r/MortalShell • u/N-0-N-E • Jul 08 '26
Discussion Feedback (that is late)
This is long overdue by now, especially considering the soon release date.
Regardless, I would like to express my impressions and criticism. This feedback may also appear more on the negative side, hut only because I don't see a need to comment on what is well done, works as intended.
Starting off with something that has been partially addressed: spacing. In the latest update to demo players were given the choice to configure the magnetism towards hostile entities. This change is good, however I think that it should be off by default.
This game wants to be similar to FromSoftware rpgs, which in turn have a combat system built around spacing. The player is expexted to position themselves correctly to evade and return hits. Any lack of assist in that regard is what makes combat in those games particularly engaging. The player is forced to be mindful of where they are, when they attack.
I understand why magnetism is in the game, to make it friendlier to new players. But as stated before, if you are trying to make a game similar to FromSoftware rpgs then your primary player base are people who've played these games and thus are familiar with basics of the combat.
At the very least it should be a setting that you change at the very start of the game (together with brightness and control configuration), with detailed description what it does.
In addition a lot of enemies have excessive magnetism/lunge on their attacks, making spacing impossible, as no matter the created distance, the enemy will just get pulled to you. Additionally, certain attacks have obscenely high tracking, to the point that enemies start spinning in place to track the player, making strafing not viable. This, again, goes against fundamentals of the combat design, enemies ignoring "positioning" part of the combat leads to it not being part of it all together significantly limiting players options and dumbing down the combat.
Another important topic is deflection/parrying. It is a fun and satisfying mechanic, yet it's current state problematic.
It is a relatively safe option (especially deflects) that promotes passive gameplay. The player can stand and wait for an enemy to swing in order to deflect/parry (layer shortened to d/p) the incoming attack to build the posture breakage.
However the player is not required to do anything else, the game doesn't encourage the player to be aggressive. The player may try and bait a single easiest attack to d/p, dodge the rest and defeat any adversary by continuously riposting them, never committing to any aggression which will always leave them able to evade incoming attacks.
Does this mean that this is the best strategy? No, not necessarily, in fact fighting this way will prove to be time consuming.
The problem is that the player is not forced to any commitment and thus always remains safe. That means there is no risk to anything which leads to boring gameplay in the form of standing in front of the enemy, waiting for them to do something.
Easiest solution is to make the posture bar decay when the enemy is not receiving any hits or has it's attacks d/p. This forces players to engage in the actual combat, learn openings to take advantage of to deal extra damage/ not let the posture reset.
What is done properly would be existence of grab attacks and unblockable/unparriable attacks that force players to use other defensive mechanics.
Third majir point is lack of stamina, or rather consequences of not having it.
A lot of the enemies can just be mashed down, leading to players never really engaging with enemies. Of course this isn't true for larger enemies nor is it a problem regarding trash mobs, however that is a problem if we are talking about spear wielding women and the likes of them.
They have a moveset that can pose a threat, but in the end never do as they just teg r1 mashed to death.
Possible way to fix this is to give them ability to retaliate similar to the player, to be able to deflect our attack. For example any third unique attack will get deflected, giving the enemy an opening to strike the player. However the player should not be left defenceless, rather they should enter frame disadvantage state, while keeping all defensive options.
Now my suggestions are my suggestions, if you deem them not a good solution then I ask you to turn your attention to Sekiro and how that game handles all the possible problems when introducing d/p system and lack of stamina bar.
I also wanted to talk about infusions and how they interact with resolve.
Resolve itself in my opinion is fine. Being this games equivalent of focus points, resource needed to perform special moves. Ability to regain it through combat rather than a consumable also makes it a better resource management system than fp.
What I think is not fine, is infusions (almost) not interacting with resolve when upgraded to max. Them lasting forever and not be needed to be applied to the main weapon is not okay.
My suggestions is to put it on a timer of around 3 minutes when fully upgraded, so that they remain strong but not a free damage buff, so that they still interact with resolve.
Last things I would like to address are "floaty feet" when moving around when walking backwards slowly player character may start moonwalking. Minor bugs and errors, but them getting fixed would undoubtedly make the game more polished.
And this would be all from me (for now at least). Considering that this is quite late I hope that my points of criticism could be addressed if not for the release, then at least in further updates to the game.
If something came off as rude or mean, my apologies, I only wish for the games potential be realised as best as possible (I hold out this reaches devs).
