Jun 12

Elegon Health Check - June 2026

It's been a little while since I last did a proper health check on Elegon, so I spent about two hours today stress testing the current build. The last time I really did this was around January, during the launch of the playtest server. Since then, I've logged in a couple of times, but mostly just to run through the quest chain and walk around. Today was more of a full dive back into the game, so here are my thoughts. What I Liked: - Keybindings and the new options are a great addition and make the game feel much more complete. - I've always liked the ambience of Amberwood, and that carries for to each of the new zones (even though they're clearly not complete). The tint, colour scheme, general design choices, and especially things like the fog over the water in the Dark zone make them all feel distinctly their own. - The vast inclusion of new enemies and bosses is a big improvement. I love the frogs, and the frog boss! - Levels and leveling up feels much more meaningful now. The pacing will obviously need fine tuning over time, but for the current stage of the game, it feels much better than before. - I like the new spells, and from what I tested, they all seem to work properly.- The game now has a much needed quest chain. - I really like the fog of war on the map, revealing itself as you explore. - A lot of the newer quality of life and design upgrades are excellent and make the game feel much better overall. Areas for Improvement: - There are still no proper strafe options with Q and E. This is a personal preference suggestion, but running around just feels stiff without it, in my opinion. - When auto running, pressing any movement button like A or D to adjust your direction cancels auto run entirely. Ideally, I feel like pressing A and D should let you steer slightly while continuing to auto run. - Some parts of the world design still feel quite wonky. Roads that ascend/descend unnaturally, and a few rocks and trees that are practically sideways. - The world feels very boxed in. I know this is an MMO staple, but some of my fav zones in WoW have that open feeling where you could accidentally run into another zone- such as Elwynn and Duskwood or Westfall, being merely separated by a river. Instead of using massive mountains to separate zones everywhere, it may be worth considering rivers, cliffs, gates that are manned by NPCs, or even some more open transitions where possible. - The maps, including the first zone, still feel quite empty in places. I do like the quiet, relaxed, ambient areas at times, but there is currently too much empty space without much reason to explore it. This doesn't have to be fixed with more mobs scattered across the area- it could be improved by adding more standalone fetch/puzzle-like quests and smaller quest chains that take players into those quieter areas. Another good option would be profession materials, such as mining nodes, herbs, or other gatherable resources, to give the player reasons to move through the world. - The mana bar going up instead of down feels a little odd to me. For Knight, the system makes sense because rage style systems are already an established concept for Warriors in WoW for example. For casters, though, I personally prefer the more traditional mana system where your resource goes down as you spend it. Right now, the current system feels like it could create balance issues, especially in future group content. Healers, for example, are incentivised to use their damage spell in order to generate healing resources, rather than conserving mana for tight situations. That is an interesting idea, but in its current form I worry it may not feel very good in dungeon or group content. Mage also seems especially strong under this system. Because they can build up their resource and then unload multiple high damage instant casts (Gleam in particular) that can effectively burst enemies down extremely quickly. From my testing, Mage still feels like the strongest class by a fair margin. I am not completely against the system, and with tuning I could definitely be persuaded on it, but right now I think it either needs more work, or needs to be pivoted back to a more traditional, true and tested system. - Targeting an enemy automatically starts auto attacking, which feels wrong. I should be able to target something without attacking it until I actively begin combat. - Running too far from an enemy’s spawn causes it to turn around and walk back, which makes kiting harder fights almost impossible at times. This would be less of an issue if the leash range was longer for certain enemies. Enemies also walk painfully slowly back to their spawn point after leashing. - If an enemy respawns while you are standing near it, it attacks almost instantly. This can feel a bit unfair, especially if the player has just finished a fight. - There is quite a noticeable difficulty spike between the Wolves and the Frogs. I like difficulty, but the current jump feels like it almost forces the player to grind a few levels just to deal with frogs that early in the game, depending on the class they picked. This is another reason I think more standalone quests or smaller quest chains would help. They could naturally guide players into gaining a few extra levels without making it feel like pure grinding. For context from my testing: Mage could beat the frogs at level 3 fairly easily- infact, a level 2 Mage could bring the level 6 frog down to about 9% HP. Knight could beat the frog at level 5, but it was close. Healer barely managed to beat it at level 6, and it felt much harder than the other classes. - The Mage's Gleam spell is fun, but it is obviously way too strong. It feels like the strongest and easiest spell to use in the game right now, and needs to be tuned down. Either less damage, or a CD timer on when it can be pressed rather than it being instant cast. - Another Personal preference, but I am not a fan of the iPad/tablet style map when pressing M. I would prefer the map to open as a full page map by default, with a restore down button for players who want a smaller version. Ideally, the map window should also be resizable. - The mini map needs zoom in and zoom out options. As it is right now, it does not feel particularly useful. - This first quest chain is a great addition, but it still leaves a lot to be desired at this current stage. The biggest issue is that it jumps from a level 6 quest to a level 20 quest, which creates a massive gap in progression. More quests- not necessarily dedicated to this chain- are needed in between to smooth out the levelling experience and give players more direction. - I also think the quest markers over NPCs could be clearer. At the moment, it is hard to tell who is and is not interactable. There is nothing wrong with using a more familiar MMO style system, such as a gold exclamation mark for available quests, grey question mark for quests currently in progress and a gold question mark for quests ready to hand in. That kind of visual language would make the quest flow much easier to understand. - The chat box currently looks like it is only for Global Chat. Even though the game does not currently have a large active player base, it would still be good to eventually have local chat, party chat, whispers, an adjustable chat box size and additional chat windows or tabs. These would make the game feel more "MMO ready" as the player base grows. Overall, the game has clearly improved a lot since the last time I properly tested it. The new quality of life features, quest chain, enemies, bosses, spells, and level pacing all make the game feel much more complete than it did before. The biggest areas I think need attention are world density, quest progression, class balancing, movement controls, enemy behaviour, and UI clarity. There is still a lot here that feels promising, it's fun jumping into it, and the game is definitely moving in a great direction. It looks like it's been made with love and care- it just needs more content between the existing progression gaps, more reasons to explore the world, and some tuning around combat and class balance. Regardless, that's some phenomenal progress in such a short amount of time for a solo dev. Props to you, Keone!

Pending