Hello dear Wolcen-team,

As a passionate ARPG-Player I was really stoked to support a next-gen ARPG from the alpha-stage onwards.
Since you have officially entered beta-status i thought i would send you my observations / opinions concerning
that accumulated during my time with the present release. I hope it helps

**Since I usually tend favor melee characters these opinions are heavily focused on this side of combat.
Once I have played a ranged / caster character for significant amounts of time i might expand this post.

I won't go too much into specific skills / skill modifiers and

Lets get started:

1.
I like the demand for strategy your game puts on the player. Especially as a melee character you cannot afford
to waste important cooldowns (stuns / dodgerolls etc.) without being punished. I would not mind at all if you keep this
"Dark Souls-feeling" within your game, in fact would encourage you to build on this aspect and build a true skill-focussed
combat system that is not only a "statcheck".

2.
What I am currently worried about is the diversity in different melee playstyles in the finished game. Depending on how many
active skills you plan to add during development different melee-only styles might play too similar.
I don't know if this is possible, but perhaps some weapon-class-exclusive skills would help out in this respect (i.e. skills only
usable while using two-handers, dual-wielding or sword and board).
Especially using a shield feels kind of unrewarding at this point. Perhaps introducing some CC-focused shield-only skills would
encourage people to choose this playstyle. Otherwise i think most people will choose to go with two-handed weapons (because of the
better damage scaling for active skills) or a sword/dagger dual-wield for more mobility / skill selection options.

Perhaps introducing weapons specific nodes into the passive skilltree would also be an option (e.g. stun-chance on hammers, etc...) and encourage
more diverse playstyles.

3.
**Ok. What follows is my biggest gripe with your current combat system.

*To be completely clear: I really like where you are trying to take your combat system, but there is one major aspect that is at least
in my opinion frustrating as hell and tends to cut down the combat-flow / enjoyment considerably:

THE GODDAMN INABILITY TO CANCEL ANIMATIONS

Seriously. This aspect is probably responsible for more than 60% of my deaths while playing / pushing the limits of my char. Once you have started
the animation of any melee skill you are forced to sit through the whole thing without the ability to cancel out of it without a dodgeroll or other movement
skills. I don't know your specific framedata, but I have the impression that some animations even lock me in place after the actual skill-damage was applied
to the target. This even applies to chugging health-potions. Because of my inability to cancel out of attack animations I have been forced to use more health
potions than I would like to ^^. The problem with this is, that I feel like (and this might just be me, mind you) I should be able to use the potion charges earlier
than it is actually possible. I don't know how your game queues commands, but I feel like the game does not do this at all, meaning I have to wait for the last
frame of the current attack animation to end before chugging the life-saving beverage. This delay / (perceived) inability to queue commands (in combination with the inability to cancel animations) makes the melee combat feel more clunky and unrewarding than it should be, which is pity since your skill animations / perceived impact of your skills are really well done.

My plea would be this:

Please allow us to cancel animations with movement skills, dogerolls, or any skill with a inherent movement component.
I can understand if you dont want to allow this to happen with the standard move command to keep the strategic side of the combat system alive.
I don't really care if the damage caused by the skill is also cancelled. Staying alive is more important.

When it comes to chugging pots I would like to have a buffer window that allows me to input my "drink this-command" before the current animation has ended.
Meaning the potion charge goes through the exact frame the current animation ends. Or you could decouple the potion chugging from the other animations
completely. Again: If you don't want to do this for gameplay reasons that is your choice ^^. At the moment my potion-keys on my keyboard take more abuse than necessary because I try to use my potion charge too early and consequently hammer the key down repeatedly to get in a second drink-command in ^^

Alright. Sorry about the little rant at the end. All I have written about up there is purely subjective, but I hope it helps you somehow.

If I stumble over more stuff I will let you know.

Keep up the good work ^^.