My feedback on Skylore

[Artenios]

After playing with several clases and having reach half progression within the game, I decided to give myself a moment to share my impressions on the good, and sightly jammed features of the game. This is just my own thoughts and may not reflect the other's point of view.

 

Intro: So far I've been trully impressed of how much well developed this game is in the technical aspect. Because I can play for hours and the game is never lag, never glitches, there is no collission failures or performance drops with the engine. Also the design and graphics is very original and outstanding, showing that videogame's strongest asset is how they can be diferent from eachother and not being clones one of another. Despite of the criticism on the pay to fast mode, it could be worst in lots of ways, also showing the developers' gamer instinc that is not only oriented to make money. There are many reasons to congratulate this game for which you receive many hours of enjoyment.

 

Pros:

The story telling is surprisingly well made. There is no side quests or missions to fill every single corner of the game. There is no compulsive reward to keep you every single minute in the game which allows you to rest and find your own peace.

The movement is smooth. First I thought the tap movement was outdated and certainly made me doubt of it however the game proved that old mechanics could still be fun when they are adapted to our present times. Sometimes I wish the movement-attack periods were more fluid and accurate but I don't test this function so it goes all out of my hands to say if that's necessary.

The rewards feels reasonable yet enough. Many people complains on pass restrictions but they are wrong. The only feature that is trully restricted (So far to me) are battlegrounds BUT for the way it's made you can stay in battoegrounds if you increase your skills as you become a better player and that's how it has to be done. This is fun and upgrading your rewards you just get that fun doubled or preset at will, and it doesn't feel like a punishment to your enjoyment. Unfortunaly the Skypass do feels like left you behind not in hours but weeks compared to the players who gets it. It happens that the enemy team blows up yours right after entering a new league only to become a burden on your scalling progression. 

To the last, the combat feels challenging. It's impossible to play this game and never die. Failing just shows you where you dropped your performance and allows you to change directions, or adjust your tactics. I don't know for real how you did this nowadays, because it's a mind setting that the biggest media have forgotten. The way you programmed combat is sigthly diferent to other titles because it gives you room enough to become better with what you already have so the upgrades never feel as left behind.

 

Cons:

There is too much of a linear disposition of routes and ambiences. I'll take to the board the mage tower for example. It is perfect in all meanings, because that is an important building not just for decoration however it transitions perfectly your route between the map crossings and ember boss. If you could do this more frecuently or study how to make "routing" more dynamic then we could say that's a score for skylore. It's not just the graphical design of the tower what gets your attention (Which actually is...) also is how you decided to stick on logical thinking orienting the upper entrance at your right, and lower entrance at the left, because it feels like you entered in the tower from the inside perspective instead of doing the oposite. This fact shocked me when I saw it for the first time because it shows that you really care for how players feels about immersion even in a way that you don't really think too often, which is the subconcious part of it. Walking away like a teampark caring non for your surroundings or the route itself because that's how the immersion has been lowrated in development, and then you go into that place and say wait a minute they just did this? And that's one of the main hits that made me stay in the game: map quality. (Lol... this was a cons section).

In agreement with other entrances to the forum, yes, the battle camera sometimes working against your own convenience, a small delay in abilities, also standing in the spot with no real need to move in order to perform skills or attacks, they are all negative aspects of the gameplay. However, I could not say the experience of skylore wouldn't get affected if this things were suddenly changed for good, because somehow they are part of the game's personality, even tho those are failures that should be attended.

Movement... I don't believe that you should add any mounts to the game because I agree that teleport towers are well designed. Yet it feels empty. It would be nice if you were suddenly attacked or fell into an ambush while walking on the open world, that sometimes a random mini quest pops up giving you the feeling of interest. The pacing upfrom and beneath points of interest is lacking... that lends me to the next aspect.

Life quality.

The zones are gorgeus the maps are breath taking, the cities, hubs and camps are attractive but there are no world interactions. There are no birds flying over the sky. There's no fantasy beyond picture that makes me take a brief moment to stare at something odd or curious in the field which could make you die out of distraction, neither to get your attention in a moment of relax when you were not expecting to see something amazing or beautifull spawning of the earth or alive in the ponds, fish climbing up or down the waterfalls. There are no chairs to sit, walls to rest, look-in objects to film while they change their form by magic or simple script. Also what trully makes me think this game still has a way to improve for the better is the abandon of old mission zones. You go to the nursery or hospital and then you can go back later. But what about echo's sewers and some other places for what you can't return. If the mission says you don't really need to go back to that place, like the small gryphon map on the hill during the starting quest, then that is blocked for the time being. This is a little bit of a bad decission because your need to explore and the chance to discover a hidden quest or treasure is completely absent. There is a pair of glasses from the mages tower that is used to see hidden students for a mission. Well I just kept those glases in hopes that I could see an invissble npc or event in the world and that's not good if you have to stop or interrupt the experience in order to obtain an object and maybe notice something new.

And finally one last mention that stick together with the life quality explained above: jobs, or professions. Well, Skylore does not need to be like all the other mmos (Someone randomly said that in the chatbox), and is true, but you can't build, or craft items or resources to allow your gameplay to interact with the world, buildings, life forms or enemies, vehicles are totally vanished as they are not needed but tell me if it wouldn't be nice to have a train or a ship to connect both capital cities (Those are inreachable for enemy factions), even a skybox that changes to tell a story. If we could have night and day fases it would add nice content in that area but is not enough. The game has so much space, towns and npcs to bid high for creativity. Jobs in Skylore might be special and unique as the game is in it's own way. We don't need pets following us or animals to ride when you can do something else with that and makes us feel interested in it.

 

Thanks for developing this game and I hope it succeeds just enough to avoid ripping companies to adquire it... Skylore makes you feel there's still a little corner of gaming experiences somewhere.

[Ollie]

Thanks for the great feedback and such kind words!

We have a lot of cool mechanics, content and adventures planned for this year, and we are looking forward to the release of new updates.

We will definitely continue to work on our world in order to fill it with a lot of details and interactions and take steps towards not only developing characters, but also increasing the desire to explore every centimeter of Skylore, adding various easter eggs and interactivites to it.