I can see why people like this, but I didn't get what I wanted from the experience. It's more shallow than I expected.

Combat isn't any more of a focus than any other skill of the game. Some people might like that, but for me it's the fatal flaw. I wanted to work in the other areas then feel the power progression of my efforts in combat. To feel like I'd gained ground and was stronger. Putting in a days worth of time, I expected to at least have found a really cool unique piece of loot or something. But because the whole point is a slow burn you can put in all that time and not really feel the return in your character's capabilities at all. Many of my skills are past the point of 50, but my character still feels like a weak nobody and nothing has really changed or gotten more interesting. In fact, I would argue it's much less interesting once you've learned the core gameplay loop.

I haven't played a lot of idlers, but I do have experience with cookie clicker. Until the endgame, that game feels it's constantly ramping up. Things get progressively bigger and more insane. Your upgrades continue to feel bigger and better. I didn't really ever get that feeling here... I kept waiting to feel like something was evolving, but nothing really jumped from level 1 to level 10, it was more like level 1 to 1.1.

I also found a lot of the UI to be needlessly cumbersome. The shop page is huge, and odd to navigate, and things are there that feel like they should be elsewhere... And I don't understand why I can't do things like buy fertilizer on the page where I USE/APPLY the fertilizer. This seems like it'd be a slam dunk for an easy one click to buy and apply, but for whatever reason it's not even found on the same page. It also lacks any form of notification for desktop, which is just weird for a game like this, that has made it a point to have push notifications on mobile...

The base game system's also just don't feel as interwoven as I feel as they should be. Each skill feels like it contributes to one other small area of the game and itself, rather than progressing your character or wider areas of the game.

DLC helps fix this, having skills that make you better at all the other parts of the game blanketly. The astrology skill in particular was my favorite, because the theme was cool, and I felt like progressing it was progressing all other areas of the game rather than just one or two. Even the gold stardust was a good source of money, so you could work at everything while working on one thing. I wish all the skills in the game felt that way. But when I realized I wasn't really having that much fun with the core elements of character progression, my interest as a whole fizzled out.

It might have gotten better later on, and maybe I'll tinker with it some more. IDK.

I know from the reviews a lot of people love this game, and I can see how. But for me it's more of an idler with RPG elements, when I was wanting an RPG with idler elements. Cheers.

I can see why people like this, but I didn't get what I wanted from the experience. It's more shallow than I expected. Combat isn't any more of a focus than any other skill of the game. Some people might like that, but for me it's the fatal flaw. I wanted to work in the other areas then feel the power progression of my efforts in combat. To feel like I'd gained ground and was stronger. Putting in a days worth of time, I expected to at least have found a really cool unique piece of loot or something. But because the whole point is a slow burn you can put in all that time and not really feel the return in your character's capabilities at all. Many of my skills are past the point of 50, but my character still feels like a weak nobody and nothing has really changed or gotten more interesting. In fact, I would argue it's much less interesting once you've learned the core gameplay loop. I haven't played a lot of idlers, but I do have experience with cookie clicker. Until the endgame, that game feels it's constantly ramping up. Things get progressively bigger and more insane. Your upgrades continue to feel bigger and better. I didn't really ever get that feeling here... I kept waiting to feel like something was evolving, but nothing really jumped from level 1 to level 10, it was more like level 1 to 1.1. I also found a lot of the UI to be needlessly cumbersome. The shop page is huge, and odd to navigate, and things are there that feel like they should be elsewhere... And I don't understand why I can't do things like buy fertilizer on the page where I USE/APPLY the fertilizer. This seems like it'd be a slam dunk for an easy one click to buy and apply, but for whatever reason it's not even found on the same page. It also lacks any form of notification for desktop, which is just weird for a game like this, that has made it a point to have push notifications on mobile... The base game system's also just don't feel as interwoven as I feel as they should be. Each skill feels like it contributes to one other small area of the game and itself, rather than progressing your character or wider areas of the game. DLC helps fix this, having skills that make you better at all the other parts of the game blanketly. The astrology skill in particular was my favorite, because the theme was cool, and I felt like progressing it was progressing all other areas of the game rather than just one or two. Even the gold stardust was a good source of money, so you could work at everything while working on one thing. I wish all the skills in the game felt that way. But when I realized I wasn't really having that much fun with the core elements of character progression, my interest as a whole fizzled out. It might have gotten better later on, and maybe I'll tinker with it some more. IDK. I know from the reviews a lot of people love this game, and I can see how. But for me it's more of an idler with RPG elements, when I was wanting an RPG with idler elements. Cheers.