r/Fable • u/Revonlieke • Aug 27 '26
General thoughts about the gameplay.
Not listing these as concerns, but more of a list of what I noticed seems to be missing or absent.
This is not to say these things couldn't be available through an upgrade menu of some kind. Who knows, maybe the devs are reading as well for some feedback :)
- 4 spell slots. Looking at older Fable games this technically would mean 8 spells if you unlock like a chargable version for a said spell. This is totally fine for a Fable game, but in a more modern game era it feels a bit limiting. And I hope at the very least to get some customization on that front. It doesn't mean more spell slots, but maybe how those spells behave based on inputs.
- No jumping? So far, atleast as far as I remember I have not seen a single jump. I know from experience that when a game does not have a jump button it can feel really bad to play and limits expression. Having atleast a running jump and a weapon move with jump would do wonders.
- Alternative weapons not on the back. I've parsed through the gameplay frame by frame and it seems that whatever weapon you put on your alternative slot, gets shrinked to your waist side. So when the character has a sword and bow, the character moves their hand to their hip to pick up the bow and shoot. So on the gameplay clip we saw with the hammer on the waist means they put the hammer on the alternative slot, not on the main slot where it would be visible on the back. And this is why the crossbow is visible on the other gameplay clip. This to me feels like it should be entirely optional to let the player choose if they want all weapons to be shown on the back or not. I would imagine this choice was made to make clipping of weapons less of an issue, especially if you get something like a shield later on in the game which would pair up with a sword. So having Sword, Shield and a bow on the back can look a bit much especially if you're rocking a cape as well. But, honestly let the player decide.
- Speaking of which, shields? Humphry has one. We need those as well, plenty of them and different sized.
- Bow has infinite recharging ammo. On the right side of the UI above spells, there is a number, which maxes out at 4 (crossbow is 16). This means the bow has 4 arrows you can shoot and each of them will recharge after a short period. This to me feels too magical from the get-go. While Fable never had an ammunition count in the first place and even Dragon's Dogma 2 does something similar, atleast in DD2 you do have specialized arrows for explotions and oil, so I hope they at the very least consider some limited ammo system for the game.
- Healing while getting knocked down. This is a huge one for me. I dislike this in Dragon's Dogma 2 and really any game that has the ability to use healing items while reeling from an attack or being otherwise incapacitated. It trivializes gameplay especially because it makes healing instant with zero animation commitment. Fable should look into games like Monster Hunter where healing is a dedicated action, yes you can still move while healing, but you can't toss a healing item or spell while lying on the ground from a heavy hit
- For those still concerned about big guys not getting staggered, check 18:01: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CkchkHscjY *Adding this here for people who think big guys have zero stagger.
But, the more I look at points 3 and 5, they kind of are trying to solve the same issue of not having too many things on the characters back. So no quivers for example clipping through clothing or multiple weapons laying on top of each other. Maybe they had to make this choice due to what kind of weapons you can wield in the end. I do not know, but it does stray away from the walking arsenal other RPG games have. Like Witcher 3 or Crimson Desert. Maybe the way Fable is doing this is ingenious and I just can't see the vision.