I just played a "year" on Normal (since that's what most players will probably start with) and here are my issues and suggestions so far.
Bugs:
- Locks can be easy-picked by clicking repeatedly and rotating the pick.
- Locked doors opened from the "inside" open but don't unlock, and are locked when they are next closed.
- Enemies and Hostages can get stuck on furniture and stairwell railings.
- Thankfully for the most part this does not seem to happen with "walls" or other such more "solid" level geometry (with the exception of stairwell railing corners), just "furniture-ish" objects like crates and benches.
Suggestions:
- "Normal" difficulty is too easy to the point where it leaves a bad first impression. Since death isn't the end in this game maybe stepping Normal up one would make for a better first impression (EDIT: I was still on gen1 at the time, see later post)
- A "zoom" function would be nice for the outdoor areas. Binoculars maybe?
- A lot of rooms probably need more furniture in general.
- If you need an excuse to have "out of place" furniture, how about having some "ransacked" or "destroyed" rooms with furniture obviously tipped over or otherwise not in a traditionally desirable state? I mean it seems a lot of the areas are overrun with monsters anyway.
- The stake feels somewhat overpowered against Minions on Normal as you can take out groups by just spamming it repeatedly, perhaps make the stake attack slower? (EDIT: Again, "gen1", see later post.)
- It seems that the Big Bad can use the same lines in a row in dreams, which is a bit odd.
- Perhaps doors shouldn't instantly open upon picking as you might not want to open a door at the exact moment it is picked.
- Perhaps opening a locked door from the "inside" should require unlocking (instant of course) before opening to make the locking behavior of doors read more clearly.
- Perhaps "hostages" should occasionally be added to other mission types? I mean if the area is overrun by vampires and their minions I think it would make sense that they would have the same "cower in place" behavior they do in "rescue" missions, not to mention it would be quick way to add "civilians" to other mission types.
- I feel like the "Patrol" mission does not make sense in its current form.
- Since you can hit the markers without killing anything what are you "patrolling" for? Then again, I guess a pure extermination mission would be a bit boring.
- Since we only have one field agent in this case (the player) a "patrol" strikes me as something you would only do in the absence of other more solid objectives, having them be equal options alongside things like "Steal" or "Hunt" doesn't make sense to me.
- Possible Solution?: Maybe replace this with a mission where you're supposed to place something? Maybe traps, cameras, or vampire repellents or something like that.
- Since the player doesn't directly determine what mission types are available, I don't think it would be exploitable to have a mission type with minimal risk of harm or death.
- I feel like the "Rescue" mission looks really awkward the way it works now.
- It's not clear why these people are standing around cowering and the vampires + minions are seemingly completely ignoring them.
- All these people are in completely different places and are often unattended? What's holding them there?
- Possible Solution?: How about having fewer "hostages", have them be unconscious/incapacitated, and require the player to carry them out
- This would provide a pretty logical excuse for the vampires and minions to not interact with them.
- Avoids pathing issues of many hostages trying to run away back through the level.
- If you need an excuse to have them be unconscious, present them as being harvested for blood. As an added bonus this would add a little something theme-wise.
I'll post more later as I play some more.