Topic: Daemon X Machina

I've only played the first level so far so I'm not sure what to think other than it would hugely benefit from motion aiming. Hopefully the people who get a chance to fill in the survey will mention that so the devs can add gyro and address people's other criticisms.

This is a minor thing, but I’ll be putting it on my feedback list; when looking at equipping something, the increase/decrease values of the component should include a green/red text color and an up/down arrow or triangle for any affected values. That could make changing equipment more user friendly. It’s not difficult in this play test, but if the amount of available slots is any indication, there will be lots of equipment in the game

Finished all the missions and I kind of like it, didn’t expect that tbh. The boss was easy enough but fun nonetheless. I liked targeting its weak spots and ultimately skating on the ground to get to its underbelly.

Even though I liked it quite a bit I would still want to see some of the core mechanics changed or improved; shooting should feel more impactful. You don’t always get the feedback you would like to see. Maybe the hd rumble could also help with that. Left joycon vibrating slightly if you use the the left arm/gun and vice versa.
They need to balance the flight and skating a bit more, because now you can just kinda hover up there in the air and shoot from afar. The skating is fun, so either limit the duration of flight or design the levels and enemies so you sometimes really need to get in there and fight on the ground. Flight is really only fun if you have the contrast of being on the ground.

So far not a “must buy” but I’ll definitely keep a close eye on it.

I think the game is great, much better than I expected. But there are some areas for improvement (which the dev is looking for feedback).

Gunfire should offer more feedback. Perhaps leverage HD Rumble for tactile feedback, show some recoil for visual feedback, and some louder sounds for audial feedback. Same for taking damage.

Also believe locking on should have better feedback, perhaps using audio. A beep or something just to coincide with the red box.

Enemies blend into the surroundings, making it extremely difficult to discern where they are. I understand radar should be relied on from a distance, but when I am 100 feet away I should be able to clearly see the enemy.

Out of bounds should be a larger area (perhaps increase length 1.5x) and make it a hard stop invisible wall.

Hopefully the complaints that are most common will make their way to the devs, so we can get a better game. I don’t think every criticism will be able to be addressed (some things I’ve seen people complain about are more fundamental and would take a good deal of time to change), but if they even tackled the top 5, that could make a pretty big difference in the end product.

I don't think it's awful, per say, but you bring up valid complaints. The combat was very linear, leaving much to be wanted. Having to grind just to beat a mission was annoying. I did the third stage five times over just to get better weapons. The boss's damage field attack would often push out of the boundry, resulting in me boosting right into it, resulting many a failed order because of this. If the final product is this, then I don't want it. After all, we still have that link's awakening remake to look foward to.

Maybe, more varying things for melee combat, say... a spear? A god of war- style axe? buster sword thingy?!?!?!? Just stuff like that. Something to spice it up. Also, the shields MUST be buffed. I had to stop to actually put up the shield, which made myself more vulnerable than if I had never tried to equip the shield at all. And have less ammo than the max after you reload makes reloading almost pointless, and the sword attacks left me much to open. While it's good that some things require timing, you can have too much. This was just that. They don't explain a ton of things, like the FEMTO zones. What were those? If anyone knows, can they tell me? Entering a FEMTO zone had no noticeable effect on my arsenal or my human form. Weird. While the memory storage didn't present too much of a problem, it prevented me from making many good equipment combinations, which makes grinding for gear seem futile.

So I took the Demo for a lenghty ride and so far I am not impressed. While I acknowledge that some of these are personal preferences, I think others might be better. I have yet to beat the 4th stage, but it seems the game does a poor job in communicating that you need to upgrade and after many failed tries I went back to some stages, to collect equipment.

1] The game does - so far - a very poor job in explaining anything beyond core mechanics. I've read from some stuff on the forum how to navigate stuff, like equipping weapons from pylons and still have no idea what FETMO does.

2] I can't lock onto enemies, there might be an option, but again, the game does a poor job and sometimes combat gets stuck, because I try to align again onto my enemies.

3] The very same goes for salvaging, I first was under the impression that everything to sent to the base and not only one thing you picked, I caught on that quickly

4] A mute character that does not even take part in the story... it can't get more bland from that.

The good things

1] A.I. partner seem halfway decent, not in the way of clearing the game for you, but also not in the vein that hey are just props

2] When salvaging the game actually shows you parts you don't have, so you can scavenge those parts, which is nice and keeps acquiring gear reasonable

So far the game has to do more to wow me; while it appeared to be better than I anticipated I am not completely hooked. Granted the game does open up if you invest some time, but I'd rather have easy accessibility with an indepth combat mechanic you can improve on, rather than hardly any information from the get go.

Some of these faults might be attributed to the demo, but some seem to be by design... With that I am happy that we get Astral Chain as another Mecha-ish game, granted on a smaller scale, but it seems to be scratch the itch...

@Lemmy_the_Koopa: Definitely true. The lock on thing may just be a glitch for you however, because with mine, the lock-on occurred instantly without any commands inputs. There were some other glitches too. Like when you got out of your arsenal and tried to go beyond the boundary, the character would sprint back, but they would do a split thing in midair and just kinda... move along. Astral chain also seems very interesting. The combat seems so different compared to other mech-style shooters. Nintendo seems to be trying something out with this genre... Just a thought.

@itsyaboi Don't get me wrong, as long as I look at them it locks, but they woosh quickly out off the screen and your lock is gone, especially when you want to hunt down a target, or just follow it, I need to stop and realign. It just takes me sooooo quickly out of combat and the game because of that... meaning, I am not invested, rather frustrated...

@itsyaboi I had the same issue on the first try of the boss, where it would put up its shield, knocked me into the boundry, which bounced me back into the shield. I'm not sure what a good solution might be there, but either when the player gets bounced back make them unable to attack but invulnerable for X amount of time, or let the player be able to move out of bounds for X amount of time and forfeit the mission if they stay out of bounds to long. Preferably I would like to see no boundaries at all, just let the boss stay within a certain area, and you'll be forced to fight there. Go outside and you can get bored, unless you like the scenery.

@EvilLucario Holy crud, you weren't kidding about the bazooka. It pretty much trivialized the entire giant robot fight.

It was pretty entertaining finishing off the boss with his own laser.

@Tsurii You mean the dash button?

@Ralizah Yeah it's pretty damn powerful. I went back to the walker with dual assault rifles and I actually did come close to running out of ammo on both guns. Granted I didn't pick up much ammo drops, but they could afford to drop more ammo at the beginning of the game then maybe scale it down for later missions.

Also if you guys pick up Radiant Gleam armor pieces, equip them and watch as your Arsenal becomes WAY faster and can speed through anything.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. So damn fun.

Surveys for the Daemon X Machina demo just got sent out. Fill them out, people! Let's make this the best it can be.

@EvilLucario Thanks for the reminder. I hardly check my personal email. Got mine.

That DxM survey sucks. Didn't even query me for my own thoughts or complaints at the end.

@Ralizah That's what questions 4 & 5 and 7 & 8 are for. (What did you like/what didn't you)

@JackEatsSparrows It asked us to go into detail specifically about what we liked and didn't like regarding things it talked about in the previous question. Not to introduce unaddressed concerns. Although, given the lack of such a section, it's likely better to ignore their instructions and put your concerns there.

@Ralizah That's what I did, haha. My mindset was basically; well, that question was about mechs being cool, so lemme tell ya what isn't cool. Then just copy/pasted the same comments i put in 3/4 to the next boxes. I liked some of the game, but they def need feedback.

I didn't get a survey, I feel left out.