun and you will only win by pure luck. It's impossible to be good enough at it to actually block or dodge using a Keyboard and mouse. Directional attacks rarely work as every NPC is better at it than you. The only NPC's I've killed were sleeping because its so ridulosly hard.

2. Forget shooting a bow. I can't even fathom the mechanics here. Even in real life with a half hour instruction I can personally shoot a bow better than your character with none of the issues faced in this game. At three feet I still can't hit a rabbit that's sitting still. Arrows (when they do go anywhere near where you aimed last time) will fly through the enemies head and keep on going. Yet, again, NPC's are all so very proficent and dangerous that it makes you never want to leave your fathers burn't down home.

3. Why don't I just run away?? Well Im glad you asked. As it turns out I can't outrun anyone in the entire kingdom and villians never give up the chase, however on the one occasion I fluked getting the upper hand on an enemy NPC where he then turned tail and ran, I was not able to keep up with him. Even when he was cornered and fled into waist high water. I considered shooting him with my bow but decided that was pointless too (see above).

4. Every chest in the world is locked & you never find lockpicks. Now a lockpick to purchase wil cost you 20 groshen (silver/gold) each and will break easier than egg shells. Which is unfortunate since picking a lock is so incredibly sensitive and complicated that its impossible to complete even the training quest which is supposedly an easy lock to pick. Learning to picklocks of course is a skill and like the game states the more you do something the better you get at it and apparently the eaiser it gets. I've played for well over 20 hours and I've managed to save a tidy sum of 200 groshen. Thats 10 lock picks. I burnt through the 5 free ones in less than 30 seconds trying to pick an easy lock in a tutorial, that incidently failed on breaking all the lockpicks and angered the trainer so much he now refuses to give me another lesson.

How does all this play together? Well If I could actually survive a sword fight often enough to raise my skill level, I might become confident enough to start using a bow more since once the NPC's swarm me I could draw my sword to defend myself. Oh btw, it takes me longer to put down my bow and draw my sword than it does for a sleeping bandit to wake, stand up, put on all his 13 layers of armour (that is always better than mine) and then attack me. Winning these sword fights of course would not only allow me to feel empowered by the game, I don't mean heroic, but even competent at this point would be nice since most times I feel I might actually stab myself due to the character being so uselessly underpowered, but it would also give me the chance to loot some corpses for better weapons and armor effectly advancing my character. I could then sell that to traders for groshen and use that groshen to purchase two or three lockpicks so I can return to the vanqished foes camp and unsuccessfully pick the easy lock of the timber box called a chest (which I cant pry open or break open with any weapon... so much for realisim) and then raise my lock picking skills by .25% for the privillege effectively robbing me of any reward for 45minutes and 80 re-loads it took me to defeat the two NPC enemies in the first place. Hence why I just stab them in the head while they sleep like a dishonorable curr.

I've had a steam account since steam was first created and I've never been mad enough at how grosely unbalanced and horribly unfun a game is, to write a review. This is my first.

The real shame here is that the game is beautiful and the story is incredibly well acted, dramatic and intense and even at times funny. It could have been an incredible game. I'd have loved it if only there were a chance to actually achieve something in it. Like swing a sword, fire a bow or pick a lock. Lets hope that when the Modding community gets their hands on this that they can actually make it a fair, playable and fun game.

I want to be clear. I was looking fwd to the challenge of growing my character from a whelp to warrior. However its my opinion that this game is so badly done that it's impossible for that to ever be a reality. If Im going to die 40 times evey time I try to fight someone, I'd rather do it playing Conan Exiles where at least I know it's because I was ganked be 4 level 60 characters in the starting zone where I knew I didnt have a chance... not by some nose picker NPC farmer who's AI is always better and completely competent with the complicated combat, that would take months of just practice fighting for a player to even become moderately good at... and for what reward? So I can spend all my coin on Lockpicks I also can't use, to not get any reward because pickling locks is too hard in this game.

I tell you what, the game certainly achieves one thing with it's high realisim. It makes me want to be a surf and bake bread all day and never pick up a weapon again.

DON'T BUY IT... at least not until it's on Steam sale for $9.99 with a full NEXUSMODS catalog of MOD's to make it playable.