I wanted to say like many others how much I'm looking forward to this game. I would dare to say its shaping up to be even better than FO 1 & 2 and this is saying something. Keep up the good work and keep at it. I really hope the finished product is at least 40 hours or more.
The Alpha was good and is definitely and improvement over the demo but there are a few things that I think should be polished to make a more enjoyable gameplay experience.
1. Better organization of items - You get a lot of stuff in this game and that's great and all but dividing your inventory a little would be much more user friendly. Maybe have different sections for weapons/armor, usable items, and crafting components in separate sections in the inventory menu, and maybe divide shops the same way to match. Even 2 different sections in the inventory menu would make a world of difference.
2. Slightly tweaked combat balance - The balance seems a little off on some encounters. Sometimes you have decent armor and still get killed by something stupid and eventually by reloading the game a dozen times you can get the desired outcome. I don't know too much about the inner workings of numbers in game coding but maybe put it slightly more in the players favor. Which kind of ties in to the next suggestion.
3. Have difficulty settings - I don't usually like these options in games but having the standard 3 difficulties easier, normal, harder and making slight adjustments for each one could cater to all the types of gamers.
4. A lot more armors and a few more weapons - The amount of weapons in the game is pretty good but it would be nice to see a few different ones. There's like 5 or 6 different types of knives it seems and that seems to be the core of melee weapons, some other weapons like swords, axes, and/or spears would be a welcome addition. I would definitely consider adding fist type melee weapons too for the puncher/melee characters like brass knuckles. sappers, claws, etc.
As far as armor goes it seems to be pretty scarce. I think the crafting system is good and you can basically make custom type armors which is neat but having more readily available armor would be ideal especially headgear. All that seems to be available are goggles and steel helmet. Maybe get like a leather/padded helmet to match the body armor before going to full on metal and maybe another type of body armor and headgear (like some kind of plastic or something).
5. Option to see AP in numbers easier - This is pretty much just a personal thing but I would like if AP (both movement and action) were displayed in numbers rather than the green and yellow bars. Having an option to do so would be great.
6. A few number tweaks for leveling up - I would reduce the amount of skill points received by 5 to 10 as it seems like you get just a few too many points upon leveling and can almost max out your character with the amount given by the time you get to level 20. I would also consider making the level cap somewhere around level 30 (I think I read you wanted it to be level 20).
7. A retweak and addition of more feats - Some of the feats seem pretty pointless and have little appeal to them. I want to rack my brain trying to figure out what feat I want because they would all be useful, it seems like there's only a handful of good ones and its easy to pick the good ones out of the bunch. Some of them give something good but then take something away and usually the good does not outweigh the bad as it should. And i know you said you were also going to make a lot more feats but I would keep in mind to make all of them more useful than not.
8. Lockpick/hacking tweaking - This is me nitpicking a bit but there seems to be an imbalance in this. At the start of the game almost every door you come across that is locked has a 10-15 rating and gets higher as the game progresses which makes sense but it shouldn't be blanketed throughout. For instance section 1 has locks with 10-15 skill needed, section 2 has 25ish skill needed, section 3 has 35-40ish skill needed, section 4 has 55-70 skill needed. Have it mixed up a bit, like have a few locks in section 1 to require like 50 or 60 and have a few in the later sections that only need 25 or 30. This will mix it around a bit and encourage full exploration and occasional backtracking. Not sure if its a random seed but some of the harder to pick locked mediums have crap for rewards and sometimes only 1 thing like a simple component I can find anywhere, not too rewarding for having a high lockpicking skill.
9. I way to make random encounters - I know you made the decision to use random respawning which many seem to disagree with but there's a solution for those wanting random surprises and those who don't. Areas for the possibility of random encounters. First get rid of the random repawns throughout the main game. Make the random encounters similar to Fallout where after an area is discovered by conventional traveling means (in your game,not FO) then have a way to travel throughout a map (like FO) and have chances for random encounters, and have a feat that isn't too difficult to get that allows you the choice of accepting the random encounter or not. Something along these lines could cater to the crowds who want to get through the game and the others who want to collect, level up, and loot as much as possible. These randoms can range from easy to hard.
I really think most of these suggestions could cater to a broader range of players and could be thing that will make the whole gaming experience even more enjoyable than it is. Best wishes to you.
