I really don't like the changes made in patch 3

[lakhnish]

I feel that a lot of the changes made in patch 3 puts the game in a worse position compared to patch 2, at least for me.

Before I get into the nitty gritty details, I want to preface this by saying that I’ve played patch 1 & 2 of playtest, got to the highest ascension levels with both the hammer & spear across the two available biomes, netting me about 70 hours in the game.

Before I get into the cons, I want to start with what I think are the good changes, namely in regards to corestones.

1. The hearthstone well system replacing the meals system is a plus as it allows for you to have multiple perks active at once. It does come at the tradeoff of individual players choosing what meals are best for them, but having multiple meals/perks active at once greatly offsets that.
2. Having corestones no longer be a requirement for upgrading your gear is a plus. This removes some of the grind to the game where sometimes corestones were the main roadblock to upgrading your gear, though I still believe it was manageable in patch 2. This pro does get offset by the new shop, which I talk about later.
3. A leg slot for armor so that players can make even more crazy builds with their armor choices.

Now for the 3 major cons that I feel very strongly about, broken down by a percentage. The changes, in my opinion, makes me no longer want to further play the game. They are: 

1. The weight system (70%)
2. The new shop, namely changes made to obtaining armor & weapons (25%)
3. The ascension system (5%)

The Weight System
I do not know what the goal of the weight system is, but to me, it takes away a lot of what was great about patch 2 and adds very little. 

In patch 2, you could mix and match armor sets as you saw fit for a range of diverse builds, which was great as I played with a wide range of gear, especially in Blisterbane Bog.

The weight system not only eliminates that variety that I liked, it also adds unnecessary complexity to the combat system.

Becoming encumbered makes dodging & fighting incredibly difficult and in general, to me, does not feel very good to play with. Dodging is very crucial in this game as healing is scarce, so being able to dodge and gain a lot of distance after dodging is incredibly important. When I'm in a heavy armor build and I do the spear dash & see how little I traveled, I get incredibly frustrated with the game, especially since the armor I'm wearing to me doesn't justify this downside.

It also starts to feel incredibly weird when you have speed powers that make you super fast and then when you go to dodge, you barely move an inch. I can also see this becoming a game of cat & mouse where armor weights then get adjusted, which is just additional work that wasn't needed before.

I would even argue that the benefits of a light weight build where you are speedy were already achieved in patch 2 with the armors, gems, and powers that granted speed.

The weapon classes also already did an incredible job at changing your playstyle & this weight system goes too far to force playstyle changes onto me that really weren't needed. Whatever is being done to the weight system could have been achieved with a new weapon class & some of the benefits of a heavyweight build is also already achieved with the current armor options. For example, there are leggings that grant full wind resistance to players if they stand still, which is great for the Owlizter level and reminds me of patch 2 where you can equip armors specifically for a level because of the challenges it imposes rather than a universal nerf to your build.

The New Shop
Although there are some interesting concepts for this room, I feel that this room replaces too many systems that were perfectly fine in patch 2 & instead introduces a lot more grind and RNG to the game.

Previously, you would do a run, get your corestones, and then buy & upgrade your armor at your base camp. Now you have to make a choice between another room (like the upgrade room or a potion shop) if you want to purchase all available gear. You are also only given 3 armors & 1 weapon to choose from where previously, if you had a lot of corestones and other related mats, you could unlock as many armors & weapons as you wanted.

I also don’t like that I am forced to choose between this room and another room, which is usually a shop or the power upgrade room. The star powers & upgrade options in the market are nice, but I typically stock up on a ton of money to upgrade a ton of my powers at once to really snowball my build or I go for a potion cause I need some healing to survive and win the run.

What ends up happening is that if I want to see more of the armors & weapons in the game, I have to sacrifice those options just to visit the market, increasing the grind to the game. Ironically, I also don’t want to see more armors & weapons because of my extreme distaste for the weight system, specifically being encumbered.

It also introduces a contradictory mechanic where the player is told that they can’t change their gear once they start a run only to then give us a mechanic to change our gear in a run.

I would have preferred if I could have just unlocked the armors at camp like you could previously, but then use the new system where you just used animal parts to upgrade your gear. 

