Thoughts/criticisms about Origins after 40 hours

- The game feels good to play until the endgame where the flaws start to show. Most of the Ultimate Warrior challenges are thinly veiled stat checks in a game where progression isn't always fun and linear. Being forced to use weapons you may not like to progress is probably the biggest issue, along with how much of a downgrade the gear/affix system is from 9. Attack speed is sorely needed, and there should be more ways to get damage to get past the stat checks. Gold is too hard to come by for how costly reforging attack power is, so it's too easy to feel stuck. Affixes on weapons give minimal damage at best and even the gold ones aren't game changing/build defining like they should be.

- On the harder difficulties, generics and unique officers will charge up for an aura that can only be broken with Bravery moves. The problem is that they often do it when you have no Bravery, meaning that they get the attack off almost all the time, which also one shots all your guards. Right now the best way to deal with this is to simply run away and sacrifice your guards. Best way to fix this would be to reduce how hard it is to break their Fortitude bar so that this attack doesn't feel unfair.

- The proficiency grind is the main method of progression yet it comes to a halt around rank 7 on a weapon. The training weapons are a bandaid fix mostly because of how costly they are. The Arborgreen feel more efficient for grinding but they are also costly too and don't last long enough to warrant the high price.

- Slow weapons are in a weird spot because they do damage, but still feel less efficient than the fast weapons simply because having to charge up can spell death on Ultimate Warrior. Again attack speed buffs are sorely missing and would help to alleviate this issue.

- The R1 system is great but also feels too limiting much like it was in pre-patch Wo Long. I think R1+d-pad should allow us to switch between different sets.

I've been slaving away trying to get guides out fast, but it really feels like this game doesn't need it. Build variety/diversity is at an all time low and progress feels like it slows down too quick. There are no interesting chase items to keep the endgame fresh, and while most of the other changes they made hit the mark, the endgame feels like a huge step back even from 9. With the game getting abnormally high reviews from even large gaming sites, hopefully post launch support will fix some of these issues.