Windrose has been a pleasant game experience after its first early access version. Although I’m meant my experience unlike other players who may have been affected by Steam save bug. I wanted to list some bugs or improvements for reference. Because we may get a chance to look back on how far the game has improved in the future.
Yes, Windrose still needs improvement
Reducing load time – optimization or add load progress bar.
Loading my save takes about a minute to load.
I meant Windrose takes a noticeably long load time before jumping into the game. Palworld takes less than 10 seconds to load my save file; you open the game, you load, and you’re there. Not Windrose with its long startup time. Additionally, it becomes a little cumbersome when troubleshooting or testing it on the server when you need to close and reopen the game.
However Windrose’s long load time may have to do with its procedural map. Or it’s still need significant optimization of course. Alternatively, the developers can place a progress bar when loading the game. I’m confident that some optimizations will be implemented on future patches to reduce the load time.
Combat could be immensely improved
The combat needs improvement on the feel and fluidity.
It’s confusing whether the saber or rapier would do cleave damage because you’re swinging it. Yet it’s a single target weapon. So I found my choice with the long sword instead which can cleave multiple targets.
My cousin also had difficulty with early game combat and I completely understood what he meant. The early combat is not as friendly or easy for casual gamers. Not to mention the enemies deal big damage on your level 1 health.
I’m mostly doing run and swings. It’s hard to time the block because the swing and momentum don’t feel consistent. I’m getting there but sometimes it does feel uneven to match my character’s blocking mechanic. I’m using a long sword. And I’m not sure if I’m blocking properly – literally hit and miss blocking.
Ship boarding combat on a few missions do NOT feel balanced. And it can be frustrating. For example, after taking down five out of seven sailors on the enemy ship, that should mean only two sailors left before victory. But then six enemies spawn and surround me. I can’t block or dodge as the ship is too narrow to dodge and I get hits from behind when I can only block what’s in front of me. So I failed and respawned in my base away from my ship.
There was no sense of progress taking down the five sailors. More of them respawned anyway. There should not have been any more spawns, or there should have only been two more enemies left.
Misunderstanding the resources – respawn resources.
Also a funny thing that the trees currently do not respawn. I don’t know whether this was done on purpose by Kraken Express. And this concerned me a little early on which resorted to hoarding driftwood on the seas. But there is no tree crisis!
Perhaps we may expect a logging site in the future.
I also noticed that a patch of clay was nor respawning perhaps it’s within the radius of my base. But the clay respawns when it’s outside my base. The various plants and crops also respawn but I’m not sure if they will if they’re inside my base permeter.
So there’s this air of confusion if resources respawn or not.
Copper and stone inside caves respawn. They just a have a longer refresh timer.
Quests feel like a drag – shorten it.
The early quests can bring you the wrong expectation. There are some quests that are short and rewarding. But there are also some quests that feel like a drag which can be discouraging. Other quests could’ve been shortened as point A to point B. I thought that some quests should give players earlier rewards rather than adding more quests to finish.
I’ve completely misunderstood the purpose of the quest. I was expecting the reward after finishing the goal, then it updates and now I have to go to the other side of the map.
The early game rewards would have been helpful.
It’s a difficult early grind – need more early rewards.
Windrose leans more to a difficult early grind to earn piastres. Players would need to significantly improve their equipment and ship before looting. I just stored what I thought would be valuable and sold them later.
Players also will need to grind for reputation points for each faction. Which would unlock new items and blueprints.
You also gain XP solely on exploring POIs or finishing quests. At least with v0.10 there’s no experience gain from free combat, crafting, or building on the game world. When you complete a point of interest on the map, it may give you 25exp or 50exp.
NPCs and balance on future patches
I need more worker NPCs so that the game doesn’t feel too lonely. Currently there is only a handful of named NPCs to recruit to your base. And it’s funny how your ship crew is stuck in your ship. They can’t join me in my base yet.
As mentioned, clay doesn’t respawn when within the bonfire perimeter. This may be temporary but I would simply recommend to have all resources respawn. And prevent them when there’s a structure on top of it.
It’s also grindy to purchase recipes also. For example, looking for new decoration and building schematics. In addition there’s also the part of upgrading your weapons too. Honestly, it’s fine to grind but it leans more to too much time consumption for the sake of a few gains. And to think that no EXP is gained from this grind.
There is a learning curve to avoid the frustration
Your character will fail a lot of times because of how frustrating the combat is early on. For example, when an enemy hits you and you cannot block or move. Or you may get stuck because there are no lower-tier quests or POIs to level up.
Honestly, I feel stuck at the moment because I’m not sure yet what to do in the game. There’s only a few named NPCs who can work with me. I’m still thinking of the reliable way to earn piastre to recruit them. Plus I’m not sure about which faction to please at this point. I have a certain idea but I feel like it’s too grindy to earn reputation – even from level 1 to level 2 rep.
The ship combat also can get challenging. But it can be learned with enough practice. It’s difficult to estimate the distance of your cannon fire from the ship. You also need to time the enemy ship’s movement before firing your cannon. The best way is to get close to the enemy ship and fire at the enemy’s hull.
And then there’s the boarding combat. I was disappointed that you currently cannot capture enemy ships.
Ashlands and beyond
We’re planning to start our dedicated server in time for Ashlands. Kraken Express had about six months to study the early access. In the end, the Windrose is still a good game to play. It’s just that phase where things can be difficult to some players because of the lack of QoL or imbalance this early.
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