A bit of an important side note, I don't know where the gems went, but I felt they were incredibly crucial to the game for strengthening your weapons & were better at build variety than the weight system.

Ascension Modes
It’s hard to comment about the difficulties of the ascension mode as what made the frenzy levels so good were the systems that were changed.

I feel that patch 2 struck a good balance between difficulty and how strong your gear was, but now that your gear is difficult to obtain at times & with the introduction of the weight system, the frenzy levels are not something I really want to do.

Not only that, I think now they are poorly balanced. Enemies are far stronger than what they were before you can even properly scale the upgrades to your gear, which just increases the grind to the game, which I've noticed just makes me not want to play either.

Closing Remarks

All in all, I think patch 2 was a better version of the game and was at a point where I believed the only thing missing was to just add the remaining levels, story, and other NPCs to the game. 

I feel like too much of the core systems that I really like about the game changed to the point where I don't believe I can play the game going forward.

If these changes are your intended vision, then that too is fine, and I wish the best of luck to you all.

Otherwise you are free to contact me for further discussion, as I really, really want to play & support this game.

[Alfons100]

The blacksmith is missing from the build on purpose and progression systems have been said to be WIP still, so I imagine crafting gear will likely return but some gear will be found in Alphonses shop. Thats what I assume, though.

I think the weight system has potential because it doesnt just affect dodging, but also the handling of certain moves, like Cannon shotgun knockback (which can be beneficial if you want to spec for damage), spear jump attacks for a different spacing range, etc. I like that it makes weapons feel different which to me adds more expression to different playstyles within a weapon, but I agree, the negatives always outweigh the positives from wearing heavy armor so you cant really live the trading-blows fantasy either way. There is also the risk of having different roll types because it means that fights need to be designed in mind that you can beat them while wearing heavy armor.

My idea would be to add a setbonus that needs 2 pieces to activate on heavy armors which gives a tank-related perk, but the catch is that it only unlocks if you're heavy loaded. These perks can be- get 50% lifesteal for 1.5 seconds after being hit, recover flat amount of HP each time you get hit, or get temporary overheal for hitting focus hits, these effects can be reused between several heavy armor sets so it isnt unique on every single one for simplicity sake.

This justifies having a crappy dodge by allowing taking hits as a viable strategy, within reason. Mid and light roll builds will of course not get this effect and will need to rely on dodging only. I believe encumberance has potential but right now it feels kind of awkward and not really worth it unless they push the feeling of being a tank.

[Francis2000]

Compared to the weight system, what I can’t accept even more is putting the acquisition of equipment in the store.
I've defeated Mother Treek multiple times but I'm still wearing the starting equipment because I haven't been able to wait for the right equipment in the store
And this in disguise forced me to repeatedly enter the store to look for the equipment I wanted, without the freedom to choose which room I wanted to go to next like I had in the first two playtests.  I have to go into the store with 48 teffra that can't afford to buy anything and give up the special power room next door because there's no chance of getting new equipment if I don't come in. The same is true for obtaining Corestone. In the past, it could be obtained naturally in battles, but now people who want to buy new weapons or armor must repeatedly choose the room where Corestone drops.
This feeling completely disrupts the goal of entering the hunts, it's hard to focus on chasing the build and defeating the final boss, even makes the first few gaming experiences at the beginning almost... boring. Sorry but I can't really be a fan of this new mechanic.

As for the weight system, it feels rough to me, especially the heavy weight which is currently just like a placeholder, and the combination of light weight dodge and spear spinning attack is not very natural either.
Yes it's unsatisfying, but I'm also curious about where it goes from here. As a player who loves crazy stacking of character defense I hope that heavy can provide bonuses that make characters more durable and harder to die, to replace the loss of mobility (or damage? The loss of mobility in this game is really not smooth)

[GodIess]

I think you need to do this system a little differently, the weight of a spear has a different value compared to a hammer and if you put on a full set of heavy armor and take a medium spear you still won't be in the heavy gear zone, but if you take a heavy hammer and put on 2 heavy items you you will already enter a difficult zone, but you will have a chance not to take damage, and the range of evasion depends on your running speed, because now running away is much faster than evading. Light armor gives a quick and long dodge of this more than enough. But medium hammer and light armor cannot be in the light category, only strikers and spears up to the heavy level