Opinions after two playthroughs [minor spoilers]

[Chiller]

First and foremost: overall, the game is great. The level design is superb. It captures the feeling of dungeon-delving perfectly. The combat works beautifully. Final boss is awesome

A few things that caught my attention:

There are a few balance issues. Ok, that is an outright lie. There are a lot of balance issues (some weapon types are better, not all skills are useful, not all magic types are equally powerful) but they don't really matter because it takes too long to notice them and you're going to enjoy the game in the meantime anyway. Some do stand out immediately, however, like protection vs. evasion.

The key input buffer doesn't behave consistently (i.e. if I hold down the forward key for a while then release I don't know where I'm going to stop) and this creates problems with the timing puzzles (this is being discussed elsewhere on the forum too).

The UI could use a few improvements, hotkeys to attack and cast spells would be useful (and if you don't like them, don't use them. Sigh.) There was a game (Lands of Lore perhaps?) where you could right-click a monster and the first ready character would perform an attack. That would work quite well here, I think.

I loved the Tome of Fire, but why is it a one-of? A few more books of this type would have been quite cool.

Speaking of which, putting a Book of Infinite Wisdom in a treasury pretty much removes the choice.

The amount of skill points gained over the course of the game is very restricted. It would have been good to have a warning to the effect of "you will only max one skill, maybe, and that will happen right before the end" (perhaps in the manual), because with each class having 6 skills, I was pretty sure at least two would be maxed during the course of the game. Having more skills points would improve gameplay a bit because people would be able to actually spend some on the support skills.

...can't think of aything else right now. Once again, great game I know there have been a lot of suggestions from the community after the launch and actually, I think the game works fine as it is now and you don't have to change anything. Just wanted to share my thoughts.

[Chiller]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, I think you guys have great design skills and if you would be interested you could probably make a FANTASTIC Ultima Underworld-style game! Better than Arx Fatalis too!

[Halk]

Chiller, would you say that the 26-50th skill level perks are too powerful in comparison to the 1-25, to the point that it's not rewarding to do anything but stick to one skill tree? To me that's the biggest thing in the game that needs looked at - the game all but forces you to pick a skill tree, finish it and then pick another. Even if there were more than 50 skillpoints available you'd still follow that route, other than unlocking basic spells or armour abilities.

Congratulations of being the Log King.

You do seem to have listed all of the more serious issues people have. This would seem to be a very concise post that the devs could use to polish the game.

Edit : As far as them doing an Ultima Underworld... Nah I'd rather see their next project be a re-do of the Gold Box engine, compliant to 2nd edition rules....

[Chiller]

You know, I've only ever maxed out Unarmed

Looking at them - weapon lvl 50 perks seem very good but I don't know how well they work in practice. You could stop at lvl 33 and advance something else, but the problem is that you lose all the extra damage and accuracy.

Unarmed has excellent perks throughout the tree.

With my mages I've only leveled magic up to where you get the improved damage spell. With a fire mage I also got the circle of protection, and it was very useful (only because of the Uggardians). I put quite a few points in Spellcraft but in the end I think getting 10,18 or more is just a matter of preference.

*Notices something peculiar* Hold on a minute... dear devs, if dexterity doesn't matter for missile weapons why all the dexterity perks there? Thrown weapons give strength bonuses instead, that seems ok.

[notger]

So what does the Three Point Strike Technique actually do?
(Do I have to back away seven steps from the target hit and then its and instant kill?)

[Chiller]

It just deals massive damage (around 230 for me but it depends on attack power). I think this had been answered in another thread already.

[Saice]

I never got anything to 50. And honestly I did not feel gimped at all for spreading myself out. So I don't feel like the system is made to force you to complete a skill tree and them move to a new one. And some trees you really do not have to go vary deep to get a useful benefit and them over to another.

Assassination and Armors comes to mind as two skills only investing to a point is perfectly fine. And while I did not use a mage on my game I could see basically sticking to an element until you get your shield and them dumping the rest into spell craft as a fairly viable tactic.

I did find the whole 1 apex weapon for each style but only 1 apex mage weapon and only for fire a bit of a odd choice. Same with the Tome of fire what no Tome of earth or air ect? that I found odd.

But truly a book forcing your choice? Not so much First 5 skill points is just a free level +1 nothing to write home about and second the keys are interchangeable so you can skip one treasure room and use the key for another opening 2 or even 3 of its gates.

[Loktofeit]

Looking at the game from a long-term development standpoint, the design of each aspect of progression is actually brilliant.

Legend of Grimrock is designed to be the first of many modules, with later ones either from the devs or the modding community. It's akin to a good old PnP Dungeons and Dragons Starter Pack .

The more that can be maxed out in LoG, the less persistent the characters can be through additional adventures, as there will be significantly less to gain in future adventures. This is very evident in the skill system, as it is balanced such that when you complete LoG, you MAY have a character with a maxed skill, but that's an achievement in and of itself often.

Another place this is evident is in the spell system. They designed the game with modding in mind so, again, you have a very basic starter collection that shows how to do 'melee' spells, ranged spells, DoTs, party protection spells and world state alteration (dark and light). This leaves hundreds more combinations in the tree for mods and future expansions.

When you look at LoG as the first of a series, be that series by modders or the devs, a lot of the design decisions seem to make a lot more sense.

Legend of Grimrock seems to be very effectively designed as the beginning of an ongoing adventure.

[ExecutiveMonstah]

I didn't max any of my skills on my first playthrough and I don't feel like I missed out on anything. Mainly I put enough points in my attack skill (swords/ranged/etc.) to get the next perk then distributed any left overs into one of the support skills like armour or athletics. I think my party turned out ok, all things considered.
I did notice the lack of balance with the evasion/protection mechanic though and by the end my ninja-like dashing rogue was about as effective as a granite parachute.