RuneScape: Dragonwilds

[h1]Heartbreaking[/h1] It's been a long time since I've had a game make me genuinely smile. So it pains me when I say that this game is among the most infuriating of all the survival titles. Upon entering the game it feels... oddly familiar if you've played any survival game in the last 2yrs... but easily ignored because it is beautiful, runs smooth, feels cohesive and well thought out in it's world design and story. Something that is lacking in this genre... it really stands out in that regard. It's charm will get you in the first few hours. Seriously, it will. When I first encountered the use of the magic system in the game is was a delight. Using it to handle basic chores was such a cool concept that I had always wanted from magic in these games. "Finally someone gets it" I thought as I cut down my first trees with magic. I genuinely smiled. SMILED! Do you remember that part of video games? I was so excited to dive into the game. But, that smiles faded quickly as I started to notice that outside of a few things you encounter early... the rest of the systems are so poorly thought out they become more and more maddening the longer you play. You will struggle to figure out the logic behind the terrible game design choices as you constantly battle the item requirements, miniscule inventory space, UI and animations. The most unforgivable is the forced radial wheel for in combat spells and actions, made all the worse by long locked in animations that guarantee you get hit by numerous enemies before completing said spell/action. Enemies do not act intelligently, (flanking and maneuvering to find a opening, which would give you time in between attacks) no, they all charge you at the same time and follow you like a swarm of bees. Zero thought was put into this. Unless you want to play with a sword and shield or massively manipulate the custom settings forget about being a mage or even a useful ranged class. The game wants you to be all classes at once, but doesn't give you the [b]UI, INVENTORY SPACE, or QUALITY OF LIFE[/b] features to make it worth your time and certainly not your enjoyment. Constant absolutely maddening design choices. I can use magic to cut down trees and cut up logs, but I have to have a watering can (that needs to be [b]manually[/b] filled) to use my magic, to water my garden. I won't go into many things because they have all been stated before, but this game will fight you. Not the goblins... not the dragons... this game. It's like the dev teams were not allowed to talk to each other through out the design process as so many of the design choices and systems in this game fight each other. They also must have the feedback printer lined up with their paper shredder because so many pain points have been brought up since day one and they are completely ignored to stick to the "roadmap." Which, is ironic because this game feels kinda half baked outside of looking and sounding good. I actually don't know how they couldn't figure this one out, the genre has practically made these games for them at this point and they already have the lore and world building done for them with Runescape. All they had to do was design new UI and systems around it... and they couldn't do that? This one actually hurt me. I was so ready to finally play something good. Sorry Jagex but this isn't it. I'll give it another try in September but this still needs a lot of love and thought put into it before I'll ever recommend it.